The Honeybee Conspiracy

Part 38

Chapter 36

The new assignment of Shyam at Andamans was extremely different from his earlier assignment. But money makes a man do anything even if it goes against his liking. He adjusted to the new atmosphere. The owner of the property was a retired naval commander Avtar Singh who was around sixty-six years. He retired from the navy eight years back, sailed a few merchant vessels for a couple of years during which he built the resort. Unlike some retired defense officers who have difficulty adjusting to civilian life, Commander Singh made it really fast. He was a person who was used to getting his way. But though his size was big, standing at 6ft 2inch with a heavy set frame, Shyam realized that they both had a common trait, a big heart and a liking for the bottle.

Apart from the resort, he had a flourishing Deep-sea diving business which was the only privately owned one in Port Blair.

As months went by, Shyam spent a lot of time in the evenings with the Commander who used to tell his old diving stories. In the meantime, Shyam went back to Ahmedabad where he met Sheela's family and laid all the cards on the table. Her family was apprehensive at first, but, as always, he spoke from his heart and they had no other choice but to relent. They got married in a temple at a very simple ceremony. Two days later, they boarded their train to Chennai enroute to Port Blair. As her family was bidding an emotional farewell, crying and hugging her, he was gazing at the six big suitcases and wondering how in the hell he was going to carry them. But he didn't dare have the guts to bring this up. Atleastnot now.

Once they reached Port Blair, Sheela quickly adjusted to her new life and began to love the place as well as her new life. Shyam had no other choice but to continue listening to the Commander's diving experiences, though at times Shyam had wondered if all this were really true or just his imagination running wild fueled by the Blenders Pride Whiskey. It was during one of these sessions, the commander told Shyam of a secret tunnel he had come across the southeast of Cinque Island where the Japanese had previously-stored some of the Gold. By the time Commander Singh left that night, it was around 2 am and he promised he would show Shyam the gold. When he reached home, his ass was on fire from Sheela. He closed his eyes since he couldn't close his ears as she went on and on and on and on.