Kalki Chapter One: The Debutant (Part 1)

The man wore a light pair of metal rimmed glasses over a stern, strong face. The grey eyes behind those glasses looked … angry, but intelligent- they hungrily swallowed everything that came before them- but not without having fiercely evaluated every aspect of it. He was in his mid fifties, looked healthy and like he’d only recently slipped out of athleticism, with hair graying at the temples and a well preened moustache.

He went through the documents that he held in his hands exuding an aura that emanated an emotion bordering fury. He put the papers down on the desk before him and looked up at the well dressed young man seated across the table from him.

“Why?” He demanded.

The other man did not respond. A flicker of annoyance flashed across his face. “I don’t quite understand what you mean, sir.” He replied politely.

The younger man wore an immaculate black suit and creaseless white shirt, had perfectly combed black hair and a complexion paled by having been out of the sun too long. He was handsome, in a slightly feminine way, but physically unimpressive. He too evaluated the other man.

"No matter how long I go through these pieces of paper..." The older man continued. "I can't make sense of it. There's no reason you should be here."

If the statement evoked an emotional reaction, it didn't show on the younger man's face. "I'm here because I want to, sir." He said, simply.

The other man's eyes flashed back to the pieces of paper on the desk.
"... Degrees in computer science, biology... with your academic record, you should be doing an MBA and minting money... but... psychology?"

"I believe it's absolutely necessary in this line of work."

"Why someone would come back to India after a stint abroad, to join the FIA, is something that goes over my head. Even with the 'specialist' allowance, you can't expect to earn even a fraction of what you would in a multinational."

"I'm not doing it for the money, sir." Still cold, expressionless.

"You don't have any of the powers and privileges of a traditional bureaucrat either."

"Perhaps, Sir," He paused, flicking a stray hair out of his forehead. "I will be better able answer questions pertaining to my qualifications and contributions rather than conjecture on other career options."

"Yes." The middle-aged man said, without breaking eye contact, "Just as soon as I know why you want to be a detective."

The younger man's expression hardened for a moment.

"Because I'm perfect for the job. I thought that’s what you’d be looking for."

Something shifted in the older man's face, some might have detected a half-smile, others- nothing at all. "Fair enough. The interview is over, follow me." He got up.

The younger man- up till that point a paragon of stoic calm- was unable to stop his mouth from opening a little as his face distorted in confusion. "Wha- Certainly sir."

The older man motioned the younger to follow as he opened the door to the small corner office he had been conducting the interview in and out into the main hall.

The hall was a large area with little furniture- a few desks, chairs and computers were in the process of being unpacked. One wall was made entirely of glass, giving the officers in the hall a clear view of the sun beginning to rise over the city skyline.
It was 8:25 am.

Overlooking the hall was a curious emblem mounted on a small rift in the ceiling- a plain black circle emblazoned with the words 'Federal Investigative Agency'.

The older man saw the younger looking at the emblem. He answered as soon as he saw the black haired youth open his mouth to ask the question.

"The top brass hasn't decided on a logo yet. We're keeping the space blank till they come up with something."

He began to walk, the younger man followed.

"Did you know that the Research and Analysis Wing had a logo privately commissioned for them for fifteen lakh rupees?"

"No."

"It could never be used. Security risk."

"But... what?"

The older man never broke pace as they reached the elevator and he hit the button.

"This kind of functioning was what facilitated the formation of this organization. I intend to make sure it is not repeated here. This is why we're hiring people like you...specialists...Not sure how much that'll help..." He said. "What was your name again?"

They entered the elevator, leaving the bare-boned office behind.

"Akash. Akash Agnihotri… Er, Sir, where are we going?”

“I’m going to see just how useful you are in the field. We’re heading for a crime scene.”

“Ok.”

The elevator doors parted and the men walked into the main lobby of the ground floor, within seconds they had reached the entrance and emerged out the building into the street.
“I’ll try to brief you on our way there.” The officer.

