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Berlin, Germany, 8:15 A.M.

Ladies and gentlemen, the final boarding announcement for flight AI-9875 from Berlin to Madrid, -

leaving at 8:30 A.M sharp. All passengers are requested to proceed to the main flight deck. Thank You.

The uncharacteristically sharp female voice coming out of the speakers did not pose any problems for the

usual passengers, but one person felt differently.

Shit!cursed Heinrich Bohme, as he sped up the escalator towards the main deck. He had woken up late

today, realized halfway that he had forgotten his wallet, and had to wait 20 minutes at the border

agency; - this was as bad a day as it could get for him. If he did not reach the passage within 5 minutes,

his flight to Bucharest would leave another bad scolding from his boss awaited. As he ran at full speed,

he had a sinking feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with indigestion. Im not gonna make it,

damn it! the voice inside him kept on saying, but he didnt stop. He screamed to the lady at the door

Waitup!..

She was going to close the main door, and no matter how fast he ran, he was NOT going to get on that

flight.

He stopped. Disappointment crept up his veins. He turned back, and started a long trot back home.

BAAAAAAAAAMMMMM! ..

The room exploded in front of him. He was thrown off balance, and hit a luggage trolley. Seething, he

woke up and saw a terrible sight through the looking glass...the passengers of THAT flight...AI-9875...all

in a bloody heap, strewn over the marble floor leading up to the plane connector.

God, hell.You are one merciful guy! exclaimed Heinrich as he came out of the airport that day,

bruised but miraculously..safe.

May be his day was not going very badly after all.

London, United Kingdom.

My day starts like any other normal, carefree person on this stupid Earth. Yes, I have job satisfaction.

Yes, my family (if you call it a family!) loves my work. Yes, I earn loads. But no, I am neither a technology

analyst at a major software firm, nor a high-flying doctor at one of those big hospitals down the Thames,

nor one of those tycoons at a Fleet Street firm(this is London, here people dont give a crap about someforlorn place called Wall Street..).

Now, before you start having some misconceptions, I am NOT a criminal. I DO NOT earn my money by

illegitimate means. But you definitely got closer to guessing my profession. Yes, I AM NOT a criminal; its

my job to catch them. Not petty ghetto lads looking to earn a quick buck by stealing small-time things.

Its their bosses who are my concern - Big-time mafia guys looking to conquer the world, or huge drug

dealers, or international masterminds of crime.

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Youre getting bored, right? Well, to set things straight, I work at Interpol.

In case you havent heard the name, its theINTERnational criminal POLice organization. All the bad

guys in this world are scared to their teeth of us. AND I report to the biggest bosses of them all the

director, at 37 Wood Street!

Yes, obviously I work at London. What do you expect, flying all the way to their headquarters at Lyons

and back every single day?

Anyway, it is becoming quite a tiresome narrative even at this stage. Well, the names Jake. Jake

Malhotra. Well, I know youre wondering what type of an idiotic combination of two completely

oxymoronic letters. Jake and Malhotra! My moms a Brit, and much to the displeasure of my

grandparents, totally out spoke Dad to give me a nice, British name. I am the so-called hybrid of two

grand nations. Whatever, enough of my matters, lets get into it.

..

All of this started one fine Monday, a typical rainy day in central London. Its almost never that you wake

up one morning and get a clear, sunny sky here.

The clock read 8:30, which probably meant I would be late for office now THAT I cannot afford.

Coming down the staircase, I dont even hear a word from the kitchen weird! There should be a

womans voice cursing the utensils right nowrelax, its my elder sister. What did you think?

Jennifer Malhotra. Shortened to jenny by me and j by a particularly nasty creation of God (Ill come

to that later.) Works at some upstate IT firm at Westminster, and is particularly smug about it. Both of

us earn truckloads, and as our parents stay at Edinburgh, we have nothing to worry about getting home

late at night. But again, only for work. If you like playing around and partying all night long, we are not

your type. But hey, we arent exactly misers, alright? We like living it up, so do come to our place and

see how its like. You will be impressed, even against your will!

Anyway, she should have been there cooking breakfast; instead she shuts herself up in her room full of

crap. I cursed myself silently and then, at the top of my voice, the war cry: Sis! Where the HELL are

you? No response. This was weirder. I went up to her room, two voices coming from inside one of

them a mans. Now this really stumped me! My sister is never the invite-a-guy-to-your-place-all-night

type. For that matter, she hates almost all guys, me included. My heart in my mouth, I opened the

doorand guess what! No guy! Of course, it all became clear to me after a few seconds. She was talking

to someone on Skype, seeing whom I always curse myself.

So j, as I was saying, you should cancel.Hey Jackie! Buried neck-deep in criminal crap, arent you

dude? Chris Walker crackled through the laptops speakers. Oh, I hated this guy. Chris is, as you

intelligent jocks very well know by now, Jennys boyfriend. From the moment she said yes to him, her

lifes deteriorated according to me. Chris may be an MIT grad, and may be working at Apple, but hes

not my siss type. Mom and Dad approve, but I dont, and thats final. What was an intelligent, good

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looking, cultured girl doing with a cow like him? Well no one listens to me here so I might as well keep

my mouth shut...

Its Jake, I said bitterly, as I resolved to go out of this room and never come back. Chris made some

stupid wink which my sister caught, and kissed the gluey laptop screen, Oh! Hes such a sweetie! Hes

on the flight to Madrid, you know, from Berlin. Some big HR work.

Yeah, good for you Chris, was all I could muster, while I swore under my breath and escaped.

To the drawing room, I switched on the TV and got some cereal, as Jenny was having the laptop screen

for breakfast. My habit is to go to the news channels first, and thats what I did. The extra-busty anchor

was blurting out, Huge bomb blast at Berlin airport today at 8:30 AM. An estimated 120 people have

died, including almost all on flight AI-9875 from Berlin to Madrid and some in the airport itself. Flights to

Madrid and Gibraltar have been affected as well I didnt wait for what was to come. All I remember

was that I ran to Jennys room as fast as I could, pushed my sister out of the way, and shouted, Chris,

are you alright?Yeah, hale and hearty! Why should I not be? Dude, there aint no hijackers on

board..Ha-ha, laughed Chris andJenny joined in as well. No, listen there was a blast at the Berlin

airport just when your plane left.. Is everything ok? Didnt you hear anything? Well, there was a noise

down below, but I didnt think it wasdear god! Is it serious?

Very, I said as I trudged out of the room, a giddy sense of relief running down my body. It was a part of

my job to see people safe, and I didnt hate him that much to want him dead either. At least, not then.

I listened to the entire news broadcast, and the more I listened, the more terrible it became. Only ONE

person from the flight had survived that blast, some German guy called Bohme. It was surely a terror

plot, but the location and precise detonation of the bomb was still a mystery. For that, I needed to go to

work.