City of Sthapan, Present Day, 6:45 a.m.

The Wednesday morning was unusually hot and ready for murder.

After visiting the clinic of the Tactical Training and Infiltration Agency, Omkar was surprised when he came to the gym of the place.

One, his wife, Mrs. Kritika Kiran, a TTI techie, wanted to (finally) update TTI's computer systems.

Aside from the second reason, the preceding sentence was unusual, even in the life of a TTI agent.

The TTI was a partial intelligence agency that focused primarily on internal terrorism, smuggling, extortion, and more serious crimes committed within the city where the TTI was established.TTI was formed primarily to solve larger criminal issues while ignoring all red tape and bureaucracy—because these issues stymied many cops in the city of Sthapan.

The agents of TTI were all totally badass and could handle almost any crap which came within their job description, and a TTI agent's work had a broad description – hostage situation, transporting criminals, going undercover – just about anything came within it. The agency mostly worked in the background and TTI, Sthapan, within eleven years of being set up, had already started creating dangerous ripples both among the good and the bad people of Sthapan.

Techies were an important part of the whole ecosystems. They were the technically qualified people who could get into any machine and get any information for the agents from both online and other sources.

What was weird was that, there was generally a rule prohibiting TTI personnel from being married to each other.

However, in the case of Omkar and Kriti, Mitran Kapoor, the fifty-one year old chief of TTI, Sthapan had overlooked the specific rule and six months ago, he had happily blessed their marriage.

The thing was, it was not too weird if one thought about it from one angle.

Mitran was never great at rules.

Mitran had joined the army at the age of nineteen, and at forty he had shifted to Intelligence, because Mitran was naturally gifted in that line of work. During his stint at Intelligence, Mitran had found that there was some work that needed to be done in the middle ground—that could not be classified as proper military work or Intelligence. That was the reason Mitran was allowed to start an organization that addressed that need, and TTI had come into existence. All through his career, both before TTI and after it, Mitran realized that following rules was too much... unnecessary. Other than stifling the work of people, rules accomplished nothing useful, and Mitran genuinely believed that.

So, it was not even surprising that Mitran had been willing to bless Omkar and Kriti's marriage.

Which brought the other angle of looking at it.

The thirty-one-year old Omkar was... trouble and an adrenaline junkie. His brown eyes and square face showed a mischievous man and hid the fact that the man had the highest case solve rate of 95% among TTI agents in all cities. Omkar's lean and wiry body masked how strong he really was. With that, the man was a genius at insubordination. Yup, as said, trouble.

Kritika Kiran understood machines, the way any normal person could understand anything simple. She was curvy, beautiful, and had a smile that could melt the heart of any man. No, she did not know it. She was keen only on machines and coding, and that was all that had interested her. After completing her masters in Information Technology, the girl had been looking to do her doctorate in the same topic. Instead, she was twenty-five years of age when she joined TTI. She had turned out to be brilliant at the work that TTI required her to do. Fast forward five and a half years, and most of the TTI agents preferred working with her, primarily because she was intuitive about what the agents wanted and provided them with the precise information they required.

No, that was not how Kriti and Omkar had first met.

Eighteen months back, the techie had unwittingly invited herself to a bar/restaurant where TTI had just carried out an operation.

Kriti had met Omkar there, and after that, she had never looked back.

She had been warned by all the people in TTI about what kind of womanizer and manipulator Omkar was in his work at TTI. Omkar himself had admitted all that to her.

But what she had seen in Omkar remained unknown. She never budged. She loved Omkar and that was that.

That gave Omkar the confidence to pursue this further because this felt like the real thing. Especially when Kriti had even been willing to stand up to Mitran just to spend the rest of her life with Omkar.

No, after that, Omkar never let Kriti go.

Mitran had probably seen that. Or maybe he had seen that precious smile on Kriti's face or that nauseatingly nice smile on Omkar's face, when the agent and the techie saw each other.

Whatever it was, Mitran had blessed the marriage of the thoroughly mismatched couple.

Six months later, the couple seemed more happy, and from the reports of Dr. Bhide, it was clear that both Kriti and Omkar were performing splendidly well for TTI too.

Which brought the other reason why Omkar was here at the TTI building so early in the morning.

Dr. Vasant Bhide was the chief doctor of the TTI clinic.

Naturally, TTI being what it was, the eight storey building in the centre of Sthapan had a canteen, gym, computer room, computer server room, clinic, and whatnot – it had everything necessary, even for agents who had to remain incommunicado from the rest of the world.

Other than being an extraordinarily efficient and no-nonsense doctor, the sixty-year old Dr. Vasant Bhide had far too many other qualifications in TTI. Bhide had been an army doctor before.

When Mitran had been given permission to start TTI, the first thing that Mitran had done was approach Dr. Bhide to help him. Bhide had happily accepted it.

