The Two Envelopes
Our Hero, Nash Nestor is asleep in his cozy bed, the alarm goes off as it does every other morning but, this is no ordinary day. He wakes up with excitement, takes coffee and walks to the door the first thing in the morning. He finds what he was expecting, two letters, one in neat official white envelope and another being a glossy rather unusually colored envelope. He couldn’t wait to open those. He opens the multi-colored one first. He reads the letter and jumps with joy, opens the other envelope with a little less haste which, what-so-ever was not noticeable. After reading the other letter he becomes a little confused. He thinks for a minute with the two envelopes in his hands. He always wanted to be an actor and his father wanted him to be an IAS officer, so he had enrolled for an IAS exam (for which he had to obey his father and work hard preparing for the exam.) He also enrolled himself secretly in the film institute. The thing which picks our Hero is that he has qualified in his IAS exams and the film institute has accepted him as a pupil. He thinks, “whether to follow my heart or to follow my father’s.” over and over again. He decides that he has grown well enough to know what is best for him and chooses to follow his heart. He throws away the IAS recruitment letter and joins the film academy. He is a bit successful in the film school however different the reality may seem.
He is auditioned and is taken as a hero in a film, he does his role well but the film fails miserably. His image is damaged and ends up with some scanty money with which he has no idea what to do. He turns to a phase of self loathing and then one day he meets his old friend, Kimberly Black. She sees his state of utter despair and consoles him. She even says she could ask her father Mr. Joseph Black to make a movie out of Nash; however Mr. Black was not directing any films at the moment and has retired. This cheers him a lot though and it makes him fall for her. A series of events make her to reciprocate his feelings. They get married looking forward to live happily ever after, but this is reality, he has no job and he now has a family.
Nash goes to Mr. Black and proposes his idea of making a film with him in the lead. Joe however refuses strongly but loosens up a bit after hearing the story but still thinks it won’t make much money and it’s a complete waste of time. After so much bragging and begging, Nash gets the, permission as well as the money from Mr. Black and starts a movie, which our hero directs and acts himself. He puts in a lot of hard work in creating the film.
Eventually the film becomes a hit at the box-office and is praised by the critics. He rises to stardom overnight. He enjoys this new luxury and does more movies which also become super-hits, inevitably Nash becomes a super star. But his co-stars are not so happy with Nash’s sudden rise and being overshadowed by a new comer. They plan to make some money out of him. They decide to kidnap him for ransom. They carry out a flawless plan with a couple of professional Bandits, They choose Neo and Ruan.
The bandits nap Nash during a normal morning jog, which Nash does in disguise to avoid unwanted attention and extra protection. Neo had already learned about this lack of security personnel from his contacts among Nash’s household workers. Neo calls up Nash’s residence and threaten Mrs. Nestor and Mr. Black. Mr. Black succumbs to the threat and agrees to pay the ransom. Joe also wanted to alert the police, just in case. An overly self-confident police inspector, Nick Fischer receives the phone call and jumps into the case right away. He puts his criminal-Tracker training to good use in this case. He finds out the leak of information from the gardener and collects the names of Neo and Ruan.
From there he goes off to trace them from the crime scene, he identifies and collects information from the spotters and puts the info together to find their hide out. The pattern of their former involvement in crimes and wriggling out of conviction was astounding. They had used unwary commoners for their spy work and had planned every detail to perfection. There was never a place in which they had got identified by a police-man. They were remarkably intelligent for some common crooks, for they weren’t common at all. Their works were highly classified and their names were at an all time low profile, which was very useful for them. Other crooks may find this to be an advertisement hazard since most people won’t know their names. But these guys were clever; they presented themselves when called for in a public advertisement using coded words. They left no phone numbers, no addresses, no identification or even finger-prints. They discuss matters in public places, using ‘loss in translation’- a method of coded speech in the same language and that also with only one guy who happens to be in charge of the operation. They wore disguises to clients, but roamed freely without disguises and the problem of recognition in public. There was so much complication and yet it was lucidly clear, that they were involved which was easily recognizable since there will be no evidence of any crime, no suspects, no witnesses, no leads. It had become an obsession with Nick within 24 hours of starting this case, He had found out most of their details which other cops would never have dreamt of.
By this time Joe had paid the ransom through a fool proof pick-up pattern which included several small packages to be delivered through almost all possible money transaction methods, many common people were involved including a post-man, laundry guy, black markets, money orders, Chit fund deposits, cross country transfers using Western union money transfer and by leaving in specified public transport automobiles without the knowledge of the drivers or its passengers. When they had received all their money, they planned to leave the temporary hide-out and mail them the address, through post they would leave the key at some other place and mention that in the letter too. They had done everything so smoothly till now; the hostage had no idea who they were or had seen their faces or heard them speak. Ruan was keeping watch now, they were making final settlements, the letter was ready, they had received the money, Neo had gone to check the payments to their clients and was about time for him to come too.
