Like you were never gone

Chapter 10

Over the course of the next few hours, a flurry of activity happened.

As promised, Victor sent the coordinates for Pathan to meet up. Much to his protests, a team of agents was put together to tail him and Victor's goons once they reached the rendezvous point. He was supposed to wait by the Brighton alley that night. It was a smart choice. The place wasn't completely deserted, and would make it difficult to spot victor's men.

In this chaos, Samar managed to find a moment for himself. He went back to his locker at the HQ and rifled through it, until he found what he was looking for. It was his panda ring.

Although he had kept his distance from Meera and never tried to contact her, he couldn't get rid of this one thing. As it turned out, neither could she. He took the ring in his hands and sat on the bench. Samar closed his eyes, as he caressed the ring lightly, trying to remember if he could still feel Meera's touch. All he could remember were the flashes of good and bad memories. He stayed there until he received another message on his own phone.

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The message gave him the location of Rabbit's foot. He was supposed to steal it for Victor Sams. Samar found an opportunity and escaped from the HQ. He set out on that mission alone, he wanted his team to have deniability. But much to his own protest, the two young agents Chirag and Priya decided to follow him, and with their help, Pathan was able to steal the canister that contained the bio weapon from the high security lab.

Pathan shows up at the mentioned location alone. His agents kept an eye on the situation from a hidden vantage point. Soon he was ambushed by a man in an all black suit. He asked pathan to get into the black van with tinted glasses.

"What is happening?" Pathan asked.

"Drink this." The man handed him a vile with a colourless liquid.

Pathan looked at him suspiciously, but he didn't have a choice. He drank the liquid, it tasted like nothing. The van started moving and with it, pathan started losing his consciousness. The next thing pathan remembered through the haze, was a white room and man forcing his head up as he injected something into his nasal cavity. Then it was dark again.

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Meanwhile, things were taking a different turn for the JOCR team. They had lost track of the black van. Chirag and Priya had been trying to track the van. They were also going through the case files and the evidence from ten years ago to find any lead on the Rabbit's foot or Victor Sams.

"Hey Chirag, take a look at this. It's one of the images from the micro chip from ten years ago." Priya nudged Chirag showing him the iPad.

"Oh my god!" Chirag looked stunned for a second. "Pathan sir doesn't know what he's walked into."

"What do we do?" Priya asked worried.

Chirag quickly closed the image file and looked around to make sure no one had seen what they were doing.

"We can't show this to anyone here. We'll have to connect with Ben. Let's go."

Chirag and Priya headed downstairs to the lab. Ben was still working with the organisation. And Chirag knew about his bond with Pathan, and his history with the Victor Sams case. They called Ben out to a secluded corner of the lab.

"Ben we need you to take a look at something." Priya handed him the iPad.

"What is it?" Ben started scanning through the image. "Oh lord! I can't believe I missed it the first time. We were so focused on Meera's pictures being there, that I completely missed it."

They were all looking at a blurry photo on the screen, it appeared to be two men shaking hands after a done deal. One of them was definitely Victor Sams and the other, was someone they knew very well.

"We have to warn Sir. Both of them are in real danger." Chirag quipped.

"Yeah- yeah. I know what to do, c'mon."

The three of them, left the building in a hurry.

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author's note: a hint for the next chapter, just remember what happened in the first 😌