Monday was a day spent sharpening the knife. While Jodhpur bustled under the late monsoon sun, Neel and Alok moved like shadows, each working their separate piece of the deadly puzzle.
Neel remained locked in his small guest house room, which he had transformed into an analytical cell. On the screen of the media viewer, he played Abhijit Singh's video diaries over and over. He wasn't watching the crimes; he was studying the man. He listened to the cadence of his voice, the specific words he chose, and the quiet contempt in his eyes. He fast-forwarded, rewound, and paused, mapping the landscape of a psychopath's mind. 🧠
By midday, a clear and terrifying pattern emerged. Singh's victims were not random. Each was a pillar of the community, celebrated for a specific public virtue, which Singh knew to be a lie. He had killed a famously "charitable" industrialist who was secretly bankrupting small businesses. He had killed a "pious" political leader who was a known adulterer. Singh didn't just punish crime; he punished hypocrisy. His killings were a twisted form of social commentary, and his final masterpiece would be the grandest statement of all.
Across the city, Inspector Alok Prakash walked a tightrope of his own. He spent the morning in his office at the police station, surrounded by the mundane reality of paperwork and petty crime, all while carrying a secret that could ignite a national firestorm. Using the pretext of updating security protocols for the high-profile summit, he made two official requests.
The first was to the Umaid Bhawan Palace's head of security for the blueprints of the Maharani Suite, citing a need to review emergency evacuation routes. The blueprints, detailed and architectural, arrived in a sealed envelope by 3:00 PM.
The second request was trickier. He contacted a source in the Chief Minister's office, asking for the official guest list for Abhijit Singh's exclusive dinner the following night, framing it as a simple cross-check of VIP attendees. The list—a single page containing the names of twelve of the most powerful men in India—was emailed to his secure account an hour later. He printed it, his hands sweating as he read the names.
They met after dark, just before midnight. Alok pulled his car into a dimly lit service lane behind the station. Neel slipped into the passenger seat, a ghost emerging from the shadows. The exchange was brief and tense, a thick manila envelope passed from one man to the other.
"The list and the blueprints," Alok said. "It's all I could get. Be careful, Neel. Singh's security detail is ex-special forces. They're not just bodyguards."
"The most dangerous men always hide behind the most dangerous men," Neel replied. "Did you find anything on your end?"
"Only that half the men on this list have enough skeletons in their closets to fill a graveyard. Singh has his pick of targets."
Neel nodded. "That's what I'm counting on."
He slipped out of the car and vanished back into the night.
Back in his room, Neel spread the blueprints and the guest list on the floor. He cross-referenced Singh's twisted philosophy with the twelve names. A defense minister with corruption charges. A Supreme Court judge known for taking bribes. A media baron who buried stories for profit. They were all viable, but none felt like a "masterpiece."
Then his eyes landed on the final name on the list: Ratan Shekhawat.
To the world, Shekhawat was a saint. A beloved philanthropist in his 70s, famous for his work in preserving Rajasthani culture and heritage sites. He was known as "The Guardian of History."
But Neel remembered a different story. A sealed CBI file from years ago detailed allegations that Shekhawat had built his initial fortune by ruthlessly acquiring historical properties from impoverished families, often using threats and legal loopholes, only to "preserve" them under his own profitable foundations. He was a man celebrated for saving history who had actually stolen it.
He was the perfect hypocrite.
Neel circled the name with a red pen. He had found his target. The "who" was now known, and the "when" was tomorrow night. The final, desperate phase of the plan could now begin. 🕰️