The chaos of the Kashmir shoot faded into the humid grind of Mumbai. The film rushes looked good, Prakash Mehra was happy, and for a moment, things felt steady. That's when Rajendra decided to press Elena.
He called her to the mill office. She arrived looking pale and tense, the Moscow winter seeming to still cling to her bones.
"The shoot was a success," he said, not offering her a seat.
"I heard. Congratulations." Her voice was flat.
"The Heer tape. Your client was satisfied." He placed the payment for that job on the desk—a stack of rupees. Her fee. She didn't touch it.
"Now, a new assignment," he continued, watching her closely. "I'm shifting strategy. The Siberian land lease is too long-term, too exposed. I need liquidity now. I want you to secure a one-time purchase. Ten thousand tons of diesel from the Soviet reserves. For a Singaporean shell company. Get me a price and a delivery timeline within a week."
Elena's face went utterly still. For a long moment, she just stared at him. Then a flicker of something—anger, panic, betrayal—crossed her eyes. "You are canceling the land deal? After the gold was promised? After I neutralized Zubov?"
"The situation has changed. This is a more immediate need. Can you do it or not?"
She stood up slowly, her movements stiff. "The land deal was solid. It was our agreement. This… this is different. It is not what I was hired for."
"You were hired to be my conduit to Soviet assets. Diesel is an asset. Do your job."
She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time—not as a savior, but as another man who would use her and discard a promise. "I will see what is possible," she said, her voice icy. She turned and left, not touching the money.
The test had begun.
For three days, there was silence. Ganesh's network in the grey market heard nothing. Then, on the fourth day, a whisper.
Ganesh came to the office, his face grim. "Bhai, there's talk. In the dockside bars where the Eastern Bloc traders drink. A Russian woman is asking questions. Not about buying diesel. She's asking about safe passage for a large fuel shipment. And about… alternative buyers who can pay in gold or dollars, not goods."
Rajendra's blood went cold. She wasn't trying to fulfill his order. She was shopping the concept of the deal to others. She was looking for her own exit, using his plan as her ticket.
"Who is she talking to?"
"A Greek shipping magnate's agent. And… a man linked to a Dubai-based trading house. The same people Karan Seth owed money to."
So. Elena Volkova, backed into a corner, had decided to become a free agent. She'd taken his proposal—the diesel buy, the Singapore shell company, the structure—and was now auctioning it to the highest bidder, seeking protection and a better cut for herself. She had cut him out completely. Worse, she was exposing his methods to dangerous people.
"What about the land lease papers?" Rajendra asked, his voice low.
"Still in her possession, as far as we know. She hasn't filed them with the Soviet authorities yet. She holds the title."
She had the land, she had his gold promise, and now she was trying to sell his new deal to his enemies. It was a clean, brutal betrayal. Not out of malice, he realized, but out of a desperate animal instinct to survive. He had underestimated her. He had thought the gold and the removed threat of Zubov would make her compliant. He was wrong. It had just made her confident enough to strike out on her own.
He felt a sharp anger, but it was directed at himself. He'd been sloppy. Sentimental, almost. He'd seen a damsel in distress and forgot that distress breeds the sharpest survivors.
"What do we do, bhai?" Ganesh asked. "We can't let her talk to the Dubai people. They will smell blood."
"We don't touch her," Rajendra said. "Not here. She's a foreign national with a Soviet passport. Too complicated."
He leaned back, the wheels turning. The Soviet door wasn't closed, but Elena was now a active liability. He needed to understand the landscape himself. He needed ground truth.
"Book me a ticket to Moscow," he said. "Tourist visa. I'll go for three weeks."
"Moscow? Now? But the film, the business here…"
"Shanti can handle the day-to-day. You handle security. I need to see what's happening over there. If Elena is shopping our deal, it means the Soviet system is so rotten that everything is for sale. I need to find the right seller."
He spent the next two days preparing. He gave Shanti signing authority on the MANO accounts for operational expenses. He told her he was going to Europe to scout film equipment and textile markets—a half-truth. She looked at him with those intelligent eyes, sensing more, but didn't push.
"Be careful," was all she said. "The world is bigger than Crawford Market."
"That's why I'm going."
He packed warm, plain clothes. He took a stack of US dollars and a few gold coins from the MAKA vault, hidden in a money belt. He left the dark MAKA ring in a safe. He was going as Rajendra Shakuniya, curious Indian businessman, nothing more.
The night before his flight, he sat in his empty room. The System was silent. His cosmic clients were waiting for their next shipment, unaware of his earthly fires.
He thought of Elena's cold eyes. She had seen him as a ladder. Now she was kicking it away. It was a lesson. Trust was the most expensive commodity, and he had just overpaid.
He wasn't going to Moscow to chase her. He was going to bypass her. To find the source of the leak and plug it himself. And maybe, in the crumbling empire, find new opportunities that didn't come with the sting of betrayal.
The Aeroflot flight to Moscow was bleak. The plane smelled of stale tobacco and boiled cabbage. As the wheels left Indian soil, Rajendra closed his eyes. One battle had ended in a retreat. A new one was beginning in the frozen heart of a dying empire.