The morning sunrays peeped through the tiny
space between the curtains covering the window and fell on the face of Nicolai
to awake him from his sleep. Last night was a disaster as he drank too much at
his boss' farewell party and he was having a hell of a hangover. With effort
enough to lift a 1000 pound weight, he tried lifting his eye lids which were
too heavy to be lifted. Once he failed, but on the next attempt he somewhat succeeded
in lifting them to see the time. As he saw the time with his half open eye lids,
they opened completely as if someone has
taken that weight off from them. The alarm went off two hours ago and he was
late for work. He jumped from the bed and rushed towards the bathroom to take a
quick shower. He reached his office about three and a half hours late. His new
boss was there in his cabin and he welcomed Nicolai with sarcasm in his speech
and told him not to repeat this again or else he might lose his job. Nicolai
understood that life was pretty soon going to become hell.
He sat on his desk and started working on
pending files when someone called him," Sergeant Nicolai?". He lifted
his head from the file only to see a beautiful woman in her mid forties staring
at him. He said," Yes madam, tell me what can I do for you?". The
woman sat infront of him on the chair and started to tell her problem," My
husband is missing. His name is John Winstead and he works for the legal
services. It's been more than 48 hours and I haven't heard from him. He never
does that. Whenever he goes anywhere he calls me, but this time he had not done
that. It's very unlikely of him. Also his phone is unreachable. So I thought
something is not right and came here." and tears started rolling from her
eyes. Nicolai tried to calm her down and told her not to worry. He asked
her," Did you call his office?" She replied," Yes, they told
that he left the office on his usual time only but he didn't come back
home." Nicolai replied," We will find him. Please give your husband's
details to that man sitting there everything that can help us find him. You can
go home and relax, we will contact you as soon as we know anything about
him." She gives all the details and left the police station. Nicolai asked
the person who noted all the details- officer Harris to find out what was his
schedule on the date of his disappearance and get back to him.
Two hours later,
Harris went to the desk of Nicolai and
showed him what he got. He started;
Harris: Sir, this is all I have got. John
left the office on his usual time only. I confirmed with the office but
interesting thing is that John's car is still in the company's parking lot.
Also his phone's last location available is his office.
Nicolai: So there can be two possibilities,
either John disappeared from his office's parking lot or he went with someone else from his office and
afterwards he may have disappeared. Do we have the CCTV footage of the parking
lot.
Harris: It will be in an hour or two. I
will show you as soon as I get them.
Nicolai: Sure, also do one more thing.
Interrogate office staff if they know anything about his disappearance. Ask
them if something was off about him lately or he might have a fight with
someone.
Harris: Yes sir.
Nicolai in the mean time researched on the
work which John did. He was with the legal services and master of out of court
settlement. He went through the cases which he settled and also tried to find
out if he had made any enemies in doing so. Harris comes near his desk with the
CCTV footage.
Harris: I talked with the office staff and
didn't get anything suspicious, but there is something in the CCTV footage.
Nicolai: Let's see.
' The
CCTV footage shows John going towards his car and then suddenly turning in the
opposite direction as if someone might have called him. He goes in the
direction and suddenly disappears'
Nicolai: What happened? Where did he go?
Harris: Sir, that's the blind spot of the
CCTV camera, whoever did this exactly knew the position of the camera and its
blind spot.
Nicolai: Rewind it and start from the
beginning. Let's see if we get any clue.
'They
saw the footage 10-15 times frame by frame and that's it. A criminal always
makes a mistake'
Nicolai: Got you!! You bastard.
Harris: Where ? How?
Nicolai: You see that car near John's car.
See the rear view mirror on the right side of the car. Zoom in into it and
slowly start the video frame by frame.
Harris: Sir, you are genius. But it seems
as if they talked with John about something and then they pushed him into the
car. As the car left we can see the license plate number. I will find out.
Hat's off to you sir.
Nicolai: Stop embarrassing me. It's nothing
spectacular. Get back to me as soon as you get anything.
Nicolai tries to find out why was John
kidnapped. He calls John's boss and asks him everything about the settlements
made by him, but doesn't gets any clue. Apart from that his boss tells him that
it's been an year only since he came to New York, so possibility of having
enemy is minimal.
Harris gets back to Nicolai empty handed
saying that the license plate was fake as he belong to a person David Rico who
died few months ago and he had also filed a complaint for his missing car.
Harris: Sir, we are dealing with some
pretty genius bastards. It would be tough.
Nicolai: Whoever they are we will catch
them. But if John is kidnapped then why had they not tried to contact Mrs
Winstead for ransom.
Harris: Sir maybe it's not about the money.
It can be a revenge story or so.
