Secrets of State (33 page)

Closing her eyes, she visualized the string of letters and reviewed the combination of dots and dashes that could stand in their place. It was easy enough for her to remember. She had that kind of mind. Her mother had always said she got her prodigious memory from her father. She hoped now that that was true, that he would remember too.

Lena flipped the switch for the front-door light up and down in a set pattern. Dash. Dot dot dot dot. Dot. Dash dot dash dash.

Nineteen letters. Repeat.

They know you're coming.

DHARAVI

MAY 2

T
he Hard Men did not look especially imposing. Subconsciously, perhaps, Sam had expected Ramananda's enforcers to look the part. Most were thin and not especially tall. Their muscles were long and ropy, a side effect of hard work rather than a vanity product derived from hours in the gym. What set them apart was the air of confidence they projected. Sam knew that look, the one that marked the bearer as the top predator in his particular food chain. He had seen it on Special Forces soldiers, experienced diplomats, and highly trained CIA case officers.

He had also seen firsthand what the Hard Men were capable of when Vishnu had handled the big Sikh assassin with such quiet competence.

They had gathered on the first floor of Ramananda's house. On Vanalika's iPad, Sam had called up a Google Earth shot of Hill Station Productions and the surrounding streets. The picture had been taken at a more prosperous time for the production company. The parking lot was full and vendors had set up stalls on one of the side streets, probably selling street food to the film crews and extras.

On Ramananda's aging laptop, Sam had pulled together all of the information he could about the production company. It wasn't much. The studio had produced a string of B-grade flops before going belly-up about six months previously. There were rumors of mob connections and a few gossipy items about an alleged affair between one of the directors and a well-known actress.

The core group was small, just Sam, Ramananda, Vanalika, and the three nameless captains of the Hard Men.

“The complex is pretty big,” Sam said. “When we get there, we may be able to work out which of the buildings are being used, but it's possible that we will have to hunt around.”

“I have boys who are used to looking for people who do not wish to be found.” Ganesh's tattoo of the elephant-head god on his right bicep was a crude prison design. The blue-black ink was a rough smear under his skin.

“I don't doubt it,” Sam replied. “What about climbers, guys who can get up to windows on the second and third stories?”

“Rich people like to live up high,” Vishnu said, as though this was the most natural thing in the world.

“Good. Do any of you have experience with this sort of thing? Anyone do time in the army?”

Ganesh nodded.

“Six years in the infantry. I was a sergeant.”

“Excellent.”

“He was dishonorably discharged,” Ramananda said proudly. “Cracked the safe with the company's pay. It was on the third floor of a guarded facility. Hell of a thing. The army couldn't prove anything, but they did get him for hospitalizing the officer who tried to arrest him.”

“Consider yourself restored in rank, Sergeant. Do you have any ideas about how to proceed?”

“How many are inside?”

“I don't know.”

“What kind of weapons?”

“I don't know.”

“Are they professional soldiers or muscle?”

“I don't know.”

“What do you know?”

“Same as you. They have my daughter.”

Ganesh considered this carefully for a moment.

“We should use multiple points of entry if possible,” he said finally. “It's hard to tell from these overhead shots what the building really looks like from street level. We will have to work out the plan on-site when we can see where the doors and windows are.”

“There's one more thing,” Sam added. “It's possible that they also have a bomb, a very big bomb. If you or any of your men see something that looks like it could be a bomb, don't touch it. We need to get someone who knows what he's doing to disarm it.”

Sam turned to look at Vanalika, who was standing beside him.

“Is there someone in the Bureau of Intelligence you trust?” he asked. “Someone who might trust
you
enough to send a SWAT team and a bomb squad to the studio even if you can't tell him why? I don't want to say too much over the phone. SMS and e-mail aren't safe either. ECHELON will vacuum it all up and I'm sure the Stoics are being hypervigilant right now.”

“I think I know the right person.”

“Okay. Why don't you reach out to him? It's a risk, but I think we need the help. We need to hope that there won't be enough time for word to leak back to the Stoics.” Sam looked at his watch. The prime minister was expected to arrive at the Jain temple in two hours. “We don't have time to wait for the answer. If the cavalry arrives, so much the better, but we need to plan on doing this thing ourselves.”

Ramananda and the Hard Men left to gather the gear they would need. That the Dalit leader had left his house was itself an unusual event. It underscored how serious the situation had become both for Lena and the city of Mumbai.

Sam and Vanalika were alone.

“Vee, I think you should stay behind,” Sam said. “This is going to be dangerous and this isn't your fight.”

Vanalika was characteristically blunt.

“Bullshit, it's not,” she exploded. “Look, Sam. If your story is true, and I'll confess that I still have my doubts, then foreign terrorists of some stripe are plotting to explode a nuclear bomb in the center of the largest city in my country. I think that pretty much qualifies as my business. And if I buy into all the reasons why I can't report this to my government through the regular channels, reasons that are largely about the safety of your daughter, by the way, then that leaves me as the sole representative of the government of India in this little adventure. So don't go getting all fourteenth-century French nobility on me just because I have a second X chromosome.”

Sam was abashed. He agreed with everything Vanalika had said. Sexism was sexism, whether the overt variety of the Persian Gulf petrostates or the more subtle form represented by outdated concepts of chivalry. It was different in form, but not in kind. Vanalika had as much right to fight for her country as Sam had to fight for his child.

“Okay, Vanalika. No argument from me. But please don't do anything crazy. Andy died because of me. I couldn't bear losing you too.”

“I'll be a little church mouse.”

“You wouldn't know a church mouse if it bit you on the ankle.”

“Let's go.”

