Hello, Mr. Major General (1)

Chapter 153 - Open Relationship

Sidharth’s phone rang and rang, but no one answered.

Usually, Shehnaaz would have hung up by now, but this time she left a message: “Uncle Sid, this is Sana. It was my 18th birthday yesterday. Did you come to see me?”

After leaving the message, Shehnaaz went to the bathroom to shower.

She had not taken a proper shower at Kartik’s house the day before; she had dried her hair—which had been wet
from the rain—and washed her feet, and that had been it.

She showered, dried her hair, and immediately collapsed on her bed, already asleep.

She was fully refreshed by the next morning. She got up, bright and early, and went to the Committee of Appropriations at US Congress for another day of work.

At noon, she went to the Commission for Unrestricted Ocean Travel to look for Brother Khatri—only to be told that he had taken the day off!

Shehnaaz was dumbfounded. She had gone to work as usual, right after getting into a nerve-racking shoot-out with the pirates. Brother Khatri, on the other hand, had actually called in sick…

She called him on his phone. “Brother Khatri, what happened? They told me you’re sick.”

Brother Khatri was in his apartment, cocooned in a blanket and trying to get some sleep. He heard his phone ring, took the call, and whined plaintively: “Sana? I almost died, and
all because I wanted to celebrate your birthday!”

Shehnaaz remembered that the speedboat had been hijacked. She said, surprised, “…What happened to you? I heard from Professor Sen that all of you were okay.”

“My body is fine, but my mind is traumatized.” Brother Khatri was a grown man, but this was by far the scariest thing he had ever encountered in his life. He had almost wet himself when the burly black men held a gun to his head…

“…Well, take care then. Have a good rest.” Shehnaaz tried to comfort him. “Or wait, why don’t you tell me what
happened? You might feel better once you let it all out.”

Brother Khatri had been dying to tell someone about it; he jumped at the opportunity. “I still don’t know what
happened! They said they would be taking us to the cruise ship, but the van drove us to an empty house, and they tied us up. They left us there for a whole afternoon—I thought I was going to die! I couldn’t stop thinking about my wife and family!”

“It’s okay, everything’s fine now. Professor Sen will make it up to you, I’m sure of it.” A thought occurred to Shehnaaz.

“But didn’t Miss Desai arrange for the van? And the speedboat, too…”

“Yeah, it was her, but I don’t blame her. It’s not like she could have foreseen the pirates and hijacking.” Brother Khatri’s voice was full of sympathetic understanding.

“Barbados is a small country, and not exactly safe. The authorities over there haven’t been able to keep the pirates in check, either. Professor Sen  was the one who pulled some strings and got the Barbados police to rescue us.” He gave a plaintive cry. “But I’m still scared! I haven’t been able to get
a good night’s sleep. When I close my eyes, I can still feel that icy-cold gun barrel against my head!”

Shehnaaz comforted him, nonchalantly prying a few more details from him in the process.

Finally, she said before hanging up, “Have a good rest, Brother Khatri. I’ll bring you a delicious dinner when I get home tonight.”

For the rest of the day, Shehnaaz  pondered over the mystery of the pirates. She wanted badly to know who had masterminded the pirate attack.

If it had been Rashmi—why did she want to kill Shehnaaz?