by Laxmi Natraj
The still silence of the forest was broken suddenly by some strange mild noise which caught them unaware. They froze and stood very still holding their breath. After a few seconds they heard the same noise and this time they could hear it better and clear. Nakul said, “It is the sound of a cattle’s bell! It could mean that those goats which were missing from the village, are somewhere around. Here, just now.”
They waited to hear the sound again to assess the direction and then they slowly inched towards that direction. After five minutes they saw the goat. It had stretched itself comfortably on the ground and was in deep sleep. In between the sleep it was moving its head, due to some insect bite or something, which moved the bell and which made a soft jingling noise. They tiptoed and reached the sleeping goat.
Utkarsh bending down, put his hand around the goat and almost caught it when, the goat suddenly woke up. The frightened goat darted very fast into the forest. The bell in its neck now started jingling very loudly almost waking up the entire forest. Within a fraction of a second Nakul pulled out his gun and shot two arrows on the goat. The goat collapsed. They waited very still, waiting very anxiously to see if there was any movement in the forest. Seconds ticked on. One full minute was over and nothing stirred.
Feeling relieved Nakul gestured to Utkarsh, and both moved nearer the unconscious goat. Nakul knelt down and looked at the collar in which the bell was tied. He saw a square infrared camera attached to the top of the neck. With his hand gesture he told Utkarsh that it was a camera and the terrorist had tied the camera to the goat’s neck to keep a surveillance of the intruders. Then it dawned on him that this camera would have captured their image now! If this camera reaches the terrorist hands they will become alert.
Turning the collar around he patiently looked for the locking system with which the camera was attached to the collar. But he could not locate it. Utkarsh volunteered and kneeling besides him, he worked on the collar and removed the entire belt with the bell and camera attached. Nakul took the belt in his hand and removed only the bell and dropped it softly on the ground and the camera with its belt he stuffed in his pocket. They searched the body of the goat and extracted both the arrows from its body and safely put it in their backpack. He did not want to leave any tell- tale mark of their visit.
It was nearing four in the morning. They decided to move back. Retracing their path they came to the tree with the piece of cloth. Utkarsh carefully removed it from the branch. Together they walked back. As they got into the car it was nearing five. They quickly changed and started the car.
Chapter 57
The Red Alert
29th May night 2:30 a.m.
The group of five members sitting in the underground hideout started watching the monitors as usual. Number three of the group said in an agitated voice, “Boss the camera from goat No. 7 is not responding. It is blank”.
Now, all of them pooled near the monitor and the boss said, “Number three, tune the monitor properly. Due to heavy wind our antenna might have got disturbed. Tune properly.”
Everyone watched holding their breath as if the monitor projection was their life and death. Later one by one all of them tried tuning the monitor. But there was no signal. Now all their faces darkened and No. 1 said, “It is not the antenna problem. The camera itself seems to be lost. There is absolutely no recording.”
Number two said, “Sir, is it possible that there was someone in there, inside the forest who found out about the camera and then removed it?”
Dead silence prevailed, as everyone looked at the face of their boss for an answer. No. 1 repeatedly scanned all the monitors two to three times and said, “If there were any human movements any one of our other cameras would have captured the image. But there is absolutely no image in any of the monitors. Then the possibility is that by some chance the collar could have got loosened on its own, and slipped off from the neck of the goat. Nothing to worry”
The lady member asked, “Boss our D- date is almost reached. What will we do now?”
The boss looked at her steadily as his mind was racing .After few seconds he said, “If we don’t get any recording tomorrow also, we will plunge into action straight away. We will move into the forest for our final treasure hunt.”
The lady said, “But boss, all our needed equipment has not still come, we had asked for some more from our boss for the digging facilities. Then how can we go for the final action?”
Boss said, “Tomorrow I will go to the town and personally bring the needed equipment. We cannot wait here for them to deliver. Then it may be too late.”
Number two said, “Those irritating Government officers are still lingering, moving all around the village. We don’t know how long they are going to be there. How will you get the ammunition and how will you manage to hide them? The parcels containing all that equipment could be quite large. Is it not?”
Their boss gave one of his rare smiles and said, “Leave it to me, I can do it.”
All of them started watching the monitors once again. The boss said, “We are not able to spot the actual point of the treasure even now. But our camera has an added device, a powerful metal detector. Hence it could give us signal and help us to detect any metal even hidden deep below. This way we should have spotted the treasure by this time. The only solution left to us now would be the redistribution of our cameras once again tomorrow night.”
He started drawing on the floor with the chalk, marking the spots where they had already placed the cameras. They discussed about the new spots where they should keep the cameras.
The lady member checked her watch. It was 3 a.m. Acharyaji would be sleeping. She had one more hour at her hand.
The boss noticed her looking at her watch and said, “You can go, in case you want to. I would brief you tomorrow about our decision”.
