The Sublimator

Irshad on the Throne again and Tamizhselvan's intelligence destroy the last throne

CHAPTER 4 �" THE SUBLIMATOR

 

                    The same Café shop �" But this time fully occupied with people in the peak evening hours. Unlike that day, I was too positive and energetic. I intentionally reserved the same table, where we ended up in fight last time. It was first time in our relationship, I came very early and waiting for Poovai. She used to wait all the time and this seemed to be very strange. I was looking at the road side through the window and enjoying the evening city life. When the Sun fades out, usually the Moon starts occupying the sky empire. Yes, that’s true. My Moon, Poovai was stepping into the Café Shop.

                    She stood at the middle and spread her eye sight around the shop and finally landed at me, where I was eagerly waiting and smiling at her. She walked fast and sat on the chair opposite to me.

                    “Hi Poovai !!!”

She took a deep breath and looked at me.

                    “You needed 37 days to think about me and talk to me????”

She turned her face towards the window. I could understand that she was in extreme anger. I continued,

                    “Today is our 6^th year love anniversary. It is supposed to be celebrated. Right?”, I grinned.

                    “Oh!!!!!!! You could remember all these things !!!!!!” It’s really a wonderful thing to hear !!”

She exclaimed in anger and turned back towards the window. There was 2 minutes of extreme silence and Poovai finally broke it. She placed a medium size gift box on the table and smiled at me. I was shocked and surprised. I was just looking at her without uttering any words. She smiled again and said,

          “Happy Anniversary J”

I was literally blushing at that time and simultaneously my hands were opening the gift box. She continued again.

                    “Today is our 6^th anniversary. No gifts for me ?? “

                    “I don’t have any physical gifts for you”, I responded by kept opening the gift box.

                    There were three 5-inch tall monkey toys. One with its eyes closed, one with its ears closed and the last with its mouth closed. I was confused by looking at this gift.

                    “What is this Poovai !!!! You want to preach me moral on this romantic occasion???”

She glanced at the three monkey toys and began to speak

                    “Yes. But this is to preach you romantic moral. The monkey with its eyes closed, indicates that you should not look any other girls except me; the monkey with its ears closed indicates that you should not listen to any other girls except me; the monkey with its mouth closed indicates that you should not speak to any girls except me.”

I was looking at her with complete surprise and told,

                    “This is possessiveness!”

                    “Yes it is. Because I Love you so much”, Poovai blushed and she continued again.

                    “Where is my non-physical gift?”

I gave her a smile and began to speak. 

                    “Can you ask your dad to set up a meeting between us and the Astrologer?”

                    “WHY?” , she exclaimed with confusion.

                    “This is to check if whether we can marry this year and which month is perfectly suitable.”

                    “WHAT?????” , she exclaimed again.

                    “Yes Poovai. I am ready to marry you. My haunted dreams has stopped. I don’t think I can live without you now. I am really sorry to keep you wait till this time. Now this is time to end all our waiting’s and struggles.”

I held her hands very tight and said,

                    “I Love You so much Poovai. I can’t wait more than this.”

I could see only her tears responded to me and those were happy tears.

 

                    It had been a month after I received the card from Irshad ‘I AM BACK’. Though there were no strange murder cases, my instinct was still not convinced. All my team members were very happy and celebrating the victory of paid killing case closure. But I was not able to celebrate. My instinct was clearly telling me that something related to this would be happened very soon.

                    I would rate my instinct 100% true all the times. I got a call from Commissioner, who usually calls me only when there is extreme emergency. He told that there were 14 mysterious missing cases registered all over Chennai in the last one month. There were no clues found by the local Police team. Commissioner had a rough guess that it could be related to these paid killing cases.

                    I got a cold feeling after hearing this and my instincts started to occupy my thoughts. I ordered my team to collect all information about those missing cases within a day. I got those to my table before the end of that day. I extended my working hours, stayed there and reading all those cases. I was trying to get some relations among the cases, but all were unique. There were no relationship found between those.

                    “Sir??” , Constable Mani stepped into the room. I looked at him and he continued to talk.

                    “Sir, do you think these cases are related to paid killing???”

I just looked at him with confusion. Irshad’s ‘I AM BACK’ card flashed into my mind. I did not tell anybody about that card. I thought it was a threat to scare me. I under-estimated Irshad. I should not have. But anyway, I was not going to leave this.

                    “Mani, get ready for the next target ‘Irshad’. The final war between us and Paid killing. We will set this city free from 50% of the crimes.”

Mani looked at me in surprise, gave a strong salute and left that room. I was looking at the recent missing case that had happened yesterday.