A car was parked near the entrance to the building. A white Honda City- the driver, a heavily tanned, somewhat tired looking man in his late thirties dressed in a simple white shirt and dark pants, waved to the older of the two men. The car was meant for them.

“Mr. Sharma, where are we going?” He asked.

“Rajender, throw me the keys.” The middle aged officer, Viraat Sharma, replied. The driver seemed bemused as he threw the keys to officer Sharma, the younger man noticed, but not particularly surprised by the unconventional order, he made a note of it in his head.

Sharma thrust the keys into the younger man’s hand, who almost recoiled at the touch of the metal. “What kind of law enforcement officer is afraid to drive?” Sharma smiled sardonically.

Agnihotri clenched his teeth, grabbed the keys and pulled open the door into the vehicle.

“That’s more like it.”

***

The skyscraper was fairly ugly by modern standards. A crude, block of grey with no adornments- every shape on it was either rectangular or cuboidal, nothing like the glistening havens of glass, metal and air conditioning like that came up these days on the outskirts of the city.

It must have been thirty years odd years old, and in a state of pathetic disrepair. Almost half the windows were without panes, paint had peeled off almost everywhere- they wouldn’t be able to tell if it had ever been any colour other than grey. Seepages and corrosion could be seen from a distance. It looked like it had been abandoned for years.

Akash Agnihotri was sweating, even though the air-conditioner was on, the weather outside was cloudy with a slight drizzle and it was thirty minutes past eight in the morning and most of the city was still asleep.

He brought the car into a halt next to a couple of officers standing next to the street and herding people away from the building. He opened the door and stared straight at the dark clouds above him, letting pinpricks of the cold rain pepper his face.

“The tip off came over an hour ago, the details coming in have been erratic. That’s part of the reason I didn’t have time to interview you properly- but since you’d taken the early flight into the city, I thought you’d like to get on the job as soon as possible.” Sharma explained as the two walked up to the nearest uniformed constables.

“Yes of course sir.” Agnihotri still seemed a little rattled by his drive through the Indian financial capital.

Sharma started talking to a constable. Agnihotri looked past them- behind them were more khaki clad police officers walking in and out of the building, along with two ambulances buzzing with activity as white-uniformed medics sprinted to and fro, a fire-truck waited on standby, but some of the firemen were also getting ready to enter the building.

What the hell happened here?

“Sir you can’t go in-” One of the constables was speaking.

“I’m I.P.S. you ignorant lout!” Sharma exploded. “Take me to the man in charge here!”

The constable gave a little squeal and nodded his head. “Sorry sir, mein bas le jata hoon”- I’ll take you there immediately.

Sharma followed the constable, putting his temper back under his control. Agnihotri followed Sharma.

The head officer was a lean, shrewd looking man in his fifties- wearing full khaki unform- the name on his tag was Rakesh Sinha, Agnihotri observed, he was talking to the constabulary until he saw Sharma and seemed to recognise him.

“Viraat!” He exclaimed. “You’re with the FIA now right?”

Viraat Sharma grunted a positive. “What in god’s name happened here, Rakesh?”

Officer Sinha’s expression soured a little at Sharma’s direct question and his dismissal of official pleasantries.

“It isn’t like anything we’ve ever seen. We have found seventeen casualties in the building, nine fatalities as of now, and we’ve recovered over two dozen firearms from the premises.”

Sharma frowned. “Extrapolation from your faint cheerfulness, you think this was a gang war.”

“Er, we don’t think it’s a gang war.”

“Why?”

Agnihotri caught something out of the corner of his eye.

“It’s because of the manner of the deaths- suffocation, knife wounds, blunt traima, snapped necks and just one death because of gunshot wounds.”

“What?!”

Agnihotri had moved away from the two government officers. His eyes settled on a spot on concrete that was heavily stained by an ugly red, the stones of the sidewalk were cleanly split and cracked around the centre of the pool.

Both the older officers followed the younger man’s gaze.

