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Chapter 8
The historic meeting took place on January 31 in Desh.
The participants were Amar, Victor, Adarsh, and Shakti.
As planned Adarsh and Shakti had reached Desh.
Soon after Shakti delivered the keynote address in the global conference Victor met him. Then together they proceeded toward the shack from where Victor had spoken with him a couple of weeks ago.
The vacation in his hometown at Desh rejuvenated Adarsh. He enthusiastically looked forward to meet Amar. While he was thinking of Amar, the doorbell rang. He went running to the main door of his house, opened it and screamed with joy, “Hey Amar!” They hugged each other.
On January 31, in the dead of night the two motorbikes were approaching the shack in the night at 400 kilometers an hour. The atmosphere was quite eerie. It was a dark night with no moon in the sky.
Adarsh broke the silence by saying, “It’s rare to see such a dense jungle anywhere else, mighty frightening though. The silence all around is making it still scary.”
“Add to it the chirping of millions of crickets literally tearing the silence. You can hear them over the muffled noise of the bike,” said Amar.
“Aren’t we there yet?”
“Won’t take more than ten more minutes. I’m thankful for your patience and agreeing with my request of not probing till we reach the shack.”
Victor’s bike was trailing Amar’s. Victor also informed his pillion rider, “Shakti, just ten more minutes and we will reach the shack, our meeting spot.”
“You haven’t revealed anything about the purpose of our meeting so far, neither I asked you. But I am getting a bit impatient now having reached such a godforsaken place,” Shakti said.
“Please bear with me for ten more minutes. I’m thankful to you for not probing till now,” Victor pleaded.
“I went by your request to wait till we reach the destination. Also kindly introduce me to Amar and Adarsh on reaching there.”
After some ten minutes the four of them settled in the shack. Shack displayed some communication equipment.
The shack didn’t have any furniture. A faded carpet was the only furnishing. They sat on it. Amar poured out the hot coffee from a thermos in four mugs.
Victor introduced Shakti to Adarsh and Amar.
Amar introduced Adarsh to Victor and Shakti.
Amar started the meeting. He presented the worsening state of affairs of planet Berth. He said, “Our planet is on the brink of irreversible disturbances that would ruin our social and human fabric soon. The disturbances are the creation of few individuals belonging to governments of a few nations and few fanatic organizations. These individuals hold very important positions and are misusing their positions to fulfill their personal agendas. These are all megalomaniacs and they are exploiting the armed personnel and the civilians to fulfill their personal ambitions under the garb of patriotism or nationalism or religion. This kind of false patriotism or nationalism or religiousness obviously undermines the concept and spirit of humanity or humanism. The objective of this meeting is to brainstorm to identify such individuals and devise the strategies to stop this nonsense permanently. Now let us start thinking on the matter loudly.”
Amar looked in the direction of Adarsh and Shakti. They spoke almost at the same time. The essence of what they spoke was, “That’s a pretty decent sketch of the current scenario. We concur with the objectives. We will be happy to contribute toward the noble cause.”
Victor made a point, “Do you all agree that it’s the top few who need to stop playing smart? As we know the rest of the people are compelled to follow their whims and fancies. A few who rebel get crushed right in the beginning.”
“I think it’s the corrupt and ruthless rulers who are found in different avatars- heads of the states and their cronies, politicians, kingmakers, power brokers, lobbyists, bureaucrats, corporate honchos, media chiefs, military chiefs, and judiciary,” Shakti spoke elaborating Victor’s point.
“Our first job will be to identify and single out all such people. We must then start tracking their thoughts and communication patterns. We must also track their strategies and plans. We must know the timelines of their past, present, and future actions. This will give us the valued knowledge needed to thwart their evil actions,” Adarsh suggested.
Everyone nodded in agreement.
Amar volunteered to undertake this task. He proposed, “We have been able to get hold of two extremely sophisticated communication devices- laptop, smart phone, camera, Internet connectivity, and much more, all rolled into one compact box. Don’t ask me now how we got hold of them; it’s a long story I will reveal later. So, a good number of people whom we wish to track have these or similar devices. I can tell you with 100% authenticity that only 98 instruments are in circulation. A great friend of mine who works for the company who make such instruments told me in confidence. These devices are extremely expensive and out of reach of the ordinary people.”
