Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Missions often end in the most unexpected places.

Haqqani is fast. In the span of two months, he’s crossed three continents and five different seas, never quite catching his breath.

Kabir had thought he would kill him below the ancient walls of Ur, three weeks ago; the sand and the sun had reddened, on that day, as if in anticipation. He could almost taste blood on the tip of his tongue.

It would have been fitting, to end it all in the shade of yet another crumbling ruin.

But Haqqani had slipped away, and seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. He’d only resurfaced in Verona under a borrowed name two days ago, and had apparently not yet realized that death was hot on his heels.

He was luxuriating in a jacuzzi when Kabir set eyes on him again.

Things had clicked into place rather quickly after that. Kabir had easily managed to bribe the hotel’s SPA manager; he would have uninterrupted access to the pools for the next few days.

And, since Haqqani seemed in the mood for some pampering, Kabir would make sure to greet him with a nice massage to the throat, using the clean edge of a knife.

His scene set in fair Verona, Kabir could only wait.

He could almost taste blood again.

Night falls as Kabir closes the door to his room. Haqqani did not show at the SPA today; whether something has made him spook, or he’s just no longer in the mood for bubble baths remains yet to be seen.

The sweet smell of wisteria wafts through the air. Kabir had made sure to book the room closest to the twining tree’s trunk, in case he needed to make his escape quickly through the window.

Unfortunately, that also means anyone can climb up…

… Though he carefully closed the window when he left the room this morning.

The night wind ripples through the curtains, drifting the flowers’ scent closer.

Kabir’s nostrils flare as he takes out a knife from his sleeve.

There is another smell in the room. Not as sweet, but heady, and quite pleasant…

A pleasantness borne of familiarity.

“Remember Venice?”

Kabir doesn’t startle, but he does take another deep breath. His eyes have adjusted to the dark; he’s heard who this is, but he can now make him out as well.

He switches on the nearest lamp nevertheless, and finds Pathaan lounging in a leather armchair right next to the window, half shrouded in the white curtains, half glowing under the warm yellow light.

The moon curls shadows around the wisps of his hair.

“I remember almost drowning because you can't steer a gondola.”

Pathaan’s smile is even more familiar than his scent. It’s a little sharp, a little warm. Much like the whisky Kabir is reaching for.

“Ah, this is just like you. The most romantic city in the world, and yet you focus on the near death experience…”

He takes out two glasses and fills them up. His intruder takes his with a nod, and sips in his usual, weirdly endearing way, eyes half-closed and tongue darting out like a cat savoring a cup of milk.

“What are you doing here, Pathaan?”

The other man has always done most things at his pace, though he’s never been quite as leisurely as Tiger, who commandeers his timing with a frankly absurd amount of ease.

He sips some more before answering, eyes still half-lidded:

“I’m going away for a while. Tiger called, and when he calls, you know… I thought I might extend an invitation. Remember the good old times? It’s been a while. But something tells me…” — his left hand fidgets with something in his pocket — “You’re not going to come.”

Kabir finds his own left hand fiddling with his knife. Pathaan doesn’t flinch as he starts spinning it in his hand, contemplating the way moonlight catches on the blade.

“I need to finish this.”

What he doesn’t say, is that he needs to close this chapter and stay alone for a while, because he lost too much — everything, perhaps — the last time he worked with a team.

He does not say it, and yet Pathaan seems to know, the way he seems to know most things about him.
With a quiet certainty.

Kabir finishes his glass in a single gulp.

“Last I heard, you were cozying up to an ISI agent. Is this a new trend? First Tiger, now you?”

Pathaan’s smile cracks a little wider. He’s always been quick to attach himself to others – even when the people in question don’t really deserve it. It’s what had both endeared and exhausted Kabir, a long time ago. That bottomless well of trust.

The news of Tiger’s entanglement had been a little more surprising. The other man had always perfectly embodied his namesake – ruthless and mostly solitary, though quick to help in a pinch. Kabir had never considered him a romantic, but he’d sometimes thought that the other man was growing a little jaded, and, perhaps, even a little lonely.

“And last I heard, you were cozying up to one of your team members… Though that’s not a new trend, is it?”

Kabir sets his glass down too hard on the nearest table, as close to flinching as he can get.

“He’s dead.”

Pathaan’s eyes seem to ask, who, exactly? the one who died at Rahmani's hands, or Rahmani’s son?

Kabir doesn’t answer.
They both died for him.

“Ah, that’s also why I’m here, actually…” Pathaan fidgets again, downing his drink, “Are you sure?”

Kabir can feel Pathaan’s eyes on the clench of his jaw, the bobbing line of his throat.

He spins the knife one more time, breathing out.

“What do you mean?”

“Did they find a body?”

“Saurabh wore his face for months. He could not have done that with him alive.”

“Once again…”

Pathaan reaches for the bottle, filling his glass up.

