Unit 117
Karam's Legacy, Chapter 11: Where the Watchers Wait
Hey there!
This is Chapter 10 of my serialized novel - Karam’s Legacy
If you’re just joining in, catch up here:
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10
The gate buzzed as Amir punched in the code to the storage facility. The lock clicked open with a hollow snap, and he slipped inside, careful not to let it slam behind him. The keypad still worked after hours—one of those older facilities that didn’t care much about schedules, just payments.
Amir had jogged past this place hundreds of times. It was just another piece of the neighborhood, tucked between a shuttered auto repair shop and a pawn store that never seemed to close. He’d never once guessed his father’s past was boxed up behind one of those units, collecting dust a few hundred feet from his usual jogging route.
Now he moved slowly between the rows, counting off the numbers until he reached Unit 117.
He paused in front of it. No traffic. No footsteps. No sounds but the buzz of a flickering security light overhead.
Then he pulled out his phone.
Manfred answered on the first ring. “You’re there?”
“Yeah,” Amir said. “I’m standing outside the unit now.”
“Good,” Manfred replied. “I should be there with you.”
“You said my father wanted me to see this, right? For my eyes only.”
“Yes, but-”
“I’ll call you back,” he muttered, and ended the call before Manfred could get in the last word.
The unit door creaked upward with a reluctant groan. Amir was immediately enveloped with the stench of paper, rust, and dust - all accumulated and untouched. It was like opening up the freezer, and in the back lay a tub of ice cream hardened by ice. The room needed time to thaw.
The boxes against the wall were stacked somewhat neatly. Understandable that everything was so neat, since it was Manfred who had transferred all his father’s belongings.
Amir looked around and walked over to the first pile of boxes, a set of three stacked against the far wall. He peeled the lid back slowly of the first box on top of the pile. A thin cloud of dust lifted, causing Amir to let out two quick coughs.
He then peered inside: a stack of folders, some notebooks—worn, handwritten. A passport. A badge.
But what caught his eye wasn’t official.
It was a photograph.
Faded. Despite being protected by a frame.
It showed his father—not in uniform, not teaching at the dojo—but sitting on the floor of their old living room, cross-legged, with Amir in his lap and a plastic toy plane in his hands.
Karam was smiling.
It was the same smile Amir remembered from most days. A real smile. Open. Relaxed. Like the world outside didn’t exist.
Amir remembered that plane. He’d broken it on the stairs, cried for hours, then forgot it existed.
The Karam in the photo looked like a stranger now. This was the father who grilled tofu burgers in the backyard, and jogged beside him down the block, shouting encouragement as he wobbled on two wheels.
A world away from the man Amir was investigating now. This man kept files. Wrote in code. Moved like someone was always being watched.
Amir set the photo aside with unsteady hands and turned back to the box.
The notebooks sat like bricks—dense, deliberate, numbered in block letters. One had a folded newspaper clipping pressed between its pages. Another bore a single name scrawled in black ink across the inside cover: W. Afzal.
He flipped through the pages.
Lines of text. Diagrams. Names.
Then it hit him.
Being watched.
The thought landed before he could explain why.
He looked up, instinct first, and walked out into the hallway, moving his head from one side to the other, the way you would ensure the traffic was clear before walking across the street. There was nothing there but rows of identical units.
Still, something didn’t feel right. He’d been too excited to sense it before, but now that he was here, in the storage unit, his cop instincts once again took over. It was a mistake to come here alone.
His eyes moved to the opposite unit—Unit 118. Unremarkable. Closed. But why did it feel off?
Amir lingered on it a second longer. Then turned and walked back into unit 117, his hand hovering near his phone. He should have allowed Manfred to come with him.
“You should always have backup,” Manfred had said, right before Amir stormed out of the gym with the key in hand.
If Manfred were here now, he’d know what to say.
Something steady. Something like: “Let me check the perimeter.”
Or: “Let’s leave it alone tonight. Come back in daylight.”
Amir hesitated. A part of him wanted to listen—wanted to leave.
But he wasn’t going anywhere.
Not when he was this close to finally knowing who his father was.
