"What is it this time? " asked a sober Suriya, his voice not calm anymore.

"That's not a polite way to receive a call my friend! At least not from a man like you! " replied DOT.

"You should already know this by now,  I'm immune to your ill timed calls. Maybe that's why. " Suriya shot back.

"Well you seem to be in the mood now, don't you? " asked DOT with a sarcastic tone. 

"Yeah I'm totally in the mood. Now what's your problem? " asked Suriya. He grew restless as the conversation flowed. Perhaps thats exactly what DOT wanted.

"Whoa! Such a hot head, huh? I am surprised man! You need to calm down. Anyways if I'm the reason for you getting tensed then I'm pleased of my ability to turn the calmest of investigators into a freak. Hahaha " DOT laughed off.

Conceding his defeat, Suriya struggled to control his rage. Being a think before you blurt guy, Suriya didn't show his rage in his voice but he wasn't calm as he used to be.

"You haven't told the reason for calling me now." Suriya reminded his nemesis.

"Oh yeah! How can I forget it? Okay now for the reason I called you.. Last time I warned about the two boys, right? Now it appears one of them is dead! Boom!..  You didn't take me seriously and now you've got to pay for it! Let's see if you can save the other guy from meeting his maker. And for spicing things up, I'm going to meet you real soon! Get ready my friend! Until then its sayonara! " DOT finished the call.

Suriya was feeling really low at that moment. Tears filled up his eyes and he, for the first time in his life, felt useless. He never believed in the concept of fate but now he literally begged it to be merciful.

His fingers fumbled to even hold  his mobile phone let alone dial Chezhiyan's number.
Somehow he managed to do it but he felt disappointed once again as Chezhiyan's mobile phone was switched off.

Fear slowly crept him. It was almost as if the whole world was breaking open just because it could engulf him up. He didn't bother calling Chezhiyan again.

He just drove by his instinct and went for his motor bike. Without even informing the Police station, he drove down the empty road.

It wasn't Chezhiyan's house that he was headed to.

Instead it was Ameer's.

-------

Chezhiyan felt slightly relieved on seeing his friend alive but he couldn't trust this Arul.

Arul had openly mentioned that he just needs them to reach the DOT. Chezhiyan was checking out the possible ways in which they could be used to reach DOT.

His heart began to pound heavily as he realized that they both could be killed just after Arul gets to DOT.
He tried to focus on the escape route.

All thoughts lead to only one end - Suriya. He began forging a plan to involve Suriya in this.

Meanwhile Ameer was still in shock and he was worried about his father. He clearly remembered the encounter with Arul earlier in his house.

As he opened the door, anxious about his dad who went to find out who it was at the door, he saw a gun pointed to his head held by a man in a biker's mask. Within a flash the masked man pressed the trigger of the gun and a slight prick similar to that of an electric shock arose in his mid neck. That's all he could remember after which it went all black.

Some sort of drowsiness was felt by Ameer which made him fear for his life. He didn't even have the courage to talk to Chezhiyan.

Both the boys shot a glance at each other while the other person was not looking.

At the steering wheel, Arul sat driving the car down the road into the Harbour staff quarters. He tried to fight back his emotions and he somehow managed to just achieve that.

He felt bad for his friend Subbu. Though he didn't like Subbu very much because of his feelings for him, he wanted to find out whether Subbu died to protect him.

All was well between the two until Subbu brought DOT along. Arul was the first one to agree to DOT's request, not knowing where it would lead him.

He thought that somewhere watching all of this was the evasive DOT, who had managed to get out of any plot to reveal his face.
After all that was the first and important condition under which they agreed to work.

Initially marveled at the vast resources of DOT, Arul wanted to get settled under him but that thought didn't last long as just after he killed a politician, he understood that DOT doesn't have any personal gain from the murders.
It was pretty much clear to him that DOT has something far more big to achieve and these murders were just a means to get the attention of some sort of enemy.

Arul parked the car just adjacent to the railway track present inside the Harbour Quarters. Not many other than the residents of the quarters know of its existence.
It was a perfect place to carry out his plan and Arul wasted no time in executing it.

-------

Suriya resisted any negative thoughts. He was about a few blocks away from Ameer's house when he felt something was wrong.

He remembered that the exact moment before he received the call from DOT, when he saw the spot where Sathya and his killer were seen dead, Kumaresan was nowhere to be found in or around the station.
This added fuel to the reason for Kumaresan's phone being not reachable.

This thought popped up in Suriya's mind as he received a text message in his mobile phone stating that Kumaresan was available to call, which meant that he could actually call him.

Having reached Ameer's house he decided to call him just after ensuring the safety of both the boys.

The main door was left ajar.

He climbed the the stairs and reached the house. It was locked outside.
His hands trembled  slightly as he unlocked it.

He expected to see Ameer dead in the house but to his surprise it was a middle-aged man sprawled on the floor. He guessed that it was Ameer's father.

On examing the  Suriya found that he was still breathing. He tried waking him up but nothing materialized.

He then called for help from the station and went searching the place for Ameer.

After some minutes he came back and again tried to revive Ameer's dad.
This time he found a piece of paper kept in his shirt pocket.

It held a mobile number and asked the person finding it to call that number.

Suriya didn't hesitate once to call the number mentioned in the paper.

After a couple of rings the call connected. The person on the other end began talking without wasting a moment.

"Hello, The boy you are searching for is now safe with me and I want you to listen calmly to me. "

The voice seemed to come from a cultured drunk man who could be of the same age as Suriya.
The person had an unusual aura that was vaguely familiar to Suriya.

"Who are you? And why have you kidnapped Ameer? " asked Suriya.

"I told you to listen. Is that clear? " the person demanded.

"Fine " said Suriya.

"Good" came the reply... 

To be continued!.