The Message! Part-1

All characters and events depicted in this post are fictional, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely and completely coincidental.

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It was cold December night and there was complete silence all over. Mahesh and Rajneesh had decided to dig the grave, one had pick-axe and other a shovel. It was around 2 in the night, and they had dug 8 feet deep hole. Sometime later when shovel struck the ground it made contact with a metal and produced a sharp sound which echoed in the silence night. This was the sweetest sound they had ever heard. They rejoiced and danced like little kids.

"what do we do?" asked Mahesh

"Obviously take it and run" Rajneesh replied.

"Not so soon boys.." said a third voice.

There stood a fat plump middle aged whiskered fellow, in a khaki uniform looking down the grave smiling sarcastically.

***

Sadashiv had dedicated his entire life to rob banks, people and houses. He had started off as a petty thief, and very soon grew to become one of the biggest and the most evasive robbers of the country. He was never caught. Now lying on his death bed, he called his five sons. They were robbers too.

Sadashiv was always at the peak of his career and amassed a lot of wealth. The time had come to inherit to their sons. But Sadashiv had already told his sons that he would be giving his riches to only one, the one that was better than remaining four.

Every one of them had tried his level best to prove his mettle in the business of robbing. Everyone fared well, which only made it difficult for Sadashiv to decide on one. The old man did the unthinkable. On a piece of paper he wrote a message and passed it to his sons. A minute later, he took his last breath.

The message simply said,

Bob,
I know I’m going to die. Take care of my lucky cat.

Upon reading it, everyone, except the youngest, tore it and threw it away, for it didn’t make any sense to them, and thought that their father had gone crazy during his last days. One of them even vented out his anger: “His lucky cat died 5 years ago, and he wants us to take care of it now? And who the hell is Bob, anyway? Damn the old man.”

In spite of not knowing what the message said, the youngest son kept it. He was the only one who loved and respected his father very much. Ten years from now, the youngest son would be recruiting two young bright boys, and one of them would unfold the mystery of the last message given by the old man.

***

Most of them were sweating. It’s not that the AC wasn’t working, but the heat of tension had subjugated its cooling effect. None of them were in such a predicament before, for such a thing had never happened until then. They looked scared and helpless, but they didn’t look hopeful. They were almost convinced that the help wasn’t coming. The only two people that neither looked scared nor helpless were Mahesh and Rajneesh, because for them, hope lay in what was happening.

The job had to be done flawlessly. If anything went slightly wrong, they would end up in a big trouble and they very well knew it. They were inside the Bank of Baroda – one of the most prestigious banks.

Everyone in the Bank was held at gun point, except for Mahesh and Rajneesh, because they were the ones who held the guns.

15 minutes later, having executed their job perfectly, they were out of the bank. But what surprised the manager of the bank was that they were interested in only one locker, which had a small package. Apart from that they hadn’t taken a single rupee.

***

Shambunath, the leader of the gang was congratulating the young lads who had done the job for him. They were recently recruited and had shown lot of talent.

"So tell me Mahesh, how were you able to find out?" he asked.

Mahesh, an engineering college dropout, had unraveled the mystery of the message that Shambunath had got from his father ten years ago. He was carrying that slip of paper since then.

"well boss, your father was not telling about any lucky cat. But if you look closely some of the letters are italicized"

Shambunath took out the slip of paper once again from his shirt pocket. He had observed the italicized letters of course, but was never able to find out their significance. He observed again, carefully.

The message said:

BOB,
I know I’m going to die. Take care of my lucky CAT.

“Yeah, I know. What about them?”

“The italicized letters are: knooecrl. Right? Now if you just re-arrange those letters you’ll get ‘locker no,’” explained Mahesh.

The boss raised his eyebrows, leaned forward, and said, “Continue.”

“So now what’s the locker no? It’s CAT. It’s in capitals. See that? If you assign a number to each of the 26 alphabets in English, the value of CAT will be 3120. So it’s locker no. 3120.”

“Wow! Why didn’t I get it in all these years?! And the message was addressed to BOB, which of course is Bank of Baroda. I thought Bob was a person.”

He then patted the backs of the young lads and said, “You will be generously rewarded, my boys.”

***

Inspector Rajdeep Singh, lit a cigarette and took a drag.

"We have already told you. There wasn't anything in the package except for a watch and Rs. 2200" Rajneesh said taking out four 500 rupee note and two 100 rupee note.

"fine.. why are you digging then ground then?"

"Its nothing.. Really.."

The inspector butted out his cigarette, jumped into the pit, took the shovel and struck the ground, which again produced a sound. He looked up and stared at the two men. Having demonstrated his animosity towards their lies, he got out of the pit.

“Well, are you going to say what this is is all about? Or do you wish to go to prison?”

***

Mahesh was maddened by the injustice done to him and Rajneesh by their boss. The package they had stolen from the bank had only two things: a gold and diamond studded Patek Philippe watch with 18 complications, which was worth at least Rs. 30 lakhs. Apart from the watch there was Rs. 2200/-

Shambunath had kept the watch and given them Rs. 2200.

“Can’t even buy a decent pair of jeans with this,” Mahesh hollered when they reached home. Rajneesh didn’t try to appease him, as he very well knew it was not going to help.

Mahesh couldn’t sleep and kept on cursing his boss, but something struck him at around one in the night. He woke Rajneesh up.

