by RV Raman
‘Well…’ Gautam trailed off and scratched his chin thoughtfully.
‘The reason I ask, Mr Puraria,’ Dhruvi continued, ‘is that I can’t help you unless you make a formal complaint. I have clear orders on that. Talking to a few people about Puneet’s disappearance is one thing. I actually took two days off and did that in a personal capacity. But tracking down organized data theft is quite another matter. I will have to deploy police resources if I’m to pursue the thieves.’
‘I don’t want this matter leaking out, Inspector. I don’t want the world to know that someone succeeded in stealing our data.’
‘Your call, Mr Puraria. Alex and I will keep it as confidential as possible. My superiors will need to know, but the CCB usually doesn’t leak information. I’m afraid my hands are tied unless I have a complaint to act on.’
Gautam stared unseeingly at her for a long moment and abruptly nodded as if he had come to a decision.
‘Okay, I’ll make a complaint,’ he said. ‘How do I do it?’
‘Alex has noted down the facts Moin shared with us. Please read them and sign where he asks you to. That should be enough for now.’
Once the signing was done, Dhruvi turned to Moin and smiled.
Moin, who had been watching her with growing interest, felt a little light-headed. He realized with surprise that beneath her dusky complexion were rather fine-boned features. As her lips parted in a smile, he noticed that one of her canines overlapped a front tooth. He found that inexplicably attractive. This lady, he told himself, possessed a beauty that grew on you as you spent time with her.
‘All right, let’s initiate the pursuit,’ he heard her say. ‘Could you call your friend Najeeb, as Mr Puraria suggested? Let him call the target and ask him to expect your call in half an hour. The target will have to give a phone number for you to call. As soon as we get the number, Alex will try to locate it.’
Moin swallowed hard and picked up his mobile.
A couple of minutes later, they had a number. In another minute or so, Alex had located the telecom operator and was calling them. Dhruvi sat back and watched as he swung into action, making quick calls from his three mobile phones – one that he dedicated to staying in touch with the telecom operator and the two others for speaking to his men.
Moin stared, fascinated at Alex’s dexterity. His two hands seemed to work independently of each other. The left thumb flew over the touchscreen as swiftly as the right thumb did. Was he ambidextrous?
‘Banasankari 3rd Stage,’ Alex said shortly. ‘That’s where he is. Near the Outer Ring Road. It’s a prepaid number.’
‘Do you have a subscriber name?’ Dhruvi asked.
‘What’s the use?’ Alex said morosely. ‘I bet it’s a fake.’
‘Don’t mind him,’ Dhruvi said in a stage whisper to a nonplussed Gautam. ‘He always expects the worst to happen. But he occasionally manages to do some good work too.’
Bemused by Alex’s pessimism, Moin exchanged a quick glance with Nilay. Gautam’s expression, though politely smiling and noncommittal, was one he could read. Gautam was wondering if he had done the right thing by calling in Dhruvi and her hard-to-please assistant. Moin, however, remained in two minds, for the speed with which Alex had located the data seller had been impressive.
‘He’s moving,’ Alex said after a few minutes. He had constantly been on one mobile or the other. ‘Going north on the 80 Feet Road towards Srinivasa Nagar.’
‘Anyone moving to that place?’ Dhruvi asked.
‘Two men from the Girinagar police station,’ Alex drawled softly, a phone pressed on each ear. ‘Going to intercept in a few minutes.’
Despite his languorous tone, the atmosphere grew tense. Moin found himself holding his breath, his attention riveted on Alex. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gautam leaning forward. Nilay, he had already noticed, was sitting up, his back ramrod straight. Only Dhruvi seemed relaxed.
‘Aww!’ Alex groaned suddenly, drooping forward like a wilted leaf. ‘It had to happen, hadn’t it?’
‘What?’ Dhruvi asked.
‘The phone has gone off the network.’
‘Not surprising is it, Alex? There’s another twenty minutes left before Moin calls him. It’ll come back in fifteen.’
‘Why do all crooks have to be smart?’ Alex groaned again.
‘So that you can earn your pay, Alex.’
‘Some pay! I should have gone into theatre like my father wanted. Life would have been simpler.’
