Neel Dervin and the Dark Angel (37 page)

But still he kept going. And amidst all the panic he was also conscious of relief in finally
doing something definite. He felt as though he was running away from everything that had
conspired to turn his life into a nightmare, everything that had grown out of control in his life.
He did not even know what he would do once he was actually at the bank against so many
armed robbers without planning, and without the knowledge of the people at Swan Labs to
assist him. Perhaps this was a different form of suicide. But he did not care anymore. The
time for secrecy was past. It was time to do what he had wanted to do ever since he had
gotten his powers. And if his phobia was going to stop him, well…

Either way, it was time to take back control of his life. No matter how brief that life
might be. The determination that had carried him through the training and the earlier missions
was still there, buried somewhere deep. And as he ran, memories of all his time at Swan Labs
had come rushing back. Slowly, his body had again begun to move with the practiced skill of
the past.

Watching the bank now, he saw that the situation had worsened. He counted twelve
robbers, four inside the bank keeping everyone hostage, and eight outside keeping the police
at bay. The crowd of onlookers had thickened and it was only a matter of time before
someone was hurt.

And then suddenly Neel was transported back in time, to everything he had done wrong
in the previous missions, the mistakes which had lead to the downfall of the hopes of so many
people.

A voice seemed to echo in his head.It was telling him that he would not succeed. He‟d
heard it often enough in his nightmares.

 

He pushed the voice aside. Concentrating hard on his training and the mind control
techniques the doctor had taught him, he jumped towards the roof of the bank.

 

But he couldn‟t rid himself of the image of a sumo hurtling towards him.

 

* * *

Inside the bank, the tension was palpable. The hostages were crouched on the floor, watching
their jailers in fearful silence. Some of them were night shift workers at the bank, some
customers, all of them just happening to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Some
fifteen minutes ago, they had come close to dying when one of the thieves outside had
accidentally shot a police van, triggering a spate of firing from the other side. One of the
thieves had wanted to kill some of the hostages then and there, to send across a message. But
the leader had stopped him. The firing had finally ceased, and now they stood again in
silence, an uneasy standoff.

The leader, Bisra, was pacing the room silently, inwardly cursing everyone he could
think of. He was a well built man, with sinewy muscles in his arms, a high forehead and
narrow, shrewd eyes. He knew the robbers were in trouble. The plan had gone horribly
wrong. When they had first managed to get their hands on that weaponry, far beyond
anything the police used, he had thought the whole thing was going to be cakewalk, provided
they were careful. He had worked for months to get the plan in place. And now everything
was going wrong. The car they had demanded had arrived. But it wasn‟t big enough to carry
all of them and still have space left for the loot. Their guns were ridiculously heavy and
difficult to use properly. The crowd outside was getting bigger every minute.

But the biggest problem was his teammates. They were the best he could find, but were
now exhibiting the painful lack of thought and foresight which prevented them becoming
anything more than hired guns and small time crooks. They were not able to cope with
emergencies at all. He had had difficulty stopping them killing the hostages sometime back
because they did not understand that the firing had been an accident, and if they started
killing hostages the police would decide to enter the building to stop them, and then things
could get from bad to worse.

Suddenly, from the back of the building came a grinding sound. The robbers spun, guns
up and ready. Ahmed motioned for them to wait. He listened hard but no more sounds came.
The first sound had been a strange one, almost like bending steel. He wondered if
commandos had been sent in after them.

“Daya, go check in the back to see what that was.”
Bisra snapped to one of his team
members, a hulking man who wielded a specially modified AK -47. He lumbered off.
Ahmed‟s hand tightened on his gun. If there really were policemen in there, they would soon
know…

Thirty seconds passed but no sound came. Ahmed was about to shout to Daya when he
saw the door reopen. Someone entered the room. But it wasn‟t Daya.

 

A strange, black clad figure stood before them.

