The Bombay docks before dawn were a world of shadows and echoes. The mist off the Arabian Sea clung to the massive hulls of freighters, muffling the distant clangs of night work. In a small, grimy office overlooking Berth 14, its windows fogged with condensation, Rajendra stood with Ganesh. A single bulb illuminated a hand-drawn map of the dock complex.
"She's getting careless," Ganesh said, his voice low. "Elena. She met Tariq al-Mansoori's man at the Taj last night. The Dubai people. They are not happy. They gave her money for the diesel deal. Now that deal is ice. They think she conned them, or she's incompetent. Either way, she's a debt on their books."
Rajendra stared at the map, his finger tracing the route from the ship to the warehouse. "And their way of collecting debts?"
"Final," Ganesh said simply. "They don't make scenes. They make people disappear."
Rajendra nodded. Good. Let the predators circle each other. His job was to get his prize off the board before the fight started. "Our operation?"
"Double blind is ready. Decoy truck at the ready yard. The barge is in position, hidden behind the Surya Kiran's hull. Our men know the signals. The engineers have been prepped on the ship—they know to move to the port side when they see the green light."
"And Elena's watchers?"
"Two local goondas. She hired them cheap. They're at the tea stall by Berth 12, watching the main gate. They'll see the decoy."
Rajendra's plan was elegant in its simplicity. Let everyone see what he wanted them to see. The real move would happen in the blind spot.
As the first grey light bleached the sky, the MV Surya Kiran, a tired-looking Liberian-flagged freighter, nudged against the dock at Berth 14. The air buzzed with routine: shouted orders, the whine of cranes coming to life.
Operation One: The Decoy.
A truck painted with the logo "Bharat Fast Cargo" rumbled in. Four men in grimy overalls hopped out. They were MAKA men, chosen for their size and their ability to look like tired dockworkers. They began unloading wooden crates from the ship's main hold onto the truck. The crates were heavy, clanging dully with the sound of scrap iron and old engine parts. They made a show of it—shouting, straining, drawing attention.
From his vantage point, Rajendra saw the two watchers at the tea stall stiffen, one whispering into a crude walkie-talkie. The bait was taken.
Operation Two: The Extraction.
On the starboard side of the Surya Kiran, shielded from the view of the dock, the water was still dark. A silent, flat-bottomed barge, used for dredging silt, pulled alongside. Three figures, dressed in dark, nondescript work clothes, emerged from a hatch and were quickly helped onto the barge by two of Ganesh's most trusted men. Viktor, Dmitry, and Alexei moved with the stiff, wary grace of men used to following orders in dangerous situations. Behind them, unmarked, waterproof pods containing the ten tons of D16T aluminum alloy were winched smoothly from a lower hold onto the barge.
Within seven minutes, the barge was pulling away, its electric motor a faint hum lost in the dock's noise. It headed not for the open sea, but north, into a maze of mangrove creeks that led to the isolated Gorai warehouse.
Rajendra listened to the reports on his crackling walkie-talkie.
"Package Alpha secure. En route to Creek Point. No eyes."
"Package Bravo loading complete. Flies are circling."
"Proceed as planned," Rajendra said into the handset. "Let the flies follow the honey."
The decoy truck, its cargo of scrap metal secured, drove out of the docks. The two local thugs, joined now by a third in a battered motorcycle, followed at a discreet distance. The truck drove not toward the city, but into the industrial wasteland of Mazgaon, finally turning into a sprawling, fenced-off scrapyard.
The thugs followed it in, their car rolling to a stop in the dusty yard. They stepped out, expecting to confront some rival crew or to report the location to Elena.
They found something else.
Two black Toyota Land Cruisers with tinted windows were already there. Four men leaned against them. They were not locals. They wore expensive casual wear, their faces calm, their eyes dead. These were Tariq al-Mansoori's professionals.
The lead thug, a man named Ravi, felt his bravado evaporate. "We… we are here for the Russian woman's cargo," he stammered.
