A War Within

The silence was screaming in the ruins of that ancient fort, somewhere on the outskirts of Mullaitivu, Sri Lanka. The night was still, without any trace of breeze. The moon was shining bright, capable only of unveiling the darkness that was lying stretched across the vicinity. Far away in the distance, a plane took off, its navigation lights piercing through the void across the horizon. Suddenly, a shadow appeared on the scarp of that fort and smiled in vice, until the plane went out of sight. And very soon, it disappeared back into the fort’s darkness.

Bharat had just extended his Holi holidays, to stay in Jaipur for a few more days with his fiancée Akansha. They were leaving just a day before Holi earlier, without seeing what Jaipur was famous for in March. Akansha insisted on staying for two more days, to see the famous Elephant festival of Jaipur. They were both software engineers by profession and had come to Jaipur during their Holi holidays.

Bharat was a smart guy able to deceive anyone by his looks that he was in modeling or Bollywood. But he has been a technology nerd since Akansha met him in college. He had won multiple national hackathons and was a runner-up in two international hackathons as well. Akansha was a gem of a girl for Bharat, which he accredited to the intellect of her father who served twenty years in the army, and a beautiful mother.

It was 28th March 2008, the day of Holi and the famous festival. The festival began, showcasing a parade of countless elephants ramping through the ground one after the other. The male elephants were apparelled in colorful clothes and were decorated with gems. The female elephants were adorned with ornaments and pearls. The festival was a vibrant display of culture, ethnicity, joy, and colors. However, Bharat was quite afraid of elephants and often said “I can fight with armed goons for my lady but I can’t protect her from chasing elephants”, to which Akansha would reply, “You don’t need to do the former one Bharat, I am the daughter of an army man. I can do it for myself. You just need to stay with me when elephants are running after us!”. She would then burst into laughter leaving Bharat speechless.

That day too, even during the parade, Bharat said in his usual demeanor, “Akansha the elephants may go wild and trouble us at some point, so let’s leave early”.

Akansha comforted him and said, “They are trained elephants Bharat, led by trained masters. Your strange fantasy will never come true, so we are not leaving sooner than this festival ends.”

As the festival neared its end, Akansha noticed something unusual. One man who had been looking ill since the festival began got up from the crowd, and as he left the boundary of the sitting area, he collapsed on the ground.

“Bharat look at the guy...”, Akansha screamed turning towards Bharat.

At the same instant, a huge round of applause erupted from the crowd which celebrated a beautifully decorated female elephant taking the stage. Akansha’s scream was shrouded by the humongous clapping that followed for a few seconds. She even tapped Bharat’s shoulders which he ignored. The clapping eventually faded and Bharat finally turned towards her call. But it was already too late.

Bharat was no longer looking at Akansha.

“Akansha look behind”, he said in a low voice, his eyes fixed on something horrifying.

As Akansha turned towards her left, she stood up baffled. Many people at the hind were lying fainted on the ground.

“Somebody help! It’s something in the air!”, suddenly someone shouted from the crowd, and the festival abruptly stopped considering what was going around. One by one, people started fainting on the ground after feeling a sudden burn in their bodies, with blood spilling from their mouths. The ground of Jaipur which was supposed to bring joy, had suddenly become a graveyard of the same. There was confusion. There was panic. If anything else, there was horror in every eye that was opened till this moment. People were either screaming or lying on the ground, and everyone else was either staring at them helplessly or trying hard to find an explanation for this predicament that had clenched Jaipur’s Polo Ground.

“What is going around us?”, someone shouted.

“I think… we might be inhaling… poison!”, a man said in a choked voice and collapsed on the ground.

Akansha also felt her body burning oddly as if in fever. She felt a sudden urge to cough, and when she did, she saw blood on the ground. Her vision blurred, and very soon she also fell unconscious.

Bharat, standing a few steps away from where he was watching Akansha, took out his phone and texted an unknown number.

A message came on a man’s phone somewhere in Sri Lanka.

