Hello, Mr. Major General (1)

Chapter 33: Someone Picks Up, Someone Hangs Up

This was almost too much for Sandeep. The pen in his hand was spinning so wildly it looked like it was about to take off any moment now. He said, “Sana, could you hold for a
minute? I have another call coming in.” As he said that he turned around and used the landline to call Sidharth
on his private military number.

“What is it?” Sidharth’s voice sounded from the other end.

Sandeep’s face was split into a
massive grin. “Boss, can you talk right now? It’s about Shehnaaz.”

“Oh. Hold on.” Sidharth looked at the room full of men; they were all high-ranking officers, the lowest of them a Lieutenant Colonel. He said to them, “I have to take this call. Proceed without me.”

The field officers were all sitting solemnly; they were in the middle of an important military conference. Upon hearing Sidharth’s words they sat in stunned silence.

How important was this phone call, for him to interrupt a high-level meeting just to take it? Had the Special Operations Forces gotten into trouble outside the country?

Or had they caught the most elusive of spies, the secret agent they knew the United States CIA had planted in their
India?

Everyone in the room was actively engaged in intelligence gathering; it was part of their job description. They therefore had very active
imaginations.

Sidharth knew what they were thinking, but he had priorities. Right now, anything to do with Shehnaaz was of the utmost importance to him.

He walked out of the conference room, his face betraying nothing, and found a seat in the small office next door. He opened the blinds, looked out, and said, “Go on.”

Sandeep was a little surprised. “Were you in the middle of something?”

If Sidharth had been in the middle of something important, Sandeep felt that he might have been a little too
rash in calling him.

A joke now and then was perfectly fine—but there were limits. Sandeep was feeling uneasy right about now.

“It’s nothing. Go on, you said
something about Sana?” said Sidharth. He called Deepak on the internal line and told him to bring him his personal, civilian-use phone. When it was
brought to him he discovered that he
had missed a number of calls from Shehnaaz.

Sandeep quickly said, “Oh, it’s nothing important. Sana called me to say that she couldn’t get ahold of you, so she
told me to ask you instead: her class rep wants to court her, and she wants to know if you’re okay with that.”

When Sidharth realized that Sandeep had called him over something so silly and trivial, he slammed his personal
phone down on the table in anger. “I told you to only call if it’s important. So why are you calling me about this
nonsense?”

“Don’t be angry!” Sandeep voice was high and panicky.

“Why don’t you call Sana when you’re free? You know she listens to you,
right? All you have to do is frown and she’ll dump the poor guy, no questions asked.”

Sidharth wasn’t listening. “I still have a meeting to attend, I don’t have time for this. We’ll talk later.” He ended the call, rose from his seat, and returned to the conference room to continue the meeting.

On the other end, Sandeep switched back to his call with Shehnaaz, and found that she had been waiting on the line the whole time. He felt bad for making her wait, so he decided to console her with a white lie. “Sana, Sidharth is in a meeting, I can’t get ahold of him, either. I asked the
operator to leave a message for him, so he’ll call you once the meeting’s over.”