by Gagan Saini
“Sinha speaking.”
“Hello Mr. Sinha, Chief Minister Vijesh here.”
“Good morning sir, how are you?”
“I am good, but what is happening in our city, a ghost is doing the police job now? People are saying this city does not need police anymore. The criminals your police were unable to catch, they are showing up in police stations by themselves because of that ghost. Do you have any explanation, Mr. Sinha?”
“Sir, we are working on it. We will find out that ghost soon. One ghost cannot replace the whole police department, its only media which is giving the hype to this matter.”
“Mr. Sinha, I understand that, but I have to answer to the people and center. They say your police can’t find either criminals or that ghost. Everyone is putting a question mark on the efficiency of the department.”
“I understand sir and we are working on it. Hopefully, we will sort this out soon.”
“I hope that soon is soon enough. Okay bye Mr. Sinha, call me when you come up with something.”
“Yes, sir.”
After he hung up, Sinha rang Zahid.
It was a little busy afternoon and Zahid was busy at his police station.
“Hello.”
“Zahid, Sinha here.”
“Hello Sir, how are you?”
“Zahid, I heard you were investigating about Jugni, did you find anything?”
“No Sir. All leads go nowhere, now I have started believing that it’s a ghost after all, because if it was a human being I would have caught her by now.”
“Do you hear yourself Zahid? You are saying Jugni is a ghost. You also believe this bullshit?”
Zahid was in the mood for a bit of sarcasm, “But sir, she flies!”
“Stop this nonsense Zahid. You better come to my office, I have to discuss something apart from this.” Mr. Sinha hung up the phone in a bit of anger. Zahid gave a naughty smile. He laughed inside as he knew the truth. He just had to pretend that he does not know anything when he sees Mr. Sinha. He just became normal and told one of his subordinates that he was going to the head office. He left for the head office on his bike in a happy mood.
When he reached the head office, Mr. Sinha was in his office with Mr. Sharma and a couple of other officers in civilian clothes. Mr. Sinha introduced them.
“Zahid, these are the officers from the intelligence department. Officers, he is my most reliable police officer, Zahid Khan.” He gave a bit weird look when he remembered the conversation he just had with Zahid.
Mr. Sinha continued, “Zahid, our intelligence wing has found these two things in opposite parts of Delhi.” Sinha pointed towards two things on the table, one was a pipe like structure and the other was a cylindrical object.”
Zahid looked at those things and laughed. “Sir, I thought you will say we found a bomb, but these things look like some plumber dropped his stuff after fixing someone’s toilet.”
Mr. Sinha stood up from his chair said, “Do you think we are stupid?”
One of the intelligence officers asked permission from Mr. Sinha to talk; this stopped Mr. Sinha to get angry any further.
He said, “Let me explain Mr. Zahid.” Although Zahid wasn’t laughing, still he was in the funny mood. He still thought it was funny as the police had nothing to do and as Jugni was doing much of their work. While Zahid was holding the small round piece and playing with it the officer started speaking.
“Suppose, Mr. Khan, you bought a tank outside this city and wanted to bring it in here without being noticed by anyone, how you would you do it?”
Zahid smiled again, “It’s simple sir, big things get noticed. I will disassemble it, bring the parts here one by one and assemble them again here, easy!!” Once he stopped talking no one else said anything. He was still smiling and playing with that when suddenly he realized what he had said. Now he got serious and understood why all of them were so worried.
“You mean Sir….?”
“Yes,” the officer interrupted him before he could finish.
Zahid looked at Mr. Sinha and said, “Sorry sir.”
“You better be Mr. Zahid Khan,” Sharma said.
“So, what are these parts?” he asked the same officer.
The officer turned his laptop screen towards him. It was a little animation. Firstly, he showed the parts they had on the screen and said, “This is what we have got here, right?” Zahid said yes.
Then he hit the enter button on the laptop. In that animation, many parts came together to join. A number of parts assembled and made a big canon.
Zahid said, “Oh my God! What is that?”
“This is a most advanced antiaircraft gun, The Hydra 7. This can shoot and destroy any flying thing even a fighter jet aircraft. It’s made in the U.S.A. and only two of those are there in the world; one is installed on the roof of the White House and the other is in the Buckingham Palace in England. You will be surprised to know that these two places have Hydra 6, not 7. It is made in the USA and a few countries have lined up to buy it, India is one of them. But it is not released yet. Even Americans don’t have it in use yet. This is not a weapon, this is a disaster.”
“If our government doesn’t have it then who the hell has it; and why its parts are in our city.”
“We are working on it and that’s why we called you.”
“Now you see its far serious problem than a bomb.” The second officer said.
Mr. Sinha started, the intelligence department wants the involvement of police so that we can stop something very terrible from happening.”
Zahid turned to the officers and said, “Do not worry sir, police will give you full cooperation to solve this mystery.”
