‘A threesome? Wow!’ ACP Shome’s eyes lit up.
Adrian looked around to see if there were any nervous faces in the crowd.
‘Cotton Trail, cryptography, Stanford, Frosty . . . It was too much of a coincidence for us to ignore. We at the FBI believe that there are no coincidences. So we visited Stanford. It didn’t take us long to figure out that Gillian Tan was a colourful man. His proximity to the President had protected him all his life. We discovered that he was particularly friendly with that one student, whose dorm he used to visit often. Even took the Hooker along with him. Of course, he took care to ensure that no one saw him enter or leave, but you know how college students are. They figured everything out. They are smart. But no one spoke about it, given his stature.’
Adrian turned to ACP Shome and said, ‘Some coffee would be nice. Possible?’
‘Of course! Let me organize it for you.’ He looked at the others. ‘Coffee anyone?’ All hands went up. ‘I should have asked earlier!’ He smiled and went out, even as Adrian continued speaking.
‘Coming back to the MacBook . . . There were names of three Stanford students on the encrypted report we found on Gillian’s laptop. And guess what? Of the three, two are dead.’
95
Mumbai
‘One was a Japanese guy, found hanging in the dorm. Another, who was thrown out of Stanford, got into the line of fire. Decided to make love to a bullet fired by my man Tony. Eerie, isn’t it?’
‘You said there were three?’ Kabir was now getting into the act.
‘Yeah, that’s correct.’
‘One committed suicide.’
‘That’s what the official records say.’
‘One you killed.’
‘We didn’t shoot to kill. He tried to murder Nikki Tan.’
‘Where is the third?’ Kabir asked.
‘That’s why we are here.’
‘Meaning?’ ACP Shome’s face turned white. He turned and looked at the others in the room.
Adrian looked at him and nodded. ‘Yeah, you are right.’
‘Holy motherfucker!’ ACP Shome exclaimed. ‘Who?’
Everyone looked at each other. No one spoke.
‘The Hooker’s threesome with Gillian was in a dorm occupied by the third student. The only living person among the group of the four bitcoin founders. Someone who had 3 per cent attendance on days when Gillian was at Stanford but 99 per cent attendance otherwise. A person who, Gillian was in constant contact with even after leaving campus. A person who goes by the name of Altoids in cyberspace. And this is not speculation. Decrypting Gillian’s laptop gave us all this information using which we were able to narrow down our list of suspects to one person who could possibly be Altoids.’
At that precise moment, the door flew open and Tony walked in. In his hand was a laptop. With him was a representative of the crime cell of Mumbai Police, who saluted when he saw ACP Shome. Tony went to Adrian and whispered something. The stress lines on Adrian’s forehead relaxed. He smiled. When Tony was done, he looked at everyone in the room and spoke.
‘Gentlemen and lady, we know who Altoids is. Until now we suspected one individual. Now we have evidence. Will the real Altoids please stand up?’
No one stood.
Adrian walked up to where all of them were seated. ‘You want me to tell you? I have no problem with that.’ He shrugged and stopped with Aditya to his right. He turned. It was like the elimination round of a reality show on TV. Then, he pointedly looked at the person sitting next to Aditya.
‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why did you do all this? Was this just about bitcoins? Or was it something else?’
96
Mumbai
‘That’s a lie!’ Tanya yelled at the top of her voice.
Varun looked at Aditya, wondering what was going on.
‘How can you accuse me of being involved in this bitcoin scam?’ Tanya screamed. She was angry. And it showed.
‘And more. You also killed your mother,’ Kabir announced.
‘Oh my God!’ Her hands flew to her lips.
‘Hmm, yes. If that means anything to you.’
‘Nonsense. I loved my mom. Why would I kill her?’
‘Your mother was only one of the people you killed, Tanya. We will come to that in a bit. First, let’s examine how you killed her.’
Kabir looked straight at her.
‘You are ruining my reputation without any evidence. I will haul your backside over burning coals!’ Tanya was furious.
‘Wait, wait, wait!’ Kabir walked to his briefcase and pulled out another plastic pouch. Like earlier, he held it high up in the air and shook it for those present in the room to see.
