by Rahul Badami
After what seemed like a long time, the bucket finally stopped and he heard her whisper, “Stay quiet, and don’t move. I’ll be back.”
He waited for an interminably long time. It could have been two minutes or ten minutes, he wasn’t sure. Finally, the lid opened and the sunlight exploded in his eyes. He blinked and looked around. Baldev and Hitesh were getting out of their buckets. In front of him were half a dozen trash cans. Next to it was a dumpster truck. There was no one around them. The Plaza Tower loomed behind him. They were at the rear side of the compound. Beyond the dumpster truck was a seven-foot tall compound wall.
“You can climb over the wall. On the other side is a road. I will bring my car around there in a few minutes.”
“Thank you for everything you are doing.”
She nodded and left them.
Baldev looked at her as she left. “I hope nobody finds that she helped us escape. I told her to stay out, but I’m thankful she helped us. I don’t want her to run into a problem because of that.”
“Nobody will find out.” Hitesh smiled. “Remember, I looped the video on the CCTVs. They may still be trying to find us in the building.”
“Right. Let’s move before someone spots us.”
They helped hoist each other over the wall and found themselves in a narrow alley. They followed the alley a short way and it opened into a wide street. The cacophony of slow moving vehicles hit them. Rows of cars were lined up in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
“I think this is the place.”
“I hope so.”
They looked around at the bustle of traffic. A few minutes later, her red Volkswagen Lavida stopped next to them. They jumped in and the car was on its way.
“You need to lie low.” She said. “I know a place.”
“No. Just take us to our hotel, Sheraton Urumqi.”
“Okay.”
Her phone buzzed. “It’s my boss. Probably wants to know when the project report will be ready.” She picked up the phone. “Yes… I’m done. I’m having lunch with friends… You’ll get it in fifteen minutes.” She hung up.
Baldev smiled. “You know, you shouldn’t commit to a deadline you have no way of meeting.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You said fifteen minutes. You can’t drop us and get back in fifteen minutes.”
She shrugged. “I’ll get by.”
A few minutes later they reached Youhao Road, the street that led to Sheraton Urumqi. She started to slow down when Baldev yelled, “Keep driving.”
“What?”
“Don’t stop. Just drive ahead.”
Roshan looked out and immediately saw the problem. There were two cars parked outside the hotel. Both were white Chevrolet Epicas with a streak of dark blue on the driver’s door. A yellow emblem with five stars and the Mandarin word GongAn were marked on the sides. Two men in blue and black uniforms stood next to the cars chatting with each other. He recognized the uniforms.
The People’s Police.
Roshan’s heart dropped to his stomach. How could they have tracked our hotel so quickly? The policemen’s presence brought a host of uncomfortable questions to the forefront. Each more unsettling than the other. Maybe it was just a coincidence. It wasn’t possible for the Plaza Tower to call up the police, and have them identify them so quickly. Baldev echoed his thoughts.
“It could be nothing. But I don’t want to take any chanc-” Baldev’s voice changed into an agonized shriek. Roshan turned from the window to look at Baldev, but instead a hand with a canister waved in front of his eyes. A liquid spray erupted from the canister directly into his eyes.
The effect was immediate.
His eyes shut instinctively, but the spray had done its work. His eyes were on fire. His nostrils were stinging. To his side, he heard the groans of Baldev and Hitesh and realized they too were in the same pain as he was. Their voices started to fade. Roshan rubbed his eyes and the stinging sensation increased. He felt like tearing his eyeballs from their sockets. He screamed and coughed, but he could no longer hear his voice. He felt Baldev’s head fall on his shoulder.
A moment later he blacked out.
*
Venera looked at her handiwork. All three of them were unconscious. It had been a risky move, but she had run out of options. She had thought of ambushing them at the hotel, but it was an unfortunate coincidence the police had to be present here. Once the Indians decided that they wouldn’t enter the hotel, they would have directly headed for the airport.
