Chapter 123: Inside Jo's lab

After taking their leave from the West sisters, the two friends went to Joshua's house. They had to see what the pen drives held and if it was of any use to them. It did not take long for them to go to his house. The road was deserted making it easy for them to drive their cars.

"Boss, did something happen in Madam's house? Did you find out anything?" Ronnie asked while driving. He waiting for his boss all the time while Noah was inside. When finally his boss came out accompanied by Joshua, he noticed that their expressions were serious and something had happened inside.

When Noah had ordered him to drive to Joshua's house, he had started the car without hesitating.

"We found two pen drives."

"Is it the one we were looking for?"

"Maybe. We will have to check it. Did you have dinner?"

"Yes, boss. Long back."

"Good," Noah replied and closed his eyes. However, his mind was not in peace. Even if he found out the information he wanted from the pen drives, he was filled with remorse. It was the guilt of lying to Aria. Though he was doing it for her own benefit by hiding the truth, he was also being selfish. He had a person to save and her father was not in the right condition to meet her right now. It would only break her if they were to meet anytime in the near future.

Once inside Joshua's house, the three men went to his laboratory. It looked nothing less than a scene from a science fiction movie. There were loads of gadgets and computers and a lot of other devices that Noah could not recognize. Though Ronnie had been here before, he couldn't stop himself from looking around in amazement. It was every gadget freak's wonderland.

Joshua snapped his fingers and the devices in the room switched on automatically.

"Welcome home, Master." A voice sounded on the speakers.

"Thank you, Alvis," Joshua spoke and connected one of the pen drives to the nearest computers. He tapped something on his keyboard and the screen enlarged in the air.

"How did you do that?" Ronnie asked in wonder.

"It's a holographic screen." Joshua opened all the files in the pen drives. There were certain case studies, which were of no use to them. Some of them were the reports Oliver had previously published. There a lot of files in there. After spending some time, he found the one which grabbed his attention. It contained the video clips of all the sting operations that had been performed.

Joshua opened the folder and played the videos in it.

"There are the video recordings of the sting operation," Noah commented looking at them. It showed how the doctors had made their victims unconscious and then operating on them.

"What do you think would happen to the doctors involved in this case if these videos were released?" Joshua asked, his eyes fixed on the huge screen.

"They will be dead meat."

Though the crime had been brought forward in front of the media and the public, most of the doctors had escaped and had gone into hiding. Some who couldn't escape their fate were taken away by the police. The hospitals involved in the crime were shut down. However, the doctors who had escaped and the ones who had not been revealed in front of the public had opened their own clinic in secret and were living a good life.

Joshua smiled, his eyes filled with wickedness. He knew what exactly to do, but this was not the time for it. The girls would become suspicious if he released the video now.

They went through all the files in the pen drive, but couldn't find what they were looking for. Joshua then switched the drives and opened it. There was only one file in it. It was a video recording too. It started playing and the three men watched with great interest.

It wan an hour-long clipping. However, there was zero content in it, it was blank. Joshua tried to fast forward it, but it had nothing in it. It was an empty video.

"There goes our hard work," Ronnie stated. He had hoped to find something from the pen drives. Other than the doctors who they had not heard of before, they found nothing.

Noah too was dejected. He had high hopes and everything went down the hill.

"Wait a minute," Joshua said making the two men look at him. He started to type some codes on the computer and the screen lit up again. This time it was not blank.

"How did you do that?" Noah too was dumbfounded.

"The video has been altered such that it can only be viewed when played in reverse. It is not exactly an hour-long clipping, but a short one of about nine minutes."

"You have got to be kidding me." Noah was impressed. Whoever had stored the video file had done a good job in modifying it.

The clip started playing and the room was filled with someone's breathing. It was the cameraman running and panting at the same time. He was following a man in the front. Despite being as quick as a cat, the man did not know he was being followed.

He went to a very secluded place. It was dark, somewhere around dusk. So, it was not clear as to where they exactly were. There were a lot of trees around the man. He walked sneakily looking around to see if anybody was trailing him. Before he could take another step, someone pounced on him and he fell to the ground.

The man was held in a deadlock by his attacker. However, he escaped from his clutches immediately.

"Well, well what do we have here?" He spoke.

"Your death."

Noah and Joshua's eyes widened on hearing the attacker's voice. It was the person they were looking for and the one they wanted to desperately save. He was their mentor, their brother, and their friend.

"I don't think I had an appointment with my death this early." The man stated. His face was completely invisible as his back was facing the camera. Not once did he turn back.

"Expect the unexpected."

"Hmm. But I am not in the mood to die right now. How about I send you back to where you belong?"

"And where would that be?" The attacker asked calmly.

"Hell." The man took out his gun and aimed at his victim.

The three men in the laboratory stared at the screen wide-eyed, their hearts pounding crazily. Their mentor was held at gunpoint.

Before the man could fire, their mentor had kicked his hand and the gun had flown away. A huge blood fight commenced which was unclear in the video. After a while, the man was held in a deadlock again by their mentor.

They did not know what happened. One second their mentor was having his victim in a headlock and the next second a gunshot was heard. Their mentor fell down dead. He had been shot right in the middle of his head exploding his brain.

The man who was held by him laughed like a maniac before the cameraman gasped and the video clip ended. Silence filled the laboratory. They could not believe what they had seen, their friend was murdered. They had hoped to find him alive and to be somewhere in this world at least. Never did they imagine him to be dead and to have been killed this gruesomely.

The worst part was they did not know who had fired the bullet.