Gurukul, Chandragarh
Abhirath came out of his hiding place and stood there in surprise. The Southern zilla guy seemed to have turned a new leaf. Too bad, it was way too late for him. There was no way that he would let Mriga go back to him, ever. He had decided to propose to her once the competition was over, irrespective of the result. He had spent the past few years in liking her from a quiet distance. But now that he knew her, in and out, his feelings had gone beyond a simple word like love. His days started and ended with her and he wanted to spend the rest of his life in fighting and making up with her!
Saptsindhu-Himprayag border
Shaurya and his tribal friend were standing at the border between Saptsindhu and Himprayag. Originally, Shaurya's plan had been to try and seek another way to enter Chandragarh from Saptsindhu. He had hoped to convey this to the natives of the valley but instead, ended up confusing them into thinking that he was talking about Himprayag. So Chandragarh had been the apple and Himprayag the cucumber.
But the message from Bela had come in the nick of the time for him to stop ruing his fate. She had asked him to join her in Himprayag as soon as he could. As per what he understood, he was now only a couple of hours away from the capital of Himprayag and had sent the message back to her, informing her about the same.
Thankfully, he had drawn a map of the entire way from the valley till here, so he knew how to get back, should he need to.
He bowed down and expressed his thanks to his guide for bringing him till here. Then bidding him farewell, he started walking ahead, only to be pulled back. The guy handed over his sheepskin shawl and put it around Shaurya's shoulders.
He smiled at the younger man and patted his shoulders. Shaurya looked at him gratefully and pulled it snugly around his body. He knew that Himprayag was supposed to be really cold and appreciated the kind gesture of the man.
Capital, Chandragarh
Prithvi read Amrapali's message again. It seemed that either the opposing side had assumed them to be incompetent fools or were no longer cowed down by whether their actions were exposed in front of Chandragarh. In either scenario, the enemy had let its guard down and that was what Prithvi needed.
He quickly penned down two messages, one for Amrapali where he asked her to do as she had been instructed by the zilla chief. The second message was to Ramanujam who had reached back to the Eastern zilla.
During the entire month of their internship, Mriga and the others had wondered about Ramanujam's mole in the Eastern zilla's Suraksha Chakra office. But they didn't know that Ramanujam preferred working alone and didn't trust anyone easily. Seeking information from someone meant that one had to offer something in return and Ramanujam hated showing the cards in his hand to anyone. The bottomline was that there hadn't been anyone who was passing information to him from Amrapali's team. None of them were even aware of his presence in the zilla.
The Admin office in the Gurukul wasn't the only place with a secret den below the ground. All zilla offices had been constructed in the same manner, long ago.
But the information about their existence was shared in an extremely stingy manner. Had it not been for Shaurya's poisoning, Mriga and Abhirath would have never gotten to know the presence of the one at the Gurukul. Similarly, Ramanujam was also told about the Eastern zilla's unit only now, when he would need to use it.
He had been based out of the den directly below the Suraksha Chakra building for two months now. After walking through a tunnel, the exit to this den which was covered with vegetation from the outside, opened up close to the sea. It had made his tasks of initially patrolling the area and looking for those homeless men easy. This was the same place where Prithvi had stayed when he came to the Eastern zilla before Ramanujam.
The specialty of this underground base was that its roof had one end of hollow wooden pipes protruding from it. The other ends of these pipes were connected to various aesthetically designed wood carvings which had been kept in different rooms in the Suraksha Chakra building.
Many years ago, when Ramanujam had been a trainee himself, he had presented the idea of using wooden pipes as listening devices from one room to another. He had caught the eye of his superiors due to this project but he only got to know now that not only had his project been approved but also implemented.
Prithvi recalled Ramanujam's reaction with a wry smile. Normally not prone to theatrics, he had given a sulking look to his senior last month when he was informed about using this method to know about the operations of the Suraksha Chakra unit of the Eastern zilla.
He had arched a brow and asked Ramanujam, "Were you expecting a medal to be presented to you? A covert idea is selected and implemented in the same manner. Just consider yourself lucky that you would be using your own creation for operational purpose."
In response, Ramanujam hadn't said anything but Prithvi could see that he was not as upset as before. He had gone on to give the details of the different rooms in the Eastern zilla office where the pipes were placed.
Coming out of his reverie, Prithvi mused, "Maybe it would be to our advantage if the Eastern zilla head moves into the building as soon as possible."