Spy Story 5: The Cyst

[Dilbu]

Was waiting for this update. Nokkatte.

[Sachin]

The process of making an FIR at the murder scene was no way as glamourous as one sees in the movies. It is a horrible experience.

Saar, I guess this is not FIR which they prepare. It is known as "Inquest", and guess the document is known as "Scene Mahazzar" ('മഹസ്സർ തയ്യാറാക്കി, ശവശരീരം പോസ്റ്റ്മാർട്ടത്തിനയച്ചു' is what the media generally reports). But where neatly put, as some one who have seen (or rather chanced to see) this procedure in close quarters, it is not very pleasant.

He was left to answer the questions, and narrate the story again and again, whenever a new ‘important’ person arrived.

There is a Telugu proverb (Reddoche Modalade.. ??) which explains this scenario well.

Keep going...

[chaanakya]

Inquest is conducted on a dead body by a magistrate under CrPC. This would record vital details , position of body, marks of injury on the body , time of noticing the dead body etc. Its non invasive. Statement of persons are recorded. Though Police may not always call Magistrate for Inquest. Generally Custodial deaths, encounters, dowry deaths it is a must.

Postmortem is conducted by a Doctor after inquest. Its invasive. Its must in all cases of deaths where unnatural death is suspected.

Crime Scene Report is prepared by IO and is called Mahazar ( log of Scrime Scene) a Urdu word coming down from Mughal India.

FIR is first Information report filed by some person or By Police IO suo moto. It could be a named one with names of accused mentioned and with IPC provisions mentioned . or against unknown persons. Names could be inserted by way of supplementary FIRs at various stages of Investigations/ It can be revised at any stage or there could be supplementary FIRs as well

Charge Sheet is what Judicial magistrate fixes on the basis of evidence and other documents ,statements of witnesses, GD of IO and commits the case to a Trail Court ( Sessions Court)/ Chargesheet could be revised even when case is undegoing trial. Trail Judge can add new charges or delete some.

And yes Inquest is not at all pleasant.

[chaanakya]

“He bit into that pendant” Ajith paused, looking at the reaction of Ajish. “It was cyanide!”

Ajish was too tired to be surprised.

ohh L tt E ???

[Dileep]

What I had in mind was "mahassar", which is the word used in malayalam, but due to complete ignorance of police terminology, used FIR. Post updated.

Maybe I could consult you on such things offline, chaanakya? (though I try to avoid describing police and military stuff because of lack of domain knowledge)

[Sachin]

Though Police may not always call Magistrate for Inquest. Generally Custodial deaths, encounters, dowry deaths it is a must.

In Kerala, Inquest is pretty much done by the police officers (mainly Sub-Inspectors). Magisterial inquest is a rarity, and only in case of death in police lockup or jails. There also exist another rule from the British era that inquests are only to be done during day light hours. Artificial lighting is not allowed. So in case an un-natural death gets reported in the evening, a police man is posted on "deadbody bandobust" for the night.

[Dileep]

Chapter 27

Just like any other sensational story, the media celebrated the marine accident, where a fishing boat collided with an unidentified ship at the deep seas. That did one good thing. It gave a shot in the arm for the normally lethargic Mercantile Marine department, which had to forego their normal laid back attitude and get to work trying to identify the ship.

The sea close to the Malabar cost is a very busy one. Shipping between the two sides of the subcontinent always stayed close to the land. The very busy shipping corridor between Colombo and the Arabian Gulf used to go straight, but as the piracy incidents increased at the African cost, they too started going closer to shore to further north. This also gave them opportunity to use the land based wireless telephone and broadband from the Indian telecommunication providers. Even a roaming account on an Indian provider would be way cheaper than the ‘arm and leg’ charged by the Inmarsat system.

But that became a problem for the fisherfolk who ventured to the deep seas for their livelihood. They didn’t mind a few ships crossing their paths, but a continuous stream of huge container and oil ships definitely did affect them. Especially if you are using the gillnets, which made you stay at one location. If a ship comes at directly you, the only recourse you have is to abandon your net and flee.

When an incident happens at the sea, the coast guard is often the first responders. These brave men and their fine ships work tirelessly to protect the coast and the valuable resources thereof, as well as assist and rescue the seafarers in distress. In the recent incident also, the call had gone out for their help as soon as the fisherfolk could get in range of a cell tower. Two ships were immediately deployed in rescues mission, but they will have to wait for dawn to send out the air wing for a faster and wider search.

Even though enforcement of maritime law is included in the jurisdiction of the coast guard, accidents such at this are the responsibility of the Mercantile Marine department. It took several calls, and some high level political intervention to make them get to some action to trace the culprits. They alone keep track of the merchant traffic in the Indian waters, and it would be their responsibility to get a list of the ships that were in the vicinity of the accident at that time. Of course, it would be the responsibility of the coast guard to do the actual search operations, if any.

In India, the responsibility of tracking ships lie with the Directorate of Lighthouses and Lightships. Though the Automatic Identification system for ships is being used, the coverage is limited to the vicinity of major ports. A lot of the coast remains uncovered by AIS, so real time tracking of ships is not possible. Of course, satellite based AIS service is available from various agencies, but those too are limited in use. In reality, it would be very difficult to track a ship in the high seas and establish its position.

From the statements of the witnesses of the incident, it was clear that the ship was sailing in from the south. Also, based on the vague description from Francis, it was likely to be a medium sized bulk carrier. That was all the information, along with the time and coordinates of the incident, which could be used to look for the ship. Some smart officers of the state police had, in fact tried to get information from the various commercial tracking organizations, but unfortunately, their networks did not cover the Malabar cost. So, it was back to the MMD to provide guidance, and they were taking their sweet time to do anything.

While the media was making a lot of noises, and the politicians in the state trying to make the most mileage, the coast guard ships and aircraft combed the area for several hours. But it was a foregone conclusion that the likelihood of a rescue was very remote. The teams were eventually called back to port, and everyone started to think of moving on.

Everyone, but for the venerable leader of opposition in the state.

The grand old man always made it a point to jump right into any issue, and manipulate it into a stick to attack the government, or as opportunity provides, even to the leaders of his own party. Here too, he started off by visiting the bereaved family of the boat owner. He made his usual impromptu press meet in front of the house itself, blasting the state and central government, which conveniently led by the same national party, for total ineptness in handling the situation. He was sure that it was a foreign ship that trespassed into the coast of the country that killed the innocent fishermen, and the governments, state and central, were not doing anything. Someone from the crowd of journalists tried to ask the man about a similar incident that happened while he himself was chief minister, but the old man sidestepped that issue, by making a pleading call to the navy to intervene.

The same evening, the DGP appeared on the news, refuting the allegations by the leader. The MMD had, in fact, provided a list of six vessels that was known to be in the vicinity of the accident. “Now all we need to do is to go and check them at the sea” Sunil Jacob IPS said with a grin. He was so good at playing the top cop in front of the TV cameras.

The usual hecklers in media rose and demanded to know how the state marine police were going to do the search? Would he call the Navy for help? Evidently, the police don’t have capability to do the search at the deep sea. The marine police had only a few boats. Slow crafts which are in fact modified fishing boats purchased from the lowest bidder. Like any government asset that see infrequent use, these too were in bad repair, and mostly unserviceable.

The fact of the matter was, the information was brand new, and no thought had gone into the issue of the actual search. The DGP was not sure about the modalities need to be followed. It was something new and unfamiliar for him as well as for his department. He thought on his feet and putting up the best face, declared. “Yes, we are going to request Navy help.”

In all these, everyone seemed to forget the plight of the three crew members of the fishing boat Maria Theresa who disappeared along with its owner. There was no information available even about their relatives, so that the police could inform them. No TV channel bothered to even put up information about them so that someone could come forward identifying them.

The entire attention of the media went after identifying the ship that conducted this nefarious act. Enthusiastic reporters combed the internet for tidbits about marine case laws, and experts popped up like mushrooms giving authoritative discourses on how the ship would be taken to task.

The next day dawned with some fodder for the channels. Five of the six ships were located, sailing on their steady courses. No signs of any accident upon them. Their AIS track was recovered, and they were all clearly far away from the accident location.

By the principle of elimination, the media concluded that the remaining ship, which was the M V Alor Gajah from Penang, who was the culprit. Some even went as far as listing the past voyages and a file photo of the ship on their news program. The ship flying Malaysian flag was a bulk carrier, charted to carry palm cake from Kuantan to Bandar Abbas.

But the coast guard had no clue where that ship was. There was no trace of its AIS transponder after it left the Colombo tracking region. The satellite based AIS had stopped tracing it even before that. The owner of the ship, M/s Haji Ibrahim Sdn Bhd of Penang, claimed no knowledge of anything. The ship was bound to the port of Bandar Abbas, and they expected information only after that. There was no system of shortwave communication for that shipper.

The vessel could be anywhere in the thousands of square kilometer of the Arabian Sea. Some sane brains even thought of the futility of any search. The consensus of the various maritime agencies was to notify the owner of the ship, and also post notices to all ports in the region. It is a sailing vessel, and it need to come to some port eventually, where it could be apprehended.

[chaanakya]

Though Police may not always call Magistrate for Inquest. Generally Custodial deaths, encounters, dowry deaths it is a must.

In Kerala, Inquest is pretty much done by the police officers (mainly Sub-Inspectors). Magisterial inquest is a rarity, and only in case of death in police lockup or jails. There also exist another rule from the British era that inquests are only to be done during day light hours. Artificial lighting is not allowed. So in case an un-natural death gets reported in the evening, a police man is posted on "deadbody bandobust" for the night.

Well you are right

nquest: is the legal or judicial inquiry to ascertain matter or fact. (Cr.P.C. 174)It is the investigation into the cause of death. It is conducted in cases of murder, suicide,accidents and suspicious deaths.

1) Police inquest: done by the Officer-in-charge of the police station (S.174, Cr.P.C).
Medico-legal autopsy is ordinarily done on requisition of the sub-inspector of police. The inquest report is signed by the police officer and two witnesses.

2) Coroner‘s inquest: in Bombay till 1999. Coroner‘s court is a court of enquiry and not of
trial.
3) Magistrate‘s inquest: done by an Executive Magistrate (Collector, Deputy collector,Tahsildar, etc) in cases of death in police custody, death due to police firing, death in prison,dowry death & exhumation (S.176, Cr.P.C).

Dileep your writings are realistic and you are doing a great job of descibing the scene and building up the suspense. I dont think I can enlighten you any more than you already are. These little things are our way of saying that we are reading your story with good attention.

[Dileep]

Chapter 28

The newspapers surprised the Kurup brothers to no extent, though it was not unexpected.

The coverage of the bizarre event at their residence was exhaustive, with lots of detailed descriptions of the event. Most of which, however, was revelations even to Ajish, who took active part in it. For the first time, he realized how much of the so called news is actually fiction.

But the media missed one important point. No one mentioned that the assailant, in fact, committed suicide by biting into a cyanide capsule.

Of course, DySP Ajith Kumar, the officer who leads the investigation team for the recent events, had given them strict instructions not to talk about it to anybody. Ajish was even a bit pissed as the officer, in contrast to the normal affable manner, went to some amount of official arrogance to drill the point home. Ajish was the only civilian who knew about it. Of course, the forensic surgeon who did the autopsy would know too.

He failed to grasp the significance of that injunction. He told so to Anish, at the breakfast table. Anish was just fine by the morning, despite the harrowing ordeal. He just had a puncture to his abdominal wall, which it sutured up, and he was sent home by the end of the day. The brothers joined up for a chat, as breakfast was served for the patient. Ajish offered to feed his brother, but Anish felt perfectly fine to eat himself.

Anish’s face turned white, and he stopped eating when the news of the cyanide capsule was broken.

“What do you mean, Cyanide?” He asked incredulously.

“Yes, bro. The guy bit into the ‘urukku’ tied to his neck. Ajith sir told me it was cyanide.” Ajish could not understand why his brother is upset, but there must be a sound reason. His brother, after all, was a commando, and did not get excited un necessarily.

“And Ajith sir asked you to keep it a secret.” Anish muttered, half to himself. Ajish nodded in affirmative.

“Did he say anything else?”

“Not really.” Ajish said, not too certain. He continued after thinking for a few moments. “He just asked me to tell you also.”

“And there is no news of it on TV or papers.” Anish asked.

“Nothing.” Ajish confirmed. “I watched everything on TV last evening, and there is no imention.”

“But the autopsy must reveal it.”