One of the Dubai men, tall and clean-shaven, stepped forward. "The Russian woman has no cargo," he said in smooth, accented English. "She has a debt. She said there would be compensation here. Where is she?"
Ravi's mind scrambled. He'd been played. The cargo was junk. He'd led these scary men on a wild goose chase. "She… she is at her hotel. The Sea View in Colaba. Room 312. We were just watching the truck for her!"
The Dubai man nodded, as if this confirmed his low expectations. He gestured. Two of his men moved with terrifying speed. Ravi was against the hood of his car, a arm like an iron bar across his throat before he could blink.
"You wasted our time," the tall man said, his voice still conversational. "That is also a debt." He nodded again. There was a muffled, sickening crack. Ravi slumped. His two companions were dealt with just as efficiently. The Dubai crew loaded the bodies into the trunk of the thugs' own car. They would disappear into the same scrapyard furnace meant for metal.
The clean-shaven man took out a mobile phone—a rare, expensive satellite model. He dialled. "The location is confirmed. Colaba. The local trash has been disposed of. Proceeding to collect the debt."
In the secure warehouse at Gorai Creek, the atmosphere was one of tense relief. The warehouse was clean, well-lit, and divided into living quarters and a workshop area. The three Soviet engineers sat at a table, sipping sweet, milky chai, their faces pale with exhaustion and culture shock.
The translator, Professor Joshi, a retired linguist with a kind face, spoke to them softly in Russian. "You are safe. This is a secure facility. You will be well-treated."
The door opened, and Rajendra entered, followed by Ganesh. The engineers stiffened. Rajendra looked them over. Viktor, in his fifties, with a sharp, intelligent gaze. Dmitry, younger, with the build of a man who worked with his hands. Alexei, the youngest, nervous but observant.
"Professor, translate exactly," Rajendra said, his voice calm and firm. "You are here because Captain Petrova sent you. You work for me now. Your expertise in metallurgy and aerodynamics has value. You will be respected, fed, and paid. Your payment will be the medicine, food, and goods we are shipping to your families. The first shipment leaves next week."
Viktor listened, his eyes never leaving Rajendra's face. When the translation finished, he spoke. "You are not government. Not Indian intelligence."
"No," Rajendra said. "I am a businessman. Your old masters saw you as a cost. I see you as an investment. Work with me, and your families have a better life. Try to run, try to contact the embassy… the shipments stop."
It was brutal in its clarity. No prison bars, just a financial lever. They were assets, now on his balance sheet. Viktor slowly nodded. He understood the language of leverage.
Elena Volkova sat on the edge of her bed in the Sea View Hotel. The room was cheap, the air stale. The glamour of the Taj meeting was gone, replaced by the smell of mildew and fear. She had heard nothing from her thugs. The walkie-talkie was silent. She knew, with a cold certainty, that she had miscalculated catastrophically.
She was stuffing clothes into a suitcase when the door simply opened. No knock. No key rattle. The lock had been picked with silent expertise.
Two men entered. The same ones from the scrapyard. They closed the door behind them.
Elena's breath froze. "Tariq sent you? Tell him I can explain! The deal, it was delayed, not dead! I have new contacts!"
The clean-shaven man ignored her. He looked around the shabby room with faint disdain. "Miss Volkova. You were entrusted with capital. You promised a return. You delivered nothing but excuses. You then attempted to use our resources to settle a personal grudge, wasting more capital."
"It wasn't a grudge! The Indian, Shakuniya, he stole the deal!"
"Your failures are not our concern," the man said, his voice chillingly patient. "Only your debt is. Mr. al-Mansoori's ledger must be balanced."
Elena's defiance crumbled into raw panic. "I can get the money! I have contacts in the Oil Ministry! Give me time!"
"Time," the man said, "is a commodity you have spent." He nodded to his partner.
Elena didn't even have time to scream. A chloroform-soaked cloth was clamped over her mouth and nose. Her struggles were brief, feeble. Within seconds, she went limp.