Dr. Bhide had a degree in psychology. The man had an uncanny knack for understanding people and situations extraordinarily well. To the best of Omkar's knowledge, Mitran had not appointed a single agent or techie without Dr. Bhide green-lighting them.

The chief of TTI of any city had powers to access certain records about the agents working under them. This was a very important power because the chief of TTI of any city was the one who was ultimately responsible for everything that was done by the TTI agents. In this regard, Dr. Bhide was the only medical professional who also had the same powers as any chief of TTI. The doctor had an online database of records with many more details about every single agent and his patients at the TTI clinic. Those records were maintained by Bhide himself, and yes, Bhide had actually learnt how to maintain these records online, so that he could do a good job of it. Dr. Bhide did not share those records with everyone. He was not supposed to.

Until three months ago, Omkar had only suspected the presence of these online records. Now, Omkar was sure that the doctor had referred to these records often to learn more about the agents of TTI.

Today, Omkar was supposed to have his monthly physical exam, and yes, Dr. Bhide personally conducted that for all thirty-five agents of TTI. No, Omkar was not required to be in so early for that. Omkar had come here primarily because Kriti wanted to update the computer server systems before the other techies and agents could come and also so that Omkar could actually get some physical exercise before the medical examination.

Omkar never could do that during the physical examination.

It was a neat trick, which Omkar appreciated. It was never a physical health check up at all. The health of all the TTI agents, thanks to their daily physical routine, was always good. During the physical exam, Bhide would usually ask a hundred and million seemingly insignificant questions to the TTI agent, which gave Bhide a good idea of the agent's personal life and whether or not everything was going well with them.

Even as Omkar had entered into the TTI building, in the basement, Omkar had first seen a hurried Dr. Kairav Saral stumble inside the clinic of the TTI. Yes, that part, Omkar could understand. It was a rule of the TTI clinic – there should always be a doctor at the clinic. The night shift doctors left TTI at seven in the morning, and the doctors to work on the day shift arrived at that time.

Dr. Kairav was a little late, today. Before when Dr. Kairav worked at TTI, Sthapan, he always came at 6:30 for his day shift. He had moved away to TTI, Citran, three months ago, and evidently now he was back – had to be either yesterday or today – because Omkar had been to the clinic, the day before yesterday and he had not found Dr. Kairav here. Presumably, Dr. Kairav was getting adjusted to the timings of TTI, Sthapan, which was why he was a little after the time that he was expected to be at.

On account of his senior age, Dr. Bhide was allowed two privileges—one, he could come late. (No, Bhide never used that, and neither did he see that as a privilege. He came exactly at seven in the morning.) The second privilege was that Bhide could take the day shift. Bhide took that offer. But that was understandable. All the other doctors at TTI were at least twenty-five to thirty years younger than Dr. Bhide, so Dr. Bhide was actually convinced that working the night shift was an unwanted risk on his part and even from the point of view of the TTI agents.

What surprised Omkar as he came to the gym in the basement was that there was someone else in the gym.

Wondering who it was, so early, Omkar was slightly stunned to find Mitran rhythmically punching at the sandbag.

Well, for a fifty-one-year old man, Mitran sure could give a man half his age a run for his money. He was physically extremely fit, and Mitran's shooting skills were out of the ordinary. The only person in Omkar's team – the EZ1 team – who was as good as Mitran in that department was the ex-commando – the thirty-six-year old Aaditya Kumar.

No, none of that explains why the chief of TTI was coming here so early in the morning.

"Chief." Omkar smiled genially at the chief, and yes, Omkar was very careful to stay away from the other man.

It was a known thing at TTI. Most of the time, Omkar drove all the people around him to exasperation, and Omkar was a very clever man. That was why people around him either ignored his weirdness or tolerated it. The people ignoring Omkar's weirdness were Mitran himself or Omkar's team members, where Omkar was the leader of the team. Naturally, the rest of TTI, both in the city of Sthapan and elsewhere, tolerated Omkar. That was primarily because the man closed cases at a tremendous rate.

"Om." Mitran rested for a second and studied his agent.

With his white vest and dark track pants, Mitran had a powerfully built body and Omkar saw none of it. Annoyance. Omkar primarily felt annoyance from the older man. He also felt a faint degree of exasperation and something else. Omkar could not identify that feeling.

That confused Omkar.

Omkar was the first person who drove Mitran nuts. Without him here, what the hell was the chief of TTI punching his rage through the sandbag...

Crap.

Omkar sighed, realizing that it was too late for him to walk away.

Nope, the chief was not helping at all.

"Pick up some gloves." Mitran pointed behind.

Omkar sighed again.

Mitran did this sometimes.

No, it was not a physical problem. Omkar was just not in the mood to listen to why Mitran was looking to literally punch someone.

The gym had no proper fighting rink and all that. It was just a place with mats and all, and that was mostly to cushion the fall of agents so that they did not get too badly hurt. The agent's training was supposed to be their guide to stop themselves from getting hurt at all.