“... Are you sure?”

Kabir narrows his eyes, taking both bottle and glass out of Pathaan’s hands. The latter’s eyes twinkle as he downs the drink in three great gulps.

“You want to show me something. Either do it, or get out.”

“Sorry, Kabir. I’ve always liked teasing you a little too much.”

They share a look. Kabir remembers a whirlwind of colors, cold water, and Pathaan’s maniacal laugh as he crashed their gondola.

Pathaan rummages through his pocket, taking an assortment of things out. Kabir looks on with a mildly amused look as condoms, hair-ties, candy and menthol cigarettes pile on the other man’s knees, before he shakes out a crumpled paper and thrusts it his way.

“So I was in Al Hoceima, recently… Enjoyed a very nice pastilla, by the way, if you ever feel like eating there… And I glimpsed this man on my way to… The beach. But he disappeared into the crowd before I could get any closer…”

“The beach,” Kabir repeats, one eyebrow raised.

“Very nice beaches as well, Kabir. You really should visit someday.”

Kabir already knows what he's supposed to see as he unfolds the paper, but he does take some time to do it, as if stalling is going to change anything.

The picture is not great — a little blurry, obviously taken in a hurry — but the man in it does look similar to Khalid.

Kabir’s thumb brushes over the stranger’s eyes, as if closing them.

“It cannot be him.”

“Do you think they’d make a second man wear his face? Whatever for?”

“If he was alive, he’d have contacted us.”

“I guess. You know him far better than me, after all. But colonel Luthra, in his ever so great wisdom, said something that stuck out to me recently… You can’t trust dead men to stay dead.”

And isn’t that true, in their line of work? Kabir has met many ghosts.

He’d never felt haunted before this.

“He was talking about Jim, wasn’t he?” he says, glancing up from the picture, “I heard he suffered from a rather nasty fall from grace.”

“Plunged straight into the depths of hell.”

They sit in silence for a while, Kabir’s thumb still brushing over the paper.

The more he looks, and the more he sees Khalid, lost in a sea of strangers.

“I just thought you needed to know,” Pathaan says quietly.

“You want me to go take a look.”

The other man waves his hand, as if dismissing the idea.

“Oh, I would never suggest you do anything you don’t want to.”

“Like steal a gondola in the middle of the Venice carnival?”

Pathaan’s eyes twinkle some more. He leans forward, his mouth a little crooked.

“I did that, not you, right?”

Kabir doesn’t grace that with an answer. He sits on the edge of his bed and lays the picture and the knife on either side of his body, bracketing himself.

He cannot help but put his fingers over the picture again, reaching for the face, as if he could feel its lineaments on paper, or the warm puff of a living breath.

“How is she?” he asks suddenly.

“Who?”

“Your ISI spy. Is she nice?”

Pathaan curls up on the armchair, as if coiling around a body that isn’t there.

“No, not really. But you know me. I like them mean.”

“I do remember that.”

Their eyes catch. The night has grown a little more warm; whether it’s because of the whisky, or because Pathaan always finds a way to melt down people’s defenses.

“You’ll take a look, won’t you?”

“I need to kill Haqqani.”

“You will. And then, you’ll go take a look.”

“Maybe.”

“The invitation still stands, when you’re done.”

“Where will you go?”

“Dunno. Somewhere. Everywhere. But you’ll know how to find us when the time comes, won’t you? We’ve always found each other, at the end of the day.”

“I guess.”

“And you might find him, as well.”

Kabir’s fingers draw away from the picture.

“I might.”

Pathaan smiles knowingly.

Haqqani’s death feels incredibly anticlimactic.

Killing Saurabh had been cathartic; Kabir had solely focused on his suffering, taking revenge for his team and ridding the world from yet another traitor.

He had chipped away at his face until he could no longer see, or feel Khalid.

Until he could no longer feel much of anything.

But he’s had plenty of time to see Khalid again in the last two days. The blurry picture doesn’t leave his sight; he’s tried to put it out of reach, and has not managed to leave it there for more than a few minutes – like a moth drawn to a flame.

So, Haqqani’s death: anticlimactic, in spite of being, quite literally, a bloodbath. Kabir slits the man’s throat as he lowers himself into a jacuzzi, quick and efficient. He’s gone before the water has even begun to turn red.

Ilyasi, Saurabh, Haqqani.

It should be the end.

Kabir knows it isn’t.

Knows from the moment he leaves the hotel, his bag slung over his shoulder, the picture tucked away in his shirt’s front pocket, right next to his heart.

He can feel it burn.

When in doubt, always ask for Aditi’s help.

“Did Mallika Singhal ever hint at the idea that Khalid could still be alive? Do you have her interrogation records?”

Aditi breathes softly into the phone. Kabir can picture her hunched over her computer, drawing answers from it quicker than anyone can.

