The machine above his head made a constant buzzing noise, like static, and he could see wires connecting his head to the machine. He realised that he had some control of his neck muscles today as he was able to turn his head up to get his first glimpse of the machine over his head. It had a big rectangular face that had screens all over it, displaying a symphony of fluid fractal patterns that were beyond his comprehension. A container containing a silver fluid spewed out wires that were hooked on to his head.
He looked down, barely raising his head and could see the sheets drawn a bit lower on his body, revealing his tanned bronze chest, that probably had a good structure once. The muscles showed signs of atrophy, probably from the prolonged paralysis that he was being subjected to.
The static picked up a notch on the noise scale and the white of the room started to fade away slowly.
Chapter 17
Sonya Ludvigsdottir
Park Hotel
Noyabrsk, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug
Russia
20 May, 2012
It was snowing outside. A pensive Sonya Ludvigsdottir sat near one of the three large French windows in her hotel room. She could see beyond the snow, out into the beautiful ice-park below. The view notwithstanding, she had butterflies in her stomach.
Work on the Gazneft oilrigs had been suspended for the past month due to striking workers.
The strike had virtually crippled the economy of the region and it was a blow that Luk-Oil could not possibly bear.
Sonya had come down for the kill. There was opportunity and Sonya wondered if she could do an Abramovich with Luk-Oil.
She had a meeting with the management and the creditors of Luk-Oil in an hour. Also attending the meeting would be the representatives of the labour union, and the mayor, Bogdan Kirobkov. Sonya had detailed dossiers about everybody and had studied them carefully. Kirobkov was as dirty as they came and could be easily bought over. The banks and other creditors would come over if she promised them infusion of fresh capital. They certainly did not want to go through a Luk-Oil bankruptcy and risk losing their invested millions. That left Ivan Kravchenko, the wily union leader who had the reputation of being a rabble-rouser.
He was difficult. He was not an idealist or an ardent communist but he was known to be antagonistic to the management. It was he who had instigated the workers to go on this strike and it was imperative that he be won over.
Sonya had no plans for him yet but hoped that she would make him see the merit in her arguments.
***
Sonya was back in her room after the meeting that had lasted a good two hours. The meeting had been held at the conference hall of the Park, the hotel where she was staying. The meeting was rough but it was something that Sonya could take heart from. The bankers had come round; the mayor had consented at a very steep price: extracting his sweat equity and dirt money.
Ivan Kravchenko was a revelation. He fought valiantly for the rights of his workers. What he was asking for was not unacceptable, but Sonya did not do easy negotiations. They played around with figures and Sonya drove a hard bargain. The bankers took their leave and Sonya and Kravchenko continued after lunch. They agreed to agree on the issue of health and other benefits and for a generous contributory pension, but failed to find common ground vis-à-vis revision of worker’s salaries. Nevertheless, their meeting moved from the boardroom to the dining hall and finally to Sonya’s room in the hotel.
Kravchenko was thirty-three, married, with two kids, and had a family that lived far away in Tomsk. He was an oilrig worker, accustomed to hefting loads in excess of two hundred pounds and the hundred and ten pounds of Sonya posed no problem for him.
‘You know what you are?’ Kravchenko bellowed between breaths as he literally hoisted and slammed a naked Sonya up and down on his naked pelvis.
‘Mmm...’ Sonya grunted as she went up and down on the well-hung Kravchenko.
‘A bliad. A bloody bliad, you are!’
‘I hope that’s a compliment, Ivan,’ Sonya gasped between breaths, as she hoped he would stop talking and concentrate on what he was doing.
Sonya knew what bliad meant and she did not mind being called a slut. So long as being a slut got her what she wanted.
They finished in a couple of minutes and an exhausted Sonya lay quietly in the strong arms of Kravchenko.
‘So, what do you have for me if I manage to get the strike called off?’ Kravchenko asked the question first.
