My sleep broke with the ringing of my phone. I was tired as hell and wanted more sleep. I unwilling looked at the watch besides my bed and it was 5 in the morning. I looked at the phone and recognised the no of my boss. My rushed and my tiredness disappeared. An army officer can never be reluctant to his boss or duty. I was trained to obey orders even at half dead conditions. I stood up within fraction of seconds and answered the call. Without any formalities in the talk, I was immediately called to office. I got ready in no time and rushed on my car. It was easy for me to leave home as there was nobody to question me. My parents had died when I was a teenager. They were victims of Kashmir militants in a drive by the militants to clear Hindus from the valley. This was 23 years back. I was lucky to survive the bullets and was adopted by an orphanage through military. After that my only mission was to be an army man and eradicate enemy of my country. I never tried to trace out my other family relatives or friends. I was 100% committed army man and always wanted to be on a mission till my last breath. I was stone cold at heart and was a bit loner. Feelings only the attitude to harm and I wanted no second thoughts when my enemy is in front of me. Emotions only make our journey slow and confusing.

I was emotionless and determined to complete my missions at any cost. In I had been in army for past many years and I had harmed men, women, teenagers, etc without any hesitation. I was not bothered about them and my mission accomplishments only gave me feeling of harming my parent’s enemies. I was quite famous among my subordinates and bosses for my dedication and success. I was soon promoted and shifted to Delhi to Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). For RAW I was an apt person. I had no contacts or relatives to rely on and I was not even bothered about myself or anybody and would never give on my country for anything. The later journey was somewhat different. I was again sent for rigorous training for being a spy. I learnt a lot through those trainings. Fighting with guns at the border and being a spy was two different things. Being a spy is never what you see in the movies. You are sitting between your enemies and stealing information or harming them. Its like when your right hand move, your left should never know about it. Its stressful, but I enjoy being spy. It gives me high stealing information or destroying enemies’ right under their nose. I thanked god for such job and wanted to enjoy it till my death. I only believed that the enemy could never have a heart change and harming them was the only way to peace. I hated the peace committee and joked about their foolishness in mending the ties of the two countries. I pitied on them and their hope. I even hated ******** and his preaching of love, peace and non violence. I was happy and proud to be an army man.

I had been to N number of missions and every mission of mine was successful. I was promoted with each mission and every passing mission got more dangerous and harder. I was just back from my last mission in the morning at 2am and again I was called at 5am. Normally I get time to rest and get holidays for few days. But this time I was surprised by the sudden and immediate call. I Knew it would something very important.

I reached office within 10 minutes and quickly reached my bosses office. I was surprised to see 5-7 officers on duty. My boss My Bishan Singh Sodhi was standing right in front of them. Everybody was seated in front of him and listening to him. He saw me immediately asked me to get seated “Be seated quickly Captain Vinod.” By the way I am Captain Vikram Chopra. “I sorry for calling you in such a short notice and not even giving you time to take rest but your next mission was very important.” Mr Singh apologised to which I replied “I only thank you for calling me Sir. I hate taking rest”. He had a proud smile and immediately got back to instructing us. He had got some solid information about Abdul Khan. Abdul Khan was the master mind of many rush in our country. Because of him we had already lost thousands of life’s. He had orchestrated many rush from train bombs, to soldier harmings. The Pakistani government was in denial to his whereabouts but we had solid information that he was living with full privilege in Pakistan. We could never trace him out and we never believed that our neighbour country would give him to us.

