The Bankster (Ravi Subramanian)

by Ravi Subramanian

  He had been looking forward to Harshita’s call in the evening all day, but then he heard the news of her death in an accident, which had shattered him completely. He had called Malvika, who had requested that he should not come to offer his condolences in person. She sounded too distraught and broken. After all she had lost her only sister, and her best friend.

  21

  Devikulam

  Early afternoon, 30th January 2012

  The Devikulam police station had turned into a virtual fortress. The constables manning the gates recognized the two of them as the ones leading the charge and making the speeches. They walked straight into the station in-charge’s cabin, virtually unstopped. Heldrich was sitting there. Next to him were two uniformed policemen. There was also a third guy who looked a bit different. Tall, middle-aged, sculpted cheek bones, and a properly trimmed moustache, he was wearing a tailored suit. His accent was impeccable and he was trying to speak with Heldrich. The latter was struggling to answer him back seemingly because he was a German. Krishna was surprised because back at the resort and earlier on the Skype call, Heldrich had spoken reasonably good English. It seemed as if he didn’t want to answer too many questions and so was putting up a façade.

  ‘Why have you held him here? He hasn’t done anything wrong,’ Krishna announced to everyone in the room.

  ‘What was he doing in Devikulam?’ one of the uniformed guys asked him.

  ‘He was in India holidaying and simply came along with us to the rally.’ When Krishna said this, the suited guy looked at him.

  His Oakley glasses glinted, a poor attempt at giving himself a menacing look; he appeared to be irritated and angry. ‘This gentleman here was in town holidaying?’

  ‘Yes sir,’ Krishna replied innocently.

  ‘And how long has he been in town?’

  ‘Only for a week. After spending a week in Kovalam, he came to visit us.’

  ‘Do I look like a fool Mr Menon?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘How do you know this gentleman here and why did he come here? I want to know the truth.’ Suddenly his tone became aggressive.

  ‘He has a legal visa to visit this country and I am sure with a visa, unless one is a Pakistani, one can visit any part of the country that he pleases.’

  ‘Let’s not get into technicalities Mr Menon. It would be better if you answer my question.’

  ‘We had spoken to him a few weeks back on prospective issues which could arise in case nuclear reactors are built on hilly areas in terrain with seismic imbalance. We sought expert advice from him. That’s how we know him. And now that he was on a holiday here, he visited us today and we invited him to come along.’

  ‘And where was he when you spoke to him?’

  ‘Germany. We held a video conference with him?’

  ‘Is that right?’ the guy in the suit asked sarcastically. And who is this “we”?’ The cynical stress on the word ‘we’ was unmistakable.

  ‘Jayakumar and myself,’ he said pointing towards Jaya who was standing just behind him.

  ‘Hmm. . .maybe then you could explain this,’ and he threw Heldrich’s passport towards Krishna.

  ‘What about this?’ Krishna picked it up and looked at the officer. It was clear by now that the gentleman was a senior officer who was there to oversee things. Krishna, by virtue of being in that area for long, knew most of the senior cops around, but he had never seen this person before.

  ‘Heldrich Kohl,’ said the officer, ‘Eminent American nuclear scientist of German origin. He holds a dual citizenship and has helped commission a number of nuclear plants in his home country and in the US, France and UK. He’s one of the most knowledgeable scientists on nuclear reactors in the world today. He travels to India on his German passport, lands up at the site of India’s latest nuclear plant, participates in a protest, as you insist, from the fringes.’ And he stopped. He looked at Jaya and Krishna and continued, ‘and you say he is here on a holiday in Kovalam. You expect me to believe it Mr Menon?’

  ‘Yes of course. Why don’t you ask him?’ and Krishna looked at Dr Heldrich. ‘Why don’t you tell him Dr Heldrich? Why don’t you tell him?’

  ‘He has nothing to say. And if you carefully look at that,’ and he pointed towards the passport in Krishna’s hand. ‘If you look at that you will know. Dr Heldrich has been in India for the last three months. If you spoke with him three weeks back, he was very much in India then. Right here, in the vicinity of Trikakulam Nuclear Power Plant. Like you and this gentleman next to you, he was covertly lobbying with parties interested in making sure that India does not commission a world-class advanced nuclear facility, feeding negative information so that there is public outrage and the reactor doesn’t go live.’

