The air in Guo Huilan's Shanghai office was cool and still, smelling of lemon polish and impending bureaucracy. She sat behind her government-issue desk, the marriage certificate—the little red book—lying between them like a silent judge.
"The timeline is becoming an issue," she said, her voice as precise as ever. "My father's associates are asking questions. A marriage without visible… cohesion, appears unstable. It undermines the narrative."
"What do you propose?" Rajendra asked, already knowing the answer.
"A short trip. Hainan. A few photographs in a scenic location. It creates evidence of a normal couple. It buys us social credibility for the remaining months."
Rajendra leaned back in the stiff chair. He'd known this was coming. The performance required a second act. But he wasn't an actor taking direction; he was a producer rewriting the script.
"I agree," he said. She blinked, surprised by the lack of resistance. "But if we're adjusting the narrative, we should also adjust the contract. Our original deal is incomplete. It has an end date, but no value beyond survival."
Huilan's eyes narrowed. "The protection, the joint venture—"
"—are the cost of entry. I'm talking about the exit bonus." He leaned forward, placing his hands flat on the desk. "You get your freedom in eleven months. I get a divorce paper. That's a net zero for me. I need an asset."
"What asset?"
"Exclusive access."
He explained. He didn't speak as Rajendra Shakuniya, head of MANO. He spoke as the representative of MAKA—the shadow network she only vaguely knew existed, the one that had moved Soviet engineers and magnets without a trace.
"My organization has a pipeline into the Soviet Union. Military logistics. It's secure, it's deniable, and it moves volume. But it's grey. To scale, it needs a white, legal cover on the receiving end."
He slid a single sheet of paper across the desk. It was a draft addendum to their private marriage contract.
Clause 7.1: Prior to the mutual dissolution of the marital agreement, Party B (Guo Huilan) shall leverage her influence to secure for Party A (Rajendra Shakuniya), or his designated corporate entity, an exclusive 10-year export license for the following categories of non-strategic goods: packaged foodstuffs, textiles, household plasticware, and basic pharmaceutical products.
Territory: The Ukrainian, Byelorussian, and Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republics.
Licensing Authority: China State Council, Ministry of Foreign Trade.
Purpose: To facilitate legitimate trade under the 'Bilateral Friendship Commerce' framework.
Huilan read it twice. Her face was impassive, but he saw the calculations flickering behind her eyes. She understood immediately. He wasn't asking for money or favors. He was asking for the ultimate merchant's tool: a legal monopoly.
With a Chinese state-sanctioned exclusive license, MAKA's shipments wouldn't need to hide in film canisters. They could flood those Soviet republics with containers of goods, all while his grey-channel pipeline moved the high-value items—the alloys, the machine parts, the "cultural artifacts"—right alongside them. It was the perfect cover. And it was something only someone in her position, with her family's pull, could possibly secure.
"This is… ambitious," she said finally.
"It's proportionate," he countered. "You get a clean, quiet divorce and the reputation of having spearheaded a major trade initiative. I get a tool that turns my pipeline from a risky smuggling operation into a sanctioned national export strategy. We both win bigger."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then we go to Hainan, take our photos, and part ways in eleven months as planned. You get your freedom. I get my divorce. And we both walk away from the larger opportunity." He shrugged. "But you're not a person who walks away from opportunity, Deputy Director. It's why you married me in the first place."
A long silence filled the room. She picked up the addendum, her fingers tracing the typed lines. He had seen that look before—on Prakash Mehra considering a film script, on Shanti reviewing a factory design. It was the look of someone recognizing a good deal, even if it came from the most unexpected quarter.
"The phrasing on 'basic pharmaceutical products' is too broad. It must be specified: over-the-counter remedies, herbal preparations. No antibiotics, no scheduled substances."
"Agreed."
"And the license is non-transferable. It belongs to your named entity. Not to you personally."
"Naturally."
She took a pen from her drawer—not the General's bugged pen, but her own simple one. She signed her name with the same swift, elegant characters from the marriage certificate. Then she handed the pen to him.
He signed. Rajendra Shakuniya. The signature of the merchant, not the husband.
"I will have my people draft the formal application," she said, placing the signed addendum in her folder. "It will take two months. The photographs in Hainan will help the narrative that this is a… partnered initiative."
"One day," Rajendra said. "We go, we take the pictures, we come back. No need for a week."
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. "Efficient. As always."
The business was concluded. As he stood to leave, she spoke again, her voice slightly softer. "You do not waste time on sentiment, do you?"
"Sentiment is a luxury," he said, turning at the door. "We're building with stone, not flowers. It lasts longer."
Back in his room at Mrs. Chen's, the matter settled, Rajendra turned to the next expansion. The Soviet pipeline was being secured. The China factory was being built. The Indian base was solid. It was time to open a new front.
He called Ganesh on the secure line.
"Bhai. The China problem is contained. New asset acquired."
"Good. And Shanti-ji?"
"Professional. It's enough for now." He shifted gears. "I need you to look south. Africa. East Africa, specifically. Kenya, Tanzania."
"Africa?" Ganesh sounded surprised. "For what? Our goods are not for that market."
"Not our goods. Their goods. And their routes." Rajendra paced the small room. "The Soviet Union is fracturing. The old trade lanes are shifting. East African ports are going to be new gateways—for goods coming from the Gulf, from India, from who knows where. And they're full of… informal networks."
He was thinking of MAKA. A shadow network needed multiple points of entry and exit, distributed across the world. China was one hub. The dying USSR was a source. Africa could be a new, flexible conduit.
"I need you to find a person. Not a government man. A local… fixer. Someone who moves things through Mombasa or Dar es Salaam. Someone who understands the water, the docks, the customs sheds. Someone we can do business with."
"What kind of business, bhai?"
"The kind where we provide capital and certain… specialty items from our other partners, and they provide local movement and market knowledge. Start with ivory."
"Ivory? Bhai, that is—"
"—a commodity with a high value-to-weight ratio that currently moves in the shadows," Rajendra finished. "I'm not asking you to hunt elephants. I'm asking you to find the person who already moves the tusks, and offer them a better deal. We give them a new buyer—a discreet, international one—and a cut. We learn their routes. We turn their smuggling network into a logistics arm."
It was the same principle: find an existing problem—a black market—and turn it into a controlled, profitable channel. Absorb it.
Ganesh was silent for a moment, processing. "This is big, bhai. Dangerous."
"Everything is. But the world is changing. The big, old systems are cracking. In the cracks, merchants like us build new roads. Find the person, Ganesh. Make contact. Be polite. Be generous. And be ready to walk away if it smells wrong."
"Understood."
"And Ganesh?"
"Yes, bhai?"
"Use the Singapore company for the approach. No ties to MANO. This is MAKA business. Clean and quiet."
He hung up. He looked at the two signed documents on his small desk: the marriage addendum securing a legal monopoly, and his notes on East African expansion. One was a piece of paper that would unlock vast, legitimate trade. The other was the first sketch of a new, shadowy corridor.
He wasn't spreading himself thin. He was building a network—a web of legal and extra-legal channels that would make him the most connected merchant no one had ever heard of. The trip to Hainan would be a brief, boring interlude. A necessary piece of theater to keep the narrative alive.
He picked up the General's bugged pen from where it lay, looked at it, and put it in the drawer. He wouldn't need it for this. The real deals were being made on his own terms, far away from the ears of generals.