The Bankster (Ravi Subramanian) (40 page)

‘Will do.’

‘Thanks Karl. You were great today. I am proud that you work with me.’

‘Thanks sir. But you were the one who inducted me into all this.’

Schroeder smiled as he turned towards his computer screen and started scanning his inbox. After clicking on a few mails, he looked up. Karl was still standing there. ‘That will be it, Karl. Just let me know once you have informed Interpol.’

‘I will have the information passed on to them. But we still have a problem Johann. We only have a name. We don’t even know what he looks like. What will Interpol do with just a name?’ He paused. Thought for a couple of seconds and added, ‘It’s unlikely that Joseph Braganza is his real name.’

‘Agreed. But that’s all we have.’

‘Well, I suppose some information is better than no information at all,’ muttered Karl as he turned to exit the room. He knew that the information would not be sufficient to nail Joseph Braganza. He was a smart operative. Faked nationalities, multiple identities etc, would be a part of the game for someone running an operation of this nature. They had recovered uncut diamonds worth at least twenty million dollars. Once polished, they would be worth at least five times that value. He knew that anyone who operated at this level would not be alone. However, a name was all that they had, and it was necessary that he pass on the information to the Israeli police.

‘Wait,’ exclaimed Schroeder. ‘We might have something here.’ Karl turned, only to see an excited Johann Schroeder furiously clicking away on his computer. He got up, walked to his photo printer, picked up the print that he had just fired and walked up to Karl. ‘Here, take this.’ He waited until Karl had seen the picture. ‘Change of plan. Let’s not talk to anyone about what David Kosinski told us. Let’s do it ourselves.’ Karl nodded. ‘Send a covert team to Israel. Take him out.’

46

GB2 Head Office, Mumbai

1
^st
February 2012

When Karan handed over the contents of the packet, which Jacqueline had brought in, Indrani was both intrigued and irritated. ‘Why are you showing me this?’ She first looked at Karan and then at Tanuja.

‘Indrani you haven’t looked closely at the pictures that I gave you earlier.’ When Karan said this, Indrani picked up the pictures and looked at them again. She reached out to her reading glasses lying on the table.

‘Jacqueline, do you still have Malvika’s iPad?’ Karan asked Jacqueline who was still in the room.

‘Yes I do,’ and she dashed out and was back in a jiffy. ‘There you go, Karan,’ she said, handing over the iPad to him. With a few deft moves of his fingers, Karan manoeuvred the iPad and the pictures appeared on the screen. He went closer to Indrani and tilted the iPad towards her. He zoomed into the picture with his thumb and index finger.

Indrani was now staring at a close-up of the man holding a gun against Siddhartha’s head. She was also wearing her reading glasses. The man in the picture was looking around, possibly to see if Siddhartha was alone or if he had anyone else with him. The fact that Harshita was able to take this picture pointed to the fact that she had not been captured yet. Indrani was shocked when she saw the zoomed-in version. There was unmistakable fear in Siddhartha’s eyes. And then she saw the guy holding the gun. The gash on his forehead stood out. Smart, in his late thirties, the guy had stubble, which indicated he had not shaved for a few days. Had Indrani not known him, she would have mistaken him for an Israeli. She looked at the picture and then at Tanuja. Slowly she lifted the photo frame she had pulled out of the packet that Jacqueline had given her and brought it next to the iPad. The person in the photo and the iPad were the same. She knew him; she recognized the cut on the forehead very clearly.

‘Abhishek?’ she exclaimed.

When Tanuja heard that name, she freaked. ‘What? What are you looking at?’ Tanuja was suddenly very anxious. She ventured closer to Indrani, but Karan quickly took both the iPad and the photo away. He didn’t want Tanuja to have access to the iPad.

‘Karan? What is Abhishek doing there?’ For the first time that afternoon, Indrani sounded weak. It looked as though she was about to collapse.

‘Indrani, what are you talking about? Why are you bringing Abhishek into all this?’ Tanuja demanded hysterically. She had started sweating the moment Abhishek’s name had come up.

‘Abhishek is as involved in this as Tanuja is. Indrani, till the time I walked into Tanuja’s room, to keep her in the loop, I was under the impression that all this was done by Vikram. When we sat down in Tanuja’s room, I saw her wedding photo on her table and it immediately struck me that the guy in the picture was the same guy I had seen in the photos on Malvika’s iPad. The gash on the forehead is so distinctive, I couldn’t have missed it.’

