Inside his office, Kalaam sat in complete silence. There was a heaviness in the air in the room. He sat so still that one would doubt whether he was even breathing. Completely lost in his thoughts, he was not even aware of how long he sat like that.

Kalaam was having the worst day of his life. And that in itself meant something, considering how he spent most of his career fighting enemies on the front lines for his country.

Kalaam was a single child to his parents. He never found the calling to find a partner or have a family of his own. At this late stage in his life, he had no one call to call as a family except his country, and he took great pride in that fact.

Without a doubt, he would lay his life for his country if the situation ever demanded it.

And it was under his watch that the terrible tragedy had occurred. One hundred thousand dead and counting. The dead included children, women, and old people. He could never understand how anyone can justify such actions for whatever reason it may be.

He had failed in his duty and responsibility towards his country.

It is not easy to quickly replace Tamil Nadu state head of NIA (National Investigation Agency). Otherwise, he would have resigned his post in shame over this incident.

But this was not the time for him to get emotional. That would come later. Right now, it was time for action. For the enemy had taken the first step and a big one at that.

It still was not clear what the enemy had hoped to accomplish through their act of war. For there was always a reason. And the fact that it was not clear to him made Kalaam very uncomfortable. He was missing something. But for the life of him, he could not figure out what.

His entire team was on the field, trying to get information from all possible channels. And so far, they have not come up with much.

It was a well-planned and coordinated attack. How much time had gone into preparing for it? And how had they got the weapons inside the country? Do they have plans to carry out subsequent attacks?

So many unanswered questions.

After his time in Delhi and Kashmir, this post in Chennai was supposed to be a break from all the excitement. But clearly, fate had other plans for him.

Lost in his thought, it took him a moment to register that his phone was ringing.

Very few people had access to this particular line in his office.

He gathered his thoughts and answered the phone.

“Hello, this is from the Home Ministers' office. Please stay on the line while we connect the call.”

Any other day Kalaam would have felt proud to receive a call from the Home Minister of India. But unfortunately, today was not one of those days.

The sound came back on the line after the call got transferred

“Kalaam”

“Yes, sir”

“What's happening? What have we learned in the last couple of days since the attack?”

“Sir, I’m sure you must have seen all the initial reports send by our team. Still, let me post you a quick update from the beginning. The attack happened late Monday night. It came to the attention of local police when someone reported that they could not reach any of their relatives in their village on the phone. When the police failed to hear back from the constable who had gone to check the situation, that’s when they realized something was wrong.”

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“The issue soon came to our attention. And we send a squad of specialized people to check on the village. That’s when we realized the situation. There was not a single living person left in the village. Everyone was dead. All having the same symptoms that were reported in the news. Bleeding from the nose, ears, and eyes.”

“We realized the seriousness of the situation and had the police cover all the places across the state to see if there were any other places with a similar situation. This time we made sure police had all the proper required equipment.”

“It took us some time. But we were able to confirm quickly that what we were looking at was not an isolated incident but one of many. The fact that it was spread across the state without any obvious links made us consider it as a terror attack from the get-go, and we handled the situation as such.”

“We wish to think our quick response might have saved other similar planned attacks. But we believe the enemy successfully completed what they had set out to do and got away with it.”

There was a long pause from the other end

“And what about the weapon itself?”

“We were not able to recover anything much usable from the sites. When deployed, the scientists believe the weapon combines highly reactive materials that quickly spread. This makes it very difficult to properly analyze the chemical. The doctors are still studying the victims’ bodies to see if they can find something useful. However, they don’t sound too optimistic about it.”

“And what about the organization itself. What do we know so far?”

“I believe this organization has been active for a long time globally. They were smart to keep themselves hidden well for a long time. It was only in the last few years, they have started to come out of the shadows. But their entry to the terror field was a complete surprise. They were very much wanted in the US and Europe even before this attack for their criminal activities. This act has only increased the heat on them.”

“What else? Do we even know what their goals are or even why they did this?”

“Nothing yet. We don’t think this organization falls into the usual terror groups which are focused on nationalist, religious, or revolutionaries’ agenda.”

“Then what?”

“Nothing much about them apart from their activities are known. We don’t even know who their leader is or even where they originated from. Even their ideologies or motives are completely a mystery to us.”

Again a long silence from the other end. I couldn’t take it anymore and started speaking.

“Respected sir…”

“Drop the formalities, Kalaam. How long have we known each other?”

I took a moment to reply to the question.

“A long-time”

“You are one of our best officers. Even though your post in Tamil Nadu was supposed to be a quieter one, you were never expected to drop the ball completely. So tell me, how the hell did we fuck up so bad on this one?”

“I’m sorry. I admit the full responsibility for this. If you want, I am even ready to resign from my post.”

“It was never like you to shrink away from responsibilities. The country needs you more than ever, especially in a situation like this. So get all those thoughts of resignation out of your head for now. If there is any pressure coming your way, I’ll take care of it. I want you to just focus on the problem at hand.’

“Yes, sir. We’ll do that. We already have the best agents going through all possible channels to get any and every information we can.”

“Good. Keep me posted on anything that you find. Also, you have full permission to use the State police in any way you want if you feel the need for it. If anyone asks, you have permission from the Home Ministry's office for the same.”

“Thanks, Sir. We will not disappoint you.”

“Good. I expect nothing else. One last thing. The global countries have finally decided on the task force they want to send here to look into this matter, and we can no longer hold them off. As much as this is our internal matter, this is a big concern for all the countries to ignore. And we haven't been able to show much from our investigations over the last few days as well.”

“Ok, Sir. I understand. When do you expect them to be here? And how do you want us to handle them?”

“They should arrive sooner than later. Maybe even by the end of the day or early tomorrow. Try to give them access to everything we have on this case. Hopefully, we’ll also get more information from them about the organization. That might help figure out our enemies better.”

“Ok, sir”.

“I know how you feel about outside interferences. But this time we don’t have a choice. Just give them access to information and let them carry out their investigation. But keep a close eye on them.”

“Sure, Sir. Will do that.”

“Ok, carry on. Hope we can get this situation resolved soon.”

The call ended after that.

He was already burning with anger at his enemies, and now he had to play host to a couple of international agents as well. Waste of time it was, but nothing he could do about it.

The only thing he wanted to, was to find the people responsible for this attack and burn them to hell for it.