“Well, what came in the news reports were that analysis is ongoing to ascertain the cause of death. No details came out.” Ajish said. He was feeling a bit uncomfortable about the aloofness his brother had suddenly fell into.

“I am concerned if they will slap a murder case on us” Ajish said, pretending to be light hearted, but in reality, he was dead serious. He was so tense after the event, that even the injury to his brother did go under priority a bit.

“What did you say?” Anish woke up from the reverie with a jolt. Ajish repeated his statement.

“Are you crazy?” The big brother laughed. “Haven’t you heard of the self defense motive? He almost killed me, remember?”

“Then why do the police want to hide the suicide angle?” Ajish opened up with his concern. He didn’t like being put down so by his brother. “I think they want to implicate us. This all feels like a big conspiracy to me”.

Anish smiled. The kid brother was always like this. Looking for the worst outcome.

“Don’t worry, kid, If they make a case like that, I myself can appear and dismantle it in court. Don’t even need a lawyer”. He said, with a pat on the arm of his brother.

“Still, it doesn’t fit at all.” Ajish complained.

“Oh, I think it does.” Anish said, as he went back to his breakfast.

“In what way?” Ajish insisted. “You get into an accident which looks extremely like a setup, and later someone breaks in into our home to kill you. Then again, when caught, he commits suicide in a bizarre way”. How do you explain it all? He looked questioningly at the face of his brother, which was rather calm, as he enjoyed the nice fluffy iddlies.

“Let me ask you.” Anish said after he gulped down the tea. “How many quotation gangs in the world carry a cyanide capsule on their neck?”

“No one, I think” Ajish said, after spending a long moment looking at the face of the questioner for clues.

“Do you know who does?” Anish continued the session.

“I don’t know. You are the commando guy, you tell me.” Ajish said, faking some irritation. “Maybe maoist guerrillas” He said after a moment of consideration.

“The point, kiddo, is that, someone who does that, do it for a very strong cause for which he fights.” Anish said, getting back the serious air. “Yes, some of the Maoists do use that tactics.”

“The terrorists used to do that, don’t they?” Ajish asked. His brother had served abroad fighting terrorism for some time during his NSG days. It was a covert operation, and Anish never disclosed it to his brother. But someone else eventually did.

“I think it was them who made it mainstream” Anish agreed, surprised a bit by the observation by Ajish. “It is more of a motivation tool. It shows that the cause for which you fight is above everything else”

“But what cause is there in attacking you?” Ajish asked impatiently. “You aren’t even a land lord, or holds any office of importance.”

“You are absolutely right.” Anish said, going back to his thoughts again.

“Then? I don’t think there are Maoists around here, at least not in the suburbs” Ajish was once again feeling irritated.

“Think! What would make a highly organized.., organized enough to wear cyanide capsules.., to attack a nobody like me?” Anish said, half to himself.

“Maybe enemies from your commando days” Ajish ventured. “Had you seriously pissed off some terrorist guys during your stay there?” It was asked lightheartedly, but there was a suspicion of truth in that.

“In that case, there are at least fifteen officers who must be killed before my turn comes up.” Anish laughed. “Anyway, that organization is eradicated now. They do not exist.” He said with an emphasis, with an air of satisfaction. Ajish felt it obvious that his brother felt some hate against them.

A few moments passed in silence, as the men wandered around in their own thoughts.

“Have you worked on any project that could go against the Maoists?” Ajish broke the silence. He knew that his brother had executed projects in the mining belt of central India, and the Maoists form one of the risks there, which would form part of the responsibility of his brother to manage.

“Why should they come after me, the consultant, when they can very well shoot the company officials there?” Anish asked a bit irritated, as his like of thought is broken.

“So, you are saying, the attack was not personal.” Ajish asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Then?”

“Don’t you remember what else happened at the accident?” Anish asked with a twinkle in his eyes

“Err.. A prisoner escaped.” Ajish said, uncertain of himself.

“Remember what the police said. There were accomplices who fought the police and helped the prisoner to escape.”

Ajish nodded in agreement. He started to realize what his brother is trying to imply.

The brothers looked at each other, with a deeper understanding.

“No wonder the police didn’t want to publicize the cyanide” Anish said finally, as Ajish rose to collect the plates.

Later that day, a motor cycle came to their place. A young man got down, picked up a heavy bag from the pillion seat and walked up to the front porch. Ajish came out to receive him.

“I am Arjun” The man said. “I hope DySP sir called and informed you.” Ajish nodded and invited him in.

The maid showed her face enquiringly from the hall.

“Chechi, This is the policeman sent by the DySP for our security.” He told her. “Tea?” He asked the young man, who had dropped the bag on the floor and started looking around critically.

“Coffee, if you please.” Arjun Rai was always a coffee drinker. He didn’t expect his favourite flavour here, but anything with a dash of caffeine was the need of the hour after a very long motor cycle ride.

[Dileep]

Chapter 29

Ajish Kurup, and to tell the truth, everyone except his brother in his household, was a bit reserved about the new addition to the household. The old adage of “it is not good to be either a friend or an enemy of a cop” was well known. What normally happened was a total disruption of ones life if they become unfortunate to be under protection of police. That is, if you are not above them in the rungs of power.

From the onset, Ajish found the new guy to be likeable. He was good looking, and was remarkably well cultured. He spoke Malayalam well, despite a slight accent from the deep north of the state. Apparently he spoke English well, as a few sentences and interjections showed. He also knew his job well, as indicated by the methodical way he went about the place, evaluating the needs for security. Maybe a bit over enthusiastic, because often Ajish felt that he was acting like a detective than a security detail.

The local police had already established that the assailants snuck inside the house by opening a door leading to the open terrace from the attic. That door was not particularly strong or anything. It was just a wooden frame and a wooden paneled shutter, protected by a single tower bolt. The frame was cut away using some kind of cutting tool to loosen the catch of the bolt. Ajish had straightaway called the local carpenter to fix a bar and a dead bolt to the door, which was executed under priority.

By the time night fell, Arjun had made a list of security measures that he would like implemented. It was only after having a briefing session with the brothers that he even considered the matter of his accommodation. Though the bedroom upstairs was offered, he demanded that he take the room close to the protectee. That was an obvious requirement. But what was not obvious to Ajish was the way he did the briefing. Maybe the new generation cops are like this, he told his brother. Anish just smiled. He too was impressed by the young man, especially as he showed an unexpected way of reverence to the ex soldier.

But that did not prepare Anish for the surprise the next day, when his brother asked him to fetch Arjun to his room. Ajish found the man sitting in front of a laptop in the adjacent room. Arjun closed the laptop as soon as Ajish approached, turned his face and smiled. Ajish noticed a cloud of confusion pass through the expressive eyes when he passed on the message that the protectee want to see him.

Both men walked into the other room, and Arjun was promptly invited to sit down beside the sick bed. The laptop was open on the gantry, and Anish was sitting in a comfortable angled position facing it.

“Sit down somewhere so that you can see the screen. I have a presentation to make.” He told Arjun with a smile.

“You want me to stay?” Ajish asked. Somehow, he got a feeling that his brother didn’t want him there. Anish thought for a moment.

“Hell! Why not!” He exclaimed, and waved his brother to sit down too. Anish obliged.

A few pictures of Angu Thevan, the notorious man currently at-large, came on the screen. Arjun looked on with renewed interest.

“You might know that I am professionally a risk management consultant.” Anish began. Arjun nodded, with a naughty smile playing on his lips. Anish didn’t notice it, as from his position, it was difficult to observe the face of the man looking over his shoulder. “It surprises me that I seem to be under a lot of “risk” right now, so, even though I am bedridden, I thought of doing some analysis on the situation.” He continued, getting into the presentation.

Arjun nodded. Ajish looked on with piqued interest.

“Not that I want to second guess the official force or anything.” Anish added hastily. It would be anyone’s guess that no investigator would like an outsider to mess with his stuff.

“Oh, that is quite alright, Sir.” Arjun said. “A fresh pair of eyes, and an excellent brain behind them would definitely help a lot.”

Anish didn’t reply. He started a presentation on the laptop.

“First of all, I am going to show you a number of data points. With your indulgence, we will then come to the analysis part later.” He began while a set of photographs of Angu Thevan, the prisoner who made his escape from the accident site, came on the screen. All of them were from the media, taken during his arrest and subsequent court appearances. There were still photos, both by the proessional cameras of the newsmen, as well as some amateur ones by the citizen journalists, which would be pretty much everyone who carry a camera phone these days.

Video clippings related to the case, newspaper reports, online articles, etc followed. It also included the investigative report from John Mathai, about the visit to the village, as well as the reports from Mumbai about the lawyer. He also showed the gruesome photo of the dead assailant that one of the papers dared to publish.

“What do you make of it?” Anish turned around with a bit of difficulty to face Arjun and asked, after the data points were finished.

Arjun didn’t respond. He just looked at Anish’s face with a sly smile.

“What do you think, bro?” Question came to Ajish.

“Well, it is obvious that that Angu guy is somehow a very important person to someone.” Ajish said sheepishly. “A number of people show up just to save him from the law. I mean, who sent that five star lawyer to argue his case?”

“That is a given.” Anish said. “It is also a given that, those people planned and executed an elaborate heist to get him free. See what that did to poor me?” He smiled and turned to look at Arjun. He nodded, deep in thought.

“Now, why should they try to kill me?” Anish asked in an even tone. “Because I am the only eyewitness?”

“It must be.” Ajish said. “They don’t know what all you saw. Remember, they also went after the video you took. They seriously didn’t want that to get out.”

“That reminds me.” Anish said a bit regretfully. The whole episode of the missing and stolen phones, and the lawyer threatening Ajish about it had missed out in his data collection. “I need to ask the DySP about their efforts to retrieve those phones.” He said as a note to self.

“No luck there.” Arjun broke silence. “There is nothing”.

Anish turned back to him with a smile.

“What do you mean by nothing? You didn’t get the phone, or there was nothing inside the phone?”

Arjun paused for an uneasy moment. “That is what I heard from the team.” He said eventually, averting Anish’s gaze. Anish did not press him.

“So, it can be confidently said that the guy is a big shot for someone, and there are a lot of people and money behind him. Now, there are two questions.” He paused.

“One, who are they? Two, Where did they take that Angu guy?”

The younger men kept silent.

“What we know for sure are;” Anish brought up a bullet list on screen. “One, they are Tamils. Two, they wield a lot of resources. Three, they carry cyanide capsules on their person.”

Arjun stirred in discomfort.

“What my inference is..” Anish said in a grave tone. “we have the remnants of certain terrorist organization at play.” He turned and looked at Arjun. For the first time, the cop looked extremely uncomfortable, and visibly averted the eyes.

“What do you think, Mr. Arjun” Anish asked with a smile that was almost wicked.

“I don’t know.” Arjun looked at him once again, now somewhat recovered and with calm eyes. “Why do you ask me?”

“Because, my dear friend, I KNOW you are not really a cop, and I GUESS you are here because whoever sent you, agrees to what I said right now.”

Ajish almost jumped out of the chair in surprise. Arjun kept quiet and non committal.

“That is OK.” Anish laughed. “You didn’t hear, and I didn’t say, if that is alright.”

“Is that all, Sir?” Arjun asked nonchalantly.

“No, there is more, now that I got your proper attention.” Anish opened another presentation. It showed the news on the accident at sea that involved a ship colliding with a boat.

The next five minutes went somewhat similar to the first part of the previous presentation, with various data points. The analysis followed, this time ending with more of speculation than conviction.

“Can I have a copy of that one?” Arjun asked as the analysis had ended. “I would like to send this to my superiors.”

“So..” Anish said with visible satisfaction. “You guys hadn’t figured this angle yet?”

Arjun Rai just smiled sheepishly as the presentation was promptly copied to a pen drive and handed over.

The missing link would launch yet another “needle in haystack” kind of search that would span the globe.

End of part 1

[Manish_Sharma]

^Hari Om Tat Sat !

[kulhari]

5223

[Dileep]

Well folks, it had been a longer than usual build up. Now, there is going to be a brief gap while I accumulate enough buffer for the concluding half. Meanwhile, reading the volume once again from end-to-end might get you better insight into what might be going on.

See you all here back in a few days.

[chaanakya]

Geart piece of writing. Thanks . Buildup is extraordinary.

Lets go globetrotting.

[Rahul M]

excellent build up.

[ramana]

So mean time we can consolidate the story in this thread and leave the comments in another thread if that is OK with Dileep.

