Brutal Read Free Page B

constructed, its outer walls were glowing in the sun like white-hot sheets of iron. He was standing about twenty meters from the building. From his place, the structure gave him the feel of a multi-level parking lot, with staircases crisscrossing the façade and open corridors running parallel on every floor.
    “So, that’s it,” Dilip muttered, relieving his shoulder of the heavy camera. “He’s gone and we are done.”
    “How good is your footage?” Prakash asked, drumming his fingers over the camera.
    “Not good at all. Thanks to the unruly crowd, I only have a hazy and shaky shot of Nitin getting inside the court building.”
    “No close-ups?”
    “Nope.” Dilip shook his head. “I guess we will have to make do by interviewing a few protestors,” he said. “Most of the reporters are doing the same.”
    Prakash thought for a minute. He wanted to do something better than chasing protestors for sound bites. He turned his eyes towards the court building, looking at people walking on the open corridors. He had an idea.
    “Do you know which floor will the hearing take place?” he asked Dilip.
    “Second floor, I think.”
    “So Nitin will soon walk across the second floor corridor. Won’t he?”
    “Only if they use the stairs and not a lift.”
    “There are at least ten armed policemen accompanying Nitin. I doubt they would suffocate themselves in a lift.”
    “So what do you want me to do? Record while Nitin walks across the corridor?”
    “Yes. Do you remember the landmark photograph of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre?
    Dilip frowned. “I…. think I know. The photo showed a Palestinian terrorist wearing a black mask and looking down from the balcony, isn’t it? It was a scary image.”
    “Yes! How about taking such a photo?”
    Dilip pondered over his point for a moment and then said, “Even if you’re wrong and Nitin doesn’t walk across the corridor, there’s no harm in trying.” He raised the camera up his shoulder again. “We will have to move to the back to get a full view of the second floor.”
    Prakash followed him as he walked backwards. They stopped at a point about 50 meters away from the building.
    It had been a couple of minutes since Nitin and his captors had entered the court building. Prakash had a hunch that they would cross the corridor on the second floor in a few moments.
    “Ready!” Prakash whispered. “They should be on your screen in seconds.”
    After a few tense moments of waiting, Dilip raved, “We got our man! ... Buddy, you are getting back your old form.”
    But Prakash still had to wait for five seconds or so before he could see Nitin’s moving figure crossing the corridor. A group of policemen were herding him towards the courtroom with unusual urgency. In a few moments, the sociopath would have vanished from his view to face retribution for his crime.
    But that was not to be.
    Something terrible happened the very next moment. Nitin’s head burst like a water balloon, his body collapsing on the floor and disappearing from Prakash’s view. Holy shit! Just half a second later, a loud boom, like the sound of a firecracker, reached the reporter’s ears.
    His heart started thumping furiously. In a second, he realized what had just happened. Nitin had been shot by someone. A sniper, was it a sniper? Oh my God!
    He ducked instinctively. It was Banka, all over again. Around him, people were crouching and kneeling all over the ground, gripping their heads in their hands.
    Dilip, also on all fours, whispered with a shaky voice, “It… it came from that building.” He was pointing at an eleven-storied apartment about a kilometre away. There was no other building in the vicinity.
    After a few of minutes of standing dazed, the policemen started rushing towards the apartment building. Journalists followed suit, to cover what was going to be one hell of a breaking story.
    Prakash first hesitated. But his reporter’s instincts got the better of him. He too ran