“How do you propose to use these two devices you have?” Adarsh asked.
Amar replied, “Ask Victor. He will tell you. I’m a great hacker. I’m already halfway through my hacking project. I will soon hack the rest 96 instruments. I will carry out the test run on your device Adarsh. You are an exceptional owner of such an extraordinary gizmo; we’re lucky in that. Only extremely powerful persons of Berth possess these devices, you seem to be one of them.”
“Oh, don’t kid me. But tell me what will you do by hacking?” Shakti inquired.
“By using our two gadgets we will be in a position to track all the incoming and outgoing communication from these 96 gadgets. Not only that I may be in a position to retrieve all the communication that took place during last few months, may be say, one year or even more.”
“Can’t believe you can do it,” Shakti exclaimed.
Victor intervened, “Amar is capable of cracking it. I know his genius. I’ll tell that story sometime later. So the first point sorted, let us move ahead.”
Adarsh wished to say something. So he raised his hand. When others gestured in affirmation he put in his ideas, “I think all the four of us need to train ourselves physically. This entire project will not only need our cerebral efforts but also our physical efforts. Our bodies must match our brains.”
“How do you suggest we do it?” Amar pushed his question.
“I am quite friendly with a gym owner in Bigland. He can organize a crash course for us in a private setting. He has one or two excellent trainers. From my personal experience I can say a week’s coaching should be more than adequate. Being a personal bodyguard of the president I’ve to train myself quite frequently, so I know a bit about this game.”
“Excellent, another important thing taken care of. One week is what we can afford. For sure shot results we need to wrap up the first and the biggest phase of our entire mission within three months from now,” Victor announced
cheerfully. “What next?”
“We will need very efficient means of transportation. Am I right?” Shakti asked.
Victor replied, “Yes, you are right. We have those two bikes. You have already seen their performance.”
“I was floored by the ride.”
“We will augment these bikes with one roughshod 4X4 jeep equipped with all kinds of thingamabobs. Let me boast by telling you that I’m an ultimate marine, aeronautical, and automobile engineer rolled into one. I have plans of making the jeep fly in air and sail in high seas. I will also make it run, sail, and fly without any need of a human driver; it will be self-driving vehicle, first driverless vehicle of its kind. However we have yet to acquire the jeep.”
Amar backed Victor. He said, “God hasn’t created an engineer as good as Victor so far. Can someone help him in locating the type of tough jeep he is suggesting?”
Shakti took initiative. He mentioned, “Prime minister Zintun had one such jeep. In the past he used it for inspecting the ceremonial parades of his army. Lately he replaced it by a highly priced glitzy car. He got fed up with the jeep when once it’s engine stalled for a few seconds while he was on one of his inspection rounds. The jeep was auctioned and a local garage bought it cheaply. We can buy it from the garage. I will organize the whole thing.”
“Thanks Shakti,” Amar said. Victor also gave a nod.
Adarsh topped up the coffee. He also opened a new packet of roasted and salted peanuts.
Shakti spoke again, “If you guys agree I will like to be our team’s analyst. Being a professor of economics, I have a flair for analyzing data and information. Then I can interpret them, decipher the patterns, and draw out the inferences. Their accuracy will be of utmost importance for us in this critical time bound mission. We cannot afford to go wrong or waste our time in trial and error.”
Amar spoke out, “Friends, we have to cover two most dangerous rogues- the kingpins of all the wars- very closely on all time basis. One is president Gushnell of Bigland and the other is prime minister Zintun of Chinhut. I propose Shakti to take care of Zintun and Adarsh to take care of Gushnell.”
Victor seconded the proposal. Adarsh and Shakti agreed wholeheartedly.
The meeting continued for some more time. During that time the four members discussed a few more points. The meeting culminated in revisiting their objectives, strategies, plans, timeline of activities, roles and responsibilities, and finalizing them.
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