The SIT room at the airport was silent. The only sound was the hum of the air conditioner and the rhythmic tapping of ACP Vikram's pen.
A junior officer ran in, breathless. "Sir... we tracked the manifest. Flight took off twenty minutes ago."
"And the passenger?" Vikram asked, his voice hollow.
"Inspector Athira Swaminathan. And the boy," the officer replied. "She used her emergency police clearance to bypass the secondary security check."
Ethan closes his laptop, his hands trembling. Shashi stares at the wall, the memory of Athira "saving" her now feeling like a calculated move in a game she didn't know she was playing.
They realized that for three years, they had been mentored, led, and protected by the very person who started it all.