The Phantom Hood
Genre: Vigilante crime thriller / mystery suspense
Logline
When a masked vigilante team begins robbing corrupt banks to return dignity to ruined families, a weary police inspector races to stop them – only to realise justice is no longer black and white.
Short Description
They called him a ghost. A shadow. A hero. A criminal.
When a string of flawless bank heists rocks the city, Inspector Alex hunts the masked Phantom Hood, only to find clues pointing back to the banks’ own secrets. As fear spreads and cash rains on the streets, public anger fuels the Phantom’s rise as a vigilante. But behind the hood lies a hidden team with a single burning mission: to reclaim dignity stolen by corrupt elites.As Alex closes in, he discovers justice is more than law – and the Phantom’s war is just beginning.The Phantom Hood is a gripping vigilante thriller exploring revenge, redemption, and the thin line between justice and crime.
Contents
The Vanishing Vault
The Phantom Strikes Again
Beneath the Shadows
Shadows Multiply
Masks Fall
The Final Truth
The Phantom’s War
1 – The Vanishing Vault
Rahul was sipping his morning tea, staring blankly at the curling steam, when his phone rang. The screen flashed: Ravi – General Manager. A dull unease settled in his stomach before he even answered.
“Hello?” he said quickly.
“Sir…” Ravi’s voice trembled, cracking mid-sentence. “Please come to the bank immediately. We… we’ve been robbed.”
For a moment, Rahul didn’t comprehend what he heard. Robbed? The word echoed in his mind, thudding like a heavy drum. His chest tightened. The teacup rattled against the saucer as his hand shook.
“I’m coming now,” he managed, ending the call before Ravi could say more.
He rushed into his room, forcing himself into a crisp shirt and trousers with trembling fingers. Questions flooded his mind. How could this happen? When? Who? But panic threatened to choke him, so he focused only on moving quickly.
Keys. Wallet. Shoes. Lock the door. He barely felt the morning breeze against his face as he hurried to his car. Sweat gathered along his temples despite the early hour. Sliding behind the wheel, he closed his eyes, forcing a deep breath into his lungs. But the dread remained, gnawing at his chest.
The drive felt endless. Every red light lingered longer, every rickshaw crawled deliberately ahead, every honking bus grated at his sanity. His knuckles whitened against the steering wheel as anger and fear coiled inside him.
When he finally turned onto the bank’s street, his stomach twisted tighter. Police cars lined the curb, red-and-blue lights flashing against the glass entrance. A crowd pressed against yellow barricade tape, murmuring in shock.
He parked hastily, barely pulling the handbrake before he leapt out. The crowd parted as he pushed through, ignoring their curious stares. At the entrance, a constable stepped forward, hand raised to block him.
“Sir, please stand back,” the officer ordered firmly.
Before Rahul could argue, a voice called out from within.
“Let him in,” the manager shouted. “He’s the bank’s CEO.”
The constable stepped aside, and Rahul walked in on unsteady legs. The main floor was silent, heavy with dread. Employees stood in small clusters, whispering anxiously, eyes wide with fear. Ravi waited near the locker room, face pale, eyes red-rimmed.
Without a word, he turned and led Rahul inside. The room smelled of stale metal and disinfectant. The vault door stood wide open.
Rahul’s eyes scanned the shelves again and again, refusing to accept what he saw.
Empty. Completely empty.
Not a single rupee note remained. No gold bars, no jewellery packets. It was as if the vault had been wiped clean overnight.
His throat tightened. He swallowed hard before whispering shakily, “What about… the black money?”
Ravi flinched, lips trembling. “That too… sir. Everything is gone.”
Rahul felt the world tilt. He reached for the wall to steady himself just as footsteps approached. SI Alex walked in, holding a printed list.
“Is this a total loss?” Alex asked, his voice brisk, almost cold.
Rahul glanced at the list before nodding weakly. “Yes… everything.”
“Any suspects?” Alex’s eyes locked onto his face, sharp and searching.
