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..