The Brightest Fell

by Nupur Chowdhury

  “You can’t win every time, my boy. Even your luck must run out at some point. And it looks like it has now, doesn’t it?” He smiled sardonically, shaking his head. “Lose the battle to win the war, Jehan. Live to fight another day.”

  Jehan released a breath and pressed a hand to his stinging eyes. “And what if there’s nothing left to fight for, sir?”

  “He isn’t wrong, you know,” Dileep said, felling one of Jehan’s knights with his pawn. “At this point, not using Amven on some of those sons of bitches would be worse for his regime than using it.”

  Jehan took the pawn with his bishop. It was petty, and kind of pointless from a big picture perspective. But Jehan wasn’t in a big picture kind of mood today, so it was okay. “I don’t disagree with you.”

  “And yet.”

  “And yet, I can’t let him do it. I can’t let him use Amven, and you know that as well as I do.”

  Dileep took a sip of his beer. “You say that as if you have a choice.”

  Jehan sipped his tea. As he had suspected, it had gone cold. “Did you ever doubt that?”

  Dileep laughed, then set the can down and leaned forward, frowning at the chessboard. “You’re planning something I’m not going to like, aren’t you?”

  It was almost dinnertime, and Jehan felt bad about keeping Dileep away from his home and wife. Well, kind of bad, anyway. He was sad and conflicted, after all, and it was Dileep’s best-friendly duty to keep him company and provide moral support.

  Jehan was sure that’s how it worked. He’d read it somewhere recently enough.

  “Where’s Sinya, anyway?”

  “Grading papers and bemoaning the lack of a competent TA as usual, I’m sure,” Dileep shook his head. “She’s been inconsolable since Jhilik got married.”

  “Who’s Jhilik?”

  “Her last TA? You know, the one with all the band tattoos.”

  “Oh,” Jehan said, fuzzy images of a perky brunette with pink highlights and…yes, arms covered in tattoos, flashing before his eyes. “She got married? Why?”

  Dileep shrugged. “Beats me. Seemed like she had a good thing going with my wife, too.”

  Jehan nodded, sympathetic. “So Sinya got dumped for a husband, huh? That’s gotta sting.”

  Dileep picked up his rook and knocked Jehan’s king off the board. “And sting it does. Almost as bad as it will when Rajat gets us both fired and exiled from the city for acting against national interests and obstructing the course of justice. You’re out of your element tonight.”

  “Or maybe I was just taking pity on you,” Jehan smirked, hooking a finger between his throat and his scarf and pulling it loose. “And maybe we can get Rajat fired, instead.”

  Dileep stilled, his eyes snapping up to look at Jehan’s face, perhaps to determine whether or not he was joking. “What?”

  Jehan shrugged. “You said it yourself. Not using Amven on the captured terrorists will be bad for his regime. So Rajat will do everything in his power to get us to relent on the Amven issue. Or at least he’ll do everything in his power as long as he’s Prime Minister. But what if he’s not? If he’s no longer in power, what can he do? He can’t force our hand if he isn’t the Prime Minister anymore. And why would he even want to?”

  “If I didn’t know you better, Jehan,” Dileep began, his voice grim. “I’d think you were planning to betray Rajat Shian. Betray the man who’s made you everything you are today. The man who’s the reason you’re even still alive.”

  Jehan frowned. It was getting too dark in the rec room, the tapestries looking dull and worn in the half-light of the flickering old bulbs. He’d need to get someone to talk to the electrician one of these days. “Well, do you have a better idea? If you do, I’m all ears. ‘Cause from where I’m standing, Rajat can’t afford to not use the Amven drug. We can’t afford to use it. And Maganti isn’t going to stop with these attacks until he has what he wants.”

  “You think Maganti is behind this? The metro attack?”

  “Either him or the devil. And I’m putting my money on him for now. Homemade bombs don’t have the kind of power, nor wreak the kind of damage that these did. Those weapons were professionally made. And not cheap either. And somehow, they escaped detection at not one, but three metro stations? Either they’re using extremely sophisticated technology or some people were very heavily bribed.

