A wall of cactus. That is what stood between Rudra, Deepa and the promised land! Dusk was fast approaching and it had been a really long day since they had mounted their early morning raid at the Celebration Hotel.
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But the raid had, at least initially, yielded pretty little. As planned, Deepa and Rudra had confidently entered the slightly sleazy lobby of the hotel and after smiling patronizingly at the bleary eyed night watchman had walked up to room 9 on the second floor. Internally, they had been all a flutter -- what if their key did not open the lock? -- and they had heaved a sigh of relief when the key turned with a smart click. But their joy was short lived. Other than an unopened bottle of Talisker Single Malt and a few bills, receipts and a small, partially torn, dog-eared copy of a tourist guide map of the Panchet-Maithon region, there was absolutely nothing else of any interest in the room.
Since they had checked out of the previous hotel, Rudra had wanted to stay in the current one and work out a plan but Deepa was very nervous. Perhaps Pandey-ji's people, or worse, his enemies were aware of this place? So they had quickly left the hotel and found a decrepit roadside eatery, or dhaba, where they decided to have breakfast. The dhaba-owner was still in the process of lighting the fire so mother and son had some time on their hands.
"Ma, this map means that Pandey-ji has a safe house somewhere in the vicinity."
"But where? How can we go around looking for it?"
"I wish there was someone whom we could ask or check with."
"But you would never know whom to trust."
"Let me look through the note book that we found in the bag that we escaped with. I remember that it had some telephone numbers."
Rudra rummaged through the backpack and pulled out a smart, leather covered notebook that was wrapped in a cellophane sheet -- obviously, to protect it from water or moisture. It contained a set of coded names and numbers that mother and son tried to decode.
"PaCha, MaMi, MuRo .." whispered Deepa, "these look like abbreviations of first and last names."
"Followed by phone numbers."
"SBI, HKB, PNB ... these are names of banks followed by account numbers."
"Or are they internet banking ids and passwords?"
"Hmm .. should we try calling the numbers?"
"And say what? No one knows about us or that is what we think, and it is better to leave it that way."
"Look at this one, LaLo and this one has two phone numbers 2368-5504, 86730-50800."
"One looks like a Calcutta landline number ... but those have stopped working ages ago. Why would he still carry it?"
"Ma, I am getting an idea .. what could LaLo mean? think .." there was a sudden urgency in Rudra's voice.
"No idea, kid."
"Look at this map," and he pulled the tattered Panchet-Maithon map out, "do you notice anything special."
"No. Just a very small scale map. Shows only very big features."
"Can you see the latitude and longitude lines ..."
"Very broad ones at 10 degree gaps, 20, 30, 40 degrees of latitude."
"And a latitude of 23 would lie somewhere here ..." Rudra pointed to a square.
"Wait!" Deepa whispered, "Are you saying that LaLo means Latitude and Longitude? and not the name of any person?"
"See the Longitude, 86, which should be between 80 and 90 East and that is a square that contains Panchet Lake!"
"Kiddo, you are indeed a genius. This must be the latitude and longitude of an important location in this area."
"Wonder who thought this up? Pandey-ji? or Teesta?"
"Whoever, but we have a challenge, the scale on the map is too small. The lat-long goes to fourth place of decimal. Where can we get a map that detailed?"
"I have an idea," smiled Rudra. "If only we could access wikimapia and type in the lat, long in the URL, we should be able see the exact location."
Which is what they had done next.
After a hurried breakfast of alu-paratha, they had taken gone to the bus stand near the railway station and had located a cyber-cafe where for an hourly fee they could access the internet.
"Private cubicles?" the owner had asked them with a straight face.
"What is the difference?" Rudra had asked in all innocence.
"Well, couples like it, you know." A smirk had cracked through his poker face. "Private rooms, love seat, we can also serve liquor inside. Only 300 bucks per hour, plus the drinks of course."
"No we are OK with these ..." Deepa pointed to the desktops located in a row of semi-private booths in the hall.
"No problem, 30 bucks an hour here," and pointed them to a machine in the corner.
The owner had warned them that the connection would be slow and the reality was worse. But the five minute wait for the map to load and then zoom to the highest scale was worth it!
"Wow! what a place Ma!" whispered Rudra as the cross hair positioned itself on a tiny peninsula on the south bank of the Panchet Lake, about a kilometer across from the Panchet Dam.