Mukta Joshi
1
The sun had not yet risen over the vast white plains of the Rann of Kutch, but the world was already glowing. A ghostly sheen hung over the salt flats, where the land met the sky in a silent, horizonless stretch of emptiness. Abdul Rehman Shaikh squinted into the distance, the crunch of salt beneath his sandals breaking the stillness. He had walked this path for over thirty years, guiding workers and checking the progress of the salt beds, but this morning something was different. There was an unnatural stillness near the third trench—where the water had dried prematurely. As he approached, a stinging stench met him. Then he saw it. A man’s body lay half-buried under the crystalline crust, arms twisted, face half-covered in salt, and eyes frozen in what looked like terror. Abdul froze, whispering a prayer under his breath before running back toward the village to call the police.
Inspector Dharam Raj Solanki grunted as he stepped out of the dusty Gypsy jeep, adjusting his khaki cap and scanning the expanse. “Kisne bola forensic ko? Accident lag raha hai,” he muttered to his constable, but the moment he saw the body, his expression shifted. The man wasn’t just dead—he was posed. The salt had begun to absorb moisture from the body, turning the corpse into a grotesque sculpture, its features frozen mid-scream. The lips were peeled back, fingertips raw. Dharam knelt beside the body, poking gently at the exposed arm. “Nai, kuch gadbad hai,” he murmured. His phone buzzed in his pocket—a call from headquarters in Bhuj. Word had reached them. A forensic anthropologist was being dispatched from Ahmedabad. Dharam grimaced. He didn’t trust ‘city experts,’ but this one was reportedly “top of her class.” Whatever that meant.
Meanwhile, the small village of Chobari buzzed with whispers. Mukhtar Bhai, the man found dead, was known to all. Quiet, devout, hardworking—a farmer who had returned from a stint in Surat and had taken up his father’s old salt trench. He had no known enemies. The villagers gathered near the mosque, speculating whether this was an act of divine punishment, an old land dispute gone wrong, or something more sinister. Abdul Rehman sat silently on the mosque steps, eyes lowered, fingers nervously twisting his tasbeeh beads. He knew more than he would say. Just three nights ago, he had seen Mukhtar arguing with two unfamiliar men near the trench—one of them had worn expensive shoes, odd for this salt-drenched land. And there had been voices raised—words like “container” and “route”—but Abdul had turned away. Now he wondered if that moment of silence had been fatal.
In Ahmedabad, Dr. Ira Mehta stared at the photos sent to her phone. She was in the middle of her morning tea, the cup hovering near her lips as she zoomed in on the bruising near the clavicle, the bluish discoloration beneath the salt. Her instinct flared. This wasn’t a natural death. Something about the posture, the way the crust had formed over the exposed skin, suggested delayed concealment. She grabbed her coat, already making mental notes. Kutch was not on her calendar, but something about this case called to her. A body buried in salt did more than preserve—it protected secrets. And secrets, she had learned, were always drawn to silence.
2
The Bhuj airstrip shimmered under the afternoon sun as a white government SUV idled near the tarmac. Dr. Ira Mehta stepped off the small chartered aircraft, a leather satchel over one shoulder and a purposeful calm in her eyes. She wore her professionalism like armor—loose khaki trousers, a white cotton shirt tucked in with clinical neatness, and a watch set ten minutes fast. The moment her boots hit the ground, the heat wrapped around her like a heavy blanket, but she didn’t flinch. A junior officer greeted her with nervous efficiency, pointing toward the jeep waiting to take her to the Bhuj Civil Hospital. As they drove past the cracked earth and sunbaked trees, Ira’s mind remained fixed on the corpse—specifically the strange rigidity of the body, the unnatural positioning of limbs. Every instinct told her this wasn’t an accident. And in her line of work, instincts were rarely wrong.
At the Bhuj Civil Hospital morgue, Inspector Dharam Raj Solanki stood with arms crossed and impatience practically steaming from his sunburnt face. “Dr. Mehta, I presume?” he asked as Ira walked in. She gave him a polite nod, ignoring the undertone. Dharam wasn’t used to women in charge, let alone someone from Ahmedabad telling him what to do on his own turf. She wasted no time. Donning gloves, she approached the slab where Mukhtar Bhai’s body had been kept on ice. Ira leaned in, examining the fingers, the angle of the neck, the subtle hemorrhaging around the wrists. “Ligature marks,” she muttered, mostly to herself. She turned to Dharam. “He was tied up. Possibly electrocuted. See the blister pattern near the ankle?” Dharam frowned, stepping closer. “So not natural?” Ira shook her head. “Not even close.”
