Her Fugitive Heart

by Adi Tantimedh

  New York to South Korea was a thirteen-hour flight. Kareena passed the time on a video call with Dr. Kim at his clinic. They were already prepping for her surgery. Hamid had picked one of the best cosmetic surgeons in Seoul because no one would think to hunt his sister to a clinic in South Korea. They expected her to be in Europe or the States. Kareena spent an hour on the video call reviewing her medical file with Dr. Kim to make sure she didn’t have any allergies to medications or preexisting conditions that might be a hindrance to her surgery. He sent her a link to his interactive computer program where she could pick the mold and shape the 3D model of the face to show what changes she wanted in her surgery. They went over the procedures to resculpting her face—her cheekbones, her nose, her eyes, her mouth. He went over the process of bleaching her skin to lighten it and the type of maintenance it would require.

  “I just want to become a different woman,” she said. “It’s been a burden being me for so long.”

  Nobody wanted to be a dictator’s daughter, witness to her father’s crimes and atrocities but pretending to be blind, living in complicity and denial until it was no longer possible. What was in Kareena’s wiring that had made her different from her mother and her brothers, that had driven her to decide this wouldn’t do and to take the responsibility of assuming her family’s karma and righting that wrong, by leading a revolt that overthrew the government, then overseeing the execution of her father and brothers for their crimes? Was this what she was put on Earth to do? Was this what she was always going to be? And if so, what next? Or was she to immolate herself, and reenter the cycle or reincarnation to start anew? No, here she was deciding to put herself in the hands of her surviving brother, to make herself into something else and leave that life behind. But that wasn’t going to change what she was. She was always going to be a revolutionary. She had a vision of the world she wanted to create, and she still burned to lead a revolution. I saw it in her and so did the gods. They were rooting for her, egging her on. She was going to be a good show.

  SEVEN

  A car was waiting for us at Incheon International Airport and drove us right into the heart of Seoul. We checked into a hotel in Gangnam-gu. Hamid had arranged the reservation and paid extra to keep our real names hidden. Ariel took the room with Kareena, since she was the one who would pull a gun to protect her if anyone came after her. Julia and I took the adjoining room.

  It was night when we settled in. While everyone else rested, I set to work. The excellent Internet services in Seoul enabled me to set up my new laptop and establish a portal for getting in touch with Golden Sentinels in London. Olivia had established a protocol for creating a secure video conferencing hub if we ever had to go underground and still needed to get in touch. I hid the computer’s ISP behind a VPN as I sent out messages to everyone via an encrypted email server using their backup email addresses. Then it was just a matter of waiting to see who responded.

  In less than an hour, my smartphone rang. Unknown number.

  “Ravi old son, the bastards finally got me.”

  “Roger? They let you go? Where are you?”

  “I’m out on bail. They’ve placed me under house arrest. I’m under curfew and can’t be out in the evenings. Took my passport because they think I’m a flight risk. Can you believe the bloody cheek of it?”

  “How did you get this number?”

  “I have my ways. You should know that by now.”

  “Why are you calling, Roger?”

  “You’re the only one I can trust, my son. I think Cheryl and the others are all narked off at me.”

  “Good-bye, Roger.”

  “Ravi, wait! Hear me out!”

  “What? You tried to take over a country in a coup! What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “I’ve been hearing about how weak their government was for ages. Seemed ripe for the pickings.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you have to say? You’re unbelievable. This is colonialism. How can you, a white guy in the twenty-first century, ever presume to think you can take over a country in Africa to exploit its resources?”

  “Come on, I was backin’ a decent lot to take over the place.”

  “And give you dibs on resources. Is your moral compass so broken that you don’t see any problem with being an imperialist?”

  “You sound like my rabbi.”

  “Did you even think about how that makes you look?”

  “If I’d won, nobody would have known it was me. I would have offered a good deal to the Americans so their troops wouldn’t need to fight. The new government would have declared themselves a US and Western ally, open to trade. It would have been a win for everyone.”

  “And you collect the profits. You’re arguing in favor of imperialism with me?! Me of all people? Seriously? Have you forgotten who I am? Where my family came from? England exploited and fucked with India for centuries! And you had David, whose family is from Nigeria, draw up contracts to legally raise money for your Great Game? You’ve got some bloody cheek, Roger! And you talk about this like you failed to order a pizza? You like to talk to me about righteousness and doing the right thing! There is nothing righteous about trying to overthrow someone else’s government! Go talk to your rabbi. Leave me out of this!”

  “He’s bloody sick and tired of me by now. No one else will talk about this to me. My wife won’t talk to me. Come on, Ravi. This is important.”

  “This is the fucking limit, Roger! You said we didn’t always do stuff we were proud of, but we were never going to go after innocent people! All your talk about using the Dark Arts for good where we can is just a pile of bollocks! You almost had me convinced! And now you land us, the entire firm, in this shit?”

  “I kept your names out of this fiasco so they don’t know about you lot, all right? You genuinely didn’t know about the business plan—”

  “The coup! Your coup! Stop beating around the bush! They’re going to look into all your businesses now, including Golden Sentinels! We’re all implicated!”

