‘Is it safe there?’ the ambassador asked.
‘Hmm. . .’ said Joseph, thinking of his near-miss brush-in with the immigration officials. What if they had figured out that he was travelling on a fake passport?
Early next morning, Joseph Braganza flew out of Luanda to Namibia and from there to an unknown destination in Europe.
The same evening, four and a quarter million dollars were transferred to Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in Zurich, into the account of an arms dealer. When the person authorizing the account credit pulled up the account on screen, the only information he could see was that the country of origin was Zaire.
Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars were transferred to another account in the same bank, an account in the name of Sese Mutombu, the Ambassador of Zaire—his commission for seeing the arms deal through.
The uncut diamonds, sent from an unidentifiable temporary address in Switzerland, were FedExed to an office in Luxemburg. The packet was handed over to David Kosinski, the Chief of Staff of the CEO.
David walked into the CEO’s office, opened the safe with a code only he knew and dumped the box into the safe. Before closing the safe, he picked up a post-it from the table, flipped open his pen, and wrote a figure on the post-it before taping it on to the box.
‘Diamonds worth nine million dollars,’ he whispered to himself. ‘That’s a lot of money,’ he said as he shut the door to the CEO’s office silently behind his back and walked towards his own office. Just as the door was about to shut, he glanced back to see the photograph of the CEO’s family kept on the table, facing the door. He noted how his CEO stood out in the family, and not just because of the large gash on his forehead. The door banged shut and David walked to his cabin.
‘Where does Joseph Braganza get these diamonds from? Last time the diamonds were worth five million and this time it’s nine million.’ As he lowered himself into his chair, he said to himself, ‘Not for me to ask. Not for me to know’. The only thing he knew was that on his next visit to Central Europe, a week from now, he would personally carry these diamonds to a safe hideout to be stored, till the time was appropriate for Joseph Braganza to dispose of them.
***
Interior Kerala
July 1979
It rained incessantly in the neighbourhood of the Periyar Tiger reserve in Kerala. The reserve and the adjoining areas of Ranni, Konni, Tenmala and parts of Punalur forests, all large elephant habitats, were reeling under the onslaught of rain and thunderstorm. Sparse in terms of human population, this area, better known for the Thekkady Elephant sanctuary, was the most compact of all the elephant habitats in South India.
It was amidst these jungles, two kilometres off the main road connecting Thekkady to Devikulam that Krishna and Sulochana Menon ran their home stay resort—a small quaint cottage set in a three-acre plantation was replete with all the luxuries money could buy.
Initially, post their return from the Middle East, where Krishna spent most of his life working with gold traders, the Menons made Thiruvananthapuram their home. But after their son, Arvind moved out to a boarding school in Ooty, the Menons felt lonely. They converted their large plantation into a resort and moved to Devikulam to manage it themselves. Over the years, the resort had come to have a sizable following and was quite popular, particularly with foreign tourists.
The three-acre plantation was also home to four captive elephants, which the Menons had acquired when they converted their plantation into a resort. Rides and a photo-op with the elephants were a big hit, especially with the foreign tourists.
One day, Appachen, the trained Mahout, caretaker of the four elephants in the Menons’ resort, had come across a sick 65-year-old pachyderm, trapped under the fallen tree trunk. Appachen, being passionate about elephants took it upon himself to nurse him back to health; he even gave him the name ‘Gopi’.
‘Good job’, Krishna said when Appachen told him about it. After giving him some money, Krishna and his wife left for Ooty to visit their son. It soon started to rain torrentially, trapping Appachen in his house for a week. The moment the rains stopped and the sky cleared up, Appachen rushed to Gopi’s resting place, only to find that Gopi had passed away during that time. Appachen was a shattered man.
Two weeks later, on a Friday night, Arvind was woken up by a knock on his hostel room. It was a call from his mother.
‘Amma, what happened?’
‘I don’t know what to do Arvind, please come home.’
‘What’s wrong Amma?’ He could hear his mother crying at the other end as she answered.
‘Don’t worry, I’m coming there right now,’ were his last words before he hung up.