Outside the morgue, a crowd had gathered—some curious, some anxious. Among them, Nilu Mistry adjusted her camera lens discreetly, snapping a few shots of the arriving officers and the woman in charge. She had been following whispers of illegal salt consignments for months, and this death—this very public, very dramatic death—smelled like something bigger. She wasn’t yet sure what, but her gut told her the salt wasn’t the only thing being transported through these fields. Catching Ira on her way out, Nilu introduced herself, pressing a card into the forensic expert’s hand. “If you want to know what’s really happening out there, you’ll need more than lab reports.” Ira didn’t respond, but the card remained in her hand longer than she intended. Something about the journalist’s urgency hinted at buried truths.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the Rann in soft gold and ash grey, Ira stood alone in her guest quarters, reviewing her preliminary notes. Her fingers hovered over the map spread on the table—marking Mukhtar’s salt trench, the surrounding settlements, and a few oddly unnamed paths that cut diagonally toward the coast. Smuggling. The word had entered her mind uninvited. But what could a poor salt farmer have to do with cross-border crimes? Unless… he saw something. Or worse, someone. She closed her file slowly. Tomorrow, she would go to the salt fields herself. Answers were rarely found in morgues—they were born from the soil, the silence, and the things people didn’t say.
3
The morning sun poured over the Rann like molten silver, blinding and beautiful, masking the land’s dangers under its ethereal shimmer. Dr. Ira Mehta stepped out of the jeep and onto the salt-crusted earth, her boots crunching against the brittle white surface. The salt flats stretched endlessly, flat and lifeless, until the horizon dissolved into mirage. Inspector Dharam Raj Solanki walked beside her, arms swinging with reluctant cooperation. “This is where we found him,” he muttered, pointing to a patch where the salt was faintly discolored. Ira crouched, gloved fingers gently brushing away the crust. Even after the body was removed, the salt retained an imprint—faint indentations, like shadows of trauma. As she traced the outline, she noticed a pair of circular impressions nearby, almost like footprints… but deeper, heavier. Someone had stood there a long time. Watching?
The local salt workers stood at a cautious distance, their eyes fixed on the woman in white with a mixture of awe and unease. Abdul Rehman Shaikh, the site supervisor, stepped forward with visible hesitation. Ira approached him calmly. “You were the one who found Mukhtar Bhai?” she asked. He nodded. “Was anyone else around that day? Any strangers?” Rehman hesitated, then spoke softly. “There were voices the night before. I sleep near the trench. Heard arguing… something about ‘nambar likhna hai’ and ‘raasta badalna padega.’” Dharam raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t report it?” Rehman looked down. “Who listens to a salt man, sahib?” Ira scribbled in her notepad. Something wasn’t adding up. These voices, those heavy prints, the pattern of death—it felt orchestrated, not random.
As they wrapped up their field examination, a sudden loud honk drew their attention. A battered scooter zipped toward them, its rider wearing a scarf and oversized sunglasses. It was Nilu Mistry. She braked abruptly, dust flying, and waved a folded newspaper. “You might want to see this,” she said, eyes locked on Ira. The paper carried a brief item about “increased surveillance at Kandla and Mundra ports after suspicions of cross-border trafficking.” No names, no sources—just whispers in print. Nilu leaned closer. “Three salt workers have gone missing in the last five months. All from isolated trenches. Nobody talks. But they’re scared.” Dharam crossed his arms. “This is speculation.” Nilu’s eyes flashed. “So was every big crime, till it wasn’t.” Ira pocketed the clipping. She didn’t trust journalists easily—but Nilu wasn’t just sniffing for a story. She was chasing something real.