  ‘What?’ Krishna was dumbstruck. He looked at Jaya. Jaya was looking in the other direction, avoiding eye contact with Krishna. So this was a ploy! A ploy Jaya used to get him on board with their plans. Heldrich was working with Jaya and they chose to piggy-back on his reputation to further their cause.

  ‘Dr Heldrich, the CBI has been trying to get information about you and your activities for some time now. Unfortunately, we couldn’t lay our hands on you earlier. . .’ The officer’s phone rang, interrupting him. He walked to the other room and took the call.

  When he came back inside three minutes later, there was a dirty smirk on his face. He looked at Dr Heldrich and said, ‘You are coming with me. To Chennai from where you will be put on a plane to Frankfurt tonight. Immigration authorities in Chennai will have your deportation papers ready. If you resist, you will be booked for carrying out prohibited anti-national activities in the region. Where do you want to pick up your bags from?’

  Dr Heldrich Kohl got up and looked at Jaya. There was not a hint of remorse on his face. Turning to his right, he faced the officer and thundered, ‘Let’s go,’ and he walked out of the cabin.

  ‘You cheated me,’ Krishna said once they had stepped out of the cabin and were not within the earshot of anyone.

  ‘No I did not Krishna. Heldrich was just helping us. And I had no clue that he was in India or what his agenda was, for that matter.’

  ‘It doesn’t look that way. An individual trying to help us with his own knowledge to fight a righteous and just battle is one thing. A country using the two of us, more so me, to fight a battle against my own nation is a very, very different thing altogether. You knew that Dr Heldrich was here to shut down the facility. Jaya, I do not want the nuclear plant to shut down. I just want the Centre to satisfy all the impacted people that this is a safe reactor. People need to be relocated to safer destinations; their lives need to be taken care of. That’s all I want. Forget our means Jaya, our objectives are not aligned. There is no convergence in what we want. In what was an internal matter of a nation, you let a third party with vested interests in. The difference Jaya, is that you worked with people who did not want India to build this nuclear reactor. I worked with my conscience. There is a wide chasm between the two.’ And he walked out. Jaya followed him, without uttering a word.

  On their way out, as they reached their car, they saw Madan Mohan head towards them. The local MLA had disappeared from the protest site, at the first sight of trouble. It was a touchy issue and he didn’t want to get impacted by anything negative that was linked to it.

  ‘Four people are now dead. Twenty-six are critical. I am just coming from the hospital.’

  Krishna just clutched his head in his hands and sat down on the seat of his car. The door was open and his legs were hanging outside the car. Jaya came up to him.

  ‘Don’t worry Krishna, we will do something.’

  ‘What can we do? We can’t bring them back from the dead. Can we? Big mistake.’

  ‘We will do our best Krishna. We will rehabilitate their families. We will take care of their children. We will set aside ten lakhs in a corpus for each of the families. We are morally bound to take care of them.’

  ‘It’s only money that counts eh?’
<
br />   ‘No. But for these families that have lived in poverty all their lives, money does mean something. And ten lakhs is something they will never ever see in this lifetime.’

  ‘Where will the money come from?’

  ‘Leave that to me. Tomorrow morning we will go and visit the families. There you can announce the grant from all of us for families who lost their near and dear ones in this battle for the survival of the human race,’ Jaya was extremely good at histrionics. He paused and put his hand on Krishna’s shoulder and continued, ‘Though, as you said, we cannot resurrect them, we can atleast try and soften the blow. You go home now. I will pick you up tomorrow morning.’

  That was when Krishna realized that he needed Jaya to fight this battle. He needed the money that Jaya had the ability to mobilise. He needed his energy to fight. But it came with associated baggage. Henceforth, he had to be a lot more vigilant and not be naïve and expose himself to manipulations.

