The telex from "K" lay on Rajendra's desk like a sleeping snake. It wasn't a request. It was a summons. General Yevgeny Krylov wasn't asking for a pen pal; he was demanding an audience. The man who controlled the pipelines of the Soviet military machine wanted to look the merchant in the eye.
This wasn't about a single shipment of jeans or antibiotics. This was an audition. Krylov was vetting a potential long-term asset. The prize was not a bag of emeralds, but a permanent, high-capacity smuggling pipeline that could funnel the wealth of a dying superstate into Rajendra's coffers. The penalty for failure was not a lost deal, but becoming a disposable pawn—or a permanent resident of a shallow, frozen ditch outside Moscow.
Rajendra knew the persona he had to wear: The Reliable Merchant. Not a spy. Not an ideologue. A pragmatic, amoral businessman who understood value, timing, and, above all, discretion. His ambition, however, burned far hotter. He would not be Krylov's servant, a mere smuggler on the payroll of a collapsing empire. As the USSR convulsed, he saw not ruin, but raw material. A vast, unclaimed estate of resources, technology, and human capital, ripe for acquisition. He would be the merchant on the frontline, yes, but his goal was to become the landlord of the liquidation. He would help dismantle the Soviet state, not to serve a new Russian one, but to build his own sovereign wealth from its bones.
But first, he had to pass the audition.
"Berlin?" Shanti's voice was flat with disbelief. "You want to go to Berlin. Now. To look at textile machines."
"It's a legitimate business expansion," Rajendra said, spreading brochures from German manufacturers on her desk. "Our fabric quality needs to improve if the Heritage line is to compete globally. German machinery is the best. We need to see it, negotiate."
"And the fact that Berlin is a city sliced in half by the Cold War, a spy's playground, is just a coincidence?"
"Geography is not my concern. Thread count is."
She studied him, the master of pressure cookers and folk fabrics suddenly obsessed with German loom technology. She saw the steel beneath the calm. "Fine. I'll set up real meetings. With real companies. In Frankfurt and Mönchengladbach. You will attend them. You will know the difference between a rapier loom and a air-jet loom by the time you get on the plane. Your cover will be airtight."
"That's why you're the strategist," he said, offering a thin smile.
The cover story was built with meticulous care. MANO would explore a joint venture for technical textiles. Visas were applied for. Brochures were studied. Shanti even connected with an Indo-German trade chamber. The trip was real.
The shadow preparations were another matter.
Ganesh was apoplectic. "You cannot go alone, bhai. Not into that... that nest of spies and soldiers."
"I won't be alone. I need a guide. Someone who knows Berlin. Not a bodyguard. A fixer."
Ganesh reached into his network, the one built on decades of dockyard loyalties and shaded dealings. He found a ghost. "Mr. Kapoor." A former field officer for India's Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), now a private "security consultant." A man who had operated in the grey zones of Europe for two decades. His fee was a small fortune. His guarantee was his reputation: clients who were discreet stayed alive and free.
Kapoor came to the mill office at night. He was a man of average height, average build, with a forgettable face and calm, watchful eyes that missed nothing. He spoke little, listened intently.
"Your cover is good," Kapoor said, his voice a low monotone. "The meetings are smart. In Berlin, you are a tourist seeing the Wall. Standard. The pickup at Brandenburg Gate is standard KGB/GRU protocol for a low-risk civilian contact. They will take you to a safe-house in the East. You will be scanned. Assume they will undress you. Assume they will search every seam."
"Can you be there?"
"I will be in West Berlin. I will have a team—two men—watching the pickup point. If you are not returned to the West within six hours of the scheduled drop-off time, we will initiate procedures."
"What procedures?"
"Procedures to determine if you are alive, in prison, or dead. And then, if possible, procedures to create leverage for your release. Not extraction. That is impossible from the East. Leverage."
It was cold, professional, and utterly without reassurance.