[jamwal]

Looks like games between LTTE and IB, RAW
What is 5223 ?

[BajKhedawal]

Other than Malaysia we might get to visit Norway and eavesdrop on Ambassador Jon Westborg

[Dilbu]

Waiting for the next episode.

[kulhari]

5 2 2 3
E T T L
5 (2+0) (2+0) (1+2)

*just a joke

[Dileep]

Disclaimer

This story is a work of fiction. The fundamental premise of the Spy Story series is to explore and speculate on the various ways the enemies could try to harm my country. It is an attempt to fictionally answer the "what if" and "could they" questions.

This story is inspired by various events that happened in the past. Observant readers could easily find the relationships with the events. If any reader find a problem with or are offended by any part of this work of fiction, they could post here or contact the moderators, before (for example) filing a defamation suit or planting a bomb under my car. The grievance will be given due and proper attention.

[Dileep]

Part 2

Chapter 30

“Are you really sure that we don’t have any records on these?” asked a visibly upset Dharmendra Renaweera. His eyes pierced into the man sitting across the huge rosewood desk. Even though one of them were fake, and both were shaded by the best pair of eyewear money can buy, Jinendra Renaweera, the younger cousin of the president, could feel the heat emanating from them. He was considered the second most powerful man in the country by everyone else in the power circle, but in front of the man who was his president, supremo of his party and the head of their family business empire, he always felt intimidated like everyone else. The Deputy Minister may be a panther on his own account, but he was more like a cat in front of Dharmendra who was the tiger.

In the nation that was just getting rebuilt from a devastating civil war, the iron fisted rule of the one-eyed strong man was accepted as a necessary evil by the world community. It was more of a sign of resignation than acceptance. After all, the so called leaders of the world had been constantly advising him to show restraint, which was not accorded even the value of the bytes that carried them. He led the country, that is the majority faction he represented, and some of the minority who had enough of the separatist violence, through difficult times, resulting in total decapitation of the separatists and establishment of peace. Dharmendra stood on the victory podium, and all the world could do was to applaud.

After he won the brutal war that had taken away more than one of his eyes, president Dharmendra appeared to be transforming himself into a benevolent leader, hard at work rebuilding the war ravaged land and more importantly, the broken minds of his people, which had been kept divided for long. Jinendra, who was the highly visible right hand man of the president during the war, promptly went out of predominance in the eyes of the public. Many even speculated that he was being reprimanded for his not so impressive record of human rights violations during the war. It is true that Jinendra took a lot of flak, in fact all of it, about the wartime actions, saving his leader from direct blame. This was one of the strategies devised by the administration to promote the good feeling needed for the re-building of the nation. But the fact of the matter was, Jinendra was charged with the vital responsibility of preventing the seeds of the divisive forces from taking root again.

He was the intelligence czar of the nation, reporting directly to the president, and he was now sitting like a school kid who failed the answer of a question. The president always demanded to be fully involved in any issue related to the separatist factions, and Jinendra knew that the leader had his own intelligence apparatus isolated from his official machinery. He wasn’t exactly happy about it, but that is the way it was. Dharmendra was the boss, and he could, and did what he liked.

It was a couple of days ago that he got a demi-official query from his counterparts of the bigger neighbour about some possible signs of the remnants of the dead evil being surfaced in their domain. It was long ago, much before the decisive war begun, agreed between the nations that this is a common enemy to both, and every kind of assistance would be provided by either side to help contain or even eliminate it. It did work reasonably well, despite a lot of political circus that had to be played for public consumption, and it was considered an unspoken truth that the evil is dead. So, the memo was a surprise for the administration.

Jinendra felt himself falling into denial mode. How can it be? All the countries that held any constituency to help the bad guys had cracked down on them heavily. After the leadership were eliminated, and the safe havens of the back-up cadre were all busted up, there was nothing left of significance. Anyone who could remotely incite the flames again was incarcerated. Many under the legal system, and some, who could not be subject to a public trial for various reasons, were put under a secret detention system. There maybe sympathizers out there in the open, but they are left without any chance or resources to re-group and play any tricks. Any visible action from anyone would be promptly and immediately nipped in the bud.

This was supposed to be the agreed strategy by all the nations involved. The efforts are even being covertly verified by the agents all around. He himself handled the operations in the bigger neighbour, given that they held the most chance of an insurrection outside his home country.

There was no sign yet. No warning. Not even a hint, till the query came in. It must well be a red herring.

Those guys have enough problems of their own. It is natural for a huge country that was home to more than one sixth of the worlds population, consisting of many languages, cultures and economic levels. There is lots of unrest going around at various regions of that nation. In fact, the end of the problem here would have helped them a lot, removing one major irritant from their plate. Of course, they were glad that it did, and they did provide all help and support any good neighbour should be doing.

They might have done it in earnest, but Jinendra felt they are barking up the wrong tree. They have no dearth of enemies that try to incite trouble for them wherever possible. It could be one of those guys trying some trick. As far as he can tell from the available information, the only thing they have that could connect to his country was the ethnicity of some supposedly operatives.

But for Jinendra, it seemed as thin as a thread. It was true that he is pretty new to the art and science of spy craft. He was a lawyer by education, and in the formative years looked forward to a cushy position within the family business, preferably somewhere in the foothills of the Alps. His family was big shots. They ran a business empire, and also led one of the leading political parties of the nation. His father and the elder uncle built it all up, and after the untimely death of his uncle, his father, Fernando Renaweera, became the head of the family and party supremo. His two elder brothers, as well as the two sons of his deceased uncle were expected to follow suit of the old man, running the business and political empire among them.

Everything changed when a car bomb planted by the terrorists blew out a convoy, killing his father and two elder brothers. It also killed Satyendra, the elder son of his uncle, and Dharmendra, the younger cousin, lost his left eye. Dharmendra inherited the family, and Jinendra, the sole surviving member of his branch, had to join up in the mess. One of the things Dharmendra did after consolidating his base among the big family was to put the combined weight of the family business on a quest to the top office. Jinendra was naturally expected to become the right hand man. After the successful installation of Dharmendra at the presidency, Jinendra became the Secretary of Defense.

As a member of the administration and key confidant to the president, he had done pretty much everything related to statecraft, including intelligence. The intelligence operation of the country was formerly under direct control of the military due to the constant state of war. He inherited it along with the military when he was made Secretary of Defense. By the time the transformation to civilian rule happened, he had picked up enough to be on his own as the head of the civilian intelligence organization. Still, he was way too junior and way too inexperienced compared to the grey heads that managed the affairs at most of his counterparts around the globe.

“I am sure, excellency” Jinendra responded, gathering enough courage to look directly at the dark lenses peering at him. The ample moustache of the president twitched, which was decoded as contempt by the young spy chief. He could no longer face the eyes, and he looked back at the file.

“I too don’t think it is” the president said as if to console his cousin. “Anyway, alert our sources. Find out what is going on.” He turned to his open laptop, signaling the end of the meeting.

Jinendra stood up, bowed and left. The president did not look back at him.

[Dileep]

Chapter 31

The coffee house on the banks of the river was a common hangout for the youth of the city. Originally built a couple of centuries ago, the building used to be a classic example of Portugese architecture, but the various modifications that undergone during the years had given it an interesting cosmopolitan flavour. It also passed through various avatars before falling into the hands of Asinkya Miranda, who made it into a French style café and given his own name, Miranda’s. The vast hallways and the wide, river facing verandas decorated with bamboo panels hosted the wide range of clientele, but the majority was always young men and women, spending some quality time away from the hustle of the big city.

Anuradha Samarasekara sat behind a table that would seat two. Pushing the upper half of thirties, and the higher side of the weighing scale, the bright eyes, pleasant demeanor and the handsome attire placed her below the magic figure of thirty by looks. Owner of a very successful travel agency in the city, she was not a stranger at Miranda’s. Though most of the visits used to be accompanied by her boyfriend, she also often took her clients to this place. The ambience is good to close any deal, she used to claim. She was alone today, but it was clear that she was waiting for someone, as the table is left set for two.

She was waiting for Raghunandan Kulkarni, who was a tour organizer who ran a good business by bringing in a lot of visitors to the country. Raghunandan was one of the first in this line of business who set up shop in the city once the clouds of civil war were lifted. The tropical paradise was left completely devoid of tourists during the unrest, and one of the priorities for the government post war was to revamp the tourism. There was a lot of potential for the rich middle class from the neighbouring countries to visit. Raghu, as everyone called him, used to be stationed at Bali, but his employer, a big time travel agency from Mumbai, had decided that his skills are better used at the nascent and unexploited region.

No one would hazard a guess on Raghu’s age, as the lean, muscular figure had a quintessential quality of agelessness, often seen with movie stars on screen. He was unmarried, though he was living with a steady girlfriend in Bali for years. They apparently broke up, possibly because the lady, who ran a spa on her own, refused to move with him. He had no dearth of female companions from the city, but as his friends noted, he hadn’t yet taken the bait for any serious relationships.

Raghunandan parked his BMW in the portico, casually threw the key to the valet and walked in. The car was not a perk. It was his because he earned good commission for every tour package he sold, and business was good at this place. He returned the salaam by the doorman and breezed in. With a cursory look around on the lean crowd of patrons who occupied the tables in the hallway, he walked out onto the verandah, looking for the lady he was here to meet. The acquamarine sari behind the table at the far end was easy to identify.

Anuradha always dressed in sari for her meetings. She represents the culture of the place, she claimed, and sari would be the right dress to project that. What left unsaid was, the long, thin clothing that wrapped around the body always had a remarkable ability to enhance the attractiveness of the body. Though there was no indication of any fat, she was a bit on the upper side of the weight scale. A western dress might not serve justice to her body, Raghu often thought. He was not really particular about this dress that is also common in his home country. If there was attire he loved for women, it was the Balinese sarong. It is either that one, or no attire at all. That is what he used to claim he liked most.

Anuradha waved to him, though she was sure he had found her. People in their line of business are always aware of their surroundings. He walked briskly towards her, skirting around a table at the corner. A brief handshake, and he settled into the chair opposite to her. A cursory look around the table was satisfactory. One of the advantages about this place was that the tables are kept pretty apart, so that the breeze can come in unhindered, and also the conversation stayed within the participants.

“We have no information on him” Anuradha said without introduction, as if she was continuing a conversation that was momentarily broken. “We did an exhaustive search among the records at headquarters.”

“That is what we got from the official channel” Raghu said a bit impatiently. “I thought you guys had better information than the HQ.”

Anuradha laughed. The pearly teeth flashed for a moment before she covered them with one hand. “We don’t keep things compartmentalized like you guys do.” She said teasingly. “We are a small country, you see?”

“We aren’t too different” protested Raghu. “You just do things at a smaller scale, but the underlying principle is the same”. It was just a pretension. Both of them knew that while one organization that was personally committed to the man who was currently the president, the other one was committed to the executive power of the government, personified by the office of the prime minister.

The waiter approached with a smile and took the order. Raghu liked his brew black. Anuradha already had her supply of the choicest oolong tea that old man Miranda claimed to come from his own gardens in the hills. No one ever dared to tell the owner, but many patrons believed that the claim is full of it.

“What is your take? Anuradha asked, more to change the subject. “The minister is of the opinion that it must be indigenous to your country.”

“I read the brief” Raghu said, as he stirred his coffee. “You saw the evidence. You tell me!”

“I can’t contradict the minister!” Anuradha said with a naughty glance.

Raghu smiled and took a sip of the brew. The brew was deliciously bitter, a result of the best of the locally grown coffee and the roasting skill of old man Miranda.

“Did the big man see the papers?” He asked, as if in a dream, fed by the coffee.

“I don’t think so.” Anuradha said with an uncertain air. It was a bit of un-etiquette to get into the internal details of each others work.

“I wish he did” Raghu said innocently “because only a blind man wouldn’t see the connection”

“Let me see what we can do” That was too non-committal for an answer. Thoughtfully, she went back to her cup, dissolving the thoughts in the earthy golden liquid.

Raghunandan thought for a moment, and took out a neatly folded envelope from his pocket. He removed a small bunch of a few sheets of glossy paper from within and showed to her.

Anuradha read it with interest. Her face changed visibly as she turned the pages. Raghu took it back once she finished reading. She followed it with her eyes, as he carefully put it back to the envelope.

“Sorry, can’t part with it” He said apologetically. “And you know what that means”

“Do you know where the ship currently located?” The iris sharpened within the pale eyes of hazel shade.

