Hiding behind the car, Naren took out two small recorders that could be hidden and along with that, helped the others to listen to the conversation from a safe distance.
"Here, these are now activated. Now go on and talk with him. We'll be here to listen." he said, nodding at Pratap who was ready, waiting with the connected mobiles in his hand. Ishar and Aniket hid the recorders in the front pockets, looked at each other solemnly, and slowly went to go talk with Nivedhan.
"Excuse me, mister…?" Ishar started.
"Nivedhan Iyer." grunted the man.
"Mr. Iyer, we want to go out on a journey, tour the sea, if you know what I mean."
Ishar winked at Nivedhan to make it more believable.
Nivedhan laughed. "Now, we only accept legal things with a fair amount of price. What's your label?".
Aniket looked at Nivedhan with a challenging look, then smirked and said, "You want to know our label? Here it is."
He held up his army badge and showed it to the trader. Nivedhan's face dropped instantly and turned into a panicked look.
"I-I'm sorry. They gave me a lot of money. They threatened me with tales of blackmail and dread. If you want I can-",
Aniket interrupted his rambling. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked.
"T-they didn't tell me their names, but I can assure you they were some big people. They told me to take them out to the sea, to cooperate and I would be safe and earn lots of money in my account. And if not…well they said if I didn't help them then death would seem like a sweet thing."
'Wow', Ishar thought, 'they really didn't even try to convince him for help. Direct blackmail? Now that's a sure sign of a bad guy'.
Instantly Ishar got an idea. He took out his phone, scrolled through some pics and then showed two photos to Nivedhan. They were of Khurana and Gujar.
"Were these the two men that came to you?"