A new dead-drop arrived from Anya. Not a letter, but a slim, sealed dossier.
It was a profile of General Yevgeny Viktorovich Krylov.
Age: 58.
Service: Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1988). Commander, 40th Army Logistics Wing. Credit for keeping supply lines open through the Hindu Kush against mujahideen ambushes.
Current Post: Deputy Commander, Western Military District Logistics Command. De facto controller of material flow for the USSR's largest and most important military district, facing NATO.
Psychology: Pragmatist. Disdainful of Communist Party political officers ("zampolits"). Loyalty is to "Russian military strength," not to the Politburo. Sees the economic collapse as the primary strategic threat. Has privately referred to the Party leadership as "old women arguing over a sinking ship."
Ambition: Believed to be positioning himself as a key power broker in any post-Soviet transition. Needs hard currency and civilian goods to maintain the loyalty of his officer corps and their families.
Anya's note, on a separate slip, was in her precise hand:
"He respects competence and hates flattery. Do not lie about capabilities. If you can move 100 tons, say 80. Then deliver 120. He thinks in trainloads, not suitcases. The question will be about scale. Your answer will decide your future. Do not speak of politics. Speak of throughput, reliability, and value. He is a quartermaster who has become a kingmaker. Remember that."
Rajendra committed it to memory. A quartermaster turned kingmaker. And he, Rajendra, would be the quartermaster's quartermaster. For now.
The tangible offering for the meeting was taking shape in the Medi-Pharm lab. Dr. Chaudhary, fueled by unlimited funds and revolutionary science, had worked miracles. The first batch of Formula K-7 antibiotics had been synthesized, purified, and bottled. They were a stark, clinical white in simple glass vials.
Rajendra inspected them. "Purity?"
"99.8 percent. It's a marvel," Dr. Chaudhary breathed. "The stabilization is... I've never seen anything like it. Shelf life is estimated at five years. Efficacy tests on bacterial samples are near-total."
"Production rate?"
"With the new equipment you funded, ten thousand doses a week. Easily."
Rajendra took a case containing one thousand vials. He also had the complete synthesis formula and process guide encrypted on a single, ordinary-looking floppy disk. This was his gift. Not a promise of future aid, but a tool for sovereignty. With this, Krylov could control a medical crisis, reward loyalty, and create a tiny island of health in a sea of Soviet decay. It was a kingmaker's gift for a kingmaker.
Then, the earth shook beneath his feet.
Shanti walked into his office, her face pale, holding an official-looking letter. "We have a problem. A big one."
It was a notice from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI). MANO International was being selected for a "comprehensive audit of export-import transactions over the last eighteen months." They requested access to all shipping manifests, bills of lading, bank transfers, and correspondence related to the Singapore and "Finnish charitable" shipments.
The timing was too perfect. This was no random check. This was a targeted strike.
"Vasant's allies?" Rajendra asked, his voice dangerously calm.
"Or worse," Shanti said. "Someone got a whisper about Singapore. The DRI doesn't move this fast on a corporate rival's complaint. This feels like a state security nudge."
The audit would freeze everything. It would expose the massive purchases of jeans and electronics. It would lead to Medi-Pharm and the unexplained antibiotic research. It would trap him in India, under investigation, while his summons to Berlin expired and General Krylov wrote him off as a compromised amateur.
He couldn't fight this with lawyers or bribes. Not in time. He needed a bigger shield. He needed to call in the protection his success had earned.
He called Priya Singh.
"Priya. I need to speak to your grandfather. Not through layers. It's urgent."
She heard the iron in his voice. "I'll call you back."
Thirty minutes later, his phone rang.
"Mr. Shakuniya." It was Priya. "My grandfather cannot speak directly. But he has been made aware of your... regulatory obstacle. He has asked one question: 'Is the company's export activity materially beneficial to India's foreign exchange position or strategic industrial capability?'"