They worked with efficient, practiced movements. They wrapped her in the bedsheet from the very bed she'd slept in, then in a layer of thick canvas from a large duffel bag they'd brought. They carried the bundle out to the service elevator, then to a waiting delivery van at the loading dock. No one saw. No one asked.
The van drove north, toward the marshy, polluted creeks of Mahim. There, weights were attached. The bundle that contained Elena Volkova was consigned to the deep, muddy water, a final, silent settlement for a failed merchant.
Two days later, back at the mill office, Rajendra was reviewing the initial notes from Viktor on the properties of the D16T alloy. Ganesh entered, his face grim.
"It's done, bhai. The Dubai crew left last night on a flight to Sharjah. And… a body washed up near the Mahim causeway this morning. A European woman, unidentified. The police are calling it a probable drowning. Tourist tragedy."
Rajendra didn't look up from the notes. He felt no triumph, no pity. Elena had chosen her game and played it badly. The multiverse, the grey market, the geopolitics of dying empires—they were all the same. You calculated correctly, or you were removed from the equation.
"Clean up any loose ends on our side. Pay off the ship's captain, the barge owner. The engineers are now our only link to that channel. Protect it."
That evening, as he was leaving the mill, the old watchman stopped him. "Sahib, this came for you. A boy delivered it. Said it was urgent."
It was a thick, plain manila envelope. No stamp, no return address. Rajendra took it to his office and slit it open.
Inside were two items.
First, a carbon-copy of a shipping manifest for the MV Surya Kiran, listing "machine parts." Scrawled in the margin in precise, cursive English was: "Cargo received. Partners satisfied. Channel is confirmed and secure. – A.P."
Second, a grainy, black-and-white photograph. It looked like it had been taken secretly, the corner of a vast, dimly lit warehouse. Stacked to the ceiling were metal crates. Stenciled on the side of one, barely legible, were chemical symbols: Ce, Nd, La, Y. Below it, a typed label: DEPOT GRU-7. CATEGORY: STRATEGIC RESERVES (RARE EARTH).
A single line was handwritten at the bottom of the photo in the same precise script: "The foreman is counting. The real inventory is being listed. What is your bid? – A."
Rajendra stared at the photo. Rare earth elements. The obscure, magical minerals that made modern electronics, lasers, and guidance systems possible. The West and Japan would pay a fortune for them. The Soviet Union was sitting on mountains of them, useless in their crumbling system.
Anya wasn't just providing a channel. She was showing him the vault.
And she was asking him to be a partner. Not a distant client, but a co-conspirator in the greatest heist in history—the systematic, quiet liquidation of a superpower's technological future.
He leaned back, the weight of the offer settling on him. Elena was gone, a minor casualty. Anya Petrova was here, offering not just business, but a dangerous, profound alliance. The personal note, the shared risk, the sheer scale of it—it changed everything.
He took out a fresh sheet of paper. He didn't have a System to send a message. He had to be old-fashioned, careful.
He wrote in clear, block letters:
PROPOSAL: JOINT VENTURE.
TITLE: PROJECT URAL.
OBJECTIVE: SECURE AND MONETIZE IDENTIFIED STRATEGIC INVENTORY.
MY ROLE: PROVIDE BUYERS, OFFSHORE FINANCE, END-USE LEGITIMATION.
YOUR ROLE: PROVIDE ACCESS, SECURE LOGISTICS, INTERNAL COVER.
SPLIT: 60/40 (YOU/ME) ON NET PROFIT.
NEXT STEP: SEND INVENTORY LIST AND FEASIBLE EXTRACTION QUANTITIES.
– R.S.
He didn't sign it with his full name. The initials were enough. He sealed it in a blank envelope. Tomorrow, he would give it to Ganesh, who would give it to the sailor on the Baltic Star, who would leave it in a locker in Murmansk.
The game had levelled up. He was no longer just a merchant picking up scraps. He was negotiating a partnership to mine the bedrock of a fallen empire. And his potential partner was a soldier with ice-grey eyes, counting boxes in a frozen warehouse, waiting for his reply.