As Subhas entered the drawing room less than an hour after their arrival, Ruban and Simani rose to greet him. Ruban couldn’t help noticing, however, that the man looked haggard, worn out – dark circles under his eyes and his usually clean-shaven face covered in greying stubble. Upon seeing the Hunters, Subhas offered them a small smile, nodding for them to resume their seats. Ruban thought it didn’t quite reach his eyes, though.
“You wanted to see us?” Simani said, once they had all sat down and another round of the refreshing ginger tea had been served by Bala. This was not the first time they had been summoned to Subhas’s home to discuss important or confidential business that the Senior Secretary did not feel comfortable talking about at the office. Between the three of them, there was no need to go through the usual round of inane pleasantries.
Subhas nodded slowly, as if his head weighed heavily on his shoulders. “The incident at SifCo,” he began, looking down at his hands which were folded rigidly on his lap. “As you must know, it hasn’t gone over well with the media. Or with many of my colleagues at the IAW, not to mention the Cabinet.”
Simani nodded. “What happened was…horrific. The last time something like this happened…was the Parliament attack.” She drew in a deep breath. “You couldn’t switch the TV on without seeing footage of the burning SifCo buildings for days after. And the Aeriel Queen. She hasn’t been seen in...well, decades I suppose. Why would she show up now, at SifCo of all places? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“At the time of the Parliament attack, we had two Aeriels dead and one in custody,” said Subhas. “Something to show for our troubles. Now, it’s been over a week, Simani, and we’ve made no headway on the case. Not to mention, the formula is gone. Stolen from right under the nose of the Hunter tasked with protecting it, the very best in the city.” He looked up briefly at Ruban, a flash of guilt in his eyes. He sighed. “I do not mean to blame you, my boy. You did your best, I know that. There was nothing more you could have done. You were unprepared; we’d had no warning that something like that was going to happen. But the fact remains that the media is questioning us. The cabinet is questioning us. They want results, and people are losing confidence that…the current team in charge of the investigation can deliver it.”
“What does that mean, then?” Ruban asked, his voice strained.
Subhas gave a small shrug, then looked away to stare unseeingly at the ticking grandfather clock on the opposite wall. Ruban’s father had owned one just like it, almost identical but for the hands, which had been gold instead of red. It had been gutted in the fire. Just like every other remnant of Ruban’s childhood, his old life.
“We must think of a reshuffle. Bring someone else, maybe another team into the investigation. You can still consult with them, of course. Help them with the case. But it doesn’t seem…viable for you to keep charge of the investigation anymore, after what happened. If I do not hand the case over to someone else, we risk losing funding for the investigation. Besides which, resolving the case would be infinitely harder without the backing of the IAW brass and the Cabinet.”
For a moment, Ruban just sat there, unable to move, much less speak. If asked, he would have said he felt humiliated, betrayed – though by whom, he did not know. And he did. But overpowering that emotion, overpowering everything else was the feeling of helpless, impotent fury at the thought of Tauheen – laughing with the disk in her hand, flying away into the distance as the world burned behind her – out of his reach forever, out of the reach of justice. Deep in his heart, he knew he could not allow that to happen, though how he would stop it he didn’t have the faintest idea.
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Before Ruban could get his thoughts together, Simani was speaking: “But you can’t just take us off the case. You said it yourself, sir, we were unprepared for the attack. We had had no warning that anything like that was going to happen. You were the one who’d asked Ruban to visit SifCo that day to get a feel for the place before the investigation took off in earnest. If any of us had had the faintest inkling…” she trailed off, shaking her head as if to dislodge that line of thinking. There was no point in dwelling on the ‘what ifs’ of any situation, Ruban knew that better than most. “Ruban did everything he could, under the circumstances. There is nobody who could have done better in that situation, you know that.”
“I know that,” Subhas agreed, looking Simani in the eyes, his voice strained. “And you know that. But the media doesn’t. The public doesn’t. All they know is that a path-breaking formula worth millions was stolen from one of the most prestigious research facilities in the country, by Aeriels. Right under the nose of the Hunter tasked with protecting that same formula against a threat the press has been screaming about for months now. What do you think it looks like from the outside?
“We serve a democratic government, Simani. Nothing means anything once we have lost public confidence. And whether we like it or not, in this case we have.” He exhaled and seemed to sag slightly into the sofa, his energy drained. “We need resources for this investigation, my dear. Resources and money. Especially now with the involvement of Tauheen…who knows what could happen next? Even if I managed to keep the IAW on your side for some time longer, which in itself won’t be easy, we’ll lose all Central backing, both in terms of money and manpower. In a case like this, after an incident of this magnitude, do you really think we can afford that loss?”
“It won’t be necessary,” said an airy voice behind them as two pairs of footsteps echoed down the staircase. Ruban whipped around just in time to see Hiya gallop down the stairs behind the dining space, Ashwin in tow. The latter continued to speak as the duo finally reached the drawing room landing, breathing heavily, and Hiya threw herself rather unceremoniously onto her father’s lap. “Give us one week’s time,” Ashwin said, directing the full force of his earnest, wide-eyed gaze at Subhas. “If people still want Ruban off the case,” he shrugged. “I suppose then it would have to be done. But you never know what could happen in a week. You can hold them off for seven days, no? Give us a chance to fix this, if you would.”
Subhas stared at the young man standing before him, his expression perplexed. Ruban had a feeling he would have been angry, if he hadn’t been too busy being surprised. Ashwin gave no indication whatsoever that he thought his request to be an odd one. He might have been asking for extra biscuits, for all the innocent optimism in his eyes as he looked at the Senior Secretary expectantly.
“What could you possibly hope to accomplish in one week?” Subhas asked at length, seeming to notice the brown-haired bundle on his lap for the first time. He shifted slightly, adjusting his position so Hiya wouldn’t tumble off his legs accidentally. “What do you know about any of this anyway?”
At this, Hiya’s little brown head came up to stare intently into her father’s eyes. “He fixed my plane,” she said seriously, extending her vote of confidence to the Zainian before once again burying her nose into Subhas’s shirt.
Subhas let out a surprised huff of laughter, as if caught off guard by his own reaction. “Well,” he said, turning to give Ashwin one last, searching look. “I guess one cannot argue with that. Alright then, I suppose I can stall the change of guard for another week. I should warn you though, you are merely delaying the inevitable,” he looked apologetically at Ruban before turning his gaze back to Ashwin. “We’ll have to initiate the handover by next Monday at the latest. A case like this cannot be left hanging for long.”
Ashwin nodded. “Of course.”
“And now we’ll go for ice-cream!” Hiya announced, turning around to look imperiously at the rest of the party, seeming to sense that the ‘important adult talk’ was finally over. “Right Baan?”
Ruban sighed, looking up at his cousin with a lopsided smile. “Well, I don’t see why not,” he said, getting to his feet with a chuckle. “It’s been quite a day. It deserves to end with excess calories.”
“I’d say so,” Ashwin chimed in as they all filed out of the house, the procession led by Hiya.