Predator (25 page)

BOOK: Predator

6.09Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

‘Fine, I’ve got that. What can I expect to be violated next?’ asked Derek.

‘No, that’s it, Derek’, said Khan. ‘But here’s what will happen. Salmonella will try to reach you now. Don’t take her calls. She’s busy with Hound at Grace’s funeral. Let her burn. She will contact that bastard Manja – if he is still alive – and ask him to lure Nikita into submission online. Nikita will flirt and play along with him. Chris will hang around with Manja and when the time is right for a face-to-face meeting, Manja will abduct Nikita – and quite soon, for Salmonella will insist on that. Of course, we will not leave Nikita alone for even a single moment!’ assured the Inspector, as he realized his new undercover operators were looking anxiously at him.

‘That’s so wrong! You’re putting yet another life in danger, Inspector, it is unethical!’ argued Derek.

Inspector Khan looked at Derek patiently, and said, ‘She’s willing to risk her life to save the other prospective victims, while all you were worrying about was your precious Facebook account. What’s it going to be? Will you lecture me or do as I ask?’

Derek subsided.

‘Good! As soon as Salmonella arranges for Nikita to be drugged, she will get Manja and Chris to rape her. This will have nothing to do with the wine, it will be out of sheer jealousy. She will surreptitiously videotape it and viral it out until Derek loses all interest in Nikita. Of course, none of this will happen. But Salmonella won’t be thinking straight right now. Over the years, Dr Screwalla has managed to create an expected behavioural pattern in Salmonella’s reactions. Of course, as her unhinged thinking hinges on the progression of her mental disease, we can only guesstimate her reasoning!’

The Plan

Raman took over from Khan, and elucidated, ‘Now here’s what you need to do, Derek. You will need to get some rest and then spruce up. You guys will get to meet Nikita shortly and Chief and Goose will drop you both at the Club. Inspector Khan and I will be monitoring you from the shadows. Before that, make sure you two lovebirds have a nice time talking about it on your Facebook wall. Salmonella will be watching you.’

‘With the sympathy votes for Hound, Salmonella’s psychological wall will be weak today’, chuckled Goose.

Inspector Khan interjected in a serious tone, ‘Now Nikita will be with Derek for a while inside the Club and then Derek will walk out of the building. Nikita will sit alone for exactly five minutes. She has been given cosmetic spectacles to wear this evening. If she walks out of the Club and stands on the porch wearing the spectacles, we will understand that Manja hasn’t showed up. But if we see her without the spectacles, it is our signal that Manja is around and is trying to get her attention!’

Chief looked bewildered, ‘How can you be sure? I mean, anybody would hit on a lone attractive woman at the Club. What if it isn’t this Manja?’

‘That’s what I call a “cop hunch”, son. Trust me on that one. It will be Manja and no one else,’ said Inspector Khan flatly, ‘And trust a woman’s intuition. Nikita will know.’

Goose looked at Chief and shrugged, ‘I suppose he has a point,
son
’. Derek and Raman smiled.

‘Well, don’t forget’, said Raman, ‘if Manja is in the vicinity, Chris won’t be far behind. That would be a tell-tale sign from Dr Screwalla’s psychoanalysis. Do you understand now,
son
?’ said Dr Raman, and the new team of undercover operatives laughed out loud.

Inspector Khan smiled. He knew when his leg was being pulled. ‘Bastards! Also, we don’t bust Manja just then. Chief and Goose will tail him while Dr Raman and self, with the cops on standby, will keep our eyes glued on Nikita until we switch to the online game in the night. We play the game the way the Predator likes to play it. It’s like a complete re-creation of what happened with Grace until … God save Nikita … ’

The conversation had come to a logical conclusion and silence descended on the room. It was broken by Derek’s remark, ‘Wow! We’ll now know all the hows, whys and wherefores of Grace’s death. It does seem like a workable plan. Please just don’t let Nikita get hurt in the process.’

Inspector Khan looked at the whiteboard which still had Nikita’s image, and nodded, ‘Not this time, son. It’s my second chance too … ’ his voice trailed off.

The Decoy

A tall, slim, woman, in the standard ensemble of the youth – blue jeans and a white shirt – greeted Chief and Goose in Raman’s office. Her shy, innocent smile lit up the dim office like a 1000-watt bulb. She walked across to the table and shook hands with Chief, ‘Hi! I’m Nikita. You must be Chief and you must be Goose. I’ve heard a lot about you. Where’s Derek?’ Her voice was mellifluous.

Chief selfishly held on to her hand and refused to let go while Goose waited impatiently for his turn. It had been ages since their starved eyes had seen such beauty.

‘Well, guys, it’s fairly obvious you are bowled over by our Nikita, which I presume, is a compliment, so Salmonella will run true to form’, chuckled Dr Raman. ‘I’ll introduce her to Derek as well. Now why don’t you guys go get some food and some shut-eye and pick her up from here in a few hours?’

‘Sounds like a plan, Doctor. Nikita, would you like to have a cup of coffee with me before we head out to the Club?’ said Goose. Nikita laughed. She was absolutely delightful.

‘I’ll see you guys here at 8.30 p.m. We’ve got a job to do, let’s stick to it. This is for Grace,’ said Nikita, smiling.

As Chief and Goose left the Cyber Crime Cell, Dr Raman took Nikita to introduce her to Derek, who was in serious conversation with Inspector Khan. Derek was just as delighted as his mates to meet the lovely young Nikita and decided to stay for a while and flirted with her publicly on his wall. In a couple of hours, Dr Raman confirmed that Salmonella had visited Derek’s wall over fifty times. Derek had over twenty missed calls from Salmonella. Inspector Khan looked triumphant. Nikita and Derek looked sheepish.