‘Wasabi,’ Sundeep muttered. ‘Wasabi-flavoured nuts?’
‘Yes, wasabi nuts. What were they doing in your house, Tanya?’
‘What kind of question is that? My mom loved everything wasabi-flavoured. And she always had it with her drink.’
‘I know that. But how did this get into your house?’ He pointed to the packet in his hand and asked her, ‘These nuts? How did they get in? They were seized last week during the raid.’
‘I told you. Mom must have brought them.’
Kabir held the packet out and asked, ‘Would you like to eat one?’
‘I don’t like the smell of wasabi,’ Tanya retorted.
‘What? You don’t like wasabi? Fair enough. But for our sake, won’t you eat just one?’
‘She doesn’t eat wasabi. She is allergic to it,’ said Varun.
‘Doesn’t matter. Won’t do much harm, Mr Rao.’ He offered the pouch to Tanya and said, ‘One nut, Nightingale?’
Adrian too walked up to stand right next to her.
Tanya looked the other way. She said nothing.
‘She won’t,’ Kabir said, looking at the others. ‘She won’t because these nuts are laced with poison from hemlock seeds. When Tanya went on to the terrace to give Malvika her drink, she offered her the nuts, knowing Malvika would never say no to them. The pungent smell of the wasabi masked the smell of the poison. Even small doses can be lethal. The poison would have begun to affect her within minutes. Malvika would have felt her legs giving way. Drunk as she was, she would have leaned against the wall for support. A combination of her being drunk and unstable along with a progressive paralytic attack would have made her trip on the parapet and fall to her death. Everyone would suspect suicide. Poisoning would not be on anyone’s mind. Matter closed. What a fabulous cover you had! The finance minister. Tell the world of an affair with the minister. And just in case the suicide story didn’t work, the world would think that the minister was responsible for the murder. Awesome, Tanya, awesome!’
‘What rubbish! I did not kill my mom.’
‘This small bottle of wasabi nuts was recovered from your kitchen. Forensic examination shows that this is laced with hemlock poison. The poison on just one nut is enough to kill a person.’
‘I have no clue how it got there. I didn’t even know that hemlock seeds are poisonous. And, for a minute, even if I believe that this is how mom died, where is the proof that I did it?’
Kabir laughed like a mad man. He walked back to his briefcase and pulled out a picture of Tanya getting into the ambulance. He showed it to everybody. Her bag was open. He pulled out another picture, ‘This is the magnified image of the photo I just showed you.’
There was a buzz in the room. The second photograph was a close-up of Tanya’s open bag. Inside the bag, they could clearly see a small bottle containing green-coloured nuts. It was obvious that they were the wasabi-flavoured nuts. He lifted the bottle that had been seized from Tanya’s house and held it up for everyone to see.
‘Same brand, shape, size, scratches, batch number . . . In essence the one in my hand is the bottle you are seeing in Ms Tanya Sehgal’s bag.’ He turned towards Tanya and asked, ‘Can you please explain, Ms Tanya Sehgal, how that bottle came to be your bag? A bag that you were carrying on your person when accompanied Malvika’
s body in the ambulance? And why would you carry wasabi nuts for your mother, especially at a time when the Four Seasons had been specifically told to ensure that wasabi nuts were served along with drinks?’ He pulled out the confirmation mail from the Four Seasons and waved it at everyone present in the room.
Silence.
She had a faraway look in her eyes.
‘Why would you suspect the wasabi nuts to be compromised, of all things?’ Aditya spoke. The sole sensible voice in the room.
‘Normally, we wouldn’t but that night we found it in the kitchen. Right next to where the cleaning liquids are kept. Why would anyone keep wasabi nuts there? Not to say that we were sure something was amiss—it was just one of the things we decided to check. But our suspicion had been aroused for sure. After our tests found the poison in it, we asked to re-examine Malvika’s viscera and found traces of the same poison. In quantities large enough to kill someone.’
‘The initial post-mortem report didn’t show it!’ Aditya argued.
