Malvika had not been herself lately because of the changes at NYIB and Tanya hoped the party would lift her spirits.
Aditya was among the first to arrive. Varun was already there, helping Tanya.
‘Looking gorgeous as ever, Malvika!’ He said, and she blushed as she gave him a big hug.
A steady stream of visitors followed. Swami and Sundeep walked in together without their wives at about 10 p.m. Sundeep walked up to Tanya and complimented her, ‘Looking nice.’ She smiled. ‘I’m sure your mom is going to be jealous of you.’ He looked at Varun and asked, ‘Don’t you agree, Varun?’
‘Of course!’
‘And my my, is that a Birkin?’ Sundeep asked. He recognized the Hermes handbag that Tanya was carrying. Tanya blushed, a bit embarrassed.
Swami sought out Aditya. ‘I need to talk to you.’
Aditya walked with him to the terrace adjacent to the banquet hall. It was empty.
‘It’s Matt. He says he wants to be closely involved in the running of retail banking. He claims that it’s a business which is getting a lot of attention in the regional office, all for the wrong reasons, and he wants to be hands on,’ Swami complained.
‘What’s wrong with that? He is your boss. He has every right to be involved in what you do.’
‘I know that, Aditya. The problem is he doesn’t want a head of retail banking.’
Aditya’s expression changed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He doesn’t want another head of retail banking. He wants to take on that role himself. Manage business directly.’
‘Rubbish. Where will he have the time? He is the CEO of the bank.’
Suddenly, Swami grabbed Aditya by his shoulder and pushed him slightly to his left. ‘Watch out,’ Swami said and Aditya glanced to his right. The terrace parapet wasn’t high or broad enough. Inadvertently, Aditya had strayed too close to it. Once Aditya had moved, Swami continued. ‘He wants me out. He didn’t say it in as many words. Said he needs to find me another job. Asked me what I preferred. All this happened today, Aditya. I was too shocked to even respond!’
‘But why would he do that?’
‘Because of this woman. This bitch Malvika. She has coloured his opinion.’
‘Watch your language, Swami. You are at a party thrown for her.’
‘I always thought that I would get the top job after Malvika. Not only did that not happen, but she also screwed me over in her handover report to Matt. My career in this bank is finished. I will never forgive her.’
‘It’s okay, Swami. Forget about it. Let’s talk about it later. There are others here who will try to prey on your emotions.’ He tried to subtly gesture that someone was approaching.
‘I don’t care about her, Aditya. I came here because you were going to be here.’
‘Who was going to be where, Swami?’ A female voice.
Swami turned. Malvika was walking towards them. ‘Hi, Malvika. Happy birthday,’ he managed to say.
‘That’s not coming from your heart, is it Swami?’ Malvika ridiculed him.
Swami didn’t respond. Clarifications caused complications. He had learnt that from Aditya.
‘Never mind,’ Malvika said and walked on to meet someone else. As she was walking away, she turned towards Aditya and smiled. ‘I hope you haven’t forgotten our plan, Aditya. Remember, we have to take these guys out tonight?’ Aditya just smiled and nodded in response.
He watched a beaming Malvika walk towards the entrance of the banquet hall to welcome the governor of the Reserve Bank of India who had just entered. The governor was walking towards Malvika when he saw Matt. He stopped and turned.
‘Hey, Matt!’
Matt saw him, waved and approached him.
Aditya was watching this. ‘These bureaucrats are so snooty when you meet them in office but socially they are the friendliest of all people.’
‘I know, Aditya.’ Swami grinned. The sight of Malvika being snubbed by the governor had brought a smile on his face.
Malvika’s face had turned red with embarrassment. Hadn’t this been the story of her life ever since Matt Metzger had come into it? Everyone in her team and even outside the bank, people who mattered, had stopped giving her importance. The press that had once loved her had stopped carrying articles about her. So much so that when the newspapers had carried news of Matt’s appointment, they didn’t even mention her name.
‘Serves her right,’ Swami muttered. ‘Natural justice.’
The party went on for a long time. At fifteen minutes to midnight there was a flurry of activity. A few uniformed men walked in, looked around and took positions outside the room. Within minutes, the finance minister made an appearance. Tanya’s reaction indicated that he was not expected. How had he landed up there? Aditya looked really perplexed as well.
Malvika volunteered. ‘I invited him. When you told me about the party this morning, I called him. He said he’d be in Mumbai and would try and drop in for ten minutes.’
Tanya frowned. ‘You should at least have mentioned this to me, Mom.’
‘It’s okay, Tanu. Why make a fuss over such a small issue?’ She walked to the entrance to welcome the minister and hugged him warmly.
‘Can I chat with you privately for a few minutes, Mr Minister?’ Malvika requested. Both of them walked out to the open terrace, where Aditya and Swami had stood just moments ago. The terrace was on one side of the hall, separated by a thick curtain.
