Evam had suspected that Ranvir would come at him from left field.
“Now, about these Aspies. Is Asperger’s as simple as being left-handed? You said it’s a spectrum, so is it possible that at the low end that’s all there is, just a few traits related to communication, language, and emotive response?”
Evam interjected here: “Why these things occur may not be as important as whether these people can be effective in their job. And if their traits suit your needs, why not use them to your advantage?”
“Why not indeed?” replied Ranvir. “If we can wire robots to do a job, then why not use those who are differently wired?”
Evam winced at the comparison with robots, but attributed it to the free-flowing discussion.
“Are these people stable, these Aspies?” Ranvir continued. He was pacing around the office now, examining the shelves.
“You mean the condition? That’s a great question. Yes, they do not ‘improve,’ nor do they ‘deteriorate’ with any of the factors. But the statistics are inadequate too.”
Ranvir returned to his chair and sighed before Evam made one last heartfelt pitch.
“These are four self-aware kids who are comfortable with who they are. Today you can see them and hear them without preconceived notions and prejudice, and even speak to them online in a world without walls, where they have created a sophisticated underground culture of their own. They are precious to me, but few organizations find them employable.”
* * *
It was an education and it was also the kind of development that excited Partha. Yet even before he could decide on a course of action that would calm Ranvir down, he found Tiwari at his doorstep. “Panduranga was compromised,” he said. Tiwari carried evidence that pointed to Ranvir and his team blithely assuming that there was no obvious link between Atmaram Bhosle and him, but counterintelligence had alerted Partha. To Partha, it was obvious that the animosity between Ranvir Pratap and Tiwari was getting ugly and growing untenable. He had to intervene. He again called the chief of counterintelligence, who unsurprisingly began with a curse.
“The problem with you myrandi rice-eaters is that you come running to me holding your backsides the moment there’s trouble. Of course I won’t meet you.”
Partha explained the situation patiently: “Sir, I hope you know that I’m just filling in temporarily. I’ve extended my contract just to calm things down between these two.”
“I’m not so sure they should have given you an extension,” replied Mishra. “You are an academic banchod, Parthasarathy; we all know that. You studied dirty toilet paper to unearth clues about civilization. What do you call it again?”
“Evolutionary psychology,” Partha replied.
Eventually Mishra relented and they mutually agreed to plant someone in each team’s office as an impartial observer. There was already one such person on Tiwari’s team, an intelligent, multilingual Trojan deputized by Mishra himself. But Mishra refused to spare anyone else. “Let Tiwari hire one of his own and send him to Ranvir’s office. I just hope he manages to stay alive.”
Tiwari summoned his tag team of Kamte and Pandey to call for one of his new recruits, Vishwa.
“Sir?” queried a surprised Kamte. “Vishwa? The guy is too green behind his ears. He’ll wet his pants at the first sign of trouble.”
Tiwari was in no mood for advice.
Vishwa was a short man who wore a red tilak on his forehead. His hair was well oiled and perfectly parted. One side of his mouth was perpetually occupied by gutka, a potent combination of tobacco and catechu. That was the source of his bravado. The fellow was shape-shifting; in the office he looked like a peon, in a railway station he could resemble a coolie. Tiwari called him a universal socket, one who would fit in anywhere.
His briefing was brief.
“Remember: you do not know me, you never came here, and nobody will come to your rescue.”
Vishwa gulped, swallowed his gutka, choking at its bitterness. He hit the back of his head with his palm to stop coughing.
“Tomorrow you report to the front,” Tiwari instructed. “There are four wolves out there and one lion. Please keep a close eye on the wolf called Karan, especially after office hours.”
“What should I do if he sees me following him, sir-ji?” asked Vishwa.
“Say your prayers.”
More gutka went into his mouth before he found his voice again. “Sir-ji, is this an important job?”
“Jaanbaaz,” replied Tiwari with a smile. “You could bet your life on it.”
* * *
The next day Vishwa reported to Crime Branch under the guise of a chai-wallah. He was assigned to the pantry. He did three rounds on the first day and broke two tumblers. He was so on edge that the first time he saw Ranvir he spilled tea all over the aluminum tray he was carrying. Goose bumps were sprouting along his arms. Gods were queuing up in his head and he named them all under his breath. This kuphiya was going to miss the honor roll.
The first week was uneventful. Yet his digestion was shot, his face had lost color, and he grew suddenly fearful of shadows. He arrived at Tiwari’s adda on the weekend looking like a ghost.
“Anything to report?” barked Tiwari.
“One suicide case, sir-ji, nothing else.”
“Is something the matter with you? Why are you shaking—have you given up gutka or something?”
Vishwa’s struggled to get any words out.
“Somebody bring him some water,” ordered Tiwari. Pandey arrived with a full glass from the cooler and Vishwa drained it.
“So what exactly were you doing for a full week out there?” asked Tiwari.
“Sir, I drove the jeep. Karan-sir does not like driving. He found out that I could drive and from the second day I became the driver.”
“Good. So you went around with them?”
“Yes sir. Ranvir-sir and Karan-sir both go together, and I drive.”
“What did they discuss, bhosadeke? Do I have to keep prompting you?”