“I can check that for you, sir, but I have no memory of anything of the sort. If she’d kept Khalid alive, wouldn’t she have said so in hopes of getting a more lenient sentence?”

“That's what I thought as well.” Kabir leans against a wall. Travelers keep surging in and out of the airport, a neverending flux. “Check your email, I’ve forwarded you a copy of a picture. I want you to analyze it and look for any tampering. Try to match the facial features with the other pictures of Khalid in our database.”

“Wait…” he hears her take another breath, “I got it, sir. Who took this?”

“Pathaan, in Morocco, around two weeks ago.”

“Pathaan? Last I heard, he was leading a team of misfits on a mission to China.”

“Well, you know the man. He’s a multitasker.”

He can somehow hear her smile through the phone.

“Are you going to Morocco, sir?”

“I think so. But I’ll need your back, out there. Tell Luthra that I’m still tying up loose ends.”

“What if it’s a trap?”

“Then I’ll have a new mission.”

“And what if you find nothing?”

Kabir leans away from the wall, gripping his luggage.

“Well, Aditi, I hear the pastillas are scrumptious over there.”

The results come in a few hours later.

Their facial recognition software finds an 80% match between the picture and Khalid’s face.

The match is also 80% for pictures taken of Saurabh post-surgery, Aditi drily notes at the end of her report.

Turns out finding a ghost is not as easy as Pathaan made it out to be.

Al Hoceima is bustling and bursting with life; it wouldn’t take much skill for anyone to blend into the crowds. Kabir has already walked the most well-trodden paths of the city, and he’s now moved onto the various hotels, asking after bookings under Khalid's name, or his other usual aliases.

He tries Saurabh’s as well, just in case.

This is all amateur stuff, but he doesn’t have much else to go on with, and Aditi is as stumped as he is: she’s resorted to looking into Mallika Singhal’s entourage, in hopes that someone might have taken a trip to Morocco recently.

Singhal had been arrested a few days after Ilyasi’s death. Her involvement in several cases of identity theft had been enough to put her behind bars, but barely; the woman had, after all, rubbed shoulders with the elite for decades, and she had pulled every last string available to get the lightest sentence possible.

Some of her workers had been interrogated, and convicted, or thrown back into the wild. Small minnows always find a way to slip through the net of the law, when it comes to big criminal conspiracies; they dart away as soon as their master is done for.

Kabir is straying on the beach when he gets a new call from Aditi.

“Sir,” she greets, “I may have something. Anything your way?”

Kabir looks down. His feet are buried in the sand.

“Not yet. What is it?”

“Mallika Singhal received a large sum of money somewhere around the time Saurabh and Ilyasi were getting their facial replacement surgeries. But the money was not coming from Ilyasi… It was coming from another businesswoman, Neelam Mishra. And she transferred another big sum to Singhal yet again, right before the beginning of her trial. Enough to set her for several lifetimes once she gets out of jail.”

Kabir raises an eyebrow, his interest piqued.

“Buying her silence, maybe? Why was this not investigated at the time?”

“Because these payments are not an uncommon occurrence between them, sir. Both women have enjoyed a working relationship for years, so it was most likely assumed that Mishra was doing an old friend a favor.”

“That name sounds vaguely familiar. Anything about her in the database? What does she do?”

“She specializes in the high-end escort industry, mostly in the Dubai area. Mishra sent her workers to get surgery at Singhal’s clinic for years, which is how they knew each other. But our intel tells us Mishra has also been known to dabble in human trafficking… Women, children and men from India or Pakistan. RAW mounted a small investigation on her some years ago.”

Kabir shakes the sand off his feet.

“Who was in charge of that investigation?”

Aditi smacks her lips, a tell-tale sign that he’s not going to like her answer.

“It was Jim, sir.”

Kabir snorts.

“That’s a dead end, then. Nothing came of it?”

“Not really, as far as I can see. She must be pretty smart, if she was able to evade RAW’s scrutiny.”

“You have to be, in her line of work. Has she been to Morocco recently?”

“Hard to tell, sir. I haven’t been able to track her private jet. I’ll need some more time to look into it.”

“Thanks, Aditi. Tell me if you have anything new.”

Aditi sends him a picture of their target straight away.

Neelam Mishra looks to be in her late forties, with sharp eyes and a small, thinly pursed mouth, swimming in the middle of a rather large and pillowy face.

Kabir spends some more time on the beach.

There’s a big yacht hovering on the horizon.

Kabir knows to follow his instincts, and they tell him that if he were to hide someone — or himself — in this city, he would actually take advantage of the vast open waters.

Something could be lurking on the yacht, or any other ship docked in the harbor.

The disadvantage of working solo, without the backing of RAW, is that he cannot easily access the boating permits and records; asking Luthra for help would take time — he is also as likely to refuse as he is to accept — and hacking into the town’s database would take even longer.

