Nagwa Malik

The Mist Stage Two Nagwa Malik

In the second of the two-part series, as Burke and Tanya continue to disentangle the web, they only find themselves going back and forth like a ping-pong ball. Where Tanya finds she is stagnating, Burke finds instead of moving forward with the new information and dissembling the conspiracy behind accidents, inter-racial deaths and terror-plots, he is pulled back to the past which he'd thought was done with. It seems in order to move forward to present incidents, he must once more go back to the past incident that triggered it all. Tanya feels she isn't accomplishing anything. She feels the break she'd promised her brain is getting overdue and if she doesn't complete the mission and get to that break on time, her brain will revolt and shut down, away from her control. Tracking down terrorists that seem to pour in from India and Afghanistan, and stopping plots of terrorism on Pakistan soil by Blackwater is the ultimate mission, in order for Pakistan to re-establish its stability and begin the rebuilding, with a new government, foreign policy and a much needed shift of alliance and to regain its responsibility in maintaining peace in the world. Burke and Tanya feel that instead of making a difference, all they may have done is just put a puncture which may not be enough to derail their enemies. Instead of unraveling the truth behind the global conspiracy, all they're doing is unraveling themselves... Unless that is what they were meant to do after all: perhaps all they needed was to put that particular puncture to cause the much needed end game. Swinging between acute depressive pessimism and some form of optimism, they finally come to terms with the part they need to play in a game that has been going on for decades and may go on for another.