The folder was a live grenade in his hands, its pin pulled. He couldn't hold it for long, and throwing it blindly would only get him and everyone near him killed. He needed a bomb disposal expert. He needed someone the system couldn't easily touch, someone with a public platform too big to silence with a single bullet or a bribed judge.
The answer came to him not as a flash of inspiration, but as a slow, cold certainty. It was the most dangerous option, and therefore, the only one.
The press.
Not the tame, establishment newspapers. He needed a crusader. A maverick. Someone with a reputation for integrity and a taste for tearing down the powerful.
He knew the name. Every person in Mumbai who ever felt wronged by the system knew the name: Ravi Pandey, editor of The Mumbai Sentinel. A man whose fiery editorials had sent politicians to jail and whose investigative pieces were feared in corporate boardrooms. He was famously incorruptible, a man who saw his newspaper not as a business, but as a weapon for the powerless.
Getting to him was the problem. A man like Pandey would be guarded, insulated by layers of assistants and security. Harsh couldn't just walk in off the street, especially not looking like a filthy dockworker who'd just crawled through a fence.
He needed an intermediary. Someone credible. Someone who could get Pandey's attention.
There was only one person left in his shattered world who fit that description.
Priya.
The thought of dragging her into this, of placing that kind of target on her back, made him physically ill. But she was a college student, intelligent, articulate. She could get past the gatekeepers where he could not. She could be his voice.
It was a terrible risk. The greatest he'd ever taken.
He found a payphone near the train station, his heart aching with every digit he dialed. He prayed she would be home.
"Hello?" Her voice was a lifeline, calm and familiar, from a world that felt a million miles away.
"Priya. It's Harsh." His voice was rough, strained.
A pause. "Harsh? Are you alright? You sound… what's wrong? Your parents said you were sick, that you'd gone to stay with a relative…"
The lie he'd told his parents had reached her. It was a small comfort that they were insulated, for now. "I'm not sick. I'm in trouble. The kind of trouble I can't talk about on the phone." He took a shuddering breath. "I need your help. I need you to be my… my ambassador."
"What are you talking about? Harsh, you're scaring me."
"I need you to go to the offices of The Mumbai Sentinel. Ask for Ravi Pandey. Tell his assistant you have a story that will be the biggest of his career. A story about defense contracts, treason, and a man named Venkat Swami."
Silence. He could almost hear her mind racing, trying to reconcile the boy who fixed walkmans with the desperate man whispering about treason.
"Harsh… what have you done?"
"What I had to," he whispered, the weight of it crushing him. "Priya, I have proof. But if I try to take it anywhere, they will stop me. They'll kill me. But they won't be looking for you. You can walk right in."
Another long silence. He was asking her to bet her life on his word. To step into a shadow war she knew nothing about.
"Tell me what to do," she said finally, her voice quiet but steady. There was no hesitation, only a fierce, terrifying trust.
He outlined the plan, his instructions precise. She was to go first thing in the morning. She was to say nothing to anyone. She was to take the folder from him just outside the building and walk straight in.
He met her the next morning a block away from the Sentinel's office. She looked so ordinary, so out of place in her simple salwar kameez, a college bag slung over her shoulder. Her eyes widened when she saw him—the grime, the greasy cast, the haunted look in his eyes.
"Your hand…" she breathed.
"It doesn't matter," he said, his voice urgent. He slid the thick, damning folder from inside his shirt and into her bag. His fingers brushed against her textbooks. The normality of it was surreal. "This is it. Everything. Give it only to Pandey. No one else. Tell him… tell him the source is a ghost in the machine. And then you walk away. You forget you ever saw me today. You understand?"
Tears welled in her eyes, but she nodded, her jaw set with a determination he'd never seen before. "I understand."
He watched her go, walking toward the glass doors of the newspaper building, a lone, brave figure against a fortress of power. It was the longest minute of his life. He expected shouts, the sudden appearance of Swami's men, the squeal of brakes.
But nothing happened. She disappeared inside.
He forced himself to turn and walk away, melting into the morning crowd. His part was done. The grenade had been passed.
Now, he had to survive the explosion.
He didn't go back to the chawl. It was the first place they'd look. Instead, he went to the only place left that offered a semblance of sanctuary: Dr. Desai's clinic. He didn't explain; the doctor took one look at him and ushered him into a back room with a cot.
"Stay. Don't show yourself," was all Desai said.
The wait was agony. Every hour felt like a day. He jumped at every sound outside. He was trapped in a terrifying limbo, his fate now in the hands of a journalist he'd never met and the woman he loved.
Late that afternoon, the doctor came into the room, his face unreadable. He was carrying the evening edition of The Mumbai Sentinel.
He didn't say a word. He just handed Harsh the paper.
The headline wasn't on the front page. It was the front page. Set in huge, bold type that screamed for attention:
TREASON AT THE DOCKS: HOW A SHADOW EMPIRE IS BUILDING INDIA'S MISSILE
By Ravi Pandey
Exclusive documents obtained by The Sentinel reveal that crucial components for the top-secret Agni-I missile program are being illicitly manufactured by a criminal syndicate led by businessman Venkat Swami, using smuggled foreign technology and expertise. The investigation uncovers a web of shell companies, bribed officials, and a staggering breach of national security…
Harsh's eyes scanned the article. It was all there. Everything from the folder. Pandey had held nothing back. The evidence was laid bare for the entire city, the entire country, to see.
He had done it. He had thrown the stone that would bring down the giant.
A wave of dizzying relief washed over him, so powerful his knees felt weak. It was over.
But as he read on, the relief curdled into a new, more primal fear.
The article was a masterpiece. It exposed the system, the network, the crime.
But it never once mentioned the name Harsh Patel.
He was still the ghost in the machine. And now, Swami knew that ghost had stolen his most valuable secret and given it to his greatest enemy.
The newspaper wasn't his shield. It was his death warrant. The hunt would now begin in earnest. Swami's empire was wounded, and a wounded animal was at its most dangerous.
The war wasn't over. It had just entered its final, most deadly phase.
(Chapter End)