  It was a long night for Krishna. Sleep deserted him. The thought of the four families that had lost a dear one was very traumatic for him.

  22

  Mumbai

  Evening, 30th January 2012

  Sitting in the first class compartment of a Mumbai local train, Raymond was lost in his thoughts. Whenever there was turbulence in his mind, or stress at work, he would call Harshita. Talking to her would help him calm down. The value of a five to seven minute chat with Harshita everyday was becoming clearer now. The day just gone by had been particularly bad for him. The only thing that he had done that day was to try and get in touch with Indrani. It pinched his conscience that he hadn’t done any other work. So obsessed was he about getting an audience with Indrani, that he had not even checked his voicemail at work. Feeling guilty, he dialled into his office voicemail. Since he was accessing it from outside, he was required to key in a password—it would not have been required had he been dialling from his extension. He diligently keyed it in.

  ‘You have one new message, to read press 1.’ He pressed a button as instructed by the IVR, and listened to the message. All of a sudden he perked up. It was a strange message. When it ended, he replayed it all over again. A strange fear set in.

  He called the only person who he could think of.

  ‘Hi Raymond.’

  ‘Hi,’ there was a strange shiver in his voice. ‘I wanted to tell you something. There seems to be a serious problem.’ Raymond felt ill. His whole body was shaking and he was sweating profusely. He took hold of himself and narrated everything he knew. Even though the compartment was quite noisy, it being a first class compartment, he was able to move to one corner and talk without running the risk of someone else overhearing the conversation.

  ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about. But let me find out. Give me some time. And Raymond, you don’t sound good. You need some rest.’ The person at the other end said after Raymond finished.

  ‘Yes. It’s been a bad day overall.’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘I’m in a train, reaching Ghatkopar in a bit.’

  ‘Get off the train and call me. I’ll try and find more information by then. I can’t hear you clearly Raymond. Let’s chat about this once you. . .’ and the call dropped. ‘Damn these cellphone signals!’ Raymond exclaimed. He tried calling the same number once the mobile signal stabilized, but no one picked up. Each time it went into voicemail. He tried a few more times before he gave up. He was really scared.

  The message in his voicemail and the subsequent call had cluttered his mind. Thoughts of Harshita, the bank, the issues with the retail bank, Jacqueline’s snub and his painful wife drifted in and out of his mind as he aimlessly fidgeted with his phone.

  The more he thought about it the more of a wreck he became. He had to talk to someone. The train was entering the Ghatkopar station. Desperately wanting to speak to someone he could confide in, and who would advise him selflessly, he picked up his phone and dialled another number. Even as the dialled number was ringing, he walked to the exit and got off the train.

  The moment the call was picked up, Raymond broke down. He started sobbing. All this while, he had managed to hold himself, but at some point or the other, the dam had to burst. ‘I. . .I. . .got-t-t a call sometime back. . .’ In between his sobs he tried to get across his story to the person at the other end. It was proving to be difficult.

  ‘I can’t hear you Raymond, where are you?’

  ‘Outside the Ghatkopar railway station.’

  ‘Stay there, I’m coming to get you. We’ll talk when I’m there.’

  Back in Vienna, Johann Schroeder was overseeing the postmortem and other investigations into the death of the two Indians. The media briefing was a bit of an anti climax and he was not happy about it, neither was Gerhard Purtsi. Both were hoping that this would turn out to be a genuine case of an accident. Otherwise it would spoil an impeccable record that Vienna had built up over two decades. No tourist had ever met such a fate in Vienna. It was considered an extremely safe place for foreigners.

  However, there was one thing which kept troubling Schroeder. The initial reports that had come to him had suggested that nothing had been found on their person. No passport, no bags, not even a mobile phone. It was extremely unnatural for tourists to roam around without any of these. The only saving grace was that the jewellery Harshita was wearing, which was quite expensive by any yardstick, was safe. Robbery as a motive of murder was ruled out. Just in case it was a murder and not an accident, what could have been the motivation? Schroeder had no answers. He was confident he would find them in time.