She shook her head and said. “It is OK boss I can stay till 4 a.m. Don’t worry, the sleeping pills I had given Acharyaji will stay on till that time.” Their discussion continued.
Chapter 58
Secrets of the Camera
30th May, 10:30 a.m.
The ACP was too shocked by the information from the forest adventure. He said, “I will ask some technical experts from the Criminology department to come down and view this camera. But, getting one of the cameras is really a very good development.”
He telephoned the concerned department and said that it was very urgent and the specialist people should come immediately. Finishing this he started discussing with Nakul and Utkarsh asking them more and more questions to get the detailed report of the forest adventure.
Nakul and Utkarsh beamed like children. Very rarely did the seniors praised their juniors so openly. Nakul’s hair had started growing back fast and his hair now looked like a carpet. Accidentally, Nakul caught his own reflection in the glass cupboard kept behind the ACP and was happy that his hair growth was so good.
Two officers from the criminology department came in by ten minutes and all of them sat down for the most important operation of deciphering the recorded matter in the camera brought by them. The ACP gave the officers the miniature, quarter palm size cameras. Arpith, one of the intelligent officers of crime branch, took the camera in his hand and turned it all around, examining it externally and said, “Sir, this camera is very modern and has just been invented by the Japanese, and is available only in the US. Its screen is very powerful and this can auto adjust itself to take a picture of even a group of twenty people with a crystal clear resolution. When the camera spots movements, it will automatically go into long shot mode, and can capture video even from 10 to 15 meters away. It is an infrared one so naturally it can record in total darkness. This camera records audio too, with cent per cent clarity.”
The ACP said, “Arpith, my boys got this camera from the hands of suspected criminals. They may be terrorists, arms dealers or dacoits looking for some treasure. If you are saying that this camera is high tech, costly and not available in India, it definitely proves
that these men have contacts at high place. OK, let us screen the camera and see what is captured in that.”
Arpith connected the special camera to the PC monitor. Images of plants and trees started and they jumped on the screen because of the movement of the goats. They kept fast forwarding and after ten minutes they froze the image. There could now hear human voices clearly. The men were not visible as the goat could have remained far away from them. But, their conversation voice was heard, distinct and clear. They moved the image frame by frame carefully scanning every image now. After some time the camera became stable, possibly because the goat decided to lie down. Then from the ground level view, they saw the men. About six or seven of them were moving around.
The ACP’s blood boiled. He burst out, “Surely they are Pakistani terrorists. Look at their guts. They have percolated so far inside our country, and are now hiding in the forest and may be engaged in preparing bombs or into arms dealing.”
Nakul said, “We had taken this camera from a very deep part of the forest. Hence few of them are hiding in this place where no one visits. Few of these people are the ones I spotted in various parts of the village. We should pass on this message to our anti-terrorist office Sir. At least now they will believe us.”
Arpith said, “Sir there is one more special function available in this camera. It can record metals under the soil for up to 200 meters. So we can see that recording also.” As the ACP nodded his head, the other officer connected another special battery like tiny rectangle between the camera and the PC. He turned to the officers and said, “Sir all the sounds recorded will be converted into light vibration. So we can see if there was any metal or something below the ground level.”
The ACP said, “Of course, one of our assumptions was that they were looking for some hidden treasure. Since they knew that the camera can capture them, they carefully avoided coming in its field. The scene we saw must be accidental. Maybe they did not expect most intelligent officer like our Nakul to come to centre of the forest and steal their camera.”
The camera was switched on from the beginning once again, this time to check the audio for metal detection. The machine was silent showing a straight line on the monitor. When they came to the same point where men were visible, the monitor showed a high pitch of vibration. It continued till the goat stayed in that point. Then it went back to the straight line. Reaching the end of recording the camera showed Nakul and Utkarsh in black uniform looking down into the camera. The image jerked as the goat jumped. There was no more sound or picture.
All of them sat very still watching the ACP’s face for orders.
Chapter 59
Emergency meetings
30th Night, 11:00 p.m.
Back in the village every member of the group came rushing down, panting for breath, as they were ordered to assemble at a short notice. It was nearing sunset.
The boss showed them the monitor where the metal detector started showing maddening vibration. The Boss said, “Now we know where the treasure is. From our records in the camera, this point is deep in the centre but is towards the town. So today, right at 10P.M sharp, we will start our final operation. You all come here, get equipped and then we will move.”
One man from group said, “Sir you said that you will get the special needed things from the town and….”
The leader said, “Do you know why I brought a lorry full of carpentry wood materials from the town yesterday?”
As everyone remained silent he continued, “I had all the equipment we needed, hidden between the wooden boards and beams. They are here already. Now you can go back and report back at ten thirty sharp.”
The meeting was over and members dispersed.