“Somewhere in the Arabian Sea, or even northern Indian Ocean” Raghu said, as he put the envelope back into his pocket.

“Are you sure you don’t want our help with this?” She asked, with visible interest.

“Thanks for the offer, but no, thanks” Raghu smiled, with a trace of wickedness at the corner. “But we might be open to any offer of help, provided that is done over the table.”

“You are a smart SOB” Anuradha said with a smile.

“Not my idea, dear lady.” Raghu said nonchalantly. “Someone smarter than me figured that this might open your secret databanks.”

“What if he is not as valuable as you think he is?” She asked, more an attempt to gain some brownie points.

“Then it is no bother to you. We would just hang him!” Raghu said, with a shrug.

The conversation veered into other unrelated things subsequently.

[Dileep]

Chapter 32

Renjith Chaturasene was used to the urgent meetings with the president. He was the top bureaucrat for the department for home affairs, which included, apart from civil law enforcement, the new civilian intelligence operations. Like everything else, the home department was non existent during the civil war days, where the department of defense handled everything. Chaturasene was, unfortunately, often in the bad books of the hawks that ruled the department, and often relegated to handle things like upkeep of the inland navigation canals. The fact that he was close to the Renaweera family also helped in the isolation. The intra-party politics made sure that anyone who was in camp with the Renaweeras were kept out of anything important. Even after Dharmendra came to the top post, Chaturasene was kept out of the core, as the president’s attention was fully focused on the war.

But once the war was over, redemption came to Renjith Chaturasene. He was drafted to head the new civilian outfit of home affairs. The president himself held the portfolio in the capacity of elected executive, and his cousin Jinendra was the deputy minister. The somewhat complicated arrangement of sharing of responsibilities between a deputy minister and a bureaucrat was the idea of the president to keep tabs on both. Jinendra didn’t really like it, and Chaturasene didn’t show it. As an operating arrangement, the former had his intelligence apparatus, and the latter, his police force.

Chaturasene had got wind of something of importance brewing from his sources at the intelligence office. There was some buzz of activity there, and subsequently Jinendra, the boss, came a bit unexcited from meeting the big man. He didn’t think much about it till the summons came from the big office.

“Good Morning, Excellency.” He said pleasantly to a broody Renaweera. The president looked up for a brief moment, waved him into the seat and went back to some paper in front of him.

The side door opened, and an aide appeared with a briefing folder. The young man smartly walked up and placed it neatly in front of the visitor and left. Military precision, thought Chaturasene. The presidential office is still mostly staffed by army guys from the bodyguards unit. Without looking up, the president nodded to him, signaling to open the folder. He removed the sticker, clicked the security latch out and opened it.

The first page was a photo, printed on matte photo paper. It was a mug-shot of a young man, with the name Angu Thevan (alias) Sebastian. The image was subjected to the regulation enhancement processing, and held the tracking tag string of the department at the bottom. Behind the photo was a précis on the person, which gave the normal vital statistics like height/weight, identification marks etc. The last known address was in India.

Chaturasene looked at the president’s brooding face for any clue. Looking at the visage of the person, and especially the foreign address, this must belong to Jinendra’s department. He couldn’t gather why he was being given this brief in the first place. The man was still looking down. He went back to the folder and looked at the photo again. The features were typical to the race. He could be anyone from the thousands who currently live in the rehabitation camps.

“I think there is more than what is in there.” The president said without preamble, as if reading the mind of Chaturasene. He startled a bit and looked at the president, and found him smiling at him.

“The Indians are asking for any whereabouts of this guy. Our records don’t show anything.” Dharmendra said, looking intently at Chaturasene. The dark glasses and the thought of the dead left eye behind them was always something that put his subordinates at unease.

“Didn’t we try the face recognition?” Renjith asked, more for conversation sake. He was rweferring to the system, provided by the Israelis. It was a very good one. It was primarily intended to help in the re-settlement efforts, and to his knowledge, it was serving well. Often, it was made available for the general use of the intelligence and police also.

“None there as well.” The president admitted. “The DM was here to report that nothing was found”. He was referring the Jinendra, who was the deputy minister. A glimpse of wickedness played with the smile on the president’s face.

“Who is this guy, if I may ask Sir?” He asked, knowing well that he would be told if there is a need to know. Dharmendra smiled again.

“I won’t blame you for not watching all the TV channels there, Renjith” the president said. “And I guess it didn’t get much time on the Tamil channels available here. This guy seems to be a hot property at large from the state of Kerala.”

“I see” Chaturasene said more as a force of habit. He looked back at the précis again, and wrinkles appeared on his face. “What did he do, Sir?” he asked.

“He is facing trial for a murder, and was apparently bust out from the custody in an elaborate heist.” The president said without emotion. “Now he is at large, and they need to know if we have any information on him”

“But why us?” Renith interjected.

“They didn’t tell us” the president said with a shrug. “But our sources report that the modus operandi reeks of the tactics of his kind of people here.”

Chaturasene thought for a moment.

“What do you want done, Sir?” He asked. Jinendra and his boys are already on the case, and he didn’t see any role for him in this mess.

“What I hear..” the president said after a moment of careful consideration. “Is that the Indians tare afraid that he maybe the proverbial tip of the iceberg”

“That is a scary thought.” Chaturasene muttered.

“Indeed..” the president sighed. “Though we wish it isn’t, I want all the efforts to make sure that we don’t get any surprises.”

“Sir.” Chaturasene bowed to accept the order.

“I get a hunch that he may not have been on the active cadre. I want you to look at all civilian resources. If there is a connection, we want to nip it in the bud.”

“Sir.” Chaturasene bowed again.

“And then, Renjith..” the president seem to hesitate for a moment.

“Yes, Sir..”

“You know that their boys are here. Don’t let them outsmart you, please..” Dharmendra said with a smile

“Absolutely, Sir.” Renjith Chaturasene smiled back. He was already aware of some movement on that count.

[Dileep]

Chapter 33

It was the predecessor of Dharmendra Renaweera who built the new presidential palace. He had, in fact, faced a lot of flak for spending an extravagant sum from the lean coffers of a nation that had been ravaged by internal conflict. Unfazed, Bernard Sethanayake went ahead and hired consultants from all over the world. Architects from USA, Interior designers from Italy, structure from China and most importantly, the best security systems that money can buy from Israel. Outwardly, the security system was designed to thwart any attempt by the anti-government forces that primarily used guerrilla tactics. But internally, the president was more worried about palace coups and enemies within, so a very efficient spying system was also installed.

Still, it didn’t help him to thwart the revolution within his own party, spearheaded by Dharmendra Renaweera, and more importantly, his money power. Sethanayake had in fact tried, when it was sure that he will have to vacate the place, to leave some of the bug systems secretly hidden. He ordered the records about the systems to be destroyed, so that the new president and his team will not know about them. This was done with the hope that he may use the system to subvert the administration.

Fortunately, the key personnel who was running the system was smart enough to correctly judge that Bernard Sethanayake is a spent force, and they dutifully kept the system intact, and a true state of the affairs was presented to the incoming administration.

Bernard Sethanayake had to declare his retirement from active politics, and spend his remaining life playing golf and watching tea leaves grow from his farm house in the hills.

Dharmendra had found one of the facilities in the palace very useful. It was what they called the ‘quiet room’. It was a room accessible from the president’s bedroom, as well as from the bathroom adjascent to the conference room, which was called ‘oval office’ with a straight face. It was built with totally sound-proof walls, which had a passive tamper evidence technology built in. There was no power supply, no phone lines, and no electrical or electronic devices in the room. Light was brought in via diffused fiber optics, and air conditioning was provided via a series of PVC ducts with baffles.

No one in the palace entered that room except a very special few presidential aides. The president met very few people in that room.

Samuel Nanbunayakam was one of them.

Samuel was one of the senior ‘officers’ of the separatist organization that fought the civil war. At the height of his good times, he held the designation ‘chariot leader’ and considered one of the most trusted deputies of the ‘people’s leader’. Some even went to the extent of predicting that he might become the heir-apparent to the leader one day. But everything changed when the leader began to promote a few younsters, including his own son and a few of his blood relatives, to leadership positions. Samuel was soon relegated to less important tasks, and eventually, as the dirty linen started washing itself in public, he had to split out with his followers and start supporting the government forces.

While the war lasted, Samuel had to go into hiding, as his life was under threat. He was put under the best protection the government could get, and he and much of his deputies survived the war. There was wide allegation that he had in fact helped the government forces with inside information, which resulted in a conclusive victory. But this was never verified in public. After the war, he was unofficially accorded the position of a peace ambassador. A channel to build confidence in the enstranged public where the separatist feeling was rooted. He had declined the government’s offer for accommodation, but had to accept the security detail, given the continued threat to his life. He was often invited to the presidential palace for discussions and briefing.

And it was always done in the ‘quiet room’ with no witnesses. Today was no different. Nanbunayakam arrived at the service entrance of the palace in an unmarked car, and was given a quick entrance, after the customary pat down.

“Vanakkam Anna!” Dharmendra entered the room through the door from his private chamber. He always made a point to address the ex rebel in his own language. In fact, he had been using his fluency in the language as an efficient diplomatic tool, which found a lot of success among the public.

“Vanakkam, your excellency” Nanbunayakam bowed, as he was invited to a seat facing the president. The remaining of the conversation was, however, in English.

“Do you know anything about this guy?” the president asked without any preamble, as he pushed a photo that he had recently shown to two of his deputies. Samuel took more than a few moments to take his eyes off the president to look down.

The lighting of the room was another ingenious device of the Israelis. The fiber optics entered the ceiling forming an oblong over the president’s chair, and threw the light on the persons sitting across. It was a technology extrapolated from the fiber optic illuminators used in microscopes, which flooded the field of view with diffused, but equal illumination. Effectively, the persons sitting across the president was illuminated as if they are under a microscope, but without the discomfort of a floodlight. Being devoid of any electronic devices, this was a clever way for the president to keep his audience under careful observation.

Most of his visitors knew this. Nanbunayakam definitely did. One of the first things his leader told after his very secret visit to the room was the lighting. But that was another time, and the game was entirely different.

As the president gazed on almost lazily, Nanbunayakam looked down at the photograph of the young man lying on his table, conveniently oriented in the right way to face him.

The trained poker face of Samuel Nanbunayakam twitched, and it didn’t miss the hawk eye of Dharmendra Renaweera

Moments passed in silence.

“No, your excellency. Who is he?” Nanbunayakam broke the silence.

The president told him whatever the Indians disclosed in the dossier. Nothing more.

[Dileep]

Chapter 34

The refugee camp was well run. In fact much better than what the detractors of the government and the human right watchers from the first world who always looked down on the less fortunate regions claimed. Of course, the camp did not have things like toilet paper at the loos or spoons and forks at the dining hall. But they had the basic necessities like food, accommodation and medical care. Comparing to the subsistence living under constant threat of mortal danger during the war years, the camp was a million times better for the inhabitants.

Not that there were disgruntle. Complaints of high handedness of the officials, corruption and mistreatment were often raised. The inhabitants were under constant watch, both by official, uniformed police, as well as the secret intelligence agents freely mingling among them. It was needed. The camp held the remnants of a sectarian past, and the government could not afford a resurrection of the dead evil. Some took advantage of it, but the benefits definitely outweighed the suffering.

The camp was built upon the remnants of a town that was left in ashes by the retreating rebels. They had taken everything of value, and herded up every inhabitant with them. By the time the international aid forces came around to build a camp there, the jungle had almost overrun the town. There was nothing to salvage, so the earth movers just razed everything down, leveled the land, and built up the steel structures and frp roofs for the camp. As per the policy of the government, people from one locality were not permitted to join camps in the same place. Truckloads of seedy humanity from places far away were brought in, and herded into the sheds. Clutching small cloth bundles that held the meager possessions, there poor people were too stunned to even think of the future. Some even refused to take the meal initially, thinking it was poisoned. Sick people often refused medicine on the same grounds.

Slowly, order was established. People found their little private places, and marked them up using ropes and plastic tarps. Queues formed in front of the medical centre and the dining hall. Volunteers at the community kitchen gladly went through the mandatory bath and scrub before the shift, and stopped stealing food. They knew by experience that they don’t have to steal, as they never failed to get their meals. It was another major step to issue kerosene stoves to families so that they can cook their own meals. The town square, where the camp office, police station and medical centre stood, also had a public distribution centre, where the families could get their rations.There was even a public address system that relayed the government radio station broadcasts in their language.