  “Either way, this operation was not financed by some disillusioned college students hankering for the glory days of the civil war. It had real money behind it, and lots of it at that. So unless one of our friendly neighborhood separatists has won a lottery recently, I think it’s safe to say there was foreign funding involved.”

  Dileep tilted his head back and drained the last remaining drops of beer from his can. Jehan could almost see his mind racing, accelerating to keep up with Jehan’s reasoning. “So…what’re you saying? The president of Maralana is funding domestic terrorists in Naijan because he thinks it’ll make us more…amenable to using the Amven drug on our own citizens? Those are some pretty dangerous claims you’re making, Jehan.”

  “Dangerous, yes. And baseless to boot. I have no way to prove it, even to myself, never mind Rajat or anyone else in the government. But it all adds up, perfect as a jigsaw puzzle.

  “Using Amven on captured rebels is hardly a new idea. It’s been around for as long as the idea for the drug itself. In fact, that’s the reason we initially got any funding for this project at all. And Maganti sure was interested from the very start. All of these science conferences, joint research initiatives, knowledge transfer programs with Maralana…it all began after the Amven project started gaining traction.”

  “Hmm, I’d always suspected something was going on with all those creepy dinner invitations he keeps sending you every time you two are in the same city. The man can’t seem to digest his dessert without complimenting your ‘genius’ and asking you to come work for him. He’s either in love with you or he really likes the idea of turning all his enemies into docile yes-men.”

  Jehan sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Irresistible as I am, I’m putting my money on the latter. Ivanovna was a hair’s breadth from beating him last election.”

  “Many people think she actually did beat him. That he only won because of vote rigging, and some last-minute booth capturing in the villages.”

  “There you have it. His dictatorial ambitions aren’t going to be realized as long as Ivanovna’s in the picture. And he can’t get rid of her without garnering some international attention. And not the good kind. Ivanovna knows how to make friends in high places.”

  “You think they’d go to war for her?” Dileep asked, skeptical.

  “They wouldn’t need to. Maganti’s buried himself in debt in the years he’s been president. A few well-placed sanctions would collapse his government’s finances. And Ivanovna knows this too, which is why she’s pushing harder than ever, campaigning like a madwoman in the run-up to the next elections.”

  “And this is making Maganti all the more desperate.”

  Jehan nodded. “Exactly. Now if only he could get Rajat to sanction the use of Amven on the terrorists. Maralana would help Naijan locate the perpetrators and bring them to justice. The Amven experiment will be declared a success.

  “And then Maganti can have all his opponents rounded up on trumped up charges and treated to a dose of the Amven drug.

  “Just to maintain the peace, of course. Nothing drastic. No blood on his hands. Just a very harmonious polity and an oddly compliant Opposition. But who can find fault with peace? No harm no foul.”

  “I see. And you think this problem is going to be solved by removing Rajat from the picture? By getting rid of the one man who stands between Maganti and his drug-fueled dystopia?” Dileep didn’t roll his eyes, but the tone of his voice suggested that he really wanted to.

  Jehan glared at his friend, then sighed, pressing two fingers to his temple. He was too sleep-deprived for this conversation. He needed caffeine
. And aspirin. He also needed sleep, but what was new about that? “This is a man who has already killed more than forty people in a single day. His total body count is probably far higher, because I don’t believe for a second that this is the first incident of this nature that Maganti’s funded. Rajat said Badal has been pressuring him to use Amven on the terrorists–”

  “Wait, let me get this straight.” Dileep held out a hand. “You’re saying Maganti has the Deputy Prime Minister in his pocket?”

  “Either that, or Badal is even stupider than he looks. I don’t think that’s possible, so I’ll go with the first theory. The point is, you’re right. Rajat really is the only man standing between Maganti and his dictatorial ambitions, wittingly or otherwise.