Chapter 60
Nakul’s Obsession
Having watched the video recorded in the camera a sudden deadly silence descended over the group. As the realization of the truth struck all of them like thunder bolt on their face, even in the highly cooled AC room, all of them started sweating and their mouth went dry. The gravity of the lurking danger to our country, crouching coolly ready to attack at any moment at such close quarters left them breathless. Every one’s mind was racing in different directions.
The ACP was fuming angrily. He hissed through clenched teeth, “The anti-terrorist department did not even bother to do a preliminary enquiry or investigation about the village. They just brushed us off so easily as if we were a set of fools making up stories. If they had acted ten days back itself they could have rounded off the terrorists by this time. Thankfully nothing major has happened so far.”
Nakul was thinking in his heart on another angle. He thought, “I have come this far in this case. I hope the ACP is not going to snatch the case from me at this stage. I should at least, have one more chance to go to that spot and see the actual spot where they were hiding and find out about their motive. ”
The two officers who had helped the projection and analysis of the camera image waited patiently for further orders.
The ACP finally cleared his throat and said, “So Nakul and Utkarsh, you two have done wonderful work together. But now, our job comes to an end here. We will hand over the camera and the report and other evidences we have collected from the underground hideout of the school, to the anti-terrorist office for further action.”
Nakul said, “Sir, but I have just one request, Sir that ....”
The ACP cut him half way through and said in a firm voice, “Nakul, there is no question of but here. They are possibly terrorists and we are neither trained nor equipped to deal with them. Secondly, that is not our department’s jurisdiction nor should we exceed our department rules. It was just a coincidence that we happened to stumble on this result. But we cannot stretch our luck beyond this.”
Nakul said, “Sir, please give me a chance to complete what I want to say.”
The ACP said in an exasperated voice, “Ok, go ahead. Let me hear what you want to mention.”
Nakul said, “Sir, only Utkarsh and me went to this spot and now we know that the terrorists are taking shelter around this point. If we handed over the case to the anti-terrorist squad, they have to spend a good amount of their time searching in the forest for this spot. By that time the terrorists may get alerted or even may attack our men, as they have the advantage of being already there and they can spot the incoming men easily. We may lose our precious soldiers.
My request is that allow me to go just only one last time inside the forest. First, I know the exact location and then, without the knowledge of the terrorists, I would do some marking of the spot or record this spot in my cell phone, and thus record the actual latitude and longitude of the spot. Later if we hand over the case to our rapid action squad, they can exactly reach the spot on the dot, and then capture the terrorists”. He finished his long speech and waited eagerly like a school boy waiting for some examination result.
The ACP hesitated. He then consulted the two officers. Together they had some serious discussions. The officers also felt, that since Nakul had taken so much pain to reach the forest, he could be given the chance to pinpoint the location. Then the officers suggested that Nakul could carry the same infra camera with him. The camera had a special program which was not activated so far. If it is activated it could automatically record the actual location of latitude and longitude of the spot. Hence the next team will have the added facility to just directly go to the point where the terrorists were hiding inside the rat holes.
The ACP thought heart in heart, “If the Anti-terrorist squad had ignored us for this much time, one more day won’t make much of difference. Nakul deserves a chance.”
Finally, with a lot of advice, Nakul and Utkarsh were allowed to enter the forest a second time. All the needed things like the black uniform and this time more advanced real automatic rifles, along with their regular guns and plus the most advanced camera were all promised to be provided to them in the evening before they started their pursuit in the forest.
Nakul and Utkarsh sa
luted their boss and happily left the room. The ACP started telephoning the department for the rifles and needed ammunition.
Chapter 61
A Deadly Mission
31st May night 11:00 p.m.
At 10:30 p.m. in the night Nakul and Utkarsh parked their car at the slope close to the forest where they had parked earlier. They were already dressed completely in black and a face mask of black cloth and had their modern weapons inside their back packs and the machine gun slung across their shoulders. Extra guns and knives were hidden in their socks. They started moving towards the East using their magnetic compass. The forest was very still and only the nocturnal small animals’ movements were there. Since they had come there already once, they were able to walk better on the slippery path filled with green growth and the creepers. They walked for two hours and reached the pre- planned point.
From this point they had to turn and move in north direction like last time. They stopped. Utkarsh asked Nakul by gesture, whether they should tie a mark on the tree like last time. Nakul was just about to answer when…….
Suddenly without any warning it happened!
Nakul vaguely felt a movement behind him. Even before he could bat an eyelid, like lightening, two pairs of iron hands gripped him tightly from the back. At the same time his eyes were blindfolded by one pair of hands and someone else stuffed a big cloth bundle in his mouth. He was being held so tight and hard by two very strong persons, that he could not even move a cell of his body. From the shuffling noise near him, he gathered that Utkarsh was also being subjected to the same treatment.
