ANTI-SOCIAL NETWORK

by Piyush Jha

  But it was only the next morning around 6 a.m. that Virkar suddenly saw the word ‘pic’ flashing on screen. He roused the sleeping Richard who immediately tapped some keys on the keyboard and a close-up of the area’s map popped up, revealing that the signal was coming from a building in Agiary Lane, about a hundred yards north from their current location. Virkar jumped to his feet and snapped up the laptop. He began to walk down the street towards Agiary Lane, with a semi-dazed Richard following close behind.

  When they reached the Maneckji Seth Agiary, Virkar decided to use the shadows cast by the Agiary’s ornate architecture to conceal his and Richard’s presence. For almost fifteen minutes, they waited with bated breath as the signal flashed from somewhere in the buildings opposite them. Then, suddenly, the signal went off. In the semi-darkness, Virkar heard the first strains of the aarti starting up in the Jain temple behind them. Richard grew fidgety beside him but Virkar held his arm as a warning. It was now close to 6.30 a.m. and the first rays of the sun were beginning to invade the sky.

  All of a sudden, Virkar saw the mystery man, now clean-shaven, appearing at the entrance of a building diagonally opposite their hiding place. He was carrying a leather shoulder bag and looked like a junior accountant who had pulled an all-nighter crunching numbers at his office. For a few moments, the mystery man stood at the entrance and looked up and down the street. Virkar and Richard squeezed as far back into the shadows as they could. A couple of seconds later, the mystery man turned and walked away from them towards P.M. Road.

  ‘Richard, you have to follow him,’ Virkar whispered urgently.

  ‘Me?’ Richard asked, taken aback.

  ‘Yes. I need to go and check if his servers are somewhere in this building. If they’re not here, then we have to continue following him till he leads us to them.’ Richard looked unsure and a little scared but Virkar squeezed his shoulders. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll only take fifteen-twenty minutes here. Keep your Bluetooth headphone on. I’ll call and catch up with you as soon as I am through.’

  Richard still seemed reluctant but he stepped out of the shadows and began to follow the mystery man, keeping his manner as casual as possible. Virkar watched him go and after Richard had turned off Agiary lane, he detached himself from the shadows and entered the building from which the mystery man had just exited.

  40

  Altamash Chambers, a three-storeyed building, had been built in 1933 and although was now a mere shadow of its old self, still somehow managed to stand upright. Even though the corridors of its three floors were lined with thick wooden poles that functioned as support columns, its rickety eighty-year-old wooden staircase had managed to survive the vagaries of the building’s populace. But age had made sure that the stair boards creaked even under the lightest of weights. Virkar, in his hurry, had not realized how loud the sound of the creaky staircase might be, a fact he found out as soon as his foot hit the first stair. He flinched and immediately slowed down, but the damage was already done.

  ‘Kaun aahe?’ a guttural voice called out from under the stairs. Virkar looked through the wooden slats of the stairs and saw a man in shorts and a vest sitting on a thin mattress that probably functioned as his bed. The tiny space around him was crammed with articles, indicating that the space was the man’s home.

  ‘Police. Baher ye,’ said Virkar, inflecting his voice with the kind of authority that demands immediate compliance. Within a few seconds, the man under the stairs had scrambled out and was standing in front of Virkar. He took one look at Virkar and realized that he needn’t ask him for any credentials. On the contrary, he volunteered, ‘I’m Vitthal, the watchman, saheb. How can I help you?’ His voice was much softer now.

  ‘The man who left just now. Where’s his room?’ Virkar asked urgently.

  ‘Which man, saheb? I didn’t see anyone,’ said Vitthal.

  ‘You were probably sleeping.’ Virkar was irritated. Vitthal opened his mouth to speak but Virkar cut him off. ‘Look, this man has got either a room or office space in this building. He’s about medium height and medium built. He had a beard a few days back but is now clean-shaven.’

  Vitthal looked completed nonplussed. ‘Saheb, I’ve not seen anyone matching that description and no one lives in this building. They’re all offices.’

  Virkar grew thoughtful. He realized that the mystery man had been smart enough to use the space sparingly, making sure that his comings and goings went unnoticed. He knows how to cover his tracks well, thought Virkar. ‘How long have you been the watchman here?’ he asked out loud.

  ‘For the past twenty-five years and not one robbery has taken place in the time,’ replied Vitthal, sounding defensive.

