As soon as I called him, he
quickly turned and took a step back. I was sure he was taken aback by the
surprise and it would take a moment for him to gulp down the surprise down his
throat.
Before he could get out from that
surprise and get alerted, I took my chance and said, “Sir, you took the wrong
container”
“What?” he asked. His voice was a
lot coarser than I had thought but I was prepared for anything by now.
“The container you took from the
hotel is for someone else. Here, this is your daal. We were packing the food for three parties’ altogether and
somehow they all got exchanged. Now when we checked we found that this
container has twenty plates. The one you are carrying has more daal. It was meant for”
“Ok ok just give me that
container. Don’t waste my time” he yelled back cutting me in between.
“Here sir, take this” I said
handing him the box I had in my hand.
He quickly took it and gave me
the box he was carrying in his bag and asked, “Are you new here?”
“Yes sir. I joined just few days
back. I am actually from a nearby village and one of my uncles”
“Ok fine. I don’t want your story”
he said, again cutting me in between.
Once he was sure he had placed
the box correctly in his bag, he turned without even taking a second look at me
and just walked away towards their house.
With a graceful smile of success
on my face I slowly walked back. After a few quick steps, I turned back to
assure he had gone out of my sight and then quickly walked to Praveen.
“So, how did it go? It wasn’t even
more than two minutes” Praveen said.
“Yeah. It went smoother than we
had thought. That guy, as we had guessed, was just a worker who wanted to make
sure he carried the right box and dint even waste time for a second look.”
“Obviously. He would have thought
any small act from him or any questions would invite more suspicions and
questions back on them”
“That’s right. And that is the
exact reason why he was not even interest in any of the details, just took that
box and almost sped away.”
“Then what you were talking?”
“Ah that. I was just taking my
chance on acting a bit and tried to give him a story about how the boxes got
exchanged and then how I joined this hotel”
“Rascal; you never leave a chance
to act” Praveen said sitting down on the ground.
I too sat down along with him and
said, smiling, “How can I? And we have a good news”
“What’s that?”
“I smelled alcohol from his mouth”
“So?”
“Soooooo my dear friend, the effect
of that morphine mixed in their food will increase along with alcohol. So if
they have already consumed alcohol or will be consuming now, the effect will
increase and our worry of the quantity not being sufficient will be taken care
by that alcohol”
“Wow! Finally we have some good
news! Let them enjoy their alcohol and their food”
“Yeah, and lets wish all of them
drink and enjoy!”
Praveen started laughing and I
joined him.
Once we were done with our
laughter and enjoying a nice little humor, we stood up and started walking
towards the house. As we neared the end of the main road, I looked at Praveen and
signaled him to stop.
“Let’s get on the top of that
house where I was. We will just keep an eye on the house and watch for any
activities we can”
He agreed to my plan, and wasting
no time, slowly and stealthy, we got to the terrace of the house that was
diagonally opposite to the house of the bad guys with green T-Shirts. Once we
were up, Praveen took out his binoculars and took a careful 360 degree look.
Once he gave me a green signal, I quickly setup my Sniper and was back to my half
lying position in which was few hours back. It had already turned completely
dark and we had to be extra careful in keeping our look on any activity around
the house. Though we couldn’t get any view inside it, we had to be careful on
the windows and doors and any clue that we could lay our hands on.
It was getting tougher and
tougher to concentrate; especially with the growing hunger and the growing
attacks from mosquitoes. We were armed with all the ammunitions and modern
equipments for look out except a mosquito repellant and that had already made
us realized how we had to be prepared for any of our future look outs. Both of
us agreed that mosquitoes hurt as much as the bullets and to carry a repellant
along with every bullet proof vest.
After a long long wait of around three
hours, Praveen checked the time. It was already ten minutes past twelve.
“Its 12:10 AM. Shall we go a
little closer? I feel they must have all completed their food by now”
“Let’s wait for some more time,
just to be on the safer side” I said.
“Fine, let’s wait for another
thirty minutes and then atleast I will take a closer look and then we can
decide”
I nodded agreeing to his plan. And
we continued looking at the house with eyes wide open and scratching our bodies
every time a mosquito bit.
At 12:45 AM, Praveen stood up and
pulled out his Colt and checked the magazine. He held it in his right hand and pulled
up his pant to check another revolver was in its place.
“You keep a watch on me, I will just
go down and scout the house and take a walk around it for any clues and voices.”
“No, don’t go behind where I
cannot see you.”
“Okay”
A minute after I glued my eyes again
to the view on the Sniper and targeted it at the entrance of house, I saw
Praveen in it, walking stealthily towards the main door of the house from the
entrance. Though it was pretty dark, a small zero watt bulb lighted at the side
of the house was playing a vital part in helping us keep watch on the house and
its doors and windows. He took a step to the door and put his ears to it. Then
turning back at me he got down and walked to the right side of the house. He
slowly walked along the right wall of the house and disappeared behind it.
“I had told you not to go behind
the house” I yelled to myself thumping my fist on the terrace.
Quickly I took out my binoculars
and kept looking at each side of the house and as guessed, he appeared back on
the left side of the house. Once I saw him safe, I got back to the Sniper view
and followed him all along the left side of the house until the entrance.
Within a minute, he was back on
the terrace and said, “I guess we are safe. I did not hear any voice nor saw
any light inside the house”
“Let’s not waste our time then.
Finally it is time to attack” I said.
“How do you want to do it? From
opposite ends or from same end?”
“We will have to break open the
door. Let’s take our chance on only one door”
“Agreed”
Quickly I packed in the sniper
into its bag and took out my semiautomatic pistol. Checking the magazine again
I took out a tear gas tin just in case we needed and hung it on my belt.