70d529695c253d17e992cb9265abc57f

802024b279b2158800d75b4725bc77ba

e4b769db2a42d92d7311b02c3545d07d

3309a7a7941818e131b4dfb9a6349914

18033d685478ca77f2776792f57cfeda

He quickly opened an application on his phone and decrypted the codes using MD5 hash. Soon enough, the message was clear on his phone.

Mission successful. Jaipur has fallen.

It was the early 90s when Sri Lanka was burning in flames.

The civil war between the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government and the Velupillai-led LTTE fighting to officialize the de facto quasi-state ‘Tamil Eelam’ was at its peak. The LTTE was opposing the continuous discrimination of Sri Lankan Tamils by the pro-Sinhalese government, which was aided by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). To avenge India for strengthening the Sri Lankan government against them, LTTE was holding a high-security meeting that day somewhere in Colombo.

A deputy colonel in LTTE, Chaminda Jayasinghe thundered in the meeting, “To avenge our foreign enemies who think of themselves as heroes, we will teach them a lesson on their own soil. But this process requires time. Before we can execute our plan, we need to build our network for years in the Indian subcontinent. In between those years, we’ll also have to keep pace with technology, because the weapons of today may prove toys tomorrow in front of the Indian defence forces. For this, we are announcing our first battalion of agents who have been given training for two years. And the first name in the list is…”.

A brief pause settled down the meeting.

“Janaka Gunasekara, who will be given the alias name of Bharat Deshmukh while he stays in India for the next two decades. He will go to India, raise a family, and accumulate information in the name of his job. When the time comes, we will inform him to strike. Gunasekara, take the stage now”.

Clapping erupted from the meeting welcoming a young Sri Lankan LTTE soldier on stage.

“Don’t worry colonel. Knowing this day would come, I had already seen the girl. She is studying at Delhi Public School, and her name is Akansha Singh, daughter of Lieutenant General Angad Singh, the hero of the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Just be ready for our marriage, because it will be the deadliest day of Indian history!”, Janaka paused allowing his words to sink in, and continued further.

“But whom will I get orders from?”, he asked Col. Jayasinghe.

Jayasinghe stared into Gunasekara’s eyes, as if visualizing horror, and said “You will get your orders from one of our strongest leaders in LTTE’s legacy, and the second most dreaded terrorist in the world. He is someone whom the governments fear, he is someone who lives in darkness on the outskirts of Mullaitivu, somewhere near an ancient fort. No one knows his name and no one has met him, except our supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran. He operates his businesses in utter secrecy. He will contact you by himself when the time comes. But do not dare to ask him his identity. He is commonly known by his alias name, Cicada!”

The news of Jaipur’s strange pandemic broke through the Indian media as well.

“Unknown pandemic strikes Jaipur”. “India under a deadly virus threat”. “Death toll rises to 500 in Pink City”. These were some headlines from prominent media channels. Delhi was holding a high-level cabinet meeting soon after the PMO was informed of the gigantic challenge, over the impending doom on Jaipur and immediate relief plans.

Amidst all this chaos, Bharat reached Jaipur International Airport and adjusted a small device in his nostrils, that protected him till now. He looked all around, smiling at the chilling picture painted in front of him.

Feeling her body burn and her liver clenched, a pregnant lady knelt and fainted seconds later. A young girl in a bride’s dress, saw her fiancé falling unconscious. She checked his pulse, screamed in horror, and broke her bangles on the ground. A teenager who was carrying his unconscious father inside the airport collapsed on the ground. Bharat relished seeing all of this which he visualized standing on LTTE’s podium years ago. Realizing he had to board the flight which was scheduled to depart just fifteen minutes later, he ran towards the security checkpoint.

As he stepped forward, a chilling pain in his spine halted him. The pain felt as if a metallic wire’s end had just been hooked in his back, tense enough to pull him backward. He stared down at his chest, and could never look up. A bullet had just hit him, rendering him dead.

The man who shot him came close, checked his wallet, and obtained an empty vial from his pocket. The droplets on its inside confirmed that the vial was initially filled with an ochre-colored liquid. Staring at the vial for a few seconds in disbelief, he called someone on his phone.

“This is IPKF commander Abhay Devgan. We were right sir, India is under a terrorist attack. And this time, it’s biological and deadlier”.

