The market in Pathankot was bustling with the usual crowd of tourists and locals as Shaina Verma sipped her tea and took a moment to enjoy its warmth.

She was sitting in an open-air cafe, a book on the table in front of her, dressed in a comfortable shirt and jeans that concealed her compact and strong frame. No stranger could have guessed just by looking at her that she was a major with the National Security Guard, a fearsome hand-to-hand combatant and a skilled sniper with a string of kills to her name.

Shaina was on loan to Military Intelligence as part of a special operation to crack down on infiltration into India through the Pathankot border. Over the past couple of years, MI had picked up a lot of chatter about terrorist elements attempting to cross the border and set up a base, and there was even talk of a tunnel being dug for this purpose. To add to the concern, there had been an increased number of drone camera sightings near the border, leading the authorities to believe that reconnaissance was being stepped up in preparation for a terror strike.

Every concerned agency had been on high alert for months and some of the best soldiers from various Indian military organizations had been deputed to Pathankot in order to help with any potentially disruptive situation.

Shaina, with her record, had been the first choice when the NSG was asked for some of its best. For the last two months she had been undercover, posing as an assistant director doing background research for an upcoming movie.

It was in her first month that she discovered she could do more than just hang around in case things got hairy. Twice in her career, she had had the opportunity to work closely with the legendary Shahwaz Ali Mirza, spymaster and currently head of the Maharashtra ATS. Both the experiences had whetted her curiosity about the world of intelligence and left her craving for more. Fifteen days after she got to Pathankot, she’d called up Mirza and asked him what she could do other than hanging around the local markets buying souvenirs she did not want and clicking boring photos.

‘See if you can cultivate an informant,’ Mirza had told her. ‘Pick someone not too clean but not too dirty, with the gift of the gab and a nose for gossip. Take your time. You don’t seem to be going anywhere soon. Just be ready to spend a lot of time and money on this once you spot the right guy, and don’t tell anyone what you’re doing. Bureaucracy has a strange aversion to its foot soldiers taking initiative without being told to do so.’

Shaina had found a possible candidate at the end of her first month, a tourist guide who seemed to be always chattering without a pause and had been overheard several times claiming to be able to get whatever his customers wanted. His name was Iqbal Singh, a wiry Sikh with a flowing beard and a liking for bright-coloured turbans.

She approached him and engaged his services, letting him show her the sights and getting to know him in the process. It didn’t take her long to realize two things about him — he loved money and wasn’t afraid to take risks. She let another fifteen days pass before she made her move, casually telling him what an observant person he was and joking about how he would make a good police informer.

‘O madamji,’ Iqbal said, leaning close and smiling his crooked smile, ‘how do you know I’m not already one?’

Her suspicion proven right, Shaina identified herself to him and placed a thick bundle of Rs 2,000 notes in front of him.

‘Want to move to the big leagues?’ she asked him, watching him as he tried hard to tear his eyes away from the money in front of him.

And so it was that Iqbal Singh started feeding her information in exchange for cash about ‘suspicious characters’ being spotted in Pathankot. She knew that it would be a while before he actually gave her something that would qualify as actionable intelligence, and she was prepared to wait.

At the same time, she read up on intelligence reports about the city, especially about the local police. If one of Iqbal’s tip-offs did amount to something worthwhile, she would need someone reliable in the police force. This was the part she was still working on when Iqbal had called her up early in the morning around a week ago.

‘Madamji, a shady fellow has been spotted around the Wadhera market for three days. He is not a tourist for sure, and definitely not a local. He just hangs around all day, does not buy anything and goes back to his hotel at night.’

From that day, Shaina and Iqbal had started watching the man from afar, and Shaina’s suspicion was rising with each passing day. The man was definitely up to something, and she was willing to bet that he was waiting for someone to make contact, someone that he did not know and could only identify with the help of a sign — a codeword, a particular garment or any other such marker.

Shaina had sounded out Mirza on the phone a few days after the suspect had first been spotted, to ascertain that she wasn’t being unnecessarily paranoid.

‘How concerned should I be about something like this?’ she’d asked Mirza after listing out all the red flags in the suspect’s behaviour.

‘More than a little,’ Mirza had replied. ‘This is typical hitman behaviour, where an assassin is put into place and asked to wait for further instructions.’

Shaina hadn’t expected Mirza to confirm her suspicions. ‘Whoa...’ she said.

‘Yes,’ Mirza replied. ‘When the 9/11 terrorists were being slipped into the US, one of them was stopped at immigration as part of a routine check. He was unable to tell the officers where he would go or whom he would meet after exiting the airport, so he was sent back because the officer questioning him recognized these same signs. This man was replaced by Zacarias Moussaoui later.’

Shaina’s phone buzzed, jolting her out of her thoughts. It was her local contact at the Pathankot army base.

‘We’ve got a communication from your commanding officer, asking us to get you to Mumbai at the earliest,’ the army officer said.

‘Mumbai?’ Shaina asked, puzzled. ‘Why?’

‘I really have no idea, but it’s top priority and you have an hour to pack up and get to the base. We have a chopper waiting.’ An hour later, having pressed a fatter-than-usual bundle of money into Iqbal’s hands and instructing him to stay on the suspect’s tail, Shaina ran towards a chopper at the army base. She ducked and jumped inside, and almost lost her balance as she saw the man sitting inside.

‘Vik ... Vikrant?’ she asked, more than a little surprised. ‘Better buckle up,’ Vikrant said, smiling and handing her a large envelope.

Shaina got into a seat and fastened her seatbelt, while struggling to keep her emotions in check. It had been years since she and Vikrant had shared a brief romantic relationship, but her heart still skipped a beat every time she saw him.

‘What’s this?’ she asked, opening the envelope.

‘Your new identity,’ Vikrant said, still smiling.

Shaina dipped into the envelope and took out a passport.

She opened it and read the name on the first page. ‘Nisha Suvarna’.

S. Hussain Zaidi’s new book Zero Day is being published today, March 14, by HarperCollins Publishers