Saboteur

by RV Raman

  The confusion in Nilay’s mind deepened.

  ‘Nefertiti,’ he whispered, ‘is the pseudonym of a freelance programmer. A programmer who is really, really sharp, but of doubtful integrity. Moin considered Nefertiti a genius.’

  ‘Moin knew this person?’ Dhruvi’s surprise was evident.

  Nilay’s answer was a nod.

  ‘They were batchmates. They even spoke to each other a few days ago.’

  ‘His name, Mr Adiga?’ Dhruvi asked softly.

  ‘Nefertiti is a woman. Her name is Nitya.’

  Chapter 21

  The scrawny girl clad in green trousers, a yellow top and sneakers got off a cab and hurried into the mall, her spindly legs taking two steps at a time as she ascended the broad stairway. Fifty feet into the mall, she stopped abruptly and turned to look at a store window. But she was not looking at the display. Instead, she was studying the reflection of the mall entrance visible on the plate glass covering the window. She remained there for five minutes, watching the people entering the mall.

  Then, apparently satisfied that she was not being followed, the gawky girl left the mall and hailed a passing autorickshaw. She hopped on to the vehicle even before it had come to a complete halt and directed the driver to a nearby residential colony.

  Ten minutes later, she alighted from the autorickshaw and began strolling down the road. She took the next left and circled the block to return to where the autorickshaw had dropped her off. The vehicle was nowhere in sight. She crossed the road, walked up its length for a short distance and turned into the gate of an independent house. The front door opened as she approached it and she quickly slid in.

  ‘I followed your instructions,’ she said in a voice that was surprisingly rasping for a woman’s. ‘But why you wanted me to do this beats me.’

  The man she had come to meet shrugged and gazed unenthusiastically at her combative eyes that seemed to challenge everyone they rested upon. The girl’s broad head, its breadth accentuated by the mop of short hair that topped it, and her narrow, protruding chin made her face look curiously triangular. The diamond nose-stud that adorned her pinched nose glinted coldly in the artificial light. Rather than accentuate her femininity, it seemed to emphasize the coldness of her face.

  ‘Some beer?’ the man asked. ‘Or something else?’

  ‘Beer,’ she rasped. ‘It’s the least you can do after making me behave as if I were in a spy thriller. Honestly, why was it necessary? Would you have done that if I were a man?’

  ‘Your gender is immaterial, as you well know,’ the man responded in an indifferent tone, rising to open a beer bottle. He placed two mugs on a crowded counter and busied himself over the beer. ‘Keep your feminism out of this, Nitya. I’m only interested in your work.’

  He handed her a mug and sipped from the other. He pulled out a couple of coasters from a sideboard and placed them on the table between himself and Nitya. The girl’s mug was already half-empty when she placed it back on the coaster.

  ‘Thirsty?’ he asked with a smile.

  ‘What do you expect?’ she replied caustically. ‘You made me walk needlessly for fifteen minutes when I could have come here directly in a cab.’

  ‘Well, then. You’ve earned your beer.’

  ‘You didn’t call me here to talk about beer, did you?’

  ‘No. I called you here, because I have some more work for you.’

  ‘More bots?’ There was a hint of a smirk.

  ‘Yes.’ If the man noticed the smirk, he ignored it.

  ‘My rates have increased –’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘15 per cent.’

  ‘Fine. I still own the source code.’

  ‘Of course. You need it, don’t you, to modify the bots after the testing phase?’

  ‘What we do with the source code is not your concern.’

  ‘It isn’t, I agree. Nor is it my concern where and how you deploy it.’ Nitya’s eyes had become flinty. ‘I don’t want to know what nefarious purposes you put your code to,’ she snapped fiercely. ‘Once I’ve sold it, I have no control over it. It is yours and yours alone. Let’s all be clear on that.’

  The man studied the girl for a long moment as she drained the contents of her mug with an air of defiance. He rose silently, picked up her mug and refilled it.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘This is what I want you to do.’

  He drew a couple of sheets of paper towards himself and began detailing what he wanted her to do. He continued talking for over fifteen minutes, stopping only to refill their mugs and answer Nitya’s questions.