Rahul shook his head, feeling exposed and helpless. “No sir… no one.”
“Come with me,” Alex ordered, leading him to the CCTV control room.
They watched the footage together. Minutes passed. There was no sign of forced entry. No intruder. No masked thief sneaking in.
Then, in the final frame, Rahul felt his blood run cold.
A masked figure stood directly facing the camera. They wore a dark hoodie, their faces hidden. In their hand, they held a white card with thick black letters scrawled across it:
“This is just a start.”
2 – The Phantom Strikes Again
The police station buzzed with quiet urgency the next morning. The air smelled faintly of burnt paper and old varnish, mixing with the tension that seemed to radiate from every uniformed officer. SI Alex sat alone in the dim evidence room, hunched over a battered steel table littered with clues from the bank robbery.
A solitary cigarette butt lay in a sealed bag before him, next to the smudged fingerprints lifted off the locker door. Under the flickering tube light, his eyes narrowed as he inspected the butt with tweezers, studying it beneath the magnifying glass. The forensic report yielded nothing useful – no foreign DNA, just standard tobacco residue. The fingerprints? All belonged to bank staff. No outsiders. No forced entry. It was as if the thief had been a ghost.
Frustration coiled tight in Alex’s chest. He summoned every employee for questioning, determined to crack the silent wall around him. Each staff member entered with visible nerves, their hands fidgeting or eyes flicking anxiously about. But their stories aligned, their body language lacked deception, and no one admitted to smoking inside the bank.
The cigarette remained an enigma.
Days slipped by, each hour wrapping tighter around Rahul’s chest like a steel band. Sleep evaded him, replaced by a constant dread gnawing at his sanity.
Then it happened again.
Another branch was hit – same eerie precision, same absolute emptiness left behind. The news reached Rahul just after dawn, sending him reeling against his bedroom wall. His knees threatened to give way. Two branches, gone. Who could do this? Why?
At the second crime scene, the sun rose harsh and pitiless over the police cordon, illuminating tearful employees and panicked customers. Inside the vault room, Alex’s sharp gaze swept the floor until he spotted something glinting under a locker shelf. Kneeling, he picked it up with gloved fingers – a broken piece of a delicate necklace with a small pendant attached.
Unlike the last scene, there was a note this time, scrawled hastily on thick white card:
“If the law fails, justice will rise alone.”
The message wasn’t just a threat; it was a declaration.
A fresh urgency burned through the investigation. Alex re-questioned every employee, digging deeper into their histories and recent behaviour. During Meera’s interrogation – the soft-spoken junior cashier – her trembling fingers twisted nervously when he showed her the broken necklace piece.
“It’s mine,” she whispered. “I… I lost it last week. I thought I dropped it at home. I swear I don’t know anything about this.”
Her tears seemed genuine, but Alex filed away her name. Nothing was irrelevant now.
He turned his focus to the stolen cash itself, instructing constables to compile serial numbers and possible circulation routes. If the thief spent or moved it, someone would talk.
That afternoon, his phone buzzed sharply, snapping him from his paperwork haze.
“Sir, turn on the TV. Now.” Constable Arun’s voice trembled with urgency.
Alex grabbed the remote and flicked to the news channel. For a moment, he simply stared, stunned into silence.
The screen showed chaos: bundles of cash flying through the air at railway stations, bus stands, crowded malls. People scrambled like children in a candy storm, clutching notes, screaming, laughing, crying. The footage shifted rapidly from location to location, all across the city.
The anchor’s voice rose with theatrical frenzy:
“Breaking News – The Phantom Hood strikes again, showering cash on the public in an unprecedented spectacle of chaos and euphoria. Is this charity or madness?”
Social media erupted in real time. Hashtags trended worldwide. Memes, videos, and live streams flooded every platform. Overnight, the mysterious thief gained a title the city clung to with morbid awe: The Phantom Hood.
Some called him a vigilante. Others are terrorists. But one truth united them all – fear and fascination gripped the city in equal measure.