So, Kabir goes for the next best option: word of mouth.

Or, to be more precise, word of the belly. All boats eventually have to replenish their food supplies from local sellers, and there is a lot to know about what goes on ships from what people eat.

Kabir goes shopping to the nearest fish market.

It doesn’t take long to spot crew members coming off the yachts; they’re sweating profusely in their uniforms, and exuding a distinctive mixture of exhaustion and urgency.

The crew members dart from one food-stand to the next, haggling and complaining about their customers’ tastes.

Kabir is examining a sturgeon’s glassy-eyed look when he finally gets a whiff of something.

“It’s got to be easy to chew,” says a burly man to a seller, who assures him that babies would swallow his fish with no trouble.

“He’s no baby,” the man adds with a scrunched-up nose, “Although…”

“Shut up,” cuts in another member from the same crew, “Give us two of these.”

“He seems to be giving you a lot of trouble. Is he a rich kid?” asks the seller as he prepares the fish.

“You could say that,” answers the second crew member with a tight smile, “You know these yacht people… They’re all a little picky.”

“There’s being picky, and there’s refusing to eat at all,” mumbles the first crew member, who determinedly ignores his colleague’s stink-eye.

“He’ll eat this,” the seller assures, thrusting the newspaper-swaddled fish their way.

The two men disappear from sight, grumbling and arguing all the while.

“They don’t seem too happy,” Kabir says, sliding in.

The seller is a man in his sixties, with white tufts of hair seemingly growing out of the fishing cap screwed on his head. He’s got smart eyes and a smarter mouth.

“They’ve been like this ever since their ship docked in the harbor,” he answers back, “Seems like they’ve been stuck with a difficult client…” He catches Kabir’s eyes: “They were saying how he made a ruckus because he didn’t want to join the cruise sometime ago.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate. How long have they been stuck with him?”

The man’s smile widens a little.

“They’ve been coming here for the last three weeks. Are you here to buy fish, sir?”

Kabir nods.

“What would you recommend?”

The man gestures towards a big silvery fish, cradled in ice.

“This one is used to make the best pastillas in the city.”

“I’ve heard about those pastillas.”

“Have you?”

They both smile, Kabir reaching for his wallet.

“That’ll be a hundred dirhams.”

“That’s a lot for a fish,” Kabir says, holding out the money anyway.

“Well,” the seller replies, leaning in, “I didn’t give you just the fish now, did I?”

Kabir pushes through the crowd, cradling his phone.

“Neelam Mishra didn’t take her private jet, sir. She loaned a luxury boat to go on a tour of the Mediterranean. Nothing out of the ordinary for her, though. There’s a lot of money to be made from yacht-girls at this time of the year…”

“Let me guess,” Kabir says, not letting the two cooks out of sight, “She docked in Al Hoceima around three weeks ago. What’s the ship’s name?”

“The Moretta. As for where she’s docked, I’d have to hack into the port records to know for sure, but something tells me I won’t need to. What are you doing?”

“I’m applying to become a galley cook. Gotta go, Aditi.”

Kabir stuffs the phone in his pocket, gripping his fish a little tighter. His two targets have just wandered into a nice, dark alley.

Sometimes, it’s almost as if people know to make things easier for him.

Kabir comes up silently behind them, and whacks them both with the still half-frozen fish. The first man collapses to the ground with no fuss, whilst the other — the burly one who complained earlier — clutches his head and whirls around, looking half-stunned, half-murderous.

Kabir whacks him again before this can go further, and watches as he joins his colleague on the ground.

Quickly, he pulls them both in the narrow space between two houses, stripping the smaller one to his breeches. A lady passing through the street raises an eyebrow as he comes out of the alley, looping a leather belt tighter around his hips.

The fishes dangle on his shoulder, seeming a little more lively than the two men he’s tied together with his own clothes.

Leaving them here alive means he doesn’t have much time on the ship, unless they see this as an opportunity to look for another job.

Kabir walks the rest of the way to the harbor, finding a small motorized dinghy bearing the Moretta’s name docked there. The Moretta itself is still sailing on the horizon, a black wavering dot that the setting sun is descending upon, as if to swallow it whole.

Kabir throws the fishes onto the boat, and prays that the engine isn’t too noisy.

He’ll need to infiltrate the yacht quietly.

“Well, I’ve found some fish,” grumbles the cook, “But where have these two idiots gone? Have you seen them?”

His assistant wrings her hands, shaking her head.

“They must be around somewhere. Their dinghy was brought on-board.”

The cook — somehow even burlier than his unconscious counterpart — grumbles some more.

“Always gotta do everything by myself…”

The yacht is huge, and crawling with people. He had had no issue coming on-board, because several small boats were also already making their way toward the yacht; probably late guests arriving for some sort of event.

