Chapter One

                            New Delhi, India

                           30 October 2012           

                               

 

                              Chapter One

 

 

The man in the black shirt checked his watch for the umpteenth time. Patience was not known to be one of his virtues. But tonight he knew that he would have to be patient. Tonight, he would have to wait. The job that he had set out to do demanded it from him.

 

There was a deathly silence inside the black Mercedes, broken intermittently by the buzz of a cell phone on ‘silent’ mode or the click of a lighter as someone lit a cigarette. There were three men in the car and they waited patiently. They were waiting for a girl; waiting for her right outside her home. The girl had much to her misfortune irked the man in the black shirt, whose name was Prince Behl, and his father, Minister of Health for the State of Delhi, Pratap Behl. Ergo, the girl would have to pay a penalty and the penalty for irking Minister Behl and his son was ‘death’.

 

Prince picked up the Chinese-made 9mm pistol from his lap and gently ran the tip of his finger over the barrel. He studied the deadly semi-automatic much as an art lover would study a Rembrandt or a Goya. Prince loved guns! Besides the Chinese 9mm, he owned a Glock 17, a Sig Sauer P226 and a Beretta 81 pistol, as well as a .357mm Magnum Colt King Cobra revolver. However, except the Beretta 81, all the other handguns in Prince’s arsenal were purchased from the grey market, which meant that they were illegal and that he didn’t have a license for them.

 

At Minister Pratap Behl’s sprawling farmhouse in Chattarpur in the South-Western outskirts of Delhi, there was a 5-car garage. Unknown to anyone except for a few people other than Minster Behl and Prince of course, underneath the garage was a secret basement. Accessible through a solid metal trap door, the secret basement housed Prince’s private sound-proofed shooting range. And it was here that he spent most of his free time. Prince loved the feel of a gun in his hands, the loud report and recoil as he fired it and the scent of gunpowder that hung in the air afterwards. He simply loved it all!

 

Forty-five minutes had gone by since Prince and his men had assumed position outside the target’s house, but there was still no sign of her. Sitting in the car waiting for her to arrive had become sort of a patience test for Prince and he could do only so much from giving up for the night and driving away. As he lit a cigarette, his sixth in the last forty-five minutes, Prince noticed that his hands were trembling. This ashamed him and compelled him to accept the fact. Prince would have never admitted it to anybody, but the fact was that he was nervous and scared. He was so because let alone killing a human being, he had never even fired his gun at anything but the circular shooting target in his shooting-range. Prince again wondered if he should let one of his men do the dirty work. But that wouldn’t be as much of a victory as shooting and killing the girl himself. He wanted to make his father proud of him and Prince hoped that by taking care of the girl himself, he would gain some respect in his father’s eyes; the respect his father never had for him; the respect he thought he rightfully deserved. Tonight when he returned home after doing the deed and surprised his father with the good news, Prince was sure that his old man would be ecstatic and very happy with him. He thought his father might even hug him in joy. Prince couldn’t remember the last time his father had hugged him. ‘No,’ he thought! He would shoot and kill the girl himself, for his father. No one was going to take away that credit from him.

 

Slipping open the 17-round pistol magazine, Prince remembered what his father had once said to him, many years ago. It was the night before Prince, then 12-years old, was to leave home for boarding school for the very first time. Pratap Behl had walked into his only son’s room that night to find him sobbing. He could understand his son’s pain; he could understand the tears. Putting his hand on Prince’s shoulder, he had spoken gently to him that night, which was something he didn’t usually do. Prince had listened intently as his father explained to him that ‘there’s a first time for everything,’ and that although he had never lived away from home and his father before, he would soon get used to it. His father was very convincing and Prince believed him, but not for long. He never got used to living away from his father and home. He missed both terribly. When Prince was fourteen, he ran away from the boarding school straight back to home. He never went back again, much to Pratap Behl’s chagrin.