That evening, as Ira reviewed satellite images of the area from past months, a disturbing pattern began to form. Several salt pans near Mukhtar’s trench had been marked ‘temporarily closed’ without explanation. The records were vague, yet identical phrases kept appearing: “maintenance issues,” “worker shortage,” “field evaporation.” But no laborer ever reported equipment problems, and the salt levels looked healthy. She highlighted five such trenches—four near known transportation routes, and one directly tied to a private exporter with political ties. Ira’s pulse quickened. The salt here wasn’t just covering footprints—it was burying evidence. Someone was moving things through this desert, and Mukhtar may have been the first to pay the price for noticing.
4
Inside the modest lab of the Bhuj Civil Hospital, the air smelled faintly of formaldehyde and rusting metal. Dr. Ira Mehta stood over the examination table, where Mukhtar Bhai’s skeletal remains—now stripped for analysis—lay neatly arranged. With gloved hands, she ran her fingers along the exposed ribcage. There, on the left side, was a clean fracture—not the type caused by a fall, but from a concentrated, repeated blow. She documented each injury with surgical precision, noting the deep-tissue hemorrhaging and odd blistering on the lower limbs. Beneath his fingernails were traces of something metallic and coarse—possibly wire or cable. Ira lifted a fragment of salt-impregnated cloth retrieved from the body site. Under magnification, it revealed microfibers common in industrial-grade tarpaulin sacks. Not something a humble salt farmer would use—but perfect for smuggling heavy cargo. Her eyes narrowed. “Who was this man really?” she whispered to herself, before turning to Dharam, who had just walked in with a steaming kulhad of tea.
“He’s not just a victim, Inspector. He’s a message,” Ira said, her voice low but firm. Dharam sipped his tea and glanced at the spread-out evidence. “A message to whom?” Ira pointed toward the blister marks. “This isn’t random violence. It’s controlled pain. Torture. Likely used to extract something—or silence him permanently.” Dharam rubbed his jaw. “What did Mukhtar know?” The question hung in the air like desert dust. They began tracing Mukhtar’s movements over the past few months. He had returned from Surat, purchased his father’s unused salt trench, and had started working alone—unusual, given the difficulty of solo salt farming. His financials were clean. No loans, no major transactions. Just a modest man with a quiet past… until now. They needed to speak to his family.
In a mud-walled house at the edge of Chobari village, Mukhtar’s widow, Sajida, sat on the floor, eyes hollow and hands clenched around a child’s shirt she kept smelling as if it carried traces of her husband. Ira approached gently, removing her shoes at the entrance. Sajida spoke softly, her voice laced with fear. “He wasn’t the same the last few weeks… restless. Kept a notebook in his shirt pocket—always writing something.” Ira asked to see it, but Sajida shook her head. “It’s gone. Disappeared the day he died.” She did, however, bring out a crumpled receipt found in his kurta—a note for a diesel refill and something scribbled on the back in broken Urdu: “Raasta purana nahi—naya border bana hai.” Dharam’s face tightened. “Not the old route… a new border has been created.” It sounded like code—directions known only to those who transported goods, or perhaps people, across invisible lines.
Back in her quarters that night, Ira pinned the receipt and the tarpaulin sample on a growing evidence board. Five small photos—Mukhtar, the salt field, the salt sack fragments, Sajida’s statement, and the note—were slowly connecting through red strings. She opened her laptop and cross-referenced shipping incidents near Mundra Port. That’s when one name popped up repeatedly in delayed clearance reports: Ravindra Desai, a customs officer flagged in multiple internal memos for “procedural delays.” No formal charges. No deeper investigation. Yet his name lingered like an echo in shadowy corridors. Ira’s eyes darkened. Tomorrow, she would meet this man. Mukhtar’s bones had told her all they could. Now it was time to chase the living.
5
The drive to Mundra Port was long and flat, the road slicing through endless stretches of dry grass and thorny shrubs, dotted with occasional cattle and brightly painted tea stalls. Ira sat in silence beside Inspector Dharam Raj Solanki, flipping through a folder containing customs data, photos of delayed shipments, and Ravindra Desai’s internal evaluation reports. Dharam, gripping the steering wheel with a controlled firmness, finally broke the silence. “Ravi Desai is a smooth talker. You’ll need more than evidence to rattle him—he’s got friends in high places.” Ira didn’t respond. Her eyes were fixed on a handwritten note Mukhtar had scrawled in the margins of an old diary page found in Sajida’s cupboard that morning: “Container 7C—too heavy to be salt.” Ira had cross-checked the number with the manifest. Officially, it carried 18 metric tons of Grade-B industrial salt. But the weight records showed inconsistencies. Something wasn’t right.