Mr Singh had two major information for us. Recently one of our spy had traced him in Karachi living with his family in protection of guards and the army. Our guy was working in disguise in his house and wanted more assistance to penetrate more. The other information was that Adbul Khan was plotting something big and huge to destroy more of our country and people. He with the help of a nuclear scientist Dr. Rehman Siddique wanted to rush our major cities like Mumbai and New Delhi. Abdul Khan was inch close to getting his hands on two nuclear bombs which were in procession of Pakistani army. Our mission was to stop him from that and harm him. Our government never will take responsibility of such act so if we got caught then we were supposed to forget any help. This was a very dangerous mission and we knew that it was a mission of no success. We could never enter his house and if we did enter we could never plot an rush through the heavy guards and army. We knew that it was a suicidal mission. Like me nobody in the room was bothered about our fate and wanted to be on board with immediate effect. Captain Ram was already at Abdul Khan’s house and was asked to join him. Ram could make me enter the house but not more than one person. Other were asked to guard us outside the house for more assistance. Ram was called Khalid and my mission name was Irfan Khan.

Within 3 days I was in Karachi and met Ram in the market. Ram was a cook in the house and asked me to join as a gardener. A story was build with fake id and reference. The other 7 did their job with great precision. I was scrutinised by the army and guards and for every possible loop holes. When they found me satisfied, I was allowed to enter the premises but not the house. The house was a big one like a palace and garden which could never be cleaned in a life time. At first I did question the time I needed to clean the garden and thought I would get lot of spare time to spy around. But when I saw the garden my jaws dropped to ground seeing the area. Even in 5 years it was not possible for me to finish the work. The house was like a vast palace and the garden covered the full front part of it. Trees were planted in front of the house so that It was not easy of outsiders to look into the house, though the boundary walls were also high.

My first day was exciting as I was getting the thrill of harming the most dreaded enemy of our country. The risk was too high so our mission had to be done like a surgeon’s precision. Two days passed and I was nowhere. I was still cutting the grass and cleaning the garden but couldn’t get any information of see Abdul Khan. People came and went in large numbers. There were army men, politicians and others. I hated the way the country was being two faced by helping him so largely and denying his presence to us. Seeing this my rage for harming him only grew harder.

It was third day and as usual I was at corner of the garden cleaning the bushes. My eyes and ears were always at the house for some action. This was the day which I could never forget till I die. My eyes saw some movement on the first floor balcony of the house. It was not a guard. A beautiful figure emerged from the inside. My eyes had never seen something like this. I had seen and lot of beautiful women but not like her. My eyes got widened and my body stopped moving. I even forgot to breathe. The whole being was a still for me. I couldn’t hear anything nor could see. All the training I had all those years were forgotten. I was supposed to be vigilant but I was mesmerised in the view.

She was soo beautiful. She was spotless as a white new paper. Her skin was flair and glowed like the moon. She was in salwar kameez and covered her hair with her dupatta. Her pink dress only made her beautiful like an angel. Her face was a smiling one and she was enjoying the fresh wind hitting her face. I cursed the wind for being lucky. She came near the railing and was enjoying the green garden. For the first time I was proud for being the gardener who made her happy for the view. I slowly moved toward her as I wanted more of her. Her eyes were sparkling like a new born baby. Her nose was a small one. Her lips were pink and soft. She looked at me a saw me looking her in surprise. She smiled seeing my shock. Her smile made a shock pass through my body. I smiled back at her in embarrassment but still I couldn’t get my eyes of her. She understood what was happening and broke into small laughter and walked inside. I world had stopped for me. I was high and my body was drowsy. My head was spinning in excitement and I wanted the moment to be stand still for the rest of my life. Never in my life had I felt something like this. This was new and I didn’t know how to respond to it. I had faced lot of dangerous situations but this was new. I was confused and didn’t know what was happening. It was as if I saw an angel. I had seen death but it was not mesmerising. But this was something different made me happy like I had never before. I had forget my mission, my duty, my senses and my brains.

Suddenly my eyes fell on the bewildered guard looking at me and standing still and smiling like a mad man. I got to my senses and immediately got back to work. I cursed myself for what I did and got angry for my loose behaviour. I reminded myself a hundred times that I was a soldier and such feelings had no place in my life. That night I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop the happy feeling emerging inside me.