Chapter 26

Rajveer

It is three weeks before The General calls you to his office again, three weeks in which you complete two missions and manage to see Naina once. You have five hours together this time, five precious hours in which you do not know whether to hold her or simply look at her, or talk to her until you have said everything that lies in your heart.

You have this problem whenever you see her, the time is so short that you cannot say and do everything that you wish to. You make priorities, sacrificing the less important actions for the more important ones. You wish there could be a day when you could simply sit with her, holding her hand, and not need to worry about the clock ticking down, about time escaping from you.

The General calls you and Irfan to his office at the same time, and it is the look of resignation on his face that makes you hopeful.

"Both of you no longer wish to continue working for this cause?" he asks.

You nod once, curtly. Irfan snorts in derision.

"When did I ever wish to work for this cause, Sir?" he asks The General.

The General ignores his question and gestures to you both to sit.

"We have considered Captain Rajveer's request to allow the two of you to return to your previous lives," he announces and pauses, leaving you both waiting for his next words. "And we have decided that it is possible to do so, that you have both served your nation well and deserve to be rewarded."

You feel like yelling in triumph, high fiving Irfan, jumping on your chair. But you don't, because you sense that the General is not yet finished.

"But… first we would like you to finish one last job." The General continues, and the look that Irfan gives you says everything that you are currently feeling.

"Well isn't that just the ultimate cliché." he comments, one eyebrow raised, and you also think of every crime movie you've ever seen, about the man that agrees to do one last job before freedom only to…

"It most certainly is not a cliché, Captain Khan." The General responds sternly and a little angrily, perhaps fed up with both of your attitudes. "Just because you're planning to leave this work it doesn't mean that your country's enemies will go away. Before going back to your old life the least you can do is ensure that your fellow citizens are a bit safer."

"What do we have to do, Sir?" you ask him, because by the way that he's talking, it doesn't seem like you have a choice in the matter.

And so he tells you, and as he explains the task, you soon realise that freedom is not quite as close as you had first hoped.

There is a terrorist organisation, one that has been operating for three years now and is responsible for a number of major acts of destruction and death. No matter how many of their operatives are captured or killed, nobody has ever been able to find out who is really behind the organisation, who the person in charge is.

It is yours and Irfan's job to infiltrate the organisation, and to find out who that person is, then capture them or kill them.

"Right, easy then. Sure you don't want to give us something a bit more challenging?" Irfan asks, deadpan.

You clutch the arm of your chair, looking down at your knuckles as they turn white.

"This won't be an easy mission," The General explains, either missing or ignoring Irfan's sarcasm, "It may take months… perhaps even a year or more. But at the end of it you will be free, and India will be safer."

"Do we have a choice, Sir?" you ask him quietly, even as you already know what the answer will be.

"No," he tells you simply, "You would be completing this mission even if we were not offering you your freedom afterwards. Now I suggest that you prepare yourselves because you will be leaving in a week's time."

As you leave the room, you and Irfan share a look.

"It looks like they've decided it's just plain easier to get rid of us." Irfan tells you, "Sorry, Raj, looks like we'll be free only in the next life."

"I think you're forgetting, Irfan. This is the next life." you reply, "And I will be free in this one."

"That's the spirit," he says with a wry grin, "Keep on talking like that and even I might start believing it… but before we leave, I think there's somebody you need to see."

According to The General it might be months… even more than a year before your mission will be finished, before you can return. Now you have to go to Naina and tell her that she will have to be patient, that she will have to wait for you with no news and very little hope, for however long it takes.

You must ask her to make more sacrifices on top of the ones she has already made, must ask her to trust that you will return to her no matter how hopeless the circumstances seem.

Without even telling her these things, you already know what Naina's answer will be.

She will wait and hope as she has waited and hoped throughout all these years but this time… this time there will be a hope that everything might finally be over, that you might both be alive, and happy, and finally able to live a complete life together