8:00 PM, Forest around Tada Falls, Border of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh  The wail of the sirens pierced the air and echoed eerily in the depths of the forest. The single road was lined on both sides with tall dark trees and the visibility beyond the trees was very poor. The forest seemed to be wearing a robe that was haunting in an unnerving manner. Commissioner of Police, Daniel Raj fidgeted impatiently in the front passenger seat of his government-issued jeep that was leading a group of police vehicles racing on the highway towards the spot indicated by the local police patrol.  The call had come exactly when Daniel was about to have his dinner that he eats at 7:00 PM come what may. He had always been a stickler for time and today was no exception. But the information that had been relayed to him by the Assistant Commissioner made him skip dinner, don his uniform, and into the jeep in under 10 minutes flat. From the city to Tada Falls was a good 90-minute drive even with the sirens blaring. During the first 15 minutes of the ride, Daniel made various calls to the head of forensics, the head of the crime branch, and the CM’s Chief Secretary. While this was a police matter and he wanted to keep the issue under wraps, the Chief Minister had to be informed that the State’s Health Minister, senior health and education department officials, and a few other government officers were lying either unconscious or in a state of delirium in the middle of the forest. Why were they at that place? What was the cause of their current state? Daniel resolved to get to the bottom of this and ordered his driver to drive faster as he heard the siren of the ambulances as well. He was glad medical help was close as well.   8:00 AM 12 hours ago - Chennai to Tada Highway  “This is quite a surprise outing. I was very excited we were invited too.” stated number 7 one of the occupants of the luxury RV that was assigned to transport the members to a retreat at the Tada Forest. “I am also expecting a big payday as part of the retreat for all the work that we have done over the years.” said number 6 from the back. “We have 2 to 10 here. Where are the others?” asked number 3.  “I spoke to the chief’s secretary, Jack. We have 2 to 10 in the vehicle here. Jack, Queen, and King are coming by another car. And Ace would join us later” said number 5. “Ace is a nice code for the health minister. He is our ace in the hole” said someone and everyone laughed.  “The whole point of having these codes and referring us only by these codes in any project is to protect our identity. Please don’t call anyone by their names or designations during the retreat.” cautioned number 2 and the rest nodded. The RV was loaded with beer and other varieties of liquor. The driver’s cabin was separated from the rear with soundproof partitions and hence the conversations flowed generously along with the alcohol. This group has been together long. They were in various government departments and various ranks. They did multiple jobs together for money and the payment was split based on the job done and the value of their signature on the files that needed their stamp of approval. A corrupt bunch and a proud one at that.  “This last assignment wasn’t easy. There were watchful eyes in the department as this was a proposal that many of them did not like. It was seen as a regressive approach that would be against the majority of the people. To move the files along and bring it to the current stage was a challenge.” said 3. “The task isn’t complete yet. There are still steps to close and hurdles to cross. So don’t count the eggs before they hatch.” said 8. “Jack and Queen are super confident which am sure they are deriving from King himself. And Ace has never let us down. Not this loyal bunch who has been with him forever. So let’s count the eggs, hatched or not.” said 3 laughing. “Jack said the retreat is where the final terms of the deal are going to be sorted out. Let the bigwigs worry about the finer terms and conditions. I am here to have fun and get to know how many zeros are going to be in my share.” said 9. 9:30 AM 11 hours ago – Health Minister’s residence “Where is King? Very unlikely of him to be late.” Jack was worried as he was aware and had been at the receiving end of many a diatribe from the health minister of the state who didn’t like unknowns. “Stop worrying. King would be here soon. We are nearing the big day. This is the biggest job we have done. The payout is expected to be huge and the entire team is licking their lips in anticipation. Guess we can all settle for life after this.” replied Queen which did little to calm Jack’s nerves.  Jack has been the principal secretary to the health minister since the time he was a ward councillor. Over the last 20 years, his loyalty and dedication had brought him up the ranks as the Ace moved from councillor to MLA to minister now. It does matter which wagon we hitch onto. Jack’s motivation in life was money and he liked to live life king size which needed a lot of money. He made sure the right files and proposals moved along resulting in the right pay for the group.  He heard the stairs creak slightly and knew the minister was on his way down to the office. All appointments for the day had been cancelled. The information given out was that the minister was in a top-secret strategy discussion for the full day, while he was going to the retreat to close the biggest deal of the decade. Jack had cleverly designed a way out of the official residence with none of the security detail noticing. The minister had used this route many times to get out of the house for his escapades. He would use this route today as well to head to the retreat. He didn’t want the public to know that their beloved leader was heading to the forest in Tada selling their future for this benefit.  