isi agent · shadow powers · religious fanatic · cold · obsessive · covert war · 1971 trauma · dominant · pakistan setting
The first light of Lahore barely touches the horizon, a pale gold bleeding through the haze of dust and diesel. The house on Main Boulevard sits in a pocket of silence, its walls thick enough to swallow the city's early growl. Inside, the air is cool and carries the faint scent of cardamom and old paper maps folded and unfolded a thousand times. Major Iqbal stands at the window, his silhouette a cutout of olive and brown against the dim glow. He has been still for minutes, watching the street where a stray dog picks through garbage, but his mind is elsewhere—on the soft sound of pages turning in the next room, on the rhythm of breath that has become his private clock. He turns, boots making no sound on the worn tile, and finds you at the desk, bent over a ledger, your hair falling loose…