  ‘You know the owner of each and every office?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Come with me,’ said Virkar as he strode up the stairs, unmindful of the creaks this time. On the first floor, he stood at the front of the first office at the head of the stairs. ‘R. Chandiramani, Chartered Accountant’ read the sign. ‘Tell me about this office,’ Virkar demanded.

  Vitthal shrugged. ‘This office belongs to Ramesh bhai who lives in Bhuleshwar. He is an accountant, as you can see on the board. He comes in the morning at 10 a.m. and leaves at 6 p.m. every day except Sunday.’

  Virkar nodded and walked to the door of the next office: ‘Seabird Maritime Services’. Virkar pointed to the sign and Vitthal raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you going to ask me about each and every office in this building?’

  ‘Yes. So hurry up. We don’t have much time.’

  It was only after about twenty minutes, when they had reached the far corner of the second floor, that Virkar had something of a breakthrough. Vitthal and he stood in front of an old wooden door that seemed to an original part of the eighty-year-old building. In fact, the padlock that hung from the heavy cast-iron latch also seemed to belong to that era.

  ‘This office had not been used for the past fifteen years or so, but now some computer company has hired it and uses it as its godown.’

  ‘Which computer company?’ Virkar asked.

  Vitthal scratched his head. ‘Saheb, this is one of those offices I don’t know much about. About six months ago, some computers were stocked over here. But I can safely tell you that no one has been inside since then.’

  Virkar bent down and examined the padlock. In the darkness of the corridor, he could hardly see anything. He switched on his cell phone and shone its light on the latch. His keen eyes spotted a few miniscule scratches near the keyhole. On closer examination, he realized that the scratches were fresh. His heart now pounding fast with excitement, Virkar pressed his ear to the wooden door. His ears picked up an almost imperceptible whirring sound from inside the room. He got up and turned to the watchman. ‘Go get a iron saliya or a thick rod.’

  ‘A saliya? What for?’

  ‘Just go get it,’ snapped Virkar.

  Vitthal reluctantly walked back down the corridor and disappeared into the darkness. Five minutes later, he appeared with an iron saliya in his hand. ‘Saheb, please don’t do anything that will get me into trouble,’ he pleaded.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take full responsibility.’ Virkar jammed the saliya in the space between the latch and the wooden door. Using all his strength, he bore down on the saliya. A familiar creaking began to emanate from the point where the saliya made contact with the wood. Excited, Virkar gave a mighty kick to the door at a point just above the latch. With a loud crunch, the latch tore apart from the door, its rusted nails breaking under the impact of Virkar’s kick. Without wasting any time, he pushed open the door and barged in. Vitthal yelped with surprise at what they saw inside the room.

  The single fifteen-by-fifteen room was lined with computers, routers and power supplies that were mounted on slotted-angle racks and were whirring and blinking away, working non-stop. The room was air-conditioned and the temperature was turned down to an uncomfortable degree. A bright and shiny iMac adorned a steel table in one corner of the room. Virka
r reached for the drawers of the table and pulled them open. The top two drawers were empty but inside the third drawer he found a few blank papers, a crumpled colour-printed flyer and a compact automatic pistol. Virkar read the details on the flyer and then, as he quickly checked the gun, his face hardened into a mask. While Vitthal stood in the middle of the room with his mouth open, staring at the racks around him, Virkar reached for his mobile phone and dialled a number.

  41

  The Dockyard Mess Hall and Lunch Home on P.M. Road was one of those curious Mumbai eateries that opened its shutters to the public at an incredibly early hour of the morning. Catering mainly to dock workers getting off their night shift, it served piping hot South Indian and Maharashtrian snacks with the customary filter coffee and chai as accompaniments. At 7 a.m. that day, the restaurant was full to the brim, buzzing with the conversations of tired dock workers and sundry taxi drivers.

  Richard was sitting on a table near the entrance, sipping on filter coffee and casting furtive glances at the mystery man who was wolfing down a masala dosa at a corner table of the restaurant. He finished the dosa and reached for his filter coffee, simultaneously extricating an iPad from his shoulder bag. As the mystery man started tapping his fingers on the iPad’s screen, Richard’s phone suddenly began to vibrate in his pocket. Pretending as though he had dropped something, Richard ducked under the table and pulled out his phone. It was Virkar.