The Mundra Port customs office looked more like a private club than a government institution—gleaming marble tiles, humming air conditioning, and a secretary who offered cold water and too-sweet tea. Ravindra Desai greeted them with effortless charm, rising from his ergonomic chair in a tailored linen shirt and expensive watch. “Dr. Mehta! Inspector Solanki! What a pleasure. What brings you to my dull corner of the desert?” he asked, smile practiced to perfection. Ira responded with clinical brevity. “We’re investigating a death. A salt farmer. His trench may have been used to facilitate movement of illegal cargo.” Desai’s smile faltered slightly but held. “Tragic, but irrelevant to port operations, I’d think?” Ira placed the receipt with the container number on his desk. “This container left under your clearance three weeks ago. It weighed 300 kilos more when it arrived at the depot than when it left Mundra.” Desai leaned back slowly. “Industrial salt absorbs moisture. It’s common.” Dharam scoffed quietly. Ira leaned forward. “Not when it’s vacuum-packed.”
Desai’s assistant appeared with a ledger, awkwardly interrupting the moment. Ira caught a flicker in Desai’s eyes—a twitch, barely visible, but revealing. As she rose to leave, she added casually, “We’ll need your clearance logs from the last two months. And your assistant’s statement. Please ensure they’re ready by tomorrow.” Outside the office, Dharam muttered, “He’s hiding something.” Ira nodded. “And he knows we’re getting close.” They made their way to the loading docks, where rows of containers stood like steel monoliths, each stamped with numbers, each a potential vessel of secrets. A worker pointed them toward Container 7C’s original docking bay. The spot was unusually clean—almost too clean. “Scrubbed recently,” Ira observed. “They’re erasing something.” Dharam took a deep breath. “We need eyes who don’t wear uniforms.”
That evening, back in Bhuj, Nilu Mistry arrived at Ira’s quarters with a flash drive and a tired smile. “You asked for cargo routes? I got access to archived surveillance logs from a dock worker who owes me a favor.” On the grainy footage from two nights before Mukhtar’s death, Container 7C was shown being opened late at night—not by port workers, but by unidentified men with covered faces and camouflaged jackets. They unloaded four large tarpaulin-covered crates into an unmarked truck. No logs, no customs stamps. Ira leaned in, freezing a frame—on the side of the truck, barely visible under salt dust, was a faded symbol: a white arrow. Her breath caught. “Project Safed Teer,” she whispered. “It’s real.” Dharam looked at her, stunned. “And Mukhtar stumbled into it.”
6
The holding cell at Bhuj police station was dimly lit, the flickering tube light above casting long shadows on the walls. Sameer Khan sat on the wooden bench, arms crossed, his clothes dusty and torn from his recent arrest in a minor highway theft case. But everything about him felt out of place—his posture too relaxed, his gaze too calculating. Ira stood outside the cell, arms folded, watching him like a puzzle she had yet to solve. Dharam Raj leaned against the wall beside her. “Caught him loitering near the abandoned trench two nights ago. Claimed he was just a truck driver. Then changed his story.” Sameer noticed them and smiled. “Doctor Madam,” he said smoothly, “I heard you’re chasing ghosts in the salt. Maybe I can help you find one.” Ira raised an eyebrow. “Why would a man like you help us?” Sameer shrugged. “Because I prefer my secrets whispered, not buried under salt.”
Inside the interrogation room, Sameer’s casual demeanor gave way to something more precise—controlled confessions meant to lure but never reveal everything. “Project Safed Teer,” he began, “started about two years ago. On paper, it’s a private salt export initiative run through legal channels. In reality? It’s a corridor—salt above, weapons below. Moved through the Rann, then loaded at night through hidden docks near Mundra and sent out disguised as industrial exports.” Ira leaned in. “And Mukhtar?” Sameer hesitated for the first time. “He saw too much. His trench was close to one of the drop points. We warned him once. He refused to shut up. Someone panicked and made it messy.” Dharam’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s running it? Names.” Sameer smirked. “That’s where it gets dangerous. Let’s just say your Devji Bhai isn’t just building temples and giving speeches. And your friend Desai? He signs with one hand and erases with the other.”
