The huge wooden desk was glossy enough to see your reflection on.

So that’s exactly what Jehan did. He used it to straighten his scarf and push back his hair to some semblance of respectability before Rajat arrived. Not that there was much he could do about the hair. No amount of hair gel had ever kept it from falling into his eyes. And Jehan hated the smell of hair gel anyway.

It wasn’t as if Rajat could expect him to make himself presentable at such short notice. Jehan was never presentable. At this point, ‘disgraceful mess’ had almost become his signature style. The press certainly seemed to think so, if the numerous magazine covers featuring him looking high as a kite were anything to go by.

His face was pale and blotchy, making him look even more sickly than usual. Running up the four flights of stairs on his way to Rajat’s office probably hadn’t helped, but he couldn’t bring himself to stand around waiting for the ping of the elevator. It had taken all his willpower just to keep himself from dashing out of the car and making the journey on foot.

But he didn’t have the time for that. None of them did, if the way Rajat marched into the office, slamming the door behind him, was any indication.

Jehan bit his lip to keep himself from jumping. Normally, Rajat would be more considerate, taking care not to make sudden noises around Jehan. The Prime Minister was nothing if not kind. That he hadn’t bothered today – or perhaps hadn’t remembered – told Jehan all he needed to know about the state of Rajat’s mind, and the gravity of the situation they were in.

Seconds passed without either of them saying anything. Rajat walked up to the large eastern windows, gazing out over the beautiful landscape through the bullet-proof glass. Normally, he would have invited Jehan out to the balcony, sent for tea (and cookies for Jehan). Rajat had always loved the balcony of his office.

Jehan stole a glance in that direction. The door was locked and bolted.

When he finally spoke, Rajat’s voice was rough, jagged. If Jehan hadn’t known him better, he would have thought the Prime Minister had been screaming.

In the decade since Jehan had first met him, he had never known Rajat to raise his voice.

“Three metro stations. Almost forty dead. Over a hundred injured.” Rajat’s voice cracked. “This is worse than our worst nightmares.”

“Has anyone claimed responsibility yet?”

“No. But there’s still time. The night isn’t over yet. Some sick bastard might yet upload a video gloating over the success of their ‘holy mission’. Can’t please God without committing mass murder nowadays, can we?”

A philosophical debate with Rajat was the last thing he needed right now. “All bombs? No shooters this time? We could analyze the debris for you, check for chemicals, ingredients. Maybe we can help track down where they sourced the raw materials from.”

“If I needed a forensic analyst, I would have asked for a forensic analyst. I did not request a meeting with the principal scientist leading one of the highest priority projects ever undertaken at the Institute…to track down the origins of a couple of homemade explosives.”

Somewhere amidst that impassioned monologue, Rajat had turned around, and was now gazing down at Jehan with bloodshot eyes half-obscured by his bushy eyebrows.

Jehan held out his hands, fingers splayed in surrender, half in jest and half out of a genuine concern for his own safety. Rajat was no less than thirty years older than him, but Jehan harbored no delusions about the fact that the man could wipe the floor with him with one hand tied behind his back, if he was so inclined.

“How’s your leg?” Jehan asked at last, glancing down at the limb in question. Rajat hid it well, but he knew the sprain couldn’t have healed completely in the couple of weeks since he had last seen the Prime Minister. It had been a dangerous fall. It was a miracle he hadn’t broken anything.

Rajat’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Nice try. I’ll need Amven ready for clinical trial by the end of the week.”

“Impossible.”

“Then make it possible. I’ve bought you enough time, Jehan. More time than I should have. Perhaps if we’d done this sooner, if we’d put our foot down and made a statement, maybe it wouldn’t have come to this…”

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Jehan pressed his lips together, looked away. “You know that’s not true. They’re waiting for an excuse. Using Amven will just make it worse, make their actions seem justified –”

“Or maybe it’ll scare them away, make them stop, back off and regroup. Long enough for us to make a move. Find their bases, blow them up, end this once and for all.”

“You think a stupid drug will achieve what years of military campaigns couldn’t? You mustn’t think much of your troops then, sir.”

Jehan bit his tongue. He hadn’t meant to sound disrespectful, disparaging. Rajat certainly didn’t deserve it. But he couldn’t help himself. He felt cornered, and as Sinya liked to say, his claws were coming out. It was almost instinctive. His words were the only weapons Jehan had ever had, and sometimes they cut even when he didn’t mean for them to.

