Al-Wali had been told that the five potential Lashkar recruits had been sent by the Doctor, LeT’s commander for operations in Nepal and Bangladesh. The Doctor was known to have an eye for spotting and recruiting men from among the most driven, angry youth of India. Recruits sent by the Doctor had so far distinguished themselves in the ‘battlefields’ across Kashmir, Ahmedabad, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. When praised for his work, the Doctor would simply say he was totally reliant on men who worked for him across India. Baig and Malik were two of his star ‘spotters’.

Al-Wali knew that the Doctor had provided some of the most capable sleeper agents – covert operatives – that were currently active in India. The ISI had asked the LeT to restrict the use of Pakistani nationals and resources for their India operations as these could be traced back to Pakistan.

‘You can use Indian youth who are angry due to the injustices meted out to the community,’ Brigadier Hashim Shah, the chief of ISI’s elite ‘S’ Directorate, which handled operations in India, had told the Lashkar top brass.

Post the deadly 9/11 attacks on the US by the Al Qaeda, as a top US decision-maker had warned Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan was either with the US in its so-called ‘war on terror’ or against it, and its actions, rather than its rhetoric, would now determine whose side it was on. America was moving towards a zero-tolerance policy for cross-border terrorism. It was therefore doubtful whether it would continue to shut its eyes to Pakistan’s India-centric terror infrastructure that had spawned groups such as LeT and HuM. That was why ISI was keen to ensure that Pakistan was not linked to any terrorist operations in India.

An hour ago, Atharv and the four other CTC operatives had been escorted from Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport to Al-Wali’s safehouse in Defence Officers Enclave. The five recruits had arrived in Karachi from Kathmandu via Dubai, as planned. They had begun their journey from Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport roughly twelve hours ago, their forged Pakistani passports tucked into their pockets.

The Doctor had also arranged for fake Nepalese visas for each of them, just in case immigration authorities asked for their details in Nepal, India or Pakistan. The Doctor had told the five to submit their Indian passports to Kabir. It was an order that had to be complied with.

Kabir had asked Atharv to wear a yellow hat on reaching Karachi airport. He had also told Atharv that his contact man in Karachi would approach Atharv with the query, ‘Did you come by PIA or Cathay Pacific?’ Once the recruits’ identities were confirmed, the contact would take them to the safehouse in Defence Officers Enclave, a middle-class suburb on Karachi’s outskirts.

As the five men had cleared immigration, a tall, wiry man with sunken eyes had come rushing up to Atharv, who was wearing a yellow hat as instructed.