 

“There’s a first time for everything,” Prince quietly said to himself as he slid the magazine into its place and pulled back the slide on top of the semi-automatic. The pistol was now armed and ready. Prince wondered if he was ready too; ready to take a life. Well, he better be, he thought because the girl could arrive any moment. Prince thought about her, the girl who didn’t even know that tonight was going to be the last night of her life. Her name was Maya Das. Prince had never seen her in real life. He only had a picture of her to go by; a picture that was taken this morning surreptitiously by the goon now seated in the front passenger seat, as she stepped out of home to go to work. Maya looked to be in her late-twenties. She had long jet-black hair, a pleasant oval face, wheatish complexion and a petite frame. Maya looked like the quintessential girl next door. Prince thought that she even looked meek and fragile. But he knew that she was anything but that. Had she been meek and fragile she wouldn’t have become an investigative journalist. Had she been meek she wouldn’t have taken on a rich and powerful man like Pratap Behl. In all his life, Prince had never seen a girl with looks more deceptive than Maya’s. She was a very dangerous girl and if she wasn’t silenced tonight, Pratap Behl and Prince would be in deep trouble for she had somehow unearthed the nexus that existed between his father and the Delhi Government’s Health Secretary on one side and medicine counterfeiters on the other side who were flooding the market with spurious drugs. Therefore, Maya Das had to be silenced before she could publish her story. She had to die tonight!

 

Prince shuddered to think what would have happened if the only other person who knew about the story Maya was working on hadn’t been on their payroll. That man’s name was Rajesh Gupta and he was the ‘Editor-In-Chief’ of the newspaper Maya was employed with. It was he who had informed them about Maya and her expose. And it was he who was going to make sure that the story never sees the light of day, for which he would be handsomely rewarded, of course. Prince was glad that money could buy almost everything and anyone in India; even the top-man of a famous English daily newspaper. Rajesh Gupta was no lesser evil than Minister Behl and Prince for he had long ago sold his conscience and soul to the devil. Immensely corrupt and obsequious, people like Rajesh Gupta were the reason why India was counted among the ‘100 most corrupt nations on earth’. 

 

At 8.23pm, Maya finally arrived! As she parked her car outside her home and turned the ignition off, the driver of the Mercedes started its engine. With its headlights off, the black sedan crept towards Maya like a stalking leopard. Maya had just locked the door to her car when the Mercedes came to a halt by her side. The blacked out rear window slowly rolled down as Maya looked at the Mercedes with curiosity. She could see that there was a lone person at the back. However, it was dark inside the car and Maya couldn’t make out the person’s face. Just as she was about to ask the man what he wanted, he stuck his hand out of the open window. It was holding a pistol and it was aimed directly at her. Before Maya could grasp the enormity of what this meant and react, there was a flash and a bang. The first bullet hit Maya in her abdomen. The force of the impact was such that it sent her crashing against her car and down to the ground. The pain was excruciating and Maya let out a cry. She knew immediately who these people were and why they wanted to kill her. Lying on the road, Maya pressed the wound on her stomach with her left hand and raised the other one to plead for mercy. The next bullet tore through the palm of Maya’s raised hand and hit her in the face. The third shot followed in quick succession, and tore into her chest. Then the front passenger door of the car flew open and a tall man leaped out of it. He picked up Maya’s laptop bag which had dropped to the ground when she was first shot and jumped back into the car. The Mercedes then sped off, leaving in their wake a mortally wounded Maya, bleeding to her death right outside her very own home.

Reviews

[LonelyWriterMike]

That was very visceral and raw and well written descriptive narrative. While I feel bad for the girl I can also empathize with the Prince for wanting paternal acceptance. All in all it was engaging and makes me crave for more.

[Anangaraj Saikia]

Thank you very much for the review :- )! I am glad you liked it. Will put up 'Chapter Two' soon. By the way, the book is sale on Amazon ;- ).

[Anangaraj Saikia]

By the way, I'll make sure to return the favour by reading your work and reviewing it. Just give me some time, okay. Cheers!!

[LonelyWriterMike]

No worries take your times and can't wait for your review and chapter two!

[RazzySkittles]

Very gripping, I was so easily drawn in truly wonderful. I have no recommendations other than to keep writing. I found it thoroughly enjoyable and very engaging :)

[RazzySkittles]

I would say more but I have nothing but good to say. :)

[Anangaraj Saikia]

Thanks for taking the time to read and review my work! Appreciate it! :- )