Finding the galley hadn’t taken very long — the smell of food easy to follow —, but the cooks haven’t shed any light on the happenings of the ship as of yet. Kabir is probably gonna have to go door to door, which he hoped he wouldn’t have to do.

Time is of the essence.

He slithers out of the galley behind the cooks’ backs, taking a silver tray, some champagne, and a couple of glasses with him.

Aditi was right: this is a good time for yacht-girls, who he sees lounging around, sometimes in the company of what look to be wealthy men and women.

Probably the guests in question. A party atmosphere is starting to pick up.

Kabir cannot help it. He’s reminded of Naina, and of Ruhi, who he’s left behind at boarding school…

He shakes away the memory of spilled blood, making his way toward the lower deck.

“I’ve told you,” a man whispers furiously into his phone as he climbs the stairs, “Pry his jaw open if you have to…”

The man glances up and stops abruptly, looking Kabir over.

“Where are you going? Party’s on the upper deck.”

It’s now or never. Kabir cocks an eyebrow.

“The chef sent me to take care of our… Difficult guest.”

“With champagne?” the man — small, white and graying prematurely — scoffs.

“We thought it’d be easier to make him drink, and then eat.”

“We’ve tried that already. The man won’t drink any bloody alcohol. He almost bit Omar’s hand off…”

The man then waves his own hand towards him, almost as if to push him up.

“Go back upstairs, pretty boy! You’re clearly meant to be there. And remember that we take twenty percent off your tips.”

Kabir has no choice but to turn around, for now.

The full picture is still out of grasp, but several things are starting to come together.

Someone is probably being held against their will on this ship, for reasons yet unknown.
That person doesn’t drink alcohol, and refuses to eat.

And they may also have been spotted by Pathaan, before disappearing into the crowd…

Kabir has a hard time slithering away from the upper deck. Now that he’s here, people keep crowding around him, looking for champagne or a good time.

And everywhere he looks, that small man seems to be skulking around, tapping shoulders and sharing laughs.

Why is he here, and not Neelam Mishra?

The questions pile on, but, fortunately, the champagne bottle is not bottomless. Kabir makes a show of shaking it to ensure there’s not a drop left in the vicinity of the unidentified man, and then slowly but surely retreats back into the crowd, nudging some people in front of him until he’s reached the stairs leading to the lower deck.

He darts downstairs, throwing away the platter and the glasses, before breaking the bottle against the nearest wall for a ready-made weapon.

The lower deck’s lights are almost all turned off. Kabir feels around, taking advantage of the starlight and the occasional firecracker set off from the party.

Most cabin doors are locked, but only one is kept closed with a chain.

Two firecrackers whistle from above, exploding and mingling into red and yellow.

Kabir puts his ear to the door.

Remembers a long-lost day, during which a million colors had flown and covered their bodies.

“Khalid?” he asks, pulling on the chain.

“So you do know him,” says a voice from behind.

All the colors fade away, and the world goes dark.

This isn’t the first time Kabir’s been knocked-out on the job, and it won’t be the last.

Still hurts like a bitch, though.

This is the way things like this go: he’s going to wake up in the same room as the Big Bad, and that Big Bad in question is going to give a lengthy monologue on their perfectly evil plans whilst he thinks up a way to get out of this.

In the middle of his escape, Kabir might think back fondly on Tiger’s habit of bringing painkillers whenever he comes to the rescue.

But there’s no Tiger, and no Pathaan today.
No answers yet, either.

So Kabir sits up on the floor, and opens his eyes to greet the enemy.

Neelam Mishra is sitting on a pristine white sofa, surrounded by some girls and some goons. He must’ve been moved to the ship’s salon, and quite literally thrown at her feet.

“You awake yet?” she asks, leaning in.

Her pearls dangle in front of Kabir’s eyes.

“Mostly,” he answers, patting his head — his hands are cuffed — to make sure he hasn’t lost too much blood. His assailant had whacked him with something pointy.

Not a fish, clearly.

“Crowell thinks you’re a waiter gone rogue,” Neelam says, looking over his shoulder — Kabir doesn’t need to look to know Crowell is the man from the party — “But I personally think I would’ve remembered your face if I’d hired you. So that would make you some other kind of rogue…”

She takes a dainty handkerchief out of her tweed jacket’s pocket and unfolds it carefully on her lap, before dabbing it on Kabir’s cheeks, as if drying tears.

He blinks. There may be more blood than he thought.

“Which is it, then? RAW? ISI? The local police?”

Kabir blinks some more, attempting a smirk. His lips are sticky — definitely more blood than he thought.

She smiles back, showing some teeth. They dance a little in front of his eyes, a second row of pearls.

“RAW, I think. You’ve got a look about you.”

Kabir spits out some blood, aiming for the white sofa.

“I work alone.”

“That’s what they all say.”

Neelam leans away, looking over the blood on her handkerchief.

