INCUBATING..............TERROR

(The story so far: After the mysterious murder of 4 young girls,  ACP Jadav plans a new strategy where one of his officer Sherya is placed as a glamour girls Preity, looking for a break in the movie. But unaware to him  one year back itself the same criminals had made an entire DNA department of 17 scientists vanish in thin air)

The Fish : It was three days since the Preity Agarwal and her friends started travelling by train making up a noisy bunch attracting everyone’s attention by talking about movies, chances in getting role in TV and their auditions etc.. On the fourth day as per their plan a young girl, well built, tall, boarded from Andheri who had a distinct foreign looks. Preity could see that this girl’s attention was all the time fixed on her. Very next station she purposely bumped against Preity and excusing herself started a conversation with her calling herself as Sheena.

 Sheena became Preity’s best friend by promising her a lead role in her uncle’s film. She gave some foreign chocolates every day to Preity which she pretended to eat but pocketed in her purse. On the fifth day of their meeting, after a few minutes of eating the chocolate ritual, Sheena asked her i she was feeling ok. Preity got the message. In a few minutes, she suddenly doubled, complaining about strong pangs of pain. Sheena helped her to visit the nearby doctor who was her own aunt. The Doctor checked her, gave her medicine and asked her to come after one week for follow up saying that she had a crop of dangerous cysts in her uterus.

 Jadav sat in his office had got the exact location of the said doctor’s clinic, from the computer chip placed inside Preity’s wrist by the surgeon. Jadav decided to raid the doctor’s nursing home when Preity was inside the clinic so that they could collect enough evidence against the criminals. The so-called doctor’s clinic was in a narrow lane, crowded with shops and hawkers on the footpath. Hence, they decided to wait in the tail end of the lane, where the lane joined the broad highway.

As planned Preity pretending to be very ill was helped out of the Auto by Sheena into the clinic. As she collapsed panting at the very first chair, Sheena rushed in to inform the doctor. Immediately Preity picked her phone and dialed ACP’s number and said, “Sir we are almost there” As she was talking, suddenly, it started pouring heavily. Along with a bunch of people climbing up the steps for shelter a middle-aged woman too came up and spotted Preity. She stared at her and then running towards her she shrieked, “Sherya madam? You have quite the police job, Madam? You look so different now. You look like a movie star!”

This unexpected turn shocked Preity for a second, but immediately collecting her cool she managed to look calm and with a deliberate, surprised expression, she giggled like a teenager and said, “Police? You have mistaken me for someone else I think. I am a TV actress, and my name is Preity Agarwal. You could have seen me in one of the serials, where I acted as police women”On the other end of the line, Jadhav was hearing this conversation and jumping up he muttered in desperation “Oh God How did the devil of this lady identify Sherya?”

Back in the nursing room as the confused woman walked away Preity got up and looked around. Luckily, no one had noticed what had happened just now. Sighing with relief she quickly moved to the inner side of the reception, and started talking again, “Uncle, How funny! Some silly aunty thought I was ….” Before she could finish her sentence, something, very hard, hit her on the head. Instantly she collapsed and the cell phone flew from her hand.

 Jadhav, still on the open end of the phone, heard the low moan of Preity and called out desperately “Hello, Hello Preity?” There was no reply. But he could still hear the background noises. He heard a lot of footsteps moving around and a rough voice said “Give her an injection quickly. Make it a double dose. If she is really a police dog, then it has to be strong.” More noises, chairs being dragged. Then someone stepped on the phone and crushed it deliberately with the shoes….and then all noises ended.

Jadav started running to his car screaming frantically, “Our officer is in danger! Quick! We have to move fast.” Others followed the suit. Even though they were waiting very close to the nursing home, just at the end of the road, the jammed traffic and swarms of people walking around made it impossible to move. After six minutes when they did reach, the clinic it was closed with the rolling shutters.

 Jadav looked around desperately. A small curious crowd had already gathered. He asked one man standing close by. “Did you see anyone leaving the clinic?” The man answered “Yes Sir. Five minutes back a bleeding patient on a stretcher was moved in an ambulance. A nurse and a doctor also got into the ambulance. Then the clinic was shut down.”

Jadav ordered his men to break open the shutter, and they moved into the nursing room. One hour of painful search lead to nothing. Everything was wiped off clean. There was not even a single scrap of paper as evidence or any fingerprint. Preity’s brutally crushed phone was the only evidence left there.

Back at his station, Jadav opened his PC and logged into the application of the special software chip inserted in Sherya’s hand. For some queer reason, he was not able to get any signal from the chip. He called up the technical section, which provided the electronic chip. They were also surprised, that the chip had stopped tracking. The expert said, “Sir, it is very, very unusual Sir that the chip fails to send a signal. The only possibility is, I am very sorry to tell you, that the officer might have been injured very badly, and the chip got …disconnected from the body. I am very, very sorry sir”Jadav collapsed in his chair. He felt a deeply hurt and guilty. He muttered, “Poor girl. So young! Foolish of me to risk her life” He cursed himself. He sat in the station itself wide awake in his chair until two thirty and later fell into a disturbed sleep.

 A sharp, beep, beep noise, made him jump up. He rubbed his eyes and tried to find the source of the beep. He saw the green dot of a signal from the chip, moving on the screen of his laptop. The signal was now moving very slowly. Thanking God, he started punched keys of a laptop in a hurry and got the India map on the back of the signal. He zoomed at the point of the blinking green dot.  He found Sherya’s signal was moving somewhere at the border of Karnataka   (to be continued next week)