As two heavily armed terrorists barged through the front doors of the five-star Oberoi Trident hotel in the Indian city of Mumbai, their cell phone rang. “Are you there?” a voice asked. On learning that the men were, indeed, at the appointed place, the same voice said, in a tone so soothing it could have been that of a doctor coddling a terminal patient: “You’re very close to heaven, brother.”
A year ago, 10 young jihadist men—brainwashed to the core of what passed for their souls—set out from training camps in neighboring Pakistan in search of a murderous place in heaven, the path to which ran through Mumbai. Members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, or the Righteous Army, their goal—messianic and mesmerizing—was to sow as much havoc in a city of 15 million as it was possible for 10 men to do. This was Mumbai’s own 9/11; and yet, unlike the assault on New York City and Washington, in which the killers perished in the first minutes of their meticulous dastardliness, Mumbai’s trauma lasted three whole days, with the terrorists at large, seemingly unstoppable, shooting people at close quarters, breaking down doors, slitting throats, hurling grenades, taking and killing hostages…and making phone calls.
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