“You came for him, didn’t you? How did you know he was here? It’s been months. I thought no one had any clue.”

It’s no use being cryptic now.

“Someone took a picture of him two weeks ago.”

“A picture?” she asks, looking over his shoulder again, “You told me he hadn’t gone very far. That you had brought him back quickly.”

“We did,” Crowell asserts, his voice growing closer, “I have no idea how anyone could’ve had the time…”

“This isn’t anyone,” Neelam snaps, “This is RAW!” she turns back to Kabir, “How did you know he was with me? Who blabbed?”

“How did you get him?” he asks back, “Who is he?”

“Khalid Rahmani,” she says, “Surely you know that.”

Kabir takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

Exhales. Opens them.

“There’s no proof.”

Neelam looks at him for a while, and then smiles, wiping his face with the handkerchief again.

He can feel her linger over his nose, threatening to smother it.

“I’m not going to bring him out for you. I’m not that dumb, my dear… What’s your name?”

“Kabir.”

Her eyes widen a little.

“Oh, it all makes sense! I’ve heard of you quite a lot, Kabir. And now that you mention it, under all that blood…”

Kabir leans away before she can touch his face again.

“How did you get him?” he repeats.

“Let me clean your face.”

They both stare, battling silently.

Kabir represses a sigh, and leans in.

The handkerchief is already caked with his blood. She’s not cleaning him, but rubbing it all in his face.

“Mallika is a dear friend of mine,” Neelam starts, “But she doesn’t have the best sense for business, sometimes. I had told her several times that Ilyasi was bad news, but she didn’t listen. She was, however, smart enough to call me when Ilyasi came in with a friend… Two friends, as a matter of fact.”

She leans back on the couch, crossing her legs.

“I think you know them well. They were very similar, and Mallika helped them grow even closer…”

“Khalid is dead. Saurabh killed him,” Kabir cuts in.

Neelam quirks an eyebrow, waving the handkerchief as if it were a perfumed cloth.

“He almost did, yes. The boy was riddled with bullets. Mallika told me she was keeping him on life-support because, as you know, surgery takes time, and dead flesh has this terrible tendency to rot, so why not take advantage of a living model? But she wanted to pull the plug once everything was done. I told her not to do it, obviously...”

“Why?”

She cocks her head to the side.

“Why do you think?”

It isn’t hard to guess, and Kabir has had time to ponder over this. Neelam Mishra is in the business of peddling living flesh. Obviously, she’d see an opportunity.

“You want to sell him,” he says, anger flaring, “To whom?”

“You’re going too fast,” she rebukes, smirking, “First, I needed to smuggle him out of Mallika’s clinic. She told that idiot Ilyasi that she had pulled the plug, showed him what he thought was a dead man… Not very hard to believe, in his state… And I had the boy delivered to my door, though he was pretty much useless at the time. He’s grown a lot more lively these past few weeks.”

“You nurtured him back to health,” Kabir concedes.

“Of course I did. I’m not in the business of killing people. That’s you.”

They both stare at each other. Neelam looks unbearably smug.

He looks bloody.

“Why sell him? To whom?”

“Think, Kabir,” she says, tapping her own head, “I looked into him. If he’d been a random RAW agent, I’d just have let him die. But he’s the son of a well-known traitor… Who’s caused a lot of pain to a lot of important people… And some of those people did not get the justice they deserved.”

She waves the handkerchief around some more. Kabir feels like a taunted bull.

“Rahmani’s enemies… Oh, let’s not be mean. They are his victims, are they not? They’re willing to pay big for his son. You do remember Rahmani senior, don’t you? I read your name when I looked up the story. You butchered that boy’s father.”

“He was a traitor,” Kabir spits.

“Exactly,” she acquiesces, as if they’ve come to the same conclusion.

“Why not go to RAW?”

Neelam narrows her eyes and looks him over, gauging whether he’s joking or not. Figuring he isn’t, she shrugs and twists her small mouth into a smirk.

“How is my dear Jim doing?”

“Dead.”

“So you do know,” she says, nodding to herself, “RAW doesn’t negotiate when it comes to their agents’ lives.”

“But I’m here.”

“You’re not here to negotiate, you’re here to bring him back. If I were to call up colonel Luthra right now… Yes, I do know his name… He wouldn’t do anything, for you or for him. I bet on it.”

Kabir isn’t quite sure. He’s always been Luthra’s favorite, ever since the beginning of his career — but then again, the man had sent Saurabh after him with no hesitation, and Kabir has made it clear that he’s still a traitor.

So, the evil plans having all been thoroughly exposed, it’s on him to get out of this mess.

“How much?” he asks, testing the shackles with his thumbs.

Neelam looks him over, caught between interest and amusement.

“For him or for yourself? Far more than you can afford, either way.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m quite sure, Kabir.”

