Chapter 63: The Double Agent
The doors slammed open, and for a heartbeat, time seemed to stop. Vikram spun around, expecting armed guards loyal to him. The Director took a calculated step back, slipping into the shadows once more.
Priya's finger hovered near her trigger.
And then the figure at the door stepped forward—calm, confident, and horrifyingly familiar.
Rajiv.
Amrita's breath caught. "No… it can't be."
Rajiv, their former handler. The man who had fed them intel for months. The one who always seemed two steps ahead. He walked into the room wearing a tactical suit, flanked by masked operatives with unmarked gear.
Vikram broke into a grin. "Took you long enough."
Rajiv didn't return the smile. He turned his eyes toward Priya. "Stand down. All of you."
"You're with them?" Amrita asked, voice shaking with disbelief.
Rajiv looked almost apologetic. "Not with them. Above them."
"What does that even mean?" Kiara asked, raising her voice as she took a step forward. "You were supposed to be one of the good guys. You helped us expose half the network!"
"I helped you get just close enough," Rajiv said. "You were never meant to win. Just stir the waters. Keep Vikram's competitors distracted. Keep the file moving. Let the Director watch how far you'd go."
Priya's face hardened. "So we were pawns. All along."
Rajiv nodded. "And you played your part beautifully."
The Director, still half-shrouded in darkness, finally spoke. "Now, Rajiv. End this."
But Rajiv turned slightly—not toward Priya, but toward Vikram.
"I'm tired of playing your games," he said coldly.
A gunshot rang out. Vikram staggered back, clutching his side.
Chaos erupted.
Aadarsh lunged at one of the operatives, tackling him to the ground. Kiara flipped the table for cover. Amrita grabbed Priya and pulled her down just as bullets splintered wood and glass. The Director disappeared into the hallway, flanked by their guards.
"Go!" Rajiv barked. "You want answers? You'll find them in the sub-level. Room 13. That's where they keep the backups, the contracts, the true names."
Priya hesitated. "Why are you helping us now?"
"I'm giving you a chance," Rajiv said, handing her a keycard. "I've done terrible things. This doesn't fix them, but maybe it ends them."
"Come with us," Amrita urged.
Rajiv shook his head. "They'll need someone to blame for this mess. Might as well be me."
Sirens were growing louder—real ones this time. External forces had been alerted, and the hotel was quickly becoming a war zone.
The Descent
The team raced through the back corridors, guided by Rajiv's keycard and a hastily drawn map he'd slipped them. The marble and gold of the gala had given way to concrete and steel—the real foundation of the operation.
"This place goes deeper than we thought," Naira muttered.
They reached a steel-reinforced door marked Sub-Level Access Only. The keycard beeped. The door slid open with a mechanical hiss.
Inside: rows of servers, vaults, encrypted terminals, and shelves lined with hard drives and paper files. It was the nerve center—the true archive of The Director's global operations.
Priya stepped in slowly. "This… this is everything. The proof. The network. The accounts. Names. Codes. Governments."
Kiara moved to one of the drives. "We need to copy it all."
Aadarsh scanned the walls. "We won't have much time. Once they realize where we are—"
A tremor shook the walls. The elevator behind them powered down. Emergency lights flickered.
"They know," Amrita whispered.
Endgame Upload
Arvind worked quickly, fingers flying across the terminal. "I'm decrypting as fast as I can. Just buy me five minutes."
"Upload it to multiple sources," Priya said. "Public, secure, anonymous. If even one survives, we've won."
Gunfire echoed above them. The Director's forces were descending.
Kiara sealed the vault door behind them. "We're not getting out unless we fight our way through."
Priya looked to the group. "Then we fight."
She turned back to the monitor, where files were scrolling past faster than the eye could read—evidence of war crimes, backroom deals, assassinations, manipulation of markets, governments, even elections.
The truth.
The Final Breach
The door behind them began to spark. Cutters were being used on the steel.
"We're almost done," Arvind said. "Sixty seconds."
"Make it thirty," Naira said, drawing her weapon.
A blast rocked the hallway. The vault began to give.
The team stood their ground.
Then, just as the final layer was breached—silence.
Footsteps. Dozens.
And then, instead of The Director—
Interpol. Armed. Identified. Real.
A woman stepped forward. "Priya Sharma?"
Priya blinked. "Yes?"
The woman holstered her weapon. "We've been tracking The Director's global shell company network for six years. Your friend—Rajiv—called us two hours ago."
The weight of it hit them all at once.
They'd made it.
Later...
In a secure, undisclosed location, Priya sat in front of a monitor.
A reporter's voice echoed from the screen. "What some are calling the largest global takedown of an underground intelligence-financial network in modern history began last night…"
Behind her, the team was quiet. Bruised. Tired. But alive.
Kiara walked up. "We did it."
"No," Priya said softly. "We survived it."
To Be Continued…
In the final chapter: What happened to The Director? Can the team return to a normal life—or has this fight changed them forever? The conclusion is near.