‘Out for a jog. You know I go for a jog every day.’
‘Oh yes! But I needed to tell you this now. Couldn’t wait.’
‘Dad, you sound really happy. What happened?’
‘You did it, Son! Townsville is the number one app on the Apple store’s “most downloaded” list!’
‘Wow, really?’ Varun too had a wide grin on his face.
‘Yes. I just saw the mail from Apple. It’s a huge achievement, Varun. Never before has any app from India made it to that position.’
‘It’s all because of you, Dad. You built a fabulous company. You deserve every bit of credit for this.’
‘You know, Varun, this could not have happened at a better time for us. After all the issues with eTIOS and NYIB pulling out, we desperately needed some good PR. This will do it for us! We’ll definitely get some good stories in the media.’
In his excitement, Aditya forgot that Varun was out for a jog. Varun indulged him for a bit and then hung up. He turned to his right and smiled. ‘We are number one on the Apple store. How cool is that?’
‘Come on!’ Tanya rolled her eyes. ‘What’s the big deal?’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘You probably used bots to download your program.’
‘Shut up, you idiot,’ Varun retorted. ‘I stopped using bots the moment we became a paid app.’
‘Huh?’ She pretended to be unimpressed and ran off towards the junction of Worli Seaface with the Bandra–Worli sea link.
‘Wait! Wait!’ Varun called out loudly as he took off behind her. ‘This is a wonderful piece of news. You don’t know the worth of a game, you layman!’ He caught up with her, held her by her shoulder, imploring her to stop.
She laughed. Her pretty face lit up. ‘You rock, Varun, you rock. I was kidding.’ And the smile became even broader.
‘Wait, rock reminds me of something.’
Varun fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a tiny box. The maroon box had a wavy ‘T’ embossed on it. He went down on his knee, one hand on his heart and the other holding the ring he had taken out of the box.
‘Marry me!’
Tanya looked at the Tanishq solitaire in his hand. She couldn’t take her eyes of the glittering diamond ring.
‘Tanya?’
‘Were you saying something, Varun?’ Tanya asked, mischievously.
‘Will you marry me?’
‘Idiot!’ Tanya said. ‘Of course I heard it the first time. I was testing your patience.’ Her hands went up to her cheeks and she shut her eyes with her fingertips.
‘My knees are hurting.’
‘Of course I will, Varun.’ She pulled him up and hugged him. ‘I will, Varun, I will. You are the only one I have.’
‘Give me your hand,’ said Varun. Tanya extended her left hand towards him. He held her ring finger and was about to slip the ring on when he saw an old ring. ‘Take it off.’
Tanya tried to pull it off but it didn’t budge.
‘Let me try,’ Varun volunteered.
‘No it’s fine. It’s an old ring. It’s gotten stuck. Slip yours on this finger.’ And she extended the finger adjacent to the ring finger towards him.
Varun quietly slipped it on the other finger.
Tanya looked at the solitaire, kissed it excitedly and hugged Varun again.
‘I love you, baby,’ he said.
‘Me too, Varun. Be with me for ever.’
‘Can I make one call? It’s important.’ Tanya nodded.
‘Dad!’ Varun screamed into the phone. ‘Tanya said yes, Dad. She said YES! This is the best day of my life. Bye, Dad.’ And he hung up.
He turned around. Tanya hugged him again. ‘I wish I had someone I could call and share this with.’
Varun hugged her even more tightly. ‘I’m there now.’
After a few moments, he released her and said, ‘Come, let’s go. I have to pack for my trip to Ukraine tomorrow.’
‘Oh yes.’ Tanya knew that Varun was going to Ukraine to take a look at a small gaming company, which an investment banker had recommended they could buy.
‘When will you be back?’
‘Three days. But today calls for a celebration, Tanya. Dinner? Tonight? What say?’
Tanya was not in a mood for dinner. ‘Let’s go for a movie?’ Varun agreed.
That night, when they returned from the movie, Varun came up to drop her to her place.
