Chapter Four The Twelfth Man
Chapter Four
The Twelfth Man
The telephone rang before dawn. Hasan ignored it, shutting his eyes harder and putting his pillow over his head to muffle the awful metallic shrieking.
A soft bang echoed through the hall as Zeyar opened his door and shuffled out to the living room.
He spoke softly, his words dampened by the wall and the pillow that Hasan still held pressed to his ear.
Zeyar burst into his room a moment later, ripping the pillow off Hasan’s head. “Get up,” he said. “Our ship was raided last night.”
Zeyar might as well have doused him in a bucket of ice water. He sat up immediately, his back ramrod straight. “What about Paranjay?”
“I don’t know,” Zeyar said, his face pale. “Raman said it was better to discuss in person.”
An hour later, Hasan and Zeyar had convened in a shabby, unremarkable office, “Devar Brothers Shipping Co.” printed on the awning in faded red letters.
Dawn light filtered in through the slats covering the windows, illuminating those in attendance: the Devars’ most trusted subordinates.
First, there were Kaushal and Jayendhra, two of their cousins, from their paternal and maternal sides, respectively.
While Kaushal didn’t attach too much importance to their blood ties, Jayendhra was relentless, constantly pushing to be favored over the others.
Hasan regretted the day he’d let his mother talk him into promoting him, but the deed was done.
Then there was Raman, a gruff, dark-skinned man who’d lost his left hand in an accident at an automotive manufacturing plant.
Though the Welkish company that owned the factory made more money on each car than most Virians would make in a decade, it refused to pay him restitution, and the authorities claimed they could do nothing to compel payment.
Raman had joined the gang shortly after to pay his hospital bills and make ends meet.
He sat beside Vinay, one of his oldest gang members, and the man who had helped Hasan on the Darsh Jana job.
Hasan hadn’t chosen him just for the wisdom that came with his age.
By day, Vinay worked as an innocuous rickshaw driver, making him privy to the secrets of streets where Hasan was too conspicuous to go.
The only one better at spying than Vinay was Samina, who was the most recent one to be promoted to middleman.
She had joined the gang with her half brother after burning down their orphanage.
Despite her petite size, a by-product of childhood malnutrition, she was a force to be reckoned with and had clawed her way up the ranks quickly.
Last to arrive was Harithi, a tall, dark-skinned woman with sharp hazel eyes who took no shit and could do a whole lot of harm.
Much like Samina, she’d joined the gang to provide for her younger siblings—but unlike Samina, she refused to speak about them at all, putting up an iron wall whenever asked.
These were the middlemen, all of them daivyakt, managing their own crew of Hasan’s spies and collecting money from most of his debtors, save for the slippery few like Darsh, who required personal home visits from the Jackal.
They were the only people in the city privy to the brothers’ entire operation.
“What are we doing here?” Hasan demanded.
Zeyar tilted his head at Raman, giving him permission to speak.
“I received intel from one of my spies this morning,” Raman announced. “The Rohini II was raided, late last night. Her crew was taken into police custody at the main precinct, and even now they are being transported to the city jail.”
The room might have fallen silent. It might have erupted into pandemonium.
Hasan would never know, because his ears began ringing as though he’d been flung from an exploding building.
Paranjay, arrested? It couldn’t be. They needed him.
Hasan needed him. His throat tightened as he tried to picture his brother’s last moments as a free man.
A raid. That meant police officers, pistols and nightsticks, and insatiable egos.
Undoubtedly, Paranjay would have fought, which meant that the police would have retaliated.
Hasan’s fists tightened, unease and rage brewing inside him.
“Who was leading the raid?” Zeyar asked. Though his expression was blank and his posture unchanged, Hasan could tell that his brother was just as disturbed as he was.
Still, he couldn’t curb the venom in his voice as he said, “Do you have to ask? There’s only one squadron of the Marnapur police you haven’t been able to bribe.”
“The same squadron you insist on antagonizing, you mean?” Zeyar fired back, eyes blazing.
“Wait.” Samina’s soft voice interrupted them. “Let Raman finish. Is there any more information?”
Raman sighed, pressing his lips together.
