The Enemy Within

Chapter 29

Rohan is pacing up and down the hotel room talking on his phone, "Yes Sunny, we are checking the flash drive now. Please keep an eye on the doctor... we don't know what to expect."

He listens for a bit and nods, "Yes, we need to make sure no harm comes to him."

He puts the phone down and looks at Tanya, "The deeper we get into this the more confusing it becomes."

Tanya nods while setting up her system, "So what do we do now? We can't call it in."

"The thing that's bugging me the most is, why would Alan take my name when he gave the flash drive to the doctor? I have no idea what he was working on – we have been on different assignments for a while now. In fact, I have hardly spoken to him in last couple of years. What connection has this got with me?"

Tanya plugs the flash drive into the laptop and clicks on the icon.

'Access Denied' flashes on the screen followed by a string of gibberish.

Rohan looks at her in confusion.

Tanya shakes her head, "Oh no, this is heavily encrypted. This is going to take me a while to open."

She gets to work with her fingers flying over the keys. Rohan paces up and down the room like he normally does when his mind is preoccupied.

One hour later, Tanya throws up her hands in frustration, "This is too complex a code. Alan has used some kind of code that I've not seen before – he was good."

Rohan runs his hands through his hair looking hassled, "Yes, he was very good, one of the best in fact. Something is not quite gelling in all this. I can't put my finger on it."

Tanya pulls out her wallet and hands Rohan some money, "Can you get me a Coke from the machine in the lobby? I need some sugar to keep working like."

Rohan takes the note glancing at it as he heads for the door, "I'll get a bag of chips too, nothing like junk food to stimulate the brain."

Suddenly he stops at the door and opens his eyes wide, "That's it! Tanya, you have cracked it."

She looks at him confused, "Cracked what?"

"The one question that was nagging me all along – why did Alan mention my name before he died?"

"Why?"

Rohan points excitedly at the note, "This is the answer!"

"A 500 rupee note is the answer?""

"No! Look at the note – the Ashoka emblem on it – the 4 lions. That's the answer to cracking the code. He knew I was the only one who could crack the code. And after our first mission, he always said that I was the only one he really trusted in this world."

Tanya wrings her hand in confusion, "What? How can you be sure?

Rohan gives her a brief background of the training they had undergone and the case they had worked on.

"I am suddenly looking at a very different case right now – things have suddenly become crystal clear."

Tanya looks at him confused, "Care to enlighten me?"

Rohan smiles, "I think he found out there was a mole in the agency. And he knew he could trust no one but me – we still had a strong bond after all these years."

"So you are saying you can crack this code?"

"If I'm right about this, it will be done in 5 minutes," Rohan sits on the laptop and gets to work.

In the meantime, Jack is standing outside Dr. Nair's office, looking around for any perceptible threats. Sunny comes up with a cup of coffee. Jack sips on the coffee while Sunny lights up a cigarette.

The two assassins – the man and the woman – now disguised as villagers, come walking up to Dr. Nair's clinic. Sunny steps to one side as they brush past him and enter the clinic. They take a token and sit in line for their turn.

An hour later, the male assassin gets a message on his phone – 'Terminate Dr. Nair. Terminate Rohan and Team.' He looks up with a smile and shows the message to his partner.