‘Don’t complain. Your quarry will be back on air in fifteen minutes.’
‘Fifteen minutes! He could be anywhere by then –’
‘Anything more on the subscriber?’ Dhruvi cut in.
‘Just as I told you, ma’am. It’s a fake. Falsified papers.’
‘Confirmed?’
Alex nodded gloomily.
‘Okay, Thomas.’ Dhruvi grinned as she turned to Moin, making his eyes snap to her overlapping tooth. She seemed to have taken the minor setback in her stride. ‘Let’s discuss what you’re going to say once you’re on the call.’
Twenty minutes later, Moin was on the phone, calling the data seller’s number. He had dreaded making the call, but once he took the plunge, it didn’t feel half as bad as he’d anticipated. He cleared his throat in preparation as the phone at the other end began ringing.
In the seventeen minutes the target had been off the network, he had changed direction and moved away from the last known location. When he switched on the phone again, he was at the far end of Hosakerehalli, three kilometres away on the other side of the Outer Ring Road.
‘Hello?’ a male voice said as the target picked up the call.
‘Hello,’ Moin responded self-consciously, acutely aware of the four others in the room who seemed to be hanging on to every word he uttered. ‘This is Thomas.’
Suddenly, he felt foolish and melodramatic for using an alias. As though he were acting in some silly Bollywood flick. He wondered if he had turned red in embarrassment as he saw Dhruvi smiling at him. Closing his eyes to keep himself from becoming distracted by the power of that fetching smile, he focused his attention on the voice at the other end of the phone line.
‘Yes?’ asked the voice.
‘First, what do I call you?’
‘If you call yourself Tom, I’ll be Dick…no, Harry.’
‘Okay, Harry. I’m interested in the data. How do we do this?’
Moin wondered if he sounded amateurish. But Dhruvi had assured him that it didn’t matter. It would, in fact, be appropriate if he sounded amateurish, she had said. That way, Harry would feel more confident of his position and believe he had the upper hand.
‘We have to agree on the price first,’ Harry said. Sounds of traffic in the background came through clearly. ‘What are you offering?’
‘I have to see the data first –’
‘You have already seen it.’
‘Fifty transactions?’ Moin felt himself growing bolder. ‘You could have manufactured them, for all I know. I need to see a good chunk, before I can talk price.’
‘What do you want, then?’ Harry asked after a brief pause.
‘How many transactions do you have?’ Moin countered.
‘About a million.’
‘How recent? I am not interested in old data.’
‘Last month. September.’
‘Okay. I want to see a sample of one per cent of the transactions before I make an offer.’
‘Get lost!’
Harry sounded angry and Moin grew tense. He didn’t know if the anger was real or feigned, but he didn’t want the conversation to end abruptly.
‘I’m willing to pay for it,’ Moin said. ‘One per cent is 10,000 transactions.’
‘How much?’
‘One rupee per transaction. ₹10,000.’
‘Are you mad? You think I’ll meet you for ₹10,000?’
This time, the irritation seemed genuine.
‘Okay. How much do you want?
’ Moin asked.
‘At least a lakh.’
‘That’s too much. We can’t pay ten rupees per transaction for a sample.’ Moin glanced at Gautam, who held up two fingers. ‘I can up the offer to two rupees per transaction. That’s ₹20,000.’
‘I’ll call you back. Stay near your phone.’
The call ended abruptly and Moin looked up to see Dhruvi still smiling at him.
‘Has he taken the bait?’ she asked.
Moin nodded and gave her a quick summary of the conversation.
‘He’ll come back with an offer of about half the initial demand,’ Alex droned. ‘You should be able to seal it somewhere around ₹35,000. But don’t let him feel that he has won too easily. He’ll suspect it’s a trap.’
‘That’s right,’ Dhruvi added. ‘Now increase your offer in instalments of ₹5,000.’
‘Should I ask him to mail the sample?’ Moin asked.
Dhruvi shook her head. ‘He has to collect the cash, remember? It will most likely be a quick meeting, where the data is exchanged for cash –’
She stopped as the mobile phone rang shrilly. Moin picked it up and nodded at Dhruvi after looking at the caller ID.
