The contract, a single sheet of elegant tyranny, was hidden away, but its terms were burned into Harsh's mind. Seventy-thirty. Gross revenue. Operate within your lane. The words were the bars of a new, more defined cage. He had traded the constant fear of annihilation for the cold certainty of servitude.
Three days after the meeting at the tea house, the contact came. Not through the ghost, and not through the well-dressed accountant. A new player. A man with a voice like grinding gravel on the other end of a payphone.
"The shipment is arranged. Twenty barrels. Industrial diesel. The Sea Sprite, a coastal feeder vessel. Dock 14. Berth 3. Tomorrow. 02:00. Be there. Have your transport ready."
The line went dead.
The scale was immediately different. Twenty barrels of diesel. Not solvents, not niche chemicals. Diesel. The lifeblood of generators, of farm equipment, of the countless small industries that kept the city's heart beating. This was a bigger, riskier, and far more valuable commodity.
The logistics were a nightmare. They needed a bigger truck. They needed a secure place to store twenty barrels. They needed to move it all under the cover of a moonless night.
The "logistical umbrella" Venkat Swami provided was, it turned out, simply the absence of interference. The dockworkers at Berth 3 were expecting them. The night watchman looked the other way. The path was clear, but they had to walk it themselves.
They rented a larger, enclosed truck, the cost another painful drain on their dwindling capital. The lock-up garage was too small. Prakash Rao, once again, came through, offering a corner of his scrapyard shrouded by a crumbling wall of discarded metal sheets.
The pickup was a scene from a surreal dream. The Sea Sprite was a rust-bucket, but it disgorged its illicit cargo with practiced efficiency. The twenty barrels were rolled down a narrow gangway directly into their waiting truck. No words were exchanged. Money changed hands between the truck rental driver and a shadowy figure on the deck—a transaction Harsh wasn't party to. Another hidden cost.
They drove the heavy, sluggish truck through the sleeping city, every police checkpoint a potential heart attack. But the "umbrella" held. They were waved through with a disinterest that felt orchestrated.
Unloading the barrels into the scrapyard was back-breaking work. By the time the sun began to tinge the sky with grey, they were exhausted, covered in grime and the faint, oily smell of diesel.
But they had done it. The shipment was secure.
Now came the harder part: the sale. He couldn't go door-to-door with twenty barrels of stolen diesel. He needed a distributor. A wholesaler who asked no questions.
His target was a man named Ghorpade, who ran a sprawling, chaotic fuel depot on the outskirts of the city. It was a place where paperwork was optional and cash was king. Ghorpade was a bull of a man with a loud voice and suspicious eyes, known for dealing in "diverted" fuels.
Harsh went to see him alone, the memory of Mr. Dalal's resentment fresh in his mind. This would be different. This time, he wasn't a desperate kid with a lucky find. He was a representative.
Ghorpade listened to Harsh's offer, his eyes narrowing. "Twenty barrels? Good price? Why come to me? Why not sell it yourself?"
"I'm not in the retail business," Harsh said, keeping his voice level. "I'm in the supply business. I can provide a consistent stream. If the first twenty move quickly and quietly, there will be more."
Ghorpade was silent, chewing on a toothpick. He was calculating the risk. Buying from a new, unknown source was dangerous. But the margins on untaxed diesel were enormous.
"Let me see a sample," he grunted.
Harsh had anticipated this. He'd brought a small container. Ghorpade took it, sniffed it, poured a little on the ground, and lit it with a match. The diesel caught with a satisfying whoosh and a clean burn.
"Alright," Ghorpade said. "I'll take it. But the price is ten percent lower than what you asked."
Harsh didn't flinch. He'd built a buffer into his asking price for this exact negotiation. "Five percent," he countered.
"Deal," Ghorpade said, spitting out the toothpick. "Bring it tonight. Cash on delivery."
The sale was made. The profit, even after the seventy percent cut that would be levied, was substantial. It was working.
That night, as they delivered the last of the barrels to Ghorpade's depot and counted the thick wad of cash, Harsh allowed himself a moment of grim satisfaction. He had executed the plan. He had moved the shipment, found a buyer, and made a profit under the new, brutal rules.
He was learning to operate the machine, even if he didn't own it.
The next morning, the ghost appeared. He didn't ask for a report. He simply held out his hand.
Harsh handed him the envelope. It contained exactly seventy percent of the gross revenue from the diesel sale. The ghost didn't count it. He weighed it in his hand, a subtle, practiced gesture.
"The next shipment is in forty-eight hours," the ghost rasped. "Thirty barrels. Kerosene."
And then he was gone.
The cycle was established. The machine was in motion. Harsh was now a cog in Venkat Swami's oil empire, a small, efficient, and highly profitable cog.
He had faced the mafia monopoly. He hadn't broken it. He had joined it.
And with every shipment, the cage felt a little more comfortable.
(Chapter End)