The Rogue Agent

Chapter 11: Unraveling the Conspiracy

The sterile light of the interrogation room cast long shadows across the cold metal table, the tension within the small space almost suffocating. Pathan leaned forward, his eyes locked onto the face of the rogue agent sitting across from him. The man's once defiant expression had faded, replaced by the subtle signs of wear and fatigue. Hours of questioning had chipped away at his resolve, but the full truth remained elusive, hidden behind layers of loyalty and fear.

Pathan's patience was wearing thin, but he knew this was a critical moment. The information they needed wasn't just about Tiger's whereabouts-it was about the entire operation, the hidden players who had turned trusted agents against their own country. The stakes had never been higher.

"Let's go over this again," Pathan said, his voice calm but firm. "You and the others helped Tiger escape in Venice. You knew our plan, our every move. That means someone on the inside fed you that information. I need names."

The agent's eyes flicked up to meet Pathan's, a mixture of defiance and fear swirling in their depths. "You don't understand," he muttered, his voice hoarse. "It's bigger than all of us. If I talk, they'll kill me-and everyone I care about."

Pathan leaned back, his expression hardening. "And what do you think they'll do to you if you don't talk? You're already a dead man walking. But if you help us, we can protect you. We can take them down, end this madness."

For a moment, silence hung in the air, the weight of the decision pressing down on the agent like a vise. Pathan could see the internal struggle, the battle between self-preservation and a glimmer of conscience. Finally, the man's shoulders slumped, and he let out a long, resigned sigh.

"There's a network," the agent began, his voice barely above a whisper. "A group within RAW and ISI. They've been working together for years, manipulating events, pulling strings behind the scenes. Tiger's family... they were caught in the middle of something they didn't even understand."

Pathan's heart quickened as the pieces began to fall into place. "Who's leading this network? Who gave the orders?"

The agent hesitated, his eyes darting around the room as if he expected someone to materialize out of the shadows. "I don't know the names. They're careful, they never reveal themselves directly. But there's someone... someone high up in both agencies. They use people like me as pawns, feeding us just enough information to do their bidding."

Pathan's mind raced. This was bigger than he had anticipated-a conspiracy that reached the highest levels of intelligence, spanning two nations. The realization hit him like a cold wave. Tiger might have been the catalyst, but the true enemy was something far more insidious.

While Pathan was deep in the interrogation, Zoya was poring over old case files back in Delhi, the flickering light of her computer screen the only illumination in the dimly lit records room. She had been working tirelessly, following the faint trails of information that others had overlooked or ignored. Her instincts had led her down a rabbit hole, one that she was determined to navigate until she reached the truth.

The files in front of her were a chaotic jumble of reports, transcripts, and classified documents, many of them heavily redacted. But Zoya was skilled at reading between the lines, piecing together fragments of information to form a coherent picture. And what she was uncovering was deeply troubling.

Zoya had started by examining the details of Tiger's family's murder, looking for any connections to other incidents. What she found was a disturbing pattern: a series of terrorist attacks that had occurred in the months leading up to the murder, all of them seemingly unrelated but sharing one common thread-each attack had been linked, however tenuously, to individuals who had connections to both RAW and ISI.