Public pressure tightened around Alex like a noose. Each day the media screamed for answers, plastering his weary face on their broadcasts. Each night Rahul sank deeper into an anxious haze, his mind spinning with questions and dread.
3 – Beneath the Shadows
SI Alex sat alone in the evidence room, its single yellow bulb flickering above, casting grim shadows across his weary face. His bloodshot eyes scanned the table scattered with files, fingerprint cards, crime scene photos, and blurry CCTV printouts. The slow, rattling ceiling fan pushed cold air against his damp temples as he leaned back, trying to force the puzzle pieces to fit.
For the hundredth time, he rewound the CCTV footage from both robberies. Every frame was etched into his memory, yet he forced himself to watch again. The masked figure moved with unnerving calmness, each step deliberate, precise – almost rehearsed. There was no rush, no panic. Whoever this was had walked through it a thousand times in his mind.
And then there was that cigarette butt. Alex’s gaze flicked to Rahul’s file lying open before him. Clean record, well-educated, politically connected family. On paper, Rahul was a golden boy. But Alex’s instincts didn’t trust the paper.
He called Constable Ravi over that evening. “Shadow Rahul for the next three days. Discreetly. I want everything – who he meets, where he goes, what he eats.”
For seventy-two hours, Rahul’s life played out like a monotonous reel: home, gym, bank, club meetings, evening drives. There were no whispered calls behind closed doors, no clandestine alley meetings, no sudden changes in routine.
Alex sighed, rubbing his temples until the skin felt raw. If not Rahul… then who?
He changed his angle. Maybe this wasn’t about greed. Maybe it was revenge.
He dug into the bank’s history: foreclosure notices, loan default seizures, property auctions. Page after page, the pattern repeated – families stripped of their homes, farmers losing ancestral land, shopkeepers reduced to street hawkers. Some families had moved to slums. Others had simply broken apart.
But as Alex flipped deeper into the files, a gnawing chill twisted in his gut. Many of those who had lost everything… had recently received anonymous bundles of money. Crumpled notes tucked among the cash read:
“You deserved dignity.”
His fingers drummed against the metal desk as he whispered to himself, “So… this Mr. Robin Hood really is giving it back.”
Still, the question throbbed at his sanity. Who was he? How did he vanish without a trace?
Late that night, as thunder rumbled beyond the barred window, Alex found a file buried under old settlement records, its edges frayed and stained yellow with age. He flipped it open.
Victim Name: Patel Family
Outcome: Entire family suicide
Reason: House and plot seized for unpaid loan
Status: Closed
His pulse quickened. Suicide by poison. Husband. Wife. Daughter. All gone.
Alex slammed the file shut, his chest heaving. Someone left. Someone survived.
The next morning, he called Rahul into the interrogation room. The air was thick, almost suffocating. Rahul sat down calmly, adjusting his gold watch with a flick of cold indifference.
“Do you remember the Patel family?” Alex asked, voice quiet and low.
Rahul barely blinked. “Which Patel family? We’ve seized at least fifty Patel properties in the past two years.”
Alex’s jaw tensed. “The one who committed suicide after losing their home and land.”
Rahul tilted his head, shrugging with clinical disinterest. “That happens. If they can’t pay, it’s their problem. The bank did what it had to do.”
Alex’s gaze darkened. In his mind, a quiet thought burned: You deserve what’s coming.
But justice or vengeance – it was still a crime. He needed to stop this Phantom before the city descended into chaos.
That night, rain pounded his apartment windows like desperate fists. Alex sat slouched on his worn-out sofa, a half-empty whisky glass sweating on the table beside him. Across from him, pinned to a large corkboard on the peeling wall, were photographs, maps, scribbled notes, and typed threats.
Cigarette smoke curled upward into the flickering lamplight. His eyes drifted across every pinned clue:
The cigarette butt.
The necklace fragments.
CCTV frames of the masked figure.