“A man fell there.” Sinha supplied helpfully.

“Oh.” Said Agnihotri.

“We estimate from the twentieth floor.”

“How come, did you get a crash or ballistics expert or something?” Sharma inquired.

“Er, no, but you’ll see why.” Sinha replied.

The three of them looked at the bloodied, shattered depression in the sidewalk. Viraat Sharma ran his hand through his hair and frowned. His voice was almost a growl “Do you have any idea who’s responsible for this?”

“Not a damn clue.” Said Sinha.

“Any evidence that might tell us more about what happened?” Agnihotri asked cautiously.

“Er... well you could say that.”




***


In the dim light of early morn, the room was ominous. The door shrieked as it opened fully.

The first things he noticed were the pictures.

They were littered all over the floor of the dark room. The upturned ones showed happy, sometimes tired looking, men, women, families posing to have their photographs taken. Most of them were smiling. Some of them were sprayed with blood.

The second thing he saw was the chair and the body of the man tied to it. The chair was tightly secured with rope on top of a bed. The man in it ‘sat’ with his head down. He wore a night-gown, and his mouth remained trapped in a dumb gape.
Blood dripped into the bed-sheets at his feet from three bullet holes in his chest.

Agnihotri scrutinized them immediately. The three holes formed an equilateral triangle on the man’s chest. Did it mean something? Or was it simply some result of taking advantage of the accuracy offered by point blank range.

Along with him, there were four other men in the room. Officers Sharma, Sinha, a ballistics expert and a blood splatter specialist.

After a few seconds of being deep in thought, the ballistics man announced loudly. “This man was shot from extreme close range.” --which educed everyone else in the room to give him a long, hard, cold, stare. He closed his mouth.

It was a small room, the furthest anyone could be from the man without leaving the room was about eight feet.

“I’ve seen this man’s face before...” Agnihotri mused. “...A businessman?”

Both Sharma and Sinha snorted simultaneously.

“More like a crime-lord. That’s Prasad, the leader of the biggest gang in the city.” It was Officer Sharma who spoke. “That bastard’s weaselled his way out of a dozen cases of extortion and kidnapping. He disappeared from India about ten years ago and fled to Dubai.”

Rakesh Sinha nodded. “Back in the day, his name used to come often- but he was never directly involved in anything- there was never any evidence... and someone else always took the fall- and his name was interspersed with many others. We didn’t realize how important he was until he moved to Dubai and set up a business enterprise with drug money and declared himself CEO- that’s when we realized that he’d been the mastermind behind the whole operation. Now- he was invited back to Bombay with open arms by the chief minister for being a Valuable Conduit of Foreign Investment.”

Sharma muttered a few obscenities under his breath and then picked up one of the photographs from the ground, a brightly beaming young woman posing near the Gateway to India monument next to the Arabian Sea. The blood splatter expert opened his mouth to protest- but the protestation never came.

“I’m willing to bet two legs and an arm that these are the pictures of the victims of crimes he was never convicted for.”

Sinha frowned. “Yes, that seems... but surely that can’t explain the whole...” The sentence faded into silence before it got anywhere.

Agnihotri used the silence to clear his throat.

“The revenge motive should be looked at very carefully here. This setting, it’s very personal. All the other men have been ambushed and disposed of immediately. This man was executed. He’s bound, but there’s no cloth in his mouth- he wasn’t gagged. He was allowed to talk- to beg, to scream. He was shot- when no one else was shot. If you look at the swellings on his arms- he was conscious for at least ten minutes and tried fiercely to struggle against the ropes.”

Sinha interrupted-“Viru, who is this guy? IPS?”
Sharma sighed. “No. He’s an FIA Specialist.”
Sinha- “What does he specialize in?”
Sharma- “He... is, just, er... generally specialized.”

Agnihotri ignored the interlude.
“Look at the photographs meticulously scattered around the room. The killers might have done this before executing the man. We can be pretty sure that this room was originally intended for Prasad to stay in.”

