Two weeks after the X-ray victory, a new rhythm settled over MANO. It was the rhythm of success, which was somehow more exhausting than the struggle to get there. The factory on Indumati Patil's land was a hive of activity—foundations being laid, the skeleton of steel girders rising against the sky. Her foreman, a silent, sharp-eyed man named Kulkarni, appeared every Tuesday like clockwork, inspected every beam and concrete mix, and left without a word. His approval was a quiet nod. It was enough.
Shanti was managing a small empire now. She had hired two assistant managers, was interviewing accountants, and was fighting off distributors who suddenly wanted exclusivity. "They wouldn't return my calls two months ago," she grumbled to Rajendra, sorting through a mountain of paperwork on her new, larger desk. "Now they send boxes of sweets with their contracts. It's nauseating."
"It's business," Rajendra said, leaning in her doorway. "Enjoy it while it lasts. The sweets, I mean. The distributors will turn on you again the second we sneeze."
"I know. But it's still satisfying." She looked up, her eyes tired but bright. "We're building something real here."
"We are," he agreed. And they were. But he was building something else in parallel, something that existed in ledgers hidden inside other ledgers.
In the secure Gorai Creek warehouse, the atmosphere was different. Viktor, Dmitry, and Alexei had been given a proper lab space—clean, well-lit, with real equipment slowly supplementing the miraculous "Müller & Sohn" machine. They were analyzing the D16T aluminum alloy, drafting reports on its properties. They were, for the first time in years, doing meaningful work and being valued for it. Their payment—monthly shipments of medicines, canned food, and warm clothing to their families in Leningrad, Minsk, and Kiev—arrived like clockwork. They were, in a strange way, content. Prisoners of a gilded cage, but the cage was comfortable and the warden kept his promises.
Rajendra stood with Ganesh in the office nook of the warehouse, Anya's latest list between them.
"Two hundred Sony Walkmans. Five hundred pairs of Levi's 501. One thousand music cassettes—Western rock. Two hundred Texas Instruments calculators." Ganesh read the items aloud, his voice flat with disbelief. "Bhai, this isn't a procurement list. It's a Christmas wish list for a whole college."
"It's a morale package," Rajendra corrected, thinking of Anya's recent, more personal note. "She's not selling these. She's using them. A bribe for the soul."
"The volume," Ganesh stressed. "We can't just make this vanish from a dock and reappear. The MAKA ring is for high-value, small-size. This is a container load. We need a real pipeline."
Rajendra had already been working on it. "We use the Singapore company. Ascendant Pte Ltd. It 'imports' the goods legally from Japan and Hong Kong into Singapore. Then it 're-exports' them to a company in Finland. A trading partner. The paperwork is clean, Western. The ship sails for Helsinki... but it makes an 'unscheduled stop' for 'engine trouble' in Murmansk. The goods are offloaded. Our Soviet friends get their jeans, the ship 'fixes its engine' and continues to Finland with an empty hold."
Ganesh considered it. "The Finns are neutral. It could work. But we still need to source all this in Mumbai, get it to Singapore without Indian customs asking why a pressure cooker company is exporting five hundred pairs of American jeans."
"For that," Rajendra said, "we need a specialist."
The specialist was found in a cramped, neon-lit shop in Colaba Causeway, tucked between a tailor and a dubious travel agency. The sign read "Ricky's Export Surplus – All Foreign Goods Available." Inside, the air smelled of camphor and new plastic. Every surface was covered with piles of Wrangler jeans, knock-off Adidas tracksuits, bundles of cassette tapes, and boxes of electronic gadgets. Behind a counter littered with calculator parts sat Ricky Fernandes.
Ricky was Goan, in his thirties, with a permanent five-o'clock shadow and a smile that could sell sand in the desert. He wore a Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, revealing a gold chain. He looked like a caricature of a smuggler, which, Ganesh explained, was his greatest asset. "Everyone underestimates him. But he knows every ship's captain, every customs clerk's price, and exactly which container at the docks has 'fallen off the truck.'"