Around a decade ago, while India was witnessing Operation Green Hunt at its full peak, a group of 200 men in blue military uniforms surrounded the Steacle Institute for Molecular Sciences in Ontario, Canada.

Inside, Dr. Adam Campbell, an associate research scientist was discussing his latest findings with his senior, Dr. Noah Armstrong. Dr. Noah had earlier served multiple institutions and had recently joined the institute in a senior position.

“Hello sir this is Adam Campbell, your junior research scholar. Quite a bad luck for me that I have not seen you before in this institute. Sir the research has been completed on Nitroquinoline oxide and its effects on Semnopithecus commonly known as the Indian monkeys, after a two-year-long effort. The details are in this report, but in brief, I can tell you about two conclusions. A good and a bad one”.

“And what are they, Adam?”, Dr. Noah asked with a sense of relief evident on his face, ignoring any unnecessary formalities of introduction.

Ignoring a slight spike in temperature Adam continued, “The good one is that it is a mutagen for them that can genetically mutate them forever, as our research predicted. And the bad one is that if handled with negligence, it can spread like a virus in diameter as large as that of a city. But don’t worry, I have taken all precautions while doing this. We exposed them to this liquid after mixing it with a small quantity of methyl bromide which automatically converts the mixture to vapor upon oxidation with air”, Adam finished his brief, sensing something odd in his mouth while speaking.

“Say that again…”, Noah said coldly, surprising Adam.

“Oh, common sir! You wanted to hear the same, don’t you? Hah… and when I said you are asking me to repeat. I will do it ten times doctor for the success this institute has achieved”, Adam said, holding Dr. Noah’s shoulders and smiling in excitement.

“It’s not about hearing. It’s about your tongue… there is blood on your tongue… which means that you…”, Dr. Noah gave a sharp look of scrutiny to Adam as he said.

“No doctor… it’s not possible… I have… I have cross-checked… I have cross-checked the precautions multiple times!”, saying this, Adam spat blood on the lab’s floor.

“You have been infected. And it is fucking contagious!”, Noah said, his whispering tone creepifying the silence’s crescendo dancing in the room.

Soon enough, they heard a bang on the floor and stood stoned in horror. A group of hundred LTTE paramilitary men were standing in front of them, armed and masked.

“Congratulations Adam. You have done an astounding job. Now hand over the mixture to us. Straight deal, no blood.”, one of the armed men spoke.

After getting the vial filled with ochre-colored liquid from a perplexed Adam, they kept seeing Adam for the next couple of minutes. Apart from the oral bleeding, he felt his liver revulse, and his body burn. Within seconds he collapsed on the ground, unconscious and dead.

Similar incidents like Jaipur broke out in three other cities by midnight, including Pune, Coimbatore, and Kolkata. However, the person who spread them in those three cities was still on the run. Meanwhile, the IPKF chief informed the Prime Minister about the encounter of an LTTE man who carried the virus vial in Jaipur. The nation was on backfoot, and ahead was an old monster in a much stronger version, and on a much difficult turf. Terrorism had never been carried out on a biochemical front upto this day, and the preparation to fight the same seemed tiring and bleak.

The vial caught in Jaipur was sent to India’s leading research institute National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru, for figuring out its antidote. Delhi’s cabinet meeting held in the presence of medical experts figured out quick relief plans including wearing of face shields, full-face respirators, and PPE kits. These equipments were quickly circulated to the affected cities, halting the spread of the virus momentarily. But the government knew that in the long run, it was similar to a paper tangled in a lockless gate’s latch, protecting it from being opened. A gate of hell waiting for a slight thump to be opened irreversibly. The scarcity of equipment was just proving this dire truth.

Somewhere around 1:00 AM, Prime Minister Jaishiv Rathore was holding an informal meeting with his ministers and medical stalwarts, when a phone rang in the PM’s office.

“Sir this could be from the Srilankan authority after we have sought their help in the matter”, one of the ministers said.

As he came in and picked up the phone, his nerves strained on hearing the name on the other side. It was Velupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE supremo.

“Hello Dr. Jaishiv, hope you and your country are well”, Vellupillai ended the sentence in sinister laughter and continued further.