Sonya feigned hurt and said:
‘I didn’t think this was business, Ivan’
Kravchenko laughed a hearty laugh.
‘Oh, you pizda! You are the devil incarnate. I know that I am not getting to hump a printzyessa for the love of her heart. You need something from me and that is why I am here.’
Sonya laughed along with Kravchenko.
‘Nothing for you, Ivan. I am not going to do anything for you. Ten million rubles for your wife and a plum post for you.’
‘Why do you want to give the money to my wife?’
‘I am just buying you from her, Ivan. The managerial post you will get will keep you in Moscow with Russo-Hantel…’ Sonya paused and winked at Ivan, ‘directly under me.’
‘You pizda!’ Ivan hissed the words in her ears and swung her below him, spreading her legs apart with his knees.
The French windows crashed barely within a second of each other and three canisters rolled into the room through the broken glass. The canisters started hissing out a white smoke and both Sonya and Ivan were unconscious before they even realised what had happened there, a naked Ivan lying unconscious between the legs of an equally naked and unconscious Sonya.
***
Hantel Corporate Headquarters
St. Olav’s Gate, Oslo
Norway
21 May, 2012
The morning headlines of ‘The Oslo Mirror’ screamed:
“HANTEL HEIRESS SONYA LUDVIGSDOTTIR KIDNAPPED. BEDFELLOW FOUND MURDERED.”
Ludvig was already on his private jet, a Bombardier 5000, to Noyabrsk. He had left with a small coterie of his trusted aides, as soon as he had heard the news late at night. From what had been gathered by Haalkud’s team, it was a mob hit. Sitting behind him on the plane was Dan Knutsen, Ludvig’s Man Friday in crises such as this.
For most of the journey, Ludvig sat with a stoic look on his face, staring out of the window to his right. He was lost in his thoughts. He loved Sonya more than anyone else in the world and could not bear to think about losing her. She was the essence of what he had been in his youth; reckless and yet calculative and cold, but not heartless. She had his business acumen and his love for the good life. She was he, and he could not but love her.
‘Have you got your team on the ground?’ Ludvig asked Dan, without turning.
‘Yes.’ Dan nodded.
Dan had a chequered history with a spattering of work with various intelligence agencies as an independent contractor. Besides, the Russian mob was not foreign territory for him. Hantel had a big presence in Russia and Dan had an active unit there. He had a team on the ground awaiting their arrival in Noyabrsk.
‘Are the coppers looking at it?’ Ludvig asked again.
‘Yes, they are involved. The mayor will be there to receive us. In addition, the chief of local police is already investigating. I have alerted the local FSB, too.’
Dan realised that it was hard for Ludvig. He was very fond of his daughter and it was no secret that he loved her more than he did his son. She was born of a second ‘wife’ whom he had taken when he had stayed for almost a year continuously in Russia and started the Russian operations of Hantel. Her mother, Irina worked for him during that time. She was a striking beauty and a very successful Russian athlete with a haul of two silvers and a gold in the Olympics.
Ludvig had never been able to devote much time to his second family but Irina had been very faithful and had been very successful when she took over the managerial responsibilities of Russo-Hantel. She took c
are of their only child, Sonya, largely in Ludvig’s absence yet did not let her feel the lack of a father. She told her tales of her father and Sonya remained devoted to a largely absent Ludvig. She was groomed to be the future CEO of Hantel right from her birth and when the time came, Irina handed over the mantle to Sonya, with the consent of Ludvig. Sonya had a business major from the London School of Economics and had a first-rate teacher in her mother; so much so that, when she took over the company at the young age of twenty-six, no one questioned her credentials.
Irina died a year later of a metastatic tumour of her left knee.
As a child, Sonya had never regretted not having the constant attention of both her parents, though she looked forward to those rare occasions when her daddy would make the trip to Moscow to meet them and stay for a few days every six months or so. But she never really recovered from her mother’s death and her grief made her immerse herself fully in the company’s work.