“I think we have hit the jackpot.”

And when Mahesh explained what he had found out, Rajneesh shouted and screamed and danced and sang and clapped. That very moment they headed towards the grave yard – to dig through their way to riches.

Contd..

The Message! Part-2

Inspector Rajdeep singh was one of the most corrupt officials in the country. He had account of all the robbers in the town but never arrested them. He always used to take share from them, and leave them free giving warning. Word was out that two young men had robbed the bank early in the morning. When he went to the bank and asked around, it became clear to him that the robbers were Mahesh and Rajneesh. Since the moment he had found out, he had placed a constable near their house. When the constable called him up and said that they were headed somewhere in the middle of the night, he had asked him to follow. And now he had them.

"I'm pretty sure boss's father's property is hidden here." said mahesh

"how can you say that?"

"The old man not only wanted his able son to inherit watch, but also all his riches" he said

"But you said, there were only 2200 rupees in the package!" said the inspector baffled by the situation. A moment later he realized Mahesh was talking about the same money.

"I don't understand" said the inspector

Then Rajneesh gave the money to the inspector.

“An address is hidden there – address to here. This graveyard. This very grave,” said Mahesh, stamping his foot on the ground. The inspector crinkled his eyes.

“Hold these 500 rupee notes, and tell me what is NOT common between them.”

“Serial numbers?” asked the inspector.

“Damn right, you are. Serial numbers. I was a bit perplexed in the beginning. Why would the old man keep just Rs. 2200 in a locker? That too 6 mutilated notes! Then it got me thinking. Serial numbers!”

Mahesh paused for a moment and then continued.

“The serial numbers of 500 rupee notes are RST 030821, YST 011404, 4ST 180308 and 1ST 180523. Observe something?”

The inspector shook his head.

Mahesh continued. “Leave the series and observe only the numbers. Assign a letter of English to the first two numbers in each serial number. 03=C, 08=H, and 21=U. Next, 01=A, 14=N, 04=D. Then, 18=R, 03=C, 08=H. And finally, 18=R, 05=E, and 23=W. So, it’s CHU, AND, RCH, and REW. This is the order in which I held the notes. They didn’t make any sense to me then, but later on when I re-arranged them, I got “ANDREW CHURCH.”

“Go on,” said the inspector.

“Well, now observe the series. All the notes have the series ST. So, it has to be St. Andrew’s Church. Now which church exactly? There could be more than one. Now notice the very first letter or alphabet of the series: R, Y, 4 and 1. 1 and 4 give the values A and D. Again re-arrange the letters and you’ll get YARD. Graveyard! This is the only St. Andrew’s Church in the city, which has a graveyard.”

Silence reigned supreme again. None of the three spoke for the next few seconds.

“Phew! That’s some analysis. But how did you find out the exact grave?” asked the inspector.

“Look at those two 100 rupee notes. 0MN 101505 and 0MN 720096. They say MN JOE, 1972-1996. The first digit of the series, which is 0, has no value of course,” Mahesh finished explaining.

This was too much for the inspector to digest.

A minute later they picked up their shovel and pickaxe again, and dug until it became easier for them to lift the big metal box, which was buried for ten years or more.

Everyone took a deep breath and broke open the lock of the box.

“Let’s do it,” said Mahesh, and lifted the lid.

***

They were staring at the contents in mute amazement. There were two other small boxes. And when Mahesh opened them, their hearts skipped a beat. It took them almost 2 minutes to recuperate.

“How much is it worth?” asked Rajneesh, not taking his eyes off the contents.

“Minimum 30,” said the inspector.

“Lakhs?” asked Rajneesh innocently.

The inspector shook his head vigorously and said, “Crores, you moron.”

Finally, they decided to split it. The inspector demanded 50% of the share and got it. Mahesh and Rajneesh argued in the beginning, but they later agreed as they didn’t want to go to prison.

"Now, take your share and run as if you’ve never run before. And remember. Never come back,” said the inspector, packing his ‘precious’ little black bag.

Inspector Rajdeep Singh then turned and wended his way out of the graveyard.

“Damn it, man. Why the hell should he get so much?” Rajneesh was enraged.

“Keep still. We’ll figure out something soon.”

***

Few days later, Inspector Rajdeep Singh's house was robbed. Nothing was taken except that little black bag. The robbers perfectly knew about the bag’s whereabouts, because they had dealt with him many times in the past and knew how to think like him.

The inspector felt a raging thirst to kill the robbers. His ‘precious’ little black bag was gone. But what he didn’t know then was that it was just the beginning.

The next day, LokAyukta, the anti-government corruption organization of Karnataka, raided Inspector Singh's house. To his shock, the officials knew exactly where to search. They went straight to the bathroom, and pulled open the top shelf. And there it was; a small messenger bag, and in it were 20 lakh rupees in cash, a few biscuits of solid gold, and 2 small diamond stones. He was aghast. He hadn’t kept it. But he knew who had set him up. A week later he was given a permanent leave from his job.

***

Exactly one month later, Rajdeep Singh received an anonymous letter. It read:

Dear Singh,

In spite of all the dirty things you’ve done, we still think you deserve something.

So, here’s the code: 84748 843 7263 47283 24246.

Decipher it and get your share. Good luck!

P.S. If you don’t take it within 6 months from today, we’ll retrieve it back.

Yours sincerely,
MR