‘Yes it is,’ was all Indrani could say. ‘I couldn’t see clearly at that time. I didn’t have my reading glasses.’

‘Since you couldn’t recognize him when I showed you the picture earlier today, I asked Jacqueline to get the photo frame from Tanuja’s room. It’s clear Indrani. Harshita checked out the address of Union of Jews Foundation. She found the place, and then who did she find there? Our very own Abhishek Mathur. She recognizes Abhishek but in the process gets caught. Somehow both of them escape from there and run. Abhishek fears identification and the resultant consequences. The best thing for him to do is to get rid of them. They run, cross Café Coffee Day, the photos get uploaded to iCloud by chance, and the rest is history. While running, Harshita calls Raymond, but in the melee, calls his direct line at work, instead of his mobile. The phone goes to voice mail, since it’s late at night and no one picks up her call. She leaves a voice mail for him. All that she manages to scream into the phone is, “Raymond. . .Raymond. . .we found the address of UJF. It’s correct. . .and Raymond, it’s Abhishek. It’s Abhishek, Raymond. It’s Abhishek. He’s after us now.”’

‘Hmm. . .and how did you get to know what she said?’ Indrani was curious.

‘After I saw Abhishek’s picture on Tanuja’s table, I ran back upstairs. I was too shocked to react. In that blank state, I suddenly realized that while running away from Abhishek, Harshita would have tried to reach out to someone. And that someone would have to be Raymond. . .no one else. So I ran up, and went to his desk. I got lucky. Harshita had indeed called him. I don’t know how and why we forgot to check his office phone’s voicemail last night. We checked everything. . .even the redialled numbers on his direct line, but we didn’t check the voice mail.’

‘Raymond had heard the voice mail; it did not show up as a new message. The communication system records too show that the last time Raymond accessed his voicemail and heard this message was at 6.47 p.m. yesterday. He called from his mobile phone and used his password to access it. At 6.48p.m. he called Tanuja. Poor fellow. He would have called her to figure out who was the Abhishek that Harshita was referring to. His big mistake was to take Tanuja into confidence. That proved to be his undoing. He too was eliminated before he could share what he knew with anybody else. Obviously Tanuja was not alone; there were people working for her, who carried out these tasks under her instructions. Who these operators are, is not for us to say. Hon. DCP Vishnu Shome and his team will be able to figure that out,’ said Karan looking at the DCP.

Indrani looked at Tanuja, shocked. ‘Tanuja, is this true?’

‘Indrani, we have enough hard evidence to nail the two of them.’ Karan butted in.

Indrani ignored Karan. ‘Tanuja?’ Indrani asked her again. ‘What is all this? I need to know if this is true.’

‘I need to talk to my lawyer first.’ She just turned around, opened the door and walked out. She couldn’t go much further. The entire security team of GB2 and a small team of police constables were waiting outside Indrani’s cabin.

When Tanuja saw them, she was furious. ‘Anyone touches me, mark my words, he is dead!’ she screamed. There was only one female security officer and she was quite scared to take on the fury of Tanuja, who just pushed her aside and ran towards the lift.

Francis couldn’t do anything. He was worried that if any male security guard touched her, it would become a case of sexual assault and criminal intimidation, which could work against the organization. ‘Stop her!’ Karan shouted as he saw her dashing away from them.

‘Go. Get her,’ Vishnu Shome hurriedly instructed his team, which was waiting for his orders.

‘She can’t be allowed to leave the premises. Jacqueline, please tell security at the main gate not to allow her to get out of the building. At any cost,’ Francis instructed and ran after Tanuja. ‘Restrain her. Close down the main gate,’ he yelled to his team as he blindly followed Karan who was going after Tanuja towards the lift lobby.

As Karan entered the lift lobby to stop Tanuja from running out of the building, he saw her waiting anxiously. The lift was on sixth floor and was on its way down. Seeing Karan enter the lobby, Tanuja darted left, opened the door and headed into the fire exit. Karan and Francis followed suit. They were surprised when Tanuja, instead of running down, started running up towards the terrace. In no time, she flung open the door at the top of the stairs and ran onto the terrace. For a moment, she stopped and checked if she could bolt the terrace door from outside, but there was no latch on the metal door.

