Jai Sahu's first raid in Thakurapada was a wild one. But he had made a move unnecessarily too quick to get a trace of the Alpen. That day - the fourth of January - opened a dark chapter for Sahu's unit.

It was nothing new for the Alpen's henchmen to have their boss demanding for solitude. Being an Alpen was indeed enjoying a post of honour. In fact, Alpen in itself seemed a different unit rather than being a part of a syndicate. Hence, the work load on an Alpen was always immeasurable. Therefore, an Alpen had always found a moment of soothe in solitude - a moment meant only for him. But this time, this solitude meant something far from its usual meaning. This time, he had asked his men to leave as he could never think to risk their lives. Those men had always been something he had seen as his children. He would die, but would never let that fate go for them.

"The way's clear," whispered an officer to his troop which had come in their khakhi uniform which had a bulletproof cheetah-coat covering their chests.

Saying that the whisper was audible to the Alpen would be wrong. But that did not matter. The Alpen knew the troop was around. A few men sent by a new ACP named Jai Sahu were already there in his premises. He was currently slouched on a couch while trimming his fingernails with a blade.

The officer in lead had taken his position. He had thought it to be a lucky hunt for not having any of the Alpen's men in the way. He knew that bringing down the Alpen would make a progressive leap in the smuggling case that held the mirrors of the ugliest crimes in the state.

An impressive plan was laid out. All the men in the crew were standing in a way strategic enough to muddle even the underworlders with the greatest of intellect. After all, a formation ordered by Jai Sahu was made for the encounter. Sahu was not himself there for the raid, as he had set out to bust the stock of jaggery that was next in queue to be smuggled. Hence, he had sent the men with the most promising records in his unit.

Knowing all the moves that had to be made and the ones that had to be avoided, the officer took his step into the room where he had expected to see the Alpen. Even before he could whirl to get a glance of the couch, a blade went smoothly through his pharynx and he fell down on his shoulders.

The other policemen froze with their pistols raised towards their fallen leader. They waited for their target to make the first assault.

Meanwhile, the Alpen stood patiently with the blood-scummed blade he held. He was waiting for the men to make their first move. But they did not. He waited and counted seconds. Finally, when his countings got annoying enough to not end, he threw the blade on one of the policemen. The blade got stabbed straight onto the middle of the man's chest. All the policemen flashed their gazes towards the stabbed one, and this got the Alpen the time he needed. He bolted towards the policeman nearest to him, tangled his elbow against that of the policeman and pushed the man's hands towards his own chest to hear a satisfying crack of the elbow bone. In no time, the Alpen got his finger's hold on the trigger of the policeman with the broken elbow and shot twice on his forehead. The blood that flooded worked as motivation to proceed. As the policemen whirled towards the Alpen to realise what had just happened within two seconds. The Alpen fired straight either on the chests or on the foreheads of the policemen in front of him. After six shots, he ran out of bullets. But without wasting a moment, he threw the pistol straight on the gun-holding fist of one of the men in front of him. As the pistol flew away from the grip of the policeman, the Alpen kicked on the chest of an officer on his right and rushed to catch the gun. As he got the gun's hold, he shot at the chest of the man he had snatched the gun from and did the same with the one he had kicked on chest. Now, he stood silently and whirled around to get a view of the dead men laid across the corridor. He could hear more footsteps approaching. More men to die for the day.

[6 JANUARY, 1998]

Unlike a wounded tiger, a wounded lamb counts for nothing. That lamb was Soorya Nath Mohapatra. He stood rigid in front of the building that bore the ugly title of G.U.D on the top. The last few days had been something one would never want to acknowledge in their life. Soorya's life had become a show of puppetry. Strings had been tied all around him. He was currently entangled by all the possible foces of conscience. For the worst, he had already seen a dead man who he had never expected to see in such state in his life.

A day ago, before leaving for Cuttack again, he had told his villagers that he had a urgent work in the district and the next time he would come back, he would have his father with him. But a little did they know that Soorya's truth had a riddle engulfed in his words. He would come back with his father, but that would be with his father's corpse.

"So you are here, my lad," came a voice from behind.

Soorya turned. His head still pained terribly while doing that. There was he. Gaja Unnat Das. The one who knew the answers to the questions that Soorya sought to learn. Soorya had to trust this guy. Or at least he had to pretend to be doing so.

While Das expected a nod from the young man standing in front of him, Soorya used his time in whirling around and examining the place.

'Every new man does that,' Das thought, maintaining his smile. He walked closer to Soorya and said, "Let me give you a glance of this job."

Ten minutes later, Soorya found himself walking up a corridor in the G.U.D building with the only man he feared for now. Das kept telling him about the regulations that Soorya had to abide to while working. The world that Soorya was entering was an abode of scum. He could see busy men all around. Some weighing guns to load upon a carrier, while others pushed trolleys full of gud. Every possible soul that Soorya could listen to talked in a language of curses. But this was not what this young man found a matter of irritation. He was, for now, a man on mission. His life had challenged him to seek for some brutal answers. He did not even know what had happened to his father's body. But all he wished to know had to be in grave. For the punishment for daring in the syndicate was simply death.

Enough to annoy Das, Soorya interrupted, "Can I get my father's body?"

Gaja Unnat Das now completely turned towards him, and an eerie glare replaced his decent smile. With no hint to Soorya, he fished out a revolver from his black coat's inner pocket. Soorya's eyes went wide in horror. But soon, Das' action took an unpredictable turn as he aimed his gun a little above Soorya's head... and shot. Soorya felt a jerk and he bent down in horror. 

A scream came audible which soon got followed by a thud. Everyone stopped and stared at the man who had fallen from the stairs above. Soorya too, after garnering enough courage to open his eyes, turned towards the man who became the victim of Das' gunshot. The shot man lay motionless on the white tiled floor of the corridor. The man's blood had flooded the region around his head. A great crowd had gathered around him by now.

In a few minutes, two men in black clothes appeared from the end of the corridor with a thick wooden slab which was six-by-four feet in size. They neared the dead man and crested him upon the slab. Then in no time, they started walking back in the direction they had come from.

"Go," Das said, seeking Soorya's attention, "follow the dead and you shall get your answer."

Soorya gave a stunned look, clearly taken aback by the man's sense of answering.

'Death is merely an obvious act,' Soorya thought to himself, while walking just behind the two men in black and the corpse, 'What a man shall never be able to predict is the act after death.'

Jagannath Mohapatra's death had brought life to these unexpected chain of series. And very soon, these events would bring up a man to the throne who would facilitate the biggest crimes in the smuggling history.

The men had come to the end of a corridor far away from the one where Soorya was asked to follow them. The two men motioned Soorya to stop at a distance. He obeyed. Then the men wrapped their gamchha (an Indian cloth used to wrap around some parts of the body) around their mouth and nose. Soorya crossed his eye-brows at this. Soon, as the men opened the wide door stuck to the wall at the end of the corridor, Soorya got overwhelmed with awe and cringe. He cringed to the aweful rotten smell that was already there, but had taken up a menacing rate by now. He let his jaw fall down in awe as he saw the hall that the recently opened door welcomed was full of blood, flesh and rotting human bodies being consumed by flies, cocroaches, ants, mice and other terrible pests.  Not a single inch on the floor was available to walk. The two men in black walked, stepping upon the rotting corpses to throw the man who had recently died among them.

Soorya still had his eyes opened wide in horror. The worst feeling was that now he knew that his father's body had also become a victim to this heinous act of inhumanity.