A Nest of Vipers by Harini Nagendra

Author:Harini Nagendra
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2024-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

19 Unmasking a Traitor

Suman’s horrified eyes met Kaveri’s.

‘What are you saying?’ Kalyan glared at him. ‘Are you accusing me – me? – of being a traitor?’ His voice was savage.

‘Not you,’ Manoj replied. He turned towards the portly man, who stepped back.

‘Him.’ He spat in his direction.

‘Nonsense,’ the short man blustered. ‘What do you mean, I am a spy?’

‘I mean,’ Manoj spoke slowly, deliberately, ‘I mean that I have not seen you here before.’

‘So what? It is my first time here. I admit it freely. But I am not a traitor. There are many others who must be new too.’ The man looked around the room, his shrill voice calming a little, looking at the nodding faces. ‘There are always new people at these meetings.’

‘There are some new people,’ the man in the centre of the room said, in a mocking tone. ‘You are very clever to say so. But then,’ his voice grew louder, ‘why did you say that we have not yet reached a conclusion? How do you know what we decided on in previous meetings? I have not seen you before, and I have not heard of you before. I say that you are a spy, trying to egg us on to violence, so that you can then have a reason to arrest us.’

The crowd looked around in alarm. A group of men stood up, moving threateningly towards the portly man.

He took a few assured steps away from the crowd before bending down and taking a gun from a concealed holster tied to his calf. Hidden in his baggy pants, no one had realised he carried a weapon. The people sitting closest to him screeched, moving back to get out of the line of fire. With surprising agility, he manoeuvred himself to the centre of the room, grabbing hold of Kalyan. Before Kalyan could react, the man had shoved his arms behind his back, snapping handcuffs on him with his right hand while holding the revolver against his forehead with his left. ‘I’m from the government. And you – you are under arrest.’

The portly man pulled Kalyan, waving his revolver wildly. Just then an owl hooted, three times.

‘Venu’s signal. The police are here,’ Suman hissed into her ear. ‘Run.’

Loud thuds told them that someone was trying to break down the door, which must have been bolted after the meeting began. The man with the silver bell rushed towards the wall at one side of the room, pushing back a wooden bookcase to reveal another door. Throwing the bell aside, he fumbled at his belt until he’d detached an ornate iron key from it and quickly unlocked the door, ushering people through. They formed an orderly queue, placing the women and older people at the head, urging them to move out first as the able-bodied younger men took up the rear.

Kaveri saw the portly man still trying to pull Kalyan towards the entrance as he dug his feet into the floor, resisting the man’s grip. People streamed past them, heedless of their fight in their eagerness to escape.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.