‘PIA or Cathay Pacific?’ he had asked.

‘PIA,’ Atharv had responded.

The tall man had nodded and escorted them out of the terminal building, even as Atharv had noticed a few uniformed guards giving crisp, silent salutes to the contact.

The man had ushered the five recruits into a black Land Rover SUV with dark tinted windows, which was waiting outside the building.

As the SUV drove away, the contact had finally introduced himself. ‘I am Hamza, Abu Hamza. I am with the Lashkar-e-Taiba and I welcome you here on behalf of the Doctor. I hope your stay here in Pakistan will be wonderful and productive, with the grace of the Almighty.’

He had then asked the five to hand over their Pakistani passports to him.

‘Firdaus’, Al-Wali’s safehouse, was a sprawling bungalow with an old-world charm. The walls were ivory white, topped with a sloping, red-tiled roof. The bungalow was at the centre of a large compound landscaped with flower beds and shrubberies.

After a sumptuous lunch, the five were taken to Al-Wali’s room. They now took the forms from him and completed them, after which they helped him and his assistants locate the addresses they had listed on their forms – for instance, their homes and their schools and colleges – on a map of India. Al-Wali also asked them to point out potential sites for targeted attacks or bombings. The whole process was recorded on a camera.

‘Tomorrow at 2 p.m. you will catch the Karachi Express train to Lahore. It will be a twenty-hour journey,’ Al-Wali informed the recruits. ‘Here, take these letters of recommendation.’ The letters stated that they were eligible to undergo terrorist training in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. ‘You may now go back to your rooms. Rest. Tomorrow will be a long day,’ Al-Wali said, finally ending the interview.

The following day, as per the plan, Hamza escorted the five recruits first to Lahore, then to Islamabad. From there, the six took a bus to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. An SUV was waiting for them at the bus station. They were driven to Bayt al-Mujahideen or the House of Holy Warriors, the headquarters of the LeT for operations in Jammu and Kashmir and the seat of its military commander, Abu-Lakhvi alias Chacha.

36. DAWN AT BAYT AL-MUJAHIDEEN

36

DAWN AT BAYT AL-MUJAHIDEEN

The black Pajero carrying the six men – Hamza and the five freshly inducted Lashkar recruits: Atharv, Anant, Nirav, Rohit and Sahil – had turned off the highway on to a narrow dirt track that led to Bayt al-Mujahideen. It was around 9 p.m., and the SUV’s headlights illuminated the thick vegetation on both sides of the ten-foot-wide track. The forest was unusually noisy, with crickets chirping in the bushes abutting the dirt path. However, inside the SUV, there was an unnerving silence.

Sahil, who was fatigued, finally broke the silence to ask, ‘Is there anyone in this part of the jungle? Are there leopards here? Any watchtowers?’