by Fritz Galt
Women drifted across the square, their colorful saris glittering from myriad tiny mirrors. They demonstrated neither energy nor enthusiasm, like ghosts passing over the earth.
A fruit merchant touched Mick’s sleeve and gently tried to draw him into his shop. He politely declined and the man’s low, persistent pleas dissipated in the enormity of the fort’s looming walls.
Alec looked at him. “So this is India?”
“Er, not exactly. Seems a bit quiet to me.”
“Where to next?”
He looked around the bazaar before him. “Your guess is as good as mine. Want to buy some camel leather?”
Alec shot him a dubious look. “I’ve had enough camel for a lifetime, thank you.”
“Personally,” he said, shivering on the shaded street, “I could use a warm shower and a soft bed.”
“You don’t look so great.”
“I feel like hell. I’ve got the chills today.”
“Okay. Let’s check into a hotel.”
“Hotel?” a man asked.
Mick looked down at a white-bearded man squatting just below their elbows by a pyramid of cauliflower.
“Where’s the nearest hotel?” Mick asked.
“Allow me to show you the way.”
The man unfolded his legs, dusted off the baggy white Jodhpur pants that were fastened around his ankles and spoke briefly to his wife in Rajasthani.
The woman nodded suspiciously from under her shawl and pointed a long, bony finger down a nearby lane.
The three men walked a short distance until the old man stopped at a haveli leaning against the castle walls. The sign above the door read “Hotel Jaisal Castle.”
“This will do,” Mick said. “Thank you.”
The man didn’t leave. Rather, he tried to pry the pack off Mick’s back and carry it into the old building. Mick laughed and handed the man a few coins, which he took and left.
“He looks stronger than you do,” Alec observed. “You shouldn’t be so stubborn.”
“Old habits die hard.”
They entered the cool, dark building, and while Alec made arrangements at the desk, Mick collapsed in a leather chair.
Soon they were mounting several flights of rickety stairs and found their room.
Mick fell into bed at once and pulled the covers up to his chin. Meanwhile, Alec spread the curtains wide and flung open the windows. A blistering wave of heat wafted in.
“That feels good,” Mick said between chattering teeth.
He rolled to one side and drank in a magnificent view of the yellow desert where it abutted the blue wall of the sky.
His shoulders began to convulse again. His fingers felt icy as he held his jaw, trying to prevent his teeth from biting his tongue.
The last he heard was the irregular sound of his labored breathing before the world went black.
Something roused him.
Maybe it was the accented voices talking tersely nearby.
“The shot will bring him about. Then you’ll need a nurse to keep food and liquids in him. He’ll need complete bed rest.”
He assumed from the brisk speech that a doctor was talking. But who was the patient?
“While I have the blood sample analyzed, he should take these medicines. Your nurse can administer eighty cc’s once a day.”
He watched the doctor hand a bottle of clear fluid and a hypodermic needle across the bed.
He turned to see who took the medicine. It was Alec.
“Oh, crap,” Mick said, and squeezed his eyes shut. He was the patient.
“Are you having a nurse?” the doctor asked.
“I haven’t looked for one,” Alec said.
“Then I’ll send you my daughter.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Alec said. “I know doctors and nurses are in short supply these days.”
“The entire city is devastated. Devastated. We have a canal built near here. It has only served to spread the disease into the depths of Rajasthan. No family has been spared.”
“What’s a reasonable recovery time for him?”
“Malaria’s symptoms can change dramatically from day to day. Until I know which form of the disease he has met with, I won’t know the exact cure. In fact, it may eventually worsen. Even if he feels like he’s going great guns tomorrow, don’t let him out of bed for the space of several weeks.”
Alec thanked the doctor, handed him some money and closed the door behind him.
The space of several weeks?
Now sweat was soaking through his sheets.
On their second day at the haveli, a nurse arrived. She was pleasant and young and had a gentle touch as she swabbed Mick’s face and chest with a sponge.
“We’re losing time,” he said to whomever might be in the room.
He wasn’t aware if someone answered, and he fell asleep again.
Several times that morning, he felt someone propping his head up and pouring a weak form of soda between his lips.
Then he tasted a lump of chocolate on his tongue.
“What are you feeding me?” he asked.
This time there was a response. It was Alec.
“She seems intent on curing you with Thums-Up, Kit Kats and Cadbury Chocolate.”
Mick shook his head, but it didn’t clear entirely. It was a rare moment between chills and fever. “Did we get our passports?”
Alec shook his head and began to pace the room.
“Damn it, who’s going to meet us?”
“Who’s going to meet me, you mean. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Like hell, I’m not.”
A gentle hand was all it took to press him back against the lumpy mattress.
The next morning, Mick heard a knock at the door.
He opened one eye. The room was empty.
Struggling, he swung his feet over the edge of his bed. He threw a blanket over his bare shoulders and tried to walk. His pace was unsteady at best as he crossed a silk carpet to the door.
A stranger who was roughly his age stood there, dark-skinned, barefoot, white shirt hanging over his waist and a sloppy gray turban wrapped around his head.