He paused for a moment to consider the room. Then walked to the nearest work-desk and shuffled through a few papers.

“We can be pretty sure that this room was specially prepared for Prasad. It’s the only liveable room in the building- air conditioning, newspapers and financial reports... and the victim is dressed in his nightgown- he was probably trying to sleep on this very bed. It seems like the killers spent a lot of time in this room- the time taken to do this elaborate rope binding would imply that Prasad was either incapacitated or being controlled by force as it was set up. It would be much easier to simply kill him than to make a show of it like this. In that sense- the revenge motive makes sense.”

“Or it might just be an elaborate ruse to divert our attention.” Said Sinha. Officer Sharma’s cellphone rang and he answered discreetly.

Sinha continued. “Prasad’s gang is definitely the biggest in the city- but he’s got some stiff competition, as many as three other gangs are fighting to take over his drug running turf. Some say he was coming back to India to intimidate the other gangs- they might have seen it as an opportunity to assassinate him. It makes sense- a surgical strike like this might be enough to break down the structure of the Company.”

He stopped to mull it over in his head.

The young man drifted along the desk, examining each object- just like the killer had- hours ago. His hand fell on a diary, instinctively he pulled it open and flipped through the pages. All blank.

Except...
The last page had a small block of text written in small cursive script.

I wonder if anyone will read this. He’s already confessed. It means nothing of course; it must feel good to not have to pretend to be human anymore, right? It’s sick that monsters can don human skin with such ease.

And Then-

I Will Destroy Them All

He closed the book.
Who wrote that?! He inhaled sharply, and started looking for anything else that might give him a clue.

Sinha had finished thinking. He spoke out loud, though no-one was listening. “If it was a gangland killing, we needn’t worry- one of the gangs will know about the hit- the others won’t. We’ll keep this out of the media, suppress news of his death- most people just know him as a legitimate businessman anyway- and see which gang shows the most aggressive activity in following days”

Sharma had returned from his call, white faced.

“So Viru, any bets on who it will be- which rival, I mean? Your only real contenders are of course Tanveer Qayoom, Khalid Mortaza, and Bhimsinha Sharma.”

“It isn’t any of them.” He spoke sharply.

“What? Why?” Sinha asked. Agnihotri put down whatever he was fiddling with to look at Viraat Sharma.

“They’re all Dead.”

Kalki

Prologue

When the first drop of rain hit the concrete, a dark stain was visible against the bare grey only for a few seconds before the vicious, seething air pulled every speck of moisture out of the mortar and back into the night sky.

With it gone, it would have been impossible for the one to tell apart that patch of the windowsill from how it had been a mere minute ago.

Neither of the two men that stood next to the window on the twenty first floor of a somewhat derelict sky-scraper saw the drop.

They were busy looking at the vast slum city that fanned out from the base of the sky scraper. In the darkness, from the twentieth floor, they couldn’t see any people in the slums- but both were acutely aware of the vast ocean of humanity that existed just out of sight.

One another day, one of the men had thought of his own days in the slums- of what he’d had to sacrifice to leave them, the faces of the men and women he’d killed, and of the excuses he could make to God, after his death, to spare him from hell.

That was a long time ago. Since that day he’d gone to a local dealer for a hit every day- a tiny pinprick and all the self-loathing and doubt was gone forever. He never told his boss, of course, he could get fired for it- or worse, even in the burning summer he wore a shirt he could fold over his elbows and spoke to no-one while on the job.

His partner had never had any such thoughts. In fact, many in the company had wondered whether he thought at all. They had all seen him express an emotion that could be best described as a mixture of glee and violence, and a general contentment with life- he seemed certain that he’d get ample opportunities to express the former emotion. He had a religious thread on one wrist and one around his neck- but no-one could take an educated guess as to what they meant to him.