  “So what do you think is stopping Maganti from staging a ‘tragic accident’ that’ll take Rajat neatly out of the picture and place Badal on the Prime Minister’s chair? Rajat was right about one thing. Whoever comes after him won’t give a flying fuck about our objections or reservations.

  “Badal will go all out; he won’t pull any punches. And who knows, he might even delude himself into thinking he’s doing it out of patriotism. The road to hell is paved with the good intentions of idiots.”

  “So that accident last month, when Rajat sprained his ankle…” Dileep trailed off, a horrified comprehension dawning on his face.

  “Yes,” Jehan said simply. “Clever, wasn’t it? Almost elegant. A walking stick breaks unexpectedly. The Prime Minister trips and falls down a flight of stairs. Either dies on the spot, or a few days later in the hospital, minutes after a visit from one of his ‘trusted ministers’. A grand funeral, followed by the ascension of a reluctant yet dutiful Badal to the premiership. Who’d have suspected a thing?”

  “Damn,” said Dileep. “And I’m assuming Rajat himself is still in the dark about all of this?”

  Leaning forward, Jehan spread his hands out before him, long fingers pale against the dark coffee table. “I have no proof. But even if I did; even if I somehow managed to make him believe me…

  “Well, it’s Rajat. You can never be really sure what he’ll do, can you? He has done…unpredictable things before. Part of what makes him such a good politician, I guess. Still, this situation can’t handle any more volatility than it’s already got.”

  “Volatile and unpredictable? Hmm. Wonder why those two adjectives sound so familiar.”

  Jehan rolled his eyes. “What are you? Twelve? Focus on the issue at hand. How do we get Rajat to resign in the middle of his term without, you know…”

  “Destroying his life’s work and ruining his reputation?”

  “Yes, that.”

  Dileep groaned. “So you’re really doing this.”

  “I’m tired of using Rajat as a shield to hide behind and protect myself from the consequences of my own actions, Dileep. I created the Amven drug. It’s my fucking responsibility. There’s no reason why Rajat – or anybody else – should die because of my stupid teenage angst.

  “’Cause when we get right down to it, that’s all Amven really is, isn’t it? The product of my goddamn teen angst. And I’ve been using Rajat as a shield to escape the consequences of my actions ever since I was fifteen years old.

  “Well, the chickens have come home to roost now, my friend. Forty people are dead. And if I’m right, the forty-first death isn’t that far off. Something’s got to give. And at some point, I’ll have to stop hiding behind lab equipment, letting other people take the fall for my mistakes.”

  “So? What? You want to be Prime Minister now?”

  Jehan smirked, and Dileep released a longsuffering sigh. “You’re terrible,” he groaned.

  “I agree.”

  “And what do you need me to do?”

  “What you do best, of course. Fight with me.”

  “What?”

  Jehan shrugged. “We need to have a public falling out before I make a move against Rajat. That way, you’ll be above suspicion and I’ll have an ally behind enemy lines.”

  Dileep frowned, looking profoundly unhappy. “Sometimes, I don’t know if you’re trying to be kind or a manipulative son of a bitch.”

  Pulling his legs up to his chest, Jehan put his chin on his knees and smiled. “Would you believe me if I told you it was possible to be both at the same time?”

  Chapter 2

  Leverage. That’s what it came down to. You needed leverage to get people to do what you wanted, when you wanted them to do it.

  But the damnedest thing about leverage was that you never knew where it lay. Not really. For one man it might be money; for another it could be fame, or pride; the desire for glory or the fear of rejection. It could be anything as long as it tapped into one of the two basic sources of human motivation – the desire to get what you don’t have or the fear of losing what you do.

  Jehan had minored in psychology back in college; not that they taught you anything useful in the undergraduate classes. As Sinya liked to say, the only useful thing you learn in the first three years of university, is how to survive the next three years of university.

  Kind of a cynical thing for a professor to say. But Sinya had never been a glass-half-full kind of girl, despite her mother’s repeated warnings that no one would marry her if she kept up with that attitude.

