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Chapter 144 - The Bureaucratic Gambit

The encounter with Joshi left a film of grime on Harsh's soul that a shower couldn't wash away. The Deputy Director's bulging, accusing eyes were etched onto the back of his eyelids. This wasn't the subtle, corporate venom of a Raghav Mehta; this was the blunt, uncompromising force of the state, and it was personal. Joshi wasn't just doing his job; he had taken a disliking to Harsh's youth, his success, his very demeanor. He was a man who enjoyed breaking things, and he saw in Harsh a prized trophy to shatter.

Harsh sat in the back of his car, the chaotic energy of Mumbai flowing past the tinted windows, a world oblivious to the cage that was slowly being constructed around him. A passport surrendered. Movement restricted. Every phone line likely tapped, every financial transaction scrutinized. Joshi had effectively placed him under a microscope. The ten crore in Nava Bharat Electronics would be discovered sooner or later, and when it was, Joshi would pounce, calling it a diversion of illicit funds.

He needed an insider. Not a politician like Varma, who operated in the grand, fickle arena of public perception, but a soldier in the trenches of the bureaucracy. Someone who knew the labyrinthine pathways of the investigation wing, its weaknesses, its lazy assumptions, and the price of its silence.

He thought of the only man who moved through both the shadows and the system with equal ease. He drove to a quiet, non-descript tea stall in the labyrinthine lanes behind Crawford Market, a place that smelled of cardamom and forgotten secrets. He made a call from a street vendor's phone.

An hour later, Raju Kaka arrived, his withered arm held close to his body, his eyes scanning the surroundings with the ingrained paranoia of a lifelong smuggler. He slid onto the bench opposite Harsh, not looking at him, instead watching the steam rise from the small clay cup of chai placed before him.

"The air around you is heavy, boy," the old man rasped without preamble. "It smells of expensive trouble. Government trouble."

"Joshi. Income Tax Investigation Wing," Harsh said, the name itself a curse.

Raju Kaka took a slow sip, his face impassive. "The Frog. Yes. A troublesome creature. Ambitious. He has a taste for the hunt, not just the meat. He will not be easy to… distract."

"I don't want to distract him. I want to blind him. I need a guide within his own department. Not to stop the investigation, but to control its direction. To ensure it looks where I want it to look, and stumbles where I need it to stumble."

Raju Kaka let out a dry, rattling chuckle. "You ask for a miracle. To bend the civil service is like trying to bend a river. It can be done, but it requires immense pressure, and it is never permanent."

"There is a man," Harsh said, leaning forward, his voice dropping. "Not a clerk. A senior officer. Someone with enough authority to influence the case, but who is… disillusioned. Someone who has seen enough to know the game is rigged, but who still has enough career left to want a comfortable exit."

Raju Kaka's eyes, sharp and bird-like, finally flicked up to meet Harsh's. He was silent for a long moment, assessing. "There is a name," he said finally. "Khan. Rustom Khan. Twenty-eight years in the CBI, then shunted to the IT wing as a Deputy Director, a sideways promotion that was an insult. He knows where all the bodies are buried because he buried many of them himself. He is three years from retirement. He is bitter. And he is very, very smart."

"Can he be reached?"

"Every man has a price. For Khan, it is not just money. It is respect. It is a legacy, or the comfortable illusion of one. He feels the state has wasted his talents. He wants to be… consulted."

"Arrange a meeting," Harsh said. "Discreetly."

The meeting took place two nights later in a private room at the back of a Parsi café in Fort, a place frozen in time, the air thick with the smell of old wood, rich coffee, and dhansak. Rustom Khan was a tall, gaunt man with a magnificent, silvering handlebar mustache and eyes that held a profound, weary intelligence. He did not shake Harsh's hand, merely giving a curt nod before sitting down.

"Mr. Patel," Khan said, his voice a deep, resonant baritone that seemed too large for the small room. "The 'Chipman.' The boy who fights whales." A faint, cynical smile touched his lips. "Joshi is not a whale. He is a remora. A sucker fish. But he attaches himself to sharks, and he can be… persistent."

"I need him to attach himself to the wrong shark," Harsh replied, pushing a plain, unmarked folder across the table. "Raghav Mehta."

Khan didn't open the folder. "Mehta has already confessed. The case, for you, is supposedly closed. Joshi will not be satisfied with that. He smells a bigger kill."

"Mehta's confession was limited to industrial espionage," Harsh said. "But what if his sabotage was more extensive? What if he was the one who manipulated the market, using shell companies and foreign funds to create chaos, specifically to destroy a rising competitor? The evidence is… suggestive." He tapped the folder. "Bank records, timed transactions, a link between a Mauritius-based shell and a company owned by Mehta's brother-in-law. It's all there. A trail, if one were motivated to follow it."

Khan's weary eyes glinted with understanding. Harsh was not asking him to plant evidence, but to selectively connect dots that already existed, to give Joshi a plausible, tantalizing, and—most importantly—career-making alternative target. He would be handing Joshi a bigger, juicier whale, and in doing so, directing his aggression away from Harsh.

"And why would I do this?" Khan asked, taking a slow sip of his coffee.

"Because the state has wasted your talents, Mr. Khan," Harsh said, echoing Raju Kaka's words. "But I will not. When this is over, a position awaits you. Head of Corporate Security for Patel Technologies. A consultant's role. A salary that reflects your experience, not your government pay scale. You will be… valued."

It was not a bribe of cash, but a bribe of purpose and respect. It was an offer to be the wise man, not the forgotten functionary.

Khan was silent for a full minute, staring into his coffee cup as if reading the grounds. "Joshi is a fool, but he is a dogged fool. He will need to be led to this new scent very, very carefully. A whisper in the right ear. A file 'accidentally' left on his desk. It will take time."

"I have time," Harsh said. "As long as he's looking at Mehta, he's not looking at me."

Khan finally nodded, a slow, deliberate movement. He picked up the folder and slid it inside his worn leather briefcase. "The remora will be fed. For now." He stood up, his tall frame stooped with the weight of decades of bureaucratic battles. "Do not contact me again. I will find you if it is necessary."

He left the way he came, silent as a ghost. Harsh sat alone in the quiet room, the deal done. He had just hired a ghost to fight a monster. He had infiltrated the enemy's camp. It was a dangerous, delicate move, a single thread in a web he was spinning to save himself. But as he sat there, he felt the first faint stirring of control returning. He was no longer just waiting for the blow to fall. He was now actively shaping the battlefield.

(Chapter End)

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