Val del Charco del Agua Amarga: cabras- ciervos- toro- jabalí

Sebastian walked out of the room.

Maithili tucked in her blouse and adjusted her hair. She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief and walked back to the chair. Agastya wanted to apologize to her but wasn’t sure how to go about it. He was overcome with a mix of emotions for her, but then held himself back and didn’t want to fall prey to weakness or compassion. He wanted to ease out the situation and decided to focus on more pressing problems.

There was a sudden rush of blood as it occurred to him that he may have come up with something that could turn the situation around. The enemy had blinked. They were now taking notice and had realized that he and Nitin were the only persons who could quash any further countermoves by Stark. Agastya anticipated that there was more to come and he would have to go for the jugular to make it imperative for the competition to take notice.

Alliance was falling at a mellow rate and had breached the ₹428 mark, and not as quickly as he had hoped for. On a normal day, that would have been a commendable collapse. He also realized that he needed sufficient time for Mukund to cover and close his position. With under fifteen minutes of trading time left, he knew that he had undertaken an extremely high risk route by banking everything he had on just two stocks.

Spectra had however moved swiftly from ₹897 to ₹892. If it kept its pace, it would reach the target ₹880-mark in time for the kill. He wondered if he should have placed more on Spectra and diverted some of the funds from Alliance instead.

He messaged Mukund. ‘Need some more leverage…pls.’ There was no response.

‘M! How do you fancy giving me some money for a few minutes?’ ‘You must be out of your mind!’

‘No rules about that, right?’ She shrugged.

Agastya dialled Prem Mehra’s number as he watched Maithili retreat to the conference room.

A deep voice responded, ‘Yes, who is this?’ ‘It’s Agastya from BCL. Can we speak?’

The silence hung between them. Agastya pushed on.

‘Prem, I have your long term interests in mind when I make this call. A minute of your time?’

‘Tell me.’

‘You’ve been struggling in New Delhi.’ ‘I don’t follow.’

‘Your situation can be possibly influenced!’ ‘What situation?’

under the circumstances.

‘Your factories have been awaiting environmental clearances, right?’ ‘Yes. That is in the public domain.’

Agastya was struggling with words. He didn’t have the luxury of time and neither the inclination to be politically correct.

‘There may be an opportunity to expedite some of those clearances.’

Agastya realized that Prem’s ego and the deep rooted rivalry between both the organizations, given the present circumstances, were making this conversation more difficult than usual.

‘As simple as that?’

‘Not simple by any means! We would need to have an understanding though.’ ‘Let me think about it, Agastya.’

Prem disconnected the call.

Agastya wasn’t sure if he had made sufficient impact. He was certain that Vikram would have had a more immediate and possibly slightly warmer conversation.

He called up Mark.

‘What about the press conference?’ ‘We are going ahead with it.’

‘This is insane,’ Agastya thought to himself.

‘The press is going to lynch us. Let’s just do a press release and go ahead.’

‘I know what you’re thinking, Agastya, but I am in conversation with the board on the matter.’

‘We don’t have the time, Mark. There are too many things that we need to finalize and rollout.’

He wanted to mention to Mark that in the absence of a senior manager, the ability of the organization to take decisions was severely impaired.

‘I’ve been granted executive powers by the board to take decisions, under the circumstances.’

It was as if Mark had read his mind.

‘I’ve spoken with Nitin as well. I’m going to be banking on both of you through this situation.’

‘I understand, Mark. Just let me know what we can do.’

‘Agastya, there have been rumours about your connection with Sailesh.’

Agastya didn’t respond, wanting to mention instead his golfing association with the CMO of Stark.

‘Agastya! Are you there?’ ‘Yes, Mark.’

‘You need to pull something off on this one.’ ‘Mark, I would need some resources to influence the situation.’

Mark remained silent for a couple of seconds. He could hear him tapping away at the keyboard.

‘Agastya. You’ll need to give me some more time on the promotional discount offer.’ ‘But…’

‘And what are these resources you are referring to?’ ‘Some funds for market development,’ Agastya blurted. An excruciating silence followed.

‘I can’t have any further scandals, Agastya.’ While his words suggested otherwise, Agastya sensed consent in his tone. ‘I understand, Mark.’

‘Good!’ Mark laughed and disconnected.

Agastya scanned his contact list and looked for a name from the BCL Metrics JV directory. He dialled the number and cursed himself for not thinking of this earlier.

‘Hi, Agastya.’ They had interacted briefly a couple of weeks earlier in a meeting for the product launch. Rakesh Srivastava was the operational head at the BCL Metrics JV and managed the logistics for the BCL account. He had been in the transportation and logistics business through his career, having worked in several Indian companies, before taking the plunge into the ‘funny MNC set up,’ as he termed it.

‘Hi, Rakesh. Got a minute?’

‘Can’t say that I do. Nitin has been breathing down my neck trying to re-dispatch and reroute stocks because of this distributor mess that we are in.’

‘I can understand. But this is critical.’ ‘Tell me…’

‘How’re your friends at Mahesh Roadways?’

Mahesh Roadways was the largest trucking partner for Stark and handled over 70 per cent of their supply chain from the factories to the warehouses and C&F agents across the country.

‘They remain friends. Why?’

‘Are they still facing payment issues?’ ‘From Stark, yes! But why do you ask?’

‘You were in talks with them to come over and work with you. Right?’ ‘Yes, it’s been in the pipeline for a while now.’

‘Push it.’ ‘What?’

‘Make it worth their while…’ ‘I don’t get you.’

‘How much, Rakesh? You would understand that right?’

‘I spoke with them even yesterday. I needed some help with the new launch, additional volumes.’

Agastya was getting irritated with the unnecessary conversation. ‘How much, Rakesh?’

‘They’ve got over 7 crores stuck with Stark for a while now, and it’s only growing. It didn’t help when they got wind of the fact that they’re having a chat with us.’

‘So help them out.’ ‘What?’

‘Have you finalized your terms yet?’

‘Yes, that’s been sealed and closed. We’ve got our board approvals as well. Even you know that.’

‘Make a call. Cover them. Do whatever it takes, but they need to stop their trucking operations with Stark.’

Rakesh paused.

‘Have you gone mad?’

‘They need to freeze the Stark truck network. I want a total lockdown.’ ‘That’s over four hundred trucks out there, Agastya.’

‘Let’s just say that their trucks are temporarily indisposed!’ ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’

‘What do you think?’

Rakesh had been trying to close the deal for months, and this was the latitude that he had been seeking from the management team to beat the impasse.

‘Do you have the approval for this? In my previous company your word would have been enough, but here…’

‘It will have to do or come and lynch me. You know where I stay!’ ‘Not as easy as that.’

‘Follow your gut. Make the call, Rakesh, and then call me back.’ Rakesh chuckled.

‘You guys are crazy…’

‘But I need this to happen in the next sixty seconds, you got that?’ Agastya disconnected the call.

He was disappointed with himself and felt he should have pressed harder, but realized that he didn’t want to take Mark’s name in the matter.

He was restless. Maithili was now staring at him again. He could see the mild bruises on her neck . He wanted to walk across, sit beside her and comfort her. It had been a moment of rage and he hadn’t meant for it to happen, but then realized that the moment was gone and