Vikram Singh's eyes were the first thing Isha noticed. Not because of their colour or shape, but because of what they did — they moved constantly, scanning the hospital room with the rapid, involuntary sweeps of a person who'd spent three weeks being observed and now couldn't stop checking for the observer.
Raghav had gotten her in on the second day — pulling rank, citing the active investigation, and making a personal guarantee to the attending doctor that the interview would last no more than twenty minutes. The doctor, a harried woman who'd seen worse in the Safdarjung ER, agreed with the resignation of someone who'd learned that police and journalists were the two forces in India that could not be permanently stopped.
"Vikram, I'm Isha. I'm a journalist. I'm also on the Watcher's list. Rated 9.5. So whatever you can tell me isn't just for a story — it's for my survival."
Vikram's scanning eyes stopped. Focused on her. Something in his face — a recognition, not of her specifically but of the situation. A fellow target.
"You're 9.5?"
"Highest they've ever rated."
"Then they're coming for you." He said it flatly. No dramatic inflection. The tone of someone stating a fact they'd verified personally.
"Tell me about the studio."
He talked for forty minutes — well past the twenty-minute limit, but the doctor didn't intervene. His voice was steady, but his hands, resting on the hospital blanket, trembled throughout.
He'd been taken on a Thursday evening. He'd been leaving his gym in Dwarka — 9 PM, dark, the parking lot half-empty. A van — white Maruti Eeco, the most common van in Delhi, invisible by ubiquity. Two people, both wearing medical masks and caps. One grabbed him from behind; the other pressed something to his face — chloroform or an equivalent, fast-acting. He was unconscious in seconds.
He woke in the studio.
