“The Da Lakhvi Code” continues …….

The company quoted a price for the job, which was prohibitive but worthwhile considering that many innocent lives were in danger and national prestige was at stake. I met my superior and informed him of the conundrum we were in and the requirement of money in foreign exchange to be paid abroad. My boss expressed his inability to be of any help as the matter required approvals from various levels of the Government of India and that too in a very short time.
At this hopeless juncture, when all seemed lost, something providential happened. On 19 February, when we were clueless, out of our depth and running out of time, a saviour
arrived on the scene in late afternoon. He was neither a cop nor a computer whiz-kid nor a cryptologist. He was an unemployed youth who had come looking for a job in Delhi. He had nowhere to go except to Pramod, who had been his senior in school. Vivek Thakur was his name. Vivek could sense that things weren’t right with his schoolmate, who had anxiety writ large on his face. Vivek inquired what the matter was. Without giving him any background information, Pramod told him that he was struggling with an encrypted message that could not be deciphered. On Vivek’s request, Pramod shared the coded messages with him. Thereafter, Pramod left the office to seek help from diverse sources to decode the messages.
After a couple of hours, Pramod returned to his office, drained after what he felt was another wasted day of fruitless work. He found Vivek still sitting on the visitor’s couch with pen and paper, working on the code. Pramod expressed his surprise on seeing him. Vivek looked up at him and said: ‘Sir, I think I should be able to crack it.’ Pramod brushed him aside saying a job was not done until it was done. Vivek, however, persevered with the code, mindless of Pramod’s dismissive comment.

To be Continued ……….