Mr. Sinha said, “Start raiding the places of concern. Look for any unusual things happening in the city or happened in the last month. Put police on high alert. However, don’t let civilians get an idea about it.”
“Don’t worry sir I will keep this in mind.”
“You may go now and… find it before any ghost finds it.”
Zahid didn’t say anything. He just nodded, greeted the other officers and left.
Zahid kept on thinking about this as he jumped on his Royal Enfield and started heading towards his office. He was thinking so deeply that he didn’t notice a car which followed him. The person in the car constantly gave the updates of location to someone over the phone. A few kilometers ahead from the location of Zahid, the road turned left.
On the bend and on the opposite side there was a big tree. A camouflaged sniper positioned himself in that tree. He had his gun pointed towards the road.
As soon as Zahid turned from the bend the sniper shot him. It was a dart instead of a bullet. Suddenly, Zahid felt something on the right side of his neck. He took it off with his right hand. The vision was blurred already and he couldn’t see the dart clearly. He lost control over his body and fell on the road. His bike stumbled over again and again. He got some injuries on the forehead and arms.
Before anyone came for the help, the car following him stopped and the men in the car threw him in and raced away. That sniper disappeared into the traffic as well. Some passing by people called the police. The police came and took the statement of the witnesses. After some time, one policeman rang Mr. Sinha. He informed him that one car abducted a man going on the bike and from the number plate they found that it was Zahid Sir’s bike. When Mr. Sinha came to know about the time of the incident he was sure it was Zahid because the time of the accident was after a few minutes he left the meeting. Mr. Sinha instructed that he must have been abducted for a reason.
He put police forces on high alert and asked them to find him in every nook and corner of the city, he instructed. The police officer passed this information to all police stations.
One of Sid’s computers showed the main gate of the police headquarters. Images came from
the hacked security camera of the furniture shop opposite the headquarters. The police showed unusual activity as many police vehicles were going in and out.
“Hey Simar, come and have a look, there is something wrong.”
Simar stopped punching the bag and took the towel from the chair.
“What is it?” she asked as she walked from her mini gym to the working area of Sid while rubbing off her sweat with the towel.
“There is unusual activity around the police headquarters. Something has happened.”
“Can we know what this is about?”
“Maybe someone from the inside can tell.”
“Okay, I will call Zahid.” She took the phone from the table and dialed the number of Zahid. Bell rang but he didn’t answer.
“He didn’t answer the phone.”
“Don’t worry Simar, he might be busy in the same thing, whatever it is. Let’s check the news channel, they are very fast these days.”
He pressed a button on the remote and one of the screens turned into the TV. There was breaking news going on that someone abducted a senior police officer in broad daylight. Sid switched to another news channels; this one even told the name of the abducted officer, Zahid Khan.
“What? Someone kidnapped Zahid. Why would someone do this?” Simar questioned.
Sid said, “They might be looking for something because if they can kidnap him they could have killed him as well.”
“You are right Sid.” She looked desperately at the screens one by one to find any clue.
“Can’t you find anything, Sid?” she asked while rubbing her hands with each other.
“I am looking into this, but whoever did this, they choose a spot where there are no cameras.”
“I just hacked one traffic camera near that corner where the incident happened, but there is nothing significant. See Zahid passed those lights but what happened after he turned, is not there.”
“Where should we find him? I can’t go out and search because I don’t know where to go.” Simar said with confusion and frustration.
“Sid, please give me some lead, tell me one direction to go.”
“I am looking Simar, do not worry they won’t kill him, and I believe we can expect some demands soon.”
It was evening now and still, there was no clue of Zahid. Police and Sid did not find anything about Zahid. Sinha was getting worried because this was a matter of reputation for the police. Sinha was in his control room with many people working on the situation. One of the officers brought his attention to one of the News channels. The breaking news was saying that they had received a video message from the kidnappers.
They played that video. It was a masked man standing beside Zahid being tied up on the chair. He said, “We don’t have any problems with him, but we will not hesitate to kill him. The only thing we want is Jugni. Give us Jugni and we will give your police officer back. If Jugni wants to surrender to us, she can call us on this number,” he showed the number on the screen. He continued, “This number is for Jugni only, if police calls to bother us, we will kill him.”
Sinha instructed his officers to immediately find out the details of that number and location. Very soon one person came to him with the result; he explained to Sinha that the number was registered in someone’s name who had passed away last year. But the location was not static, someone was using that number on the move. The person with that number is in some vehicle on the ring road.
Sinha ordered an officer standing near him, “Alert the police on the ring road.”
“But Sir...” The one who brought information spoke again
“What is it, speak up.”
“Sir, as far as I think, as soon as Jugni will call them they will destroy the sim. We can just pray that she calls after we found him.”
Sinha looked at him and another officer with helplessness in the eyes. Technicians started to work on tracking that number.