  ‘Where are you, Richard?’

  ‘At the Dockyard Mess,’ Richard whispered into the phone.

  ‘Where’s he? What’s he doing?’

  ‘Doing some shit on his iPad at a nearby table.’

  ‘Okay, no worries. I’ll be there soon,’ said Virkar as he hung up.

  Richard pocketed his phone and sat up in his seat. Trying to look as casual as possible, he turned to cast a glance at the mystery man and froze—the mystery man was staring directly at him. Trying his best not to seem suspicious, Richard let his gaze travel over the mystery man and on to some of the other occupants of the restaurant. He turned his face away and began to look out of the entrance at a sweeper hard at work cleaning the street outside. But he could swear that the mystery man’s eyes were still on him. Richard’s knees began to shake and his stomach churned as though he were on a rollercoaster. Suddenly, he began to feel an urge to calm down. It began as an itch inside his throat but soon took over his entire body, making him shake like a leaf. He really needed to smoke up to calm his nerves.

  He got up from his table and found that his legs were trembling. Trying his best to seem normal, he turned and walked towards the toilets at the back of the Dockyard Mess. Inside the toilet, he quickly found a small cubicle with a vinyl door and a western commode. He latched the door behind him and pulled out a reefer from the cigarette packet in his pants. After a few quick drags, Richard’s frazzled nerves began to calm down. Another few hits and he began to feel absolutely fine. Not wanting to waste any of his precious maal, Richard stubbed the joint between his fingertips and put it back into the cigarette packet. He unlatched the door and stepped out of the stall, only to come face-to-face with the mystery man standing right outside.

  For a second, their eyes locked and neither of them moved. Then Richard reached into his pocket and pulled out the packet of cigarettes. Extracting the reefer, he offered it to the mystery man, saying, ‘You want some?’ The mystery man didn’t say a word. Instead, he reached out as if he was going to accept the offering but Richard saw the sharp blade of a small curved knife in the mystery man’s hand. Before he could react, however, the mystery man had stabbed him in the neck. Richard stumbled back as blood sputtered out of his neck. The mystery man was about to strike him again when they heard someone enter the toilet behind them.

  A burly dockworker stood staring at them, shocked at the blood spurting out of Richard’s neck. The mystery man turned and swung his arm at the dockworker who ducked instinctively. Not wasting another minute, the mystery man sprung towards the toilet door, leaving the bleeding Richard and the stunned dockworker behind. Exiting the toilet area, he ran towards the back and entered the kitchen instead of going towards the main area of the restaurant. Pushing away a couple of surprised cooks, he quickly ran out into a small lane through a back door.

  Meanwhile, Virkar reached the restaurant just as a commotion erupted outside the toilet area. He saw Richard’s bag and the mystery man’s iPad lying on their tables and immediately realized that something had gone horribly wrong. He sprang towards the source of the commotion and as he pushed his way through the crowd outside the toilet, he saw Richard lying in a heap in the small passageway outside the toilet. Bleeding profusely from his neck, he was gasping for air, his eyes flickering shut. He was fast losing consciousness.

  Virkar sank to his knees next to Richard while doing two things simultaneously: with his left hand he reached for Richard’s neck and pinched the skin around the knife wound, stopping the blood flow, while with his right hand, he whipped out his cell phone and punched 1-0-0 on his keypad. A few seconds later, he had barked orders to get an emergency ambulance down to the Dockyard Mess and also called three dockworkers to help him clamp down on Richard’s neck and completely stop the blood flow. Virkar then bent down towards Richard’s ear and whispered, ‘Richard, open your eyes. You’re not going to die today, I promise.’ Richard’s eyes flickered open in response to Virkar’s voice. Virkar looked at Richard’s face for a few seconds and then towards the dockworkers helping him stem the blood flow. ‘Don’t let him lose consciousness.’ They nodded in understanding. ‘And keep your hands where they are till the ambulance arrives.’ Saying this, Virkar got up from Richard’s side and rushed out on to the street.