“My troops can’t turn a man’s own mind into his worst enemy. That’s your specialty, isn’t it, doctor?”

Rajat always gave as good as he got. It was one of the things Jehan had always liked about him.

The fact that he had deserved it didn’t make the barb sting any less, however. He forced himself not to flinch back from the words. They were the truth, after all. A truth of his own making.

Rajat turned away, sighed. It was almost like watching a balloon deflate; a very tall and broad-shouldered balloon. Jehan shook his head. He really needed to work on his metaphors.

“Whoever was behind this, they will be apprehended before the month is over. If I have to use every resource at my disposal, if I have to declare a state of emergency, so help me God, I will do it!

“And once we have them in custody, we can interrogate them.” Rajat turned around, took a step towards Jehan, then another. “Find out who’s been funding them. Find out if there’re any other attacks planned that we should know about. For all we know, they’re planning to bomb the bloody Parliament House as we speak!”

“Goddamnit Rajat, you can’t interrogate them with Amven!” Jehan snapped, his own frustration bubbling to the surface. “It isn’t ready yet. It’ll just make them docile, obedient. They’ll say whatever the hell you want them to say. Or at least what they think you want them to say. You won’t get the truth out of them, just a bunch of feel-good gibberish.”

“But we won’t know that for sure until we try it, will we? There hasn’t been a single human trial yet–”

“That’s because the drug isn’t ready for one.”

“They’re criminals, damn it! Terrorists and murderers! What’s the worst that could happen? A bunch of killers will end up dead. Well, so far so good.”

“And their cause, their martyrdom, will be justified and legitimized once and for all.”

Rajat walked behind his desk and slumped into the chair. He gestured with a hand, asking Jehan wordlessly to take a seat. Jehan complied. It was the one concession he could afford to make.

“I have no choice, Jehan.” The words were strained, like someone had torn them from Rajat’s throat with a pair of tweezers. “Badal and the others have been trying to get me to use the drug for months now. At one point, Badal even wanted to put it to the vote. And we both know how that would have ended.

“I’ve managed to hold them off until now. Because you told me to. Because you said you weren’t ready. Because I trust you.” Rajat paused, letting that sink in, the politician in him floating to the surface. “But that was then, and this is now. The city is full of corpses that haven’t gone cold yet. The public is baying for blood. The media is growing more bloodthirsty by the minute.

“If we don’t act now, we’ll look weak. I’ll look weak. The Opposition is already saying I haven’t done enough to protect this country. That I haven’t posed enough of a deterrent.”

“For God’s sake, Rajat, that’s not true–”

Rajat held up a hand. “I know it’s not true. And you know it’s not true. And half the people who’re saying it know it’s not true. But that doesn’t matter, does it? Forty people are dead, a hundred are injured. God only knows how many are missing; how many more will turn up dead come tomorrow morning.

“Someone needs to pay. And if it won’t be the terrorists who did it, it’ll be me. They’ll try to push through another no-confidence motion in the House. And this time, they might even succeed.”

Rajat tipped his head back. Laughed. “And what d’you think will happen then, Jehan? You think the puppet they put in my place will give a flying fuck about your ‘ethical reservations’ against using the Amven drug? You think they’ll give you a choice?

“No. They will do exactly what you don’t want me to do – use Amven to interrogate the terrorists as soon as they’re apprehended.

“Only, they’ll do much worse and go much further than I ever would have. They’ll use it on the prisoners, and maybe even on their families and friends. For the nation, right? The needs of the many and all that.

“How many people do you think will go out of their way to fight for the relatives of the psychopaths who killed forty innocents? Forty and counting, need I remind you?

“A few demonstrations in university campuses. A candlelight march here, a rally there. It’s going to peter out before it’s even started, the bloody news channels will see to that. No politician will have to so much as raise a finger.”

Rajat exhaled and put his head in his hands. “I don’t like it any more than you do, Jehan. But this is the best of a plethora of bad options. I’ll use the drug on a few of the prisoners, make a big show of it. Satisfy the reporters and the rabble-rousers. Let things calm down a little and then proceed from there. The suspects will receive a fair trial after the effects of the drug have worn off and no innocents will be harmed.

“You can’t win every time, my boy. Even your luck must run out at some point. And it looks like it has now, doesn’t it?” He smiled sardonically, shaking his head. “Lose the battle to win the war, Jehan. Live to fight another day.”

Jehan released a breath and pressed a hand to his stinging eyes. “And what if there’s nothing left to fight for, sir?”