Oh, well what is it?” Rehan asked out of curiosity.

“Do you really want to know right now? Or you can wait till tomorrow?”

“I want to know, now.”

“Well, you have to interview

a doctor.”

“A doctor?”

“He’s not just any doctor, he’s an infamous doctor.”

“What’s his name?” Rehan asked.

“I think you’re not catching my sarcastic tone. He’s not a real doctor.”

“He isn’t?”

“No Rehan, you have to interview a fake doctor. Just like your cousin used to do.”

“Oh, I get it. You’re saying that I have to interview a guy who claims to be a doctor but, in fact he is just fooling others? Am I right?”

“Yes, exactly, that’s what you have to do.”

“So, this doctor is actually a fake doctor and he is fooling everyone else?”

“Yes, he was fooling everybody. And he still is. Now your job is to expose him.”

“Do I have to do this tomorrow?”

“No, tomorrow you’ll be given his profile. You will just have to study him and analyse his personality. You will have to interview him day after tomorrow.”

“Oh, okay.”

“But don’t forget one thing, please.”

“And what is that?”

“You need to realise that this guy is not to be taken lightly. He is a dangerous guy. He can be harmful to you.”

“Oh no, then why am I being sent there?”

“Don’t worry. You’ll be given special protection.”

“But what if it gets serious?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Nothing will happen to you.”

“Okay, let’s see.”

Rehan disconnected the call.

Next morning, Mr Zakaullah and Rehan were seated together inside the studio’s room. Zakaullah was holding a file of documents. He was showing some pictures to Rehan. He was listening carefully to everything he was being told. As their conversation on the subject ended, Zakaullah asked Rehan,

“Do you have any questions?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Very well then, tomorrow you’re going to start working on this.”

“Okay.”

Zakaullah stood up and left Rehan alone. Rehan studied the papers he was holding as if he was preparing himself for tomorrow.

The following morning, Rehan along with his team made his way to the fake doctor they were supposed to interview. Rehan was feeling quite stressed as he was told that the guy was kind of a dangerous person.

Anyway, as they all stood outside the doctor’s clinic, Rehan knocked the door. They heard the voice,

“Come in!”

Rehan asked both the cameramen,

“The video’s being recorded, right?”

“Yes, it is.” One of the cameramen replied.

“Okay good.”

Rehan opened the door by pushing it and went straight inside. The two cameramen followed him. An aged adult who was fair skinned was seated by the desk. Rehan went close to him and greeted him. The doctor looked at the cameramen and asked,

“What’s going on?”

“We are here to interview you,” Rehan responded.

“Why? What for?”

“We are doing a survey. It’s a part of our research.”

“What kind of research?”

“It is related to medical science doctors.”

“Then why do you have two cameramen?”

“Can I sit here?” Rehan tried to avoid his question.

“Okay.”

Rehan sat on a chair that was on the left side of the so-called doctor.

“Now answer me,” the aged adult demanded.

“What?”

“Answer my question.”

“What question?”

He raised his voice,

“What are these two camera guys doing here?”

“What are they doing? They are just shooting a small video.”

“Why? Why are they?”

“Like I told you before it’s a project based on medical science, so we are here to ask you some questions. So, we’ll need a video as an evidence of our project.”

The aged guy looked at the cameramen with an expression of dislike. So, he spoke after few seconds of thinking,

“All right, fine. But I want a copy of this video afterwards.”

“Sure, no problem” Rehan responded. “Now can we get to the questions?”

“Okay.”

“Our first question is that since how long have you been running this clinic?”

“Well, it has been quite a long time, more than 10 years I’m sure,”

“And how much do you earn from it?”

“What?” He asked bluntly.

“I’m asking how much money you make.”

“Per year?”

“Yeah, whatever”

“Well, I…”

“…Tell me your monthly income?” Rehan interrupted him.

“Uh, well it’s around two lakh,”

“Two lakh?” Rehan asked.

“Yes,”

“How do you earn so much?”

“What do you mean?”

“All right, forget it. Just tell me about your patients. What kind of patients come to you and how do you treat them?”

“Well, I happen to meet people who are mostly young and most of the patients are women.”

“Women?”

“Yes, they come for back pain and they come for dizziness in their eyes.”

“I see. And how do you treat them?”

“I give them medicines. Medicines that are meant to keep them healthy.”

“So, you use the same medicines for back pains and dizziness issues?”

“Yes, the medicines are the same.”

“Oh, and how is that possible?”

“What do you mean?”

“How is that possible? I’m asking that how do two different diseases get cured by the same medicine? How is that possible?”

“Listen to me, first of all these are not diseases.”

“I know, whatever they are. How can you cure the two with the same medicine?”

“That’s because they both are related to body weakness. A person who is suffering from back pain has body weakness. And a person who is facing dizziness of the eyes is also suffering from weakness. You have to understand that. And in order to understand this stuff you need to have a degree.” Rehan said.

“What kind of degree?”

“MBBS degree,”

“What is the abbreviation of MBBS?” Rehan asked cunningly.

“What?” The aged guy asked getting sort of panicked.

“I’m asking that what the full form of MBBS is.”

The fake doctor looked aside on his left as if pretending that he hadn’t understood the question. Rehan asked him,

“You have this degree, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do have it.”

“Can you show it to me?”