On the other side, Simar wasn’t aware of this and she could not wait to call. This was the lead she was waiting for. She asked Sid to call.
Sid made a call with a secured call system he had. As soon as someone picked up the call she asked, “Who is this?”
“The question is, who you are; we just want to talk to Jugni.”
“Yes, I am Jugni, what do you want?”
“We want you. If you want that police officer alive, come to fifty, center road, Rajouri. Come alone and please be very careful not to inform the police or anyone else and do not bring any weapons.” After saying all this, he hung up. He was a man who sat in a moving bus which was on the ring road. His casual attire and look did not attract anyone’s attention. He spoke so slowly that no one on the bus even noticed anything. After finishing the conversation, he opened the window and slowly slid the phone out of it. Phone fell on the road, run over by car and turned into pieces. Sinha and his team lost the track and it was impossible to find a person in hundreds of vehicles.
Simar jumped on her bike and said to Sid, “You know what to do?”
Sid smiled and said, “Don’t worry, I got you.”
The secret door opened and as Simar’s bike proceeded towards the exit. She said, “Boss, let’s disappear.” As the bike approached the exit; it disappeared, so did Simar.
It was dark already. As soon as Simar left the building, Sid dispatched two drones which left the building from the roof. Simar was going towards the address very fast on her bike so were her regular backup drones. The other drones which Sid dispatched, reached the location earlier than Simar. They flew around that old building and started analyzing it with their scanners. It was a closed factory. The building was four stories tall.
Sid was able to see the building. The images and live videos captured by drones were right in front of Sid on his table which had turned into a giant computer. He kept on updating Simar. He explained to her the layout of the building in short and told the estimate of 25-30 armed men in there. By the time Simar reached the location, she had a lot of information regarding the building and the number of people.
Simar stopped near the building. She said to her bike, “Boss, do not reveal yourself until I say so”. As soon as she hopped off from the bike, she became visible, but she was behind a half-broken wall, so nobody noticed. She did not carry any weapons with her. By this time all four drones had taken their positions. They fastened themselves with some firm support in the building from where nobody could see them. Sid positioned one drone on each level.
She entered the building through a window, quietly. The men in the building were expecting her to knock on the door and surrender. Just near the window, a man stood with a rifle hanging on his right shoulder. Simar attacked him as he looked the other side. She got the hold of his rifle and slid its belt near the neck. He struggled to speak or do anything. She choked him with the help of a belt.
“Okay Simar, one man down, a few more left. There is a man using the toilet on your right.” Sid had everything on his screen, a digital diagram showed Simar as a red dot and the others as black.
Simar stood right in front of the toilet door. As soon as he flushed the toilet Simar got ready. He opened the door and saw Jugni standing outside. She punched him in the throat and hit in the stomach with her knee. He fell on the toilet seat. She held his hair and banged to the water tank behind the toilet seat. The water leaked from it and it made a lot of noise.
Two men came to see what caused that noise. They saw Jugni and started firing. She quickly jumped and took shelter behind one wall. She did not move, a little movement meant to come in the range of the bullets. Sid watched all this and activated the drone on that floor. Both men were in the range of the drone, he shot both of them. The bullet rain stopped and gave Simar the opportunity to move out of hiding. That firing alerted everyone in the building. Zahid could hear the noise of gunshots but could not do anything. He knew it must be S
imar and was so desperate to help but he couldn’t move a bit.
By this time Simar had cleared the ground floor and was ready to move further. About ten men on the first floor were ready with their guns pointed towards the stairs. Instead of using the stairs, Simar climbed out of the window and got hold of a water pipe. She climbed up with the help of a pipe to go to the second floor. She saw from the window that all the men were positioned towards the stairs. There was no point in getting their attention so she decided to climb further. She said to Sid slowly, “I want some distraction.”
“Say no more, Simar.” Sid moved some screens on the display and touched on two options. The drone threw a bomb on the second floor near the men. When it blasted, there was a chaos everywhere. Men ran for their lives, some started firing randomly as they could not see clearly because of smoke. The third-floor people could hear the chaos on the second floor, but nobody went downstairs to intervene as they had to protect their own floor. A cylindrical object hit one man on the third floor.
He thought it was a bomb, he shouted, and everybody took shelter. This bomb did not explode; a gas came out of it. Soon the whole floor was foggy. Men started coughing and slowly lost their consciousness. At the same time, Simar climbed to the fourth floor using pipes and grooves on the wall. As soon as she jumped in from the window, all men pointed their guns towards her and their boss had a gun on Zahid’s head. He said, “You move a finger and I will put all the bullets in my gun into his head.”
Simar looked at Zahid. He tried to look at her with his one black eye which wasn’t opening properly due to swelling and the other eye was loaded with blood dripping from his head. He tried to undo the knot of the rope on his hands, but nothing happened.