By the time Alex arrived at the back of Rashid’s shop, the alley was still. No footsteps, no passing cars.
It was dim, warm, and alive in a way most places weren’t at that hour. The usual smell of chai spices hung in the air—cinnamon, clove, ginger. Rashid sat behind his desk, his posture sharp, gaze steady.
He didn’t look up when Alex walked in. The screen in front of him showed a grainy, low-light view of the inside of Unit 117. Amir Kashyap, frantically looking from one end of the hallway to the other. Then stared briefly at Unit 118, unknowingly looking straight through the screen at Rashid.
Rashid leaned forward slightly. His fingers hovered over the pause button but didn’t press it. He didn’t want to miss a single frame.
“He’s in,” he said quietly.
Alex crossed his arms. “Took him long enough.”
But Rashid didn’t respond. His eyes were still locked on the feed.
The camera didn’t have audio, but it didn’t need it.
He could read it in Amir’s face. Confusion. Recognition. Fear.
“I recognize the storage unit,” Alex said, voice low.
He unspooled the memory like old film: Rashid had tasked him with watching Amir’s mother. Most days were uneventful—errands, groceries, long walks that went nowhere. But once, she took a cab to Astoria and let herself into a rundown storage facility.
Alex parked nearby and followed her on foot, keeping his distance.
She didn’t go to the front office or meet anyone. She walked straight through the dim corridor, slow and deliberate, until she reached a unit near the end of the row.
From behind a corner, Alex raised his camera and zoomed in.
The number 117 was stamped above the metal door.
He watched as she stood there, gripping a small key in her hand like it hurt to hold. Her shoulders trembled. She never unlocked it. She just cried, unmoving, like she was visiting a grave.
This lasted for a good 45 minutes to an hour until Amir’s mother finally turned back and took another cab back to Hicksville.
This was when Rashid had rented the unit across from 117 under a fake name, long-term lease, no questions asked. Said he was storing old restaurant equipment. The manager didn’t care so long as the payments cleared.
He’d swapped out the standard lock with one of his own, embedding a pinhole camera just above the latch. Too small to notice. Wired to a signal booster that fed straight to his tablet.
“He’s getting close,” Rashid stated. “My father gave something to Karam. If Amir pulls the thread, he’ll find what that was.” Rashid shifted in his chair, glancing down at a closed notebook with his notes based on the coded messages left to him by Wakil. “I’ve reviewed the tapes so many times. The story isn’t complete.” He looked up at Alex, “The trail ends at Karam. At some point, the two meet. And the last message - “ Rashid was about to open up his notebook, but then decided that he didn’t want to get too deep into explaining the coded messages to Alex, so he took his hand off his notebook. “The last message just says, ‘Find Karam.’”
“And Karam was killed before your father.” He’d heard fragments of Rashid’s story—enough to understand the stakes, not enough to connect all the dots. But watching him now, methodically piecing together the full story from half-clues and coded messages was something else entirely. His calm wasn’t passive. It was control—deliberate, sharpened by time and pain.
Rashid nodded. “Then, a week later, my father dies.”
For a moment, Alex forgot how strange the path had been. Rashid, leaning back, eyes locked onto something imaginary in the ceiling, looked like a man rewriting the past. Alex was watching a master strategist at work, quietly rearranging the board before anyone else even knew they were playing.
“Lay off him,” Rashid said at last. “For now.”
Alex raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue. He knew what for now meant.
Rashid leaned back, gaze still locked on the video of Amir, this time standing just inside the storage unit.
He’d waited years for someone to unlock that room. He’d investigated and tracked anyone who might’ve known what Karam had hidden.
But it was always just out of reach.
Until now.
For a split second, Alex noticed his boss’s expression soften, like the quiet smile right before a sprinter anticipates a win.
“He’s inside,” Rashid repeated as he replayed the grainy footage. “He’s going to find it.”
A pause. The excitement in his voice was soft, but unmistakable.
“And when he does… so will I.”
Enjoying the story? Share it with a friend or post it on your favorite social platform—someone you know might love it too!