The Selection Of A Spy

That very evening, Zack and Reavan meet up in their regular spot, which is a small tea shop by the side of an apartment. The apartment belonged to Zack and his family. Ever since his childhood, they used to meet up there in the morning on the way to their school. Now it had become their permanent meeting spot and was associated with a lot of memories.

They stood by a tall table, their arms grabbing onto their glasses of tea, resting on the table. They stood opposing each other, but staring towards the vehicles and people that went across the road that was laid between the shop and the apartment. 

The sun was setting, giving out a pinkish orange sky which looked beautiful. Zack begins his conversation with a stupid comment, "wow, the sky seems to have set for the sake of beginning new relations, as in love! don't you think?" 

Reavan rolls his eyes, then hits Zack's leg, "can't you come up with something better to start the conversation with?! such a doofus" Then they both start laughing. Good old days....

The conversation then goes from 'what is going on in each other's life' to the current topic of interest, 'what does Reavan need Zack for'. Reavan then tells him about his current investigation on Ria's case to be that of a murder or accidental. He also tells him what Ashura made so clear, that is, it definitely was influenced by others, yet again, its not certain if they were the cause of if they just playing a role in it, meaning it was an accident but provoked by others. 

In either case, it was now clear that there was someone else involved in it too. The questions that loitered in Reavan's head were, who was that person and how was he even related to this crime? what was the cause of supporting it or committing it? 

listening to all that Reavan had to say, Zack says, "So, you want me to gather information for you? is that all?" Reavan expresses a 'NO' with his eyes, Zack continues, "then, what else do you want me for?"

Reavan says, "now, let me make it clear to you, one, I definitely want you to gather as much information as possible. Two, I want you to spy on those two friends, I am pretty sure they will end up contacting the person who was involved with them ,if at all they are involved in the conspiracy. Three, the government wont be paying you as i never got the approval of the chief, this would mean that-" 

"-that, I need to do it all at my own risk. Damn! why didn't you tell this before, I'm more powered up than before! I am in!!!" 

Reavan yells impatiently, "NO! NO!" He then violently shakes Zack by his shoulder and pushes him onto a nearby chair, "think it over you moron! put more thoughts into it...." Reavan notices that people are staring at him due to the unnecessary scene that he just caused. He then lowers his tone, lets Zack out of his hold with an apology. 

Zack enthusiastically gets up, "Well, lets get out of here. What do you say, can we talk at my house? sounds ok?" Reavan hesitant and grumpy, just mutters an inaudible "Hmm" for a yes.

Zack turns away from Reavan and lets out a cheerful smile, then takes Reavan home in his two wheeler. 

They enter into Zack house where Reavan is welcomed by Zack’s wife quite well. She then turns to Zack and glares at him as an implication of why he hadn’t intimated her about the arrival of a guest. He just smiles back and then the two of them enter into his room.

The discussion lasts for quite some time, after which Zack still agrees to do it without a change of mind. He though behaves like an idiot is actually one of the smartest people in the world. He agreed to Reavan knowing clearly well about all the risks that he might be taking. It didn’t matter to him. In fact, he was a kind of person who wanted to everything about any information that he came across or those that came into his view. He never ignored any knowledge. According to him, anything and everything in this world gave him different kind of knowledge and information.

In fact, he chose journalism so that he gets the first-hand information about it all, he was interested in knowing them all completely. Such information gave him so much knowledge unlike those that others get to hear or read about, which is always mixed with people’s own perspective about the thing and not just the facts. All that he wanted to know was actual facts, but people tend to add their embellishments to it, just so that their viewership increased which degraded the quality of information that was gathered.

No one knew what was right and what was wrong anymore, one said one angle of the news the other says another, the third person contradicts both, this keeps going on. No one knows the actual news and at the same time, they believe that what they know is the correct one. To prevent all of this, he wanted to start his own channel and he was just in his primary stage of growth thus depending upon an established firm and was working for them.

Reavan was in a dilemma, he had to depend upon Zack as he was the only person whom he could trust and also because Reavan had nowhere else to go. But at the same time, he knew the consequences and the risks involved in getting the help of Zack.

If anything goes wrong, Zack might be let out from his work, or what if something happened to him during the course of spying. What if the culprits find out that he is following their movements, wont it put him and his family into danger?

The act of spying demanded people to act like a rat, dig into the sand(information) deep and escape before people spot it, if it gets caught, its game over for it and no one can save it. It also demanded that the person be smarter that the culprit being observed, otherwise he would definitely get caught.

