March 20, 2001 Army House, Rawalpindi 22:00 Hours
The Indian High Commissioner didn't arrive with the usual fanfare of a diplomatic motorcade. Instead, he slipped through the "Staff Only" entrance in a plain white Corolla—the kind of unremarkable vehicle favored by mid-level bank managers and people who didn't want to be noticed.
I was waiting for him on the veranda. The air was a heavy mix of night-blooming jasmine and the sharp, acidic bite of my black coffee. As he sat down, he didn't reach for a briefcase. Instead, he pulled a small, handwritten note from his inner coat pocket. It was on the Prime Minister's personal stationery.
"Vajpayee-ji sends his regards, General," the High Commissioner whispered, his voice barely audible over the hum of the cicadas. "And Brajesh Mishra... well, Mishra-ji hasn't stopped smiling for three days. The 'industrial accident' your boys staged in Sudan has sent a shockwave through the South Block. Even the hawks are struggling to find a reason to be angry."
I unfolded the note. It began with a couplet by Ghalib, followed by a single, dry sentence in English:
"The audit was successful; the books are beginning to balance."
The Proposal: "Sindh Delta"
"Mishra and the RAW chief have a proposal," the High Commissioner continued, leaning in. "They've realized that if our two nations can synchronize at this level in a third country, we've found something more powerful than a formal peace treaty."
"And what's that?" I asked, setting the note on the table.
"A way to bypass our own rot," he replied. "They want to institutionalize this. A joint, deniable task force—operating entirely off the books. No bureaucracy, no foreign office, and no 'patriotic' channels to leak the details."
He lowered his voice further. "They've dubbed it: Project Sindh Delta."
Cleaning the Rotten Eggs
The logic was as cold and efficient as a tax audit. In India, there were politicians and bureaucrats RAW couldn't touch because of "Voter Bank" politics or high-level protection. In Pakistan, there were Generals and Mullahs the ISI couldn't touch because of "Institutional Pride."
The "Sindh Delta" protocol solved this with a simple, brutal trade:
The Exchange: We would use each other to clean our respective houses.
The Method: If a "rotten egg" in the Indian system was protected by local politics, my units would handle the "leak" or the "unfortunate accident."
The Reciprocity: If a rogue commander in Pakistan was being funded by the Gulf, RAW would provide the "intelligence" that made his downfall inevitable.
The Result: We would purge the spoilers while keeping our own hands clean.
I let out a short, dry laugh. It was the ultimate IAS move—outsourcing the dirty work to a competitor to maintain internal compliance.
"Mishra thinks like a CEO," I noted. "He wants to use 'Sindh Delta' as a filter to feed the hawks to each other until only a functioning state is left."
The Decision
I looked out at the dark lawns of the Army House. Somewhere in those shadows, the "Blue Force" was patrolling. In Waziristan, the drug labs were starving for cash, and in Delhi, the Metro was running without the shadow of a bomb.
"Tell Vajpayee that the General accepts," I said, turning back to him. "But the clerk in me has one non-negotiable condition."
The High Commissioner waited.
"Sindh Delta will not just be for 'cleaning,'" I stated firmly. "It will be the shadow-guard for the Silk Road Convoy. If a truck is stopped by a bribe-seeking officer on either side of the border, I want that officer's bank records on my desk within the hour. No excuses."
The High Commissioner nodded, a look of profound relief crossing his face. "Mishra anticipated that. He already has a target for you: a shipping tycoon in Mumbai who's been laundering Waziristan narcotics money through a fake charity."
"Send me the file," I said. "And tell him to prepare for the 'Peshawar pincer.' We hit the cartel's secondary accounts by Monday."
The Aftermath
As the Corolla slipped out of the gates and vanished into the Rawalpindi night, I sat back and watched the moon.
I was no longer just the "Bureaucrat General." I was the co-chairman of a transnational cleaning service. We were going to use the "Enemy" to fix the "Family."
It was a dangerous game, but for an IAS officer who had once died because he couldn't find an honest cop in Delhi, it was the most satisfying audit I had ever performed. I wasn't just Musharraf; I was the ghost in the machine, and I was finally going to balance the books.