They were at Dehradun staring at the lock on the maid’s door.

‘She has gone out to work,’ replied a neighbour.

They proceeded to the red light area in Mussoorie where Dr. Ahluwalia had been traced from. They booked a room at Hotel Krishna Palace. Rohan called a waiter to his room and asked if he could arrange for a girl from the red light area for the night. The waiter understood and said he would do it. He lighted a cigarette and waited patiently for the night to descend.

‘Dr. Ahluwalia. Are you related to him?’ the prostitute who was sent to Rohan and was sitting on his bed asked.

‘No. I am not. I am just asking, heard he was found living in this area,’ replied Rohan.

‘He went mad over that Sophia,’ she said.

‘And then what happened?’ he held her hand.

‘She left him. Nobody could satisfy him. He wanted it every day.’

‘Who gave it to him?’ Rohan opened a bag full of money.

‘I don’t know. He stayed in a hotel, never came out of his room. Women hardly went into his room. They said he had tantric powers. He would seduce from far distances. Hence he did not need to meet any woman.’

‘Do you know any girl whom he seduced?’

‘Yes. There is a group which lives close by. But Sophia controls them. So I am not sure if they will come to you.’

‘Where does Sophia live?’

‘Close by. Do it to me now and give me the money.’ She asked him.

‘If you show me Sophia’s house, I will give you the money.’

‘Double?’

‘Yes. Double. Now come on.’

The prostitute showed him the house. She was paid triple and asked to keep quiet.

‘If you speak to anybody, your picture is with me.’ He showed her picture on the mobile.

‘I will not tell anybody.’ She said and disappeared into the small lane across the road.

*

Next morning they left early to catch the maid. She was about to leave when she saw them and welcomed them at her house.

‘My husband is dead. I have to earn for my children’s education; hence I leave early and work at as many homes as possible.’

‘We will not take much time. You know Dr. Ahluwalia has been found and he is with us.’ The maid’s face reddened. ‘And he has spoken about you,’ added Lavie.

‘I did not do anything,’ she started crying. ‘He brought me into this.’

‘But he said that you were the one who brought him into this.’

‘No. It is a lie. He started touching me and forcing himself upon me. I did not accept it initially, but later I gave in when he promised me a promotion as a caretaker.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘This went around for a year. He used me but paid me and I was happy. My husband has been dead for some time. Then one day he disappeared. I had to struggle for few months before I could find a job once again.’

‘What about Sophia?’

‘Sophia had left him earlier. I thought maybe he had gone back to her. Now I have to leave for work Memsahib. I can assure you I have not done anything wrong. I can speak on his face.’ She said angrily.

‘One last question. You said he used you. What do you mean by that?’

The maid thought for a while. She was feeling uneasy, but she finally spoke. ‘He had made some science thing. He used me to see if that thing was working. It is very secret, so I have been asked not to speak about it to anyone. It was shown to big people one day. Big ministers had come to see how this thing worked. I was used by him to further his own professional goals.’

They knew she was talking about IMAGED.

‘Have you ever heard of Abideh?’

‘No. Never. I do not wish to go into this anymore.’

‘You won’t need to talk to anyone about it. We know the truth now. You should be rest assured. Nothing would happen to you.’ Lavie assured her.

*

‘Tell your boss we are looking for Sophia Loren.’ Rohan said to the young woman who had opened the door. She asked them to wait and closed the door once again. Nothing happened for five minutes. Then, the lift at their back opened, two men came out and dragged Rohan and Lavie in. They thrashed them as long as the lift took time to reach the ground and made them walk the whole distance outside the red light area. Sophia Loren watched them through her window with fear in her heart.

‘If we ever see you here, you will not leave alive,’ they were said. Both Lavie and Rohan came back to the hotel to pack and leave for Dehradun to meet Anusha K. They were denied an appointment with her.

That night Sophia Loren sold the haveli to a local pimp. She and her girls were bound to Delhi and then on a plane to Russia the next day. Her bank account, by now, had sufficient money to last a lifetime of comfort in her hometown of Mirny in the west of Russia. All the other agents had to be sent to their respective native countries as well. Abideh thought this was a fitting end to the operations which had been performed with a certain degree of success. She had another plans in mind, the technology had been hid at a safe place for the time being.

*

Rohan was sitting at his house in Delhi waiting for something to happen. Mr Khan had assured him that if Dr. Ahluwalia wanted to speak, he would be called. There was nothing more he could do until all the evidence was in his hands and he knew the complete story. The mail was open and he was lazily browsing through the different group mails received. There were so many groups he was part of, yet there was nobody he could talk to about this torment that he had been going through since he had been connected. He felt helpless. He needed to know the people behind all this and the murderer of the professors. Whoever had the technology, had done a wonderful job at concealing it from the world and using it for a specific purpose. He wondered why nobody else in the developed world, which was way ahead in technical research had come up with this technology. Or maybe some country is already using it for defence purposes. All these thoughts were running around in Rohan’s mind like a wild hare being chased by a dog. At the same time he was flickering around with his mailbox, when he received the Google auction alert. Iron ore mines, for which he had given an exercise to his class, were to be auctioned starting tomorrow. He immediately called Tapan on his mobile phone.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

‘Nothing special Sir. I was reading a research paper.’

‘Did we get submissions for the exercise we had given the class on iron ore mines?’

‘Yes Sir. Apart from one group, the rest have made their submission. I am waiting for the last group’s submission before forwarding them to you.’

‘Do one thing. Send the submissions to me. Ask the remaining group to directly mail their submissions to me. I need to mark them.’

‘I will do it now Sir.’

‘Good. Thanks.’

Rohan noticed that a number of groups had used the model correctly. He had made it easy for them by sending them the data sets. Hence, their job was restricted to understanding the model, writing a simple code on excel to implement it and using the data to get the results. Still he could find a range of similarities in the files of some of the groups including the codes with similar variable names and minor errors. It meant that they may have copied from each other. Due to lack of time, he marked this activity to be checked properly once he reached Mumbai. For now, he was concentrating on the result. As per the model, the last four digits of the iron ore auctions were going to be 2938. He called Mr Khan and notified him about it. Mr Khan assured him that he would do as much as he could to prevent the colluding firms from participating in the auctions, but did not give any guarantees. 

One piece of the entire puzzle was still missing. He decided to write to Mala that he was coming to Bokaro. He then called Lavie. She had joined ‘The Indian Express’ again.

‘I don’t understand why we need to go all the way to Bokaro to get the interview. I could interview him over phone,’ she suggested.

‘We need to be there. It is not just the interview, I would need to check Prof. Rameshwar’s belongings. And if needed, stay there and talk to a few more people. Don’t you need to release Bansi?’

‘Look who is the journalist now!’ Lavie chided him. ‘Yes I have been in touch with him over phone.’

‘I am not kidding. We still don’t know how the professor got imaged in that remote village in Jharkhand. Unless we find it out, our story will not be complete.’

Lavie thought for a while. She got a feeling that Rohan unnecessarily wanted to be there for the interview.  He was not needed at all, it was her job.

‘I am fine with going and interviewing him. I have to meet Bansi as well. But I would not stay for the other stuff. That is something you would need to do alone.’

‘Done. I will get the tickets.’