The double ledger was a dangerous comfort, a tiny flame in a vast darkness. But Harsh knew that true freedom wouldn't be won with grams of gold dust. It required leverage. It required something Venkat Swami needed but didn't have. And for that, Harsh had to look beyond the grimy lanes of Mumbai, to the unraveling of a superpower.
The news from the USSR was a constant, low drumbeat on his shortwave radio. The Red Empire was cracking. The Baltics were breaking away. The economy was in freefall. And for a man with his eyes open, that meant one thing: opportunity amidst the chaos.
His thoughts returned to the Soviet engineers. He'd read about them in the papers—highly trained specialists from their military-industrial complex, now facing unemployment and poverty as state projects were shuttered. Their expertise was being sold for scrap.
He needed a contact. Someone who moved in those circles. He thought of the only person he knew who dealt in large, international machinery: Jagdish, the truck driver who'd hauled his diesel to Alang.
He found Jagdish at a roadside dhaba, fueling up on chai and parathas before a long haul.
"I need a different kind of shipment, Jagdish Bhai," Harsh said, sliding onto the bench opposite him. "Not something to move. Something to find."
Jagdish grunted, his eyes wary. "I drive trucks. I am not a detective."
"You talk to other drivers. To mechanics at the ports. You hear things." Harsh leaned forward. "I am looking for a particular kind of person. Not Indian. Russian. An engineer. Specifically, one who knows about precision machinery. The kind used to make complex things."
Jagdish chewed slowly, thinking. "There is a place," he said after a moment. "A bar near the docks. Not our docks. The big commercial ones. It is where the foreign ship crews go. The ones from Eastern Europe. The… less wealthy ones. You might hear something there. But it is not a place for a boy like you."
That night, Harsh went to the bar. It was a dim, smoky cave that smelled of cheap beer and stale sweat. He stuck out like a sore thumb, his sharp clothes drawing suspicious glances from the hulking, hard-faced men speaking in guttural Slavic languages.
He ordered a beer he didn't drink and listened, his ears straining to pick out words of English or Hindi amidst the foreign chatter. He saw a group of Russians arguing with a Indian man who was clearly a shipping agent, their conversation a frustrated mix of broken English and hand gestures. They were trying to get something—passage, papers, something. The agent was shaking his head, unmoved.
This was it.
Harsh waited until the agent left, the Russians slumping back into their chairs in defeat. Then he approached their table. They looked up, their expressions shifting from despair to suspicion.
"I could not help but overhear," Harsh said in English, keeping his voice calm and respectful. "It seems you are having difficulties."
One of the men, older with a tired, intelligent face and close-cropped grey hair, sized him up. "Difficulties is a small word for a very big problem," he replied, his accent thick but his English precise. "Our contracts are finished. Our visas expire. We need to get home, but there is no money for tickets."
Home. To a country that was falling apart.
"Perhaps I can help with your problem," Harsh said. "And perhaps you can help with mine. I am looking for expertise. Specifically, in precision engineering. CNC programming. The kind of skills that built MiG fighters and Soyuz rockets."
The men exchanged glances. The older man's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"
"A businessman," Harsh said. "One who values skill. I can arrange for your tickets. And I can offer a one-year contract. Housing, a salary in US dollars, and work that will not insult your intelligence."
The offer hung in the smoky air. It was a lifeline. The man stared at Harsh, trying to discern the trap.
"What is the work?" he asked cautiously.
"Modernizing a manufacturing operation," Harsh said. It was the truth, just not the whole truth. "We have machines, but we lack the knowledge to use them to their full potential. I need a teacher. A foreman for a new kind of workshop."
The man was silent for a long moment, then extended his hand. "I am Yevgeny. I designed guidance systems for orbital payloads. My friends here… they are good mechanics. But they need to go home to their families. I… I have less to return to. I will stay."
A deal was struck. Harsh arranged for the tickets for the other men through a dubious travel agent he knew from his smuggling days. Yevgeny moved into a small, clean apartment Harsh rented for him in a better part of town, paid for with his skimmed gold money.
Harsh didn't bring Yevgeny to Sigma Electro-components or the gold workshop. That was Swami's territory. Instead, he took him to a small, locked garage unit he'd rented under a false name. Inside was the second-hand Soviet CNC milling machine he'd acquired months ago through Prakash Rao's scrap network. It was old, but it was complex and currently useless without the right knowledge.
Yevgeny walked around the machine, a look of profound sadness on his face. "This is a TOS Kurim. A workhorse. We used these to make parts for…" he trailed off, shaking his head. "It is a shame to see it like this. Rusty. Forgotten."
"Can you make it work?" Harsh asked.
Yevgeny gave a short, bitter laugh. "I can make it sing." He spent the next two days cleaning, oiling, and recalibrating the machine. Then he sat down with its antiquated control system, muttering to himself in Russian as he wrote lines of code on a notepad.
Within a week, the machine was humming with purpose, its movements precise and automated, carving a perfect brass component from a raw block based on Yevgeny's designs.
This was the key. Not the gold, not the smuggling. This. The ability to make things. To create precision components that nobody else in the small-scale Indian market could produce.
Harsh had his first true, independent asset. Yevgeny was more valuable than kilos of gold. He was a source of infinite potential.
He was also a catastrophic liability. If Swami discovered that Harsh was hoarding this kind of talent for his own ends, building a private capability outside the empire's control, the punishment would be swift and absolute.
Harsh visited Yevgeny often, bringing him food, books, anything he needed. He was no longer just a boss; he was a patron, a student. He learned about tolerances, about materials science, about the immense gap between what Indian workshops could do and what was possible.
He was building a sword, and he was learning how to sharpen it. The Russian had given him the key to a door Swami didn't even know existed. Behind it lay not just wealth, but true, technological independence.
The risk was unimaginable. But for the first time, the future felt like his own to design.
(Chapter End)