‘Now run along, kids, grab some sleep. You’ll need to be focused and full of energy tonight. We will meet here again after the evening at the Club,’ said Inspector Khan. ‘Raman, have you set the phone taps on our suspect?’

It had been a long time since Inspector Khan looked so relaxed.

Had Celina been alive today, she would have looked like Nikita and been around the same age. He would not put Nikita in harm’s way for the world. Celina’s death had knocked him down, but he was not out … at least, not yet. Fate had given him a second chance.

Salmonella Burns

The crashing of the chinaware smashing into smithereens against the concrete wall was drowned out by the loud music. Salmonella, fuelled by vodka shots, was monitoring the activity on Derek’s Facebook wall.

A new bitch called Nikita had sprung out of nowhere and was the centre of attention in Derek’s world. Salmonella couldn’t stand the open flirting between the two. Derek was giving her the glad eye and his new muse was basking in the attention.

It angered her even more when she posted that she would be wearing a black silk gown and asked Derek to come by and pick her up. Salmonella hated competition. Although they had broken up a long time ago, Salmonella remembered the good times that she and Derek had had when they were in college. She had been the nucleus of his world then, and she still carried a torch for him.

It was she who had walked away from the relationship and Derek had been quite mature about it. It had never really been love; it was all about the attention she’d got from the other boys vying for her attention, and the envious girlfriends. But now, when she saw Nikita getting all the attention from Derek, she couldn’t stand it.

That annoying Inspector Khan was likely to be eavesdropping on her telephone conversations even though she was not on the suspect list. Her fool brother was just out of jail and it was highly probable that they would be tapping her phones to see if he contacted her. But she had to make an urgent phone call. She decided not to use her landline and fumbled with the straps on her roman sandals.

Frustrated, Salmonella threw the sandals at the TV in a drunken rage and its screen shattered with a dull pop. However, she didn’t seem to care, and grabbed her keys and made her way to the nearest public phone booth.

When her call was answered, she spat out, ‘Manja, pick up that little whore, Nikita, tonight. I want her sandwiched immediately … Shut up! Just do as I say. She’ll be at the Club at 9 p.m. with Derek. Bring her here. Take that junkie with you but keep your distance from him … I want her toasted between you two. Pronto. You got that? … Good!’

She slammed the receiver back in its cradle and headed back home. She needed a quick shower to cool off. That bastard, Derek, how dare he fall in love with that new slut in town?

The beautiful barefooted Salmonella crossing the street couldn’t help but attract attention and wolf-whistles from the local layabouts, but she was oblivious to them. The seething Salmonella was engrossed in her dire machinations. She would fix it her way. Soon. No other woman was allowed more attention than she. Salmonella was the only femme fatale in town and had to be the cynosure of all eyes.

Evening at the Club

Inspector Khan and Dr Raman had positioned themselves at a vantage point in the coffee shop across the street from where they staked out the entrance of the Club.

It was a Friday night and the street was teeming with all the party animals, some local and some not-so-local. They fuelled the business at the Club as the music was good, the drugs were cheap and the women were beautiful.

It was almost 9 p.m. when Khan saw Motormouth nose in carefully and park. Goose was at the wheel with Chief beside him. Nikita and Derek alighted from the SUV and walked towards the Club. Inspector Khan perked up, and Dr Raman made a call and set his cyber sleuths abuzz, monitoring the social activity emanating from the Club via geo-tagging.

The party was warming up. It was the first Friday night at the Club without Prince. The celebration, evidently, was at a crescendo as it was the first time in years when the denizens of the town had reasons to feel safe.

The Club was full as the party had introduced a new DJ. Balloons festooned the dance floor, and, conspicuously, not a single tribute was paid to the fallen Prince. Sweaty bodies swayed on the dance floor. The thumping music got even louder as the painted faces on the DJ console took over from the rhythm machine. Derek and Nikita swayed to the beat. Nikita constantly scanned the dance floor for suspicious characters while Derek seemed in a trance.

Nikita checked her purse for the spectacles, and was relieved to feel them in her clutch bag. Derek looked at his watch and leaned close to Nikita and said, ‘I’ve got to go now, Nik. You know what you’ve got to do. You’ve got five minutes to come to the porch, with or without your spectacles. Please be safe, we’re watching you!’

Derek kissed Nikita on the cheek and sauntered to the door. As soon as he reached the porch, he nervously signalled to Inspector Khan and Raman who were watching him from the other side of the street.

Inside, Nikita was also nervous and kept looking at her watch. Those were probably the longest five minutes she’d ever spent alone. She looked around and saw no one noticing her or making a beeline for her. At the end of four minutes, she fumbled for the spectacles inside her purse. Happy that the five minutes were finally over, she got up and started making her way to the door, adjusting the spectacles on her nose.

As per the plan, she had another five minutes to go, standing on the porch, but she felt a lot safer outside than inside the loud, noisy discotheque. She stood in the doorway, shivering a little, nervously glancing at her watch every few moments as she adjusted the spectacles on her nose. She didn’t dare look across the street at the coffee shop, and wished Derek, Chief and Goose would hurry up and pick her up in their monster truck.

Just as Motormouth emerged from the parking lot and turned into the street leading to the front of the Club, Derek’s cell phone rang. It was Inspector Khan. He said, ‘Stop right there, folks. She’s taken off her spectacles. I see someone coming out of the entrance … ’

TWELVE

Hand of God