  “Now, hold on. I look after my people, Ravi. And I make sure everyone is always properly compensated.”

  “Until you land us in shit we can’t crawl out of! It’s one thing if we make the mistake! That’s our call! This is something you put us in without a say!”

  “Listen, I signed over ownership and control of Golden Sentinels to Cheryl a month ago in case things went pear-shaped.”

  “So you did think you might fail!”

  “Always be prepared. That’s the first rule, remember? I also signed all my assets over to my wife and family members so they wouldn’t get seized, just in case. And don’t you think Cheryl deserves the firm? It’s her baby, after all. She poured her whole life into Golden Sentinels. See, I think of my people. I know my people.”

  “Sounds like you have it all under control. What do you need me for?”

  “There’s something I need you to do, Ravi. It’s going to put things right, I swear on my mother’s grave. I can’t be seen to be doing it. It can’t come from me. They don’t even know about the phone I’m usin’ to talk to you.”

  “Why do you think I’ll help you?”

  “Come on, Ravi. You’re my boy, aren’t you? My protégé. I took you under my wing when you started. I always saw greatness in you. You see gods and that’s a rare quality. Speaks of your character. You’re a mensch. You always do the right thing. That’s your nature. I can’t do fuck-all right now, so it’s got to be down to you. I don’t know how Cheryl or the others will react because they’re all taking it a bit personally.”

  “I’ll ask you again. How do you know I’ll agree to whatever this is?”

  “Because you don’t have an agenda, son.”

  “Yes, I do. I want to not go to prison.”

  “That’s not an agenda, that’s a goal. It’s a good goal. Everyone should have that goal. You don’t have years of emotional investment in the firm so you’re not as pissed off as they are. I know that about you, old son. I’m j
ust askin’ you to help me put everything right and get everything back to the way it was. That’s what everyone wants, innit?”

  “You’re assuming a lot.”

  “Now, I have friends in high places, very high places, as in ‘senior in the government,’ who owe me favors,” Roger said. “They could make all this go away with a few phone calls. Except they refuse to take my calls. I told you they were never going to let me into their club, I’ll never be one of them.”

  “Don’t give me any more of your class divide talk, Roger. I’ve had enough of that.”

  He wasn’t even listening to me at that point. He just had to monologue.

  “Ungrateful bastards. This is my Plan B. You see, I’ve kept files on ’em all. Just in case they forget they owe me. These files will remind them.”

  “So where are those files? I’m out of the country,” I said.

  “That’s the beauty part, my son. They’re in the cloud. I got Olivia to create a cache on a server based in Finland. I need you to download those files for me. These aren’t just any files, old son, these are the mother lode that will get me out of jail and make the bastards leave you lot alone.”

  “Why can’t you do it yourself?” I asked.

  “Because my Internet activity is bein’ closely monitored. Also, it needs a password that I don’t have.”

  “How can you not have a password to your own doomsday emergency files?”

  “Olivia set up the server for me when she started working at the firm, and she said the files were too tempting for me not to touch, so she and I did a deal: when the shit hit the fan, she would download the files for me and I would use ’em as leverage to get us out of the fire.”

  “So why not talk to Olivia?”

  “She won’t take my calls. None of the others will except for Cheryl, and she doesn’t know the password. Olivia ain’t going to give her the password.”

  “So it’s down to me because I’m the mug who takes your calls.”

  “You know how to get in touch with ’em. You know the protocols for gettin’ in touch with everyone. We taught ’em to you when you just joined.”

  “You’re ducking and diving, fucking and skiving, dancing as fast as you can, hoping that things will work out by the time the music stops.”

  “Story of my life, old son. That’s the way the game’s always been. The whole point is to live to dance another day. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”

  “Not everybody wants to dance with you, Roger.”

  “Come on, Ravi. I’m beggin’ you here. I’m a man of pride, but I’m at the end of my rope. If you could see me, you’d see I’m on my knees right now.”

  I sighed.

  When I hung up, Julia was watching me. So were Ariel and Kareena.

  “Jet lag,” Ariel said. “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Did you hear all that?” I asked.

  “So this is what you’re like when you’re really angry,” Ariel said, smiling, and turned to Kareena. “See? I told you he was bags and bags of fun.”

  “All right,” Kareena said. “I like him.”

  “It’s a good thing the walls here are thick,” Julia said. “You could have shouted the whole house down.”

  “I apologize,” I said. “That was unprofessional of me.”

  “Don’t worry about it, babe,” Ariel said.

  Kareena was looking at me with that unnervingly even gaze of hers.

  “Imperialism,” Kareena said. “We’re all of us by-products of its legacy, really. My father was a product of imperialism and served its agents thinking he could carve out his own kingdom after growing up watching the country under British rule, then after I overthrew him, the Americans tried to make my brother their puppet to take over the country. I suppose you think I’m foolish to fight imperialism. And now I’m back at square one, all on my own.”

  “It’s a little big, hon,” Ariel said.

  “Here we are,” Kareena said, “in a country that was also a victim of Japanese imperialism. It’s inescapable.”