Nicolai: If it had been a revenge story we
would already had found the body of Mr John Winstead. Rather a man who has come
to New york since a year won't have so
hard enemies. It's something else. There's more to this than we can see. Do a
thorough search of any suspicious events in past month with Mr John or so and
give the media Mr John's picture and tell them to show him in news and give my
number to contact in case of any information.
Next day,
Nicolai was restless as he was not getting
any clue of what to do to find John and was engrossed in deep thoughts when an
old man approached him. He introduced himself as Dr. Martin Henricks , senior
professor of anthropology at New york University. I just saw last night about
the missing person Mr John Winstead and I think I know something that might
help you.
Nicolai was all ears. He asked him what
information does he wanted to give. Dr Martin said that he was not sure about
it but just wanted to confirm a thing. He said that from the previous few weeks,
he saw six missing person's report and yesterday it became seven and that might
link to an ancient phenomena.
Nicolai laughed at him and said how can he be
so sure about that and their might be more than this. Martin told him that he
was not sure. He just came to suggest to look into previous missing person
reports, maybe he can get a clue. Martin left the police station giving his
number to contact him if they all are connected as there is something big in
this.
Nicolai asked Harris to look into the matter
of missing person which happened in past few weeks and try to see if there is
any link. Harris came to him after sometime with the details.
Harris: Here are the details of those six
missing people.
Nicolai: Why don't we know about this
missing people until now?
Harris: Because sir they went missing from
different parts of New york. They stayed in different town and that only that
particular police station and local media knew about them.
Nicolai: So how did that professor know
about it? Guess we need to call him and find it. So what do we have here?
Harris: They are the missing people- Dwayne
Richard ( high school football coach from Buffalo city), Aaidah Malik ( Piano
teacher from Rochester city), Sebastian brook ( scientist at Alto Corp. from
Yonkers), Abayomi Balewa ( Theatre artist from Syracuse), Antonio Vasilieve ( Stock broker from Albany) and
finally Mark Diego ( Owns a shop at 22nd street from Manhattan). They
all went missing in past few weeks but none of them were found. No ransom calls,
no body to be found.
Nicolai: That's interesting. Seven person
go missing in last few weeks and no information about any single one. Now is there
any common link between them?
Harris: Nothing common in between them
except for the fact that all were new to this country. They are from various
countries like UAE, Spain, Congo, Russia. Only Mark Diego was born in this
country and stayed for a long time rest all came to this country in this year
only and latest was Dwayne Richard who came 2 months ago from Brazil.
Nicolai: So there is some connection
between them. Now we need to find out if they will remain seven only or will
they become eight or more. In the mean time call Dr Martin. Let's hear from him
what he has to say about this.
As time passed by Nicolai rigorously
searched for something common between all of them which can explain their disappearances,
but he can't find any. Dr Martin comes to the police station and Nicolai asks
him to sit.
Nicolai: So Dr Martin, turns out that you
were right, there is some connection in these disappearances of people. I
wanted to know how do you know about it.
Martin: Sergeant Nicolai, it will come as a bit impossible to
understand but hear me out completely as
it is the truth. Mr John Winstead is a friend to me. He helped me with one of
my legal case and then we became good friends. We started sharing things and
one fine day he told me about that peculiar mark on his left shoulder which was
from his birth. He showed it to me and as I saw it I knew what it was. I didn't told him what it was and turned the
topic elsewhere. But I suspect that it was because of that mark he has been
kidnapped. When he was kidnapped, I researched if any other person has been
kidnapped and came to know about these six people and knew that my suspicion
was true. So I came to you.
Nicolai: What are you speaking? What has
the mark to do with the kidnapping? Tell me what it denotes.
Martin: I will after I find out the whole
truth. Sergeant can you please do a thing for me. Can you confirm with the
family members of those missing person if they had a mark on their left
shoulder.
Nicolai: Are you sure? Will it be related?
Martin: Confirm this and I can tell you the
story of the mark.
Nicolai asks Harris to confirm about the
mark from the family of the missing person and as Harris comes near the desk of
Nicolai, he nods in the favor.
Nicolai: Yes , it turns out that all had
that mark on the body. Tell me about it.
Martin starts telling him what he knows for
about two and a half hours and Nicolai has held his head as to the thing is
unbelievable.
Nicolai: It's impossible. How can nobody
knows about this. Is it some kind of a joke?
Martin: I know it is hard to grasp but
trust me it is true and you will know about it shortly after you experience it.
Nicolai: What are you saying? How will I
experience it? How will we find all of them? What are the repercussions of this
thing that you are telling about?
Martin: We all will experience it. The
repercussions are huge. It's the Beginning of the End.
What is that thing which Martin is talking
about? Where are those missing persons? What does the mark indicate? What does
Martin mean by 'Beginning of the End'? Who is behind all this? Lot of
questions. But you will shortly find all the answers? Wait for part-2. Till
then think about it.
To
be Continued.......................................
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