The minister stormed into the office and plonked on his seat. He looked up and saw Jack and Queen standing in front of him. He looked at Queen and asked, “Is everything set?” Jack interrupted “It is 9:30 AM and time for your morning dose of medicines. Please take that before you do anything else, sir.” The minister took the medicines, popped them in his mouth washed them down with water. Go on, he gestured to Queen with his hands.    “All good, sir. The group left an hour ago for Tada. The retreat would start with fun and frolic which the team has been looking forward to. We shall start in an hour and reach there by noon. Post-lunch is when the key details of the deal would be discussed and finalised. This is followed by a lavish cocktail dinner and then we head back.” replied the Queen. Ace turned to Jack and just raised his eyebrows and the floodgates opened as expected. “The group has left, but King isn’t here yet. He is the one who brought the deal. He is needed for the negotiations, and he is not reachable. We are going to the forest without the security detail. I am a little worried.” Ace laughed. “You have been with me 20 years and yet to act like you don’t know me. King isn’t here yet because he is carrying out a recce of the retreat location as we speak. We aren’t taking the official security detail, but nothing would happen that’s not in my control. I may be a health minister today, but you would remember what I started as. So relax Jack.” Jack instantly calmed. The minister has such an effect on him. If Ace said all was going to be alright, he wasn’t going to doubt or question it. King is already doing the recce of the location. What can go wrong at all now, thought Jack. Everything, as Jack would realise in a few hours. 9:30 AM Forest around Tada Falls King was moving around the area marked for the retreat in a calm and calculated manner. If the Ace had trusted him to do the recce, he would do it to the best of his ability. King was always suspicious of the current client they were dealing with. Something about it sounded fishy, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The clients were rolling in money is what they could make out, but where they got it from remained a mystery. He looked at the entry and exit points, the permitter fencing, every part of the building which was an old fort renovated as a resort, and the grounds where the party would be held. He was satisfied things were under control. He took out his phone and texted “All ok … plan on”. 10:30 AM Forest around Tada Falls The RV screeched to a halt and the occupants in various stages of inebriation stepped out. King wasn’t happy at this sight. He would have wanted them to be sober till lunch. While these were a capable bunch of cleverly corrupt officials, their behaviour under the influence of alcohol left a lot to be desired. He directed the host manager to assign them to a separate party hall and keep them there. He didn’t want them interrupting the negotiation discussions when Ace was here.  Numbers 2 to 10 were in a world of their own oblivious of the surroundings. The location, arrangements, food, and drinks seemed to be to their satisfaction. They were expecting to leave with a fat amount and that added to their boisterous behaviour. They were directed to a party hall, where more liquor, conversation, jokes, and banter continued. Meanwhile, the car ferrying Ace along with Queen and Jack was heading towards the destination. Everyone was quiet as they knew Ace was relaxing for the long day ahead.  12:00 Noon Lunch-hall at the Location As soon as Ace’s car reached the location, King sprinted and opened the door. He then directed the group to the lunch hall where a lavish spread was laid out. Numbers 2 to 10 were also ushered into the lunchroom, and they all touched Ace’s feet before taking their place around the table.  Ace addressed them “My Dear team, while am the minister for the state, I don’t work for them. I work only for the people in the room. I get you rich and I get richer. We have money, power, and the entire state’s machinery at our beck and call. What more do we need?” “Nothing much sir.” said a voice from around the table.  “Fool. We need more. We all need more. For you all, it is about money and position. For me it is power. The power of being the CM of the state. That’s what am working towards. That’s my goal. Stay by my side and you shall be rewarded well.” roared Ace and everyone applauded.  Lunch commenced and it was a buffet with no servers to ensure privacy. The group helped themselves to the sumptuous food and drink on offer. There was fun and laughter all around. Everyone was having a good time except King. While outwardly he was having fun, he confided in Queen that he felt something was off. Such an important meeting and how could the clients not be here yet was causing him concern. Queen reassured him that all would be well and that he knew better not to increase Ace’s blood pressure by voicing such concerns. 2:00 PM The conference room for the Negotiations Post lunch, Ace was seated in the middle seat on one side of the table. Flanking him were King and Queen on either side and Jack was seated beside Queen. The host manager had directed them to the conference room.  He stated “Dear Sirs and madam, welcome to this heritage property. The whole property has been booked by your clients as they had insisted on total privacy. As you can see, there is very little staff on duty today and the kitchen has been closed as well. All the food that you ate was prepared in a nearby village and delivered here. You would have the place all to yourself with no hindrance from the staff. I would make myself as inconspicuous as possible and would appear the moment you might need me.” “Where are the clients who booked this meeting?” bellowed Ace. He wasn’t used to arriving first to any meeting. People always waited for him and not vice versa. “They have done all bookings online, sir. All their instructions came via email and phone. We are expecting them to arrive any minute.” said the manager unfazed by the bellowing voice of Ace.  “Where are our people?” asked King  “They are right next door in the party hall, sir. There is only a wall separating the conference room and party hall.” said the manager and left the room. They all settled down to wait. After a prolonged silence, Jack said in a very timid voice “Sir, it is time for the afternoon dose of medicines that you need to take at 2:30 PM. Else…..”. He stopped the sentence halfway as he saw the minister glaring at him. He cowered in fear and shut his mouth.  Ace got up from his chair stating “I am done with this meeting. I can’t be disrespected like this. I am getting out of here and the clients can forget the deal.” As he said these last words, his speech slurred, and he could feel his vision dim. He slouched back in his seat and looked at why the others hadn’t rushed to his help. Queen had her head on the table and looked unconscious. Jack had gotten halfway to him and was now sprawled across a chair on the opposite side. His last vision was of King trying to cover his nose with a handkerchief to prevent blacking out, but his efforts seemed to be in vain. Ace tried to call out to King, but no words came out of his mouth and then he blacked out. 5:00 PM The conference room for the Negotiations Ace stirred slightly and tried to open his eyes. His head was throbbing with severe pain. He opened his eyes a little and looked around. His mind took time to register the scene. He remembered the heritage resort, the conference room, and the client who didn’t come. He didn’t remember why he was sleeping in the conference room chair. As he looked at the others, he realised they were waking up from a deep sleep as well. All of us couldn’t have slept during a meeting, thought Ace. He was sure they had been drugged.  King asked if everyone was okay, and they all nodded their heads meekly. King got up with great effort, walked to the door, and turned the knob. The knob didn’t move. He twisted it again and pulled hard. Still nothing. “The door is locked. Someone has locked us in.” stated King and an eerie silence enveloped the room as the reality dawned on them.  King assessed the situation and said “No other guests are at the property as it has been completely booked for us. Less staff across the property. The kitchen is closed too which means no chef and other cooks. No one in the outer world knows we are here. Our group is also split into two and we are separated by sound-proof walls. This has taken some genius planning to get us into this situation.”  “The drivers of the RV and our car are here.” said Queen.  “When we were at lunch, I was looking outside a window and saw the RV and car drive away. I guessed they were going for refuelling or to the nearby village for food as the kitchen is closed here. But going by the situation, maybe they have been sent away too.” King opined. “You can slice and dice the situation till the cows come home. Now find a way to get me out of here.” Ace was panicking.  King opened his mouth to calm down when a voice came across the speaker in the room “Calm down Mr. Minister. Such panic isn’t good for your blood pressure considering you had declined the medicines offered by Jack.”  There was shock all around. These code names were known only to the group. To hear it from an unknown voice was nerve-racking.  “Sit down now.” ordered the voice from the speaker and they all obliged. The lights dimmed and the TV in the room turned on. They adjusted their eyes to the image on the screen and it was a feed from a camera in the adjoining room. They could sense shock on the faces of numbers 2 to 10, and they guessed the same voice had come over the speaker in the other room too. They were staring straight at them, and King realised, there was a TV and web camera in the other room as well. There was immediate hullaballoo as they saw the four members in the other room with the same shocked expression.  “Silence” the voice ordered, and everyone sat quietly. “You can see the doors to your rooms are locked and you are trapped here. No one in the world knows you are here, and no one is coming to save you. You pride yourself on working together like a pack of cards. Ace, King, Queen, Jack, right up to number 2. 13 cards for 13 people working as a team for only selfish motives. Money, power, assets, that’s all you all care about, the people be damned, the system be damned.”  “You worked together very well like a pack of cards, but the 13 of you forgot the one important card that can change the game. The one important card that means luck. The one card everyone covets and the one card that can become any of you.” King who had his head bowed murmured “Joker…” “That card is the Joker.” the voice said and the image on the TV screen showed a Joker card. “I am that Joker, and I am here to change the game. No, I am here to end the game.”   “I am the minister of the state. I have the state’s machinery at my disposal. I would find you and I would end your game before you can end mine. What is this childish game of locking doors? Come face-to-face if you are a man and let us settle this.” said Ace at the TV screen and speakers with all the strength he could muster.   “Who said I am a man? I could be a woman or even a child. Anyone’s voice can be transformed using AI to sound like anyone. Don’t make these empty threats. You are in my control now. Sit down and listen.” Ace obeyed and sat down as he knew he didn’t have any choice. “You have all been knocked out for 3 hours due to a gas pumped in through the AC vent. I wanted you to experience what breathing bad or polluted air meant. The concentration was strong and hence you got knocked out, but inhaling this over a long period would mean permanent damage to lungs and other health issues.”  “This is what you cause to our cluster of villages due to the many factories you approved in the surroundings without any care for pollution or our health. You took money from the industrialists and lobbyists and signed the files without any long-term thinking. Our people, our cattle, our health, our livelihood – everything was impacted. But the last straw was 6 years ago when our school children got impacted due to severely bad chemicals in the air and chemical waste getting mixed up in the drinking water.” “Do you know what happened to the school children? No, because none of you cared. We went to all your offices, we pleaded with you, and we gave requests. but it all fell on deaf ears. Health, Education, Pollution control every one of you who is the key person in that department were nonchalant to our pleas. Remember the Pudhumaiyur school case. That’s the one I am referring to.” “12 children died on a single day. That’s when a few of the youth in those villages got together and vowed to take revenge on all of you. The plan has been in motion for 6 years now. It took a lot of planning and money which was pooled in by the villagers who gave every rupee they had saved. At last, today is the day. You are all going to die.” “As you have already noticed, your cell phone will not work due to the signal jammers. So you can’t call for help. All you can do is just await your fate. It is 6 PM now. I would give you 90 minutes of despair when you await your certain death. Live the life of a common man and his fear for 90 minutes.” Then the voice went silent. Pandemonium broke out in the rooms. Everyone was scared, worried, and pinning blame on each other.  “Silenceeeeee” King shouted, and both the rooms came to order. “As this was a fort and these are important rooms, I am sure there should be some trap doors which would have been used by the occupants to flee from enemy attack. We just need to find the trap door and we can escape.” Everyone ran about the rooms feeling the walls and floors. King was giving instructions on what to look for and where to look. After about 40 minutes, the conference room trap door was found by King under the carpet that was pinned to the floor. He opened the trap door and found stairs.   “You saved us King!” said Ace, Jack, and Queen and started to go down the stairs. King stopped them “We don’t know what else they might have planned down there. So wait till we find the door in the other room too and then we can go together.” So they waited as King walked to the television set and gave instructions to the other room. It took another 20 minutes before they found a door behind a big portrait. The door opened quite easily, and King instructed them to calmly exit. As the groups filed through their exits, then came to a narrow passageway that intersected and the two groups met. There were hugs all around and everyone was crying. King asked them to keep moving forward. As they went through the winding pathway, a strong odour started to emanate. “It is poisonous gas I am sure”, shouted Queen and everyone started running. But the gas was too strong, that a few felt light in the head, and some found it difficult to walk. After a few minutes, King found the exit and they all tumbled out panting and gasping for breath.  “We are out at last.” shouted Jack. “Who are they messing with? We are invincible” he continued. But his voice was slurring. Everyone was feeling they were about to faint. All they heard was King’s words as he said “I have network signal on my phone. I am going to call the local police.” No one cared about privacy anymore. They cared about living and about being saved.  7:00 PM The Heritage Resort  Local police arrived and found the members almost unconscious or in various stages of confusion. They quickly relayed the information to the control room who passed on the information to the commissioner of police. They also requested ambulance services from nearby areas and waited for help to arrive.  8:00 PM The Heritage Resort On reaching the destination, Daniel Raj alighted from his jeep and rushed to the minister who was lying on the ground. He was conscious but his speech was slurring. Some of the others were unconscious. He counted 12 people and shouted directions to his team. 6 ambulances arrived and the medical personnel jumped out with first aid kids. They carried oxygen cylinders with masks and put them on the nose of everyone as first aid. They were checking everyone’s vitals.  The medical personnel were rushing back and forth to the ambulances to get medical kits and other things necessary. Daniel was also overseeing his team entering the resort and checking for the troublemakers. There was commotion all around. A few minutes later he turned and saw all the medical personnel missing. The masks were on the faces of those on the ground and the ambulances were standing, but the medics were gone.  As Daniel opened his mouth to shout, a voice came over the speaker. “This is the Joker speaking. The 12 people lying on the ground are the most corrupt politicians and officials who deserve to die. They are responsible for the deaths of 12 school children 6 years ago and this is our revenge. You would find the details of all their crimes in the kitchen of this resort labelled by date, time, and extent of involvement. It took us 6 years of laborious effort to collect these and plan our revenge. Mr. Commissioner, I am sure you have noticed the medical personnel missing. And you might have guessed, it wasn’t oxygen in those cylinders, but poisonous gas. You can’t save them now. They deserve this end. Let the next words they hear be their last”  The voice continued, “There were 13 people who came to the party, but only 12 are dying here. Where is the 13th person you might wonder? Sometimes in life, not everything that you see is as you see, not everyone you meet is the person they say they are. In a game of cards, the Joker is so powerful that sometimes the Joker is the ‘King’!      The voice went silent, and everyone stood dumbfounded as Ace let out one last cry of anguish as the truth dawned on him. Then it was eerily silent, with only the sirens from the vehicles echoing in the night.   Penmancy gets a small share of every purchase you make through these links, and every little helps us continue bringing you the reads you love!