  Presently, the girl began stifling yawns. And when the man went away to answer a phone call, she leaned back into the sofa’s luxurious upholstery and closed her eyes.

  Ten minutes later, she was dead to the world, deep in slumber. The man stood over her, studying the girl for a full two minutes, before using his mobile phone again.

  Two men entered the room and picked up the girl, as the man who had been talking to Nitya put away a small bottle of the clear liquid he had laced her beer with. They carried her through a connecting door to the garage, where a van stood with its side door open. They loaded the sedated girl into it and one of the men climbed in after her, while the other took the wheel.

  Once the van doors were closed, the garage door opened and the van drove out, carrying the insentient girl away.

  ■

  A few kilometres away, Nilay was going through the messages he had received on his mobile phone during his meeting with Gautam and Dhruvi. Among the messages was one that looked like a message from his mobile operator, complete with his name.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Nilay Adiga,’ it said. ‘Airtel has a special offer for you. For details, please visit –’ It was followed by a link, a short URL.

  Nilay touched the link and his browser opened. However after half a minute or so, an error message flashed: ‘This site cannot be reached.’

  Nilay shrugged and closed the browser, then went on reading the rest of the messages. He was oblivious to the fact that during the thirty-odd seconds he was waiting for the page to load on his browser, a small piece of illicit software had got downloaded to his phone.

  A few minutes later, when the phone was idle in his pocket, the illicit software awoke and quietly installed a small piece of malware. A minute later, his phone was bugged. Someone, somewhere could now overhear not only all that he said, but also what the others in his vicinity were saying.

  ■

  ‘Good afternoon, Doctor,’ Dhruvi began, as the psychiatrist answered her call. She had just reached her office. ‘I just got your message to call you.’

  ‘Ah, yes. There is a little bit of news, but not much. Puneet’s father called to say that the young man remembers a couple of vague, disjointed images. In one image, he recalls walking on a highway alone. And the other memory is that of riding in the back of a truck. These are just flashes of vision.’

  ‘Just that?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Does he remember what he was wearing and in what state his clothes were?’

  ‘Good question. He does. He was wearing the same clothes in which he appeared at MyMagicHat and they were in as filthy a state.’

  ‘Night or day?’

  ‘Day. Blazing sunshine.’

  ‘It could be a recollection of his return to Bengaluru and MyMagicHat, couldn’t it?’

  ‘It could. The time and the clothes seem to fit the bill.’

  ‘Now that he has begun remembering fragments of his recent experiences, shouldn’t we push him a little bit? While he’s in the process of dredging up memories that are important for our investigation, let’s get what we can from him, right?’

  ‘On the contrary, Dhruvi, we shouldn’t. Note that the recollection of recent events happened when none of us – Nilay, you or I – were with him. He was alone with his parents. It’s when he is relaxed and in the company of his loved ones that his memories are likely to come floodi
ng back.’

  ‘I see. That’s good. We’ll just have to wait, I guess.’

  ‘Yes. I am going a step further. I consulted my colleagues and we all agree that we should send him home to Mumbai. Being at home in familiar surroundings with his loved ones might restore his memory faster. His father has been asking if they could take him back. What do you say?’

  ‘We’ve just got the investigation going and there’s so much we are yet to find out. If Puneet goes away now, we will be handicapped.’

  ‘Look at it this way, Dhruvi. Being in a more emotionally secure environment in Mumbai might speed up his recovery and restore his memory sooner than if he remains here. You do realize, don’t you, that in Bengaluru, fear constantly hounds Puneet? This is the place from where he went missing and this is where he resurfaced. In between, he has been abused physically and psychologically. Naturally, fear haunts him constantly as long as he’s in Bengaluru. Going away from this city will help him heal and that could speed up the process of regaining his memory of the recent past.’

  ‘Are you sure, Doctor?’ Dhruvi asked.

  ‘We can never be sure in such cases. All I can say is that the chances of him being able to recapitulate past incidents would be higher if he recuperated in Mumbai. But it’s your call, at the end of the day.’