‘Hello?’ he said, answering the call.
‘50,000,’ Harry said, without preamble. ‘In five hundred rupee notes.’
Moin began haggling as if he were in a second-hand bookshop and realized that he was actually enjoying it. Grinning at the others in the room, he upped his offer by ₹5,000 and finally concluded the ‘deal’ at ₹30,000.
‘All in used five hundred rupee notes,’ Harry clarified. ‘Don’t try anything smart, okay?’
‘So when do I get the data?’
‘After I get the cash.’
‘Not after,’ Moin insisted, trying to sound firm. ‘It should be done simultaneously. Let’s exchange it at one shot. We don’t want two meetings and I don’t think you will want to use email. Don’t worry, there will be no problem with the cash. 30,000 in five hundred rupee notes.’
Once again, there was a brief pause before Harry replied. ‘Okay. Who will be coming with the cash? You?’
‘No. Someone else. I can’t be seen buying MyMagicHat’s data.’
‘Okay. Give him your phone and tell him to wear a full-sleeved white shirt. He must carry nothing with him – other than the cash and your mobile phone. No bag, nothing. Understood?’
‘Got it,’ Moin said. ‘When? Where?’
‘This evening, somewhere around Majestic. I’ll call you. You’ll have only ten minutes’ notice. So make sure your man is at Majestic by six o’clock. Send the cash in a plain white envelope. Remember, no tricks.’
The line went dead. Moin slumped back in his chair, drained, but grinning with satisfaction. That had gone well! Far better than he had dared to expect. He wondered what Dhruvi thought of his performance. She was smiling at him and even Alex had a hint of a smile on his mournful face. Nilay thumped him on the back as Gautam called for refreshments.
Fifteen minutes later, sixty currency notes were laid out on the table and Alex began photographing them in batches.
‘Recording the note numbers?’ Nilay asked. ‘With so many five hundred rupee notes in circulation, can you really track them?’
‘No,’ Alex groaned, back to his dejected best. ‘With my rotten luck, Harry will most probably spend it all tonight. But if, by some chance, we do catch the crooks with a few of these notes on them, we’ll have evidence that could stand in court.’
Moin grinned. He was beginning to like this peculiar, long-faced policeman.
‘Who is going to meet Harry this evening?’ Gautam asked.
‘Who else?’ Alex sighed. ‘Me.’
■
As usual, Majestic was a sea of humanity in the evening. And reeked of it too. What with hundreds of perspiring bodies surging through its narrow streets, Alex had been hard-pressed to avoid brushing against them as he made his way to the rendezvous. Surging crowds and people brushing against one another – the perfect haunt for a pickpocket, the policeman had thought.
The aroma of filter coffee and fried finger foods had competed with the stink of sweat and stagnant water as he made his way past hotels, lodges, food carts and small shops towards the busy restaurant Harry had named as their meeting point.
Wearing a full-sleeved white shirt over dark trousers of some indeterminate colour between navy blue and dark grey, Alex had moved ahead with a slight shuffle as if his legs were of slightly different lengths.
He, along with Moin and two other policemen, had reached the Majestic bus station well before 6 p.m., but Harry’s phone had been off since his conversation with Moin in the morning. Dhruvi, however, had put the few hours to good use by compiling a list of the known locations of Harry’s mobile during the past few days.
The prepaid number had been switched on a week ago, but had largely been idle till Friday, when Harry had made five calls. All five were to people who worked in e-tailing companies. One of them was the marketing person in Najeeb’s company. The locations over the past week included Jayanagar, J.P. Nagar, Basavangudi, Banasankari and a couple of other places in South Bengaluru. The last known location was Hosakerehalli, when he had spoken to Moin.
By 6 p.m., Alex and Moin were seated in the back of an unmarked police van, waiting for Harry to reconnect to the network. Just as Alex received the news that Harry had done so, Moin’s phone rang. The time was 6.12 p.m.
Harry named a restaurant not far from Hotel Swagath and gave him until 6.25 p.m. to be there. Moin’s ‘messenger’ was to call Harry before entering the restaurant.
