Chapter 4 — Rohan Verma

Bengaluru. IISc Campus. November 11th. Afternoon.The Indian Institute of Science was a campus that existed in its own atmospheric register — older than most Indian research institutions, confident of its importance, with the specific quality of a place where people thought hard about things and expected the thinking to matter.Rohan Verma was in the Computational and Data Sciences department. She found him through the faculty directory — Associate Professor, specialization in cryptography and network security, profile photo showing a man in his early forties with the distracted quality of someone whose default setting was thinking about something else.She had called ahead from the cab. He had answered on the second ring and been completely unsurprised to hear from her."Mrs. Mehta," he said. "I've been expecting this call for a week."In his office — cluttered in the productive way, the clutter of someone who was using every surface — he looked at her across the desk with the expression of a man who was deciding how honest to be and had already decided."Arjun and I were at IIT together," he said. "Twenty years ago. We stayed in touch — not constantly, but when it mattered. Three months ago he called me. He was working on something at CipherNet and he needed someone outside the company to hold some information." He looked at the drive she had placed on his desk. "That's it.""You knew about the drive," she said."He told me where he'd put it. He said if anything happened to him, someone would come for it. He said it might be you." He paused. "He said: 'If it's Naina, she'll have already read the spreadsheet and she won't waste time on small questions. Tell her the big one first.'"She looked at him steadily. "What's the big one?""Arjun was not a cybersecurity analyst at CipherNet," Rohan said. "Not primarily. He was a NOC officer. Non-official cover. He was working for RAW."The room was very quiet.She was a detective. She did not show the thing that happened in her chest."Research and Analysis Wing," she said."Yes." He looked at the drive. "He had been embedded at CipherNet for three years. CipherNet does genuine work — they're a real company. But they also have contracts with three intelligence agencies, and Arjun's job was to monitor one of CipherNet's clients who had become a serious problem." He paused. "Vayu Systems.""KAVACH," she said.He looked at her. "The 2020 investigation found nothing because Vayu had been tipped off. Someone inside the investigation told them. They destroyed the domestic evidence. But KAVACH wasn't destroyed — it was moved. The product was sold, rebranded, and is currently being operated as a service out of a data centre in Dubai. Sold to four governments, two of which are not India." He paused. "The clients are using it for things that go significantly beyond surveillance of journalists.""What things?" she said."Targeted assassination coordination," he said. "The software doesn't just monitor devices. In its latest version, it can remote-control certain functions. Lock a car's safety systems. Disable brakes. Override the steering at speed." He looked at her. "Arjun had documented this. He had the proof on that drive. He was going to transmit it to his controller the night of November 3rd."