The moment Tanya unlocked the door, she let out a gasp. ‘Oh my God! What the fuck?’ Her hands instinctively went up and covered her mouth. Varun sidestepped her and walked in. The whole house was a mess. The furniture was in disarray, papers were strewn everywhere . . . Somebody had come in when they were away and ransacked the house.
Varun was shocked. He walked from room to room, looking at the chaos.
‘Looks like your mom had something after all and someone wants it desperately.’
‘But what? Who?’
‘I can only think of one person whose behaviour was out of the ordinary.’
When a perplexed Tanya looked at Varun, he clarified. ‘The finance minister. Remember what he asked you that day? If your mom had left something for him . . .’
‘Motherfucker.’ That was all Tanya could say, as she looked around in dismay.
The local cops were promptly called in. Aditya too landed up.
Much to their surprise, the CCTV camera in the building was not working when the break-in had occurred. Strangely, the building had suffered a power outage for a few minutes that evening. The fuse had been tampered with. Since power outages are unheard of in south Mumbai, most buildings do not have any power back-up.
The watchman and other support staff in the building were quizzed. No one knew anything.
When Varun and Tanya tried to lodge a complaint with the police, the cops refused to register a case. They fought and argued, but to no avail. They left the police station, threatening to pull strings.
On the way back, Varun asked Tanya if she wanted to stay with him and Aditya for a few days. She politely refused. There were too many memories associated with her mother. ‘I can’t leave, Varun. I just can’t leave this place and move.’
76
Mumbai
Tony had just woken up. He was lying on his bed, naked from the waist down. A towel lay on the floor beside the bed. His iPad was next to him, on top of the quilt. He unlocked it and the screen came up in a flash. Confessions of the Hooker . . . proclaimed a huge banner running across the top of the site. He was now looking at the blog of the infamous hooker in United States who claimed to have bedded over 200 celebrities.
The blog post that she had released the previous day was about a British cricketer whom she had met on one of his trips to New York. The Huffington Post that Tony had read on his flight to India had carried excerpts from the blog; the article was attempting to guess the identity of the blogger. No one knew who she was. Tony prayed for her safety. When important people are tickled in their pants, it can get extremely uncomfortable
Huffington Post had rated the blog as one of the most erotic of all times, though it was mediocre in terms of language and literary excellence. ‘What else do you expect from a hooker?’ said the article.
Tony concurred. Her blog posts were really erotic and could turn on even a dead man. Irrespective of what the Huffington Post said, the blog had become quite popular in the United States.
The events of last night flashed before his eyes.
He was already horny. He hadn’t had a woman in over two weeks. It was getting to him. He was scared of trying anything adventurous in India. Stories of how people in India extorted money from foreigners in the name of sex had scared him. And how long can one live on porn? He decided to give Confessions a try. ‘An erotic book is always better in bed than a stranger. If not better, at least safer.’
The first post he read was an escapade with an ageing Hollywood star. A star she called Grizzly, because of the humungous amount of body hair he had. She went on to reveal how, at the age of 63, and at her insistence
, the ageing star decided to wax and have all the hair removed from his body. She went on to describe in explicit details her sexual escapades with him, and how removal of the hair around his manhood made him a lot more appealing to her than his earlier avatar.
The way she described their rendezvous turned Tony on. Something stirred down there. Once he was done playing with himself, he kept the iPad aside, rolled over and went off to sleep.
77
Mumbai
Tanya wanted to complain to the CBI about the break-in and make it a part of the deposition she had given a few days ago. Kabir Khan was waiting for her. She had called him before making the trek to the CBI office.
When she had settled in the chair in front of Khan’s table, he began to speak. ‘I know you would be concerned about the unannounced raid on your house last night.’
‘Raid?’ Tanya was surprised. This angle hadn’t occurred to her.
‘Yes, madam. The CBI raided your residence last night. Yours truly is the culprit.’
‘How can you do that? It’s illegal! I will drag you to court.’
‘Be my guest,’ thundered an arrogant Kabir. ‘We had the requisite court permissions. Two panchas were with us.’ He shrugged.
