Brutal (7 page)

R
aman stood
under the cover of darkness in a narrow alley overlooking Afroz’s house. His fists were clenched, teeth digging into his lips in anger.
Sultan, you son-of-a-bitch.
Sultan was the man he took his orders from. The man responsible for this madness. He felt like a fool to have followed his boss’s instructions and gone back to the crime scene. In fear that one of the papers might lead investigators back to him, Sultan had ordered him to burn and destroy every document present in Afroz’s house.

Raman had refused point blank. He was an assassin and not a clean-up guy. But, his boss was adamant. He said he had no other guys in this region to fall back on. And it would not be a tough job.
‘Just get in. Pile up all the documents. And light a fire. That’s it.’

He took up the assignment, only because he didn’t want to piss Sultan off. The man was dangerous. But by doing so, he was breaking his policy of not doing anything with any assignment once it was over. Many a times in the past, this policy had saved him from landing into unnecessary problems, like the one he was in now.

He looked at his blood soaked shirt. The wound wasn’t deep, but was bleeding profusely. The presence of two men inside the house was totally unexpected and had taken him off-guard. His immediate reaction would have been to use a silencer on his gun and take both of them out. But that would have opened a new can of worms. So, he had decided to use hand-to-hand combat to disable the guys momentarily.

But one of them had surprised him by stabbing him. It pained like hell.

Still, pain was not his immediate concern. He was more worried over what the man had found in Afroz’s bike.
I should have paid attention to the key.

He would have pounced on the man now itself, but there was a police jeep standing outside the house.
Someone must have noticed the smoke and then informed the police.

He kept looking at the police jeep from his position. There was a slight argument between the policeman and the other guy. The officer ordered the latter to sit in the jeep and then drove away.
Shit! Will have to wait till he gets out of custody.

The man’s accomplice was also nowhere to be seen, turning this operation into a big failure. Sultan should have listened to me, Raman grumbled. But now, the asshole would not hear any excuses. He would want the case closed.
I will have to finish off the matter. Quickly.

S
eema was woken
up from her sleep by the ringing of her cell phone. With half-closed eyes red from last night’s sleeplessness, she looked at the number. It was an unknown landline number. She was jolted back to her senses in a second. She picked up the call and said hello with bated breath.

“You want to meet me?” a guttural voice said. “Come to Cascades bar in Karol Bagh at noon. And come alone.”

Before Seema could reply, the caller hung up the phone.

She sat upright in her bed.
So, finally things are moving.

P
rakash sat hunched
over the floor of the police lock-up. Behind him, there was a long bench for people to sit. But presently, a filthy drunkard was spread over it like an overfed python. The stench of urine from the attached urinal kept reaching his nostrils every now and then, making him squirm. This was a first in his career. He chuckled.
Going to jail. Check!

He felt good that Mrinal was not with him.
Poor guy. He would have fainted. Good that he fled with his car.

A constable came near the jail door and opened it. He pointed a finger at Prakash and said, “Hey, you!
Sahib
wants to see you.”

He escorted Prakash to the sub-inspector’s desk where Mohan Kumar and Ashish were already sitting. Ashish opened his mouth to say something, but was gestured to stop by Mohan.

“So reporter
sahib
, I had never thought we would meet so soon. What the hell were you doing at Afroz’s house?” the sub-inspector asked.

“I was investigating,” Prakash replied with a blank face.

“By trespassing into somebody else’s house?” Mohan said, raising his voice. “How experienced are you Mister in your profession?”

“About twelve years.”

“And in twelve fucking years, you couldn’t understand the rules of journalism?”

Prakash wanted to give him a fitting reply, but kept silent. Challenging this man’s ego would have made matters worse. He decided to bluff his way out of trouble. “Well, I thought I could uncover a few clues which will only help your cause.”

“Is it so? Then why did you burn the documents of Afroz?”

“I didn’t. There was one more guy in the house. He attacked me and made me unconscious,” said Prakash, showing him the injury marks on his face and chest. “This man has burnt the documents. You should be after him, not me.”

Mohan frowned, as if pondering over what to do.

Ashish came to Prakash’s rescue. He said in a coaxing tone, “
Sirji
, you know our profession. We need stories. I agree that sometimes we cross a few boundaries, but hope you don’t misunderstand our intentions. They are the same as yours.”

Prakash nodded. He was impressed with Ashish.

“Let this guy go this time. I promise you nothing like this will ever be repeated,” requested Ashish.

“You guys never write anything good about the police. But when you are in trouble, you come to us like sissies,” Mohan complained. “I’ll let this guy go. But you’ll have to return the favour. The Bisla kidnapping case has been solved. How about showing my interview on TV?”

“Done, Sir. Done. I will take care of this,” Ashish said, winking at Prakash.

“OK. But tell your colleague to move out of Ambala immediately. I don’t want any more sniffing around.”

