Page 32 of Rising Tiger

Before he could get to his feet, Asha had her boot on the back of his neck and her gun drawn.

“Sergeant Siddiqui,” she said. “What you do in the next several moments will impact the rest of your life. I urge you to choose very carefully. Why are you running?”

On the ground next to him was his phone. He began to move his fingers toward it. Asha applied pressure to his neck, sending a bolt of pain through his body.

“Please,” he begged. “Help me.”

She eased off, but only by a hair. He picked up the phone and offered it to her. On its cracked screen, a video was being livestreamed. The comments were abominable.

Taking her boot off his neck, she helped the flight mechanic to his feet. “How far?” she asked him.

“Three more blocks.”

“Run!”

CHAPTER 18

Securing her weapon, she took off along with Siddiqui. Arriving at a scene like the one playing out on the livestream, with a gun in your hand, was a very dangerous idea. If she did have to pull her Glock, it was going to be because all other possibilities were exhausted.

They covered the three blocks quickly, slowing down only when they began to see the crowds. This is where Asha was forced to take over.

Removing her cell phone, she pulled up the voice memo from Khan, punched in his number, and told him where they were and what the situation was.

Then she turned to the flight mechanic and told him the words she knew he wouldn’t want to hear. “Sergeant Siddiqui, you must remain here.”

“But my family—” he began.

Asha held up her hand. “If this mob sees you, they will tear you apart. You are no good to your family dead. I will get to them and I will protect them. I promise you. Wait here for my colleague. He will see to your safety.”

Siddiqui knew she was right, but being this close to his family and not doing anything felt incredibly wrong. It was his job to protect them, not hers. They were under attack and there was nothing he could do. It made him feel ashamed.

“What is your wife’s name?” she asked.

“Ismat.”

“Call her. Tell her help is coming. Remind her to stay inside the house, stay away from the doors and windows, and to remain calm. Everything is going to be okay.”

The flight mechanic nodded and Asha headed toward the inflamed mob. She hated the internet for this very reason.Everyonein India had a cell phone. The rapidity with which rumors could be started and her fellow citizens could be whipped into a frenzy was disgusting.

Very few people ever stopped to ask, “Is this story true? Is it propaganda? Am I being manipulated to serve someone else’s agenda?”

Rumors that exploited ethnic and religious hatreds seemed to animate mobs the fastest. It was a cultural weakness in India, especially in its body politic—and one that cynical Indian politicians did more to encourage than to discourage and dismantle. The easiest road to electoral power was also its most corrosive. More energized blocs could be built by telling voters what was wrong with their lives rather than what was right.

Instead of seeing each other as fellow countrymen and women, India’s citizens were walling themselves off, sorting themselves into silos based on party affiliation. They were banishing friends, neighbors, coworkers—even family members—from their lives, anyone who didn’t support the same political “team” that they did. Asha hated to see it.

Democracy wasn’t about how you weredifferent,it was about how you were thesame. It was about the rights and freedoms everyone enjoyed, and how everyone protected them.

Democracy was also about your responsibilities, your duties, as a citizen. When people began to see themselves as members of a subset first, it was a flashing red light—a warning that a nation’s democracy was in peril. Factionalism was the opposite of patriotism.

Asha had no idea who had started the rumor that sent the mob to Sergeant Siddiqui’s home, but it was someone with two key pieces of information.

One—that Siddiqui had been the flight mechanic who had signed off on the flight-worthiness of General Mehra’s helicopter. Two—that Sergeant Siddiqui was a Muslim.

In Hindu-majority India, it didn’t take much to spark religious violence. The same could be said for Muslim-majority Bangladesh nextdoor. Oftentimes violence against the Muslim minority in India sparked violence against the Hindu minority in Bangladesh. It was a vicious cycle.

The mere suggestion that Sergeant Siddiqui, a Muslim, might have sabotaged a helicopter carrying General Mehra, a Hindu, was all it took to light the fuse. Arriving on the scene, Asha could see plenty of potential “accelerant.”

The crowd was made up of about seventy-five angry people and was growing. Police had arrived but were hanging back. It was reprehensible.

---