She had rummaged in her handbag for the canister spray the moment Baldev had become suspicious. She’d released the foot off the accelerator so the car could cruise along. Her only hope lay in the fact that all three of them were distracted by the presence of the police.
They were.
No one had seen her pull out the canister. And she had been able to spray the three of them in a couple of seconds. She had taken care to hold her breath as she sprayed them. The spray was a potent mix of rohypnol and isoflurane. One whiff was enough to knock out a person immediately.
She stopped the car further ahead away from the eyes of the policemen. She got out of the car and slammed the door shut and inhaled the uncontaminated outside air. A quick peek through the windows and she was satisfied with what she saw. All three of them were unconscious. She rummaged in her purse and pulled out her mobile.
“The work is done.”
CHAPTER 20
Baldev opened his eyes slowly.
He stared disoriented at the ceiling. A dim yellow lamp was at the centre of the ceiling washing the room in a faint light. The place looked unfamiliar. Where was he? Baldev couldn’t remember why he was in this place. His head throbbed with pain. He rubbed his eyes and tried to focus. His eyes itched with a dull burning sensation. Memories flooded back of the last thing he remembered. Someone had sprayed a burning liquid in his eyes. Who? And then he remembered the red-headed woman in the car. It could only have been her. Did she bring them to her house? But why? It brought him back to the present.
Baldev sat up straight. A growing sense of alarm gripped him as he looked around. There were no windows in the room. His eyes fell on the lone door at one side of the room. Even in the dim light, there was no mistaking the steel texture of the door with a meshed one-foot window at head height. A sudden realization hit his stomach like a ton of bricks. He was not at the woman’s house. He was in a prison. He remembered the policemen he had seen. Did the woman knock them out and contact the police?
Baldev’s senses were now on high alert. He looked around and found Roshan and Hitesh lying motionless near him. They had been trapped.
“Roshan! Hitesh!” He whispered loudly.
Roshan stirred and woke up, his eyes groggy. He looked at his surroundings in surprise.
Baldev filled him in. “We are in a prison. It looks like the woman turned us in.”
Roshan looked around. “How long were we out?”
“I’m not sure.” Baldev stood up and walked to the door. He looked beyond the meshed window of the door. It was pitch-black. He strained his ears for any sound but the place was deathly quiet. He had no idea if it was day or night. He tugged at the door. It didn’t even budge an inch. He backed a couple of steps and then charged hard at the door and smashed his entire body weight on it. A dull thunk echoed in the room, but the door did not yield.
“Be quiet in there.” A guard outside shouted in Mandarin.
Baldev massaged his shoulder that had become sore due to the impact. They were prisoners in here. Probably for all eternity. He winced at the thought. This was his first mission as a leader, and it was turning out to be a complete disaster. He couldn’t fail his boys. They had discovered from the computer logs in the Plaza Food Zone that Jin Wang had messaged Zi Zontai himself after the cyber attack was done. It was incredible that the owner of Zontai Industries would be involved in this. He had to get them out somehow and inform the General. But how? Baldev clutched his shoulders and walked a
cross the length of the tiny room looking for weaknesses and opportunities. He couldn’t find any.
Roshan walked over to Baldev. “What do we do now?” His voice was full of trepidation.
Baldev didn’t answer immediately. The only route out was the reinforced steel door. They could only escape when the guards opened it. But that would be extremely difficult and risky. No doubt there would be a posse of guards outside barricading their way. “We’ll have to be patient.”
“We have to do something!” Roshan was incredulous at Baldev’s placid reply.
“Like?”
“I don’t know. But we have to find a way to escape.”
Baldev was about to say something when a slurred voice next to them said, “Wh-why are you boys fighting? I need to get some s-sleep.”
“Wake up, Hitesh.” Baldev admonished. “We are in deep trouble.”
Hitesh woke up at the words. He looked around the room and his eyes widened. “No.” He shrieked. Apparently, it hadn’t taken him long to figure out where he was.
