The Price of Knowing
Vikram stood in the dim alley, his breath visible in the cold night air. His heart pounded against his ribs—not from fear, but from the sheer weight of the file he had just stolen. The truth inside it had already branded him a traitor, and now, with every passing second, he could feel the noose tightening around his neck.
His phone vibrated. A secure message from Aryan flashed across the screen:
"They shut down every exit. Every airport, railway station, and border crossing is being watched. You have no way out. And... they know where you are."
Vikram's grip on the file tightened. They were coming for him.
He had no choice. He needed to decode the mysterious Bengali cipher scrawled across the final page. And that meant going to the one person he swore he'd never see again.
The Woman Who Knew Too Much
The neon glow of Kolkata's bustling College Street cast long shadows on the old colonial buildings. Here, among the ancient bookshops and forgotten knowledge, was a woman who lived in secrecy and exile.
Professor Aisha Banerjee.
A former historian at Jadavpur University, she had mysteriously disappeared from public life ten years ago, after publishing a controversial paper on "The Lazarus Conspiracy"—a theory that Bose's death was staged and that he had been hidden by powerful global forces.
Vikram reached a small, decrepit library hidden between two abandoned buildings. The sign outside was faded:
"Banerjee's Rare Archives: History Has Many Versions."
He knocked twice.
Silence.
Then the door creaked open an inch. A pair of piercing brown eyes studied him from the darkness.
"Go away, Vikram."
"Aisha, I don't have time for your paranoia. I need your help."
"Help? You mean the kind that gets people killed?"
"They already think I'm dead." He pulled out the file and held up the last page. "I need you to translate this. It's written in an old cipher. Bengali, but not modern."
Aisha's gaze fell on the page.
Then—her face turned white.
She snatched the file from his hands, eyes scanning the script in rapid movements. Her breathing quickened.
"Where did you get this?" she whispered.
"Government archives. Someone erased this from history, Aisha. What does it say?"
She hesitated. Then, without a word, she turned and led him inside.
The Red Sun Rises
The library smelled of ink, dust, and forgotten secrets. Piles of books were stacked on every available surface—texts on British-Indian intelligence, Soviet wartime operations, and cryptic military dispatches from the 1950s.
Aisha cleared a space and laid the file under a desk lamp. She traced a finger along the lines of the ancient script, her lips moving silently as she decoded the text.
Minutes passed.
Then she froze.
Her eyes flickered up to meet Vikram's. Fear. Real, tangible fear.
"This… this is impossible."
"What does it say?"
Aisha swallowed hard. "It's a set of coordinates. But more than that—it's a location tied to Project Red Sun."
Vikram's mind raced. He had heard that phrase before—back in the intelligence bureau, before the power cut.
"What is Project Red Sun?"
Aisha exhaled shakily. "It's the name of a Soviet-Indian pact that was never supposed to exist. A deal made between Bose, the Soviet Union, and secret Indian revolutionaries—after 1945. It suggests that Bose was alive decades after the war."
Vikram leaned in. "Where do the coordinates lead?"
She hesitated. Then, in a whisper, she said—
"The Andaman Islands."
Silence stretched between them.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands—a place where the British once exiled Indian revolutionaries. A place still wrapped in military secrecy.
Vikram clenched his jaw. "Then that's where I need to go."
But Aisha wasn't listening anymore. She had turned pale. Her fingers ran over another part of the document—one that Vikram had overlooked.
It wasn't just coordinates.
It was a name.
A single name, written in perfect Bengali script, as if left there for someone to find one day.
The name was—
"Arun Bose."
Vikram felt his stomach drop.
"Who the hell is Arun Bose?" he muttered.
Aisha turned to him, voice barely above a whisper.
"If this is real… then Arun Bose would be—"
She never finished her sentence.
Because at that moment, the library exploded.
The Hunters Have Arrived
The force of the blast threw Vikram and Aisha across the room. Flames engulfed the wooden bookshelves, turning centuries of knowledge into ashes. Smoke choked the air.
Through the haze, Vikram saw black-clad figures storming through the burning wreckage. Armed men. No insignia. No hesitation.
"Move, move!" one of them barked.
Vikram grabbed Aisha and pulled her behind a fallen bookshelf.
"They found us." His mind raced. **This wasn't just about Bose anymore. Someone was willing to erase every trace of this truth—**even if it meant killing everyone in their path.
The gunmen spread out, weapons raised. A red laser sight danced across the smoke-filled room.
Vikram grabbed a broken wooden beam and hurled it into the fire. The sudden movement distracted the attackers—just long enough.
"RUN!" he yelled.
Aisha didn't need to be told twice. They sprinted through the flames, dodging falling debris and bullets ripping through the shelves.
The back exit was ten meters away.
Five meters.
Then—
A gunshot rang out.
Vikram felt something hot and sharp rip through his side. Pain exploded, but he didn't stop running. He pushed Aisha ahead, crashing through the door and into the cold night.
On the Run
They ran through the dark alleyways of Kolkata, the sounds of sirens and burning wood echoing behind them. Vikram's vision blurred—he was losing blood.
Aisha pressed a hand against his wound. "You're not dying on me, Vikram. Not now."
Through the pain, Vikram forced out a single command.
"Find Arun Bose."
Aisha nodded. "Andaman Islands."
He grimaced. "We need a boat. A quiet one."
Aisha looked at him. "I know someone who can get us there. But first…"
She pulled out her phone and, with trembling fingers, sent a single message to an unknown number.
A message that could change everything.
It simply read:
"Bose never died. Arun is the key."
Somewhere, miles away, in a place neither of them knew existed—
A hidden phone screen lit up.
And someone was waiting for this message.