Rajendra laid out the list. Ricky whistled, long and low. "Walkmans? Genuine Sony? I can get maybe fifty in a month without causing a price spike. Two hundred? Boss, you're talking about cornering the grey market. Levi's 501? Everyone wants those. Five hundred pairs? You trying to clothe the entire Hindi film industry?"
"I need it in three weeks," Rajendra said. "And I need it all to legally leave India for Singapore."
Ricky's playful demeanor vanished. His eyes, shrewd and calculating, locked onto Rajendra. "That's a different game. Export paperwork. Bills of lading. Harmonized System codes. That's not my back-alley business. That's proper, risky business."
"I'm offering proper, risky employment," Rajendra said. "A salary. A title. 'Director of Non-Standard Procurement' for MANO International. You handle this, and all future... unusual acquisitions. You get a budget, and a percentage of the value you secure."
Ricky leaned back, tapping a calculator key absently. "MANO. The pressure cooker guys. The ones who X-rayed Vasant to death." A slow grin spread across his face. "You're not just making cookers, are you, boss?"
"No."
"I like that. Okay. I'm in. But I need a good story for customs. What's the end-use?"
"Charitable donation," Rajendra said without missing a beat. "MANO's new initiative: 'Sound and Clothing for the Underprivileged Youth of Southeast Asia.' We're shipping via Singapore to refugee camps."
Ricky burst out laughing. "Brilliant! So sappy no one will dare question it or look bad. I'll get the goods. You get me the charity letterhead."
As Rajendra turned to leave, Ricky called out. "The calculators. Scientific ones. You want Casio? Sharp?"
"Texas Instruments. The ones with the programming functions."
Ricky's eyebrows shot up. "Now that is specific. That's not for refugees. That's for someone who needs to do… calculations."
"Just get them," Rajendra said, and walked out.
To explain the massive shipping container leaving Singapore for the Soviet border, Rajendra needed his cosmic cover story. He accessed the System and sent a message to Pixel-Lord.
Rajendra (Earth-Prime): I can provide a bulk archival shipment. 500 original 35mm film reels of classic Bollywood cinema (1950s-1970s). Physically intact. Requires discreet bulk shipping to a European archival society. Are you interested in exclusive curation rights?
The response was instantaneous.
Pixel-Lord: FIVE HUNDRED? Verified physical reels? This is a primary source trove! Yes! I will pay 150 Void-Coins for authenticated bulk shipment! Delivery to my designated receiver in the Northern European Cinematic Heritage Society.
Perfect. The "Northern European Cinematic Heritage Society" was Pixel-Lord's shell. The container would be officially full of film reels. No one would question a cultural archive going to Finland.
Now he had to actually get 500 old film reels. He called Prakash Mehra, the director.
"Prakash-ji, I need a favour. Old film reels. From the studio archives. The ones they're probably throwing out or letting rot."
"You want to start a museum?"
"Something like that. Can you get them? I'll pay the studios a fair price. I need them in two weeks."
For the man who had just made him a hit director, Prakash Mehra would have stolen the reels himself. "Consider it done."
A new letter arrived via the dead-drop sailor. This one was different. The usual clinical tone was still there, but woven through it was something else—a stark, human urgency.
"The goods you will send are not for resale. They are for morale. For the officers' families who have not deserted their posts. A pair of jeans for a teenage daughter stops her from hating the state that feeds her nothing but propaganda. A Walkman for a son makes him forget the empty shops outside. These are weapons against despair. More effective than a tank, and quieter.
"The items you requested (Diamonds, Pd, BeCu) are ready. They will be packed in the film canisters marked with a red stripe. Handle with extreme care. The beryllium dust is toxic if the seals break.
"General Krylov has noted the efficiency of our 'cultural exchange.' He is a practical man. He fights a war on two fronts: one against NATO in his mind, one against rot in his barracks. He asks if your side has access to… antibiotics. Bulk, broad-spectrum. The army hospitals are running on hope and vodka. Morale is one thing. Sepsis is another."
Rajendra read it twice. The request had morphed from strategic materials to life-saving medicine. The nature of the partnership was shifting. This wasn't just commerce anymore. It was a lifeline. And General Krylov was now a named player, a shadowy beneficiary. The stakes had just become profoundly human.