  23

  Thane Creek

  Night of 30th January / Morning of 31st January 2012

  The Thane Creek, a part of the estuary of the Ulhas River, has the Thane City at the head of the creek and opens into the Mumbai Harbour. Home to the migratory flamingos, it is also notified by the Bombay Natural History Society as an important bird area. A six-lane carriageway across this creek connects the city of Mumbai to the Indian mainland at Vashi, also referred to as Navi Mumbai. This carriageway, built not too long ago, was thrown open to traffic in 1997.

  Adjacent to this six-lane carriageway was an old dilapidated three-lane bridge, which was commissioned in 1972. Within two years of being built, the bridge had started showing signs of stress. Cracks had appeared on the bottom of the pre-stressed girders. This led to the bridge being sparingly used and a new one being constructed. Today, the old bridge is bereft of vehicular traffic, has a pipeline running through it and is often used to shoot films and at times clandestinely, by drag bikers. The entire traffic to and from the island city of Mumbai now flows on the new Vashi bridge.

  Driving on the new Vashi bridge from Mumbai to Navi Mumbai can be an interesting experience—sandwiched between the old road bridge fifty metres to the left and the railway bridge a similar distance to the right—an astounding view of three mammoth piles of girder and concrete, built to withstand extremely volatile and corrosive environmental conditions that prevail in the creek.

  That night, Ramnath Balram Naik had gone fishing with three of his partners in the creek. It was a normal fishing boat with a small motor engine, which was enough to keep it going at a reasonable speed. Naik belonged to a fishing family from Panvel, where his family was one of a thousand others that depended on fishing and related businesses for livelihood. There was a time when he would fish in the Panvel creek, adjacent to the Thane creek, but of late, with the government announcing plans to build an international airport at Panvel, half of the creek where they used to carry out fishing activities had been levelled with sand, rendering it useless for fishing. They now had to go deep into the Thane creek to catch good quality crab, which they would then sell on the Panvel-Goa highway.

  Ramnath Naik, along with his team of three helpers, had left after an early dinner that evening. The fishing trawler crossed the railway bridge, then the new road bridge and finally the old dilapidated bridge before they entered the creek. The tide was low. It
was just about time for the tide to turn and water level to start rising. Naik knew that in a high tide situation, he would easily go past the rail bridge and the new road bridge but would struggle to go under the old road carriageway, which was significantly lower in level than the two newer ones. But he didn’t have to worry about that because he was crossing the bridge just as the tide was setting in. By midnight the tide would have risen to its maximum only to drop back by early morning, allowing him a window to cross the old carriageway safely on his way back.

  Around the same time that night Indrani was attending the panel discussion at Taj Lands End, about twenty kilometres from where Naik was leaving on his fishing jaunt. Financial sector reforms, microfinance ordinance, rising interest rates, new banking licenses, the finance minister spoke about all of these issues. For Indrani, this was an opportunity to show allegiance to the finance minister and consequently she applauded him the most. Secretly she harnessed dreams of a gubernatorial posting at some point in time, after drawing curtains on her banking career. Getting closer to the people in power would help.

  Sharing the table with her were the CEOs of some of the large private banks in the country. While the FM’s speech was on, one of them tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to her phone, lying face up on the satin cloth covering the round table. The screen was flashing; thankfully it was on silent mode. So engrossed was she in the proceedings that she hadn’t noticed it. She picked up the phone and brought it closer to her so that she could see who had called. Raymond’s name was flashing on the screen. She didn’t pick it up. Raymond tried calling her quite a few times. When the calls didn’t stop, she quietly lifted the phone from the table and dumped it into her handbag. She could do without any frivolous distractions. Her future depended on the person on stage—the Finance Minister.

  Once the event ended and she was in the safe confines of the back seat of her Mercedes, she took out her phone. There were quite a few missed calls and messages. The most missed calls were from two numbers. One was Raymond, who had called her some eleven times before giving up. The second was from a number she did not recognize. She had seven missed calls from the other number. She looked at her watch. The smaller hand of the watch was just about touching the twelve mark. Too late to return anyone’s call. She would do that the next morning.