“Sir-ji, they kept complaining that there were no assignments. They said they would soon have to look for employment in a laundry or a car wash.”
Tiwari was delighted. “Excellent. That’s good news. What else?”
“They were asked to go check out a suicide case. Mr. Ranvir said it was an insult that he had to cover such silly cases.”
Tiwari laughed and examined the lines on his hands as if what was written there was finally coming true. “Anything else?”
“That’s it, sir,” mumbled Vishwa. He wiped his brow with a cloth that he had wrapped around his hand. It had red stains.
Tiwari sat back and glared at him. “Then go back tomorrow.”
Vishwa wanted to die, he wanted to curl up in a corner and bid the world goodbye. “Sir-ji,” he said, stuttering, “I do not w-want to go back.”
“Why?”
“I think they know who I am. Mr. Ranvir keeps looking at me.”
“Gandu, I am looking at you too!” shouted Tiwari. “You are supposed to be a bahurupi.”
“I think we are wasting our breath,” Pandey whispered into Tiwari’s ear.
“Look at this hopeless fellow. What’s bothering you?” Tiwari pressed.
“Sir-ji, they asked me if I was from Bihar. I said yes. Then Karan-sir took me to the pantry. He held my hand tightly and brought me there. The place is dirty and the walls are full of soot from the stove. Karan-sir asked me, Do you know what our team is called? I shook my head. He held my head with one hand and pointed it toward the wall above the stove. With the other hand he scraped the soot.” Vishwa let out a sob before continuing. “Some lettering appeared on the wall in capitals. Somebody had carved into the wall with a knife. Two words that every Bihari dreads. Sir, he then took a penknife, asked me to close my eyes, and he carved it on my hand.” He held out his hand and looked away.
Pandey unwrapped the cloth that covered the bloody hand. He turned Vishwa’s palm upward and stretched it under Tiwari’s n
ose. On it, etched in red, were the words RANVIR SENA.
Kamte let out a low whistle. The Ranvir Sena was one of the most feared militant outfits in Bihar, famed for ruthless executions. It was banned by the Indian government.
Tiwari cocked his head and clucked his tongue. “I get the message. They know who you are and where you come from.”
* * *
“You did what? You carved the guy’s hand with a knife?”
Karan examined the signs that had given him away. On his shirtsleeve was the blood of a man, and outside the window warm winds had been blowing hard all morning. It was a dry, bad wind. The koels in the trees called out for rain and the wind chimes on balconies were rattling and whistling off-key. He knew this was the season when arguments quickly grew hot, a time when people fought for no reason. He should have kept his mouth shut.
“Yes,” he said.
She bit her tongue. “What did you carve? Your name? I believe your name serves as enough of a warning these days.”
“Actually, our team has been given a name by Mr. Tiwari, one that belonged to a murderous gang in Bihar. He calls us the Ranvir Sena.”
“How nice,” she replied. “And do you have a coat of arms? Perhaps a motto too? Tell me, what is your motto, Karan?” she said incredulously.
“For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war.” Karan recited it without hesitation or irony.
They fought that day; they fought like hell. And that night Karan roamed the chawl and the street outside trying to tire himself to sleep.
Encounter Thirty-One
Nobody knew where Kumaran resided. He came and went like a commuter with a day pass. You acknowledged his presence only when something went wrong in the Special Branch building. Since the building was old it required constant repair. Kumaran was the handyman and people often went to him for whatever needed fixing.
The fixer learned from dismantling. Kumaran’s fundamental life principle was “dismantle.” Anything that came his way was broken down to its most essential level. His office desk had four drawers which were full of mechanical and electronic parts. Occasionally some of them would come to life and emit beeps. He would raise an eyebrow, rummage through the drawers, locate the objects, and dismantle them further till they finally died.
Kumaran had a satchel bag that held his possessions. It had become part of his anatomy. In the course of basic training and the years thereafter the team tried to wean him away from it. They couldn’t. The camouflage on the canvas fabric had gradually faded. Kumaran would hang it over his right shoulder, draping the strap across his chest so the bag rode his left hip.
Naturally, Ranvir was compelled to know what was inside. At one briefing session he suddenly decided to conduct a public inventory. Kumaran stood stone-faced as Rana sorted through the bag and recited its contents loudly.
“One Ponds talcum powder that smells of flowers,” he said, turning up his nose. “One green banana.” He held up the slightly crushed fruit. “One cell phone that has been dismantled.” He couldn’t pull out all the pieces. “What is this?”
Kumaran peered inside. “A radio-controlled detonator,” he replied. “One that I defused.”
The inventory continued: “A long single pencil shaving in a plastic box.” It almost looked artistic, if out of place. “One notepad.” Ranvir flipped through the pages. “Drawings of arches, doorways, and windowsills. Where from?”
“VT Station,” replied Kumaran.
The rest was spread out on a table. There was a black-and-white photograph of Ramana Maharshi, a book by Richard Feynman, a Polaroid self-portrait with blurry edges, and a slip of paper that said, Mum’s the word.