But the camps were just an interim step. The real herculean tast was to rehabitate these people. Families need to be re-united, and re-settled, with the necessities to begin a new life. Farmers needed land and the accessories to cultivate. Tradesmen need jobs. But the first need was to try to re-build the families that got separated.

The government had painstakingly collected data on each individual, and their families. It was done under assistance by one of the major global IT giants from the neighbouring country. Once the data was centralized, a lof of missing family links could be established. Still, there were a lot of missing people. The government had made a system of posting messages across the camps about people who are found without enough background information. People visiting the town square often glance through the postings, mostly descriptions, and sometimes photographs, to see if someone of interest had turned up there. Some visited every day, and spent a lot of time browsing, hoping to get any information on a missing beloved one.

Jennifer was one of such visitors. She was a pretty girl in late teens. No one knew whom she was looking for. She refused to talk to anyone. Every day, she came to the message board, and diligently read through every posting of the day, before turning back and walking away. Her face expressionless all the time.

The spooks on duty in the camp were naturally interested in this behaviour. Jennifer lived with her mother Jessica, who stayed inside the tent that could be called their home. There was no other member in that family. Jessica too did not talk much, except to affirm that they are all alone, with the rest of the family being dead. She too claimed ignorance of the reason why her daughter spent time at the message board. The girl maybe a bit out of her mind, as the mother used to admit out of her earshot.

Some bright minds speculated that she might be looking for a lost love interest. It corroborated well with her lack of enthusiasm in life. The girl was generally absent minded, rarely taking care of herself. Unlike girls of her own age, she did not socialize, or worry about her looks.

But one day, they found that the town square was unduly disturbed by a commotion. Jessica was running in, wailing, with Jennifer in toe, trying to hold her back. Jennifer had just gone back from her daily routine at the wall, so they wondered what may be going on.

Jessica came running to the message board, and stood there panting. Her old, tired eyes scanning briskly through the postings.

Her eyes rested on a photo that was pinned to the board. As Jennifer tried to restrain her, she lunged forward, kissed the photo with a wail, and collapsed down.

Jennifer uttered a curse under her breath, and resignedly sat down, with her forehead in her palm.

Both women had mysteriously vanished the next morning. There were some cries of foul from the residents, but those where quickly put down by the police. The expat volunteers in the camp, as usual, shook their head in resignation, and went about their work. People vanishing from the camp was not too unusual, though there was good 24 hour security.

[Dileep]

Chapter 35

The bell on the desk of Somesha De Silva had ringed impatiently three times, before he could drop the file he was reviewing and pick up the intercom. The home secretary’s office had always been a bit of low key, with rather older generation of equipment. In the near past, the military was supreme, and the role of the home department was barely marginal. Even after the establishment of civil administration, the department hadn’t got the importance that was due. There were slight changes after Renjith Chaturasene took over as the secretary. He kept a good rapport with the president, and was reasonably successful in the jostling match with the defense and finance departments for power. Still, his office had to use an old key telephone system that was supplied by an Indian company eons ago. Somesha was not really happy about it. He held the rank of a Deputy Inspector General, and was the private secretary to the top man. He should have at least some decent office facilities.

“What now?” He muttered himself as he picked up the receiver. “Yes, sir” he said with due courtesy. He had placed the daily intelligence briefing file on the boss’s desk as routine, and was waiting for the more mellow, single ring asking him to bring in the day’s appointments. The impatient three ring signal really surprised him.

“Get me Diko!! Pronto!” the phone yelled. Something must be seriously wrong, thought Somesha. Dennis (Diko) Fernandez was the DIG in charge of the intelligence unit, and was the person who puts up the daily briefing file. There should be something serious in the file. Somesha never gets to read the file. It comes sealed to his desk, and he just puts the sealed envelope on the table for the boss.

Diko Fernandez was one of the greyheads in the department. One of those workhorses who got sidelined during the period when the racehorses of the military ruled the stable. He was highly intelligent and methodical, gifted with a great analytical mind. But he was not the shoot from the hip kind of operative that the impatient administrators liked. Chaturasene knew Diko from his time in the eastern provinces as a district magistrate, and brought him to the centre when he got the chance.

It didn’t take a few minutes for Diko to show up from his office in the next hall. Somesha smiled and nodded the senior officer in. Somehow, he got a feeling that Diko was expecting the call from the boss. He knocked on the door and entered without waiting for a response.

“Good Morning, Sir.” He said pleasantly, and walked forward. He found his boss very excited, red in the face and fuming.

“Who did this?” the home secretary yelled, even before the DIG was invited to a seat. As Diko sat down emotionlessly, Renjith pushed the briefing file, with certain page open face up, to him.

It was a newspaper cutting that carried an advertisement, typical to an ‘agony’ column, seeking information about a young man. There was a photo and text in Tamil that gave the name of the man as Sebastian, aged 22. There was a box number to contact. The only oddity was the absence of the customary phone number, but not everyone had phones in this country yet.

The intelligence circles under the home department were actively looking for clues based on the photograph that was given to Mr. Chaturasene by the president. The newspaper clipping was delivered to Diko’s offce not too long after the department got its bundle of papers as the morning routine, and enquiry was already being made to the paper’s office about who placed that advertisement. They got an address care of an eatery in the eastern suburbs of the city.

Diko explained the action taken yet. A telephone call to that restaurant yielded no additional information, as the place opens only for lunch and dinner. Someone is already en-route to make direct enquiries.

That didn’t make Renjith happy.

“It is an Indian place, right?” He asked with some feeling of certainty.

“Well, it is a Malaysian place, but some of the staff are Indian staff.” Diko said non committedly. The place was not really familiar to anyone in his immediate knowledge.

Renjith thought for a few moments. His face changed a bit.

“Diko..” He said in a more endearing voice. “I get a hunch that the Indians are trying to mess in our turf. Keep a watch on them.”

Diko nodded in agreement.

“The boss strictly ordered that we should not let them get any advantage. I assume you understand.” Renjith said gravely.

Diko nodded again.

“Keep me posted on the developments right away.” The home secretary ordered, and promptly dismissed the intelligence chief.

Diko was unfazed. He had already guessed as much and more. The newspaper offices were already put under watch. If someone showed up to collect the responses for the advertisement, he would walk out into the hands of his agents. As a preemptive action, he also had informed the guys who shadow ‘certain tour operators’ to be wary. They belong to the DM’s team, but they would definitely appreciate some tips now and then.

But somehow, the seasoned fox didn’t think that he would find the source of the advertisement.

[Sachin]

Chaturasene knew Diko from his time in the eastern provinces as a district magistrate, and brought him to the centre when he got the chance.

Minor nit pick . Chaturasene if he is from a non-police service may not be having the title of Deputy Inspector General. He may have an equivalent civil service rank (Deputy Secretary??). From what I read, I understand Chaturasene also worked as a DM (District Magistrate) which is a Administrative Rank (in IAS, it would be the District Collector).

[Dileep]

Read it again. Chaturasene is Home secretary, the bureaucrat. Somesha De Silva is his PS, deputed from the police and holding DIG rank.

The attempt to mix things is deliberate, as a pointer to the state of the administration. The compartmentalization of the executive is not waterproof in the system.

Note that the president is also head of the cabinet, and doubles as the home minister. There is a deputy minister, who looks after only intelligence, along with so much unspecified powers. The home secretary handles the bureaucracy of police, and police intelligence. The president directly handles the covert intelligence.

Disclaimer again: This setup is totally fictional. No relation to any real life administration.

[Dileep]

Chapter 36

“I can smell a spookie from a mile away” said Camille Cortez with a smile that was worth to die for. Raghunandan Kulkarni gracefully accepted the argument, and the smile. This woman is no rookie greenpeace type, he knew from the beginning.

Camille wouldn’t hear about going into any of the watering holes where the upper class of the society spends their money. She knew a place close to the beach. The place with small huts made entirely of coconut tree parts, and served food rich in the produce of the same tree. The Caribean born human rights worker was very fond of the sights and smells of her adopted temporary home. Raghunandan readily obliged. He couldn’t tell her over the phone that he expected them to have unobtrusive company, so to get things straight; the first thing he told her was that she might get into trouble for what she is doing.

“I know what I am doing.” She said confidently. “I am not dealing with your kind for the first time”, she added as a careless afterthought, as she caressed the glass of sweet coconut arrack mixed with tender coconut water.

Raghunandan feigned ignorance on the pun, and asked her what she meant by ‘your kind’, and Camille came clear on that.

“I don’t use Floris No 89!” he said in mock protest. That is the perfume Jamed Bond uses.

She didn’t bite that. She took another sip on the arrack as if it was nectar, and looked at Raghu with a serious air.

“What have you got for me?” He asked, noting the slight change in her countenance. Her face clouded a bit from what could be read as confusion or indecision

“I need to know who that guy really is, and why you placed the advertisement?” She finally asked.

“Well, I am not going to insult your olefactory powess, Ms Cortez” Raghu said in a fake business like tone. This lady was unlikely from CIA, he thought. Their playbook didn’t come out like this. “That guy is a person of interest for my employers. The technique of making an agony advertisement in the newspaper is perfected by none other than good old Sherlock Holmes” He finished with a grin.

“What kind of interest?” Camille asked with her thin, but unkempt eyebrows creased.

“He is accused of a crime, and is a fugitive at large now. We want to give him a chance to turn himself in and come clean” Raghu tried to put all efforts of honesty into the statement. At least half of it was true.

“So that you can hang him, or something?” The question was in a very grave tone.

“Not necessarily. If you ask me, the case against him is rather weak. Only circumstantial evidence.” Raghu spiced his voice with the special flavour of enthusiasm that HR activists love.

“Then, why do you bother looking for him?” the mistrust was evident in the voice.

“Isn’t it clear? If he is at large, the guilt is implied. The government will be in deep trouble because of that, and would be obliged to pull out all stops to get him.”

Camille thought silently for a long moment, sipping the arrack a few times. She didn’t swallow the explanation, but she couldn’t find any red flag in it either.

“Why did you contact the newspaper?” Raghu asked, sensing the right moment of prodding that could open a crack.

“A lady and her daughter had gone missing from my camp, soon after she seemed to identify the photograph.” Camille said, as if confessing something.

Raghu almost jumped out of his chair, but controlled it and grabbed his glass of rum to calm himself down.

“Which photo? In the paper?” He asked casually.

“The camp residents don’t get any paper. It is banned.” She said, with disgust in her eyes. Inaccessibility of newspapers and other news channel was one of the gripes the HR workers had against the camps administration. But the government never gave in, despite a lot of campaigns.

“Then?” Raghu couldn’t hide the interest.

“They have a message board that posted information on missing people. The photo appeared there.”

Raghu went silent, sipping his rum and thinking. He could sense the gears clicking in Camille’s mind too.

“That is very bad. Maybe they are relatives to the man?” He asked innocently.

“We didn’t get a chance to talk to the women.” Camille said regretfully. “By the next morning, they were gone.”

“Did they leave on their own?” Raghu asked, well knowing it to be a foolish question. He wanted to make the woman feel comfortable.

“You don’t know these camps!” Camille raised her voice in emotion. “Not a leaf stirs there on its own. No. They were taken away by the government guys.”

Raghu nodded sympathetically. He was now clear how to handle this lady.

“That is too bad.” He said with a sigh. “If we could get in touch with them, maybe they could have helped with fighting his case”

That statement formed the base of an alliance between the international HR worker and the spy.

[Rahul M]

pretty interesting after that build up. lives up to it. carry on saarji.

[Dileep]

Chapter 37

The interrogators used by the spy agency were always nameless and rankless. They carried a lot of weight around, and didn’t answer to anyone officially. When they dealt with the police force, they showed a level of indifference that borderlined on contempt. And it was not something reserved for the lower ranks either. Even senior officers like district superintentends had to suffer the high handedness of these elites. There was only a ‘rumour’ that these guys report to Jinendra Renaweera, the erstwhile Defense Seretary and current Deputy Minister at the president’s office. There was no official record of their activities. No file was allowed to be created. There was no jurisdiction defined. The police, and often even military intelligence, were asked to co-operate, with a promise that they will never get into legal trouble for what they allowed these dark forces to do under their watch.

This model of operation was in fact imported from the bigger neighbour, after watching the success through the years. If something had survived in an open democracy with a very strong, even borderline seditious, public activism, it was assured to be a success in a system that was for all practical purposes dictatorial.