  ‘Your advice is to send him to Mumbai to be with his family?’

  ‘That’s right. I can brief my counterpart in Mumbai so that a psychiatrist is in regular touch with Puneet.’

  ‘Give me a moment, Doctor.’

  Dhruvi cupped the phone in her hand and frowned deeply. The doctor was clearly taking no risks. There was no certainty that Puneet’s stay in Mumbai would speed up his recollection of past events…if he remembered them at all.

  Puneet had been abducted once because of something he had known. What if he were taken again? Further, things were beginning to happen with the raid on Tau Squared and Dhruvi didn’t know when she might need Puneet’s help. And, finally, she didn’t yet know what the analysis of his cast-off clothes would throw up.

  It was a tough call, but hers to make. Presently, she put the phone back to her ear and spoke.

  ‘Doctor, I’m afraid I can’t let Puneet go as yet, at least for the next few days,’ she said firmly. ‘If nothing else, he will be under police protection here.’

  She hung up and called her counterpart in the cyber crime cell.

  ‘What’s the latest from Tau Squared, Shiv?’ Dhruvi asked, when her call was answered.

  ‘We found data from two more e-tailers,’ Shivakumar replied. ‘MyMagicHat is not the only place from which data was being stolen. The other two sets are not as clean and organized as MyMagicHat’s data is, but there is little doubt that it is confidential information.’

  ‘Then Tau Squared is running a bigger racket than we had first suspected. That is what Nilay Adiga was suggesting.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Nilay Adiga is the Number Two at MyMagicHat. He used to work at TezShop, a mid-tier e-tailer. He was then a user of Tau Squared’s services.’

  She quickly narrated the gist of Nilay’s suspicions and went on to say, ‘Keep an eye on Arvind, TezShop’s CEO. There’s something funny going on there, which may not be limited to bots. We may be looking at covert espionage here. They found electronic bugs in MyMagicHat’s offices last week.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  Dhruvi did and then asked, ‘Anything more on the bot front?’

  ‘That Tau Squared uses bots has been established beyond a doubt, but their business calls for legitimate use of bots. Our experts are studying all the bots we found. It will take some time to ascertain what all the bots do.’

  ‘And Nefertiti?’

  ‘Alex has tracked down this Nitya girl’s address and phone number. She wasn’t at home when a policewoman in plain clothes went to her house.’

  Dhruvi had just hung up when Alex walked in. She asked him about Nitya.

  ‘We’re keeping a watch, ma’am,’ he drawled. ‘We’ll find her soon. But there’s some other news. The results of the analysis have come in.’

  ‘The analysis of Puneet’s clothes?’ Dhruvi sat up. ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Firstly, there are deep mud stains on his shirt. The lower portion in the front has a large patch and there are dark patches at both elbows, as if he had rested them in wet mud. The mud has soaked deep into the fabric and the elbow area is frayed as well.’

  ‘The same mud stain on the front and at the elbows?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Hmm…did you find the same stain on the front of his trousers and on the knees?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Alex’s eyes were twinkling.

  ‘Then he may have lain down on his belly and supported his body on his elbows. He may have been trying to hide from someone looking for him. He had probably propped himself up on his elbows so that he could see them approaching, even in his prone position. I suspect he was lying in a field. Hiding there.’

  ‘That was my inference too,’ Alex said, ‘and if our hunch is correct, it was a sugarcane field.’

  ‘What makes you think so?’

  ‘First, the soil in the stains found on Puneet’s clothes matches the soil from Karnataka’s sugarcane plantations. Second, there are traces in the stains of the pesticide that is used at this stage of the sugarcane crop. They use a specific pesticide to kill what is known as the stalk borer.’

  ‘Sugarcane, eh?’ Dhruvi frowned. ‘From what Puneet has told us so far, he couldn’t have been very far from Bengaluru. It’s possible that he walked part of the way to Bengaluru and rode in a truck for the rest of the journey before taking an autorickshaw. Now there’s a lot of sugarcane in the southern part of the state, near Mandya. And Mandya is about 100 kilometres from here.’

