The breakthrough came not from a high-level official, but from a stray comment about a barber shop near Kahuta. A specific type of Western hair-cleansing product was being requested by men who didn't look like locals—men with the distinct, pale complexions of scientists.
Aman began his journey to the outskirts of the restricted zone. He wasn't a soldier with a rifle; he was a ghost with a camera hidden in a bag of wool. He spent weeks mapping the movement of trucks, noting the frequency of power surges in the local grid, and befriending the low-level guards who craved the illicit Indian films he claimed to smuggle. The breakthrough came not from a high-level official,
Aman’s days were a delicate dance of deception. He married a local girl, Nasreen, whose blindness made his heart ache with a guilt he couldn't name. She loved Tariq the tailor, a man who didn't exist. Every time he looked into her sightless eyes, he saw the face of the country he had left behind and the weight of the secrets he carried for them. He wasn't a soldier with a rifle; he