Unlike most other grunts in the company, he didn’t wear a gold chain or watch- a fairly straightforward sign of a man driven to the career by the lure of quick cash, rather he was here because it was his passion. Unlike his reedy, drug-addled partner, he was massive - extremely strong and several stones overweight- people called him Mota Bhai because they guessed that he might be from Gujarat, he didn’t mind. He didn’t speak either. The two got along together fine.

He smoked, simply to pass the time. He was lighting up a new stick as the first rain drop fell- imperceptibly on the windowsill.

Then came the second, then the third…

And then the next fifty… hundred… thousand… hundred thousand…

The sky opened up that night over Mumbai, and raindrops fell- perhaps as tears in commiseration for the sprawling cities built on broken dreams, perhaps as a reminder to the city to clean up the filth it had become far too accustomed to living in.

The two men checked their cell-phones for coverage. It was weak, but present.

There were other men on the floor. Close to twenty, in fact- positioned at elevator doors, staircase entrances… and of course the gaping windows without panes near the staircases. A missed call on Mota Bhai’s cell and a rumbling of elevator gears let them know that the Boss was coming up.

He rarely stayed in Mumbai these days- far too hot and humid, far too many enemies, far too many slums and slum dwellers. He’d had to come here to negotiate for a business deal and let his general paranoia dictate the decision to stay out of any five star hotel and in a building he owned, full of his goons. It was posturing, of course, and likely to upset the other gangs in the city, but they needed to be reminded of who the largest fish in the pond was- lest they forget during the periods of his absence. Any gang would have to be exceptionally foolish to try anything.

The elevator doors opened and the Boss walked out, escorted by two men on each side. He was a balding man in his fifties, clean shaven, slightly overweight, he wore a Giorgio Armani suit, a gold Rolex and a gold thread around his neck as he spoke into a smart-phone in English- ranting about how the rain was making it impossible to communicate.

Mota Bhai and his partner bowed their heads in deference as the Boss walked past without acknowledging their existence. They returned to their post, somewhat disgusted by the puddle of grime already forming near their feet.

The Boss went by many names- none of the grunts were allowed to address him as anything except for Boss directly, amongst themselves they called him Prasad. And Indeed, Prasad was his surname of choice for many of his aliases.

Prasad made his way to the apartment that had been prepared for him on the floor. He motioned for his bodyguards to stay outside. He’d chosen it because it was in the middle of the floor with no shafts from the roof alongside- it was impossible to get into apart from the front door- with few windows (all barred) almost like a bunker- albeit over two hundred feet from the ground. In a few years he would model this building into the Indian Head Office of the company… but for now this would have to suffice.

The apartment was well decorated, if a tad simply. There was a computer prepared for his work, a refrigerator stocked with champagne, vodka and few cans of Indian beer. Left on the desk were copies of the day’s Economic Times and a few Hindi and Marathi newspapers- a few report documents about that month’s returns and predictions for the future. Prasad insisted on the company being managed professionally- though the concept may seem a tad contrary to some- and even insisted on hiring MBAs and chartered accountants to work for him, whose assistance extended beyond the larger- more visible features of the company.

On entering the bedroom Prasad was disappointed. The queen-sized bed was empty, his incompetent managers hadn’t bothered to arrange for a prostitute for the day. True, he was tired after a hard day’s negotiation, and the generic trash one found in Mumbai paled in comparison to the kind of services he was used to in Dubai, but it was nothing but sloth on the part of his subordinates. Luckily they hadn’t forgotten to place the Bhagvad Gita and the emergency pistol in the small cabinet next to the bed.

He decided that he’d go to sleep immediately, checked the time on his rolex- 11:56 pm, and decided to undress.

Any street criminal that passed by this old skyscraper with its uninspired design would be forgiven for not realizing that he had walked past a temple sacred to his religion without having offered prayer, unable to recognize the very real pantheon that had gathered within it that night- a sampling of everything he could ever aspire to be.