  “What you really ought to do,” Ariel said, “is pick the small fights, get through ’em one by one, do it stealthy so nobody knows you’re there. And if you’re still alive after each fight, do it again. And again. And again. Slowly work your way up.”

  Kareena glanced at Ariel.

  “And here I am being protected by an agent of imperialism. Ironies never cease.”

  EIGHT

  In the morning, we took Kareena to Dr. Kim’s clinic near Gangnam Station, the heart of the Beauty Belt, the cosmetic surgery capital of South Korea. Kareena met Dr. Kim in person and he went over the last details of her procedure. She finalized the face she wanted on his interactive 3D system. She had followed his instructions to fast the night before. He talked her through the risks—of infection, of complications, or allergic reactions to the anesthetic—it would have been a horrible cosmic joke to have her survive assassination attempts and fleeing her home country just to drop dead on the operating table in South Korea. Kareena nodded with all the certainty of one who was just going to move forward, come what may. The gods stood behind her and listened to Dr. Kim’s talk. They were very interested in Kareena for some reason.

  The doctor’s assistants wheeled her in for surgery. Since we looked a bit conspicuous, being an Indian bloke and two white women in Seoul, Julia, Ariel, and I decided to wait for her in the lavish reception area of the clinic.

  Since I had nothing better to do, I phoned my father to check up on him and Mum.

  “Ravi, my God, Mumbai is so hot,” Dad said. “Living in England for so many decades means that your mother and I have become horribly used to cold weather. We have been sweating since we arrived. This is sad. We have become Englanders.”

  “How’s everything else, Dad?”

  “Here’s another thing. The city is complete chaos compared to London. Traffic is unbelievable. It’s like a denser, faster, madder, even more corrupt version of London. England has a pretense of order and rules. Mumbai doesn’t. The UK may be a horrible mess, but the sheer madness here makes England look like a tea party. I can’t keep up with the pace here anymore.”

  “What about the family house?”

  “It’s a tip. Practically a wreck. No one could possibly live in it now.”

  “Oh.”

  “The place is completely run down. I can’t believe your uncles and aunts and I were born in this mess.”

  “Are you still thinking about fixing it up as a retirement home?”

  “Better to just knock it down and get it over with,” Dad said.

  “Are you sure? That seems a shame.”

  “Actually, I went to the land registry office to look up the property. The land it’s on is in fact worth a fortune. The lawyer is drawing up the papers to put it up for sale now.”

  “Weren’t you thinking about retiring to India with Mum?”

  “After what we experienced the last few days, we’re better off staying in England.”

  “So I suppose you’ll be going back to London soon, then?”

  “As soon as I can pry your mother away from going shopping with Mrs. Dhewan’s twin sister.”

  “Did they bond?”

  “They’re new best friends, Ravi. She’s like Mrs. Dhewan in so many ways, except she claims she’s not really a gangster. Those two gossip so much my ears are going to fall off.”

  “Not really a gangster. Huh. Does this mean when you dropped off the gifts from Mrs. Dhewan, everything went without a hitch?”

  “They’re a family of Anglophiles, Ravi. Totally mad for anything British. The moment your mother gave them that package, she became their new BFF. That’s even how she’s saying it. ‘BFF.’ I could swear they had people following us wherever we went. I think they were bodyguards keeping their distance.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “You’re not the only one with a sixth sense, boy. I could feel it.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Noth
ing came of it. No harm done,” Dad said.

  “Did Mum just join a crime family?” I asked.

  “You tell me, boy.”

  I didn’t tell Dad that Sanjiv or his guys would have followed Mum to make sure she was fine.

  “What about you, Ravi? When are you and Julia flying back?”

  “Might not be for a few more weeks, Dad. We’re escorting a client halfway around the world.”

  “What’s that sound in the background? That doesn’t sound like America.”

  “We’re in Korea, Dad. Seoul. Client’s here for plastic surgery.”

  “You mean you’re in the Beauty Belt?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Your mother and sister are addicted to those Korean soap operas,” Dad said. “I can’t help overhearing all the gossip those women talk about.”

  “Bet it’ll be a relief to be back in London.”

  “You really can’t go home again, but this is no longer my home. England is my home now.”

  “That’s awfully melancholy, Dad.”

  “Wait till you grow old, son. Melancholy has its own comforts.”

  NINE

  As we waited for Kareena’s operation to finish, Ariel seemed unusually rapt with whatever was on her smartphone.

  “Hey guys, you might want to look at his,” she said.

  She held up her phone. The screen featured a newspaper report of a producer found hanging in his penthouse in New York, a man who had been accused of assaulting multiple actresses. A suicide note confessing to it all was found next to his body.

  “Good riddance,” I said.

  “There’s more,” Ariel said.

  She scrolled to another news report of a manager accused of molesting young male actors for decades, found with a plastic bag over his face in either a suicide or a case of autoerotic asphyxiation gone wrong. The Los Angeles district attorney was still reviewing reports against him to decide whether to prosecute.

  “All these incidents happened last night,” Ariel said. “Within hours of each other.”