“Yes.” Baldev said. “We are in a Chinese jail. Do you have any geeky ideas on how we can get out?”
Hitesh looked around in panic. “My tablet! They took my tablet.”
“Yes Superman, they took away your powers. But I believe they can’t get into the tablet.”
Hitesh sighed. “No, they can’t. The hard disk is encrypted and will auto-wipe itself if it’s tampered with.”
“That’s reassuring to know.”
“I don’t find that reassuring.” Hitesh sunk his face in his arms. “If they can’t crack it, they will return to crack us.”
And just then, they heard faint voices beyond the door. The voices grew louder as it approached closer. A light flicked right outside the meshed window and a moment later, a head showed up in the window.
“The prisoners are awake.” Baldev heard the guard speak in Mandarin outside the door.
“Good.” The second voice was authoritative. “I’ve some questions for them.”
Baldev sneered, “This is just great. Everyone I meet wants to play KBC with me.”
He heard the jingle of keys followed by the metallic sound of bolts sliding open. The door swung wide and three men walked in. The man in the middle looked to be in his fifties; he had grey hair and a moustache. His face was distinctly oriental and he wore a black business suit that seemed incongruous in the prison cell. He was flanked by two burly guards. The guards held guns that he recognised as the QBZ-95 bullpup assault rifles.
The old businessman walked with an authoritative step towards them. The guards took two corners of the cell and trained their guns on the three of them. The man stared at them with a cold smile. The coldness of his demeanour crawled up Baldev’s spine.
The old man waved his hands at the room. “These prison cells were made more than a decade ago. I made them especially for my enemies; people that dared to cross my path, oppose me or kill me. There are nearly fifty prisoners in here. All unwilling guests of mine. I don’t kill them. I prefer to watch their misery. They are my toys. Sometimes I come here to watch them squirm like a serpent at my feet.”
Baldev gave a dismissive shake, “Sorry I don’t want to play Snakes with you.”
Zontai curved a smile at him. “The oldest inmate has been here for a decade. A few have tried to escape over the years and were shot down by guards.” His smile widened. “The point I want to make is that no one who gets in ever escapes.”
“What do you want from us?” Roshan asked.
Zontai looked at him. “I wanted you to stay out of my way, but…” He shrugged. “You never knew what you were up against. I’m Zi Zontai. One of the most powerful men in western China. A man who can get into your country’s most sophisticated database; he can do anything.”
Baldev’s eyes widened. They had hit upon their objective. The perpetrator of the Aadhaar attack was right in front of them. “It was you!”
Zontai took in the three of them. “So you are the ones that New Delhi sent?”
“What does that matter to you?” Hitesh said.
“Hmm, so you don’t deny it? I’m always on the lookout for people with knowledge and talents. You tell me all your country’s secrets; I’ll make you rich.”
“We are not interested in your money.”
“Well, what about the prospect of dying?” Zontai waited for a moment. When no one spoke, he resumed. “Over the course of history, it has been established that people are motivated by only two things. Greed or fear. If not one, then the other. You can either choose monetary reward or choose painful torture. Speaking of torture, ever heard about the ‘Chinese water torture’?
Hitesh blanched, but Baldev remained unperturbed. “Yes?”
“Well, we didn’t invent it. Someone simply tagged it as a Chinese method. Our emperors used lingchi till it was outlawed.”
“So, you are going to torture us?”
“Not if you give me what I want.”
“Never.”
Zontai smirked, “When one is tortured, ‘never’ becomes a relative concept. For some it’s five minutes, for others it’s five days. I can wait. Anyways, you aren’t going anywhere for a long time.” Zontai turned and started to leave.
“Wait!” Baldev blurted. He had to stop this man. There were still parts of the puzzle he hadn’t figured out. How did he do it? Why? He wasn’t sure what he had to do, but he wanted to get this man talking. “The red-headed girl. Does she work for you?”
Zontai smiled. “She did her job well. I wanted to keep this low-key and not alarm my employees. When my guards found you in the cafeteria, I contacted her and told her to lure you guys. And here we are.”