“As you know, four of your cities have collapsed. But this was just the trailer. Our agents are present in fifty-two more cities with a vial of virus, waiting for my next instructions. The options you have, are very limited. Either you agree to my demands, or the virus spreads in all of those cities. Your turn to speak now, Jaishiv”.

Jaishiv took a brief pause and said, his eyes raging with wrath.

“Fine Vellupillai. Seems you have the edge today, but it is just a matter of time until the final nail in either coffin. Say, what are your demands.”

“Haha... quite brave of you to speak all this in such a situation, when your country is already limping. Anyway, I put my demands up, which are very simple. First, you call for a press conference, come on screen in front of the world, and declare that India is officially backing off from the Srilankan Civil War. Second, you release the LTTE men held as prisoners in your country. Agree to these two terms, and we may think of destroying the vials in other cities. Don’t agree, and India will be wiped off from the world map. The call is yours, Prime Minister”, completing the sentence, Vellupillai waited for the Indian PM to answer.

After waiting for a few moments, Jaishiv Rathore finally spoke up in a hopeless tone.

“We agree to your demands”.

“Sir what are you saying, ask for some time!”, the ministers whispered from behind.

But Jaishiv Rathore had made up his mind. He was probably not ready to compromise with a billion lives whose weight he could feel on his shoulders.

“We will release your men soon. But if you deviate from your deal by an inch after I finish the press conference, I assure you Vellupillai… that LTTE will witness its darkest end imaginable!”, Jaishiv’s lips trembled in anger as he spoke.

“Haha... we play with ethics when we play a deal. No deal and we forget what ethics are. I wish the Srilankan PM was as wise as you. Anyway, I am waiting for your press conference.”, Vellupillai Prabharan cut the call, leaving Jaishiv in despair, for the defeat and shame that was evident to come to his country.

“Call for the press conference in an hour, and vacate this room. I don’t want to see anyone for the next one hour. No one!”, Jaishiv said, and the ministers left the PM in his room soon after.

The 7, Race Course Road in New Delhi was flooded by throngs of media people, shutters of cameras, suspense, and whispers, when the clock struck 2 AM. Nobody knew what the PM was going to say, although there was some insider information that after a call from the LTTE supremo and its confirmed role in yesterday’s virus attacks, the PM may order a decrease of Indian troops on their neighbor’s soils. As Jaishiv Rathore took the stage, silence crept in among the crowd, waiting for their leader to speak.

And Jaishiv Rathore finally spoke.

“My sisters and brothers, not only those who are standing here right now, but also those billion other countrymen watching this remotely, and also those Srilankan citizens who craved to get rid of bloodshed in their soil and live in harmony again very soon, and also those… from farthest corners of the world, who simply believed in the principle of peace. I, Jaishiv Rathore, Prime Minister of India, apologize for the shame that I have brought upon you. I am sorry. I am sorry because, under my orders, the Indian Peace Keeping Force is backing off entirely from the Srilankan Civil War. We have no option except this because, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who took responsibility for the infamous biological attack Jaipur faced yesterday, threatens to launch similar attacks in fifty-two other cities. And we simply have no track of who is going to do it. We also give in to their second and last demand, which asked for the release of thirty LTTE terrorists held in India. This was all I had for you today…” the PM was interrupted by his NSA amid his speech, who whispered something into his ear. After he heard him, he continued further.

“As I wind up this speech, allow me to recorrect something that I said initially. I said earlier I apologize for the shame I have brought upon this nation and the neighboring nation. But recorrecting it, I only apologize for the time I have taken from you, because time, is all that I have taken, and time… was all I needed. This… was all a trap!”.

Vellupillai Prabhakaran was watching this stream from Srilanka, smiling in disdain. All of a sudden, as Jaishiv completed his last paragraph, he stood up from his chair in surprise. His attention was soon diverted, as heard a loud bang at his door.

“Open the door chief, it’s Kailan.”