Ludvig fondly remembered the moments that he spent with Sonya. He remembered them camping by the frozen Moskva River upstream from the city, and going ice fishing near their camp. He would have loved to spend more time with her but his schedule only allowed for those few occasions, which he cherished so very dearly now. It was partly his guilt at never having been a good father to Sonya that probably made him love her even more.
Ludvig was lost in this reverie when the landing instructions were given on the flight-com. He readied himself for what lay ahead. Ludvig had received the news pretty close to the time when he woke up from his sleep, and he knew he wouldn’t get enough time to rescue her even if he decided to ‘rewind’. He could not use his immortal abilities at the time that probably most merited their use.
They landed on an almost frozen strip on the Noyabrsk airport and after a quick round of introductions, he went over to the police station to meet the head of the local politsiya, where he was rapidly updated about the progress made in the case so far.
The kidnappers had probably attacked in two teams, one of whom had fired the sedating canisters through the windows and the other team had smashed the door and taken Sonya captive after pumping several rounds of bullets into Kravchenko’s head. Kravchenko was found dead, naked on the bed, and the blood on the sheets belonged only to Kravchenko. Semen and vaginal fluids were also recovered from the sheets and the latter matched that of Sonya. That probably meant that Sonya was not harmed during the operation to kidnap her. There was no ransom note or calls from the kidnappers after that.
The word on the street was that this was a mercenary act, well paid for, and funded from abroad, and carried out by one of the many arms of the Russian mafia.
Behind the scenes, Dan was busy filtering through the intelligence that he was gathering from his own less official sources. It took him a bit of time, but by evening, he could follow the money trail to a Moscow trade cartel and from there on to a well-known Socialist sympathiser in Norway.
‘It is Luvenson,’ Dan informed Ludvig that evening.
‘Bastard!’ Ludvig had not anticipated that Luvenson would make it this personal. Luvenson had resigned from the political race that year but Ludvig had still released the video, destroying Luvenson and forcing him into political oblivion.
‘What is the progress, Dan?’
‘I have some intel on which clan of the Russo mafia is behind it. I can be sure by tomorrow early morning.’
These were difficult times for Ludvig and Dan knew that. Still, Ludvig was handling the situation in his own calm and calculative way.
‘Let’s open another war front with Luvenson. Let me know what can be done back home.’
Dan knew what he meant. He already had plans for that. Both of Hanka Luvenson’s sons had been pulled from their school and they were nowhere to be seen. That left him and his wife, and Dan was not sure if all was well with their marriage, which had somehow survived the damaging revelations of Luvenson’s affair with Dagny.
Dan realised that he had to go for the sons, hunt them down and use them for possible leverage, if it came to that.
Dan left his boss for the night and headed straight for the temporary situation room that he had set up in a room on the top floor of the Park Hotel. He was going to sit through the night sifting through the intel that would be steadily pouring in all through the night.
Chapter 18
Breaking News
Chennai
India
20 May, 2012
Jai woke up on the sofa in Raja’s flat in Chennai. There was no getting used to these ‘replays’. It brought shock, bewilderment, and confusion each time it happened. But Jai was slowly getting the hang of it. He now knew how the day was going to unfold. However, he did not yet know what he was going to do about it this time.
Raja woke up ten minutes after Jai and saw him sitting morosely on the sofa.
‘There isn’t anywhere I can run to. No distance is far for them. No land is foreign to them. Wherever I go, they will come after me. What have I gotten myself into? What have I gotten Henna into?’
Raja heard him mumbling and looked at him.
‘Hey! Had a bad dream?’ he asked Jai. ‘You are mumbling and you don’t look very well. You alright?’
Jai nodded.
‘I have to leave now,’ Jai mumbled and then looked into Raja’s eyes and continued:
‘Thanks for all you have done for me, my friend. But I have to leave today. They have found us. They will come for us. We have to leave today.’
Raja was wide-awake now and was seeing Jai ramble on about leaving.