“
Bilkul sir.
Absolutely,” Ashish said, standing up from his chair. He gestured Prakash to walk out.

Just when Prakash was about to go, Mohan motioned him to stop.

He asked, “Did you have a look at the man in the house?”

“No. It was dark,” Prakash replied.

“What do you think? Was he a clean-up guy from that Mujahid group?”

“I think so.”

The sub-inspector made a brooding face. Prakash could sense what he was thinking.
More trouble in Ambala.

Once outside the police station, Ashish told him to ride pillion on his bike. They would have moved about a kilometre when Ashish stopped his bike on the roadside. Both of them got down.

“What the fuck did you do yesterday?” Ashish asked with anger.

“Didn’t I tell you guys?” Prakash replied, “I was following up on the Afroz case.”

“You could have let me known, at least.”

“It was all too fast. Besides, there’s no point in taking too many people.”

“Oh yes… And why would you let me know if you were trespassing into a crime scene?” Ashish shouted. “You can get fired for this, you know? You could have been rotting in jail. Globe News could have been in news for God’s sake!”

“Hey, hey, hey kiddo. Thanks for saving my ass today. You ever get caught in New Delhi; I’ll help you out. But, let’s not make a fucking moral issue of it,” Prakash spat. “Without getting into dirt, there is no journalism. This is how I do my reporting.”

“Not in my region please. Afroz’s case is my responsibility in Ambala. I am going to report your actions to the headquarters.”

“Be my guest,” Prakash scoffed and walked away.

S
eema was sitting
inside the dim-lighted Cascades bar since the last 45 minutes and there was no sign of her visitor. The extremely loud hard metal rock being played was giving her a headache. She tried calling the man’s number again. It was switched off.
Is it a prank?

Many people had come and gone. Whenever somebody came in through the door, she would look for a second longer at the person’s face.
Hope it doesn’t send any wrong signal.

Her phone started ringing. It was an unknown number. Different from the one she had seen in the morning. She picked it up.

“I am sitting three tables behind you,” the voice said.

Seema turned around. There was an old man sitting at one of the tables, with a mobile phone in his hand. He raised his hand to say hello.

Seema stood up and went near his table. “How long have you been watching me?” she asked.

“Sorry to make you wait. Just wanted to make sure no one was with you. Please take a seat,” the man said, pointing to a chair in front of him.

Seema carefully looked at the man while she took her seat. His thinning white hair and loose skin on the neck placed him easily in his sixties. His eyes were looking much larger behind the thick glasses he was wearing. He had ordered a whisky.

“May I know who you are and how do you know Nitin Tomar?” Seema asked.

The man first looked around like a wary house sparrow and then whispered, “It’s too dangerous for me to spill the beans just like that. First tell me what will you do with the information I’m going to give you?”

“That depends on what you’re going to tell. As of now, I just want to know if Nitin Tomar’s story is as simple as it looks. Or is there some catch?”

“What I am going to tell you is not about Nitin Tomar. He’s just a part of the game.”

Seema frowned. “What game?”

“Everything you see around yourself is a part of some game.”

“Can we come to the point, please?”

“OK. OK. Let me begin with my introduction,” the man said. “My name is Dr Kalyan Ghosh. I used to run a psychiatry practice in Chennai five years ago. But now I am running for my life. I have changed ten cities in the last three years. I change my mobile number every now and then.”

“Why so?”

“Because I know too much about them. They are extremely powerful,” he whispered and looked around himself. “Who knows, they may be tracking me now as we speak?”

“Dr Kalyan, I’m not getting a single word of what you speak. You can tell me anything. I am a journalist. I can help you get heard.”

“Now where have I heard that before?” he sneered. “Do you know a man named Anupam Krishnamachari?”

“The journalist with Times? … Who disappeared a couple of years ago?”

“Yes. One night, he was talking to me exactly as you do. I gave him more info than he could chew. I guess he called up a few people and came under the spotlight of the bad guys. He vanished in a few days.”

Seema remained silent for a few moments. The man was clearly giving her a warning before spilling the beans. It was up to her to take the bait or not.
What secret is so deep that it could make me disappear? Who are these powerful people?

She made up her mind.
To hell with these people
. She said, “I am not scared of these people. I’ve tackled many such assholes in my career. You can tell me your little secret.”

The man closed his eyes for a moment and smiled. “You’re a brave girl. But if you really think that I’m going to tell you all in this public place, then you are asking for too much. I came here because I wanted to see the person who sent me the mails.”

He gulped a mouthful of his whisky and continued, “Girl, look at me. I’m old and on the run. It’s time for me to sit at home and enjoy with the retirement money. I can’t do that, because I have pissed off some evil people. As far as the Nitin Tomar episode goes, I had written mails to warn him, because I knew what kind of things were going to happen with him. But, he didn’t pay any heed to them. So, it’s a closed chapter for me now. As for you, I don’t want you to put you in any danger. You can’t fathom how brutal these men can be.”