The first bus out of Ooty was at 4.45 a.m. and it was noon before the bus stopped at a decrepit bus shelter on its way to Thekkady. Arvind was relieved to see a familiar Ambassador car standing there, waiting for him. The ride thereon was only two kilometres long, though it took close to fifteen minutes, given the slippery state of the muddy roads.
Sulochana was waiting for him when he reached the resort. Next to her was a smart, middle-aged man in black coat—their family lawyer.
‘We were just leaving. Come let’s go,’ said Sulochana, and they got into the car. It took them thirty-five minutes to reach their destination, during which Sulochana briefed Arvind on what had happened.
On reaching a red brick building, the car stopped. They got out and rushed towards the entrance, where they were stopped by a man in uniform.
‘Let them in,’ boomed a voice from inside. As they entered, they saw a middle-aged pot-bellied man with a handle bar moustache seated behind a table. The top three buttons of his shirt were open, revealing a cleft of greying chest hair. The nameplate on his table read ‘Shri K Moinuddin (Sub Inspector)’. Judging by the way the others were rallying around him, it didn’t take Arvind long to figure out he was in charge of that police station. From his demeanour, it looked like he was waiting for them.
Seated next to him in a veshti and white shirt was a sinister-looking sidekick. ‘Chief Wild Life Warden,’ whispered Sulochana. Arvind knew that the chief warden was responsible for protection of the flora and the fauna in the forestland and yielded an enormous amount of authority. The chief warden looked at the three of them and nonchalantly lifted his right leg and kept it on the seat in front of him, his foot pointing in Arvind’s direction. Arvind grimaced as he walked up to the Sub-Inspector.
‘Why have you arrested my father? He hasn’t done anything wrong.’ ‘Ask your mother. She knows everything.’ Moinuddin was at his arrogant best. ‘She was there when we picked him up.’ ‘Every single guy my father has worked with all these years knows how clean he is,’ Arvind said, between clenched teeth.
‘Hahahaha!’ The inspector’s laugh, accompanied by an unmistakable stench of liquor irritated Arvind even more. ‘Pious man, your father,’ he ridiculed, laughing even harder.
Then, as abruptly as he had started laughing, he stopped. There was a sudden silence. He glared at Arvind, got up from his chair and walked towards him, the inadvertent stumble confirming to Arvind that he was drunk. When he was close enough, he extended his left hand, caught Arvind by his collar, raised his right hand, pointed a finger towards him and screamed, ‘He’s not a good man. Your father is a smuggler. A rogue. Do you get it? That’s why he is in jail now.’
‘What nonsense!’ Arvind was not one to be cowed down.
‘Ask your mother, son,’ the chief warden stood up this time. ‘After killing an elephant, he has cut off the tusks and hidden them. And now he is refusing to tell us where he has kept them.’
‘The elephant was old and sick. Our staff tried to revive it. They couldn’t.’
‘What about the tusks?’ demanded the chief warden, ‘Where has he hidden them? Or have you guys sold it and pocketed OUR money?’ The stress on ‘our’ was not lost on Arvind.
‘Appachen tells us the elephant’s tusks were already cut off when it strayed into our neighbourhood. He gav
e it medication and tried to revive it, but the elephant didn’t recover and died,’ Arvind argued.
‘Hmm. . . Isn’t that what everyone says sir?’ The chief warden said, looking at the Sub Inspector. Turning towards Arvind, he added, ‘Look son. Just in case you are not aware, under Section 39 of the Wild Life Protection Act of 1972, any elephant captured or killed without approval of the competent authority or killed by mistake or found dead, or any animal article or ivory obtained from an elephant is deemed to be government property. Any person who comes in possession of such government property is under the legal obligation to inform the nearest police station within forty-eight hours.’
‘So, what are you trying to prove here?’
‘We got to know about it only three days after the elephant had died. When we exhumed the carcass, we didn’t find its tusks. So son, unless you guys tell us where the ivory is, your father will rot here in jail.’
Arvind took the lawyer aside and asked, ‘Is there a way out?’