Pausing outside the restaurant, Alex pulled out the borrowed mobile phone and glanced at the time. It was 6.21 p.m. He stepped forward so that he would be standing in front of the lit-up entrance and called Harry.
‘Thomas sent me,’ he said in Kannada, when the call was answered. The innocuous go-between he was masquerading as would have spoken in Kannada, not English.
‘Are you standing just outside the restaurant?’ Harry asked in the same language.
The entire conversation would now be conducted in Kannada.
‘Yes.’
‘White shirt, dark pants?’
‘Yes.’
‘Raise your right arm.’
‘What?’ Alex asked dim-wittedly.
‘Raise your right arm! Can’t you understand simple Kannada?’
Hesitantly, Alex raised his arm, looking around sheepishly.
‘Okay. Put it down. Now listen carefully. Once I cut the call, you will enter the restaurant. Take one of the vacant tables and order something. Understood?’
‘Yes.’ For good measure, Alex nodded too.
‘Then hold the envelope in your hand and wait. I will come to you.’
Alex pocketed the phone and entered the restaurant, quickly scanning it with a practised eye. He recognized two plainclothesmen sitting in separate places – one near the door and the other near the centre. There should have been one more, but Alex couldn’t locate him. They would have entered the restaurant a few minutes before him.
He sat down two tables away from the plainclothesman at the centre of the room and pulled out a kerchief to wipe his face, which was now disguised with a thick moustache. While wiping his face, he mumbled into a miniature microphone hidden in his collar, giving instructions to his men. Thirty seconds later, three concealed cameras were recording high-definition video footage of his table from three different angles.
They recorded Alex ordering tea and waiting patiently. The tea arrived and Alex sipped it slowly, his eyes sweeping the half of the restaurant that he could see. Nobody seemed to be paying him any attention and nothing seemed out of place.
A couple of minutes later, a figure materialized at his elbow. It stepped forward and pulled out the chair opposite his own.
‘The envelope,’ the man said, even as he sat down.
The voice was the one Alex had heard over the phone. Harry.
Still a
cting a little confused to gain an additional second or two, Alex looked up uncertainly at the stranger. As he did so, the hand in which he was clutching the envelope moved quietly out of Harry’s reach.
Harry turned out to be a moustachioed young man in his late twenties. The two or three day old stubble did not fully hide a cut on his chin, and the cap on his head didn’t conceal his eyes. Alex noticed with some surprise that Harry’s fingers were unsteady as he reached out for the envelope.
‘Give me that envelope,’ the young man said roughly, gesturing with his fingers.
‘I was told to exchange it for something,’ Alex replied firmly, keeping the envelope out of Harry’s reach. ‘Where is the thing you are to give me?’
With a suppressed grunt of impatience, Harry reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a memory stick attached to a piece of string. A red Sandisk memory stick that sold by the millions. Untraceable. Harry held the string between his left thumb and index finger and offered the memory stick to Alex. A little ahead of it was his right hand, palm up and fingers wagging.
Alex reached for the memory stick with his right hand, while he stretched out the left, one end of the envelope tightly clenched between his fingers. As soon as Harry had taken hold of the other end of the envelope and dropped the memory stick into Alex’s palm, the policeman withdrew his right hand and released the envelope.
The next moment, Harry was hurrying out of the restaurant. Alex dropped the memory stick into a small plastic pouch in his pocket. He would try and get what fingerprints he could. There was no hurry now. Harry would be followed for as long as it was feasible. Meanwhile, Alex had to continue playing the part of a dim go-between, in case he was being watched by Harry’s accomplice.
He paid for the tea and strolled out of the restaurant to hail a passing autorickshaw. Five minutes later, he was back in the police van with his three mobile phones and Moin.
Another man in the van dusted the memory stick for fingerprints, before making a copy of the contents for Moin on another memory stick. After that, the original memory stick went into a padded wooden box, destined for the police cyber lab.
A short distance away, Harry was riding pillion behind a helmeted rider. Shadowing them was an unmarked motorcycle ridden by a plainclothesman, who was in touch with a car a few feet behind and another motorcycle a little ahead.