Gawd, the older man was belligerent. That, Omkar figured out two minutes later.

Omkar turned left and avoided a punch straight in the face and got in too close. Mitran punched him in the stomach, and at the last second, Omkar pushed Mitran's hands away and pushed himself back. The two men circled each other, and Mitran came forward again.

"Chief, if you are angry about Shreya, you are supposed to talk." Omkar told his chief as Omkar moved right. "Not do this."

Omkar paid for talking too much and got punched straight in the stomach for that.

Pushing himself back, Omkar looked annoyed as Mitran moved back, and yes, Mitran was furious. Yup, as usual, Omkar's guesses were bang on target.

"Why the fuck did you refuse to interrogate Shreya?" Mitran demanded angrily, coming forward again. "After all, you caught her three months back. Because you refused, now I have to go to Intelligence Block 12 and talk to her. Vasant and Aadi have offered to come with me, and I am going there today."

Omkar kicked the man in the reflex, and Mitran blocked it, pushing Omkar back.

No, Omkar did not pay attention to Mitran's question. Everything else that Mitran said caught his attention. And it was not good. "After we apprehended Shreya, I thought you said that keeping Shreya here was not safe. Shreya was supposed to be in a prison in the city of Citran, chief. You said you knew that place where Shreya was kept, from your army day contacts." Omkar tried a roundhouse kick and hit Mitran on the back. The older man could not dodge the kick on time and fell a little forward. Mitran changed positions, but still kept his guard up. Omkar was still not done asking his questions. "Intelligence Block 12 is one of the interrogation blocks for intelligence units in the city of Sthapan. When was Shreya brought there?"

Mitran tried a front kick and Omkar blocked it instinctively.

Then Omkar punched Mitran on the face.

Omkar was not looking to make contact, and Mitran moved back, cursing under his breath. He knew that he had escaped from getting hurt because Omkar had chosen not to hurt him."

A second later, even before Mitran could answer, Omkar connected the dots and cursed himself. "Vidyut! You sent Vidyut to pick up Shreya."

Omkar did not need Mitran's exasperated look to know that he was right.

The EZ1 team's baby was Vidyut Sinha, at twenty-six years of age. The boy was perfect for TTI, because he could terrify people whom TTI had caught and charm girls with the same ease.

For the past day, Vidyut had been missing, and Mitran's only answer was that he had assigned Vidyut to another matter.

Now it was obvious that Vidyut was absent because he had been bringing Shreya Nataraj to IB-12 from Citran.

No, Mitran did not acknowledge Omkar's presumption as right or wrong. "I asked you a question first."

Mitran moved forward again.

"Chief, Shreya is... has been my teammate." Omkar told his chief, feeling a little breathless. No, it was not because of his physical efforts at all. "Remember what you told me? In the case of any emotional entanglement, the best course was to walk away." Omkar shook his head unhappily, still studying Mitran warily. "I do not have the capacity to approach Shreya and talk to her in a neutral mode. It hurts too much, even thinking about her." Omkar studied Mitran and slowly nodded his head. "Those were kids, chief. And I still regret not shooting her and that freaking doctor, when I had a chance."

But Omkar had made a mistake. He had left himself open, and Mitran was not someone who missed an opportunity like that. Mitran feigned a right punch and immediately a left and got in too close and punched Omkar straight in the face.

Yelling obscenities, Omkar fell, and Mitran punched the younger man on the face again.

Nope, Omkar fell primarily because that was a knockdown and he felt that Mitran just... wanted to get it out of his system and not prolong this any further.

Omkar was wrong.

"Up, you ass!" Mitran yelled at his agent.

Thankfully, Mitran's cell phone rang at the opportune moment.

Omkar said nothing and just rolled his eyes as Mitran angrily barked into the cell phone, and yes, Omkar realized at that second that Mitran was angry enough to continue with this.

Omkar had no idea who was on the other end of the call with Mitran.

But whatever it was, it was bad.

Mitran fingered Omkar up, even as he was on the call and for the entire time Mitran had not spoken a word.

No, Omkar asked no questions. He knew what that look on Mitran's face meant.

The only good thing was that Mitran was no longer thinking about fighting Omkar.

Mitran's eyes turned ice cold even as Omkar was changing into his usual gray T-shirt and dark jeans. "Chief?"

"That was Mrs. Lalitha Narayanan, the Commissioner of Police of Sthapan. A police control tower received an anonymous call just ten minutes back. Based on that, the police patrol car was directed to go to House Number 36/12 in the third sector. The cops found a dead body there. The man was dead for less than ten minutes when the cops found his body. Mrs. Lalitha thinks that the victim was a TTI agent. She wants to know whether we want to take the whole thing into our jurisdiction." Mitran whipped his cream shirt out of his locker near the end of the gym. "The crime scene looks horrible, it seems. The victim was tortured and then killed."