The note of foreboding could not have been more acute. It was on the very last day of the 20th century that the curtains came down on the white-knuckle journey of flight IC 814. But it only presages what India has to brace up for in the next: a vaster canvas of terror. Scripted and played out by actors emboldened by the way New Delhi fumbled, and ultimately succumbed, in the face of pressure. With intelligence field reports already speaking of escalated ISI-backed activity across the country, the government may well have the unpleasant fate of seeing its security phobia justified and realised in full.