Ramananda had arranged for two canvas-topped trucks to transport them to the studio. Black nylon bags already loaded on the trucks contained weapons and equipment. Once they had climbed on board, Lena's godfather pressed something into Sam's hand. It was a revolver that looked like it had seen better days. There were patches of rust on the barrel, and the wooden handle was gouged and scratched.

“Is this thing going to blow up if I pull the trigger?” Sam asked.

“Don't let looks deceive,” Ramananda insisted. “You squeeze the trigger, the gun will fire. Aim true and someone will die. Can you handle that? For Lena.”

“Yes.”

The ride through Mumbai traffic took nearly an hour. It was excruciating for Sam. He kept lifting the canvas sidewalls of the cargo area to look out. At least part of him expected to see the blinding flash of a nuclear explosion each time he looked in the direction of Hill Station Productions. It would, he knew, be the last thing he ever saw.

All that he saw, however, was an impenetrable snarl of traffic that crawled forward only slightly faster than they could have walked. The Hard Men said little. Even Vanalika looked subdued. Ramananda had not offered her a firearm and she had not asked.

As they had agreed, the trucks stopped a block from the main entrance to the studios. This was a depressed industrial area of Navi Mumbai. The wide estuary of Thane Creek separated this part of the city from Trombay and the Jain temple that would soon be hosting the prime minister. By car, the roundabout trip was nearly twelve kilometers and took at least forty-five minutes. As the crow flies, however, the distance was much shorter. Sam recalled the old aphorism from the height of the Cold War. “Close only counts in horseshoes and nuclear war.” For the Stoics, this was close enough.

Mahavir Jayanti was the most holy day of the world's most pacifist religion. Nonviolence was the core belief of Jain philosophy, extending even to the treatment of insects and plants. It would be a horrible irony if this celebration of peace was the focal point for the kind of senseless attack that Sam believed in his bones was already in motion.

Half of the factories in the area were dark and shuttered, a testament to misguided industrial policy. The streets here were a warren of small alleys that connected to nothing. As a result, there was not as much traffic here as in the rest of the city. By Mumbai standards, the area was deserted. The air smelled of charcoal and feces.

The Hard Men disembarked, different teams gathering around their respective captains. There were twelve of them in total. They had no idea how many men they might be going up against. It seemed unlikely to Sam that there was a large group inside. It would be easier to operate with a small team, easier to conceal their purpose and minimize the risk that one or more of their number would want to see a down payment on the seventy-two virgins before blowing himself, his brothers-in-arms, and several hundred thousand strangers to kingdom come. But that was really just a guess. Sam did not see much of a choice. They had his daughter and the clock was ticking.

Sam led them to the front gate of the abandoned studio. A ten-foot-tall chain-link fence surrounded the complex of production facilities and office buildings. A large warehouse-size building with no windows looked like the film studio itself. A smaller two-story office building was grafted onto one side of the studio.

The foot soldiers hung back as the core group that had put the rudimentary plan together stepped up to the gate. A chain looped around the posts held the gate closed. Sam lifted the lock and showed it to Ramananda.

“This is brand-new,” he said.

Ramananda pointed to the tire tracks in the dust that led up to the single door in the building they had tentatively identified as the production studio. Sam could see boot prints clustered around the outside of the door. There was a light fixture over the entrance. The bulb was flashing on and off as though a contact had come loose. It took Sam a moment to realize that the pattern was not random. It was Morse code.

It was some time before he was able to dredge the simple code up from the depths of his brain. It had been many years since he had used it, but the basic knowledge was still there. He crouched in the dirt and, with a loose piece of wire that he picked up from the ground, wrote out what he saw.

U R E C O M I N G T H E Y K N O W Y O U R E C O M I N G

THEY KNOW YOU'RE COMING

The message repeated over and over. It had to be Lena. His heart soared. She was alive. He remembered how she had insisted on communicating in nothing but Morse code for weeks as she prepared for the state science fair. It had been a game for the two of them.

“Vanalika, that guy in the Bureau of Intelligence that you called . . .”

“What about him?”

“You should probably take him off your Christmas list.”

Ganesh pulled out a small pair of binoculars and surveyed the building quickly.

“What do you think, Sergeant?” Sam asked.

“The front door looks like the only way in from this side. If they're expecting us, that's likely where they'll concentrate their fire.”

Ganesh called Vishnu and Shiva over to join them. Shiva's tattoo covered most of his upper arm, with the god's necklace of skulls reaching almost to his elbow.

“We'll do this in three teams,” Ganesh said. “I'll take my boys in through the office building on the side and look for a second entrance. You.” He pointed at Vishnu. “Take the back side. Look for a window or door you can use. You,” he said to Shiva. “Wait for the shooting to start, and then move on the main door. You all have hammers and bolt cutters?”

They nodded.

“Okay. It is now . . .” He looked at his watch. “Three-twenty. Take fifteen minutes to get in position. We go through at three thirty-five sharp. Hit hard and fast. Shoot anyone with testicles. If he has a beard, shoot him twice.”

Sam pulled Vanalika aside.

“Vee, I'd like you and Ramananda to stay with the truck. There's at least a chance that the cops are coming, and someone needs to tell them what's going on inside. They'll believe you easier than Rama.”

Vanalika's response was the maddening Indian headshake that was neither yes nor no but something closer to “I heard what you said.”

Just then, the Morse code stopped. Sam felt a sudden tightness in his chest. He hadn't been tracking it, so he wasn't sure if the code had broken off in the middle of the phrase. That would have told him something about whether Lena—assuming it was Lena—had stopped of her own volition or if she had been discovered by her captors. Either way, they needed to move now.

“Let's go, boys. Remember, if you or your team sees anything that looks like a bomb, don't touch it. That's for later. I don't think the police are coming to help us. We're on our own.”