‘No. Ivory smuggling is a non-bailable offence, but. . .’ he paused
‘But what?’
‘They haven’t charged him yet. They haven’t filed a First Information Report—the FIR. Moinuddin has so far only brought him in for questioning. We will only be in trouble if they book him for smuggling.’
‘Then what do we do? He’s a heart patient. If he doesn’t get his medicines on time, he will have serious health issues.’
‘Let’s try talking to them,’ was all that the advocate could say at that time.
Arvind walked up to the duo again. ‘Can I meet my father?’
‘No,’ the Sub Inspector said firmly.
‘Sir, please. It’s important for you to hear his side of the story. Only then can you know the whole truth.’
‘You will tell us. . .you. . .a kid. . .will tell us what the truth is? Why don’t you just get out of the police station? You can go to a judge with your truth.’ At the same time a door in the far right of the main hall opened and out walked a constable with a cruel smirk on his face. Trudging behind the constable was the frail frame of Appachen, his vest soaked in blood and his eyes swollen beyond recognition. Appachen looked at them pleadingly through tear-stained eyes, as he was led away. It sent shivers up their spines. Had the same fate befallen Krishna too? He would not be able to withstand it.
Arvind’s demeanour completely changed after he saw Appachen’s plight. He approached the cop again, this time with folded hands, literally pleading with him to let his father go.
‘Once we get the tusks, we’ll let your father go. Not before that.’ Moinuddin was heartless. He and the chief warden got up to leave. Just as they crossed Arvind, Moinuddin tapped him on his shoulder. ‘Go home. Wait for someone to come and talk to you.’ The two of them then walked out of the police station, into a parked jeep and drove off, nearly knocking a constable down on the way.
Within the next three hours, a motorcade of three cars drove into the Menon’s resort and came to a screeching halt in the portico. Arvind and Sulochana were waiting at the reception. They had been standing there ever since they got back from the police station.
A tall dark man, clad in a veshti and angavastram, stepped out of the lead car and stood in front of them. He looked familiar. When the person folded his hands in front of them and offered them his salutations, Arvind recognized him. This was the same pose he had seen on umpteen posters. The man in front of them was the local MLA, Madan Mohan.
What was he doing there? Even in the days of general elections in Devikulam, he had never ever visited them.
‘I believe there is some problem here?’ the MLA seemed concerned and asked Sulochana.
‘No sir, no problem,’ Arvind stammered. He didn’t want the local MLA to blow the issue out of proportion.
‘But Moinuddin was telling me a different story?’
‘Moinuddin?’ Arvind was momentarily surprised before he realised why the MLA was there. He was a part of the scam and wanted his pound of flesh. A deal was struck for twenty-five thousand rupees to exchange hands for the release of Arvind’s father.
Krishna came back the same evening along with Appachen. The scars on Appachen’s body healed over a period of time. But the deep wound it left in Arvind’s mind refused to heal. That was the day he decided to leave India for good. Eight years after the incident, Arvind married the daughter of a Russian scientist and settled in Ukraine, where, a few years later, the world saw the worst ever nuclear disaster.
1
Greater Boston Global Bank
Head Office
Fort, Mumbai
February 2011
‘Arre Vikram,’ shouted Tanuja, waving her hand frantically as she sprinted casually across the passage between rows of workstations enroute to the conference room, trying to grab the attention of the Retail Banking Head of Greater Boston Global Bank (GB2). Vikram had just walked out of the core strategy meet the CEO had called in preparation for the high profile visit of seniors from the Global Headquarters (GHQ) of GB2. The flamboyant Vikram Bahl had been the Head of Branch banking, a role in which he spent about three years, before being promoted to head Retail Banking in the middle of 2010. He had stayed away from hiring his replacement in the branch banking business and managed it directly, despite having moved on to a more senior role. Many thought it was because of his hands-on approach to business, though many skeptics also said he was scared of skeletons tumbling out of the closet if someone else stepped into that role. In order to keep Guneet Chandra, the Head of Credit Cards and Vikram’s professional rival happy, the cards business was not made to report to Vikram. It reported directly to the CEO of the bank, pending Guneet’s elevation to the next level at an appropriate time.