Mota Bhai decided to take a nap. His partner, Chhoti, lay with his back against the wall and toyed with his gun, an old Colt & Wesson he’d gotten from the pocket of a somewhat unlucky old IPS Officer.

It was well past midnight now, Boss was probably asleep. A few men had gone downstairs to gamble and drink. There were still nine or ten men on the floor, some half asleep- none more so than Mota Bhai.

The bleak glare of a nearby Halogen light kept Chhoti barely awake. One man walked over to him, he didn’t notice until the guy struck him in the face. “Fuck Off.” He yelled.

“You Sisterfuckin’ Cunts! Stay the fuck awake an’ do yer job or I’ll fuckin fuck your fuckin mothe-!” The man was stern, thin, tall, apparently enjoyed his work, and spoke Hindi with a strong Haryanvi accent. Chhoti just about managed to nod a little.

The Haryanvi was about to continue to the string of expletives when Mota Bhai raised his head and looked at him in the face.

The Haryanvi fell silent, and without as much a whimper walked across the hall and back to his post, leaning on a column next to window without a frame. He shifted a little and stuck his head out into the pouring rain.

Chhoti closed his eyes for a few seconds, and exhaled deeply and decided that he needed a drink- tea or coffee or beer or water- anything… the rain drops that spilt into the hall were making grime coagulate around him.

He opened his eyes and examined the scene before him once again. The same window at the other end of the hall framed in blighted white light.

He blinked.

There was something different about the picture now. It took him a moment to put his finger on it.

The Haryanvi wasn’t at his post. He’d been standing there just a few seconds ago. Chhoti frowned. He’d seen him just a few moments ago… right? Could he have fallen asleep or something in that time-?

“Oi Fatso! Get up!” He nudged Mota Bhai as he climbed to his feet. Mota murmured in protest.

Where the fuck did that guy go?

“The fucker JUST gave me a speech about not slacking off!”

The halogen light in the corridor flickered, then failed. Chhoti’s heart skipped a few beats.

“Oi Motabhai, you there?”

Blinded by the sudden darkness, he reached for his partner’s shoulder. His hand closed around a powerfully muscled bicep. Motabhai did not reply. Chhoti let go, afraid of offending the sociopath and walked forth.

Maybe if he had been perfectly sober, he would have wondered why he’d found an arm where he’d expected a shoulder.

The arm was invisible as it slipped across Mota’s neck in the pitch darkness. With one fluid motion it came up and cut off his air. He tried to scream but no sound came out.

He groped violently- searching for a way to grab onto his attacker, but his attacker was agile, contorting wildly to avoid Mota’s large, and increasingly lethargic swipes as the breath was crushed out of his lungs.

Mota had been in fights before- bloody, desperate fights in which people died- never one in which he hadn’t had the upper hand. With his strength already fading he threw his body at the windowsill, trying to crush his attacker between his bulk and the concrete- but instead of hearing the comforting sound of flesh crushing under his weight… he heard…

…nothing, until his own body slammed against the sill- the dark shape was still on top of him- and it heaved at Mota’s upper torso, turning his own momentum into torque and pulling over the edge and out into the air.

The giant was weightless as he began his fall…

… and then he stopped in mid air.

Gas lamps and street lights burnt hundreds of feet below him. A tight grip around his neck and torso was keeping him from falling.

His attacker was stuck holding him up. With a microsecond’s thought Mota lashed out at his assailant, making solid contact. The arms around his neck and chest loosened instantly with the impact.

Mota Bhai felt weightless again. He was given 4.21 seconds to think over his decision.

“Oi Motabhai!” No one responded. A moment ago he’d heard the sounds of a scuffle and Mota Bhai was gone. There were no responses from any of the other men on the floor, and by yelling he’d given away his position.

In the last thirty seconds, he had sweat more than in the past twenty four hours.

Calm yourself down. It’s just the drugs playing tricks on you. Everything’s ok. Everyone’s ok.

He thought he saw a movement in the darkness and emptied three rounds in its direction.