“Do you have a free second?” the man asked, and wedged a foot into the doorway.
The lack of proper introductions caught Mick off guard. He allowed the door to swing open, and the man stepped in.
“Passport is there,” the man said in a half whisper.
Glancing out the door and open windows, he handed Mick a blue passport.
He looked at the slim booklet. It was a fairly professional reproduction of an American tourist passport.
He flipped to the first page. To the right of his mug shot, he read his new identity, Liam Kelly of Boston. He rolled his eyes. He hardly looked Irish-American with his heavy Pueblo features. Now Alec. He might look Irish.
The situation confused him in a vague sort of way.
“Where’s my brother?”
“Already going is there, sir.”
“He left? Without me?”
“Yesterday he is going. I think so.”
“Yesterday or tomorrow?”
The man swung his head in agreement. “Oh, yes. I think so.”
“Who’s taking him?” Mick demanded.
The man refused to answer and sneaked looks around the room.
“Then, who’s taking me? Who’s my guide?”
“You’re making a move, sir?”
“Yes. I want to go immediately.”
“Okay, okay, sahib,” the man said. He dug an arm into a large plastic bag he was carrying. “You want to buy? Good price. Nice quality.”
He handed over a down-filled parka, climbing gloves and boots with spiked cleats.
“Are you selling them to me, or are you my guide?”
The man’s eyes shone. “Oh yes, sir.”
Chapter 48
Damn Alec. So he thought he could catch Abu Khan by himself. Mick threw a ring of sweat off his forehead.
His gu
ide sat beside him in a motorized rickshaw as they careened toward the bus station.
Alec had never even met Khan.
Mick paid the driver and stepped out onto the dusty square. A tired old bus faced him, several Rajasthanis waiting patiently in line at the door. Men’s white sleeves hung out the windows toward the rear of the bus and women’s bangle-covered arms rested on the open windows toward the front.
Barking orders, the guide scattered the line and hustled Mick directly up to the bus. He impatiently thrust money at the conductor and demanded two tickets for Bikaner. The conductor slapped two tickets into the guide’s hand and squeezed Mick and the guide between two women on the front seat.
Wordlessly, the women gathered their parcels and found an empty seat nearby.
He was so mad at Alec, he wasn’t about to apologize to anybody.
Within minutes, the bus spun out of Jaisalmer in a cloud of dust.
Mick trained his eyes on the wavering desert horizon while he absorbed the bumps.
“So what’s my brother’s name, anyway?” he asked.
The guide stared at him blankly.
“His name,” Mick repeated. “What is my brother’s name?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t understand me, do you? I’m asking you a question. Do you know my brother’s name?”
The man jumped in his seat, turned, dug a slip of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Mick.
Scrawled in shaky, schoolbook printing were the words: “JUAN RODRIGUES, SAN FRANCISCO.”
Mick stared at him.
“Brother name is becoming,” the guide explained.
Mick shook his head. “I can’t believe this.” Of the two brothers, Mick was the more Hispanic-looking, whereas Alec was blond-haired and blue-eyed, the last person on earth to have the name Juan Rodriguez.
Dust and a wall of oppressive heat from the open windows began to erode Mick’s resistance. He fought blurred vision and a pounding headache. Sweat washed over his body, and his heart raced.
He lay his head back and closed his eyes. The bus’ suspension creaked with every crack in the road. Somewhere in the rear of the bus, a goat bleated.
He heard nothing. Light and shade flickered over his closed eyes.
He lay flat on a hard surface and felt no movement.
He dug his fingertips downward and found only dust and gravel. His forehead had stopped perspiring.
At last, curiosity forced Mick to open his eyes.
He lay on his back in the desert beside the road. The guide stood over him looking up and down the empty stretch of highway. Behind Mick stood a metal bus stand with no roof. It was the only structure on the landscape.
“What are we doing here?” he asked, his voice dry and weak.
The guide fell down beside him on his knees and sputtered some prayerful phrases.
“What’s the matter?” Mick asked.
The guide dropped his clasped hands and grabbed Mick’s shoulders. “Death is not becoming.”
“I’d agree with that,” he said, trying to sit up. “Not very becoming at all.” He squinted down the road. “I think I see help on the way.”
The guide scrambled to his feet. “Allahu Akbar. We are needing it.”
Mick watched a convoy of dark trucks approaching slowly in the shimmering heat. He shivered.
“Are we in India?” he asked.
“Indian Army, sahib,” the guide said excitedly.
“Calm down. It’s okay. We should expect the Indian Army here in India.”
The guide ran into the middle of the road and began waving his arms. The long line of Land Rovers drew to a halt.
A soldier with a white arm patch walked briskly to Mick’s side. “Fever?” he asked.
“Not at present. Chills right now,” Mick said.
“Malaria?”
“Probably.”
“Water,” the medic shouted, and a soldier trotted over with a canteen. To Mick’s surprise, he tasted metallic tea on his lips. The liquid seemed to fill the cracks in his parched mouth and throat.
“Are you on medication?”
“I was. I’m on the road now, and I don’t have my nurse along with me.”
“Can we take you somewhere?”
