The Bard of Blood Read Online Free PDF

said
finally. ‘Four of our agents have been compromised. They were embedded in Balochistan a few
years after your incident. We use them to fund the Balochistan Liberation Army and other such
militia that are fighting for secession against the Pakistani government and the ISI.’
    Kabir leaned in towards Joshi and spoke softly.
‘This is not my life any more. You all took that away from me a while back. I don’t
understand why you’re telling me all of this.’
    ‘I wasn’t the Chief that time,
Kabir,’ Joshi repeated.
    ‘I couldn’t care less,’ Kabir
said. ‘The only thing that has hurt me is the fact that Sadiq is no more. So tell me when the
funeral is, and I will be there. But that’s it. I believe we’re done here.’
    ‘His death is just a piece of a larger
puzzle. Don’t you want to know who may have gotten him killed?’
    ‘There’s nothing I can do about it.
Besides, I was told seven years ago that there are better agents than me in the game. I’m sure
you can make them do something about it.’
    Kabir got up, turned and began to walk towards
the door.
    ‘Mullah Omar,’ Joshi said flatly. Two
dreadful words.
    Kabir halted in his tracks. He stood still for a
few seconds. He turned to face Joshi, his arched eyebrows stitched together in a frown.
    ‘Sit down, Kabir.’
    Kabir was drawn back to the chair, his body
reluctant, his mind inquisitive. He sat down.
    ‘The last piece of information we had about
Omar recently was that he was dead. But then again, he dies every two months,’ Joshi spat out.
‘Of course, he resides in Quetta and keeps shuffling around within Balochistan. But the last
time he made an appearance was around four years back.’
    Kabir ran his hand through his long hair. Joshi
noticed the streaks of silver hair and the ashen temples.
    ‘It beats me,’ Kabir said.
‘Omar doesn’t give a hoot about India. He has other fish to fry. Even when I was in
Balochistan, he was busy directing the Taliban insurgency against the US-led NATO forces and the
Government of Afghanistan. When he found someone spying on him, he had him executed immediately.
Then why is he holding these guys hostage?’
    Joshi nodded his head understandingly.
    ‘Mullah Omar is, for the lack of a better
explanation, the ISI’s puppet. His second-in-command Mullah Baradar is the one who looks after
his day-to-day affairs. They fund him and so they get him to do some of their dirty work. For
instance, Omar and Baradar had helped the ISI kill Balach Marri and Akbar Bugti in Balochistan. You
know that, of course.’
    Kabir nodded. He was there when Bugti was
killed.
    Balach Marri was the leader of the Balochistan
Liberation Army—the BLA—a militant organization fighting for the independence of
Balochistan from Pakistan and Iran. The BLA had been pronounced a terror organization, rather
ironically, by the Pakistani government. And Marri had been killed by the ISI and the Pakistani
military in 2007.
    Akbar Bugti, too, had run a well-organized
militia against the Pakistani Army. It was on the lines of the BLA, and Pakistan believed that it
was the BLA itself. He fought for autonomy, something that cost him his life in 2006.
    RAW believes that Mullah Omar played a big hand
in assisting the ISI kill these two revolutionaries.
    Kabir was posted in Quetta when Bugti and his son
were killed. It was the sixth day of August. A Saturday. Kabir relived the moment day after day. He,
along with Vikramjit Singh, had spied on a special camp of the Quetta Shura, set up by Omar, which
trained terrorists and insurgents to attack Indian interests in Kashmir during that time. The day
had started off no differently. But it ended with the death of Akbar Bugti. And Vikramjit Singh. And
soon enough, that of Major Kabir Anand’s career.
    ‘Why he would keep our agents alive
didn’t make sense to me.’ Joshi broke Kabir out of his trance. ‘Until I got the
demands from the Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid.’
    ‘Which