A spy spends lot more time in keeping his eyes and ears open than the
time he spends in using any weapons. All he ends up doing is to sit and wait
for the right moment. Until then all a spy can do is try, taciturnly, to drive
the situation towards the right moment.
This is what we had been doing
since the last twenty minutes. Sitting at a table with the owner and enacting
of having a conversation with him. Our right moment came in when one of the
cooks called for the owner and he had to walk into the kitchen.
Praveen grabbed the opportunity
without leaving another second and yelled, rather calmly, “Sir, can we have a
look at your kitchen?”
There was no response from the
owner for few seconds and then he peeped out of the doorless kitchen entrance and
smiled calling us in. We both sprang out of our chairs and walked quickly into
the kitchen. There was nothing much to explain about the kitchen as it
resembled any kitchen of an ordinary small hotel – small, clumsy, noisy, smoky,
sweaty but smelled of spices!
There was clearly no chance of
mixing the morphine sedative in the food in that small kitchen filled with two
cooks and the owner himself. We quickly switched to our Plan B and continued
the conversation.
“So this where the magical bhajjis get prepared” I said.
“Yes sir. Small but tasty” he
said with a hint of proudness in his voice.
“Nice. So the food is getting
ready?” Praveen asked.
“Yes, the roti’s are almost ready. And here, we just started preparing daal” the owner said pointing at the gas
located in the corner of the kitchen.
“We will prepare hot daal in few
minutes and serve you hot. Have your food here itself” he continued looking at
us.
“Yes now I got the aroma of
spices, my mouth has started watering” I said and then turned to Praveen and
continued, “but what if he comes back. We will have to go back with him. Shall
we take parcel?”
“Yes parcel would be better”
Praveen said.
“It would be good if you had hot
food here itself. But if you will have to go then we can pack the food” he
said. Then he turned to the cook and ordered him to increase the quantity of
the daal.
“How will you pack the daal? We don’t
have anything to carry it” Praveen said.
“Do not worry sir; we will pack
it in plastics. We pack everything neatly. You need not worry about anything”
“We were thinking of taking more
daal. We have few men of our team back in Honnavar. We want to take food for
all them. Will you pack for all?” Praveen asked.
“Yes. Why not? You just tell how
many people and we will pack it perfectly” he replied back without even looking
at us.
“Do you pack in the same way for
those people also?” Praveen asked and the owner suddenly turned at us with his
eyes open. A sudden jolt struck us and a current passed through our body making
the hair on the back of our neck stand straight. “I mean all 20 plates in
plastic bags?” Praveen continued hesitantly.
It was a relief for us when the
owner blinked and nodded and then said, “No no. For them we have separate
container which we use that for the daal and
they return it back every morning.”
We finally got the information
what we wanted but the next shot was a dangerous one. Though it was dangerous
and could lead to anything, from getting the expected answer to getting our
cover blown, this shot had to be taken no matter what. The chance had to be
taken and the question was to be asked. We both looked at each other for a
fraction of a second and then looked at the owner; he was busy watching the
cook. We again turned to ourselves and exchanged a glance.
With a small ignorable nod from
Praveen I cleared my throat as silently as possible and bringing out a smile on
my face I said, turning towards Praveen, “Shall we also take 20 plates from
here? Anyhow we will go back to Honnavar for dinner. We can take the food from
here itself for all of us”
Praveen quickly replied, “Yes we
can take but not in plastics. That too hot daal”
and frowned his face as though he has smelled rotten garbage.
“Why plastic? We won’t take
plastic. Sir only told he can pack in a vessel container and moreover we also
need daal that suffices twenty persons. So obviously we will get the food
packed neatly in a container” I said and then turned to the owner who was
already looking at us and said, “Right Sir? Can we get twenty plates food
packed in a container not in plastics as we need to carry it till Honnavar? We
will return the container tomorrow noon when we come back for more work.”
If spies would have spent eight hours a day with arms and weapons and
handling them during their training days, they would have spent nine hours
learning the remaining spy tricks. And all of these tricks come to use when the
arms cannot be used.
The owner was still looking at us
blankly. He was probably thinking on why we were suddenly requesting for so
much of food and was definitely calculating his profits and losses.
Meanwhile Praveen said, “But we
have to go till Honnavar, what if we get late? The food will turn cold. It’s
better if we go to Honnavar and have our food”
“But what if we reach late and don’t
get food there? Let us get our food packed here itself. It will be easier and I
am sure this is much tastier. I am already getting the spicy smell of daal. Let’s get it packed; we will get
it in a container so that it will remain hot”
“But still…” Praveen continued
and I cut him and said, “You don’t worry, we will get our food ready in half
hour. Hot and tasty packed air tight in a container” and then turning to the
owner I asked, “Right?”
The owner was now already a bit
confused amidst the decision he was going to take and the profit he had already
calculated for the order we were giving. Finally the calculation done by his
business mind won over all the other doubts and uncertainties and he agreed to
pack our dinner in a container. The moment he walked out of his doubt on providing
us the container, Praveen put in more doubts and stressed on taking a look at
the container. This provided us the right opportunity in confirming that the
container being provided to us was exactly similar to the one that was being
provided to the group.
Come back next week for more
action and to find out how the container and the drug are used…
Vishal…
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