Praveen took out two submachines and handed me one while he hung one across his
neck. I took the submachine from him and hung its belt across my neck and
adjusted it so that I could quickly point it against me and take a shot.
Carrying the other bags, we
silently stepped down and placed them securely under a tree near the house we
had been sitting on. Once we were on the road, we took a careful look across
the street to make sure there was no one around and then quickly walked into
the entrance of the house.
I stepped up to the front door of
the house and kept my ears to the door. It was sullen silent. There was
absolutely no voice from inside the house. Praveen went to the window and tried
pushing it open but was unsuccessful. With his nod, I pushed the door slowly on
the top and then near the bottom. The door was locked on the top and also at
the center. I pointed at the points where the door was locked and signaled two
to Praveen. He stepped closer and whispered, “How will you open it? If we break
it open they will know it was opened from outside”
“Let’s check the back door” I
whispered back and we walked to the back door of the house.
I checked that door for the
points where it was locked and found that it was locked only at the center of
the door to the side wall. I signaled the point to Praveen and said, “Let me
bring the iron hook we have in our bag”
Slowly walking over to the other
side of the house, I crossed the road taking a careful look everywhere and
searched our bags for the iron hook we had kept in. Picking up the hook of right
length and strength and walked back to the door with my pistol still in hand.
Sliding the sharper and shorter
edge of the hook inside the gap between door and wall where I had guessed the
lock was. Then I made sure the hook went right where it had to be. Praveen
touched my shoulder from behind and asked from my pistol. As soon as I gave him
my pistol I held the longer end of the hook in both hands and took my position
to force open the door while he took his position to attack anyone who could
come in front of us any moment we opened the door. With all my strength I
pulled the hook bar towards and it pushed the door lock in. With two more hard
tries, I was successful but as soon as the screws in the lock gave up against
my strength and the lock broke down, the door opened wide and in that force, it
went back and hit the wall behind it with a thud. I placed the hook bar down
and took my pistol from Praveen.
Both of us switched our torches
on and stepped in the house. As soon as we entered the house, we saw the
bathroom to our left and wall on our right. As we walked, we saw a room,
probably the main drawing room of the house. There were few guys sleeping on
the floor with the alcohol bottles lying everywhere. There were two doors on
our right and a kitchen to our left. A look at the kitchen showed the empty box
making sure that the food had been eaten. Praveen opened the first door that we
came across and targeted the torch inside it. Our kidnapped RAW agent was tied
up on a chair in the corner of that same room. Praveen stepped closer and took
a neater look at him while I took a neater look around the room and saw the
room full of boxes holding guns, submachines, AK rifles, and even grenades. Praveen checked the agent’s pulse and showed
his thumbs up at me. The agent was unconscious and had turned weaker.
That was the moment when we took
our first relieved breath that day! We had found the kidnapped agent alive and
were about to rescue him.
I quickly ran out of the room and
locked the other room without even taking a look of what lay inside it. As I
returned I saw Praveen untying the agent. I whispered in his ears and walked to
the entrance of the room and kept a watch on the drawing room. Once Praveen
held the agent against him and dragged him out of the room, I helped him hold
the agent and we quickly lifted the agent from there till the back of the
house. I then walked back to the back door and searched for the fallen screws.
As I found the screws, I took out the Swiss knife from my pocket and fixed the
lock and tightened the screws. I checked the door for any marks from the hook
and making sure there weren’t any major damages on the door that proved the
door to be forced open from outside, I again took out my pistol and helped
Praveen carry the agent outside into the road.
Once we were on the road, we
placed the agent across one of the jeep that blocked our view from the house.
Quickly picking up our bags, we carried the agent and walked as quickly as we
could till the main road and then towards the school. Once we were in the
school ground, we tried to wake him up but we were unlucky.
“I have an anti sedative for
morphine and can inject him with that to help him recover from the effect of
that. It might help him turn conscious. But first, let’s go to the car.”
“Yes, that will be safe. But what
if he has not eaten the food?” Praveen asked.
“Yes right. We will directly take
him to a hospital” I said.
We again lifted the agent and
walked to the car as quickly as we could. The time was already 2:10 AM and
there was no one on the streets of Narayanpur nor did we see any lights inside
any house.
Once we reached our car, we
placed the agent in the back seat. Without waiting for him to wake up, Praveen quickly
started the car and started driving back towards Honnavar while I sat back
holding the agent.
“It must have been a very long
day for you both” Ram said, as we sat outside a local clinic that where we had admitted
the agent.
The agent had gained consciousness
on the way to Honnavar but still was very weak and in no state to understand or
explain us anything. We had called up our Chief on the way to provide first
hand updates on the successful mission and then had called Ram to update him
about the mission and the condition of the agent. We had then driven straight
to Ram’s house and along with him we had taken the agent and admitted him to a
local clinic for all the required medical attention. We had then spent few
minutes giving him the details and the updates required for the paper works and
the reporting of the mission.
Praveen looked at his watch which
and said, “It has been exactly 24 hours since we started this day but yes this
day has been a very long long day” and turned towards me with a broad smile of
satisfaction and victory on his face.
I smiled back at him and checked
my watch which showed 3:00 AM.
Yes, it had been exactly 24 hours since the day had started for us, but
it felt like we had spent 24 days since we had woken up and started our day. Yes,
it had been long long day! Sorry, it had been a damn long long successful day
with the mission successful and a life saved! After all that’s how spies spend
their day!
As the Spy Series ends, I would
request all my Dear Sunday Readers to drop their valuable comments and
feedbacks below… Your likes and shares would also matter a lot for me and the
mission which just ended successfully…
Vishal…