The situation was like a two-sided dagger to Reavan- as from one side, if he didn’t act selfishly, it can’t end well for him or his job. On the other side, he had to protect his friend and be concerned about his life and his family’s that might get ruined due to his involvement in this case. Being indecisive, he decided upon entrusting the choice to Zack.

He might pretend to be foolish and that’s what made him look untrustworthy. Even if he goes to the verge of getting caught, people might overlook him due to his skills of pretending to be foolish. His act of being foolish was remarkable, making him the perfect choice for this case.

Now that Reavan was convinced, Zack asks, “when do we start?” Reavan smirks, “tomorrow”.

*************

The very next day, Reavan goes to both of Ria’s friends’ houses in the name of interrogation where he manages to plant recording devices in multiple locations, especially in the living rooms and in places where there was a chance that they could talk in their phones with. He also hacked into their phones with a hacking device.

Reavan kept asking more and more questions about the incident at a deeper level of detail that both of them stared getting uncomfortable. Both the friends asked him to visit some other time, a bit later as they weren’t so much available to answer all of his questions currently. He agreed to do so, thanked them and left.

Zack waited outside in a nearby van having receivers from different recording devices. Reavan entered into the van and to his surprise, both of them were try to call someone.

Upon tracing the contact, they found it to be the same person named David. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t pick both of their calls.

One friend immediately called her husband who picked. (Here onwards, the conversation is between husband I wife)

He said- “what is it dear? All good? You usually don’t call when I am at office”

“I know darling, I apologize for the same, but I’m in a tight spot, can you please help me?”

“What is it, Is everything ok?! Do you want me to come home?”

“No, it just-”

“Yes dear, I’m listening,”

“Reavan had come home, asking about Ria’s death and what I had been doing back then-”

His voice changes as if he was getting angrier by the moment, “didn’t I tell you not to converse with him? What did you say to him?!”

“Nothing, just what you told me to, and-”

“Shut up! Just shut!”

“I- I sent him back saying it wasn’t a good time and that he can come over later”

“Stupid woman!” he calms a bit and replies, “see, Jaish sir saw to that we are safe, all we did was follow his order and leave her alone for some time. We aren’t the ones at fault, we just left her alone, that too just for five minutes, I was the one who called you remember?”

“Uh-yess”

“Though you don’t know about it, I worked according to his orders which was to just keep you occupied for five minutes. It was not even like he demanded me to kill her or conspire, in fact, I too had no idea that she was going to be killed.” His voice becomes shaky and weak, he is crying, “I didn’t know this would happen to your friend, I was paid to just keep you occupied, so I did it. I am so sorry that you are in this situation. I am at fault”

She starts crying, “Oh Godd! Why did you have to get involved in this? I myself had been feeling guilty to have left her alone all this time, I kept blaming myself for had I not done so, she might have been alive now, I ruined her life. Now I have become the greatest sinner.”

They both cry over the phone for a while longer.

*****************

In the van, Reavan is trembling not knowing what to do, he is held in place by Zack who hugs him tight that he has no space to move nor to escape. Usually, this is the time when people do crazy stuff, when their hearts skip a beat, their body goes numb. Their brain stops functioning that they start following whatever thought comes in their mind. For some it might be jumping in front of a heavy-duty vehicle while for others it might be to kill or damage the person that caused this misery. And in this case, Zack wasn’t sure of what Reavan might do.

Zack too was hurt and shocked, but he had nothing to do with Ria, while Ria was Reavan's wife and meant the world to him. Knowing something of this magnitude that too after more than a year of suffering her loss, was something that no one can take, that too Reavan? No way. he was the feeler, who understood emotions and human nature better than anyone. he could do so, as he felt them strongly too.

The scenario was actually like piercing deeper into a wound that was already cut and just beginning to heal. In his case, the wound had already entered deeper tissues and was in close proximity to his heart, now that it was pushed deeper, there was a definite possibility that he had started falling apart.

It is a miracle that he managed to hold up until now, that's what Zack thought as he stroked his hair and felt Reavan calming down. He then let Reavan free when he suddenly looked at Zack, pushed him in, closed the van's door shut after taking golf club. He ran towards the friend's house, slipped and fell on his face, got up with pain and decided upon breaking her windows.

He takes a good aim at  the glass, swings it at the glass which is blocked by Zack on time who managed to escape from the van. Zack gets severely injured, and falls to the ground, Reavan realizing what he had done, sits on the ground besides the injured Zack tears rolling down his face uncontrollably, he helps Zack up, lifts him and supports him to walk to the van, drives it to the nearest hospital. All that Reavan says through out the journey is, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorr-" 

Zack loses his consciousness. Little did he know that he was hurt in the head and was bleeding severely....