‘Kya hua? Anything interesting?’ Tanuja asked when she caught up with him.
‘Nothing yaar. Just the same old bakwas. These meetings are now beginning to get on my nerves. Indrani is just the same as Ronald McCain.’
‘Who said things would change once Ronald moves and Indrani takes over?’
‘Haan yaar. It’s been close to a year that he moved back and Indrani became CEO. We were hoping that once an Indian takes over as CEO, things would improve. But it’s still the same old crap, same old meetings, same old discussions. When will we get over this nonsense ya?’
‘Okay okay. . . Dheere dheere. . . Keep your voice low. Someone might hear you.’ Tanuja didn’t want to get into trouble because of Vikram’s antics. Being the head of HR she had to maintain decorum, which Vikram didn’t quite care about, at least in her presence. The last thing she wanted was to be heard bitching about the CEO.
‘Oh. Don’t worry Tanuja. No one will hear us. And who wants to listen to whatever we say? They do their own thing anyway.’
‘Well, aren’t you in a good mood today,’ Tanuja remarked sarcastically.
‘What do I say? Had to go and see a property in Lokhandwala this morning. Indrani called for this meeting and screwed up my schedule.’
‘What property?’
‘Somebody brought a deal to me. Thought I would check it out and see if it’s worth investing in.’
‘Arre, how come you’re looking for property without me?’
‘Oh, ho. Let me see it first. If it is worth it, I will tell you na. Anyway what’re you doing now? Come, let’s go for chai.’
Tanuja glanced at her watch, and simultaneously opened the calendar on her BlackBerry to check her schedule for the remaining part of the day. Hurriedly, she typed out a message and in a matter of forty-five seconds she pressed ‘send’ and walked out of the bank premises with Vikram to a stall about two hundred metres away for a cup of cutting chai.
‘Did you have a meeting?’ asked Vikram, pointing to her BlackBerry.
‘Haan, yaar. Nikhil wanted to see me.’
‘Why?’
‘Some issues with his performance rating that he wants to discuss with me.’
‘What crap? Let him speak to Guneet Chandra first. Who is his boss
? Guneet or you?’
‘Of course Guneet. . . He tried to do that. But apparently Guneet couldn’t convince him. Nikhil feels he deserves a rating better than the 3+ he’s got. Now he wants to chew my brains about it.’
‘When is he coming to meet you?’
‘In the next fifteen minutes. I was just not in a mood to meet him. In any case what could I have done—only given him the satisfaction that he raised this issue with the head of HR. I would have given him some gyan and sent him away. But I’ve just told my secretary to tell him that I’m going to Delhi tomorrow and won’t be back till the end of the week,’ and she started laughing.
Vikram laughed too. ‘You are now saved the trauma and harassment that Nikhil would have subjected you to,’ he said, giving her a high five.
After the tea with Vikram, Tanuja was back at her desk in forty minutes. Her secretary came in to tell her that Nikhil had come and left.
‘Oh, something very critical came up. I couldn’t skip it. So had to cancel it.’ Her secretary nodded and left Tanuja’s cabin, quietly closing the door behind her.
A few hours later the intercom on Tanuja’s desk rang. Her secretary had left for the day and hence all the calls landed directly on her extension.
‘Yes sir. . .ready to leave?’
‘No, no. . .not yet. I suddenly remembered something. In the meeting today, Indrani talked about a directive from GHQ to start private banking in India.’
‘I know. Indrani mentioned this to me yesterday,’ Tanuja confirmed.
‘You knew this? Why didn’t you tell me?’ She could sense some irritation in his voice.
‘I didn’t? Strange. It must’ve slipped my mind. But in any case, how does it matter? It’s a different business; in fact it’s going to be set up as a different company, a different legal entity.’
‘That’s exactly my point, Tanuja. It’s going to be a different business. And that’s why we need to be prepared.’
‘Prepared? As in?’ Tanuja asked, confused.
The Bankster (Ravi Subramanian) Page 2