‘What did you take from my house?’
‘The list of the items we seized and the panchas’ declaration have been handed over to the court. You can take the list from the court in due course.’
‘This is ridiculous. I will complain.’
‘To whom?’
‘To the home minister.’
Kabir took out his pen, tore out a piece of paper from a pad in front of him, and wrote down a number. ‘There you go.’ He gave the paper to Tanya. ‘The home minister’s number. I’ll tell his personal assistant to put you through when you call.’ And he laughed. ‘That will be all, Ms Sehgal. Thanks for coming by.’
He had exacted his revenge for Tanya’s misbehaviour when he had gone to her house to interrogate her.
78
Mumbai
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ asked Tony, the moment he saw Adrian and ACP Shome waiting in the lobby. He was late by five minutes. Adrian was wearing jeans and a white shirt.
‘Yes, of course. Why else would we be here waiting for you?’
‘Don’t you think you will tip him off? Make him a bit more careful?’ ACP Shome asked. ‘It might be better to monitor him for some time.’
‘No, Mr Shome. The thing about cyber crime is that the tyre marks are already there, and they cannot be covered. Irrespective of how hard you try. In fact, the harder you try, the more tracks you end up making. So by alerting him, we might prevent any further traces from coming up. What we have already will be enough to nail him.’ Adrian countered as he got into the car. ‘And, Tony,’ he continued, ‘the more I see of this case, the more I am convinced that there is a link between the ATM heist, Cotton Trail and Gillian Tan’s assassination. It’s just that we don’t know what it is.’
The Toyota Innova made its way through the busy streets of Mumbai. ACP Shome had a job to do. To trail the two FBI agents and make sure things didn’t go out of hand. And also to make sure that if any victories were to be had, the Mumbai police got information about them well in advance to claim credit. The night before, he had given his daily report to his boss, the head of Mumbai police, about the visit to the VTS office. And how Adrian had coaxed the legal head of VTS out of the room while a seemingly disinterested Tony had clicked away happily at the documents lying on the table. ACP Shome had been told to look the other way, as long as matters didn’t blow up. Their actions had CBI approval, he was told.
In no time, they were at the address mentioned in those documents.
*
Aditya was engrossed in work. After the recent debacle, eTIOS wanted to hire the services of a systems security firm to audit them on a regular basis, recommend upgrades and plug loopholes. Given how he was a stickler for quality, he only wanted the best in class. They had shortlisted four international firms and three of them had been called that day to make their pitches. He had just returned to his office after one such meeting when his intercom buzzed.
‘They are here, Aditya.’ It was his secretary.
‘Hmm. Show them in. And can you also organize some coffee for us? Black for me.’
‘Yes, Aditya.’
*
‘Good morning. Thanks for meeting us at such a short notice, Mr Rao.’
‘I’ve got used to this gentlemen, especially after the problem you had in New York.’ Aditya smiled.
‘These are Special Agents Adrian Scott and Tony Claire of the FBI.’ ACP Shome made the introductions.
‘Thank you, ACP Shome. Hope all is fine and safe under your watch.’
Shome smiled.
‘The FBI is extremely grateful to you, Mr Rao, for being so candid and open about the happenings at eTIOS. Our purpose of meeting you today is to understand from you if your internal investigations have hinted at the involvement of any insiders in the data infringement that led to the ATM heist in New York.’ Adrian was not there to inquire about the heist, but it did provide a good opening.
Aditya looked at ACP Shome. He was a bit confused. He had been subjected to such questions from the day of the incident. His intercom buzzed again.
‘Yes?’
‘Aditya, the next team is here. Should I ask them to wait?’
‘No, ask Sundeep to meet them and start the presentation. I’ll join them.’ And hung up. He looked at the three visitors and volunteered. ‘We are meeting a few international firms to audit our system security on a quarterly basis. Just to make sure that we are fully covered and not exposed.’
‘That’s nice. Who all are you meeting?’ Adrian was just being courteous.