Nick got too close to the case and the suspects now, He had traced them to their hide-out, there was just one wall between them, He thought of calling backup, but decided otherwise in the interest of the fleeting time he has. He took his gun out, ready to shoot, He knew them to be fatal, if confronted with their identities, their secrecy and anonymity is their key to survival and flourishing business. Once they had killed a dozen of their clientele just because they had forced them out of their disguises. Nick certainly had found this part very scary, for they were ruthless as they were sophisticated. They could get away with anything as long as they don’t have any names or faces. He hadn’t even filed anything in the haste of finding the hostage, “So,” Nick Told himself, ”This is it.” He went inside as silently as he could manage, there was a man, toying with his gun. Nick found no one else in the room, he found this convenient, he had suspected that he might be facing only one of them based on the foot prints outside. He crouched slowly towards the man, “must be Ruan”, based on identification info. Ruan had sensed Nick in this room, He however, acted naturally as if toying with his gun continually but was loading it and making it ready, when he heard the footsteps and located the stranger, he would turn and shoot him. Ruan located him, turned and there was an array of bullets, which was the only sound Nash could hear in 2 days. Ruan had been killed, but at the cost of a bullet in Nick’s left shoulder. Nick fumbles for the key (for the room in which Nash was locked up) in the pockets of Ruan and finds it. Nick struggles with the key, blood all over left part of his suit. He threw the door open. It was a nice room for a hostage, many would find this strange and even stupid, had they not knew these guys. It was sound-proof and was stocked with food supplies and even a bathroom.
Nash spotted the wounded man and backed away, Nick was muttering under his breath that he was an inspector, finally Nash understood that he was about to be rescued. He helps himself and the inspector to their feet and they walk to the door, they crossed the threshold and a gun pointed on the back of the inspector’s head. They froze instantly with fear, then several things happened in quick succession, Inspector clutched our hero’s hands and urged him to run for it, while he holds up Neo. Nash starts to dash for the door, but Neo doesn’t hesitate, as soon as Nash Starts to move a bullet penetrates the grey matter of Nicks’ Brain, which is splattered all over Neo ’s hands. He lazily twitches his left hand to rid the brain-blood mess, while he shoots at our hero mostly in the middle section of the hero.
Our hero clutches his abdomen, where the bullet must have seared and falls to the floor on his back. He lies there motionless. He feels the pain in his middle section, many bullets must have seen his intestines and he lies there writhing in agony. Neo had moved Ruan’s and Nearly-headless Nick’s bodies around him. He broke the cooking oil can and poured it around the room. He was going to set the building on fire and leave them to their natural fiery grave. Nash was aware of this, He didn’t want to get burnt to death, he wanted Neo to forbid him the suffering. Neo had left the place, He was alone now, He could try and leave this place before it all burns up, but the rest of his body was not responding. There was too much loss of blood and too many bullets in his body to move. He had given up hope; he wanted to die of the bullet wounds alone and soon. He closed his eyes, but he was nowhere near dying, he was impatient, he just wants to die, “skip the pain, I just want to die”, the pain is too unbearable. He finally realizes that he has no other way but to wait it out, and he too realizes that this is going to be the few last uncertain number of seconds or minutes that he is going to be in this world.
His body is becoming rather stiff, he couldn’t feel his legs anymore, he recounts all that he could remember from his school life, runs it in his mind, (his hands are now not reachable by his nervous system) looks over what all he has done in his teens, (pain is indistinct too.) writes a mental note to his wife, saying a sorry for not returning home. He closes his eyes and waits for something to happen, “Is this going to be like a new adventure, how am I going to be after I am dead. Where will I be?” His most complicated questions are going to be answered. He is going to find out whether there is heaven and hell or not by himself. He was of-course started to see the brighter side of death now. He was actually rather happy about it, he started feeling his face, his mouth and he thought he must be appearing in heaven (it sure didn’t feel like hell, in any religious definition). A bell rang, strangely familiar to him; He forced his eyes open and sat down. He knew this place; it was his old bed-room.
He looked at his clock and the calendar. It was the day in which he was expecting the letters. He felt a little shaken by the dream, it all seemed so real. He went downstairs, took the two letters as swiftly as he can, He had, as it was in his dream, qualified for both. “Dream or no dream”, He thought he certainly was not going to allow even a hair-string possibility of it happening again. He took the glossy envelope and threw the letter aside and looked at the envelope, it looked rather good and they haven’t written the address on the envelope itself, they had covered it with another ghastly looking one. He took a sheet of paper, wrote something, which looked pretty much like a love-letter, he enclosed it in the glossy envelope and He wrote the name of his wife in the dream, Kimberly and posted it to her, after all the years, Kimmy was with him, it took only a dream to make Nash see that she was the one for him. He went upstairs and told his dad that he was correct after all and it took only a dream to prove him right. Dream or nightmare, he wasn’t sure, but he sure was glad that he had it.
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