Page 50 - Love Story of a Commando

with occasional grenade explosions in the background. The heat was causing
a lot of discomfort and chaos everywhere.
The signs of destruction and annihilation felt unreal and scary. Taj
under attack! How is this even possible?
Fortunately, we did not encounter any other terrorist on our way back
to join the rescue team and neither did we encounter another soul. With the
approaching sunrise the place started getting bright and at the break of dawn
we finally reached the secured lower levels of the hotel building where the
evacuation of guests was taking place with the help of a team of at least a
dozen NSG commandos. One of them came towards me and grilled me with
a hundred questions regarding my identity and my purpose of visiting the
hotel and how I lost my friends etcetera.
Finally satisfied with the details, one of them signalled to me to stand
in the nearest queue of guests. I looked back to Virat, still standing close to
me, and he nodded.
He asked the other commando, ‘What is going on? Is the threat
neutralized?’
He replied, ‘All the floors have been sanitized except the eighteenth
floor where the terrorists are holed up. The rest of our team not involved in
rescuing the guests and securing the levels have trooped in and taken
positions there. The bastards are using grenades and firing bullets. They
seem undeterred by the retaliatory fire. The number of terrorists is still not
clear but they have been contained in room and won’t be able to cause any
further damage.’
Virat growled, ‘Yes, let’s secure and sanitize first and then we will
eliminate.’
The other commando said through his gritted teeth, ‘Right! Let the
guests evacuate completely and this arena is all ours to show the bastards
how it is to come uninvited to our country.’
Virat grasped me by my hand and moved towards the outgoing queue
and whispered, ‘Riya, it is time to bid farewell. I can kill the bastards, now
that you will be out of the hotel soon.’ My stomach was churning and I could
not breathe.
It was like a dagger that just pierced my heart. It did not feel right to
stand there in the queue so far away from him. It felt way more soothing to
be with him in that hell but now it was all so strange. Leaving the site of
destruction was not something I was looking forward to. He would be going
back to the hell, hurling grenades, bullets or whatever they do to those
monsters hidden in the dark of the hotel. I could not control myself anymore;
I ran up to him, and grasped him tight in my embrace.
It felt as if time had stopped and everything around stopped moving.
The continuous buzz in the air suddenly turned into a lull, only to erupt into