The team arrived at the detention centre in the outskirts of the capital by mid morning. They always drove their unmarked sedans themselves. This time, there was a young man in late twenties and a woman nearing fourty, who appeared to be in command. Lately, it has become a custom to bring in a woman agent when women are interrogated. Though no one would confirm it, the practice happened after a major scandal broke out, where a victim disclosed to a human rights activist that she was sexually assaulted by the interrogator. The international media made enough fuss, that the government was forced to change the practices.

The facility is called ‘detention centre’ for want of a better name to describe it. In official records, it is just the J Block of the barracks of the national reserve police that is assigned to the capital region. The reserve police had a notorious past during the formative years of the separatist movement. In those days, they had been used for all kinds of powerplays, including use of brutal force upon the non-violent demonstrators. The antics of this force had been one of the contributing factors for the creation of the extremist outfits. During the war time, several battalions of the force was converted into auxiliary military corps, and they are still serving, in a more peaceful mode, the policing system for the rehabitation camps.

The building was completely unremarkable, and not at all different from the other blocks of the barracks. Even inside, you wouldn’t see much difference to other barracks, except the fact that the rooms had doors with pigeon holes in them. They were also minimally equipped on the inside, and lacked deadbolts that could be used to lock them from inside. It was just a precaution for the same of the detainees.

The interrogators were taken immediately to the interrogation room by the inspector on duty. It was in fact the re-configured mess hall of the barracks. It had all the paraphrenelia for the purpose, including the straight backed chairs, flood lights, recording equipment and one way mirrors. As they entered the hallway that led to the chamber, they found the police constable who is in charge of the facility standing there with an embarrassed look. The team leader looked at him quizzically.

“The lady says she will not be separated from her daughter.” He said almost apologetically.

The interrogators looked at each other.

“Did she give a reason?” The lady officer asked in an even tone. The poor constable cringed.

“Maam, we tried to take her out by force” He was trying hard to avert the glaring look by the inspector, who probably wanted to kick this softie of an officer.

“And? Did she beat you up?” The inspector yelled. But a mere glance from the lady officer silenced him right away.

“No Sir.” The constable answered his boss. “Both women locked themselves into an embrace, and nothing could budge them.”

“Not even your baton, I see.” The male officer, who was silent hitherto, said with an element of distaste, looking at the round bamboo stick the constable helf fast in his hand.

“No Sir. We did not beat them up.” The constable said with conviction.

“Well, you should have..” The inspector said sarcastically. He was completely unhappy about this show in front of these powerful superior officers. Once again, he was silenced by a glance from the lady officer.

“Constable! Did she give a reason?’ She asked again.

“All she said was that they, the mother and daughter, will live or die together.” The constable said, unsure of the response that is going to come from the officers. “They would rather strangle each other than being separated, it seems”

The lady thought for a moment.

“Well, bring them both together then!” she finally said, after making eye contact with her junior for confirmation.

“No, maam” the inspector tried to intervene. “I will get her in if these softhearts can’t!”

“Thanks for the kind offer, inspector” the lady officer said in clear mocking. “I think we might gain a lot by giving in a little.”

The inspector bowed in agreement, and nodded to the constable to go ahead and fetch the detainees.

“We will wait here.” the lady officer said, pre-emting the offer to get them seated in the inspector’s office. It is going to take at least five minutes to get everything right with the setup.


When they entered the interrogation room, they found the two women, mother and daughter, seated in steel chairs behind the plain table. They were holding hands, but otherwise sitting straight. The daughter wore a stony face, but the mother appeared a bit panicky.

The lady officer came in and sat on her chair. The youg man did not sit down. Instead he lingered on in the periphery.

“Name?” the lady asked. The woman startled a bit to hear the question in her own native tongue. In her imagination, all government business in the capital was conducted exclusively in the national language. The experience from her handlers after they left the refugee camp was no different. She was expecting the interrogation to be no different. Her first instinct was to show defiance by keeping quiet, but she didn’t pursue on that. She would cooperate, at least on the language front.

“Jessica” she said, almost as the sound of exhaling.

“Full name?”

“Jessica Mariadas”

“Is this your daughter?”

“Yes.”

“And your name?” the lady turned to the younger woman. She just stared back, showing no indication of hearing the question.

“Jennifer” the mother answered for her. “Jennifer Mariadas.”

“And your husband?”

“Died. More than ten years ago.” The lady said without emotion.

“Occupation?”

“Mine? Nothing. Just coir fiber work only.”

“Your husband’s occupation?”

“He is dead.” She said, as if the lady officer hadn’t understood the fact.

“I know. What was his occupation when he was alive?”

The lady noticed that the daughters hand press firmly on her mother’s.

“He was with the ‘revolution’” The woman said, looking down as if in embarassment. The daughter gasped and glared at her mother. The lady officer’s face clouded a bit.

“His name?” she asked with no change in tone.

“Mariadas”

“No last name?”

“He never told me.” The woman said, with her voice choking a bit with emotion.

The questioning proceeded to collect and verify the basic information about the women. They were from a village not too far from the town that used to be the headquarters of the rebels. The villages were strongholds of the rebels. Males and able bodied women were required to take up arms, and everyone else to help in whichever way the organization wants. After the war was over and rehabitation started, it was difficult to decide who did it voluntaririly and who were forced. So, there was a blanket amnesty for those people, absolving from all war crimes that happened during the civil war. Still, admitting that oneself, or the dear ones did fight for the ‘revolution’ was a difficult thing to do for most of the people. They were at the mercy of the government officers, upon whom they took arms and waged war. Everything they had been told was the stories about how inhuman these bloodsuckers were. They had been indoctrinated to consume the cyanide capsules and die, rather than give out information to the government agents.

It is very tough for anyone to break out from those shackles and talk with the interrogators. This psychology was well understood by the government, and the tactivs were developed and honed based on that.

There was a pause after the last of the personal questions was over. The lady officer took a long, careful look on her subjects sitting tiredly. In contrast to when they began, the woman’s face was determined, and the girl’s was panicky. They were waiting for the key question that both of them very well knew was coming.

A photo of the young man that caused all the trouble by making the elder woman, in a moment of passionate insanity, betray themselves appeared on a screen.

“That is my son.” the woman began in expressionless, even tone. “His name is Simon Mariadas. He was taken from me five years ago.” She paused, emotion filling her. Her eyes flushed with tears, and she choked.

“You can have my life, if you can return him to me” She said in an almost unintelligible blabber, broke down and wept.

The girl pulled her hand out from her mother’s grip, and looked at the bundle of misery in disgust.

There was no more information of any worth to be obtained from them. All she could say was Simon was taken from her when the ‘leader’ asked for all boys to join the fight. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since.

When the interrogation was finally over, the lady officer thanked the women, and stood up. As the police constables moved in to lead the detainees away, she noticed that the girl was once again hugging her mother, and helping her onto her foot. She didn’t think much of it then, though her assistant, who stood mute spectator to the process, did.

He would later get her to review the video tapes. Especially the face-cams.

[Dileep]

Chapter 38

Human rights activists of the world often appear to be a different breed altogether. They are well known for extreme stands on issues, which stems from an unfailing sense of moral high ground. For them, no law, rule or political entity is of any significance in the face of furthering the cause of human rights anywhere. Often, activists do end up in trouble because they believe that anything is fair if it is done to protect the human rights. Things such as rigging judicial process, cooking up fake evidence and taking law unto their own hands were sometimes practiced by the activists. These extremes are more often done under ulterior motives than for the noble cause of protecting human rights. These have started to give a bad repute to the activists in general, but as a whole, their contribution had been positive.

It has become fashionable for people who crave the limelight to make noise about pretty much anything that is going on in the world. The ubiquitous presence of the internet, and the widespread penetration of the blogosphere and social networking, has given the opportunity to pretty much anyone with a computer to start some action and gather eyeballs to their own cyber courts. But most of these armchair activists would remain just that. Sitting in the comforts of their homes, or better, the airconditioned offices, and typing away on a keyboard is the best they could do.

But the minority who are really into it, who put their foot on ground and take real action, are the stars. Of course, there are bad apples, like the ones who use it as a cover to further their political or religious agenda. But eventually, such covers are bound to blow, and the disingenuous kind would stand exposed.

The island nation that had come to a peaceful civilian rule after the bloody civil war was the favourite feeding ground for all kinds and versions of such activists. Many of them were agents of bigger forces. Some were from the political sphere, who wanted to sway the nation into their sphere of power. Some where from the religious organizations who wanted to bring the infidels and unbelievers into the folds of their faith. Then there was the rare breed, who really want to help the poor people who are into the terrible misfortune of being strangers in their own country.

Before open civil war broke out in the nation, there was not much of scope for the international activists to work there. The separatists did not want anything to do with outsiders, except to facilitate an open channel to their sympathizers abroad to channel the help, as well as to propagate the tear jerker and blood boiler stories of suffering under the oppressive government forces to motivate such help. Their own actions, like conscripting young boys into their armed troops or organizing suicide squads, were considered the matter of national security, and hence not subject to scruitiny. They justified everything based on the pretext that they are fighting against the oppressive government that conducted gross abuses themselves. They wanted the human rights organizations to stay outside the borders they drew, and just take away what they fed them.

The government also was under a similar predicament. The official government of a nation state has certain responsibilities and moral obligations. They could not behave like the separatist guerrillas. A fight between a formal government and a guerrilla outfit was always once sided. The government would be restrained in almost everything they do, and are subject to scruitiny by the international community. One of the solutions to the problem was to keep the independent observers away by any means. Only the highest levels of commitment would make one beat the games played by both the government and the rebels in reaching out to the truth within.

Not many managed to do that during the war years.

Things had changed for worse when Dharmendra Renaweera, the strong man politician came to the helm. One of the first things he did was to severely curb the freedoms of the press and also issued a blanket ban to the operations of the human rights activists. All outsiders were given a short notice and kicked out of the country. The covert operators were ruthlessly hunted down and put on planes to nations that would allow them entry.

This got the president and the administration a lot of flak in the international arena. But he was on a mission, and nothing detracted him from that. Horror stories about the cruelties of the army began propagating over the world media. But the government just ignored them and systematically and efficiently prosecuted an open armed conflict against the separatists. Every nation that counted had issued requests to ‘show restraint’, including the nations that had privately consented to the war.

A lot of what went around will never be known publicly, because all was done formally under the cover of wartime secrecy.

Once the war was finally over, the president made a declaration that he is welcoming any form of aid from the international community to re-build the nation, and it included free access to human rights watchers. The huge population from the regions formerly controlled by the separatists had faced a lot of hardship during the war. They were drawn around by the separatist forces along with them in an attempt to hold together their power base. Once the war was over, these folk were immediately provided with a massive rehabitation package, and the international aid agencies and human rights watch were channeled to them. Active participation from these organization guaranteed that the rehabitation programme got international approval, and support. The president became a hero for being a benevolent leader who looked after and took care of all his citizens equally.

What left un noticed were the prisoners of war from the separatists. No one talked about them. There was no international watch on them. It was as if the rebels fought to the last man and the last bullet, and no prisoners were taken. No one will know if there were, in fact prisoners of war or even deserters. The government handled those in secret and away from the floodlit scene of rehabitation. Only the issue of the huge refugee population, whose hearts were easily won over by the reasonably efficient rehabitation system, came into limelight, and the government was rather comfortable with that. Of course, there were issues, and there were a lot of noise being made about them. But everyone seem to realize that the issues being reported were all small, and something that to be expected in this kind of operation. All these action helped to shield the little secrets the government had to hide.

The issue of two ladies being taken away from a refugee camp also would have been treated like just another minor incident, and promptly forgotten. Such things did happen when you manages a gargantuan operations, and the scale of things were so huge that they never got any big attention.

But somehow, this particular issue made into front pages of newspapers, and also into the internet and social media. The news hungry TV channels that vie for the tiny attention span had taken the issue to town, and filled miles of scrolling on screen text, and hours of hyperventilation by screaming anchors with the issue. The photographs of the ladies stayed on panels accompanying the show.

When the intelligence operations of a country gets involved, such things do happen.

It changed the life of Camille Cortez. She transformed overnight from a nobody who spent her time at a god forsaken camp of humanity, to the poster lady fighting for the cause of the poor thousands. Though she started it all on the honest interest for helping the poor lady, she didn’t mind any of the attention that she ended up getting. Her new found status might aid her in getting more help. She might even get elevated to be a full time associate, and get opportunity to implement all those wonderful ideas she had about how to run the operations.