  ‘It fits, ma’am.’ Alex suddenly grinned. ‘They tried to mislead us by throwing Puneet’s laptop bag near Hoskote – that’s in exactly the opposite direction from the city centre. Mandya lies to the south-west, while Hoskote is in the north-east! The laptop bag was meant to be found where we traced it to throw us off the trail.’

  ‘Don’t congratulate yourself too soon, Alex. We’re still very much in the dark. What else did the analysis show?’

  ‘The back of Puneet’s shirt as well as the shoulders carry a completely different kind of stains. These were made by fine, dry dust, the kind found in places that haven’t been used in a long time. The dust contains a good amount of soot and Puneet’s clothes also have machine-oil stains.’

  ‘Dust, soot and oil near a sugarcane field?’ Dhruvi mused aloud. ‘Could it be a sugar mill, Alex? The place where they crush sugarcane and boil the syrup to make jaggery? The soot could be from the fuel used to boil the syrup. Crushing machines would need oil for lubrication and these mills are operational only during the crushing season. They would gather dust at other times.’

  Alex’s expression froze and he blinked rapidly a number of times.

  ‘Madam,’ he said sombrely after a pause, marking his words with a mock bow, ‘this is why you are an Inspector and I am a Sub-Inspector. Your theory tallies 100 per cent with the last finding of the analysis – there are distinct traces of jaggery on Puneet’s clothes. Dry, dirty jaggery, perhaps from last season.’ His face split into a slow grin. ‘I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, ma’am. Puneet may have been kept in a disused sugar mill somewhere to the south-west of Bengaluru.’

  ‘Enough flattery, Alex,’ Dhruvi said in jest, trying to hide her own elation at having her suspicions confirmed. ‘What about the blood stains?’

  ‘Oh, they are Puneet’s alright, but they’re older than the mud stains from the sugarcane field. Wherever both are present and overlap on his clothes, the bloodstains are beneath the layer of mud stains.’

  ‘So he hid from his pursuers after they beat him up. He must have escaped. Anything else?’

  ‘No ma’am. That’s all from the analysis for now. They may come up with more, though.’
/>
  ‘Okay, let me bring you up-to-date on other matters.’

  She quickly briefed him about her conversation with Nilay and Gautam and went on to summarize the psychiatrist’s diagnosis and advice.

  ‘Now,’ she said in conclusion, ‘go ahead and chase down Nitya, alias Nefertiti, while I try to figure out why Puneet was abducted. Let’s hope he remembers more of what had happened to him. We still have no clue why he had to go through what he did and what exactly happened to him.’

  ■

  Nilay had never felt so exhausted in his life. The emotional rollercoaster ride of the last 48 hours had left him numb and sapped of energy. Sleep had been out of the question on Thursday, the night Moin was killed. Then had come the delightful surprise of Puneet resurfacing, but the initial euphoria had subsided when it was discovered that the young man was suffering from amnesia. All these developments had left Nilay’s mind in a hyper-active state, making sleep impossible.

  The morning after had brought another blow: the bitter-sweet news about Tau Squared. That Gautam had withheld the news from him and had doubted his integrity still hurt deeply. As if that were not enough, the demons of Tau Squared and TezShop had now been resurrected, threatening his career once again.

  In the midst of all this tumult, Moin’s death had opened his eyes and forced him to re-evaluate his priorities. In the pursuit of his career to the exclusion to all else, Nilay had ignored all his friends, except Moin. He had not only given them the cold shoulder, but literally banished them from his life. When he looked back now at what he had done from a fresh perspective, he was horrified. And ashamed.

  Now at dinner with his wife, he unburdened himself. He would turn over a new leaf, he promised. Career was not everything. Perhaps, after what Gautam had done, he would leave MyMagicHat and start over somewhere else.

  But, first, he would get to the bottom of Moin’s murder. He told Vibha about his earlier discussion with Gautam and Dhruvi.

  ‘Moin was looking for patterns in the stolen data before he was killed,’ he said.

  ‘In the data found in Manoj’s shop?’ Vibha asked.

  Nilay nodded.