The woman had vanished. Vansh could have sworn that he had seen her walk towards the escalator, but apparently she had vanished in thin air. Vansh stood in the middle of the huge foyer of the main building. He was panting. He was now more or less sure that the woman was somehow involved in all of this. During his time as an X, Vansh had learn to trust his gut. It gave him correct advice more often than not.
"Hey man!" He heard a voice from behind. He turned to see Kabir standing there. "You should really consider warning people before you bolt off like that."
Vansh smiled and said,"It's just that I saw someone, Kabir."
"I wouldn't have ran so fast even if I would have seen Ema Watson, man!" Kabir joked.
Noth of them laughed. Vansh decided that he liked the man. He could prove to be good partner, not only because Vansh believed that he was a great agent, but because he seemed to Vansh a decade younger version of himself. Easy going, laid-back, trustworthy and sure of himself. Then I got shot at by the people I had trusted, Vansh thought and the smile faded from his face.
"So, who'd you see?" Kabir asked, his tone now serious.
"A woman who I believe is linked to my case," Vansh answered.
"Which is?"
Vansh exhaled deeply and said in a low voice, "The German PM's bombing."
At that, Kabir burst out laughing. He placed his hand on Vansh's shoulder and said, "Then I guess we'll stick together longer than expected, old man, we're partners on it."
Vansh blinked, processing the information. Then he smiled and said, "Let's begin work, junior, lots to do."
....................
Vikram Markande sighed. The meeting with the PM had not gone as he wanted it to. He had expressed his doubts about the new man sent to him, but as it was pretty evident, the PM trusted him explicitly. When Markande had been the Director of RAW dor barely a couple of years, he had been one of the key votes that had resulted in the culmination of Division X. He believed that the island in the Andaman produced the biggest threat to the civilised world. These men, who called themselves Xs, could take down entire organisations, infiltrate, demobilise, kill without any feelings of regret and remorse. They could run all day and shoot all night without missing. The speak more than twenty languages, could hide in plain sight and disappear in thin air.
He believed that his predecessors did not realise that the in the world they lived in, you did not need cold-blooded killers to condone assassinations. Markande's ways were different. He preferred air strikes, killer drones and long range missiles. Soldier or spies, they may be killers, but no matter how hard you train them, they were men. And each man had a code. Markande had learnt this lesson a long time ago, when he was in the army. Each man had a code which could crack him. Love, children, friendship being the most common among them. And in the world they lived in, these codes could crack far more important things than just themselves. They could crack organisations, societies, communities And God forbid, Markande thought, entire nations.