Name    -      Amit Kumar

Age    -     45

Occupation    -       Real Estate Broker

Missing   From   -    22-Jan-2019

 

          It was a silent road covered with bushes and trees on both the sides. The bright light from the full Moon spread all over the area and provided a thrilling beauty. The midnight atmosphere and a lonely green color Ambassador on the road increased the thrill a lot more than usual. It was so bright that the car’s head light did not help much, but the Moon light gave them the proper visibility. There were two guys sitting in the front and talking to each other. The driver looked so dull with bulgy eyes and shaved head. The other guy looks gigantic with rough beard and was listening to 1980’s songs from the car’s old speakers. He was generating the same beats of the song by using his fingers on the dash board and turned to the driver who was very serious.

                    “Hey Raja, come on. It’s been 2 months. I understand it is a big loss. Your mother passed away. But you have a family to save. So come on. Get back to your normal life soon”, the beard guy advised the driver.

                    “Yes Ranga. I am slowly coming back to normal. That’s why I joined back to work after 2 months.” , Raja replied without taking his eyes from the road.

The green color ambassador took a ‘Z’ path and again continued straight.

                    “Seems our boss is back to business as usual!”, Raja asked surprisingly.

                    “Yeah dude. This time with more powerful. We are the only team under top investment”, Ranga replied.

Raja was shocked. First time he took his eyes from the road and looked at Ranga with his bulgy wider eyes.

                    “Who is the target today?”, Raja asked.

                    “Amit Kumar, the real estate broker”, Ranga replied.

Both of them turned back and looked at the rear seat. Amit was unconscious and lying on the rear seat. The green color ambassador car was travelling towards Irshad’s paint factory.

                    The control room in Irshad’s paint factory was filled with old model electric panels, which controls all other electric equipment’s in the factory. There were no LED’s or other modern lights used. The room was completely lightened by 10-12 high watts bulbs. The place looked yellowish due to these bulbs and it gave a haunting feel. There was only one man, sitting on a chair and watching around with a calm gesture. All others were walking here and there, doing some actions instructed by the calm commander, Irshad, a 48 years old, the current King of Paid Killing Business.

                    Raja and Ranga lifted Amit Kumar from the rear seat and brought in front of Irshad. He lifted Amit’s face, examined for a moment and gestured to take him to the steel pillar, located at one corner of the room. Amit was carried there and made to stick to the steel pillar using straps. Irshad stood up from the chair, went close to the pillar and looked around. There were three projectors similar to cctv cameras fitted in front of the pillar in equilateral angle i.e.60^o  to each other. Irshad examined whether it is properly mounted against the wall. He came back to the chair and looked at the time, it was night 11:45 PM. He gestured Ranga to switch on the exhaust filter and Ranga immediately ran to one of the electric panels and pulled a switch. The complete filtering exhaust mechanism has switched on.

                    Irshad turned to his right and pulled a stainless lever perpendicular to its axis. It was clearly visible that the lever was newly built when compared to the other equipment inside the factory. Once he pulled the lever, three different rays in different colors (blue, green and red) were emitted from the three projectors kept in equilateral angles. Those three rays were falling on the Amit’s body at one single focal point. Immediately after few seconds, Amit’s body started to disappear and converted into a thick fume of bluish green color. Within few minutes, the entire body was converted to bluish green fume, which was sucked by the filter system and exhausted out along with the paint exhaust.

                    Raja was stunned, as he joined after 2 months and he was not aware of this. His heart beat almost stopped. He regained his consciousness, slowly moved to Ranga and spoke in a very soft tone.

                    “What is this Ranga? Am I witnessing some magic here??”

Ranga silently laughed and asked,

                    “Did you study science in your sixth standard?”

                    “Yeah!!”

                    “What is sublimation?”

                    “The process of changing a liquid to gas or vapor. Right?”, Raja asked in confusion.

                    “No. that is evaporation. Sublimation is the process of changing a solid directly to gas or vapor. This is what happened here?”, Ranga explained and Raja was listening to this shockingly. Ranga continued.

                    “Irshad took a break from his business because of this. He was building this with the help of our R&D team. He waited till the competitors were ruled out of our business. Now they are completely out. Irshad has become the King of this empire now and nobody would compete him. There is no way to find a dead body and the department will be stuck with all missing cases.”

Irshad slowly stood up from his chair. He did not show any sort of emotions in his face. He called Ranga and asked,

                    “ What is the count?”

