Going through the folders Abhijat had brought, Mr. Vyas smiled thinly and pushed his spectacles up his nose. “Not bad for half a day’s work.”

“No, but I still don’t know who this Sajal guy is. He seems to have vanished into thin air after completing his contract at the company.”

“Ah, I think we can help you there, Captain...I mean, Mr. Shian.”

Abhijat gritted his teeth, his hackles rising. He said nothing, however. If Vyas was trying to get a rise out of him, he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Not waiting for a response, the NIA agent rose to his feet and signaled for Abhijat to follow him down the corridor. “We’ve had our eyes on Sajal Mairik for some months now,” he said, as they walked down the corridor towards his office. “That’s one of the names he’s used over the years. There are others. Anyway, he’s been involved in some...what you might call ‘unsavory activities’ in Weritlan. Nothing major, at least not until now. Still, his name keeps coming up in many of our investigations in and around Ishfana.”

Abhijat frowned. “You’re saying he’s holed up in Weritlan? So, what’s his deal? Dissident? Separatist?”

Vyas laughed. “Nothing as...ideologically motivated as that. He’s a mercenary, plain and simple. Does odd – and oftentimes unpleasant – jobs for the highest bidder. Up until now, he’s only been a minor headache for local law enforcement; nothing the NIA needed to get involved in.”

“Well, it needs to get involved now.”

They came up to a large wooden door, which Abhijat assumed led to Vyas’s office. The other man retrieved a card from his breast pocket and held it up to a tiny black device mounted on the wall next to the doorway. There was a click. Vyas pocketed the card, reached out, turned the knob, and stepped through the door. Abhijat followed suit.

The office was well-appointed but not ostentatious. Vyas slid behind his desk and dropped into his chair, inviting Abhijat to sit across from him. “Way ahead of you, Mr. Shian,” he said with a patronizing smile. Bending slightly, he slid open a drawer in his desk and retrieved a sleek, gray tablet.

The device came to life under his fingers, and he pulled up a grainy photograph of a greasy-haired man coming out of what looked like a club. The lighting was poor and the picture quality wasn’t great, but Abhijat recognized the man whose photo the green-haired receptionist had shown him earlier that day. Sajal Mairik.

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Vyas flicked his fingers, pulling up more photos of Sajal on the device. All of them were taken in the same locality, it seemed, in and around the same club. Surveillance photos, Abhijat realized belatedly. “You’re having him watched?”

Vyas nodded. “We’d have been more proactive about it if we’d known he’s involved in such a high-profile case.” He shrugged. “Still, it’s no use crying over spilt milk. According to our intelligence, he’s bought a house in quite a posh neighborhood of Weritlan. A neighborhood that should’ve been well beyond his means, according to his reported income.”

“And this...” Abhijat pointed at the tablet screen. “Nightclub? Dance bar? Whatever this place is, seems to be quite a favorite of his.”

Vyas grinned. “You’re a perceptive man, Mr. Shian. The La Fantome Club…that’s what first got him on our radar. It’s apparently a highly exclusive club which opened recently in downtown Weritlan. Very fashionable. Very secretive. Very selective of their clientele.”

Abhijat would have sensed the hostility rolling off Vyas if he’d been standing a mile off. “You think there’s something going on at this club?”

“We have reliable information from multiple sources about suspicious activities taking place at the La Fantome. We’ve tried time and again to get our agents into the club, but to no avail. Their vetting process would put most government agencies to shame. You don’t invest that kind of money on security unless you’ve got something you’re desperate to hide.”

Abhijat raised a brow. “So, what do you think it is? Smugglers? Terrorists?”

Vyas took off his glasses to rub tiredly at the bridge of his nose. “If I knew the answer to that question, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we? But I can tell you this. La Fantome is not a nightclub any more than I’m a potato farmer. And the easiest way to find out what it really is…well, for now, your boy Sajal is our best bet.”

Abhijat pulled the tablet to him and flipped through the pictures, this time focusing more on the buildings in the background than on Sajal himself. “You know,” he said, after a few moments of silence. “I don’t have a background in the intelligence services. Hell, it’s been years since I lived in the capital and I’ve never worked in law enforcement. I served in the military, yes, but that’s not unusual for the children of politicians.”

“It’s unusual for them to stay on active service for longer than a few months.”

“Be that as it may, there’s nothing in my background to suggest I might be an undercover agent working with the NIA. I think I might have better luck securing entry into this club than your people have had so far.

“And as far as ‘exclusive clientele’ is concerned,” he smirked, stretching his legs out under him. “Not to brag or anything, but having Shian for a surname is pretty much as exclusive as you can get in this country.”

Vyas grinned. “Why, I wouldn’t have taken you for a snob, Mr. Shian.”

“I wouldn’t have taken me for one either,” Abhijat smiled ruefully, rising to his feet. “But you know what they say about desperate times.”