A little jittery, perhaps. He stood, drying to make out sound from the dull throbbing at the back of his head. At first there was silence- then a single, barely audible footstep from the darkness- it’s sound carrying over the heavy raindrops that slammed against the building. The gangster tensed, raised his gun into the darkness.

“Stay away!”

He thought he heard a second footstep and pulled the trigger twice, the shots exploded down the corridor and disappeared. He was visibly shaking now. There were no more footsteps.

Something metallic slammed into the concrete barely five feet from where he stood. Every bit of nerve he’d mustered left the man, with a last shot at where he’d heard the sound, he ran. Desperately sprinting down the stairs in the darkness, he slipped down the last few steps but didn’t let it slow him down.

He turned into the first corridor he could see.

He looked behind him, with eyes somewhat adjusted to the darkness he made out what could have been a black shape behind him. He fired his last bullet at it without even aiming, threw the gun and sprinted, dodging and weaving through corridors.

Turned left, sprinted, turned right, all in darkness, he couldn’t see the next turn until it was right in front of him.

He slammed against a concrete wall, and exploded off it at ninety degree angle.

He turned his head, for a moment to see if the black shape was still behind him- his feet pounded hard against stone as he ran- but the next stone slab never came and his foot fell on empty space.

Days later, investigation would reveal that the contractor employed in construction had used diluted cement and old, rusted building frames, to bring down costs and pocket the remaining funds- this was found out when a support column had collapsed on the twentieth floor, bringing down a large section of the building- after which the building was immediately sold- illegally – at a fraction of its original price, to Prasad and the company.

In that darkness, dosed with plenty of heroin, there was no way he could have noticed that he was running into a corridor without a floor.

Prasad woke up at the sound of a gun firing. His first movement was to pull out the top drawer of the cabinet next to his bed and take the safety off his pistol. Then he got his glasses and his cell-phone.

He hit the light switch but it didn’t turn on. “Fuck. What the fuck are these idiots doing!”

He dialed one of his officers on the twenty-first floor. No signal.

Using a flashlight on his cellphone his walked over to the main door, entered the three codes for the three locks and pulled it open.

Nothing. The hallway was dark and empty. The men he’d left to guard the door were no longer there. Without a sound, Prasad took a step back.

Only one.

He was already falling to the floor when he felt the impact at the base of his skull. He was already losing consciousness when the pain began to overcome his senses.

Prasad did not know how long he had been listening to the sound of rain crashing against the walls of the building when he regained consciousness.

He noticed that was upright- tied to a chair with nylon rope. The chair was bound to his bed. He pushed against his bonds violently, but neither the chair, nor the bed did move.

As his eyes regained focused, he could make out a dark shape standing by his desk, toying with his newspapers and going through his performance evaluation reports.

“Who the fuck do you think you are!” He yelled in Hindi.

The man did not reply. He put down the folder he’d been reading and produced a small piece of cloth, which he use to start scrubbing at something with a kind of intensity.

“What is that?”

The man in black raised the object he’d been cleaning. Prasad squinted. It was his gun, his .45 caliber Colt pistol.

“It fell in the mud.” The man said simply. His voice rasped, like someone who hadn’t had water for a long time. There was a certain refinement to his voice even with the rasp. He was an educated man.

“What are you going to do me?” Prasad asked, switching to English.

“I’m going to kill you.”

Prasad nearly choked on his own spit.

“Who do you work for?”

“Everyone.” The stranger rasped.

“Wait if you’re a free-lancer, I can pay you. I can pay you better than anyone else. Better than Ali or Mortaza or Sharma, whoever the fuck hired you.”

For a second the man in black did nothing, and stood still as a stone.

Then he giggled.

Prasad’s body stiffened at the sound. He tried to re-evaluate his captor. He wore black… a cloak or a trench-coat that covered his form entirely. From his handling of the gun he’d seen he wore black gloves. A hood covered his head. He’d never turned to face Prasad yet, his face was a mystery.