 

* * *

Neel surveyed the scene before him. There were a total of four robbers left. The fifth
one, the one they called Daya,wasn‟t going to be moving anytime soon. The hostages were
sitting huddled against a wall at the far end of the room, and two of the robbers were standing
guard over them. The other two were guarding the two doors in the room. Upon seeing Neel,
they had all leveled their guns at him. One of the robbers who were guarding the door
gestured to the other one. He walked towards Neel, gun at the ready.

“Who are you?” he demanded aggressively, secure in the power of his gun, pushing at
Neel‟s chest roughly with the butt of his rifle.

Neel considered saying something pacifying, perhaps to negotiate for the release of the
hostages first. But he couldn‟t think of anything. Besides, he didn‟t need to be a behavior
specialist to see that these were extremely nervous robbers, who could start shooting the
hostages at the slightest provocation. And since they had taken the guns away from the
hostage‟s faces, it seemed better to keep it that way.

His response, therefore, was to punch the robber unconscious.

 

Instantly, there was uproar. Three guns blew away at Neel, aiming for anything part of
his body they could see. The problem was it was suddenly very hard to see him.

Neel dove out of the path of the bullets, feeling them miss him by inches. He could
remember his training, but after more than a minute of dodging, he realized there was a
problem.

The shower of bullets was fine, as long as they were all aimed at him. He had no idea
how to rescue those hostages. All he could do was wait and hope the thieves would run out of
ammunition soon.

* * *

At Swan Labs, Divya sat in front of the computer monitor. For days she had been
searching the net for anything which could help Neel cope with his problem. The doctor had
done all he could but it wasn‟t enough. Something was lacking, which left Neel Dervin
defenseless, and she was afraid he really would stay that way forever.

Suddenly, she heard rapid footsteps outside the control room, and the next moment
Arjun had burst in. He was breathing hard, as if he had come running. She saw an expression
on his face that she could not identify at first. With a start she realized it was fear.

“What‟s wrong?” she asked, feeling anxious.

 

Arjun‟s reply was one word: “Neel.”

 

Divya felt a knot tighten in her throat. “Is something wrong?” She managed.

 

Arjun nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. “You‟d better come and see. In the general
room.” he turned and strode out of the room without waiting for her response.

 

Divya was right behind him.

The two raced across the lab towards the general room, where the big TV kept in a
corner was turned on and tuned to a news channel. Dr Fahim entered the room at the same
time she did, his face creased with worry. They all turned to the screen, where a scene of
destruction greeted them, with a familiar, black clad figure at its center.

* * *

Neel ducked as a volley of bullets buried themselves in the wall behind him. The man
with the narrow eyes was the only one who achieved some accuracy with the bullets. The
other two had clearly never used rifles before and were firing wildly in his direction,
sometimes missing him by more than a couple of feet, which made them even more
dangerous, since he had a hard time telling where the next bullet would come from. Neel felt
the cold indecision and panic stealing over him again.

Bisra was watching the intruder dodge th
e bullets with growing disbelief. “
This is
crazy.
” He thought, as Neel weaved around the shots at mindboggling speed. “
Thisisn’t
possible
.” But the truth was right before his eyes.

Bisra realized that he did not at all want to fight this freak any longer. He glanced
sideways at his partners but it was obvious that they wouldn‟t be of any help. They were
more scared than he was.

Suddenly, he remembered the insurance he had arranged for this type of situation, and
leveled his gun at one of the hostages, a portly, middle aged client who had thrown chivalry
to the winds and was cowering behind a female clerk. Raising his voice, Bisra bellowed
across the room, “Stop or I‟ll shoot!” Everyone in the room froze, including the stranger.

“That‟s right!” Nasir yelled, swinging around towards the hostages as well.

And that was what galvanized Neel into action. Nasir was highly unstable in his excited
state. As his finger tightened over the trigger, Neel raced to the table and grabbed the heavy
bowl filled with sweets that was kept on the reception table. Swinging it over his head, he
threw it hard at Nasir. The bowl connected with the barrel of the gun, knocking it aside a split
second before it spewed fire. Knowing he had only seconds to act, Neel bounded towards the
two men, knocking the third aside as he plowed through him. Reaching the two men, he
picked them up and slammed them into the wall behind them. They connected with a
sickening thud and slumped to the floor.