News headlines: “The Phantom Hood showers cash across city.”
Photographs of families smiling with returned money bundles.
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, his voice a ragged whisper in the silent room.
“Who are you…?”
Outside, thunder rattled the glass panes. In that shivering silence, SI Alex realised – this wasn’t just theft. It was grief, vengeance, and redemption twisted into a single shadow. But if the Phantom wasn’t stopped soon, his righteous fury would burn everything in its path.
4 – Shadows Multiply
Alex jolted awake as his phone shrieked on the nightstand. Sweat clung to his neck despite the humming ceiling fan. He grabbed it with trembling fingers, vision blurred by the remnants of fevered dreams.
“Sir…” Constable Arun’s voice shook on the other end. “Another branch has been hit. Same method. The vault was wiped clean.”
A sickening knot formed in Alex’s stomach. He swung his legs off the bed, ignoring the ache in his joints, and dressed swiftly in the ghost-grey dawn that crept into his cluttered room.
At the bank, chaos spread like wildfire. Police lines kept weeping customers at bay while staff huddled in silent, shaking groups. Alex walked through them, feeling their fear cling to him like smoke. Inside, the vault door gaped open like a silent scream. Empty shelves stared back, cold and mocking.
“Alex!”
The Commissioner’s thunderous voice snapped him back. The older man’s face was red with fury, moustache twitching with each ragged breath.
“Have you found anything yet? Or have you joined Phantom’s fan club too?”
Beside him stood Rahul, arms folded, eyes glittering with cruel delight.
“If you can’t catch him,” Rahul sneered, “we’ll bring someone competent. Do you know how much money I’ve lost? People like you can’t even imagine numbers that big.”
Alex’s hands curled into fists, nails cutting into his palms. But his face remained a mask of cold stone.
“Give me three days,” he said, voice flat and dark. “I’ll find him.”
He turned to Rahul, gaze narrowing like a blade’s edge.
“And if you’re hiding something from me…”
Rahul scoffed, flicking invisible dust off his gold watch. “No. It’s your job to find him. Not mine.”
The Commissioner’s glare burned into Alex’s back as he walked away without another word.
Back at his office, Alex locked the door and sank into his chair. The silence of the dim room pressed down on him like a buried coffin. He played the footage from the latest robbery. Phantom moved like a ghost – unhurried, methodical, invisible. No prints. No DNA. No scent. Nothing. Just a note taped to the vault door:
““Stop eating human meat, or you will suffer."
He read the words over and over until they burned behind his eyes. His chest tightened with an unnamed dread. What did this mean? Who was he talking to?
He pushed away from the desk and stepped out into the back compound. Diesel fumes from the parked jeeps mixed with the damp night air. He lit a cigarette, watching its ember glow like a dying star against the darkness.
Footsteps approached. Constable Arun appeared from the shadows, holding out a steaming cup of tea.
“Sir,” he said softly, eyes filled with worry. “You look… tired. This case… it’s different. You’ve never struggled like this before. You’re getting slim, sir.”
Alex let out a low, humourless laugh and took the cup. Its heat seeped into his cold fingers as he stared into the rising steam, thoughts churning like a storm tide.
Then – like lightning splitting the sky – an idea struck him.
He turned sharply to Arun, eyes blazing with new clarity.
“Arun,” he whispered, urgency vibrating in his voice. “Fetch me all the CCTV footage from every robbery. Now. Every second. Every angle.”
Minutes later, Alex sat in a fortress of flickering screens, each playing footage from different heists side by side. The tea sat forgotten, growing cold by his elbow.
Frame by frame, he studied them, scanning each subtle movement, each stride, each turn of the masked head.
Then he saw it.
The Phantom in the first footage was broad-shouldered, moving with heavy confidence. The second was leaner, quicker on his feet. The third had a slight limp in the left leg. The fourth… The fourth moved with an unmistakable grace, narrower shoulders, lighter frame. A woman.
Alex felt his pulse hammering in his throat like a war drum.
