Spies & Spice (Completed)

Chapter 15

Three days later
Mumbai

7 AM

Victor woke up in his tiny hotel room, feeling refreshed and content. All the hard work he had put in, since he came to know about Sharath Nair and his Indonesian supplier Subrata's deal, will come to a head today near Goa.

He began to do push ups and lunges against the flimsy wall in the room, as his mind furiously went through the events of the past few days to cross check every detail, once again.

After losing track of Sharath and DJ's cronies that night and his argument with 'Ass'win, he went back to his hotel, had a nice meal and slept soundly.

He had a lucky break the very next day, when he chose to follow his instincts and returned to Otters Club in a different disguise, and was happy to find Subrata with another small distributor in the Mumbai drug market. He tailed Subrata continuously since then, just taking few breaks in between, to arrange for other steps of his plan to work out.

He managed to "drop" his recording chip inside Subrata's car and knew that the shipment from Indonesia had reached the remote shores of Goa two nights ago. Today evening, it would be picked up by one of Subrata's trusted man and distributed among different trucks loaded with fresh seafood from Goan fishing villages. Daniel, Sharath's right hand man from Cheetah camp was helping with the local transport, and make sure they have least possible inspections, as the trucks travel through the highway and some narrow village roads. Victor had already arranged with Amit and some helpers that Amit recruited to act as look outs, all along the highway and the villages to track the vehicle. Once it reaches a particular point, the next phase of his plan would begin. If everything goes according to plan, Sharath will get the biggest financial setback and he sincerely hoped that it would shake DJ's empire as well.

He wiped the sweat off his body and picked up the towel and toiletries on his way to the washroom. As he casually glanced at his phone, it was filled with notifications, from family, Anosha, and few old friends greeting him on his birthday. Anosha had finally come off her high horse and agreed to go to his apartment. They had a long chat the previous night, and he had arranged with the watchman to handover the duplicate key to her, whenever she arrives.

Smiling at the Gif message Anosha sent, he scrolled up and down the messages to see if there were any more messages, other than the birthday ones... Brushing off the slight disappointment, and mentally noting to call back his family soon, he went to the washroom for a shower.

***

8 AM

Monty was perspiring heavily, as he pulled the cloth cover further down to hide his tall frame, which could barely fit under the small table, in the first floor corridor of the hotel where Victor booked his room. He could hear patrons and hotel staff walking to and fro and tried desperately to stop a sneeze, that was threatening to burst out, thanks to the dusty surroundings. With the small scissors he had, he made two tiny holes in the cloth cover.

He cursed Sharmila once again and his own foolishness for agreeing with her so called brilliant idea. After few minutes, when he was sure no one was walking around, he quickly slid out of his hiding place. Next part of the job was even trickier. He picked up a bunch of post card envelopes tucked inside his jacket and began to slide one under the door of each room in that corridor. Each card had cartoon characters with funny messages that he and Sharmila came up with, intended as a code message to Victor, urging him to contact his boss, Nanda Sir and talk to him. By now, they both could understand that Victor was on to something big, as he travelled continuously and was seen talking on the phone at frequent intervals. Sharmila and he took turns to tail Victor, but from a fair distance, because they both knew how good Victor was in finding out, if he was being followed.