“Five million?”

She waves her hand, dismissing the sum.

“Ten?”

“A RAW agent doesn’t own that much money…” her eyes narrow a little, “Unless you’ve been doing some extra work in the Middle East.”

“I’ve definitely been to the Middle East.”

The shackles are quite sturdy, but they’re not above a good little thumb trick.

“Several times, in fact…”

She doesn’t seem too convinced.

“Does your handler know you’re here?”

“I don’t have a handler. I told you, I work alone.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice? Then I wouldn’t have to rush this deal, and I wouldn’t have to cover up your death.”

“Well,” he feels the shackles give, “I’ve said it, time and again. I work alone.”

He doesn’t lunge for her throat, though he’s tempted to do it. There are too many armed goons around, and too little time to turn the handkerchief or the pearls into a proper chokehold.

“Kill him,” Neelam says, rising from the sofa, “Don’t throw the body into the sea now, we’re too close to the coast. We should be far enough tomorrow, after the party.”

Her handkerchief brushes over his forehead as she moves away.

“Don’t worry,” Neelam adds, turning back, “I’ll make sure he doesn’t know how it all ended for you. I’m not that cruel.”

She shuts the door behind her, followed by her girls and Crowell.

Kabir breathes in, shaking the shackles off.

It is a party, after all.

Let the dancing begin.

He’s just more or less killed ten people, and he’s bloodier than ever.

“Aditi,” he barks into the phone he pulled from one of the various dead goons, “Can you locate me?”

“In a few minutes, sir. Your tracker seems to have been damaged. Have you been fighting?”

Kabir kicks one of the bodies away. The bloody bastard had tried to bite his leg when they were grappling on the floor.

“More or less. I’m on the Moretta. She says she’s got Khalid, Aditi. She plans on selling him to some of Rahmani’s old enemies.”

Aditi takes a deep breath.

“... Is it true?”

“Not sure yet.”

Kabir picks up a glock, checking the magazine.

“Should I tell Luthra?”

“Please do,” he bites back, his mind unraveling a little, “Feel free to ask him how and why RAW did not see this happening right under their nose, as well…”

“Calm down,” she says, unaffected by the outburst, “You know RAW’s been very busy. What are you going to do?”

“Get him out of here.”

“And how are you going to prove it’s him?”

“I know Khalid.”

“I know him too, but that doesn’t mean…”

“I know Khalid.”

Aditi falls silent for a moment, before speaking again, her tone a little hesitant:

“You know, sir, when Khalid… I mean Saurabh… Was not chosen to lead the efforts against you… Luthra said Khalid wasn’t a good choice because he loved you.”

Kabir breathes in. He counts the bullets again.

“I think I understand, now,” she whispers.

“I’m going to save him.”

“I know. I have your back.”

Kabir breathes out.

There’s some movement behind the door. Surely, someone’s heard the commotion, even with the music blasting from the party upstairs.

Kabir throws the phone away.

Kicks the door open.

Lots of dancing happening tonight.

The kill-count is growing steadily as he makes his way to the lower deck for the second time.

One man falls overboard, whilst another falls flat on his face. Kabir has looked around in between two kills, but Mishra and Crowell are nowhere to be seen; he hopes they haven’t had the time to get away.

Upstairs, the music is still pulsing like a raw nerve, vibrating under his skin. No one comes looking as gunshots echo around the yacht; they sound just like the firecrackers going off.

Kabir falls under another halo of colorful sparks as he pulls on the chain keeping the cabin closed.

It gives too easily.

“They’re gone,” Crowell says as soon as he opens the door, “You’re too late. And now I’ll…”

Kabir has no patience left for a villainous speech. He sweeps the man’s legs from under him and tackles him to the ground, knocking away his gun and thrusting his own glock in between his eyes.

“Where did they go?”

Crowell struggles, his arms flailing, but falls stills as he realizes that no move is going to pull him from under all that weight.

“Not telling you,” he croaks.

“Are you worth anything to her?”

His eyes shift.

“Well then,” Kabir says, pulling the trigger.

The body slumps, all strings cut. Kabir is covered in some more blood and gore. It’s starting to feel like a second skin.

He looks around the cabin quickly. The place is small and dark, the only porthole sealed shut, and the only piece of furniture a narrow bed covered in chains.

Khalid may have been here.

There is no tangible sign of his presence. No shadow left of him.

Kabir clutches at a chain, feeling its weight, before he goes out again, guns blazing.

When he’s finally painted the whole yacht red, he steals yet another dinghy, lowering it onto waters more troubled than they were at the beginning.

Mishra must’ve escaped on a dinghy like him, which means she couldn’t have gone far. With no time to take food and water, and an uncooperative Khalid who’s apparently already managed to swim all the way to the shore once, it would’ve been suicidal to sail further into the open sea.