She had to thank the man Raghu Kulkarni for all that. She was initially a bit reluctant to take the help of someone who openly admitted that he belongs to the spookies. But she had in the past worked with her own CIA and also with the Israelies. She is not doing anything illegal here, and if she could help the poor lady, why not?

What she didn’t want to admit was, she was also, in fact, a bit charned by Raghunandan Kulkarni

[Dileep]

Chapter 39

The small village of settlers situated right in the middle of the reserve forests was located there for a reason. It was a small clearing on one side of a river, situated on a flat area lying between the river and a steep cliff. A short suspension bridge across the river was the only access, which connected the village to the narrow, but well maintained road that ran almost a kilometer away on the other side of the river. The road was primarily used by the state electricity board for access to a couple of small dams powering the hydro electric power station down in the foothills. The dams and their access roads were built in a period when conservation of nature wasn’t a hot issue. Still, as the whole facility is controlled by the electricity board, the only inhabitation that came up in the area were the living quarters and other facilities for the staff that operated and maintained the facilities. Later, by a special directive by the central government, a small region of the forest at a strategically chosen location was allowed to be cleared, settling a group of people that were not from the state. All this happened without any exposure to the media. Even the staff at the dam sites was not fully appraised about the facts, but as time went by, and with the little interaction they had with the villagers, information started tickling in.

They were refugees from the separatists controlled region of a neighbouring country.

Given the politics of that time, the news media did not give any importance to this, apart from a couple of articles about the success of the village in sustaining itself with agriculture. It was really low key. Even after a decade, the general public in the state did not know much about that village. They made a decent living by farming the land allocated to them. A couple of jeeps plying the long winding road through the heart of the wild life sanctuary was the only connection the village had with the outside world. The jeep service is run by the same contractor who ran the service for the electricity board. They brought in the necessities from the town, and also carried their produce for the market. The villagers hardly traveled out, not even kids. They apparently had a school within. Visitors were scarce, and the villagers never encouraged visitors.

The region being part of a national park, and an environmentally sensitive area, visits by public were strictly curbed. This also contributed to the isolation of the village.

There was no telephone in the village. Even after the proliferationof cell networks, there was no coverage in the remote hillside. There was a land line telephone at one of the dam sites, which was the only means of communication for a long time. Later, a vantage position on the road overlooking a cliff was discovered, where the signal of a cell tower in the far away town was available. This was sometimes used by the village elder to make calls.


The man, clad in a thick sweater and wrapped with woolen shawls to ward of the chill, approached the tight curve that looked over a cliff. Beyond the cliff, through the gap between two peaks, the town sitting on the near side of a hill could have been visible except for the thick fog. Somewhere out there was the cell tower that cast a feeble signal in this direction, and it was for that approaching the place. He was apparently in his fifties, thin and sinewy, but healthy and agile. He is known by the simple name Raman, and the other members of the village called him thalaiyalar, meaning head. He was normally the sole contact the dam staff had with the village. He spoke malayalm with a strange accent, but that too when absolutely necessary.

The man approached the curve, and stood next to a rock that protected the road from falling into the ravine. He rummaged inside the thick folds of the shawls to pull out a bricking cell phone. With ease, he turned on the cheap, but sensitive Motorola, one of the early GSM models of the company that was famous for providing reception at remote places. He squinted on the dim screen to check the signal. Eventually, the phone found the feeble signal, and a single bar of signal showed up. He then dialed a number from his memory. The call was answered without much delay.

“Vanakkam, saar. Me Raman speaking.” He whispered into the phone in a tome that showed respect. He knew the man on the other side well for as long as he and his people moved in into this strange place. Joseph Panicker IPS was an officer in the state police then, and he was responsible for settling them in, and to keep them safe. Even after his retirement, the village elders refused to deal with anyone else. They trusted him, and him alone.

Mr. Panicker was really moved by this gesture. He volunteered to continue to be a liaison, and the government had to agree. This village is one of the skeletons in its closet, and it can’t be allowed to spill.

In a mix of accented Malayalam and Tamil, he made a couple of minute’s worth of general chit-chat, which included news about apparently trivial things in the village, like a cow giving birth. He also asked the officer about his family’s well being. The officer went along patiently with the conversation, often even encouraging the man to proceed. From the look of it, both men had been used to this style of communication. But both parties also knew that this is an added security measure, giving either party enough opportunity to verify the authenticity of each other and also the security of the connection before letting any secrets out.

“I saw a picture in today’s paper, saar” the man said finally, after a brief pause.

“I thought you would, thalaivare” Mr. Panicker laughed. “Are they known to you?”

“If you think in a way, saar.” Ramar chuckled. “What is the story about them? Why they are on the paper?”

Age and the hard living deep in the middle of the jungle haven’t blunted the sharp old brain, thought Mr. Joseph. This guy could have been an asset to the department if he would only consent to come out of the hiding place and take some challenges.

“I thought you would have guessed that too.” Panicker teased. They always liked this kind of games. But the opportunities were falling low as of late, after the war ended.

“To tell the truth, I was thinking they were all dead. She used to be a hot item.” The man said, looking around to take in the breathtaking view the drifting fog offered. The road was completely empty on either side. A mongoose, with four cubs in tow crossed the road and scurried into the underbrush. “But my information is decades old”

“Any information is good, thalaivare” Joseph said. He felt a little bad that he couldn’t share everything he knew with this man. And he was sure that he himself knew very little.

“That woman was the lover of the big guy.” the man said after a pause.

“Were they married or anything?” The voice of Mr. Joseph went suddenly sharp.

“No No. As far as I know, she was really involved with Sam then.”

Joseph went silent for a moment.

“You mean THE Sam?” Joseph finally asked.

“Same guy.” He confirmed. There was no immediate response from the other side.

“The girl looks like her only. Can’t guess the father” Raman ventured after waiting a few moments for a response.

“No wonder you don’t show your head out even now, thalaivare” Mr. Panicker laughed out heartily.

The conversation continued for a few minutes more.

[JTull]

What a turn of events? Couldn't have guessed it. Now all the bits and pieces fall into place.

[Dileep]

Chapter 40

Samuel Nanbunayakam sat, brooding and lost in thoughts. He didn’t like the situation at all. He always enjoyed the audiences in the quiet room with the President, but anyone below the top man was considered beneath him. The DIG in charge of intelligence was not even at an approachable level, but here he is, Diko Fernandez, sitting across and trying to pry open his personal vault of secrets. Why couldn’t they send at least Jinendra? He thought. He was ok with, even liked, the young cousin of the president.

Meanwhile, Diko was enjoying the show.

No one in the administration, probably even the president, really liked the position and influence enjoyed by the peace ambassador. But he was a very useful asset, and keeping him in good humour was important. He had a good following among the community, who dared to follow their leader out from the main outfit. This constituency was important for the administration to act as a magnet for the rest of the population who still carried some mistrust about the administration. He was also a motherlode of secrets. But he, like any good gold mine, kept those secrets dear, so that the administration had to keep him happy. That included all the status and perks he enjoyed.

But the issue here is personal, not political.

The Indians have given a pointer that Samuel could be holding information about the fugitive, perhaps unknowingly. The known fact is that he knew the lady who claims to be the mother of the fugitive. Normally, Samuel used to volunteer information and directions in critical matters, but he had kept silent on this issue. The photograph of the woman and her daughter was all around the media, thanks to thise meddling Indian agents at the capital. He must have noticed it, but nothing came from Samuel.

The president wanted to prod him a bit. But he can’t do it himself. He had reasons to believe that Samuel knew something about this fugitive, Simon or Sebastian, or whatever his real name was, and he was pissed that Samuel decided to feign ignorance. That was not the understanding he had with the man.

As a sign of displeasure, he decided to send someone at lower level. He asked Renjith Chaturasene, the home secretary to take care of that, and the mission naturally came to Diko. He knew that is going to make some impression with the man, and it sure did.

Samuel Nanbunayakam could not say no, without ascertaining whether these guys are bluffing. He was not expected to lie or mislead in any matter related to his previous allegiance. That was part of the understanding with the president. If he did, and it was called, all bets are off, and he can look forward to be dumped with a host of cases, enough to legally hang him. Not even the fiercest human rights activists could be able to save his skin.

It was a indeed tight spot, and he saw no way out other than refusing to talk. Yes, that option remained open. In the original agreement with the president, he had reserved the option to refuse to talk about any issue if he choses so. But that is only a legal fig leaf. Both the men very well knew that such a situation would make him lose all the goodwill he had with the president. Samuel pretty well knew that Dharmendra Renaweera would not refrain from throwing the entire understanding out of the window and start procecuting the man who is expected to become the chief minister of a semi-autonomous province.

Samuel never thought a chapter of his private life would come to review like this. Seeing the photograph of Jessica in the newspaper was a real blast from the past, but he was not expecting a follow up from the government on that. There was no reason for the forces to make a connection with him. But apparently, someone did. Someone who was privy to his little shameful secret had survived the purge!

He wondered who it was, but that was secondary now. The need for the moment is to convincingly answer the question by the intelligence chief.

Who was Jessica to him?

Jessica was his wife, if you can call the often fragile alliances between the fighters who faced death everyday as marriage. She was also the mother of a kid he thought was his all along. Before all that, she was the light of his troubled and dangerous life!

Unbeknown to anyone, she was the reason why he had to split with the leader and move out of the outfit. Innumerable times he regretted not garnering enough strength to draw his sidearm and blow apart the scheming, conniving, triple chinned head of the man for whom he used to be prepared to lay down his life. Instead, he had to walk out of the room with the head held low.

Such was life!

And then, once he was safely out of the confines of the ‘capital’, he had to start running for his life, as the leader set his trusted hunting dogs after him. Since he had considerable support among the people, it had to look like an encounter with the enemy forces. He feared a bullet any time.

But admit it or not, Samuel Nanbunayakam was always a better tactician than the leader ever was. He also had the support of the people whom he served selflessly. He could vanish among them, successfully evading all the efforts launched by the leader to locate him. Eventually he took a window of opportunity that presented itself and deserted, taking asylum with the government forces. He didn’t wait to find out what his wife, ex-wife if you may, thought. In the frenzy of things, he believed that she was in with the deceit. How can it be otherwise? Everyone owned their lives to the leader, and it appeared that it included love as well.

But how to tell all these to the petty officer? These are secrets that burn his heart even now. But he sure owe a convincing answer to the man.

Nanbunayakam sat, looking down. He could sense the impatience that churned up in the mind of Diko.

“Yes, she used to be my wife.” Samuel said finally in a barely audible whisper. “But the rest of the story, if the president want to know, could only be shared in the quiet room.”

“What a nerve” thought Diko. “What a way to demand an audience with his Excellency!”

“I will see what he says.” The DIG muttered. He stood up, ready to walk out and make a phone call. It couldn’t wait. The president was anxious for news.

[Dileep]

Chapter 41

Piracy had been a constant problem in the Arabian sea near the coast of north Africa. People from the lawless and war torn lands of Somalia had resorted to the life of crime. Their business was lucrative. They intercepted and hijacked the merchant ships that plied the waters, and released them for huge sums of ransom. Often the ships, along with their unlucky crews, were held prisoners for long periods of time, waiting for, and negotiating, the ransom amount. It has become such a big trouble, that naval vessels of various nations started patrolling the seas. Sometimes, warships escorted the high value ships. Some ships started carrying armed guards on board, which caused some concerns among the seafaring community in general.

Still, the pirates managed to get their hands to ships on a regular basis.

Initially, each one of those hijack events used to make news headlines. Printed and electronic media used to provide breaking news status, and report the developments as they happened. After a number of such events, the novelty faded and the news became relegaged to the inner pages. Sometimes, the local pages of newspapers carried the news with some prominence. That was when a crew member happens to be from the area. Otherwise, people generally ignored these news.

Sometimes, there will be some exciting news, like the crew of certain ship fighting back the pirates valiantly. Or sometimes, it will be the tales of the war ships helping the merchant vessels in distress, fighting off the pirates. There was also news about some conflicts between the war ships of two different countries. But in general, a regular, ‘uneventful’ hijack is no longer a hot news.

But the hijacking of M V Alor Gajah made headlines. The bulk carrier, loaded with palm cake from the port of Kuantan in Malaysia was already in the news a few of days ago. The ship was suspected to have crashed into a fishing boat off the Kerala coast. There was a look-out in force at all neighbouring ports for the ship, as it could not be tracked electronically. The name of the ship was all over the media, along with file photos. So, when the news of the hijack hit the wires, that too got flashed all over the TV screens.