He swallowed, eyes locked onto the flickering images.
“No…” he whispered, dreading flooding his veins with ice.
“It’s not one man.”
His voice trembled as the truth dawned, darker than any shadow he’d chased before.
“It’s four. three shadows… under one name.”
Outside, the first lightning strike split the sky, illuminating the silent city that had no idea its nightmares were just beginning.
5 – Masks Fall
A cold rush of adrenaline coursed through Alex’s veins as the revelation dug deeper into his bones. Three shadows. Four Phantoms. This wasn’t a lone vigilante. It was a network – precise, fearless, and meticulously orchestrated.
He replayed the CCTV footage frame by frame, analysing every flick of a wrist, every stride and posture. Different builds. Different gaits. Different silent signatures. The knowledge burned away his exhaustion, leaving only razor-sharp clarity in its wake.
“Why…?” he whispered to the silent evidence room. “Why risk everything for this?”
His phone vibrated violently against the metal table, cutting through the hush like a blade. An unknown number flashed on screen. Hesitation prickled his spine, then he answered.
“Inspector Alex,” a metallic, disguised voice crackled on the other end. His pulse spiked dangerously.
“Don’t bother tracing this call,” the voice continued, emotionless yet heavy with unspoken menace. “You’re wondering who we are. That’s irrelevant. What matters is why we do this.”
Alex’s grip tightened around the phone, knuckles whitening. “Why are you calling me?”
“Because,” the voice said softly, almost like a lullaby, “tonight you will understand what true justice means.”
Before he could respond, the line went dead. Silence roared in his ears, deafening.
Another robbery? Or something worse?
He shot up, chair scraping violently against the floor. “Arun!” he barked, throwing the door open.
Constable Arun appeared, startled. “Sir?”
“Get the team ready. Full mobilisation.”
“Where to, sir?”
“Everywhere. Every branch. Every vault. Every backup warehouse. They’ll strike tonight. We are moving now.”
Police convoys tore through the humid, sodium-lit streets under a moonless sky. Alex sat in the back of his jeep, fingers drumming against his thigh, eyes darting from shadow to shadow. Think. Where will they strike next?
Hours crawled by like dying insects. Midnight bled into the heavy quiet of early dawn.
Then – it happened.
Four masked figures emerged from the darkness at the rear gate of the main city branch. The night guard barely registered movement before a shadow slipped behind him, pressing a chloroform-soaked cloth against his mouth. His body slumped, silent.
Three Phantoms slipped inside. Their movements were swift, surgical, rehearsed to perfection. Inside the vault room, the stale air filled with the faint rustle of currency notes as they packed large black duffel bags with bundles of cash and glittering jewellery.
One of them turned towards the camera, pulling out a small white signboard and holding it steady. Black letters burned into the flickering CCTV feed:
“This is the end.”
For a heartbeat, he stood motionless, masked eyes revealing only an unbreakable will. Then he slipped the board back into his jacket and turned to leave.
Outside, his boots crunched on the gravel path.
Suddenly, floodlights exploded to life, stabbing into the night with blinding ferocity. His eyes widened in shock. His partners were already on their knees, hands locked behind their heads, surrounded by armed police in a tightening circle of rifles and flashing red beams.
Silence fell, broken only by his ragged, heaving breaths.
From the shadows, Alex emerged, his service revolver trained steadily on the last masked man’s forehead. His voice sliced through the humid air, cold and final.
“Game over.”
Moments later, Rahul arrived, tie askew, hair damp with sweat. His eyes blazed with rage and disbelief as officers dragged the three captured figures towards waiting jeeps. Alex ripped away their masks with a savage jerk.
His chest clenched with grim shock.
One was Ravi – the general manager of Rahul’s bank. The others were some local thieves.
Rahul’s face twisted in fury. “Ravi! You traitor!” He lunged forward, but Alex held him back, steel in his grip.
“That’s enough,” Alex snapped. “Take them all to the station.”