Known by the alias name Kailan, Sobhigemoorthy Amman was the second-in-command of the LTTE. However, Vellupillai knew that it was either not him at the door, or he was not alone at the door, and both of these possibilities were equally dangerous for him. He figured it out because they had a code word through which they confirmed their identity before greeting, called Ayubowan, or good morning. Vellupillai was prepared for this from long ago. He thought momentarily of escaping through the window, but somewhere his ego and rage took over and he decided to teach his guests a lesson. He took out a remote, strolled back to one corner of the room, and pressed a button, exploding a bomb that was embedded somewhere inside the door from the time it was built.

A loud blast took place towards the outside, leaving the floor devastated. Vellupillai regained his senses, waited for the shrill echo to fade, and then cautiously stepped ahead. He pierced through the blanket of eerie silence with the intentional smack of his boots, which was otherwise escalating his fear. As he saw the floor, horror took over his usual confidence, as he saw a dead Kailan thrown across the floor in pieces. And then all of a sudden, he heard a loud marching sound, as if a crowd approached him from the stairs! Before he realized what just happened, a group of twenty IPKF and Srilankan army commanders emerged from downstairs, took position, and shot a seemingly endless round of firing, rendering Vellupillai Prabhakaran dead.

Meanwhile, Jaishiv Rathore continued, which many had assumed to be his last speech by now.

“By the time I complete this sentence, my men across the borders would have killed Vellupillai Prabhakaran, the LTTE supremo. I needed something to grasp his attention so that when the operation would occur, he would be utterly unprepared. After I got the call from him, I asked for an hour away from my cabinet, during which I talked to my Srilankan counterpart. His army had intel about his supposed location, and all he wanted was my support through the Indian Peace Keeping Force for one last time. It was a risky decision, but all I needed was one small thing before taking it.”, as Jaishiv Rathore spoke, the crowd again cracked in whispers, anticipating and forecasting what was coming next.

“This press conference which I lied to you is streaming across the country, is actually streaming everywhere except this country. The channels you all are reporting to, have censored this stream in our country after our orders, so that the LTTE men with the vial of death in fifty-two cities, won’t know about their supremo’s death. They will keep waiting for his orders, while my men finish the entire chain of hierarchy across the border. You all are going to be detained here in PMO with all hospitality until the carriers of the deadly virus are rendered dead. This would just be a few more hours, for which I ask your support and responsibility. The swordman has died, but the sword is still hanging”, as Jaishiv Rathore finished his press conference brief, he heard a thunderous applause from the crowd that just didn’t stop for the next couple of minutes.

The journalists were fine being directed into a huge hall inside the 7, Race Course Road, except the fact their electronics were seized. Some preferred taking rest after long hours of terror, while others preferred thinking of headlines that would break the internet when they were released.

 

By evening 6 PM the next day, the IPKF commanders and Srilankan army had destroyed the entire chain of command of LTTE in Srilanka, using the ‘trace and eliminate’ policy. Meanwhile in India, Jaishiv Rathore confirmed that all fifty-two cities were safe after the LTTE men were gunned down in an intense strategic chase. After the Srilankan PM was confirmed by his Indian counterpart about the same, he declared on screen in front of the world.

“LTTE has completely been vanquished after a twenty-six-year-long tussle of grit, esteem, and supremacy. This battle was intense and exhausting, but we thank our neighbor India for their unprecedented help both strategically and quantitatively, through the Indian Peace Keeping Force. I thank the Indian Prime Minister Jaishiv Rathore for his brave decision yesterday, where he agreed to eliminate Vellupillai Prabhakaran despite the risk the decision had. Without his support, the final operation against LTTE was not even close to possible. We agree to provide all sorts of support to India for the damage they have worn down collaterally along with us, particularly in finding the antidote to the infamous virus presently controlled in four Indian cities”.

Jaishiv Rathore switched off the TV, held a cup of tea, and looked outside in the void with tear-swelled eyes, cursing himself for the lives he couldn’t save. The death toll due to the virus had risen to 3,700 across all four cities. Though the virus didn’t kill instantly, the scarcity of equipment randomized the lives that were not destined to breathe after that day.

Akansha, in a hospital in Jaipur, opened her eyes after being in coma for more than twenty-four hours.

