Lying For A Living

12

Vansh stared at the mirror. Amritansh Pathak had left a few hours ago. He was unable to sleep. The bullet hole had complicated things. As he remembered the exact happenings of the night, Vansh recalled that he had not heard the distinctive sound of a sniper rifle. It would have been a very loud thuk or bang. Even if it were silenced, the van was very close to them. A light tsk should have been heard at least. He cursed himself for not noticing this before. He opened his laptop and inserted the memory stick Pathak had given him. It contained the CCTV footage of the area the night the PMs were in the Victoria Memorial. He saw the convoys pulling in and men getting out of the cars systematically. They checked around and then opened the doors for the VIPs. The men exited and joyously walked inside the monument, while the men kept milling around, expecting threats. He saw himself enter the frame now. He walked over to the man and talked to him. As Vansh saw himself turning around, he paused the video and zoomed in at the window of the van. He could see the end of the g*n sticking out of it from the vantage point of the camera, but the men's faces were well hidden in the dark. He played the video in 0.1% of it's previous speed and waited. No bullet came out from the window, even as the van exited from the scene. Vansh now focused on the tree on which the bullet had hit and replayed the video. As the bullet came, he could see that it was coming from an elevated angle. He traced the bullet backwards and saw that it had come from a building opposite to the monument. He sat back and sighed contentedly. The night had become more productive than he had imagined. Pathak had gone back to his office to show his techies the other code that they had received after solving the crossword and he had got answer as to where the bullet had come from. The men in the van had been waiting for the PMs to come out. They had a custom sniper rifle. A custom sniper with an inbuilt stand and different design. Vansh immediately knew which g*n it was. It was a QBU-88. A Chinese sniper.

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

"So the Chinese are behind this?" Markande asked. Vansh knew that Markande had about as much knowledge about Chinese tactics as him. He had, after all, been in one of the first battalions to be posted in Siachen.

Vansh nodded. "That appears to be the case."

"The QBU is a reputed rifle... it could be used by anyone," said a man who had introduced himself as Special Agent Krishna Sehgal. He would be working with Vansh and Kabir on the case.

Vansh shook his head. "The Indian army does not use the QBU and Norinco only prepared it for the People's Liberation Army. It is almost as suspicious as finding a Kashtan SMG in the US."

"But Russia is across an ocean from the US. It is comparatively a hundred times easier to bring a QBU in India than it is to bring a Kashtan in the US. We share a border with them," Krishna said sceptically.

"All well and good, but we can't rule out Chinese involvement," Vansh said firmly.

Krishna tried to say something but Markande raised his hand and the man stopped. "You do know the implications of this, don't you, Vansh?" Markande asked. To Vansh's abilities to read faces and voices, he could realise the slight undertone of fear in the man's voice.

Vansh nodded grimly. "It can be considered an act of war."

"Yes," Kabir said. "If it the g*n been used. Right now we need to figure out who the other shooter was. Which bullet was it?"

"7.62 mm. Probably from an FM MAG. It's used by the army." Krishna replied.

The men sat in silence for a few minutes. It took Vansh barely five minutes to join the dots. A Chinese sniper and a Belgian machine g*n. Chinese for India. Belgian for German. "They were two different shooters," Vansh said suddenly.

"We already figured that out, Vansh. Two guns, thus two shooters. Sniper for shooting, machine g*n for cover. Machine g*n misfires, PM gets lucky and lives."

"No. Two shooters affiliated to two different organisations. The Belgian g*n for the German PM and the Chinese for Indian PM," Vansh said.

"That's an awfully big coincidence, don't you think? Two separate countries decide to kill their enemies at the same point at the same time?" Kabir said. "And also, Germany and Belgium are allies. No way the Belgians decide to kill the Germans."

"The Convention," Markande said quietly.

Vansh nodded. "The Germans did not support Belgium. In fact, they vetoed their proposal."

The Belgians had proposed that the EU start giving 17% of their funds for the cause. Germany had decided to veto the idea and not provide more than 4%. The Belgians, embarrassed like a banished dog, had backed off, but the tension had escalated between the countries, which shared 133 km/ 83 miles of land border.

"We are caught between an international imbroglio, which is not good, because we are not even a part of it!" Markande said.

Markande's computer beeped to notify a new email. He swirled on his chair and opened the mail. His face visibly whitened as he read. "The Germans have sent a preliminary report of the bombing. They found the shards of the bomb all around the airport, as expected, but the report shows that the car had gone through a bomb test as expected from a machine bomb detector and a pack of German Shepherds. Neither machine nor animal reacted. The Germans now believe that the Jaipuri shawl the Indian PM had gifted him. Luckily, thanks to our diplomatic relations with them, the Germans have sent all the details along with samples of the wreckage to us. It'll arrive by tomorrow," Markande said, visibly distraught.

"I think you were wrong, sir. We seem to be a very important part of this imbroglio. We seem to be the target," Kabir said.