The Cursed Shell

24

The aeroplane which had recently landed on the runway had people. Through the window of the seat above the right wing of the plane, an adolescent was gazing out. It was the second flight of his life.

Dhawan yawned and opened his eyes.

"Why do you always sleep until the plane lands on the runway?" Brute turned to him.

"I've fear of heights," Dhawan told him. "It's known as Acrophobia."

Soon they were out of the plane. Dhawan switched his cell–phone on. He had received a texted message from an unknown number.

COBALT FLUORINE IRON - MEET ME HERE

"Cobalt fluorine iron?" Brute crossed his eye-brows after reading the message.

Dhawan pushed the phone into his pocket and took Brute inside the nearest urinal. The urinal had no one in, except the two young men. Dhawan fished his phone out and stared at the message. "It's the killer again. But what is he saying this time?"

"Well, if you don't mind, I need to go", Brute pointed towards the toilet.

"Okay", Dhawan said.

Brute rushed into the toilet and Dhawan focused back on the message. 'Cobalt fluorine iron. What does the guy mean?'

Brute suddenly rushed out of the toilet. "Can you show me the message again?"

Dhawan faced his phone towards Brute. Brute read the message and gave a hopeful smile.

"Cobalt, fluorine and iron are all metals," Brute explained. "The symbol for cobalt is Co; the symbol for fluorine is F; and the symbol for iron is Fe. The killer is saying to meet him at cobalt fluorine iron, which means he wants you to meet him at Co and F and Fe, which, when combined, is CoFFe! He wants you to meet him at a coffee shop!"

Brute had a point. Dhawan understood what the killer meant. But it definitely didn't mean a coffee shop. Here, CoFFe, means something else.

Dhawan gave a huge smile and patted on Brute's back. "Brute, you're a genius!"

"C - o - F - F - e is a disguised website on Google," Dhawan said, while sitting on the sofa of on hotel with his laptop on his lap. They had planned to live in the hotel for two days. If the killer is not found, they'll have no option other than leaving Krystene alone to die and they'll go back to America for Mr Lamb's security. "I'm searching for the website on Google."

"If the website is available on Google, how can it be disguised?" Brute asked while forwarding a cookie towards Crunchy.

"Don't give him the cookies," Dhawan said, "it causes acidity to him."

Brute pulled the cookie away from Crunchy. Crunchy glared at Dhawan.

"You can see this website on Google, but it'll not show what it really is," Dhawan said. "Why don't you try searching it yourself?"

Brute typed 'CoFFe' on Google and the results appeared. He clicked on all the results one-by-one. "It's showing a blogging site to me."

"Exactly, but it isn't," Dhawan said. "Through this site, we can have access to the darker world of criminals. We can contact them via this. But it needs a special procedure to be done before that."

"Cool, what's that procedure?" Brute asked.

Dhawan raised his right eye-brow. "Why should I tell this to you. You're still a kid."

"How did you get to know about this site?" Brute asked.

"The RAW gave me access to this site for my cases," Dhawan said. "I can't tell you any further."