After Rehmat and Usman had thrown four grenades and emptied three magazines at Price and his companions, they shoved the remaining grenades and their AK-47s inside their backpacks, which they then threw into the water tank and took the staircase to exit the building.

The duo ran towards the spot in the boundary wall where they had entered the campus. Bullets whizzed past the fleeing fidayeen. One of the bullets hit Usman, who crashed to the ground.

Rehmat paused, but Usman shouted, ‘Run, run!’ With little choice, Rehmat ran, squeezing out of the breach like an expert this time. He ran towards the vegetable market located inside the Mata Amritabai slum and vanished into the milling crowd of buyers.

Minutes later, police and ambulance sirens could be heard approaching the campus. Indecipherable commands and shouts rang out. Suresh Mane, senior police inspector, Powai police, spoke on the wireless set in his official jeep.

‘Alfa to Tiger One,’ Mane barked into the wireless.

Tiger One was at the city police’s 24x7 control room, located in its south Mumbai headquarters at Crawford Market.

‘Tiger One to Alfa. Go ahead.’

‘There have been several rounds of firing inside the IIS&T campus. Two intruders spotted. They shot using AK-47s and threw grenades at VIP guests outside the convention centre. Two guests are dead, American scientist Dr Samuel Price and Dr N. Srinivasan, a scientist from the Bharat Atomic Science and Research Centre.

‘I am at the spot with my team. I shot dead one of the intruders, the other ran away and is being chased by two police teams, on foot and on bikes. Please set up roadblocks across the city and conduct checks at all ingress and exit points of the city with immediate effect.’

‘Understood, Alpha.’

‘Alpha, Roger and out.’

‘Tiger One, Roger and out.’

Two hours later, Rehmat was at the Mumbai Central railway station. He sat on a bench on the platform, ostensibly reading an English newspaper as he waited for the Rajdhani Express going to Delhi. Tears trickled down his cheeks. He was grieving for Usman.

Meanwhile, Babar left a cryptic message in the drafts folder of the email account that he shared with Al-Wali: ‘The temple bells rang twice.’

Six hours later, at CTC’s safehouse in south Mumbai, Shekhar was visibly upset. ‘Pakistani gunmen sneak into India and kill two high-value targets, including an American Nobel laureate. A Lashkar fidayeen is dead, but nothing was recovered from his person and we all know they are fucking foot-soldiers. Morons! Are we are sitting on our haunches? Were you sleeping?

‘Why did we not know more about this than we did? The Lashkar operative who was posing as Shrikant Joshi is at large and probably already planning his next hit – since he is clearly an ace and we are schmucks!’ Shekhar shouted at Somaiya.