So, Kabir circles around the yacht, just in case she tries to get back onboard under the cover of night, and when he’s quite sure she’s not around, he sails back to the harbor.

The only thing to do is to keep an eye on the yachts and waste some time hacking into the city’s flights and port records. It’s unlikely that Mishra would stay long, now that she’s been found out, and she has plenty of resources to make her escape out of the city.

Kabir also starts looking into her potential buyers; at least he can prepare for that confrontation better than he did the last one.

All of them are linked to Abdul Rahmani in some way.

He himself is linked to the man forever — perhaps even more than any of them — thanks to the two bullet wounds cratering around his left collarbone.

He can feel them itch, a phantom pain as he reminisces.

Back then, Rahmani’s plans hadn’t come to fruition, because his wife had tipped off command in the nick of time. But some of the damage had already been done, and he had discreetly gotten rid of several majors and state officials over the months to facilitate his plot. He had also notoriously sent several agents on suicide missions just so that he could get them out of the way.

The man’s accomplices had mostly been arrested or killed, but the ones who had survived had reason to hold a grudge as well. They’d depended on Rahmani’s success to climb the ladder and make a lot of money.

Kabir already knows quite a few names, but he can’t pinpoint exactly who’d be angry enough to take it out on Rahmani’s son — and that is because, to be honest, most if not all of them probably are.

He had taken it out on Khalid as well, when he first met him.

Rahmani’s widow probably receives death-threats on the daily, even after all that’s transpired — the award, the atonement, and all the tearful speeches.

Kabir writes down a list nonetheless.

None of his primary suspects have docked or landed in Al Hoceima recently, unless they’ve come under a borrowed identity — Kabir could very well be going against someone from RAW, who knows all the tricks to worm into a city unnoticed.

So, he needs someone from the inside, with a little more intel than Aditi.

That means Luthra.

“I have a hard time believing it,” the man says as soon as he picks up.

“It’s very real,” Kabir replies.

It had taken three hours to scrub all the blood from his skin, and blood is as real as it can get.

“Aditi says you haven’t seen him.”

“Not yet.”

“I don’t need to tell you that skepticism is the highest of duties, Kabir.”

“I’m not one for blind faith, colonel.”

“I know.”

Luthra sighs into the phone.

“We’ve just closed the Jim chapter. I’d very much like it if someone from RAW was not involved in another nefarious plot.”

Kabir wonders when rot had started to seep into RAW headquarters. Was it before Rahmani hatched his plan, or in the aftermath, when chaos broke out and everyone’s loyalty came under scrutiny?

Dogs in a pack need to trust each other. As soon as one bites the other, it’s as if rabies has broken out; whether there’s a real disease or not, the mind behaves as though it’ll die if it doesn’t set its teeth into something.

Kabir had seen it happen — had been the rabid dog who first put Rahmani down, and then Saurabh.

“Like it or not, this needs to be looked into. Do you know anything?”

“I’ve been busy, Kabir. Dealing with the fallout from the last incident, and then building a team for Pathaan, which feels like herding feral cats…”

“Do you know anything?” Kabir insists.

Luthra pauses. He sighs again.

“I was given several reports on Khalid’s behavior during his academy days. Keeping tabs on him, just in case… Well, you know. He was picked on from the get-go, but he persevered. I could send you a list of names.”

“Anyone that hated him enough to do this?”

“Probably. Didn’t you hate him as well, at some point?”

It all circles back to this: Khalid may be a war hero, but he cannot escape from his father’s blood, or the blood that his father spilt.

“I did. Send me those names.”

A small private jet lifts off the Al Hoceima airport in the wee hours of the morning, with no identified passengers onboard, and no specified destination.

Kabir watches as the small dot on the screen lumbers around the city, seemingly hesitant, before it starts to rove over the Mediterranean.

He feels like a fat, lazy fly is taunting him, with no chance of swatting it before it lands within his reach.

The kind of fly you’d easily flick with a handkerchief.

“From what I can gather,” Aditi says, “They’re heading towards south-east Asia, but past India.”

“That’s very far from Al Hoceima. Any bets?”

“The Philippines, perhaps. Fits their trajectory.”

“Ah, yes,” Kabir smirks, “Over seven thousand islands to pick from. Smart choice.”

“We can take a bet and get you to Manila, or we can wait to make sure.”

Kabir kicks open his luggage, throwing his nearest belongings in it.

“There’s no time to spare. I trust your instincts.”

“See you there then, sir.”

Kabir pauses.

“Luthra?” he asks.

“Yes,” Aditi says, “He’s asked me to join you on the field.”

Luthra can be a little hard to deal with, sometimes, harsh and stubborn as a mule, but he’s always had Kabir’s back at the end of the day — unless Kabir’s committing high-treason, which is a pretty reasonable line to draw.

This is a nice gesture.

“See you there then, Aditi.”