Ira felt a chill settle over her. Sameer continued, detailing the network—Pakistani handlers using encrypted messages routed through Bangladesh, Indian smugglers transporting goods in reverse via containers filled with camphor, diesel, and occasionally narcotics. “Salt, Doctor, is the perfect disguise. It preserves everything—even lies.” But before they could press further, a constable burst in, pale and breathless. “Madam, Sir—he’s convulsing!” Sameer had barely taken a sip of the tea offered moments earlier. By the time Ira and Dharam reached the cell, he was frothing at the mouth, eyes rolling back. They rushed him to the hospital, but it was too late. Poison—fast-acting and cleverly masked. The teacup, later tested, revealed traces of ricin in the sugar cube. Someone had silenced him.
That night, Ira stood outside the police station, staring up at the night sky that bled into the salt plains. “He was a pawn,” she murmured. “Disposable.” Dharam joined her, his voice grim. “Or he said too much too soon. Someone’s watching us, Ira.” She nodded slowly. “No more conversations. No more subtle moves. We go loud. We dig.” She opened her notebook, scribbling three names: Desai, Devji Bhai, and a blank space—reserved for whoever orchestrated the coverup from deeper shadows. Someone who killed not just to silence—but to erase. The salt had claimed another voice. Now it was their turn to break the pattern.
7
The sky over Kutch had turned a bruised yellow by midday, thick with the promise of a sandstorm. The wind picked up in sudden gusts, swirling dust and salt into the air like a rising curse. Ira pulled her scarf tightly around her head as she stepped out of the jeep with Dharam, both of them staring at the darkening horizon. “We have maybe an hour before it hits full force,” he warned. They had come to investigate an abandoned salt field listed under the name of a shell company—Kutch Logistics Pvt. Ltd.—recently traced to Devji Bhai Vaghela. The field had been dormant for over a year on paper, yet workers nearby reported trucks coming and going late at night. Ira scanned the area—no active trench, no salt drying pans. But a faint tire track still cut through the salt like a scar. Something was being moved here, just not salt.
The silence of the field was broken by the buzz of a scooter approaching from the north. Nilu Mistry braked hard beside them, her eyes red from dust, her scarf nearly blown away. “I met a man,” she said, panting. “A driver who used to work for one of Devji’s contractors. He agreed to talk… but only if we meet him outside Dhordo, tonight.” She hesitated. “He says people disappear when they speak out here.” Ira’s expression was unreadable. “We’ll go. But you’re not going alone.” Nilu nodded, clutching a USB drive. “And this—found more footage. That white-arrow truck you saw? It’s made over fifteen trips in two months. Different license plates every time.” Dharam swore under his breath. “He’s running an entire operation under our noses.” The wind howled louder now, pelting them with bits of salt. “Let’s move,” Ira said. “We’ll check the interior hut before the storm hits.”
The hut was barely standing, a rusted corrugated shelter nearly swallowed by white dust. Inside, it was surprisingly clean. Too clean. Empty shelves, fresh scuff marks on the floor, and in one corner, a patch of disturbed earth. Ira knelt and dug with her hands until her fingers hit something solid. A plastic sheet. Beneath it—a shallow cavity holding worn tarpaulin, stained with dried blood and diesel. “Someone was either hurt here or worse,” she muttered. Dharam photographed everything quickly. In the corner lay a broken crate with faded stenciling: Safed Teer – Export Only. “This is it,” Ira said. “Mukhtar’s trench was just the edge. This is the nerve center.” Thunder cracked above them as the storm began to descend. They barely made it back to the jeep before visibility collapsed, the desert now a whirlpool of sand, wind, and ghosts.
That night, the meeting outside Dhordo went wrong. Nilu arrived with Ira and Dharam to find the informant’s scooter abandoned beside a tree, its headlight still glowing dimly. Nearby, a smear of blood on a rock. No body. No footprints—the storm had erased them all. Ira stared into the darkness, fists clenched. “They’re watching every move we make.” Back in Bhuj, she uploaded Nilu’s footage into a secure drive. The night-vision clip clearly showed Devji Bhai standing at the loading bay, overseeing containers. Not a middleman. A commander. “He’s not just involved,” Ira whispered. “He’s running the damn show.” Dharam looked at the screen, jaw tight. “Time to stop knocking. Time to break the door down.”
