“Oh, shut up. Both of you,” Atharva cut them off. “Samar, back off. We need Adil to recover first. Return whatever things you’ve stolen from his garage. Once Adil is able enough, he will try again. Go now, I will finish some formalities here. Let him rest.”
With that, Atharva turned and walked to the nurse’s station. Samar stared at Adil. His first friend in SFF. His first… ragging in SFF.
“You will not hear this from me again,” Samar croaked. “But if given a choice, I would switch that place with you.”
“This?” Adil patted his pillow. “I knew you always wanted a cushy life.”
Samar snorted, looking down, then back at his monitors.
“The plan was never to take you,” he confessed, eyes on the monitor. His heart rate was coming down. “The plan was not even to raid it. But… It’s Aamir Haider. If we even have a one percent chance of incriminating him, I will not leave it. Icannotleave it.”
“For Chaturvedi.” Adil’s voice brought him back. Samar met his eyes. Then nodded.
“Your ORS gave you away.”
Samar chuckled.
“You could have asked me.”
“I did, again and again, in every way possible.”
“You should have taken the hint when I didn’t respond.”
Samar grit his teeth.
“Go now.” Adil closed his eyes. “If Captain Kaul comes back and sees you still here, you are in for a double pack drill.”
Samar touched his shoulder, patted. He reassured himself that this was Adil — alive, talking, here. Samar took one last look at his face and walked out.
31. Life as a double agent was taxing…
Life as a double agent was taxing. He would live out his days as usual, attending public meetings, managing Jammu remotely, planning for the Health Ministry that he was going to lead when they came to power. The latter took up most of his energy, and he doubled down, pushing even more into laying the groundwork for the health infrastructure of the state. Currently, Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh were among some of the most downtrodden when it came to health emergencies and responsiveness. Just opening up clinics with one doctor-two nurse combinations and small diagnostic centres across the districts would bounce the state up in numbers on mortality. Adding connectivity via air ambulance, particularly for remote, landlocked pockets of Ladakh would bolster the rates.
Samar channeled all his pent up energy into planning this ministry, and the work that it would complete in the first 100 days.
And yet it was not enough.
His time still had big, gaping holes. His militia, which had once occupied the majority of his nights, was now gone. He had gotten an update that Faris was directly reporting to Atharva for now. Faris had stopped responding to him after that last update on Adil. And that had been it.
These big, gaping holes at night were dark. And making his double agent life even more difficult to bear. Because now he had so much more time to think. To answer calls. To pass on nonessential information from KDP to Awaami and try to find as much as he could from them. Up until now, he had been unsuccessful in figuring out Sayyid Butt’s game. What was he going to do to Atharva?
They were already down to their last rally in Srinagar. Voting day was coming closer. And yet, Sayyid Butt had done nothing. If half of Kashmir already voted, how would his eliminating Atharva or discrediting him work?
But then Samar realised, that Atharva’s popularity in Kashmir was not going to translate into a big vote share for him anyway. Even though KDP was projecting him as a Kashmiri leader, and even though he was popular, it was a foregone conclusion that religion would play a part in it and push him down because he was a Pundit. People liked him, but they would still vote for a Muslim. That is why Qureshi was their vote-magnet in Kashmir, that is why they had so many Muslim alliance partners in the valley, that is why Atharva had fielded strategic dummy candidates across constituencies so that even if they got fewer votes because of his Pundit background, Awaami would get even fewer, and change the margin of victory for them.
That is why Atharva had a safe seat from Jammu. Akhnoor was going to be his.
Which meant, Sayyid Butt’s game would go through Jammu. But what? And when?
Samar kept trying to find out.
“Lal Chowk,” he informed Sayyid Butt. “The permission is only for the road show to pass Lal Chowk but Atharva plans to slow down and speak.”
“You call this intel?”
“Atharva can stop riots by speaking.”
Butt’s side of the phone went silent.
