87 Big Haul (2)

Thomas was shocked that his boss could go wrong. He had been with this person for three weeks since his original boss 'Aditya' directed him here. Aditya had said that this person was his senior and was more powerful than him. This fact was proved on the very first day when this person defeated twenty people at once unarmed.

Thomas felt that his boss 'Rudra' had muscles of steel and bones of cast iron when he was personally punched in his stomach before fainting with the pain. He had seen his boss break blocks of cement barehanded during training sessions which further strengthened his doubts. They were a total of twenty people with good potential, that Aditya had sent to 'Rudra' for further training. the attributes that Aditya desired were 'openmindedness', 'a team spirit', 'persistence' and a certain level of stubbornness.

These twenty people were literally punched into submission by Rudra. Also, Thomas felt that his new boss had a wide knowledge of a human body. His boss could cause a person excruciating pain without having the other person to even lose hair like how those heroes in old movies used the 'Martial Art of Marma' or those Chinese 'kungfu' movies.

His boss had a wonderful massage technique also. Any person who outlasted every other member during the hardcore training got the chance to be massaged by the boss. Whoever experienced the massage once would never forget the feeling. Thomas was one of the elites who won two such chances. It practically felt like your muscles were floating in the air while your bones felt soft like jelly. All his nerves had felt like they were immersed in warm water as they relaxed.

His boss had not been wrong in the last two raids where they caught drugs, cigarettes and mobile phones. They had taken the mobile phones and left the rest for the police. His boss did not like dealing with drugs. This was one of the things that Thomas liked about him as Thomas's father was a victim of drug addiction and had died in his young age leaving Thomas along with his mother to struggle a lot. Therefore, Thomas was averse to drug dealing.

Aditya took a look at Thomas and stood as he walked towards the back of the truck. A crunching sound could be heard as he walked over dried eucalyptus leaves covering the ground. He held the cigarette in his mouth as he looked at boxes of padlocks and the idols as he recalled all the information on smuggling that he had studied in the past weeks.

Aditya had hacked into the servers of 'Directorate of Revenue Intelligence' (the apex anti-smuggling agency of India. It is tasked with detecting and curbing smuggling of contraband, including drug trafficking and illicit international trade in wildlife as well as environmentally sensitive items) in the last month to study about smuggling and also gather intelligence about smuggling gangs and their routes of trafficking.

Actually, each of the raids that Aditya was making was already marked by these officials to raid but before the officials could catch these people, Aditya went a step ahead to see if these smuggled goods had anything of value to him. In the last two raids, there were mostly drugs which he did not plan on taking so he left the evidence on the scene along with the culprits for the police to catch. But Aditya felt that today's haul was going to be major.

Aditya's eyes lit up after he examined these things for a while, his lips curved as he looked at Thomas and asked for a pen. He took the pen, held the padlock firmly in his other hand as he slipped the nib into a small pinhole and applied pressure perpendicularly. A click sound was followed as a small component of the lock detached itself and fell in Aditya's hand.

Thomas's mouth opened wide open when he saw this component. This was not a metal coated in yellow paint, this was pure gold. It had been attached to the lock and painted in the same paint so that no one could recognize it. Thomas mind went blank when he saw the cases filled with locks in front of him. He felt like he was looking at a gold mountain. He looked at his boss with shiny eyes as he asked, "Boss, what are those cartridges?" he felt that since these padlocks were not as simple as they seemed, the same must be true to those cartridges.

"That's nothing, most probably it is black cocaine formed by adding Cocaine with cobalt and ferric chloride so as to remove its characteristic smell. It will regain its true form after dissolving it in solvents like acetone," Aditya paused as he looked at the blank face of Thomas as he added, "Those are drugs."

Thomas nodded as he became busy with directing people to unload these cases and load them into their truck. He made sure by scanning these cases with a 'bug detector' so that they were no electronic gadgets attached to these cases as his boss said that the people behind this smuggling might get to know their location through 'some technology'.

Aditya was not serious about it but was using these opportunities to teach caution to these people. As Aditya was about to return to their truck, he stopped as he looked at the far end wall of the truck. He walked around the truck a little with slightly wrinkled brows before going into the trailer itself. He felt around the wall with his hands and knocked a little to hear the sounds.

Aditya's eyes narrowed as he asked Thomas to demolish the wall. He noticed that the length of the trailer and space inside did not match up. His suspicion was proven right as Thomas had some people removed an artificial wall to reveal a small space. Aditya;'s pupils shrunk when he saw the contents while gasps could be heard from people around.

There were all kinds of guns and ammunition in this space. Aditya could identify a lot of European and Soviet models of handguns, rifles and there was even a sniper rifle with a box of ammo.

Aditya's mouth curved a little as threw the cigarette bud and muttered, "nice." He could already see the eyes of his followers shining as he looked at these weapons. They started loading these weapons also into their truck without anyone's orders.

After some time, everyone had finished with their jobs. As Aditya and Thomas were about to climb into their truck while Giri started the vehicle, the driver who was now tied along with others cried as he pleaded, "please, leave me, I am married and have a wife waiting for me at home, my second son is about to go to school. Do not spoil that child's future."

Aditya's pupils shook a little when he heard these words but immediately became firm as he glanced at the driver once before climbing. Thomas stopped as he turned to face the driver when he heard these words and walked towards the driver.

Thomas looked in the driver's eyes which were filled with entreaty and a sliver a hope. He raised his hand and gave a brutal slap to the driver which almost knocked him out as he said through gritted teeth, "Do you know how many families would be affected because of these drugs which you are smuggling? Do those families not count? Shouldn't those children study like your son?"

The driver lost his hope as he shouted angrily, "Even if I don't do it, someone else will. This will not stop."

"Well at least, you would have been there for your son, watching him grow, taking care of him even if he had to go to a sub-par school. Now enjoy serving many years of jail time away from your family. In the future, when your son comes to visit you in the jail, tell him that you were ready to spoil the happiness of many families just so he could go to a good school and see if he agrees with you." Thomas spat on the ground as he walked away. After he got into the truck and the truck moved, Aditya looked deeply at Thomas once before looking away.