Chapter 16
Sunday
Jeffrey couldn’t control his anger anymore. He broke into John’s room to find him sitting in one corner. The tears had long dried and he was extremely quiet. He looked up to Jeffrey when he broke the door and entered the room. He looked as if he had already given up.
Jeffrey didn’t say anything but pulled John by his hand and took him into the living room and pushed him onto the sofa. Damien got some water and biscuits. Jeffrey placed the glass of water in front of John’s mouth. John gave in and drank the water slowly. And then ate a couple of biscuits. Then, Jeffrey sat next to him and placed his hand on John’s knee.
“There’s no way of saving him, is it?” He murmured.
Jeffrey sighed. “Kevin is working on it. He’ll not give up till the last moment.”
“I’ve been thinking and thinking but I can’t figure out as to who would frame Karan for the explosion and why!”
“Karan was just the scapegoat. Whoever did it was being backed by some pretty powerful people who had the resources to do what they did without arousing suspicion.”
“My friend is looking into the calls issue. He’s right now with Kevin at the Police Station.” Damien said.
Kevin and Marc, Damien’s friend, tried analyzing the calls but the source could not be located. Evidence of triangulation was found but that wasn’t enough. Someone had covered their tracks well. If the source wasn’t found, the Police could very well claim that the triangulation was done by Karan to protect himself.
The Police were able to retreive some recordings of the calls but there appeared to be some signal problems in all the recordings leading to an inherent disturbance making identification of the voices on both sides difficult. However, based on whatever they could gather, the conversations were in Hindi and the one of the callers sounded Indian while other seemed to be from Middle East and both were males. They could not obtain more information.
When Kevin came home, Jeffrey, Damien and he spoke in whispers. John didn’t need to hear that. If there was a chance Karan could be proved innocent, Kevin would be beaming by now. They just didn’t know how to break it to him. He had already given up hope but still felt worse than he had prepared himself for. There was no saving his Karan anymore. He was helpless.
Monday
When Karan looked at John and others that morning, he understood the situation. However, he didn’t feel disturbed, sad or angry. He too had given up hope the day he was captured. He was not white and that itself became his worst luck. Atleast, if he were white, the Police would have looked a little harder into the evidence.
The evidence was presented from both sides and Kevin fought hard to plant reasons for doubt. But the Judge didn’t seem to show favourable signs.
The Judge looked at Karan for a moment and then began:
“On the basis of the evidence produced, the court finds Mr. Karan Khanna guilty of the explosion at the Airport and sentences him to life imprisonment.”
While the Police were taking Karan away, John ran to the Chief of Police.
“Chief! May I please have a word with Karan, Please!”
The Chief nodded. John walked upto Karan. Karan brought his hands towards John’s face and cupped it. The handcuffs didn’t make it comfortable but neither of them minded.
“I didn’t do it.” Karan said.
“I know. And you know why I know that? Because you love me and I love you. I know that you wouldn’t have done it because it would lead to us being apart and that’s something you can’t bear. Neither can I! We began as just boyfriends. I never knew I could get over Kevin. And you just didn’t help me with that. You made my life beautiful. You were the one all along, Karan. And I’m glad that we could be together. I love you. And will always love you. I’m thankful to all the circumstances that brought me to you. Even though, we’re getting separated physically, I’ll always beyours. Forever. There’s no one who can take your place. And I’mgonna fight and die fighting to get you out of here. I’mgonna knock every door to try and prove your innocence. We’ll go for an appeal. Because you didn’t do anything and I didn’t do anything and I cant stay without you. I cannot. I simply cannot.” His throat seemed choked. He couldn’t speak anymore. He just stared at Karan praying that this was just a dream.
