She lowered the camera slowly.
A boat glided past carrying bright shawls. A vendor balanced flowers in woven baskets. Somewhere nearby, someone laughed.
She let herself settle into it.
The interviewer asked another question about industrial reforms. Bharat answered briefly.
She lifted her camera again, widening the frame to take in the lake behind him.
Click.
And then she saw it.
Another shikara further back. A single man was seated toward the front. He wasn't close. He wasn't behaving in any way that would register as a threat. He wasn't staring at them.
He was watching the water.
More precisely, he was watching the reflection of their boat.
Her photographer's instinct sharpened before she could explain why.
She zoomed in slightly.
Click.
Through the viewfinder, she could see that his hand wasn't resting loosely at his side. It was positioned. And when the sun shifted for a moment, something metallic caught the light near his waist.
It could have been a phone, a belt buckle, or even a camera accessory.
She adjusted her angle.
The reflection showed the trajectory clearly. She had composed enough frames to understand angles.
Bharat sat directly in the man's line.
The man's boat shifted slightly with the current, adjusting without effort.
The metallic edge caught the light again.
Her mouth went dry.
Security hadn't moved. There was nothing obvious to react to. The scene still looked exactly as it had a minute ago—the mountains, the gold light, the tourists drifting past.
The man's posture shifted by a fraction.
She moved before she had time to think about it. She lunged forward across the narrow width of the shikara and shoved him hard to the side.
The gunshot cracked across the lake.
The boat rocked violently.
Then heat tore through her shoulder.
The camera slipped from her hands.
The mountains were still there. The water still caught the light. The sky hadn't changed.
Only his face had.
