The Honeybee Conspiracy

Part 13

Chapter 11

Three weeks of wine and women was very refreshing for Omar Quareshi but he was now beginning to get bored and decided to go to Australia and explore the unexplored and enjoy the remaining month of his vacation. He went to the Iranian embassy in Kaula Lampur, got his ticket booked and his visa papers stamped. He boarded the Singapore Airlines SQ 5319 at 21.10 pm on August 17th. The flight made a transit stop at Singapore at 22.10 pm and was airborne at 22.45 pm enroute to Melbourne via New Delhi.

Four rows behind Omar was Roger Brendt who was to get off at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. He had the information on the mole in his pen drive and was due to meet Shukla the next day.

Shukla's phone rang at 05.15 am, he was in the shower.

When he dried himself and came out, he saw 13 missed calls and a a text message to call immediately from his boss Rajesh Misra. Rajesh picked up at the first ring.

"A Singapore Airlines has been shot down and crashed into the Black sea near Ukraine's mountain ranges. Be in my office at 7 am".

Shukla's knees gave way and he slumped in his chair, hands over his head. "I can't believe this, what in the world is going on", he said to himself. He turned on the TV set and it was there on all the news channels,

He walked in to Misra's office. The Director hadn't had shaved, his eyes were swollen from days of less sleep. Misra talked with his eyes closed, his thumb and forfingers of his left hand rubbing his fast receding forehead. "This is either a random accident or a well planned execution" said Misra. Shukla licked his lips, they were dry and so was his throat. He grabbed the bottle of water on the table and gulped what was remaining. "But how can one kill 315 innocent passengers just to get at one person? " asked Shukla. There was a silence, a very long silence. Misra's eyes were still closed. "Shukla hope to God this was just an accident but the reports from the media indicate it was shot down. I want to know what happened to SQ 5319 and who are responsible for this. Since Roger was on that plane, I'm sure CIA would be co-operative in sharing intel". Shukla nodded and left.

For the next following weeks, SQ 5319 crash was the headlines in all the news channel and newspapers. CIA had shared data of visuals of a Surface to Air missile carrier seen proceeding to the Carpathian mountains minutes after the airplane was diving nose down in a ball of flame which descended into the Black sea. CIA claim that the carrier crossed into Russia. The blame game started with Russia accusing Ukraine and vis versa. The Iranian government had given a list of three Iranians who were on the ill fated plane, two were professors of History and one was a businessman. A three day mourning was announced in some of the countries which had their citizens on the ill fated plane.

Tarique, was in his pent house on the 10th floor of the apartment building. He was sitting in the balcony, hearing the ballet on the music system, eyes closed and a smile on his face. "Allah, forgive us." he was murmering to himself.