Decades ago, Vancouver had been the base of operations of a cell of Sikh separatists who had wanted to pull West and East Punjab out of Pakistan and India and form an independent country called Khalistan. Long before Laks had been born, they had perfected a time bomb in the wilderness outside the city and then used it to blow up a 747 full of passengers. Since then the group had gone into eclipse as its support base in the community (to the extent that that even existed) had dried up and it had been hammered by anti-terrorist authorities in India and many other countries. The Russians had used a disinformation scheme to trick the Indian government into believing that the Sikhs were getting support from Pakistan and the CIA. Those had been bad times.