A couple of minutes later, a steward walked up to Tanya with a tray bearing a glass of whisky for Malvika and a few snacks. She had asked for one just before the minister had arrived. The steward looked at Tanya and then at Varun, who took the tray from him. At that very instant, the governor of the RBI walked up to Tanya. He complimented her and thanked her for a lovely evening. That conversation lasted for a couple of minutes after which Tanya turned her attention back to Varun. She took the tray from him and walked up to the terrace. Varun drew the curtain back just a bit so Tanya could walk onto the terrace. She went up to Malvika and the minister, who were engrossed in a very animated discussion. Varun was with her. The discussion stopped the moment the curtains were drawn. Varun offered the whisky to Malvika and looked at the minister. ‘What can I get for you, sir?’
Malvika didn’t wait for the minister to respond. She picked up some snacks from the tray and gave instructions. Varun and Tanya nodded and left, leaving the two behind. Another five minutes passed. No signs of the discussion ending.
‘What is she up to?’ an irritated Aditya asked, walking up to Tanya. ‘I think you should tell them that the guests are waiting for her to cut the cake.’
Just then the minister came back into the hall, went straight to the RBI governor, exchanged a few words, and left the party. He looked agitated. The hectic activity, which had had the room aflutter following his re-entry from the terrace, died down almost immediately.
The emcee for the evening announced that the countdown to the birthday was about to begin. Swami’s phone buzzed. He ignored the call and put the phone on silent mode. Someone from the office was trying to reach him.
Everyone was looking around for Malvika. Tanya walked to the terrace and came back within seconds. Malvika was not on the terrace.
Suddenly, the lights went off and music blared.
‘Hey! What’s that?’ exclaimed Varun.
It was pitch dark in the room. The countdown began: Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One . . . Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you, dear Malvika! Happy birthday to you . . .
The song began playing on the audio system. A few of the lights were switched on but most stayed dim for effect. The spotlight was trained on the French doors that led to the terrace. Everyone was waiting for the curtains to part and for Malvika to step in.
Instead, the doors to the hall were thrown open and the hotel’s general manager stepped in looking flustered. He spotted Tanya and walked up to her. ‘You need to come with me, ma’am.’
‘What happened, Mr Krishna?’
‘Please come with me. I will tell you on the way.’
Tanya turned towards the crowd, searching. Varun ran up to her, stopping only to grab her Birkin handbag.
Krishna led them into a waiting elevator. In no time, they were in the hotel lobby. Contrary to what he had promised, he did not offer any explanation. Quietly, he led them outside. And stopped.
Tanya was stunned by the sight in front of her.
Lying on the pavement, face down, blood pooling around her, was the lifeless body of Malvika. The fall from the thirty-fourth floor had knocked the life out of one of the most powerful women in India.
Tanya turned towards Varun. She hid her face in his shirt and started to sob uncontrollably. He hugged her tightly.
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31
Mumbai
Malvika’s body was swiftly placed in a van by the hotel authorities and taken to Lilavati Hospital in Bandra, a ten-minute drive away. Tanya was in the van. Varun had tried to get in as well but there was no space. He ran to his car and rushed to Lilavati so he could be there before Tanya reached.
Aditya followed in his car with Sundeep and Swami, driving at breakneck speed. There was pin-drop silence in the car as Aditya drove at breakneck speed. The only time Swami had seen him drive like that was when Varun had called for help from a jail in Goa.
The cops had just arrived at the hotel. They had been called even before the general manager had informed Tanya and others about the mishap. They wanted to talk to everyone in the room and piece together the sequence of events before letting them go.
The silence in Aditya’s car was shattered by the ringing of Swami’s phone. He looked at the screen. ‘Why is he calling at this hour?’ he muttered under his breath. As he cancelled the call he saw sixteen missed calls from the same number. ‘What the hell?’ He called back.
‘What happened?’ He thundered into the phone. ‘Sixteen calls?’
As the guy on the phone spoke Swami’s face turned pale. It was as if he’d just seen a ghost. Sundeep had turned back and was looking at him, wondering what was going on as Swami’s face went through a million transformations.
‘What?’ Swami howled into the phone. ‘Are you serious? How did this happen?’
The car crossed the Bandra–Worli Sea Link, speeding behind the hotel van.
‘What action have we taken?’
Swami was silent for a long time, listening intently.
Then, ‘Hmm. This does not sound good. Let me call you back.’
The moment he disconnected, Sundeep asked, ‘What happened?’
‘Some of our cards have been compromised,’ Swami said. And, after a pause, ‘This one is really bad.’
‘Compromised?’
‘Yes, Sundeep. Fraud prediction system picked up five cards on which there have been multiple cash withdrawals overseas.’
‘How much has been withdrawn?’
‘Roughly 5 million dollars.’
‘What?’ Sundeep was shocked. ‘That’s huge.’
‘There’s more. When they checked the cards on the system,
they found that the withdrawal limits on these cards had been raised to insane levels just a couple of hours before the fraud. That shows that either the system was hacked or someone on the inside did the job. The technology teams think it’s a sophisticated hacking job.’
Sundeep’s face went pale. He was finding it difficult to say what was on his mind. He glanced at Aditya who was looking straight ahead of him. He seemed to be in a trance. He hadn’t heard a word of what Swami had said.
‘Aditya!’ Sundeep called out.
No response. He looked carefully at Aditya’s face. His eyes were open, tears streaming down his cheeks. He was driving instinctually. Sundeep was worried that he might crash the car.