‘It wouldn’t. The problem with toxicology testing is that there is no one test that checks for all known poisons. The tests normally conducted in a post-mortem check for opiates and basic toxins. Only when someone suspects foul play or a specific toxin is forensic toxicology more useful. In this case, had we not found the wasabi nuts in the kitchen, we would never have figured out what could have caused her death.’ Kabir was very forthcoming.
Aditya looked at Tanya with surprise. ‘But this is unbelievable. There must be a mistake somewhere. Tanya couldn’t have killed Malvika!’
‘I have no idea what Mr Khan is talking about, Aditya uncle. I did not kill my mom!’
‘That’s for the courts to decide,’ said Kabir.
‘But, Mr Khan, even if we assume that Tanya killed Malvika, what could the motivation be? Why would she kill Malvika? The whole logic seems baseless!’ Had anyone else said this, he would have had hell to pay. But Aditya had built a rapport with both Adrian and Kabir and that helped.
‘It was not the wasabi alone, Mr Rao. If we carefully look at everything that Malvika had on her person at the time she died, it becomes clear we were wrong in concluding that Malvika committed suicide.’
Blank looks.
‘In fact it was what she didn’t have when she reached the hospital that made us wonder. We figured this out only a few days ago, when the CBI started re-examining the case.’ Without waiting for responses, he pulled out another photograph. ‘Here.’
It was a photograph of Malvika holding a wine glass. It was taken during the party. ‘Look carefully at everything she is wearing.’ He pulled out a few more pictures from his bag. ‘Look at these pictures, taken before the ambulance arrived, and after she was taken to the hospital.’
Nothing seemed to be different. Adrian was not looking at the pictures. He was looking at the people in the room, gauging their expressions. ‘And here is the list of items found on Malvika’s body when she was taken in.’
‘Notice anything amiss?’ Kabir asked everyone.
No one responded. ‘Tanya, do you notice anything amiss?’
‘Let me tell you, since she won’t,’ Kabir continued. ‘In the picture where Malvika is holding a wine glass, she is wearing a ring on her right hand. The next image is from when she was lying on the
ground at the spot where she fell. The ring is still on her finger. In the third photo taken at the hospital . . . the ring is missing!’
‘And here, look!’ He passed around two more images. ‘Tanya at the party. Tanya at the hospital.’ Tanya was not even listening any more. ‘Look at her fingers.’ Kabir was persistent. ‘No ring at the party. But mysteriously the ring appears when she steps out of the ambulance at the hospital!’
When everyone was done looking at the images, he added, ‘Tanya is wearing the ring right now.’
‘This was my mother’s ring. I took it off her finger and wore it. How does that prove anything? What are you trying to insinuate?’ She turned around. Everyone was looking at her. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ she cried out. And she walked towards Varun and hugged him, as if imploring him to take her away from there.
Varun pushed her back, just a bit. ‘Then why, Tanya? Why did you lie to me about the ring?’ He held her hand and pulled it up softly. Tanya tried to free herself. Varun’s grip was stronger than she had thought.
‘You are hurting me, Varun,’ she squirmed.
Varun didn’t bother. With his free hand, he held her fingers and tried to pull off the ring. Tanya’s lucky charm. It came off very easily. It had come off easily that night too when it had scratched his finger while he was in bed with a drunk Tanya.
Varun walked up to Adrian and gave him the ring. He turned towards Tanya. ‘Why did you pretend that day, when I proposed, that the ring was so tight that it wouldn’t come off your finger?’
‘I don’t know, Varun, believe me! I don’t know. It was tight that day. I couldn’t take it off.’
By then, Adrian had pulled out a magnifying glass and was examining the ring. ‘Perhaps you can then explain how a bitcoin private key made its way on to this ring?’
‘I have no clue. What private key are you talking about?’
‘As a bitcoin founder, you should not ask this question, sweetheart!’ said Adrian. He looked at the others and explained what a private key of a bitcoin wallet is. After that, he turned to Tanya and said, ‘So, sweetheart, now can you tell us if you killing your mom was all about bitcoins and nothing else?’
‘If you are saying that Malvika was killed for the ring, then isn’t it clear? It’s about the money!’ That was Sundeep. ‘But Malvika couldn’t have had so much money that anyone would want to kill her for it! And, in any case, Tanya is her only heir. Everything that was Malvika’s would be Tanya’s in any case.’
