Escape - I

The rugged terrain around the Peshawar border felt like a cold, barren wasteland as Ajay Singh and his remaining team trekked in silence.

The recent assassination of Major Farhan Ali had gone off, but not without cost.

Rajesh was dead, and Sandeep was injured, but they were alive, and now the mission was to get back to India-alive.

But in their bones, they all felt the tension thickening around them like a tightening noose.

ISI would come.

It was only a matter of time.

They had been traveling on foot for the better part of four hours.

Each step was careful, measured, and silent.

The chill in the air was biting, the sound of the wind occasionally masking their own footsteps, but every crunch of gravel beneath their boots felt like a warning.

There was no guarantee they'd make it back.

"We're getting close to the extraction point," Ajay said quietly, scanning the horizon with his binoculars.