  42

  It was too early in the morning for the streets of Bora Bazaar to be crowded. But today, the jam was not because of the people and the traffic that normally choked the narrow streets but because of the fire engines that had taken strategic positions on either side of Agiary Lane in a vain attempt to quell the fire that had suddenly erupted on the second floor of Altamash Chambers. The hundred-odd people that had gathered from the nearby areas were not helping matters. Bazaar Gate Street and Modi Street, two of the three arterial streets of the Bora Bazaar area, were blocked at both ends. Naina stood in Agiary Lane at the closest point to the commotion, near the thick rope tied across the breadth of the street, about ten feet from the fire tender that was spewing arcs of water towards the smoke billowing out from the second floor of Altamash Chambers. She had been on her way to her college for an early morning lecture when she had been summoned by Virkar to Bora Bazaar as backup for him and Richard.

  Standing on one side of the fire tender, Naina saw a man dressed in a vest and shorts animatedly explaining to a firefighter that he had no idea how the fire had suddenly started. ‘Probably an old loose wire that had short circuited,’ she heard him say. Naina scanned the faces of the few other people gathered around her. Shock and rabid curiosity were writ all over their faces as they mumbled to each other how most of the buildings in the Fort area had become fire traps over the years. Naina ducked under the guard rope and tried to slide unnoticed past a firefighter in an attempt to cross from the Modi Street side to the Bora Bazaar street side of Agiary Lane. But she was summarily sent back to where she had been standing before. There, she tried her best to get a good look at the people standing behind the rope on the other side of the street but could hardly see anything through the haze of drizzling water that fell before her. The wisps of smoke enveloping the street weren’t any help either. In fact, it got into her eyes, burning them enough to elicit tears and further mar her vision.

  Suddenly, two firemen dressed in full firefighting gear came out of the entrance of the building and held their thumbs up. A cheer went up among the firemen and the crowd of onlookers. The hoses fell silent as the firemen began to speak among themselves. Naina strained to hear what they were saying. Apparently, they had contained the fire and limited it at the source but all the computer e
quipment in the office where the fire had started had been burnt to a crisp.

  Naina turned away from the firemen and her eyes suddenly fell on another curious onlooker who was standing about ten feet away. It was the mystery man, looking slightly dishevelled and a little out of breath. Naina shrank back into the crowd before he could see her. Soon, he turned and walked away in the direction of Mint Road. Naina broke away from the crowd and followed him, making sure that she remained in the shadows. It was only when he had reached the quietest end of the street that the mystery man suddenly stopped, hearing the sound of her footsteps. He turned quickly, only to see Naina standing on the path about fifteen feet away, pointing a gun at his chest.

  ‘It’ll be better if you give up now,’ she said. At first the mystery man looked shocked, but within seconds his eyes flashed with defiance. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small, curved knife that he had used on Richard only a short while ago. But before he could take another step, Naina pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the mystery man on the right shoulder. He fell to the ground. Naina sprang towards him, the gun still ready in her hands. But before she could reach him, she heard the rumble of a fire tender coming from the dark street behind her. Naina covered the gun with her free hand and jumped to the side of the street to let it pass. The vehicle lumbered on in the direction of the mystery man, who was still lying on the ground, and honked loudly. Naina thought that the fire tender would hit him and waited to hear the thunk of metal hitting flesh and bone, but no such sound was heard. The fire tender continued on its way without slowing down and disappeared round the corner. When the street was clear again, Naina ran to where the mystery man had fallen, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  43

  In an area that was dotted with cyber cafés, the Smart Byte Centre stood out, mainly because it was open 24X7. Situated on the ground floor of Cawasji Chambers on D.N. Road, it catered mainly to the students of the neighbouring Siddharth College. At 8 a.m. that day, the Smart Byte Centre was already buzzing with activity. Students who had bunked their early morning lectures were chatting away with their friends at the various terminals set up in the large hall that housed the cyber café. At precisely 8.01 a.m., a dishevelled-looking mystery man entered and paid the customary charge to use a computer terminal. A close observer would have wondered why his dark shirt was wet near his right shoulder. But the counter attendant, who knew the mystery man to be a regular, pointed towards a terminal in the third row without question. The mystery man glanced at the terminal and saw that there were no other users on either side of it. Two terminals away on the left, a man wearing a baseball cap with the New York Yankees logo on it was earnestly typing away on his machine. On the other side of him, a young girl appeared to be whispering sweet nothings into her headphones while beaming at the young man Skypeing with her. The mystery man strode to the empty terminal and, using only his left hand, logged on to the Internet. He punched the keyboard for a few seconds till he had accessed a cloud server. Taking a deep breath, he punched in his password.