The aged guy looked at the cameramen and then looked back at Rehan. A thought clicked his mind. He looked around for a second and slowly began to laugh. He was laughing like an insane person. Rehan felt a little weird and waited for him to speak. As the aged man stopped laughing, he said looking at the cameramen,

“Now I understand. You guys are from a TV channel and you are here to expose me.”

“It’s nothing like that.”

“Oh really, you guys think I’m a fool? Okay, in order to save you some time, I’ll simply say what you guys came here to know.”

Rehan listened to him saying,

“I am a fake doctor. I have no authentic degree. And yes, I am conning people.”

Rehan realised that there was sarcasm in his tone but whatever he spoke was enough for him. So, he asked the cameramen,

“Did you guys capture that?”

“Yes, I got it.” One of the cameramen spoke.

“Great job. Let’s go.”

After a few minutes, Rehan and his two cameramen were standing outside the building. One of the cameramen asked him,

“Are we leaving already?”

“Well, we have achieved what we wanted to, okay? We can now make a half an hour episode out of this. All we need is proper editing on this.”

“But this was not our task. I mean, he said sarcastically. I think the viewers can judge that he didn’t really mean what he said.”

“Don’t worry, if the producers don’t like it, we’ll come back some other day. Maybe tomorrow,”

“Okay, well what are we going to do now?”

“I think we can go back now. Let’s have some lunch first, and then afterwards we can leave.”

“Oh, okay.”

Rehan felt relieved for a moment as the task was over momentarily. As he saw the two cameramen walking away from him, he uttered,

“Thank God, this guy didn’t do any harm.”

Rehan then followed them to the cafe as he was feeling thirsty.

**************

The following night while Rehan was sitting relaxed at his home and was watching some TV channel on his phone, his phone began to ring. Rehan answered Zakaullah’s call,

“Hello?”

“Rehan, do you have a minute?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Okay so Rehan, your today’s task shall be completed some other day. But right now, I have another project for you. You need to work on that.”

“Okay, what is it about?”

“It is a mystery. Mystery of a missing man. It won’t be easy but it will be interesting. You’ll have to work on it for several weeks. It might be as long as a six-month project. But you’ll enjoy it.”

“Okay, I’ll come tomorrow. Then we can discuss it in detail.”

“Yeah, sure”

**************

Next afternoon, Rehan was sitting in the studio waiting for Mr Zakaullah to show up, somebody walked by him and stared at him while passing by. Rehan looked back at him wondering why he was being looked at like this.

Inside some room, Zakaullah was being told by someone,

“This project has to be given to this guy only. Whoever has tried to resolve this mystery has either died or ended up in prison.”

“I know.”

“We have to resolve this case someday. If he gets to the answer of this mystery then well and good, otherwise we are not responsible for what happens to him.”

“I understand,” Zakaullah replied.

“And you know what will happen to him?”

“I know, he’ll die. But not out of our hands.”

“Correct. Now go and instruct him.”

“Okay, but I was wondering that what if he finds out?”

“Don’t worry, he won’t. Trust me, he won’t.”

“Are you sure?”

“Look if anything happens then I’ll handle it. You do your job right now.”

“Okay.”

Zakaullah stood up and left the room.

Next minute, Zakaullah was seated right next to Rehan. Rehan asked him,

“So, what kind of mystery is this?”

“It’s a kind of mystery no one has been able to solve.”

“Really? How come?”

“Well it’s something we are not at all aware of.”

Rehan was getting confused, so he asked him,

“What exactly is this case? Can you tell me altogether please?”

“Well, the thing is that we don’t have much details about this. All we know is that there was this guy named Mujhtaba Illyas. He is missing, that’s all.”

“So, why are we supposed to find him?”

“I don’t know that either. But the show’s producer wants this case to be resolved in front of the world.”

“In front of the world?”

“I meant in front of Pakistan. You just have to give awareness to the people of the country that you are working on this case.”

“Is this guy somebody important? I mean are people really desperate to know where he is.”

“People are not. But the Police are. They worked really hard on this case, but they lost hope eventually,”

“Oh…So, now if I’m going to work on it and find out the person or resolve the mystery then the cops will be really happy?”

“Yes, kind of”

“So, this is basically a…”

“…A show off?” Zakaullah spoke in between, “Yes, you can consider it to be a show off. I don’t mind. But I want you to work on it sincerely and stop asking so many questions.”

Rehan chuckled and replied,

“I just want to know the exact truth about what I’m working on.”

“Look Rehan, if you really want some answers then you better go and meet Mr Wahaib Lashari. He is the SHO of some area which I can’t recall. You can go and meet him. He can answer plenty of your questions. And I would recommend you to do that. I mean, don’t avoid it. Go there, talk to him nicely and get some answers regarding this case.”

“But where will I find him?”

“I don’t remember that exactly. Don’t worry about it. I’ll let you know the address. I’ll provide you all the details after I get them. You don’t really have to worry about that. What you need to worry about is the meeting. You have to arrange a meeting with him and meet him personally.”

“Okay, I think I can do that.”

“Good, and in the meantime, you can go home and take this file along.”

Zakaullah handed over the file to Rehan and said,

“Just go home right now, and analyse his profile. You’ll be working on this case from tomorrow onwards.”

“Okay.” Rehan said shaking hands with him and preparing to leave.

to be continued...