The Secret Weapon (Part VII)

Here’s The Secret Weapon (Part VII), for today. I wrote this story for an educational course; I was doing in the 1990s.

The Secret Weapon (Part VII)

Kartik took Radha to the Srinagar chawl and started asking questions about the unknown man in the picture. Every person looking at the picture backed off. The brother and sister spent more than an hour speaking to people there, but to no avail. Kartik looked desperate. He sat on his motorbike and signaling Radha to do so too, he putted off. Some distance away he stopped and called HQ. He told his deputy to get a warrant and at least a dozen of his men.

When they arrived, he carried out a raid at Srinagar, which at the end fished out the third man, Kadam, who had entered the lift with Alex and Dattar on the day of the first theft attempt. Back at HQ, Kartik had to use pressure to first bring out that he was Dattar’s friend, then, about their group of friends and then, where Dattar was at that moment they killed Alex. He also told that Alex’s murder was connected to the blueprints-theft.

At that moment, Kartik’s mobile rang. It was Ravi. He said that Mr. Nagotnekar had been shot and was critical. The siblings rushed to the hospital and met Ravi.

“I wanted to show him some document. When I was walking toward his cabin, Mr. Shroff bumped into me. He was stuffing something metallic into his coat’s inner pocket, hurriedly and left without a word. When I went inside, I saw Mr. Nagotnekar in a pool of blood, inside Mr. Shroff’s cabin. And then, I brought him here.”

“It is obvious that Shroff is involved in this murder attempt. If and when Nagotnekar gains consciousness, we will know more about it. I have evidence to prove that he had a lot to do with the theft of the blueprints. If and how much Nagotnekar is involved needs to be found out.”

A red alert was sounded for Shroff and he was caught at the airport, trying to escape from the country with the duplicate blueprints’ pendrive. Dattar was also apprehended at a relative’s place at Dombivili. Soon, all the pieces fit in like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Shroff and Nagotnekar was a research-oriented company, but Shroff thrived on corruption. When Ravi had joined the company as a research officer and approached them with the radioactive gun concept, Shroff wanted immediately to sell it to another country for big money. However, before he could speak up, Ravi had already suggested selling it to our defense. Nagotnekar agreed, since he was a patriotic person. The defense department was more than happy to accept it, though at a lower rate than what they could have received from an outside agency.

Since this was a defense project, they had to install security cameras. Shroff took care that the cameras did not focus on the entrance to his cabin and within it. He wanted the blueprints for himself, desperately.

He approached Dattar and his friends though a mutual friend. Dattar and his friends lived close by in the nearby Srinagar slums. Besides, they were notorious for small-time thefts. Shroff told Dattar to get hold of the pendrive, but also gave him a free hand as to how this could be done without getting caught. Dattar was a practical joker. He had the habit of complicating matters and then, solving them.

Alex had drifted apart from him due to his family-bond and his straightforward nature. Dattar decided to use his former friend. He tricked Alex to accompany him and his friend to the office premises and drugged him. Then, they put on the black-colored clothing including the mask and the gloves on him. Then, Alex was left inside Shroff’s cabin. Shroff had already tampered with the lights. It was only by chance that Alex in his fright had approached and touched the door of the windowless room. When the alarm made him panic and run back the way he had come, Dattar had entered Shroff’s room through an open window to take Alex away.

On the second occasion, Dattar had reached and opened the heavy door. But since his entry had set off the alarm, he had left a small toy dog that he had brought with him. Now, the defense department themselves were alarmed, so the security was tightened and the bright floodlights were used. Shroff got the pictures of the room taken from the memory cards and had them placed by Dattar, strategically, by switching off the cameras for a few seconds only. He had tricked the guards for this purpose and they had not bothered to mention it during their questioning.

The rest was easy. Dattar just picked up the pendrive after opening the locker, very easily without exciting the alarm system. He then left it in Shroff’s cabin. He did not know what it contained, so he did not take it away with him.

After Dattar had got Alex involved in the theft attempt, Alex realized that something was amiss. He had heard them talking about it and had threatened to go to the police. That was the time Dattar, in his fury had charged at him, with his gupti. His friends faithfully followed with choppers, swords and knives where their leader tread and killed Alex together mercilessly.

On the fateful day he was shot, Nagotnekar found Shroff speaking with his client in his cabin over the phone regarding the stolen blueprints and confronted his partner. Realizing that his game was up, Shroff shot his partner of many years with a silencer-attached revolver. Before he could leave the office, he bumped into Ravi. He was over-confident about his escape, so ignored a mere employee and ran away or tried to run away. Due to the quick thinking of Kartik and a bit of luck all the culprits were rounded up.

Kadam turned prosecution witness, to convict Dattar and Nagotnekar’s witness convicted Shroff.