‘Have you heard something? Did you get any news from Mumbai? Who told you?’
‘No one. Just the way I feel.’
‘Have you lost it, Jai? Why this “gut feeling” all of a sudden?’
Jai could not tell Raja how he knew what he knew. It would simply be too much for him to digest. Anyway, Jai did not have the time or the patience to explain something that he had barely brought himself around to believe in, without any understanding of it. Jai looked at Raja with all the seriousness he could muster
‘Raja, I can’t explain it to you. It is just a feeling that I have; and of late, I have come to rely, a bit more than usual, on my instincts. I am leaving right now with Henna. However, promise me that you will also run the moment you smell danger. And I know you will probably smell it sooner rather than later. I am sorry that I brought you into all this. Very sorry, my friend.’
‘I would not be alive here in the first place if it were not for you, Jai. Therefore, you do not owe any apology to me. I only wish I could understand what you are trying to say.’ He continued with a shrug:
‘I won’t try to stop you if you feel so strongly about this.’
Jai got up from the sofa, walked up to the door of the adjoining room and knocked gently before pushing the door open.
Henna had heard the knock and she sat up.
‘Sorry to wake you up. But we need to leave now.’
Henna looked blankly at Jai.
‘Um... hmm? Leave? Leave for where?’
‘I don’t know. Just start packing up your things. I want to leave in thirty minutes.’
Henna rushed from her bed and started to do Jai’s bidding.
She paused in between and turned to look at Jai.
‘What happened?’
‘Another nightmare. A nightmare where things do not end too well for us.’
She cursed under her breath and scurried away to get their things into the air-bag they had been carrying since Mumbai.
She was ready to go in twenty-five minutes and joined Jai near the door. Jai, in the meanwhile, had collected a chamber-full of bullets for his gun, from Raja.
Jai looked at her glancing around the house as if she had developed some sort of bond with this house in the past few days. He saw her eyes wandering from the floor to the cupboard, to the sofa, to the TV… and then as his eyes paused at the TV, it struck him where he wanted to go.
‘Hey, Raja! Do y
ou know how far Kalpakkam is from here?’
Jai blurted out the question but immediately realised he should not have asked the question of Raja. It was better for him not to know, where they were off to.
‘Takes about an hour by bus. Catch a bus to Pondicherry that goes through the East Coast Road. Forty kilometres, tops.’
Jai and Henna took their leave of Raja. Henna cried a little. Raja reminded her of her brother Ashfaque in the village, no news of whom she had until then. Raja had a lump in his throat too, and they said hurried good-byes to each other.
They took an auto-rickshaw that took twenty minutes to reach the bus stand. A bus to Pondicherry was about to leave and they got on it. Henna had still not asked Jai why he had chosen Kalpakkam and what they were going to do there. She just sat demurely on the window seat, watching the scenery go by, the air-bag close to her chest on her lap. The wind blew wisps of her unclasped hair over her face. Jai stole glances at his pretty companion while still thinking about what he was going to do in Kalpakkam.
They reached Kalpakkam in fifty minutes and got down near the East Coast Road market just outside the town. Jai realised he was a complete stranger in this town. New town, new people, new language. He had to work towards a plan. He decided he needed a car, preferably a van of some type. There was a roadside temple a few metres ahead, and there was a brand new Maruti Ertiga, decked with flowers and garlands, parked outside the temple, good-luck lemons crushed under its tires and threaded lemons and chillies hanging from under the blank number plate in front. The driver was sitting at the wheel while the priest read incantations, holding a plate with flaming camphor, swirling its smoke all over the vehicle. There was no one else around them. The priest would not be a problem and Jai hoped that the driver would acquiesce on seeing the gun.
Jai grasped Henna’s hand.
‘Come with me.’
He pulled her near the Ertiga and left her standing at the passenger door. He reached the door on the driver’s side, took out his gun and pointed it directly at the driver’s head
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