The Cursed Shell

28

Stephenson Mal grinned as he felt a thud, which means his car had crushed something. He looked at the left rear–view mirror. He could see only a crushed and badly bleeding corpse of Christopher Smith which was shattered into almost two to three pieces. Mal stared at the mirror in disbelief.

"Where's Dhawan?" the massive assassin whispered to himself.

Without any doubt, anyone could say that it was the result of thirteen years of RAW training. Dhawan had jumped on the right side of the car and gripped the door-knob of its right door just on time. As he was completely focused on the door-knob of the car, he wasn't aware that the moment when he jumped, his right knee was hit by the car and got severely fractured.

He finally gripped the door-knob properly with both of his hands. His legs were hovered from the ground. He slowly and carefully took a knife out of his pocket in his left hand. He had gripped the door-knob so tightly that his right hand had turned red and its nerves had bulged out. He forwarded his knife-holding left hand towards the door-knob he was holding.

He knew how to open a locked door of a car. He was taught this during his RAW training too. With the help of a knife and a thumb he could open the locked door of a car.

Dhawan carefully inserted his thumb in the little space behind the door-knob of the car along with his knife. He twisted the knife in different positions in a specific order as he learnt in his days of training.

The door opened with a thud and pushed Dhawan little back but he didn't lose the grip.

Stephenson whirled his head towards the thud sound and his eyes went wide as he saw Dhawan on the door. He immediately pulled his pistol out and shot towards Dhawan. Dhawan whirled his neck down and the bullet went above his head. Stephenson pulled the trigger again but it didn't work. He had to reload it.

Dhawan tried to enter the car carefully. Now he could feel a terrible pain on his right knee which was severely fractured.

The car was already in a great speed. Stephenson increased the speed and the force pushed the car's door a little far from the entrance. It was becoming harder for Dhawan to enter the car with each passing moment and he was also losing his grip from the door.

Stephenson drove the car on the right edge of the road with a constant speed. Dhawan looked ahead and saw a street-light's pole on the way of the door he was on. His eyes went wide in horror. He carefully moved nearer to the entrance. 

Stephenson threw a knife towards Dhawan. Dhawan gripped the knife before it could reach him and threw it out on the road. He again looked ahead. Now the car's door and he were very close to the pole.

Stephenson again threw a knife towards Dhawan and he gripped and threw it out again. He was now just a metre away from the pole when he jumped into the car just beside Stephenson. The pole hit the door which got forcefully separated from its hinges and landed on the road a few metres behind.

Before Stephenson could do anything, Dhawan pressed his head on the steering–wheel and the horn beeped. Stephenson struggled to escape from Dhawan's grip.

Dhawan looked ahead and gazed through the wind–shield. He saw that the car was very close to a cemented wall of an under-construction bungalow. He widened his eyes and snapped. "Stop the car!"

Stephenson shook his head. He was still pressed against the steering–wheel.

Dhawan pulled the steering to his left. The car skidded in a violent way. The people on site ran aside. The car lost its control and crashed on the cemented wall with a somersault. The wall shattered after giving a heavy damage to the car.

Dhawan coughed the dust out of his mouth. He was feeling his head heavy. Soon he realised its reason. The car was lying upside–down and he was being pressed by the emergency air-bags.

Dhawan gazed through the gap between the bags. He could see the massive killer still alive. He exhaled in relief.

"Dhawan, are you okay?" Dunkirk leaned down at the broken window of the car beside Dhawan. He had just reached there in a car.

"Do I seem okay to you?" Dhawan raised his right  eye–brow.

"Not at all," Dunkirk chuckled. "Let me take you out."

After Dunkirk pulled Dhawan and Stephenson out, a cop in uniform pointed a pistol towards them. "Hands up!"

Dunkirk eyed him and showed his ID card to him.

"Uh.... I'm sorry sir", the cop apologised.

"It's okay, you're doing your work", Dunkirk told him.

Stephenson opened his eyes.

"Why're you doing this?" Dhawan pulled his collar.

"I'll only tell if the duration of my imprisonment is reduced", Stephenson said, fearlessly.

Dhawan was sure that he would be sentenced to death. He turned towards Dunkirk. Dunkirk nodded.

"Okay," Dhawan turned back to Stephenson, "it's reduced. Now tell me why've you killed the seven scholars?"

"I was appointed", Stephenson said.

"By whom?" Dhawan snapped.

"By...by Professor Lamb!" the assassin grinned.

Dhawan stared at him in disbelief. He knew that the killer was lying. Todd Lamb had been a good friend of Dhawan since many years. Dhawan could never even suspect him of doing any such thing.

Suddenly, a gunshot was audible. Dhawan's eyes went wide. He ran his hands over his chest and forehead. No, he wasn't shot. He noticed a bleeding bullet-hole on the assassin's head.

Dhawan looked ahead. He was surprised to see Joshua Lamb standing there with a pistol.

"Josh, what've you done?" Dhawan shouted.

"He wanted to kill my father!" Josh shouted in anger with an angry look on the dead–body of the assassin.

There was a deep silence for a few seconds.

"Josh," Dhawan said, politely, "he said that your father assigned him to kill the scholars."

Josh stared at him in disbelief.

"Dhawan, believe me," Josh pleaded, "It cannot be my father. You trust me, right? The killer's lying!"

Dhawan just kept his hand on Josh's shoulder and said nothing.

"Mr Dhawan," Dunkirk stepped towards him, "congratulations, you've completed your mission. Your identity is still classified and we'll report that the killer was shot by police as a defence act. The police will handle the case from now and I'll report you as soon as we get any clue. Thanks a lot for co-operating with us."

"The police?" Dhawan chuckled. "Or the CIA?"

Dunkirk chuckled back.