The man stood up from his chair and placed a few hundred notes on his table for his bill.

“Are you leaving?” Seema objected. “Just like that?”

The man took out an envelope from his trouser pocket and gave it to Seema. “This is some food for your thought. That’s all I can give you now. If you make any progress, we’ll meet again. Just understand one thing – this is not a one off case,” he said and walked off.

When he was out of the bar, Seema opened the envelope. It contained a few printouts of news snippets taken from the internet. She read the headings:

Filmmakers find beheaded skeletons in Bandhavgarh

No action yet on Bandhavgarh skeletons

Mass graves in Bandhavgarh?

P
rakash was woken
up by the bell. Someone was ringing it incessantly. He checked his watch.
I have been sleeping for the last five hours.
He remembered dozing off after trying to call Mrinal from his hotel room. He was unreachable.

He grimaced on hearing two more bells before he could reach the door.
Who is it?
His whole body ached as he budged his hand to open the door. Outside stood Mrinal, with his trademark smirk.

“Wake up, dude, wake up,” Mrinal said and got inside. He appeared unruffled, as if nothing wrong had happened yesterday night.

“Where have you been? I was worried about you,” Prakash asked with a half-yawn. He looked at his friend’s face. It had a large red blotch below his right ear.
Uh. Must have hurt.

“I’ve booked a room in another hotel,” Mrinal said, sitting on his bed. “How was jail, though?”

“Don’t ask. I almost got my ass cooked and served on a platter. It’s only because of Ashish that I’m out so soon,” Prakash replied. He immediately felt sorry for behaving rudely with Ashish.
Will say sorry to him sometime.

“Good,” Mrinal said. “But what did you find in Afroz’s house last night? You ran as if you found a goldmine.”

“I found this,
ta
da…” Prakash said with a smile, taking out a mobile phone from under his pillow. It was an old Nokia 1100. “And guess what? It has a SIM card.”

“Holy shit! That’s awesome,” Mrinal replied, taking the phone from Prakash. “But we can only know how useful it is after going through the call history and contacts.”

“That’s where you come into the picture. Do you have a multi-pin charger?”

“Yeah, I have. Our wild goose chase better get a new direction from this,” he gushed.

Prakash eyed the enthusiasm in Mrinal with interest. On seeing the mobile phone, his friend looked as animated as a child who after trying hard to repair his toy airplane, sees it fly again. Even after last night’s scary episode, he didn’t seem in a mood to pack up and leave.

“So, you’re still in. Right?” Prakash asked with hesitation. But, he didn’t want Mrinal to say ‘No’.

“Yeah… I am. But…”

“But?”

“Overtime rates,” Mrinal said and laughed.

Prakash too, giggled and said, “You know, when I first saw you today at my door with that swollen jaw, I thought you would say ‘I’m done with your fucking investigation’ and then leave Ambala.”

Mrinal smiled. “You want to know how I felt after getting punched last night?” he said with excitement. “I felt relieved. Liberated. This is so much fun compared to the boring stuff I do for a living.”

Prakash looked at Mrinal the way a mathematician looks at a fascinating problem. Even after knowing him for a few years, he still struggled to understand him. His friend was a man of contradictions. He had the looks of Prince Charming – extremely fair, blue eyes and a chiselled, almost feminine face reminiscent of Victoria’s Secret showstoppers. But he tried hard to bury these features behind his loud, rapper-style dressing, stubbly face and thick glasses. He was thirty-two, a guy of unusual intelligence, yet his behaviour and lifestyle belonged to that of a chaotic twenty year old. He called himself a desk jockey and tried to steer clear of danger. But inside, probably unknown to him, he was a man who liked a life of thrill and adventure. He was a mystery.
The more I know him, the lesser I know him.

“Don’t fall in love with me, bro.” Mrinal said, interrupting his thoughts.

“I won’t,” Prakash quipped. “I was just thanking the man we came across yesterday night. One thrashing and you have come back a changed man. I wonder…”

“The next time I meet that motherfucker, I am going to give him a spear tackle. Mark my words!”

“I don’t want to face that man next time. He could have killed us right there, but probably didn’t do so because he risked bringing the case into police spotlight.”

Mrinal stood silent for a moment, thinking. “I have grown some real respect.”

“For what?”

“For the kind of things weirdo journos like you do to get a story.”

Prakash couldn’t fathom whether that was a compliment or a jibe.

“So, when am I getting all the info squeezed out from the mobile phone?” he asked.

“Maybe a few hours.”

“How do you do it?” Prakash asked with a cunning smile.

“How do I do what?”

“How do you dig up so much information about everything? I mean, whatever you dish out is strictly private information. What’s your secret sauce?”

“It’s a trade secret,” Mrinal said, winking. “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”