Week 4

Naveen paced the short width of the cramped office room. The room was clouded by swirls of smoke that had emanated from the dozen or so cigarettes he had already smoked. He reached out for the pack of cigarettes on the table. He crushed it when he discovered it was empty. He looked at the spectacled blob of a man sitting in front of a snazzy looking laptop, totally not in sync with the rest of the ancient looking room.

"Any luck? "

Only the sound of keys clicking came as response.

"You have been in front of the system for the past 4 hours. What is happening. Have you found anything useful or not?"

The man looked up from the small monitor and glanced at him.

"This person is a pro. Used multiple dummy accounts to create this mail id. and each of the ids have been generated from a different city, sometimes even country. The routes he has taken is amazing. The origin of all this goes back about to somewhere beyond 15 years. I guess this was not something that was planned in a day, not even a year. I see atleast a decade of planning behind this. I would need some more time to track down the IPs. This is not an easy thing like what you see in the movies. Even with official permission, getting the info is like pushing back paste into the tube."

"Please work on it as fast as possible, we dont have much time. Day after tomorrow is the 13th. This is our best chance of getting this psycho in custody."

The spectacles went back to the screen.

.........................................

"What happened Mr. Naveen? How close are we to getting this guy"

"Sir, We are doing all that is possible. We have got the best technical person trying to locate the person but its taking more time than ever. And i am not even sure that at the end of all of this, we would be able to get him"

"What are you saying? We have the entire force behind this operation and we are still not able to get one person?"

"Sir, This is not someone who is doing this for his kicks, nor is he driven by any psychotic delusions. This is the work of a person who has dedicated almost a decade of his life planning this to the last detail possible. A person with clear conviction as to what he wants and how exactly he wants it to be done. Our main disadvantage is that we dont know his motive. We have so long been treating each case that our department comes across with that basic factor set in. We fix up on one or two possible motives and trace out the culprit but here we are blind. We dont know why all this is being done, the reason behind his choices. We are clueless as to why all of this happening and the way it is all unfolding. We.."

"Stop giving me excuses and get me results, dammit. Tomorrow the entire state goes to election. There are about 54000 polling stations in the state. In Chennai alone its about 3200 and along with the suburbs and kancheepuram area add another 2800 to it. What do we do if his plan is at any of these places? "

" I can understand Sir, but you have to understand that we are doing our best and there isn't anything more that we can do at this stage."

"Can we give more additional security to each of the booths in chennai area alone? What's the force level being used? 

"Additional security? We have about 1.25 lakh security personnel, both central, state and reserve already involved. I doubt if we can do more. And even if we do more, what is the use? you have seen his modus operandi. Another sniper attack? another mine? explosive? What is he planning to do? How could we possible prepare for something like him?"

"So what do you suggest we do? Sit and watch?"

"As of now, I guess that's the only option we have, Sir"

.........................................

The sun dawned lazily, upon a city, that was half asleep while the other half was running around frantically and at their posts for the past 12-18 hours continuous. The fate of a state was going to be decided. 234 seats. Contested by 2773 candidates. Overseen by 1.25 lakh security personnel. All of Tamilnadu focused on one thing. 

But there were a few people who had a different focus that day. Naveen was heading that group of individuals. They were prepared. But they didn't know what to prepare for. They didn't know what was going to happen, where it was going to happen, to whom it was going to happen. All that they knew was something was going to happen. 

They waited. 

The polling booths opened up. Most booths saw people lining up much before opening time to line up and cast the vote. Polling was proceeding smoothly across the state. Naveen was however focused on what was happening inside the city. The control room that he had set up was receiving radio feed from all the stations inside city. They waited. They waited for the news that they dreaded. 

Around lunch time, news trickled down that polling was still proceeding smoothly and there was a good turnout. Although official news channels pegged it at around 45-50 % polling, it was expected to cross 60-65 % by end of day. Still the core team waited. Tensions were running high, but energy level was dripping low. They had been on alert for such a long time that it started to show. They desperately wanted the day to end. They even wished that the psycho would do what he promised to and get it over with.They waited.

Around two 'o' clock,  a phone rang out. The officers in the room startled to attention. They looked at each other. Amidst the noise of the radio chatter they weren't able to identify the phone that was ringing. The table was littered with 4 phones, their lines tangled and intertwined.

Naveen held up his hand. He reached into his shirt pocket and took out his mobile. His mobile was the one that was ringing. He took the phone to his ear and said , "Hello"

"Hi, this is Epanastasi"