Rajendra didn't hesitate. "Yes. On both counts. We are securing proprietary foreign technology and creating a new, high-value export pharmaceutical. The audit is harassment from domestic competitors seeking to stifle innovation."
A pause. "He will see what can be done."
The power of the Finance Minister's office, even a quiet inquiry, moved with terrifying speed. The next day, a sheepish junior officer from the DRI arrived at the MANO office with a letter of apology. The audit selection had been due to a "computerized profiling error." The notice was rescinded. No further action was required.
The relief in Shanti's office was palpable, but her eyes were wide with a new understanding. "We just got a get-out-of-jail-free card from the Finance Minister. Do you understand the kind of attention that brings? We're not a company anymore, Rajendra. We're a project."
"I know," he said. And he did. He had traded a measure of his freedom for a powerful protector. Manmohan Singh now had a vested interest in MANO's success. It was a dangerous, necessary bargain.
The night before his flight, Ganesh came to him with a small, velvet box. Inside, on a bed of black silk, lay a fountain pen. It was beautiful, classic, black lacquer with gold trim.
"It's a Montblanc," Ganesh said. "Very expensive. Very normal for a rich businessman."
Rajendra picked it up. It was heavier than it looked. "And?"
"The body is a single piece of resin. No electronics. No hollow parts. It will pass any scan, even an X-ray. It is just a pen." Ganesh took it, gently unscrewed the nib section, and showed him. "But the nib. It is coated. A single layer, molecularly bonded. A neuro-paralytic agent. Non-lethal. If you scratch someone with it—even a tiny break in the skin—they will experience complete muscle paralysis for approximately thirty seconds. Time enough to stand, walk to a door, and leave a room. If you need to walk out unaccompanied."
Rajendra took the pen back, reassembling it. It was a tool of last resort. A merchant's weapon. He slipped it into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. It sat beside the floppy disk with the formula.
The Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt was long and uneventful. Rajendra studied the machinery brochures, committing specifications to memory. He was Rajendra Shakuniya, ambitious Indian industrialist.
At Frankfurt Airport, the line for passport control moved slowly. When his turn came, he handed his blue Indian passport to the uniformed German officer. The man was stern, efficient. He flipped through the pages, glanced at the German business visa, then looked at Rajendra. Then his eyes flicked to his computer screen.
The seconds stretched. The officer's expression didn't change, but his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. He stamped the passport with a firm thwack and handed it back.
"Enjoy your business in Germany, Herr Shakuniya," he said in clear, accented English.
Rajendra nodded, taking his passport. He turned to go.
The officer's voice, just a fraction louder, stopped him.
"And your contact at the Brandenburg Gate will be expecting you. Pünktlich. Be punctual."
Rajendra's blood turned to ice. He didn't turn around. He gave a slight, acknowledging nod and walked into the bustling terminal.
The cover was perfect. The meetings were real. Yet a German border policeman, at the primary entry point to West Germany, knew about a contact at the most symbolic crossing point of the Cold War.
It wasn't a breach of his cover. It was a demonstration.
Kapoor had not arranged this. This was Krylov—or someone with his reach—showing that his influence didn't stop at the Iron Curtain. That he could place a message in the mouth of a West German state official. It was a display of power, subtle and terrifying. It said: I am watching. I am everywhere. The meeting started the moment you landed.
The audition was not in Berlin. It had begun the second he decided to come.
Rajendra merged with the crowd, his face a mask of calm. Inside, his mind was a vortex of cold calculation. The general was testing his nerves, his composure. He would not flinch. He was not a servant coming for orders. He was a merchant arriving for a negotiation between sovereign powers. One of those powers was a nation-state. The other was him.
He collected his suitcase—containing the clothes of a businessman, the brochures of a textile buyer, and one thousand vials of life-saving medicine. He walked towards the train station, where he would catch the Intercity Express to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, to his first legitimate meeting.
The game was not on a board. It was the map of Europe itself. And he had just been told, in no uncertain terms, that both sides knew he was playing.