8
The sun blazed relentlessly over the Rann, turning the salt flats into a blinding sea of white. Aditi stepped down from the jeep, her boots crunching into the crusted ground. The coordinates found in Iqbal’s ledger had led them to a seemingly ordinary patch of land miles from the village—a place marked by wind and silence. Inspector Rathod walked beside her, grim and focused, his eyes scanning the endless horizon. The drone of distant activity was muffled by heat, as if the desert itself was holding its breath. Aditi squatted near a slightly raised mound of salt, her fingers trailing over its surface, sensing the unnatural compactness of it. She nodded at the forensic team following behind, signaling them to begin digging. As the top layers of salt were carefully removed, a faint metallic glint emerged—a concealed hatch. With cautious hands, they pried it open, revealing a tunnel, cold and damp beneath the scorched earth.
Descending the ladder into the narrow shaft, the air grew colder and fouler. The walls were lined with discarded tools, traces of plastic packaging, and crates bearing labels in multiple languages—Gujarati, Arabic, and Urdu. Rathod clicked his flashlight on, revealing a crude underground passage branching into several directions. This wasn’t just a hideout. It was a long-established operation. Aditi examined the crates—some filled with contraband electronics, others with packets of narcotics and counterfeit medicines. One corner had bags of raw opium wrapped in tarpaulin. She turned to Rathod. “This isn’t just salt smuggling. This is a full-blown international trade route hidden under the salt beds.” Rathod’s jaw clenched. “And someone local is keeping it running.” Behind them, a constable called out—another chamber had been found, and within it, a cache of passports, cash in multiple currencies, and most chillingly, a blood-stained kurta.
The stitching on the kurta matched the pattern seen in a photograph of Karim, the missing cousin of Iqbal. His disappearance now seemed less like evasion and more like elimination. Aditi examined the garment, noting the drag marks on the floor leading away from the chamber. “He found out. And he paid for it.” The air in the chamber was heavy with mold and something metallic—perhaps dried blood. They followed the drag marks to another hidden hatch, this one sealed with rusted iron latches. Inside was a shallow grave covered in coarse salt. As the team exhumed the remains, Aditi recognized the tattered scarf—Karim. Her stomach twisted. The Rann was no longer just a landscape; it was a graveyard of secrets.
Emerging from the tunnel into the glaring daylight, Aditi wiped the salt from her hands, her mind racing. The pieces were falling into place, but one question remained: Who among the villagers was orchestrating this network? She glanced at Rathod. “We’ve just unearthed a war zone hidden under peace.” He nodded grimly. “And the most dangerous soldier might still be walking free.”
9
The wind had changed. Aditi felt it the moment they crossed into the ruins of Kotadi Mata Temple—a crumbling sandstone structure buried deep within the northern fringe of the Rann. The villagers once whispered of its sanctity, then its curse, and now no one spoke of it at all. The temple had long been abandoned, its deity removed, its silence echoing only with secrets. But it was the last location marked in the smuggler’s ledger—a red “X” beside a faint annotation: “Kotadi – final drop.” Aditi stood at the entrance, her boots kicking up pale dust, the air thick with the scent of old camphor and decay. Inspector Rathod checked his weapon. Behind them, the police team waited silently, their eyes on the shadows creeping through the collapsed archways. The place felt alive in a dead kind of way—watching them, warning them.
Inside the sanctum, the once-beautiful idol platform had been gutted, replaced by steel crates and a rusted generator that still buzzed faintly. Aditi moved slowly, fingers brushing against the edges of the crates—more electronics, weapons parts, packets marked with radioactive warnings. Her breath caught. “This isn’t just about drugs or passports anymore,” she whispered. “This is weapons trafficking.” The implications chilled her more than the stone walls. A low creak behind her made her turn sharply—Rathod had discovered a trapdoor beneath the shattered altar, hidden under a decoy pile of rat-infested grain. They opened it, revealing a staircase spiraling into the depths.
