Part II
"The plan sucks," Vicky informed Gaurang.
Gaurang, unsurprised, did not respond and tightened the harness on his waist.
Vicky grumpily did the same.
He had imagined something more glamorous and James Bond-like, something like sneaking into Sanju's daughter's bedroom, getting her to fall madly in love with him so that she would willingly help them out of the mansion and give them further incriminating evidence. But boring Gauri had solemnly pronounced that it was the stupidest plan he had ever heard.
The two detectives spared each other a perfunctory nod and slid down the wall and landed in the garden.
Almost immediately a bark was heard in the distance. Two dogs were running towards them, madness in their eyes. Guards were yelling in each other's walkie talkies, delighted at the prospect of a new prey in their midst. Dogs in other parts of the compound, excited by the promise in the air, raced to the scene, salivating.
Their hearts thumping, Gaurang and Vicky made for the outhouse. They managed to shut the door just before the two dogs reached them.
"Where's the tunnel?" Gaurang said, moving the barrel that was supposed to have been concealing it. They had made the tunnel last week as part of a backup plan in case escaping by scaling the wall was made impossible by unforeseen circumstances.
"Damn, they covered it," Vicky gasped.
Gaurang, undeterred, began to shovel out the boulders. They could not have filled up the whole tunnel. They had surely assumed that the tunnel was a way of getting into the mansion, not a way of getting out of it. Criminals, no matter how cautious, can almost always be relied upon to make at least some arrogant assumptions as to their so-called invincibility.
The outhouse was now surrounded by what sounded like a dozen bloodthirsty hounds. A henchman was trying to force the door open. The bolts were quivering. Soon they would give way. The heavy lead box Vicky had dragged in front of the door was slipping away treacherously. Vicky pointed the gun they had stolen from Sanju's brother earlier that day at the door, his hand trembling.
"Come," Gaurang said as he pulled down his mask and lowered himself into the tunnel. Vicky pulled down his mask too and threw a small self-made smoke bomb at the outhouse door, before following Gaurang into the tunnel. The bomb would cause a sufficient diversion while he and Gaurang would be crawling along the horizontal part of the tunnel. It was while they were in that part of the tunnel that they would be most vulnerable. Once they had climbed down into the gutter, it would be more difficult to find them. Still, Gaurang was not one to take any chances, so before climbing down the ladder, he and Vicky blocked the tunnel with a heavy metal lid that would delay their antagonists further.
Three hours later, in his flat, after a few showers, Gaurang took Sanju's diary from Vicky's waterproof pouch and smiled slightly.
"You know," Vicky said, "for all the trouble we went through, that policeman had better pay us more than -"
"This is not about the money," Gaurang said irritably, as he paged through the diary. This was about peace. But Vicky would not understand. He allowed Vicky's monologue to trail on. The man liked the sound of his own voice. Why deprive him of the pleasure? Meanwhile Gaurang struggled to switch off his mind. It had begun to reminisce again. He craved amnesia; he craved the power to be able to forgive. But the object of his quest remained as elusive as ever.
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