Mick smiled. “Where are you going?”
“Kargil.”
“That would be fine with me.”
“Sorry, old chap. We’ll drop you off at the nearest city with a hospital.”
He wasn’t surprised that Kargil was off limits. It was a town at the northern end of the line of confrontation with Pakistan. Past Srinagar at the tip of Kashmir, it was the scene of Pakistan’s largest military offensive.
Two men lifted him onto a stretcher and picked him off the ground.
As they approached a field ambulance, he focused on the troops. They were well dressed and efficient, not the regulars that he had often seen guarding nuclear facilities.
Nor were they driving shabby vehicles. It appeared to be an elite force. Then, as he was carried past the vehicle’s door, he spotted an emblem with a black cat, its back arched.
“You’re the Black Cats,” he said.
The medic nodded. “Sorry for the rush. We can’t be stuck up for long.” He sat beside Mick, who took up the full length of the ambulance.
“Do you mind if my guide jumps in, too?”
“He is a very dirty fellow.”
Mick looked out the back door where the guide was peering nervously into the ambulance. “I’ll take responsibility for him.”
“Well, you don’t have any septic wounds. I’ll allow him.”
The engine roared to life, and they lurched forward.
“So, what were we doing lying in the desert?” the medic asked.
“I guess my guide thought I was dead.”
The medic gave a belly laugh. He was a young man, fresh out of medical school, no doubt.
“Are you a doctor?” Mick asked.
“Yes. I read my degree mid Feb this year.”
“Where?”
“Bombay.”
“I thought I recognized your accent. What’s the latest on the new malaria?”
The man studied him carefully. “Do you think you might have it?”
“I don’t know. The blood test had not come back from the lab when I left Jaisalmer.”
“I hope you don’t mind my sticking you with this question, but it’s rather odd that you jumped at the opportunity to go to Kashmir at this juncture in time. For one thing, you’re sick. Secondly, you do need permission from the Center, you know.”
Mick looked at the guide. “Do we have permission?”
The guide didn’t understand, so the medic repeated the question in Hindi.
The guide suddenly nodded and pulled a slip of paper from his shirt pocket. The medic read it over. “I’m glad you filled up this form when you did, because they’re not allowing in civilians from early this week.”
“Why? What’s happening now?”
“The Americans have sent an aircraft carrier group toward Karachi. Pakistan is on maximum alert. Fighting is in full swing along the LoC. It seems related to this malaria business, but I’m not in the know.”
“What is your mission here?”
The medic shook his head. “If you’re wanting to find that out, maybe you should chat with one of the other chaps.”
“I’d like to.”
He closed his eyes as new chills sent his teeth chattering and his limbs shaking. Growing in the back of his mind was the germ of an idea. Screw his guide and the militant underground. He was with India’s elite counter-terrorism squad. And they were headed for Kashmir, for God’s sake.
He would rather talk with an officer, and ditch the guide.
“Just keep me alive,” he told the medic, and slipped into the icy blackness once again.
In a wooden shelter warmed by a wood-burning stove, a mullah was reciting religious passages. Suddenly, Beethoven’s Fifth jingled in Abu Kahn’s po
cket.
He held up his hand to stop the mullah. “Excuse me for a quick moment,” he told the priest. He looked apologetically at Camille, who stood beside him, her head covered in full purdah dress.
He turned away from her and answered the phone.
A moment later, he squeezed the cell phone until his knuckles turned white. He had not felt so mistreated in his life.
“If al-Qaeda’s Supreme Council withdraws their offer of membership,” he said, “I’ll take it as a sign of bad faith.”
“Not at all,” Osama bin Laden said weakly over the degraded land line. “The council is just not interested in expanding their small number.”
“They’re not interested in expansion at all.”
“That’s not it.”
“Well, I don’t know what their bone of contention is, but if they’re going to be woolly-headed about this, I’ve work to do whilst they make up their minds.”
“Of course. And how is your project taking shape?”
Abu looked out the dusty window at his armed camp. He had summoned the best-qualified militants in all of India. He had communists from Kerala, Tamil Tigers from Tamil Nadu, Christians from Karnataka and mobsters from Mumbai. He had assembled experienced guerillas from India’s far east, socialists from Orissa and Buddhist untouchables from Madhya Pradesh. His camp was international. He had Pakistani paramilitary from Azad Kashmir, disaffected Nepalese Gurkhas from the British Army, ethnic Chinese Uyghurs from Xinjiang Province, Afghan Mujahideen, Burmese dissidents from Mizoram and Bangladeshi nationalists from West Bengal.
He and his group were establishing cells in all major cities of the subcontinent. They were stashing arms and explosives all around the country and documenting all potential adversaries to his new regime.
“As you know,” he began, “I called for a suspension of the Constitution of India and I declared a state of emergency. If New Delhi refuses to budge, I will distribute the contaminated blood far and wide throughout the West, and I’ll withhold my vaccine.”
“Have you seen any sign that they’re accepting your demands?”
“It’s too early to tell. Meanwhile the Hanuman type is decimating the Indian population. They’ll see the light sooner rather than later.”