“Where is Bharat doctor? Please call Bharat!”, her pulse fluctuated as she asked about the whereabouts of her husband.

“He will come soon dear, he is in another hospital”, the doctor said, assuming that knowing who Bharat actually was, was not in favor of her medical condition right now.

A television was kept on in front of her, and as she heard the doctor speak this, the image of Bharat flashed in front of her.

Akansha froze in shock as she saw the headlines -

“Terrorist disguised as family man for 8 years killed in encounter”

Dr. Shivalika Sinha looked affectionately into Akansha’s eyes, and held a hand over her scalp, as if saying – it happens kid, you had no control over it. Akansha’s shock lasted for a moment, before she realized couldn’t control herself. She cried the loudest she ever had in her life, reading the headlines that followed. Her lungs pained as she did this, but at that moment, she was insensitive to anything except one feeling, a blend of sorrow, anger, and helplessness. She screamed and flung her hands violently in frustration, realizing she had been cheated since her marriage. Hospital staff came to control her as her pulse spiked, but all efforts were in vain. All she wanted in that moment, was an empty room to cry her heart out. Sensing the urge for the same, Akansha asked everyone to vacate the room. Realizing her need for solitude, Dr. Shivalika confirmed everyone to do so and left the girl alone. Akansha closed her eyes and rested her head backward, submerging in a poisoned sea of memories, whose every drop was a moment spent together with Bharat. Hours went by, and Akansha was still in that room, alone.

“Akansha you are my light to all the darkness I have been through”.

“Akansha for you and your ambitions I can put myself on stake”.

“Akansha I couldn’t imagine my life if I hadn’t met you”.

All his words were echoing through her mind. She wanted to control this, but she couldn’t. The control she was left with over her conscience, was close to nothing. And then suddenly, all the moments that arose doubts in her mind somewhere down the line floated from within.

“Akansha our dreams that we have worked so hard for, and our child’s life, can get sabotaged by the responsibilities of parenthood and profession.”

“Akansha this device is nothing. It is just a touch-sensitive communication device used by our company. So avoid touching it if you want my job intact! Hahaha…”

“Akansha I am going for a company project abroad, and will be back in two weeks. I couldn’t communicate with you because of our client’s privacy policies”.

A small truth of the universe occurred in that room then, that time alone is sometimes not enough to heal some wounds of mankind. Akansha opened her eyes which had blackened, being soaked in tears for hours. She looked around, and a final dilemma hit her. A dilemma hanging between life and death. Defeated by it, she stretched her hands forward, took the surgical blade kept on a table for long, and cut her wrist. A long cut that segregated illusion and reality. The illusion that she had been into since her marriage, and the reality that had just hit her. Red dark blood oozed out, the machines beeped, and by the time the doctors stormed inside, Akansha was no more in this world. That day, one war was won outside, but a thousand wars were lost from within. Wars that were not evident to anyone, but were more brutal than wars that remained evident through the vintage pages of history.

Somewhere near the Ottawa Airport, Canada, a man arrived at a hotel in sharp black formals and sent an encrypted text to the Sri Lankan government’s office as he strolled towards the reception.

“Sir can you show please tell your name?”, the receptionist asked.

Meanwhile, at the Prime Minister’s residence in Sri Lanka, a staff came running towards the Prime Minister while he was enjoying the evening after long in his garden.

“Sir the PMO has received an encrypted message. It reads that very soon the Sri Lankan soil will be red again, and he will avenge the death of Vellupillai Prabhakaran!”.

“Huh.. he might be some young nerd trying to seek attention. Ignore it. By the way, just tell me by what name the message has come, and leave me for some time in seclusion”, he looked away in ignorance as if the name didn’t mean anything to him.

“Sir his name is Cicada. He is alive, and not in Sri Lanka!”

As the Sri Lankan PM heard this name, he looked at his staff stoned with fear, and realized that seclusion was not coming anytime soon to him.

In that lesser-known hotel near Ottawa Airport, Canada, the receptionist repeated her question as she found her guest busy with his phone.

“Sir can you please tell me your name?”.

 “Yeah, sure. My name is Noah Armstrong”, the stranger replied and smiled at the receptionist mildly.

*****