The last item puzzled Ranvir the most. Yet despite this public revelation of his most personal possessions, Kumaran remained an enigma. He wasn’t the usual vending machine of death that people expected. (Neither was the rest of the squad.) He certainly didn’t look the part; he was lanky rather than lithe, had poor motor function, and, to add to that, he was clumsy with a weapon. His aim was poor and his hunting skills were not predatory. But Ranvir still felt he had potential.
* * *
We slinked among some parked vehicles on the approach to the chawl. The targets were holed up above us in one of the tenements. Behind us was a concrete wall, a dead end—a term we did not care for. Kumaran looked at it, as if for the first time realizing we were trapped in there. He should have thought this through better.
“Sir, should we not spread out?” I whispered.
Ranvir said nothing.
“Sir, we’re bunched up like goats at an abattoir.” This was Munna trying to be funny.
Ranvir ignored him. We were unhappy that Kumaran was in charge because we didn’t think he was ready to lead an operation. “Are you sure they are there?”
“Yes.” Munna’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he spoke. “Nobody has stopped us thus far. We cleaned up the whole building and nobody fired, nobody shouted.”
Ranvir remained confident. “You have studied the methods of these guys so you should have anticipated this outcome. This is a gentle gang, almost a helpful one.”
Munna, Tapas, and I lurked in the shadows, on our toes, each with a lethal weapon. Our adrenaline was pumping and we wanted to storm that tenement and remove the targets. We were held back by Ranvir’s stern gaze. What’s the point of training so much if someone who can’t handle a weapon has his way in the end?
It had taken us six months to reach this end game, half a year of painstaking detective work that no one likes to hear or read about. For some reason we were losing a number of old folks in a particular locality to seemingly random accidents. Old men and women were falling off staircases, tripping over balconies, and suffering electric shocks from household appliances. Five such incidents happened in the locality in a single week and the Special Branch was called in to investigate. Use your brains for a change, we were told. Other crime branches were busy with more obvious cases.
We started by examining the circumstances in meticulous detail. We questioned all the family members, thought up all possible motives, and harassed the neighbors with enough questions that by the first weekend we had ruffled just enough feathers to stir suspicion in that quiet corner. Suspicion breeds enmity, which in turn breeds informers. Yet there was no breakthrough. The last call we made was to the nearby hospital to check their records. There were no revelations there, and no postmortems had been carried out either.
Ranvir called us in for a meeting.
“I would like to study those who are still alive,” he said. He had to explain that further.
“Study how these old folks live, what they eat, what they drink, what they keep, and what they throw away.”
He saw us looking puzzled. “Just do it,” he ordered.
We marshaled some youngsters from a college to use as “researchers.” We chose five random elderly folk who lived alone. After a few visits that often became extended hand-holding sessions, we developed an inventory of all objects in their houses with descriptions—condition and look and feel. We then compared the lists and drew up a common inventory of items. Godrej almirahs, radios, medicine cabinets, razor blades, discolored mirrors, and old magazines. All of them had stashes of cash, and bundles of notes were stowed in unlikely places. Their jewelry was often kept in packets within jars in the kitchen below the rice and daal.
Three days later I dropped by the station at night to do some catch-up on other cases. I found Ranvir hunched over his desk, poring over our reports.
“What have we found, Karan—isn’t this a treasure trove?”
“Looks to me like trivia, sir.”
“It’s amazing the kind of stuff one learns. What do you think was the most versatile household utility device of the earlier generation?”
I listed a few that I had seen: “A walking stick . . . or reading glasses and pieces of string?”
Ranvir shook his head. “It’s the pin. Every house is full of them, in many shapes and sizes. Pins f
or cleaning ears, pins in place of fallen buttons, pins to dig into your teeth, and pins to file papers. Have you realized what we have replaced them with?”
“Sir?”
“The earbud, dental floss, and, of course, the new-found Velcro.” Ranvir went back to studying the list. “I think we are ready.”
“Ready to file the cases, sir?”
“No, we are done with the living. Now we’re ready to study the dead.”
We rustled up the case officers from each of the five most recent accidents and ran these lists past them. Remember what you saw when you went in and tell us what’s missing, we said. They went through the lists and ticked most of the items.
“It’s basically the same. Most of these items were there.”
“Any money?”
“Money? You mean cash? No, there was no money around.”
“No bundles anywhere?”
“No.”
“Loose notes, change?”
“None.”
“Are you sure? There must have been some loose change.”
“No sir, there was none.”
“I see. What about the almirahs? Were they rummaged through, untidy?”
“No, they were clean enough. I guess old people have good habits.”
“You’re telling me that in all these instances you only encountered orderly almirahs, and that no cash was lying around in any of these apartments?”
Ranvir let out a long sigh, one that celebrated discovery and promised retribution. “We have a case, gentlemen,” he announced. “Five, in fact—of murder, followed by petty robbery.”
* * *
Kumaran had now blocked all the exits, encircling the chawl completely. But he then sat back and refused to advance. The rest of us were getting bored and restless.
“We are not going in, not now,” he said.
“Then when, when it’s dark?” asked Munna.
“No, let’s just wait this one out.”
“We’ve come here to wait? Why are we even here? You could have called us later,” Tapas piped up.
The Third Squad Page 11