He wrote his reply, agreeing to the antibiotic request—his Karjat greenhouse's "research" into tulsi and neem could be spun into a "novel broad-spectrum herbal extract" for the next shipment. He finalized the shipping instructions for the MV Northern Star.
A week later, Shanti was going over the quarterly budgets. A new department had appeared: "MANO International Charitable Outreach." Its expenses were eyebrow-raising.
"Five hundred pairs of denim jeans?" she read aloud, storming into Rajendra's office. "Two hundred personal audio players? Rajendra, what is this? Since when are we in the charity clothing business? And why is it being shipped to Singapore and then to Finland? Are the Finnish underprivileged in dire need of Levi's and Walkmans?"
Rajendra had known this was coming. He gestured for her to sit. "It's a barter deal," he said, his voice low. "For specialized industrial materials. Metals, alloys. Things we can't just buy on the open market. Things that will let us make the next generation of MANO products—lighter, stronger, better. This is how we stay ahead."
She searched his face. "What kind of barter partner pays in jeans?"
"Ones who can't get jeans," he said simply. "It's complicated, Shanti. But it's clean. The goods are legal. The paperwork is legal. The end result is an advantage no one else has. Trust me."
She was silent for a long moment. He could see the conflict in her eyes—the logical businesswoman versus the person who feared the precipice. "I do trust you," she said finally. "But my father's auditors will not. I'll need to create a separate set of books for this… outreach. Just in case."
"That's why you're the Chief Strategy Officer," he said, offering a smile.
"Just don't get us arrested," she said, standing up. "My father would never let me hear the end of it."
The operation moved with surprising smoothness. Ricky Fernandes proved to be a wizard. The jeans, Walkmans, cassettes (a mix of The Beatles, Dire Straits, and Madonna), and calculators were gathered, packed in plain cardboard boxes, and shipped legally to Ascendant Pte Ltd in Singapore. The "charitable donation" paperwork sailed through Indian customs with a bored stamp.
In Singapore, the goods were transferred to a shipping container. Four hundred of Prakash Mehra's procured film canisters, filled with real, musty-smelling 35mm reels, were loaded in first. Then, one hundred special canisters, indistinguishable from the outside, were loaded. These contained the jeans, electronics, and the ten red-striped canisters holding the diamonds, palladium, and beryllium copper rods.
The container was sealed. The manifest read: "Archival Film Canisters. Consignee: Northern European Cinematic Heritage Society, Helsinki, Finland." The MV Northern Star, a mid-sized freighter, set sail.
For a week, there was radio silence. Rajendra threw himself into the legitimate work, the factory construction, the film's ongoing success. The wait was a knot in his stomach.
Then, the encrypted satellite call came to Ricky's special line in Singapore. Ricky relayed it to Ganesh, who delivered the message in person, his face grave.
"Boss. The Northern Star is two days out of Singapore. Ricky just called. There's a problem."
"What?"
"The shipping agent in Helsinki. The one we hired to receive the container and handle the 'engine trouble' diversion. Ricky says the man is asking too many questions. Not about the cargo. About the consignor. About Ascendant Pte Ltd's directors. About ultimate beneficial ownership."
"So?"
"Ricky did some digging. The man isn't just a Finnish shipping agent. He's former Finnish intelligence. And Ricky is almost certain… he's now KGB. They've got people everywhere, especially in neutral ports. They're vetting the pipeline."
Rajendra's blood ran cold. Their beautiful, plausible cover story had a flaw. They had hired a front man to handle things in Helsinki. And that front man was likely reporting directly to Moscow Center. The KGB wasn't just watching the container; they were managing its reception.
The pipeline was live. And it was wired straight into the heart of Soviet intelligence.
He had two days before the ship reached Helsinki. Two days to decide whether to abort the mission, losing the cargo and betraying Anya's trust, or to let it proceed, walking their priceless contraband directly into a potential KGB trap.
He looked at the photo of the rare earth warehouse on his desk, then at the building plans for his factory. The gap between his two worlds had just violently narrowed. And in the gap stood a man in Helsinki with a Finnish passport and a Kremlin paybook.