No 13026, Friday 28 Aug 2020, Incognito

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ACROSS
7   Happy girl and boy (4) GLAD {G}{LAD}
8   Allow writer is English (9) AUTHORISE {AUTHOR}{IS}{E}
10 Afraid Edward is following second vehicle (6) SCARED {S}{CAR}{ED}
11 North European’s rat is cooked for leading light (8) POLESTAR {POLES}{RAT*}
12 Anil’s ark is destroyed in Ceylon (3,5) SRI LANKA*

14 Drugs distributed around centre of Erode in vegetables (6) GOURDS {G{erOde}URDS*}
16 Feeling sorry about journalist following small mediocre actor (7) ASHAMED {A}{S}{HAM}{ED}
18 Extraordinary rum (7) UNUSUAL [DD]
21 Incarnation wildly aggravates, after losing scrambled eggs (6) AVATAR {AggRAVATEes}*
23 Itinerant assailant loses special German Shepherd (8) ALSATIAN ASsAILANT*

25 Excited Asians encircle elite corps’s killer (8) ASSASSIN {ASSAI{SS}N*}
27 Trot out around an estuary at first and turn (6) ROTATE {ROT{A}T*}{Es...y}
29 A love-bird flies displaying uniform colour (5,4) OLIVE DRAB*
30 Hide and pelt (4) SKIN [DD]

DOWN
1   Notices Chinese army identity documents (8) PLACARDS {PLA}{CARDS}
2   Flower and ring for retiring communist (4) ODER {O}{RED<=}
3   Forgive mafia boss following father and mother at last (6) PARDON {DON}<=>{PA}{m...eR}
4   Temporary post constructed next to pass (7) STOPGAP {POST*}{GAP}
5   A lion and hog disturbed gangster (8) HOOLIGAN*
6   Peck’s misplaced skis (4) KISS*
9   Icelandic captive animal (5) ELAND [T]

13 Doctor eats little — possibly minimum (5) LEAST {EATS+L}* L for Little?
15 Disturbed about teacups breaking in absence of air-conditioning (5) UPSET {TEacUPS}*
17 Exits starting of exorcism with headless female monsters (8) EGRESSES {Ex...m}{oGRESSES}
19 One flier ran riot in slaughterhouse (8) ABATTOIR {A}{BAT}{RIOT*}
20 Prohibiting persons’ means of advertisement (7) BANNERS [DD]
22 Place in Goa? Or in Nova Scotia? (5) VASCO [T]
24 Initially, Senator Bush is worried about Central Park’s plants (6) SHRUBS {Se...r}{H{paRks}UBS*}
26 Barbarian’s song (4) ARIA [T]
28 Try criminal leaving race, for example (4) TEST conTEST

Reference List

Girl = G, English = E, Second = S, Journalist = ED, Special = S, Criminal = CON

Dr RKE's TalePiece

VASCO Perera, the physiotherapist to the SRI LANKA cricket team is on the bus with the team members at Lahore, on their way to the stadium to play the first of two TEST matches. It is UNUSUALly chilly for August this morning and he is UPSET that the cold would worsen the ROTATor cuff pain of Gunaratne, the strike pacer of the team. He looks out of the window and sees colourful BANNERS outside the stadium, to welcome the team. There are also people sitting in protest with PLACARDS, for God knows what.

Just as the team is about to alight the bus, he catches sight of a bearded youth, dressed in OLIVE DRAB suddenly springing into action from the group of protesters. At first, Perera thinks it must be one of the fans out to KISS the hand of Jayawardane or Sangakkara. But he is GLAD he caught sight of the eyes of the young man. There is no glee of the fans in them. Instead, what Perera sees in them is the murderous intensity of an ASSASSIN. Perera, who had served in the army in a previous AVATAR, has seen that same crazed look in the militants during the Jaffna war. He darts to the sole EGRESS from the bus and locks it in a flash, preventing the cricketers from alighting and equally preventing the assassin from coming aboard. Perera shouts “duck, duck down” in a commanding voice and as the cricketers go down to the floor of the bus there is a blinding flash, a “boom” behind the bus. Jaleel, the driver of the bus, who had left the engine running, in a reflex action, accelerates in a flash, moving the bus forward by a couple of metres. This ensures that the suicide bomber is not deadly close to the bus when he detonates the explosives strapped to him. Apart from minor injuries from falling shrapnel, the team gets away unscathed, by the SKIN of their teeth.

The SCARED cricketers are herded out of the bus into the safety of an armoured police van and driven to the hospital, cancelling the match. The international media declare in high decibel that the Pakistan authorities must be ASHAMED for failing to protect the visiting sports team.  The LEAST one expects is a strongly-worded statement from the authorities. No wonder the STOPGAP prime minister issues no such statement as he is a puppet in the hands of the ISI, that had AUTHORISEd the attack and masterminded it in the first place.