“Why did you hack the Aadhaar database?”
Zontai looked at him. “For money. What else? A hundred years ago, gold was valuable. Today it’s data.”
“You couldn’t have got the Aadhaar data. The server was disconnected from the network.”
Zontai wagged a finger at Baldev. “Ah! Merely a technical detail. We anticipated that the database would be physically disconnected from the internet once the breach was discovered. But it gave us enough time to extract data points for one hundred million individuals including names, addresses, phone numbers, and their biometric details. People would kill to get that kind of information.”
“Who told you to do this?” Baldev growled. “The Chinese government?”
Zontai glanced at his watch. “Sorry guys. I would have loved to chat with you more, but I have a meeting to attend. I will answer your questions later. Maybe in 2030. Enjoy your stay.”
Zontai turned and strode out of the cell. The two uniformed men looked at them for a moment and then exited out. The steel door was slammed shut. The lights outside turned off and Baldev heard the footsteps retreat. Soon only the silence remained, and Baldev’s deep breath echoed his terror at what was going to happen to them.
Hitesh’s voice was tremulous. “No one knows we are here. We are going to die.”
Baldev nodded. “If it reassures you, I’m also as scared as you are. Even if I don’t show it.”
He looked around. The walls looked solid and unbreakable. The steel door was impenetrable. They were locked in from the outside world. He had no idea where they were. They could be in Urumqi or someplace else. It didn’t matter, a constriction gagged at his throat. They were going to die here. And the worst part was no one in South Block would ever know what happened to them. He had failed his boys. It was all his fault. He could never be as good a leader as Armaan. He was a failure.
Roshan said, “I wish Armaan was here.”
Baldev sighed. “Yeah, me too.”
CHAPTER 21
Armaan took another walk round the block.
Venera should return home any time now. He had rented a car and driven to her address. The neighbourhood was upscale. Her house was a two-storied villa in a street full of grand homes. The lawns were trimmed, the houses were freshly painted, and the roads were clean.
The entire housing project looked like it had been recently completed. Probably bought the house from her ill-gotten gains as a hacker, Armaan mused.
It was seven in the evening, but the sun was still high up in the sky. Urumqi followed the China Standard Time. Armaan could never understand why a country as large as China followed a single time zone. It meant that it would be pitch-dark at this point in Beijing, while Urumqi located three thousand kilometres west would still be under full daylight. Some locals used an unofficial Xinjiang time zone to keep track, but the government had imposed the Beijing time zone on them with buses, trains and airports adhering to the CST time.
There!
Armaan spotted the woman he’d seen in the pictures in the DIA database. She had just gotten off the public transport bus and was walking home. Her head was bent down, both hands busy typing on a mobile, eyes glued to the screen. The perfect example of a geek suffering from mobile addiction. Armaan shook his head. This was going to be easy.
Armaan strode in line behind her. There were a few pedestrians around, but Armaan knew he could get the job done. He had prepared himself before arriving at her place. In his pocket was a syringe smaller than his fist. He got close behind her; she was now only a pace ahead of him. He quickly inserted the syringe below the back of her exposed neck. It would feel like an innocuous mosquito prick.
Armaan passed by as she instinctively swatted the area where she had been pricked. The syringe would take around half a minute to take effect. Armaan knew she would start swaying and then drop as she lost consciousness. He slowed down a bit after a moment and matched his stride with hers. He watched her sway and saw the incredulous reaction on her face as her mobile slipped from her hands. She tried to reach for it but her body was not following her commands. A moment later her eyes rolled back in their sockets and she started to fall. He grabbed her in a gentle embrace and half-carried, half-walked her to his car. Once in the car, he eased her in the passenger seat. Then he returned to pick up her mobile. The mobile would come of some use. Moreover, he didn’t want it lying around for someone else to realize that Venera had been taken near her home. He turned on the ignition and drove the fifteen minutes ride back to his hotel.
