Three hours later, after crossing snow-clad heights and low valleys covered with tiny pink and white flowers and dotted with cottages, they reached another cave whose floors and walls seemed reinforced with concrete. This was the home of Atif, alias Abu Saqlain, the LeT’s commander in Rajouri. The weary travellers were treated to mutton kebabs, rotis and glasses of goat’s milk. Many cups of tea later, Atif took Atharv aside.

‘Imran, from where have you come, brother?’

‘From Mumbai. Al-Wali sir must have told you why I have been sent here.’

Atif merely asked instead, ‘Tell me, what are you planning?’

Atharv did not know the answer. He just shrugged, nodded and broke into a half-smile, as if to say, ‘I am not that important yet. Knowing such things is beyond my pay grade.’

Before Atif could ask him anything else, his phone rang. He reached for the Thuraya satellite phone and, after a brief exchange, handed it to Atharv, saying, ‘It is Abu-Muzammil. He wants to talk to you.’

Abu-Muzammil instructed Atharv to return to Mumbai with the ‘project files’ as soon as possible.

When Atharv told Atif this, the latter said that it would be tough to ensure his safe return to Mumbai with weapons. There had been a terrorist attack on an army facility in Jammu recently and a large number of barricades had been set up on the roads and highways in the region to catch the perpetrators.

‘Imran will have to wait till things cool down,’ Atif told Al-Wali when the latter called for the third time that week to ask about Atharv’s departure for Mumbai. Abu-Muzammil also expressed his displeasure at Atif not being able to send Atharv with the weapons to Mumbai soon enough.

‘I am sure the operation can’t wait a day more, considering the calls coming from Pakistan,’ Atharv told Atif. He expected Atif to do something to speed things along, but nothing happened.

Finally, a week later, as directed by Abu-Muzammil, Atif took Atharv to the hideout of his superior, the divisional commander of LeT, Abu Osama. Two days later, Osama’s contact, Ishtiyaq Shah, came to his hideout. Shah ran a travel agency in Srinagar and had a fleet of four wheelers.

‘Osama bhai, here is the rucksack you asked me to get,’ he said, handing over an olive-green bag to him. ‘Once you have checked them, give me the weapons, I will set them up in the van.’

Osama took the bag and disappeared into a room at the back of the cottage.

‘Here is the stuff – two AK-47s, eight hand grenades and eighty rounds of ammunition,’ Osama said to Atharv, who was waiting in the room.