She walked up to the edge to see if there was any way she could jump across the buildings and escape, at least for the time being. She would live to fight another day. There was some commotion at the entrance to the terrace. She turned. She could hear footsteps and voices heading towards her. There was no escape; they would get her soon. One last look at the terrace door and she had made up her mind.

The windscreen of the Mercedes parked beneath the building was blown to smithereens, and the roof caved in to kiss the leather of the seat as Tanuja’s body crashed onto it with a big thud. Colleagues and others standing nearby rushed towards the Merc, but were only able to pull the lifeless and limp body of Tanuja out from the car.

47

The Times of India

2
^nd
February 2012

The headline of
The Times of India
next day was a very poignant one:
‘Father–Daughter duo meet tragic end in money laundering scam.’

In a startling turn of events, two people died under tragic circumstances. Tanuja, the Head of Human Resources at a global bank, jumped from the terrace of the bank building at MG road in the busy Fort area of Mumbai. She is alleged to have been one of the key perpetrators of a massive money-laundering scam spread across the country. In an operation, which lasted till late in the night, the Central Bureau of Investigation, acting under specific instructions from the Government of India, and in tandem with Greater Boston Global Bank, arrested Zinaida Gomes, the Bandra-based relationship manager and twelve other relationship managers of the bank, from their residences.

In what seems to be linked to the money-laundering scam, the bank has fired its Head of Retail Banking, Vikram Bahl, even though the bank claims that it was on account of some irregularities and misappropriation of bank funds. Bahl too has been taken into custody by the CBI.

In Devikulam Kerala, the Trikakulam Nuclear Power Plant (TNPP) protests took a really ugly turn when, around the same time as Tanuja’s death, Jayakumar, one of the founders of CNRI, an NGO supporting the anti-TNPP movement, was shot dead by 75-year-old Krishna Menon, using his licensed revolver at his resort about ten kilometres from TNPP.

It might be worth noting that Krishna Menon had gone public with his allegations against Jayakumar being an arms lobbyist and having access to dirty money, in a television interview only a day earlier. This had soured the relationships between the two and had led to a power struggle based on who would champion the movement.

Addressing assembled reporters outside the Devikulam police station, Krishna Menon said that his conscience was clear and that what he had done was to make sure that the anti-TNPP struggle remains a struggle of the people of the region and that too for genuine reasons. Krishna added that people like Jayakumar were manipulating the locals for their own gains and on behalf of certain foreign forces and nations opposed to the TNPP.

What lends credibility to the claims of Krishna Menon is the fact that Tanuja, the foreign bank’s HR head, involved in the same money laundering scandal, is the youngest daughter of Jayakumar.

A red-corner notice has been issued by the Interpol for the arrest of Abhishek Mathur, Tanuja’s husband, whose whereabouts are unknown. A search of Abhishek and Tanuja’s residence revealed that Abhishek used different names and identities to travel out of the country. Multiple passports in the names of Joseph Braganza, Mir Zawawi and Suresh Ramamurthy were recovered from the Mathurs’ residence. Visiting cards in the name of Abhishek Mathur, McKinsey Consultants were also recovered. McKinsey has denied that anyone by that name ever worked there. Raw uncut diamonds valued at over twenty-two crore were also recovered from the Mathur residence leading one to believe that the Mathurs were a part of a larger global money laundering syndicate. (Detailed report on page four.)

This tale brings into focus the changing aspirations of urban India, and the saga of greed which prevails in most corporates in India, where morally bankrupt managers are willing to go to any extent to fulfil their
materialistic desires. Has the end become more important than the
means? (Detailed report on page three.)

Karan was sitting at home that morning, reading the morning edition of
The Times of India
. He had just returned from work a few hours ago. It had been very difficult for him to convince Andy and Bhaskar that their cover story should not be derogatory of GB2 or its management. Hadn’t he given his word to Indrani? Kavya walked into the dining room—she had just woken up. It was the first time she had stayed back with him for the night. Karan disappeared into the kitchen and reappeared in three minutes with a cup of freshly brewed filter coffee and placed it delicately in front of her on the table.