‘She had enough money.’ It was Aditya this time. ‘She laundered the money by transferring it overseas for the finance minister. It was all to be in exchange for cash and the position of RBI governor. She moved roughly 500 crore rupees of his money overseas. In return, she received 50 crore rupees. She kept all of it in bitcoins and was paranoid that she would lose them. I told her she was mad to keep it all in bitcoins but she wouldn’t listen to me. She maintained a record of everything, inaccessible to anyone else.’
‘It’s here,’ announced Tony. ‘All that is on this laptop. The details of her bitcoin holdings along with the transaction details are all here. Dan just sent in the contents in unencrypted form. There is just 1 GB of data on this 750 GB laptop. Clearly, this laptop had only one purpose—to manage her transactions. Rather, keep a record of her transactions. This laptop has never been used to log on to the Internet.’
Varun remembered the night he sent the mail to the FBI. He looked at Tanya. Fear was writ large in her eyes. She looked worried. Worried about being exposed? He wondered. He took two steps towards her. ‘Is that why you stopped me from using that laptop on the net, Tanya?’
‘When Varun? When did I ever stop you from doing anything?’
‘That night, when I sent a message to the CBI detailing Swami uncle’s deposition implicating the finance minister, you asked me to transfer the file to the other laptop. I thought you asked me to do so because the other laptop connected automatically to the wi-fi. I never imagined it was because it contained details of her finances, which could be stolen if anyone hacked into it. Like a fool, I believed you. Tanya, I believed every word you said.’ Varun looked the other way, visibly upset.
Tanya stared at him. She was about to respond when Kabir stepped in. ‘So how much money did your mother have in bitcoins, Tanya?’
‘Enough!’ she screamed. ‘Enough! First you accuse me of killing my mom. Then you accuse me of stealing all her bitcoins. God knows what’s gotten into you.’
‘Hold it, hold it!’ Adrian exclaimed. ‘That’s not the only thing you’re being accused of. You also founded Cotton Trail, an anonymous underground haven for drugs, banned medicines, and criminal activit
ies of all kinds. You got Gillian Tan killed because he was about to confess to the President about his involvement, and give it all up. You helped organize the 5-million-dollar ATM heist and you let loose a massive malware that infected millions of computers and smartphones worldwide.’ Adrian had an angry look on his face.
Tanya’s hands went up and covered her mouth. ‘You can’t be serious!’
‘Can’t get any more serious, miss . . .’ and he paused, ‘. . . Nightingale.’
‘And what’s the evidence?’ Tanya asked, her voice betraying fear and despair.
‘Well, Gillian Tan’s laptop has revealed trails of email conversations with you debating his decision to give it all up. Because this was becoming bigger than he had anticipated. The NSA has access to emails exchanged between you two. Even the one where you threatened him with dire consequences in case he didn’t give up any such plans—that is on record. Twelve days before he died, you threatened to have him eliminated if he didn’t listen to you. You will be given an opportunity to counter these allegations but chances of you being able to prove it are slim. Before I forget, traces of the communication you had with Gillian after he decided to speak to the President about his being the force behind bitcoins, have been found on your laptop. And the same have been matched with those found on Gillian’s laptop. The reconstruction of the dialogue between you two, using the two laptops, has shown growing, rather extreme animosity between you and him. It’s watertight, Tanya.’
‘No, I didn’t kill Gillian. He was such a gentleman. Why would I kill him?’
‘Ah, finally one confession. So you knew Gillian Tan.’
No response.
‘You needed money to keep Cotton Trail going, so you masterminded the ATM heist.’
‘No, I didn’t. This is a set-up. I do not know anything about the ATM heist. I need to speak to my lawyer.’ Tanya was almost in tears.
‘You will get a lawyer but only after we are done with you. The ATM heist in New York was carried out with five debit cards. All five belonged to senior employees of NYIB all of whom, in a strange coincidence, visited your house for a dinner four months ago. When a new CEO took over NYIB. The welcome party was at your house, wasn’t it?’
God is a Gamer Page 24