‘Aditya,’ he said again. He reached out grabbed his shoulder and shook him. ‘Aditya! Are you okay?’ The sudden jerk brought Aditya out of the trance he had been in. He braked abruptly, and the car screeched to a halt on the roadside. He sat in his seat, head in his hands, for a long time. Finally, when Sundeep said, ‘Aditya, we might have a problem,’ he looked up.
Realizing that he had not heard a word of what Swami had said, the latter repeated everything.
A worried Aditya turned to Swami, fear and stress writ large on his face. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Yes, Aditya, I can’t believe it myself.’
Aditya looked at Sundeep,‘But NYIB’s card operations are outsourced to eTIOS!’
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32
USA
The audacity of the ATM heist had shocked the Feds. They immediately activated the Economic Crime Investigation Unit. An operation of this kind and scale was unprecedented in the United States.
The FBI would have preferred to keep the incident under wraps till they got to the bottom of it. However, NYIB in India had gone public with it so the FBI had to make a statement. It didn’t take them long to figure out the modus operandi but they had no clue whatsoever about the people behind this operation. The surveillance videos from the ATM cameras had not thrown any light on the perpetrators. The only thing the FBI could make out was that they were carrying backpacks and their heads were covered.
Later in the day, the FBI issued a press statement:
Five million dollars were stolen two days ago from 520 ATMs in New York in what is one of the biggest ATM frauds in the history of the United States of America. The perpetrators hacked into the card processing systems of a service provider of New York International Bank in India. They skimmed off the personal data of the users and also raised the allowed limits on these cards exponentially. This stolen data was used to create a fraudulent card by encoding the same user data onto a hotel key card with a magnetic strip. These cards were used by a team of mules at various ATMs across the city of New York to withdraw unlimited amounts of cash. These operations are called Unlimited Operations.
The release went on to document the various steps that the FBI was taking to make financial products fraud-proof. ‘The FBI’s Economic Crimes Investigation Unit is working on the case. We are following some leads and expect to nab the culprits soon.’ The spokeswoman reading the statement signed off with these words.
Tony was reading a copy of the statement on the FBI website, when Adrian walked in. ‘Did you see this?’ he asked, picking up a large slice of his pizza. He usually had a giant pepperoni for lunch. That’s when he was on a diet. ‘Crazy bunch of geniuses!’
‘You wish you were one of them, don’t you?’ Adrian chided him.
‘Why do these things happen only in good old America?’
‘It’s easy?’
‘Huh?’
‘You heard me. It’s easy to do it here.’
‘Crap. We are the most technologically advanced nation in the world. Aren’t we?’
‘We love to call ourselves that. But what the world doesn’t know is that America is wildly behind the times in terms of transactional security. The magnetic strip, which is used on cards, is fifty-year-old technology. The strip contains the card holder’s information and is easy to copy or steal. When you take it to any store, the store owner can just swipe the card on a data skimmer and transfer the entire data. Once you have the data, you can use a magnetic card writer—the kind hotels use to imprint code on magnetic room keys—and transform any card—old credit card, hotel key, driving licence, what have you—into an active card, by just imprinting this data on to it. You can buy a card writer for less than 200 dollars. Once the new card is activated using a PIN, it can be used on any ATM to potentially withdraw unlimited sums of money.’
‘How do they get the PIN?’ Tony asked, baffled.
‘Typically, when these cards are issued, they come with a PIN. But when the thieves a
re the ones creating the fraudulent cards, the PIN is hardly protection.’
‘But how could they have managed to withdraw 2.5 million dollars? And if these things are so easy, why don’t they happen every day?’
‘The risk always exists, Tony. However, going by the report that FBI has put out, the guys not only stole card information but also hacked into the card systems of the bank and altered the withdrawal limits on the cards. It’s not easy to break through the firewalls of these financial service giants . . . Unless they have a weak link—a service provider, who has access not only to their systems, but is also internally compromised. By hacking into the service provider’s systems the perpetrators could have gotten access to the bank’s data.’
‘What if someone on the inside is helping them?’ Tony asked, reaching for the last slice of the pizza.
Adrian’s phone rang. It was Robert Brick.
‘I thought you were competent agents when I gave you guys the Gillian Tan case to investigate,’ he hollered the moment Adrian took the call.
‘We are trying, Robert. Every possible angle is being investigated in detail.’
‘Fuck you, Adrian! You guys are a bunch of incompetent fools. Now that I have built this halo around you, I can’t even go and tell the President that you guys have made no progress; I will look like an idiot,’ he screamed into the phone and cut it abruptly.
Pressure from higher-ups to get to the bottom of the Tan case was mounting by the day.
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33
Mumbai
Malvika’s death was front-page news in all the mainline dailies and financial papers. Even though it happened late at night, almost all the papers carried the gory details the next morning itself. Images of her body splattered on the pavement were on every newspaper, every website. TV channels were a step ahead. Minute-by-minute details of what allegedly transpired were pieced together from the accounts of the people who had attended the party. The fact that it happened in the presence of so many people added spice to the story.
God is a Gamer Page 9