Rahul turned to leave, but Alex blocked his path, eyes glinting with dark promise.
“I admired your composure earlier,” he said softly, dangerously calm. “Let’s see if it survives tonight.”
At the station, the Commissioner stood beside Alex, his face grave as they watched through the one-way glass. Inside the interrogation room, Ravi sat trembling, wrists cuffed to the cold metal table. Alex flicked through his file, eyes dead calm.
“Why did you do this?” he asked quietly, words dripping with lethal intent. “Who’s behind you? Who is the real mastermind?”
Ravi shook his head frantically, sweat sliding down his temples. “No sir… this was our first attempt. The other robberies weren’t us. Those were someone else.”
Alex’s eyes narrowed to dark slits. “Don’t lie to me.”
“It’s the truth, sir!” Ravi pleaded, voice cracking. “This plan… It was Rahul’s idea. We only did it tonight. The Phantom… that’s someone else entirely.”
Outside, Rahul’s face paled, eyes darting nervously as the Commissioner turned to him, suspicion clouding his stern gaze.
Rahul scoffed, voice shaking with barely controlled anger. “Why would I rob my own bank? This is insane. He’s lying.”
Alex ignored him, leaning closer to Ravi. “Why would Rahul plan this? Speak.”
Ravi’s voice broke into desperate sobs. “He needed quick cash to hide black money before audits. He said if we copy Phantom’s style, no one would suspect him. The police would blame Phantom like always.”
Alex’s jaw tightened to iron. He stepped out of the room and faced Rahul, who stood shaking with silent rage. The Commissioner waited, impassive and silent.
“Is this true?” Alex demanded, his voice thunderous in the silent hallway.
Rahul’s eyes darted left and right, sweat blooming at his temples. “No… he’s framing me. This is nonsense.”
Alex studied him coldly, weighing his trembling facade.
Suddenly, Rahul’s phone rang. His trembling hands answered instinctively.
“Sir… sir…” his secretary sobbed on the other end. “Your house… your house has been robbed. Everything… everything is gone.”
The phone slipped from Rahul’s slack fingers, clattering onto the marble floor. His eyes glazed with shock, his knees giving way as he sagged into the plastic chair behind him.
Across the glass, Alex stood perfectly still, his mind racing with chilling clarity.
The real Phantom was still out there.
6 – The Final Truth
Rahul and the police convoy sped through the sleeping city, sirens slicing the silent dawn. When they arrived at his mansion, the air felt unnaturally still. The security gates stood wide open, lights flickering dimly in the foyer.
Inside, Rahul’s secretary sat trembling on the living room sofa, her hands wringing the edge of her dupatta. Tears streaked down her cheeks as she whispered, “Sir… everything… it’s all gone.”
Rahul pushed past her without a word, running from room to room, opening cupboards, breaking open drawers, flinging aside files and boxes. His panicked breathing echoed through the marble halls.
Cash vaults – empty. Gold bars – gone. Land documents, black money records, overseas property deeds – nothing remained.
He collapsed onto the cold floor, clutching his head. A strangled scream burst from his chest, primal and broken. His secretary and two policemen rushed to him, lifting him gently and seating him back on the sofa. He sat there, unmoving, his eyes staring into nothingness.
Meanwhile, Alex and Arun swept through the entire house with their team. Bedroom, office, underground vault – each corner was clean, too clean. No footprints, no fingerprints, no stray fibres. Nothing.
“This is surgical,” Arun whispered, swallowing hard. “Like ghosts.”
They checked the CCTV system. The screens flickered to life, and Rahul’s entire security team gathered behind them, hoping for a clue.
Instead, silence fell heavy.
On the footage, three masked Phantoms stood in front of the main security camera, facing it directly. Their dark hoodies blended with the shadows, but their cold, silent gaze into the lens felt like a blade against the viewer’s throat.
They didn’t speak. They didn’t move. They just… stared. For nearly a full minute.