But what the media had no way of knowing was, the Tu-142 reconnaissance aircraft of the Indian Navy was conducting extensive searches of the seas for the vessel the previous day. This was an unprecedented step. The navy almost never conducted such searches or deployed such their valuable equipment for searching for a merchant vessel. In the rare occurrence of an active pursuit, it would be the coast guard who does the search using their own equipment. The fast patrol crafts and the dorniers of the coast guard were adequate for such search not too far from the coast line. But they do not possess any facility to do search at ranges more than a couple of hundreds of nautical miles. Only the navy is equipped for that.

The Navy was ordered for the task by the higer ups in command, which caused some gripe with the naval commands. For the old salts, going out to look for a fugitive merchant vessel was like police activity, and really beneath them. Apart from the albatross, a destroyer set sail for the area, and a frigate on escort duty was ordered to close in. But it was the albatross who was expected to do the job.

The albatross took off from Dabolim and flew southwest to mee the search area. The computer models at the intelligence communities had predicted the probability, and perovided a scatter chart for the location. The idea was to co to the southeast corner of the area, and start the conventional search pattern spreading west and north. The Elta EL/M-2022A on board the Tu-142 had a range of 200NM for small targets. It would be much more than for ships the size of Alor Gajah. But the sea below is a very busy shipping lane, carrying the traffic between Europe and middle east to far east and Australia. The radar had no means of identifying the ship. That can only be done visually. So, the strategy was to look for ships that sail away from the recognized sailing patterns. Given the vastness of the sea, even that too was time consuming.

It was the standard practice to switch the radar to air-to-air mode and take a ‘look around’ from time to time. This is needed to keep them safely away from the commercial traffic. Also, you never know who would be up there to mess with.

Everything was fine as they began the search. The sky was clear and the sun was bright. They could see the bright dots representing the merchant liners that go in a straight line, like the line of ants. They flew a straight low pass for a long distance over the most dense stream of ships, to visually ascertain that their quarry is not among them. After that, they went on a shortest path hunt for the odd vessel not fitting to the pattern.

It was then they noticed a Beechcraft B200 that was apparently doing a zigzag search pattern southward. It was too far to visually id, but it was painted military grey. And the system classified it as a bandit based on the unfamiliar IFF. The pilots noticed the plane going back and forth for some time, but being concluded not to be hostile, they decided to ignore them. After some time, the plane was seen to be going in the general direction to the island nation to the south.

Though the incident was not deemed to be a threat, a full report of the details formed part of the debrief. There was no Beechcraft in military colours in the country, but they knew who had them. Given the background of the mission, it was important that the plane is doing a search in the same area.

But this bit of information went under the excitement generated by the next mission that took off soon after.

They eventually found a ship that matched the description of M V Alor Gajah. They took a couple of circuits to take pictures and turned back home to report. They were really surprised to see the ship at that location. With the pirate threat, no sensible captain sailed in those waters these days. The ship was originally destined to the port of Bandar Abbas, but it was found on a course that was way to the south, almost going to Mogsdishu. It was as if the captain had a death wish. So, the news of the pirate hijack was not really surprising for the people who ran the search mission.

But it made all the differences to the people who ordered the search. The facts reported by the search was apparently providing support for a theory they were brewing.

The theory that the missing fugitive was on board that ship, and an international conspiracy was underway that involves the neighbour to the south.

The intelligence community who got interested in the case had run feelers into their peers in the other country about the fugitive. They were provided with a photograph and brief description of the man known as Angu Thevan. Enquiries at his village had yielded an alias, Sebastian. Both names were provided in the dossier. But the official response they got was that there is no record for the person with them. But the sources on ground had identified two women who seemed to recognize the man.

And they were promptly taken away by the government agents. As luck would have it, they were traced to be related to the high level leaders of the separatists from a long time reliable source within the country.

Still, no official confirmation from them!

But the fact that they had sent out their plane, yes, though not formally identified, it must have been theirs. The recovery vector was clear. That is as good as a phone call from Mr. Renaweera the younger himself.

There was no doubt in the collective minds. The ship must be retrieved. Earlier, the better.

[Dileep]

Chapter 42

Dharmendra Renaweera sat with his reddened face and the single bloodshot eye looking down. He was not someone who took the feeling of embarrassment lightly, and his anger for his cousin, now sitting with an imaginary ‘dunce’ cap on his head, was still boiling up. But the rational side of his was continuing to make feeble attempts to point out that poor Jinendra is not to blame. Of course he acted on his own sending the Beechcraft up there to look for the ship, but at that time, the president himself wouldn’t have objected to it even if the approval was sought from him.

“What a dumb idea!” screamed his inner self. The Indians have state of the art surveillance equipment. Most probably the good old RL-2000 in the nearest airport itself must have picked up the Beechcraft up there, and what do you see when you are up there? They sent the Tu-142 in hunting mode!! The poor Beechcraft had to put its tail behind the legs and flee.

And the dreaded “What the hell are you upto?” message comes in from them, gift wrapped, and covered in the sweet crust of diplomatic English!

The proverbial rock and the hard place!!

The information he got via the official channels, and also via his own little intelligence apparatus was that they were not too bothered about the ship, even though the target who was likely to be on board. They were, as far as his informers thought, prepared to wait for the ship to get to a port. There was no indication that they knew what he knew about the man.

Did Samuel Nanbunayakam betray the trust vested upon him? Are the Indians so smart to beat the layers of security he was under? That was highly improbable. The team that handled Sam was among the most trusted lot. Unless that old fox Sam wanted to get the information out himself, there was no way the Indians could get a hold of him.

Can’t really write it off. The president had been getting an impression that Sam is turning a bit unhappy about things recently. There was no overt expression, but a lot of things go unsaid in the business. The desertion of Samuel Nanbunayakam was considered to be one of the bigest coups that Dharmendra Renaweera achieved on the enemy. But the facts that he laid bare days ago painted a very different picture. It had transpired in the quiet room, and it shall never be made public.

The leader of one of the most feared guerrilla outfit and his most trusted deputy split over a woman!!

People will laugh at them!! Dharmendra Renaweera, the master strategist, had nothing to do with the fatal split in the leadership of his enemy!! What a scandal!!

Of course, Samuel also has a lot to lose. The pillar of integrity who bravely split with the fearsome leader on the matter of principles. The peace ambassador who opened a channel for reconciliation. The selfless leader who declined to accept a position in the government, to remain with his people!.

All because of a silly love triangle!!

Samuel was the commander of the training facility for new recruits when he fell for the girl with bright eyes full of fire. Jessica Vedarathinam was her name. She was not a conscript. She was a volunteer who wanted to fight, and possibly lay her life down for the cause. That made a lot of difference. Even though everyone in the ‘army’ of the rebels claimed that they volunteered, the reality was completely different. Most were conscripts, who were forced to take arms. But admitting that means death penalty, without even a trial.

The separatist organization did not give much importance to the concept of family. The ‘nation’ (and by virtue of it, the leader) was everything. Everyone put the nation and the cause of creating a free home land before everyting, including personal relationships. Parents were expected to proudly give away their children, likely for a suicide mission. The concept of husband and wife were not much different from the concept of platoon mates. The love and loyalty among the couple was forged in the model of love and loyalty to the military unit. After all, they need new generation to be produced in order to continue the fight.

Still, being humans, relationships did always bloom. Though they were not encouraged, the system did allow for formal matrimony, and raising of families among the ranks. However, constant reminders were always made about the priorities they had, and the couple always found themselves unable to live together for prolonged periods of time. Some assignment will invariably turn up to split them.

Samuel had no intention of getting involved with the other sex, let alone being married. Emotional ties were something he did not want, as it would interfere with his mission. But he did feel something tender towards the girl cadet with fiery eyes. By the time the training ended, things had progressed so much that he placed her to a unit quite nearby so that they could meet each other often.

Then Samuel Nanbunayakam was promoted, and it was then he realized how much he was involved with the real fire inside Jessica.

He ended up marrying her and took her along to the ‘capital’ where the leader had established his ‘government’. Things were looking good. The enemy had resigned to the inevitable fact that the separatists held a lot of power, and controlled a lot of land. There was an undeclared peace. In a maganmous mood, the leader himself blessed the brief, official ceremony conducted at the capital for ‘government records’. Jessica was placed in the unit that guards the government building. They could live together in one of the small homes that the senior officers were allotted. Things couldn’t be better.

Then Sam was sent on an action to try capturing a choke point that would get a few more villages into rebel control. He was away for almost a year. The action was not successful. The only result was the breaking of the uneasy peace, and going back to the system of daily skirmishes all along the line that divided the forces.

It remains unknown, at least as per the account by Samuel himself, when or how it all started, but he found on his return that Jessica had been moved to the inner circles of the unit that guarded the leader and his family. The leader already had two wives. The first one, with whom he had a son, was living abroad with the kid at an undisclosed location. The second one, with two boys, lived with him at the ‘government house’ complex. The inner working of the personal life of the leader was totally unknown even to his close deputies. He spent very little time with the family, but that little time was really private and personal. The unit that guarded the family was also secretive because of the high level of threat they faced.

Jessica had to spend a lot of time at the government house, and the time she spent with Sam had drasticallty reduced. Sam also was given a lot of responsibilities at work. Their lives started to flow apart. But as if to mend things, Jessica became pregnant. She gave birth to a boy at the small clinic attached to the government house, under the expert care of the personal doctor of the leader.

And the leader himself attended his baptism, naming him Simon Mariadas. The organization did not carry common last names. This was done to reinforce the nation first policy. For a short duration, life was back to normal for Samuel Nanbunayakam. Just for a short duration.

The war had resumed, and throughout the ranks and file, things became busy. This time, the government forces were more determined, and they had the aid from some of the international sources. Samuel had to leave the capital and take command of one of the provincial divisions. He could meet his family only during his visits to the capital. Jessica seemed aloof, and often he couldn’t even meet his son, who was in the ‘boarding school’ where the kids of the top brass of the organizations studied.

Simon was ten years old when the war again came to a pause. The rebels had lost a lot of territory, and had retreated behind a line of natural fortification. It was tough for the government forces to pass that obstacle, and given the depleted state of their resources, they had unilaterally decided to establish a ceasefire once again. Everyone let out a sigh of relief.

But not for Samuel. When he reached the capital, looking forward to a happy reunion with his family, a bombshell was waiting for him.

Jessica wanted to leave him. It was left unsaid that it was in favour of the leader. When your soul, bodies, and lives belonged to the leader, it was not necessary to be explicit.

Samuel Nanbunayakam had to endure the weight of the fact that the leader had taken from him much more than what he owed. He took his beloved wife and his son.

Actually, not his son. The leader was the father of Simon Mariadas. Jessica had been his ‘little house’ all these years. She dumped the bombshell upon Sam and walked out, and that was the last time he saw her.

The meeting with the leader went uneventful. Neither men let it show that they had been at two vertices of a triangle. The conversation, though a bit uneasy, lingered purely on work, generally the various strategic and tactical options for his unit, along with some pieces of wisdom the leader is wont to dispense. Samuel knew his leader too well to create any scene. He had to walk out of that room with head held low and the honour shattered.

He quietly wished well to his enstranged wife, and left the capital to join back his unit. If anything he knew about his leader, it was that he relentlessly and ruthlessly pursued his detractors. Now Samuel was one. But he also knew that the leader couldn’t do anything against him publicly. He held influence over a considerable number of the community. He expected it to come as an encounter with the government forces.

He sidestepped it by organizing a thrust into the government lines that was bound to fail. That would allow him to retreat into the impregnable hills, and vanish in the jungle. Still, several infiltrations were thwarted by his trusted leutenants.

It took him almost a year to arrange for a safe desertion. When it happened, only Jessica and the leader knew the real reason.

That was until he was forced to confess it to the president.

The fact that Simon Mariadas was the son of the dead leader, and he is being seen to be protected by a significantly capable entity was a worrisome one. It could mean only one thing.

The evil is not dead.

Dharmendra Renaweera had to force himself to admit that he can’t deal with it alone. He needs to work with the other nations involved.

“Arrange a conference with our allies.” He muttered to Jinendra. “Before that, get me a call to New Delhi. If the PM is not available right away, get the NSA. This can’t wait.”

[Rahul M]

kya twist hai saarji !

[Dilbu]

Wow..