Carver - By Tom Cain Page 0,112

and more than a billion dollars buying controlling shares in a number of fast-growing Indian computer companies. In every case, he hid his presence behind a web of shell corporations, even if the decisions about which businesses to buy were entirely his. He then created a holding company named after its apparent major shareholder, a hitherto-unknown entrepreneur called Ashok Bandekar. Even if he personally remained a mystery to the Indian media – a mystery made all the more intriguing by titbits of gossip about his past and present activities that were released into the blogosphere on a regular basis, and invariably then picked up by the conventional print media – Bandekar’s company looked like a typical success story of the new, modern India.

So when the police and security service operatives assigned to cover the Zorn Global launch discovered that Bandekar Technologies had hired the Wax Chandlers’ Hall for three days they saw no obvious cause for alarm. The company itself checked out. The executives invited for interviews by the headhunting company all appeared to be genuine: UK citizens with no criminal records and impressive CVs. The security men who met the interviewees at the front door and checked their identities before letting them in all came from a reputable firm that only hired individuals with spotless records. The receptionist who then made sure that the new arrivals were comfortable while they waited to meet Mr Bandekar had an equally respectable background. And every one of those individuals sincerely believed that they were involved in legitimate business with Bandekar Technologies.

Two anti-terrorist officers, accompanied by a sniffer dog, arrived at the hall and were greeted by Bandekar’s aide Sanjay Sengupta and a member of the hall staff, both of whom were highly cooperative. The officers had no reason to know that Sengupta did not actually exist: his identity had only ever been a cover for Ahmad Razzaq. They were shown through the many areas of the building that were not in use. They saw the conference room where the interviewees waited before their appointments. A series of display panels had been set up there, presumably to impress the prospective executives with the scale and ambition of the company they were seeking to join. Each panel proclaimed a different aspect of Bandekar Technologies’ activities. A Perspex case in the middle of the room contained an architect’s model of the corporate campus planned for a site outside Milton Keynes – the symbol of Ashok Bandekar’s commitment to his European operations. A lighting rig on lightweight trusses illuminated the whole set-up. (The flight-cases in which the lights and all the display materials had been transported to the hall were neatly piled in one of the unused rooms.) At the end of the room a door led into a smaller office, suitable for private meetings like the ones Bandekar was currently conducting.

The officers were told they would have to wait for a few minutes before they could see Bandekar himself. He did not wish any of his interviews to be interrupted since that would be unfair to the candidate he was meeting at the time. But it was not long before the office door opened and a well-groomed young businessman in an expensive suit strode out, giving the small group waiting outside a confident, snowy-toothed smile as he passed. A few seconds later, Bandekar himself emerged. He was a large man, whose substantial girth was carried as elegantly as only the finest Savile Row tailoring can manage.

‘Come in, gentlemen, come in!’ he insisted. ‘Have you been offered drinks? Some snacks, perhaps? We have excellent chocolate biscuits.’ He patted his paunch. ‘Too excellent, perhaps, for my good. Now what can I do for you?’

The officers explained that this was purely a routine check. Their dog panted happily, far more interested in the chocolate biscuits that its nose had detected the moment it walked in the conference room, than in any explosives. It hadn’t had the faintest whiff of those. A couple of minutes later, the officers and their dog were gone, escorted out by the hall staffer.

‘Well done,’ said Ahmad Razzaq to the semi-retired Bollywood actor playing the part of Ashok Bandekar. ‘You’re doing well.’

‘Maybe I should stay as Mr Bandekar,’ the actor replied. ‘I’ve spent so long talking about his business I actually think I could run it now.’

Razzaq laughed politely. ‘No, that won’t be necessary. Just another day, and then you’ll be done.’

He left the office and approached the receptionist at her desk. ‘You may