Alex felt an icy shiver crawl up his spine. He glanced sideways at Rahul, who sat slumped on the sofa, eyes vacant, body trembling like a fallen leaf.
Quietly, Alex turned to his officers. “Arrest him.”
Two constables moved forward. Rahul barely resisted as they pulled him to his feet and cuffed his wrists. Tears rolled down his face, but no words came. He looked like a man who had drowned long before his lungs emptied.
Outside, the sun was beginning to rise, staining the horizon with crimson and gold. The convoy drove back towards the city, Rahul silent in the backseat of a police jeep. In another vehicle, Alex sat beside Arun, staring out the window at the fading stars.
Arun cleared his throat nervously. “Sir… we lost them again. The real Phantoms. They’re gone without a trace.”
Alex didn’t turn. He exhaled softly, eyes narrowed, as if seeing something far beyond the dawn.
“No, Arun,” he replied quietly. “We haven’t lost them.”
Arun frowned, confused. “What do you mean, sir?”
Alex turned to look at him, eyes dark with memories and something like grief. “Let me tell you a story.”
Arun listened, curiosity etched across his face.
“Five years ago,” Alex began, his voice low and distant, “there was a small village on the outskirts of our town. The people were simple, hardworking farmers. Life wasn’t easy, but they were content. Then, one year, disaster struck. Floods destroyed their fields. Their crops rotted in black water. Their savings vanished overnight. They had nothing left to feed their children.”
“One day,” Alex continued, his eyes fixed on the road ahead, “a man came to them. He wore expensive suits and shiny watches. He spoke politely. He offered them loans to rebuild their lives. Desperate, they signed his papers without reading the fine print.”
Arun swallowed, already guessing where this was going.
“At first, the villagers were grateful. They bought seeds, rebuilt their huts, ploughed their lands again. But just as the crops began to sprout, trucks arrived with excavators and police jeeps. They watched helplessly as their fields were dug up, their land flattened for a private real estate project.”
“They protested, cried, begged. But he showed them their own signatures on the sale deeds. Their lands were gone. Legally transferred. They had unknowingly signed away their only hope.”
Arun sat silent, his chest tight.
“They went to the media, but no one cared. Reporters were too busy chasing actress scandals and celebrity weddings. The families broke apart. Some left for the city slums. Some… ended their lives. No one fought for them.”
Alex’s fingers curled into a fist.
“The man who robbed them of their dignity… was Rahul.”
Silence filled the jeep. Outside, the city awoke to another day, unaware of the storm brewing in its shadows.
ct.”
“They protested, cried, and begged. But he showed them their own signatures on the sale deeds. Their lands were gone. Legally transferred. They had unknowingly signed away their only hope.”
Arun sat silent, his chest tight.
“They went to the media, but no one cared. Reporters were too busy chasing actress scandals and celebrity weddings. The families broke apart. Some left for the city slums. Some… ended their lives. No one fought for them.”
Alex’s fingers curled into a fist.
“The man who robbed them of their dignity… was Rahul.”
Silence filled the jeep. Outside, the city awoke to another day, unaware of the storm brewing in its shadows.
7 – The Phantom’s War
The vehicle rolled steadily through the silent dawn. Alex continued speaking, his voice low and measured, each word slicing through the darkness like a surgeon’s blade.
“Rahul got what he wanted. His empire. His wealth. His power. But the people… they lost everything. Their lands, their dignity, their families.”
Arun sat beside him, silent, his face illuminated by the dim dashboard lights. His eyes didn’t waver from Alex’s silhouette as he drove.
“Years later,” Alex continued, “four young students arrived at that devastated village for a social survey. Bright, ambitious kids. They asked questions, recorded interviews, thinking it was just another rural development project. But when they heard the truth – about the betrayal, the forged documents, the suicides – something inside them shattered.”
He paused. The rhythmic hum of the engine filled the silence. Outside, dawn was a faint silver glow on the horizon.
“They realised that for men like Rahul, the law was just a shield. A tool. Justice was never coming for those villagers. So… they became justice.”
