Laiq had a choice. He could melt the film in his soldering flame and return to his cogs and springs, pretending he had seen nothing. Or he could become the man he had once trained to be—invisible, precise, untraceable.
He chose the latter.
Laiq Hussain had spent thirty years as a watchmaker in the old quarter of Lahore, his tiny shop tucked between a spice merchant and a seller of brass lanterns. To the outside world, he was a quiet man with steady hands and a magnifying loupe permanently wedged above his right eye. But to a select few—whispered about in intelligence circles across three continents—he was the Ghost of the Mechanical Trade. laiq hussain
The message was a list of names. Double agents. Sleepers. Men who would sell their own mothers to the highest bidder. If the list fell into the wrong hands, a dozen families would be erased before the next full moon. Laiq had a choice