The only robber left was the one Neel had knocked out of his way. He was stirring
feebly. Neel walked over to him and knelt beside him. A brief press to the nerve cluster at the
base of his neck and he slumped down, unconscious.

There was a silence in the room as the hostages looked fearfully at him, as though he
might start attacking them as well. Neel turned to the door.

The robbers outside had been watching the proceedings inside the bank in fascinated
horror. But now they cast a terrified glance at him and scrambled into their car, there only
aim to get as far away from Neel as possible. By the time he got to the door, they were twenty
feet away.

Neel stepped out of the bank and was hit by a wave of camera lights. He saw the stunned
spectators, including the police, watching him from the side road. Everyone had forgotten
about the robbers, who were speeding away. One giant leap took Neel over the wall, and he
stood facing the Safari. The Driver was too scared to reverse. He hit the accelerator and the
car shot forward at full speed.

Noises echoed insideNeel‟s mind. He was hearing screaming, he was hearing crying,
and he was watching his nightmare come to life.

 

Standing alone on the road with the car racing towards him, he froze, his brain numb.

Then his mind descended into chaos. Images flashed through his brain without rhyme or
reason, his mind losing control as the terror enveloped him.
Sumo… safari…. Scorpio…
blood on the road… his blood…Pain… unbearable… all consuming… losing
consciousness… fading…dying in pain… pain is dying…

The wave of fear was sudden and intense, more potent, a hundred times more powerful
than during his sessions. Even more than the kind he had faced outside Phlicer complex.
Neel‟s mind was a small boat caught in a tsunami, flooding out all reason, deadening his
body and not allowing him to move.

T
oo slow…too weak…useless…
the car was coming closer…
stop the hurting… stop
the pain…
it was growing bigger…
lying on the road…, his blood in front of him…
a
mountain of steel coming to consume him…
blackness… intense...

He stood in the middle of the road like a lifeless puppet whose strings had been cut,
knowing he was going to die tonight, and knowing exactly how painful it was going to be.

And then suddenly, having arrived at this point and
waiting for the crash, he wasn‟t
thinking about death anymore. He was thinking about everything he was leaving behind.
Doctor Fahim and Divya talking to him in the hospital. Laughing and joking with Aryan and
Priyanka on the rooftop. Prince wagging his tail to them in greeting. Hunting for the kitten in
Aryan‟s room. Sitting with his classmates and listening to Mr. Dayal. Arjun, Premi and Negi
pulling him into a hug. Racing with Nitin and Aryan through the city. His mother hugging
him on the kitchen floor. The memories flowed unceasingly, and a new emotion began to
well up inside him as his eyes became wet. The car continued to thunder towards him, but
now it had somehow shrunk down to its actual size.

And then a distant part of his mind registered, out of the corner of his eye, a single
reporter climbing over the wall, heaving a camcorder behind him, and running to the road to
get a shot of him. The reporter was fixing his lens, his excited gaze on the camcorder, and
running at full speed.

A tiny piece of upraised concrete, a sudden fall, and the reporter lay sprawled on the
road, directly in the path of the car, still clutching the camera safely to his chest, recording
Neel‟s demise. All he was aware of was the miraculous, black clad figure, and not the car
roaring towards him from behind.

Neel stirred, his brain fighting to gain control. He felt as though he was moving through
quicksand. He had stopped breathing, and his chest was constricted, suffocating him. But the
reporter was on the floor, and he would not be able to get out of the way in time.

Neel walked faster, reason gaining a tiny foothold in his mind.

His breath was coming in short gasps now. His mind had accelerated on its own, and
the car was suddenly slowed down ominously, exactly as in his nightmares. He took a step
forward, and it was all he could do to keep his shaking legs from giving way beneath him and
collapsing then and there. Another trembling step, and he remembered the blood covering the
pavement in front of him, the bones sticking out of his chest. He shivered, shutting his eyes
tightly. When he opened them again, the car was still moving, and the reporter was still in
front of it.