07:45
The jeeps rolled up to the waiting helicopter and the big army truck. Sohel was shoved into the belly of the chopper as soldiers loaded the crates around him. He kept his face slack and played the part of the broken prisoner; nobody paid the man on the floor much attention. While they worked, Sohel palmed the two glass shards in his pockets and slipped them into his mouth. The metal taste and the bite of glass under his tongue steadied him; he let exhaustion take him, closing his eyes and forcing his body to sleep.
13:21 — Liora's Compound
The helicopter slammed down on the compound with a kick. Guards hauled Sohel out, stripped him, searched him, and then tossed him back into the cell in nothing but underwear — hands bound, a few gratuitous kicks added for effect. He drifted in and out of a fevered sleep. Hours later, he woke to discover Mitali curled against the opposite wall, asleep and shivering. He furtively brought his hand to his mouth, dug the shards free with his tongue, and buried them beneath the sand with the same careful stillness he used to move around the cameras. He kept the motion slow so no lens would catch the motion.
A guard came in, kicked him in the ribs to wake him, and barked for them to stand. Mitali wore the desert camo given to her; the lower edge of her lip was swollen where Liora had slapped her. Fear sat in her eyes like lead. Sohel tried to offer a smile — an attempt to steady her — but it came out brittle and useless.
They were led at gunpoint to a washroom, given water, and then hustled into Liora's red office. Liora sat like a queen on a scarlet throne, but today she wore a dark green dress that made her look less corporate and more like a spoilt heiress enjoying power she'd bought with blood.
The guards forced Sohel and Mitali to their knees, hands still tied behind them.
"Trying to ridicule us, Liora? Do you know the consequences?" Sohel demanded — blunt and hostile.
Liora rose and stepped in close. "I do," she said, ice in her tone. "Death. Of you two, not me."
"When you realise your mistakes, it'll be too late," Sohel warned.
Liora lifted a shoulder in a bored shrug. "Shut up, Sam. Listen." She turned to the monitor, and the light of satellite maps and flight plans flickered across her face. "Tonight will be glorious. I've waited years for tonight. I'll destroy both the UK and Russia. When I'm done, they'll be worse than third-world nations."
Sohel met her gaze. "Why would we care about the UK or Russia? We're Bangladeshi."
"But you serve the SNA," she purred. "You're not neutral."
He refused to play her game with words. Mitali, though, spat back, "You chose the wrong enemies, Liora. You'll be destroyed."
"By whom?" Liora countered, smiling as if the thought were absurd. "You? Or your council?"
Sohel said only, "We are not slaves."
Liora's eyes glittered. "Then show me your passport," she demanded. "I only need that one thing." A screen lit up behind her.
She leaned in and spoke without drama. "Tonight, an ekranoplan registered in Russia will take off from Nowshahr. Six warheads are loaded on it — nuclear. The crew are Russians. When they launch, I trigger a sequence that ensures they'll be blamed. The West's retaliation will be brutal; the blame will fracture alliances."
She let the silence sit, then walked them to the door. Out on the desert runway, Sohel watched the proof of her audacity. Two Mi-8s, a Cessna, and — chillingly — a transport marked with the British Air Force insignia: an A400 Atlas. Liora gestured at them all with idolatrous calm.
"Part two", she said. "At midnight that Atlas will take off for Russia. It will drop ordnance on Russian silos and run out of fuel. The crew will be 'British', and SNA will be implicated. Chaos will follow. Your team's part? You and your friends will be on that plane, identified as SNA members. Disavowal will be easy when bodies and passports float ashore."
"So you think SNA is that stupid?" Sohel said.
"Perhaps." Liora's smile sharpened. "Perhaps not. But one nation may burn even if the alliance holds."
Mitali's voice trembled. "Who will fly it? Who will kill themselves for this?"
Liora's answer was almost bored. "Your Russian friend."
With a flick of her hand, the guards hustled them back into the cell and threw the bolt. The little privacy of the concrete room felt like relief. Once the door sighed closed, Sohel dug with careful fingers until they brushed the shards he'd buried and pulled them free.
Mitali's eyes widened. "What are you doing?" she whispered.
"Trying to flee," Sohel whispered back. "Liora intends to use us as scapegoats and murderers. We have to move before midnight. Lie down, back to back. Put your weight against me and listen."
She did as told, the two of them settling into the sand-cold floor. Sohel slid one shard into the palm of her tied hands, guiding it so her fingers could feel the edge.
"Feeling something sharp?" he asked softly.
"Yes."
"Put the rope on it. Then start rubbing very slowly. Don't let the camera see your movements."
Mitali began to work the rope against the shard, patient and careful; the scrape was almost hypnotic in the hush of the cell. The thin sound of fibre against glass became their metronome. Then, abruptly, she spoke.
"Sohel, this might be the final light of our lives. If we die tonight, I don't want to die with secrets. I want to die free."
Sohel stayed quiet, the shard cold and small in his palm. He watched her profile in the dim cell light, the steadiness of her fingers, the faint tremor at the edge of her voice. For a heartbeat he tried to find the right words.
Seeing his silence, Mitali kept going, faster now, as if urgency had unlatched something inside her. "I… I love you, Sohel. I don't know when it started or how, but I knew the day Mei came into the picture. Seeing you two close, relying on each other — it felt like I lost you."
"Mitali, I—" he began.
"Don't," she cut him off gently. "Don't reply, Sohel. I already know your answer. I can't change it. I've tried for months and failed. I'm not asking for anything. I just wanted to set this free. To say it aloud. To be free."
Sohel swallowed. The cell's concrete walls held the words between them like a fragile secret. He let the silence answer where speech might have failed.
They worked on, breath measured, the shard and rope doing their quiet work while beyond the bolt and the red room the machinery of Liora's plan turned toward midnight.