‘We just started this morning. So far only FireVault has presented its case. We have three more meetings during the course of the day and tomorrow.’
‘Really gracious of you, Mr Rao, to have met us on this busy day.’
‘No, no, not at all. In fact I’m sorry that I kept you waiting.We digressed during the presentation and started talking about an incident in Pondicherry a couple of days ago. That took up a lot of our time.’
‘Incident?’ Shome was curious.
‘Oh, you would probably know,’ he said, looking at Shome. ‘The incident where a French woman was molested by an American inside Auroville in Pondicherry. The molester was thrashed by some people who had gathered, on hearing the woman cry for help. He is admitted in a local hospital.’
‘Is that so?’ Shome tried to think but couldn’t recollect anything.
Aditya continued, ‘The interesting bit is that the American’s passport was found to be fake. The police are now trying to identify him. Security and infringement is an issue everywhere, you see. Not only in our systems.’ He smiled.
Tony was taking copious notes.
‘In any case, let’s get back to the matter at hand.’ Aditya spoke about the entire episode and the aftermath and how they had dealt with it. About how it had impacted their credibility and how they had worked towards restoring customer confidence. He brooded over the fact that they had lost the NYIB account. For almost fifteen minutes everyone just listened to what Aditya had to say.
Tony suddenly got up and walked to his bag, kept in a corner of the room. He dug out something and walked back to the table. As he got closer, he extended his hand towards Aditya. He was holding a box.
‘Mint?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Sugarfree Altoids.’ The stress on the word ‘Altoids’ was evident and intentional.
‘No, thanks,’ Aditya repeated firmly. ‘I’m not a mint person.’
‘What about you, Adrian? ACP Shome?’ Tony turned to the two of them and offered mints. Adrian picked one while Shome too declined.
‘Wonderful. All this is now for me,’ Tony said cheerfully himself and kept the box in front of him. Adrian was keenly observing Aditya’s response. There was no change i
n his demeanour.
The discussion continued. The brief Altoids interjection didn’t impact anything. After about twenty-five minutes, Adrian got up to leave.
‘Thanks, Mr Rao. Appreciate your time.’
‘Not at all. If you have any other queries, please feel free to call me or mail me.’
‘Will it be okay if I email you at the Frosty.com ID?’ Adrian sprung a surprise.
‘Frosty.com?’ Aditya seemed genuinely surprised. ‘I don’t have
any ID by that name. My ID is on the card I gave you. Please use
that ID. I’ll make sure someone from my team responds immediately.’ As he said this, Sundeep walked in. ‘Hey, Sundeep, good you are here. Meet Agents Adrian Scott and Tony Claire from the FBI.’
‘FBI? I came to check if you’ll take long. If not, we’ll wait for you and not begin the presentation.’
‘We are almost done, Sundeep. These gentlemen are here to get an update on the lead up to the ATM heist.’
‘Oh, okay. You should have called me, Aditya.’ Sundeep was visibly disappointed that it was just by chance that he had stumbled upon the meeting.
*
After they left, Sundeep repeated, ‘Aditya, you should have called me. I would have given them the correct picture.’
‘It’s okay. I handled it. I’d have called you in case I was getting stuck somewhere.’ He put his arm around a sulking Sundeep. ‘In any case, you have too much to do as it is.’
*
After exiting the eTIOS office, Tony and Adrian got into the police jeep with Shome.
‘Strange. He didn’t show any reaction when we confronted him with references to Altoids and Frosty,’ began Adrian. ‘If he did mastermind the heist, he should have been shocked when we mentioned those words.’
‘But we have clinching evidence against him, don’t we?’
‘Not sure if you can call it clinching, Tony. In fact, under the circumstances it may not even be enough.’ Adrian was concerned. ‘The pictures that you clicked showed that the IP address corresponded to the wi-fi in Aditya’s room. Perhaps his laptop. But what does that prove? He could be Altoids but we still don’t have evidence of Altoids’s involvement in the ATM heist. We just suspect him of being the brain behind Cotton Trail.’
God is a Gamer Page 19