                    “He is our 14^th “, Ranga responded and Irshad found out Ranga wanted to say something. Irshad put his hands across his shoulders and said,

                    “Tell me Ranga. Whats up?”

                    “The case has been taken over by the special team. Tamizhselvan’s team.”

                    “Don’t worry. I will take care”, Irshad gave him an evil smile and left that place.

                   

                    I lost my sleep till when I took over the 14 missing cases. It had become 24 missing cases now and I could not find any clues to proceed with the investigation. I was looking very bad, with un-even beard and black circles around the eyes. I had not seen myself like this before. My greatest strength was to crack the case from the dead bodies and its clues. But in this case, we had not found any bodies yet and all the cases were still remained as missing cases.

                    I myself went to all 24 spots, from where they were missing and tried to gather all the information as much as possible. But nothing helped me to proceed. After my meeting with Poovai’s father and Astrologer, the marriage date was fixed. But I could not concentrate on those things and ended up in several fights with Poovai. I had to do something to go back to my normal.

                    It was 3 am in the midnight and this case did not allow me to sleep. I was trying to use all my experiences and skills to crack this down. I knew it was Irshad, who occupied the throne solely without any competitors and I somehow helped him to give that throne without any blockers. I could feel the heat of my brain by overthinking and suddenly there was a spark in my brain. ‘Some people say, Irshad had murdered his wife’s brother, cut him into pieces, mixed with the mutton briyani and served to all in his own marriage’. I jumped from my bed. I immediately picked up my phone and dialed Mani. He responded back immediately without any upsets.

                    “Yes Sir.. How may I help you Sir?”

                    “Can you get me the list of whole sale button butcher shop immediately in the morning? This could be the first start of our target.”

                    “Sure Sir.”, Mani replied with confidence.

The next day morning, I woke up from a small nap. I rushed up and quickly got ready earlier than usual. My phone rang and as expected it was Mani,

                    “Yeah Mani. Have you got the list?”

                    “Yes Sir. But I have one more information and it seems much important than this.”

I was very keen to listen and he continued.

                    “We got an information about Irshad’s next target and which could be happened at any time.”

                    “Wonderful Mani. Great job. I am coming immediately. Let’s knock Irshad down”, I could notice myself that the anger level had increased a lot than usual.

I rushed to the office and gathered my team. Everybody was very much excited about this case. The first entry to pass through this case. This could definitely help us to close this case as soon as possible, like how we did for Satya and Mathew.

                    “Are we going to stop the kidnap?”, Mani asked.

                    “No.. we need them caught red handed. The target is a rapist who came out in bail last month after his 2 rape cases. He is just a small fish to us to capture that big Tiger fish. We don’t need to bother about this target.”

That mid-afternoon --- We all were split as different teams and waiting in the underground parking lot of a famous shopping mall. We heard that the target had booked a matinee movie and was watching alone. All of our focus are towards his car parked there in the lot. After some dozens of minutes, we could notice that the target, a young man of age 26 years, was walking towards the car parking space. It was a valet parking, so he needs to get the keys from the parking administrator. He walked towards the administrator, got the keys and walked towards his car. After he reached closed to his car, he felt some sticky substance found on this car’s keychain and smelled it in reflex action. As soon as he smelled, he went un-conscious. The team looked at me and waiting for my instructions. I was still remained silent and waiting for the next move.

                    Suddenly a green color ambassador car appeared behind from the target’s car and pulled the young man into the boot space of the car. Myself and my team became active and watched it very carefully. I instructed my team to follow that ambassador car at a distant and wait for my further notice.

                    We all started to follow the car from different directions and at a particular distance. My instinct said, this was going to be a wonderful opportunity to complete this case. We were going to catch them red handed and there would be no chance to escape. We all were following the car and the green color ambassador was traveling towards Irshad’s paint factory. Whenever the ambassador slowed down, we too slowed down our cars to maintain that particular distance and kept away from their sight.

                    The car reached almost very close to Irshad’s paint factory. It was just 100 meters away from the factory.

                    “Guys… It’s the time now. Come on. Surround them. Be careful and you can expect any attack from them.”

                    I pressed the gas pedal to its full level, generated enormous torque and skidded in front of the ambassador’s car. I loaded my pistol and got down from the car pointing the pistol towards them. All my team members pointed their guns towards them and there was no space for them to escape. Ranga and Raja came out of the ambassador by raising their hands and there were un-armed. I slowly walked towards the ambassador’s boot with still pointing the gun towards them. I pulled the boot lock and opened it. I was really stunned and shocked. The first shocking case in my career.

THE BOOT WAS EMPTY.

---To be continued

                   

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