The deep desert camp lay hidden in a crescent of towering dunes thirty kilometers from the nearest road—impossible to find without knowing the exact star path and wind breaks. No lights except the low red glow of dying campfires and the occasional flare of a cigarette. Twenty men lived here: hardened smugglers, ex-soldiers, murderers, all loyal to Arjun Singh because he paid in blood money and fear. They slept in low canvas tents or under the open sky, weapons never more than arm’s reach.

Tonight the camp was awake.