  Sinya was the first person who hadn’t looked at him with a mixture of fear and pity when he had told her about his theories on leverage. In fact, she had looked positively fascinated. Which probably didn’t bode well for her mental health. But Jehan would be forever grateful to her for that first rush of relief, the feeling of belonging that his seven-year-old self had felt when Sinya asked him to tell her more.

  Twenty years later, Sinya was still the first person Jehan called when he had a new idea or reached a breakthrough on an old one. Not that she’d been particularly happy with his latest idea. But then, he didn’t need her to be happy. He needed her to be helpful. Leverage. And Sinya had played her part to perfection, as had her husband.

  She and Dileep had both had a very dramatic – and very public – falling out with Jehan. Voices had been raised and insults had been hurled. And hundreds of cheap cell-phone cameras belonging to students and research scholars had captured the incident for the benefit of the Internet.

  It had all gone off without a hitch. And now it was time for the next part. Jehan closed his eyes and breathed. God, how he wished he could have Sinya beside him right now.

  The room was large and bright and official-looking. That was really all Jehan registered. He had a piercing headache and there were probably dark-circles under his eyes. Which wasn’t a bad thing if it made him look appropriately distraught. He was about to drop a bombshell on national TV. A little sympathy from the reporters asking the questions wouldn’t hurt.

  This press conference had been meticulously planned and carefully timed. Over the past few weeks, his team at the Institute had been carefully leaking bank records and financial reports to the press. They all showed suspicious fund transfers originating from various organizations in Maralana, to a select few ministers in Rajat’s Cabinet.

  None of it could be traced back to Jehan or any of his associates. He had called in every favor with the IT department at the Institute to make sure of that.

  And the reports were genuine enough, collected over the years by Jehan and various other people and organizations that had an axe to grind, or were just good Samaritans trying to hold politicians accountable and keep track of the actions of the government.

  There certainly was corruption at the highest levels of the government, though Jehan was almost completely sure Rajat didn’t know about it. Or at least he didn’t know the specific people involved. The man was upstanding to a fault. But that didn’t matter. Facts were only important insofar as they could create and corroborate a narrative.

  And the narrative that Jehan was about to create was one of corruption and subterfuge, of egregious neglect at best and deliberate duplicity at worst. He was about to drag
Rajat’s reputation through the mud and hang him out to dry at the end of it. He would paint the Prime Minister as the national villain, working against the interests of the common people for personal gain.

  Because it would get Rajat to resign. And while Rajat may not appreciate the gesture, it was better than an official impeachment.

  Jehan sighed, offering up a prayer to the God he didn’t believe in.

  Rows upon rows of journalists and reporters looked expectantly up at the podium where Jehan sat, flanked on either side by his colleagues and team members. None of them were happy about being dragged into this, and were probably cursing the day they had met Jehan. He supposed he should feel sorry for putting them in this position. But his capacity for guilt was already exhausted for the day.

  Besides, it wasn’t as if he had asked them to lie for him. All they had to do was tell the truth – or what they knew of the truth – about recent events at the Institute. The media would draw its own conclusions after that. None of them would have to say a thing.

  Sitting up straight, Jehan pulled the microphone closer to his lips. He cleared his throat, wishing he had a deeper voice, or at least one that didn't make him sound like he was fifteen. Looking like a college freshman had its advantages in certain situations, but this wasn’t one of them.

  In fact, this was one of the reasons why he had always left the administrative side of things to Dileep, and when possible, even to Rajat. People who had never worked with him often had a hard time taking Jehan seriously. Not that he blamed them. He had spent a considerable amount of time and effort cultivating an image that would be hard to take seriously. A task that was made infinitely easier by the fact that, at twenty-seven, Jehan could easily pass for eighteen.

  Being underestimated and patronized had its uses, not the least of which was the fact that people always felt compelled to pay for his meals at dinner meetings. But there were times when it could be a drawback too. And a press conference where he was to accuse several high-ranking ministers, not to mention the Prime Minister of the country, of corruption and negligence, was one of those times.