“My man says that the crew was outnumbered, at least three to one. Perhaps they suspected some of the crew were daivyakt and prepared accordingly. Most of the ship’s crew tried to dive into the water and swim away, but the pigs had nets, and reinforcements came by motorboat to round up the rest. The spy counted eleven men taken into custody. ”
“Eleven?” Hasan sat upright. “Paranjay’s crew numbers twelve, including himself. Where’s the last man?”
“My team is looking,” Raman said. Turning to the other middlemen, he added, “It’s likely that whoever escaped will be injured.
The officers brought guns with them, and my spy says shots were fired.
Tell your crews to keep an eye out for healers’ dens.
The man won’t risk visiting a hospital—not when he knows police are looking for him. ”
While Raman spoke, Hasan glanced over his head to the back of the room, where Zeyar leaned against the wall, lips pressed into a grim line. He lifted his scarred brow in a mirror of Hasan’s expression. Both knew the same thing: If Paranjay was the twelfth man, he’d have already come home.
“The twelfth man will turn up.” Hasan fought to keep his voice even. “We have eyes all over the city. But we need to come up with a plan to rescue the other eleven.”
“I’ll put some funds together,” Zeyar said.
“Are you fucking serious?” Hasan stared at him. “You know Montrose can’t be bribed. He’s the reason we’re in this mess.”
“Perhaps Montrose and his inner circle can’t be bribed,” Jayendhra said, “but I seriously doubt that not one man guarding those cells would be impervious to a little windfall.”
Hasan shot his cousin a glare, but before he could respond, Vinay asked, “Where do you intend to get the funds? We can afford ransom for two men, maybe three. But eleven?”
For a moment, Zeyar looked startled. His lips parted soundlessly, as though he hadn’t considered the logistics, but Hasan knew him better than that.
Zeyar never spoke without running some sort of cost-benefit analysis, calculating the return on investment of each word before he said it.
His brother hadn’t failed to do the math on his bribery scheme.
He’d made his calculations with only one target in mind: Paranjay.
“What’s the alternative?” Kaushal retorted, saving Zeyar from having to respond. “Attack the police headquarters?”
“Why not?” Hasan said. “If we gather all our fighters, we could overwhelm them.”
“They have advanced weapons,” Zeyar objected.
“We have daivyakhi.”
Zeyar shook his head. “Only the daivyakt. The vasudhakt make up the bulk of our numbers, and they have neither magic nor weaponry. It would be a bloodbath.”
“Attacking the precinct is not only risky,” Harithi said, speaking for the first time, “but it will ruin our relationship with all of the police officers, including the ones who currently tolerate our operations. Right now, there is no evidence that we have daivyakt among us. A full display of divine power would ensure none of them work with us again.”
“Thank you,” Zeyar said.
“Your idea is preposterous too,” Harithi informed him coolly, tossing her black braid over her back.
“We could have the funds to ransom fifty men, and it still wouldn’t work.
Why? We’re not bailing out one of our brawlers who got into an ill-advised spat.
We’re talking about a notorious drug smuggler and his crew, individuals who are connected to the infamous Jackal, who is a suspected heretic to boot.
Montrose would hang the man who cost him such a prize.
Even if the guards are not handpicked by him, there is no amount of money you could pay them to stick their necks out like that. ”
“Everyone has a price.” Zeyar stared Harithi down.
She held his gaze, unflinching. “Not everyone.”
Hasan cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the tension that had filled the room.
“Okay,” he said. “Since we can’t come to an agreement, here’s what we’ll do.
Everyone is to alert their network and ask them if they’ve seen anything suspicious.
Harithi, Raman, I need you to coordinate moving our remaining opium stores to our storehouses in the countryside.
Jayendhra, Kaushal, you’ll work with Zeyar to check whose debts are coming up soon.
See if you can collect early—chip off some interest if you must. Samina, Vinay, I need you to observe the police station.
I want to know about the guards, their loyalties, how many officers are in the building—any information that could help us if we were to attack. Questions?”
No one spoke. Hasan nodded. “Okay. We’ll regroup once we have more information. Dismissed.”
His crew leaders shuffled out of the room without enthusiasm. Hasan couldn’t blame them. The gang had suffered a heavy blow, and instead of making a united counterattack, they couldn’t agree on a plan of action. They’d have one soon, he swore.