"I needed to see the surveillance you mentioned. The white Creta."
She showed him. From her bedroom window, partially visible behind a Maruti parked on the street, a white Hyundai Creta with tinted windows. It had been there for days, she said. It moved when she moved and returned when she returned.
Aarav photographed the plates. They came back registered to a rental company in Dwarka — rented under, inevitably, Nitin Saxena's name. The dead brother's identity, still being used like a puppet.
"I have eight calls now," Shalini said. "The ninth will come before Friday."
"When it comes, answer it. Act normal. Act afraid — they expect fear. But know that we'll be ready."
"And if you're not?"
He didn't answer that. He couldn't.
Day Three — Monday.
The cyber cell, working with equipment Aarav had requisitioned through Kavita's contacts at the NIA, managed to trace the VoIP routing used for the nine calls. The calls originated from a server farm in Manesar — a legitimate tech infrastructure company that rented server space to hundreds of clients. The specific client account was registered to — no surprise — the Nava Foundation.
But the trace yielded a bonus: the server also handled data traffic for a second system. A monitoring system. The Saxena operation wasn't just making calls — it was tracking the targets' phones. GPS data, call logs, app usage. A full surveillance suite, installed remotely through a malicious link embedded in the "appointment confirmation" SMS that LifeCare sent to patients.
Every woman who'd ever received an SMS from LifeCare had potentially been compromised. The selection wasn't just happening through the database — it was happening through surveillance. The Saxenas could watch their potential victims for weeks before making a decision, choosing the ones whose routines were most predictable, whose social networks were smallest, whose absences would take longest to notice.
"My God," Pankaj said, reading the technical report. "This is industrial-scale stalking."
"It's a harvest," Sahil said quietly. "They're farming human beings."
Day Four — Tuesday.
Aarav mapped the Friday operation. Based on Shalini's information and his own surveillance of Raghav, the completion ritual would take place at the original Mehrauli farmhouse — Dr. Saxena's personal property. The four women from the Sinhagad farmhouse would be moved there. The five new targets would be brought in over the course of Friday. The ritual would begin at moonrise — approximately 8:47 PM.
He planned the raid in three phases. Phase One: intercept the transport of the four captive women during the move from Sinhagad to Mehrauli. Phase Two: allow the principals to gather at the Mehrauli farmhouse, establishing their presence at the scene. Phase Three: breach the farmhouse at the moment of maximum occupancy, recovering all victims and arresting all suspects.