The air below reeked of oil, gunpowder, and something more vile—like scorched flesh and damp limestone. The corridor led them into a vaulted chamber lined with skeletons bound in rusted manacles—migrants, perhaps, or rebels silenced long ago. But in the center of the room stood something more immediate: a table with surveillance photographs, maps of the border, and a ledger with codenames and dates. The last entry read: “Shipment K-51. Final phase: tonight.” And beneath it—“Delivered via Bhairav.” Aditi’s heart stopped. Bhairav—the kind old postmaster who had once shown her dusty letters of lovers from across the border. Could it be the same man?
Suddenly, a shot rang out—one of the constables cried out and dropped. Shadows moved swiftly. Someone was inside with them. The team scrambled for cover. Aditi ducked behind a crate as another shot pinged off the stone beside her. Rathod returned fire, the sharp crack of his revolver echoing through the chamber. The assailant was masked, trained, but injured—they found a trail of blood leading toward the tunnel’s rear exit. The team gave chase. Aditi paused just long enough to grab the ledger before following. Outside, the Rann was growing darker, a dust storm rolling in like an omen. Visibility dropped quickly as the wind howled across the flatland.
They followed the blood trail to a rock outcropping where an old Maruti Gypsy waited. The man collapsed beside it, clutching his side. The mask slipped—a young villager named Arshad, the boy who used to herd goats near the temple. “You don’t understand,” he gasped, blood seeping through his shirt. “They own everything. Even your seniors… even the collector.” Aditi’s hand trembled. “Who?” Arshad coughed violently, his eyes wide with both fear and resignation. “Bhairav isn’t what you think. He’s not old. He’s not harmless. He’s the one they all answer to. Even Iqbal feared him.” Then he went still, the dust slowly covering his face like a final veil.
The silence returned. But nothing felt silent anymore. Aditi stared into the growing storm, the old temple behind her now a tomb of evidence and ghosts. Bhairav. The man who offered tea and tales. The man who had watched everything. The man who might just be the ghostmaster of the Rann. She turned to Rathod. “We need to go back. To the village. Tonight.” And together they drove into the rising storm.
10
The salt plains shimmered under the unforgiving sun as Dr. Niharika Rao stood near the trench where it had all begun. The air was dry, yet it carried the weight of secrets that had finally been exhumed. Inspector Rathod stood beside her, silent, arms folded, his eyes fixed on the horizon where the white of the desert met the pale blue of the sky. Below them, officers were wrapping up the last of the smuggling tunnels that snaked beneath the salt fields like the veins of a dying beast. The operation had exposed not just the murder of Himmat Solanki, but an elaborate network of cross-border smuggling routes trafficking in narcotics, rare earths, and illegal arms. The salt farmer had unknowingly built his livelihood atop one of the key entry points. When he stumbled upon a hidden cache, he was silenced—buried beneath the very ground he harvested.
In the station office at Bhachau, the evidence lay catalogued: rusted weapons coated in brine, intercepted radio logs in coded Kutchi and Sindhi dialects, and a ledger—wrapped in oilcloth—bearing names and amounts that pointed to collaborators across the border and within local bureaucracy. The ledger had been hidden beneath the salt trough, weighted down by slabs, and sealed with tar. It was the smoking gun, unearthed thanks to Niharika’s forensic expertise and her relentless combing through environmental anomalies in soil composition. “Salt remembers,” she had said once, and now Rathod understood what she meant. Every grain had a memory, and it had given up the truth in the end.
As the cleanup progressed, the villagers slowly began returning to the outskirts of the plains. Fear was giving way to resilience. Rathod addressed the panchayat under the shadow of a neem tree, assuring them that protections were now in place, and the days of invisible tyranny were over. Niharika watched from a distance, exhaustion lining her face but also a calm pride. She had returned to Ahmedabad not long after the first leads, but something about the salt desert had drawn her back again and again. Now, as the chapter closed, she felt the sting of the land under her skin—its sharp honesty and harsh history.
At nightfall, a storm of fine salt dust rose across the Rann. In Rathod’s home, the radio played old Gujarati songs, and tea simmered quietly. The case had brought them together—a cop grounded in instinct and law, and a scientist fluent in bones and silence. As they shared a quiet toast, the wind howled outside like the spirit of Himmat Solanki, finally at rest. The story of betrayal and buried greed had ended, not in victory, but in resolution. And for those who dared to exploit the innocence of the land again, the salt would be waiting—white, quiet, and watching.
End