They pulled up outside Alex’s apartment building. He turned to Arun with a faint, knowing smile.
“Come in. Coffee?”
Arun nodded silently and followed him up the narrow stairway. The small flat smelled of filter coffee, old leather files, and warm wood polish. A battered corkboard covered one wall, pinned with crime scene photos, printed CCTV frames, and scribbled notes.
As the coffee brewed, Alex continued, his voice calm and clinical.
“Their plan was brilliant. They started from scratch, building credibility, sacrificing years to blend in. Eric joined as a cashier in one of Rahul’s main branches. For over a year, he memorised vault codes, daily cash inflows, alarm reset timings, and shift patterns. He even befriended the IT officer to learn about backdoor server failures. Every Friday, he uploaded tiny glitches in the alarm code backups. Nothing major – just enough to create two-minute blind spots each week.”
He handed a steaming cup to Arun.
“Then there was Meera. She took up a junior cashier’s job in a second branch. She analysed employee behaviour, guard rotations, and figured out which security cameras had faulty angle coverage. Her role was crucial – she’d trigger silent alarms to distract guards while Eric executed the first heist.”
Arun leaned back against the worn sofa, his face calm but his eyes burning with quiet pride.
“At the third branch,” Alex continued, “they placed Anwar as a night security guard. He spent months mapping police patrol timings and escape routes. On the robbery night, he let the team slip in. Before officers arrived, he drank sleeping pills mixed in tea and staged himself near the broken staff bathroom door, pretending he fainted during duty. Forensics only found sleeping drug traces – no fingerprints linking him to the vault.”
Alex paused, sipping his coffee. His gaze locked onto Arun’s.
“And then… there was the mastermind. The real Phantom. The planner who stitched it all together. The one who coordinated timings, cover-ups, diversion tactics, and public psychology.”
He set down his cup and leaned forward.
“I found out because of a necklace fragment recovered at the second crime scene. Meera claimed it was hers. But when I visited the village during my investigation, an old man there recognised it immediately. ‘This necklace,’ he said, ‘was made here. We gave it to a child who swore to bring back our village’s honour.’”
Alex’s eyes narrowed, his voice dropping to a whisper.
“And that child grew up to become a police constable named Arun Fernandez Louis.”
Silence engulfed the room, thick as fog. Then, slowly, Arun smiled. The nervous constable facade dissolved. Sitting before Alex now was a man emanating silent power, burning with purpose.
“Wow,” Arun said softly, his voice filled with quiet respect. “You’re good, Alex. Really damn good.”
Alex let out a small smile, weary but genuine. “You’re better. That cigarette butt at the first scene? Genius. You knew I’d trace its rare brand to Rahul and focus all suspicion on him.”
He shook his head in admiration.
“When I discovered Phantom wasn’t a single person but four, I realised you orchestrated it all. You called me that night, urgently sending police units to guard every branch while your team robbed Rahul’s house. You knew Rahul was planning his fake robbery to cover his black money, and you used it to execute the perfect heist.”
Arun chuckled lightly, leaning back with supreme calm.
“So what now, Alex? Will you arrest us? Will you let a monster like Rahul get away again while we rot behind bars? He never deserved mercy.”
Alex stood and walked to his cluttered desk. He picked up a thick file and turned to face Arun, eyes blazing with purpose.
“No, Arun,” he said softly. “Rahul will rot in jail for the rest of his life. Every piece of evidence points to him. The law will crucify him publicly for his crimes.”
He stepped forward and handed the file to Arun. Inside were dozens of sealed case summaries – unsolved farmer suicides, corporate land scams, builder mafia murders, missing tribal lands, and political corruption reports.
“The people need the Phantom Hood,” Alex said firmly, his voice vibrating with fierce conviction. “They need true justice. Not the kind the courts sell. Real justice.”
He placed a hand gently on Arun’s shoulder.
“And now… it’s time to start something bigger. A true Justice League.”
