Chapter 2(B): Beginning

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Agasthya, had just entered the bath tub when the phone rang. He cursed under his breath, and got out again. The water was at the perfect temperature, it will be ruined by the time he comes back. As he wrapped a towel, he thought of how his colleague made fun of his UN-natural tendency against keeping a mobile phone. He chuckled a bit thinking how Ashwin would laugh at this incident. “See this would not have happened if you had a cell phone, you could have just talked from the tub itself.”, he could almost hear him saying.

The phone blared on for another ring by the time Agasthya go to it. It was Dubey. He was too fast and mostly incoherent like he always was when trying to speak in English. Agasthya had told him numerous times to speak in Hindi but to no avail. It was difficult enough with Dubey’s broken English, there was interference on the call itself. Agasthya blamed the rain outside. He made a mental note to remind Dubey again and tried to get the keywords from the one-sided phone call. Urgent call, DGP, NIA director, murder, pick up investigation, State Police already there. He did say a name, and then an address and then something about “famous style”. Agasthya missed the name, but got the address, and more importantly he got the gist of what Dubey wanted him to do.

Agasthya confirmed that he would be there in another hour or so in clear slow Hindi. Finished with the call, he went back into the bathroom, and drained the bathtub. No time for an extended relaxing bath, he turned on the shower, first hot and then cold to wake him up. Quick response time was Agasthya’s habit and it was important in his line of work. He always wore jeans and T-Shirts, kept his hair short, and wore a pair of sport shoes with strap on instead of laces, it helped that he had a non-existent sleep cycle. He put on his clothes, strapped on his service revolver and in 15 minutes he was outside. He called out Durga hsi driver, but getting no response (he didn’t blame him it was already 2 in the night), he took the spare keys and drove the ambassador out himself.

Chapter 2: Beginning

He wondered why he was being called to investigate a murder. NIA didn’t deal with such kinds of incident, they had bigger things to worry about like sleeper agents, Naxal sympathizer and terror conspiracies. Maybe it had something to do with his current case. Maybe someone higher up didn’t like the money trail he has been investigating and want him to back off. Whatever it was, he would know more at the crime scene itself.

The streets of Delhi are reasonably less clogged at night, especially when you are driving in the plush residential urban area of South Delhi. Agasthya didn’t need the blue signal atop his car to make way tonight, and he was at the given address soon. It was a large mansion, not unlike the others next to him. But as Agasthya turned the corner and approached the main gate, which had been thrown open with streams of Police cars outside, Agasthya realized why he had been called in for this particular murder.

The address plate next to the gate, illuminated by one of the police car’s headlight read: “Mr. N. NandaSwamy, R&D DRDO“.

Dubey didn’t mean “famous style” he had meant “famous missiles”.

<<Chapter 1: Agasthya || About This Story || Chapter 3: Crime Scene>>