“Just what are you!?”

“Enough about me, this visit about you.”

He reached into the swathes of fabric he covered himself with and produced a pouch. Unzipping it he pulled out what looked like a small rectangular slab. He turned to face Prasad.

Prasad had been waiting for this- Always look them in the eye, it unnerves them, intimidates them. Instead of eyes, nose, a face, he saw a featureless black expanse. Somewhere inside that expanse was a creature that had already judged him. Was it laughing?

Rage and fear intermingled in Prasad’s mind.

A black-gloved arm raised to his face, what Prasad had thought was a slab- it was a block of photographs.

“Bear with me please. I know I’ve missed many. If you’d like to add any, please feel free.”

The first picture was of a young man posing with his family with a lake pouring into a dam in the background, his wife was small, olive skinned and petite, their daughter- about eight- was grinning widely at the cameraman.

“Mukesh Verma. A civil engineer for the Indian government, refused to support your associates in funneling money out of government infrastructure projects. You killed his wife to silence him, but he tried to go to the police- so you killed him as well, I’m not sure why you bothered to take out the daughter- symmetry perhaps.”

“No. NO!” Prasad screamed.

The man in the dark coat struck him in the face. Hard. Blood spilt out of Prasad’s mouth- he spat it into his lap.

“Be polite, do not disrespect the dead. Alan Greenhorse. British financial analyst, found irregularities in your ‘legal’ venture’s funding. Shot dead soon after. The list really is big, can I just show you the pictures?”

One by one he threw each image at Prasad’s feet. Prasad did not look at any of them, he was mumbling, chanting something to himself.

“Lord save me.” He mumbled in sanskrit.

The stranger struck him again, Prasad coughed out a tooth. “It makes me a little uncomfortable.” The stranger offered as a means of explanation.

“What do you think you’re doing? No one’s paid you?”

The man chuckled a little- “No.”

For a while Prasad was unsure of what to say, but he mustered some nerve. “What the fuck are you trying to do? Be a hero? You’re a dead man. DEAD!”

“Tut tut.” The stranger raised a finger to Prasad’s lips. “Ask anyone- they’d say that coming here today would be suicide. But look at how it’s turned out. I’m not the one dying tonight.”

Prasad was getting desperate. Living knowing that your death can find you in any corner is one thing- meeting it face to face and having to converse with it is quite another. “Why are you doing this you fucking-bastard…”

“Do you believe in God?” The man cut in.

“Of course-”

“Consider this a dress rehearsal for your final judgment then.”

“No. please. I have kids, a family that loves me!”

“Look at those photographs- most of them are family members of people you wanted to influence. Your logical reasoning fails to impress me. Gandhi said ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’”

“No! Fuck you! Fuck Gandhi! If you kill me my men will hunt you down and execute you!”

“They will try. They’d try even if I let you live. Your ego far too big for you to feel humbled by the insult I’ve meted out to you- even as you ask others to live with the loss and humiliation you’ve inflicted them with.”

“I can change. I’ll stop. Forgive me!”

“You will be forgiven when you learn to raise the dead.”

“Why are you doing this to me?! Why Me!”

“You got my attention.”

“Who are you to judge me!? I’m just one man! Do you want Kala Ali to run the streets, do you want that fucking Pakistani Mortaza and his cyanide laced cocaine- or that wife burner-Sharma? If you kill me, these men will take over.”

The man in the black cloth raised Prasad’s gun to his head.

“No! No! No! If you kill me, Gangs will fight for turf, and it’ll be brutal. The city will BURN! My monopoly is the only fucking thing keeping them in check. You need me to stop these bastards, I keep the police in check, under Indian control, atleast YOU FUCKING CUNT-! You kill me, and someone else will take over the trade- there are a dozen gangs in the city- You can’t just kill them all!”

The man with the rasp lowered the gun. “You make a good argument. Prasad.”

Prasad sighed.

"But, that won’t be a problem.”