Neptune's Tears

by Susan Waggoner

  ‘You poor baby,’ Rani said. ‘I can’t believe this is the first time you’ve been in love.’

  ‘You mean you’ve been in love more than once?’

  ‘I’m in love every day,’ Rani said. ‘I love Josh’s smile and Ian’s blue eyes. I love it that Sanjay is Hindu like me so I never have to explain being a vegetarian. I love Caleb because he’s a brainiac but kind of goofy too.’

  ‘It isn’t the same,’ Zee said.

  ‘I know.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe some day. Oh, did you check your mail today? The French are invading Cornwall for Bastille Day. Some sort of huge fair. And because of that seminar we did in Paris we’re invited as special guests. Listen to this.’ Rani pulled out her invitation and read. ‘Party like it’s 1789! Join us in Cornwall for a day of traditional food and fun worthy of Marie Antoinette herself. Amusements include la Comédie-Française, jeux de hazard, danses traditionnelles, pantomimes, jongleurs et montgolfières fantastiques. Doesn’t it sound thrilling?’

  ‘Rani, do you know what even half of those words mean?’

  ‘No, but I’m sure they’re fun. A week on Saturday, and it’s all free. They even sent us vactrain passes.’ She paused, caught by Zee’s expression. ‘Oh no. Oh no, don’t tell me you’re even thinking of not going.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Rani. I just don’t think I feel like traipsing across England right now.’

  ‘But you’ve never been to Cornwall! It’s beautiful. You can’t say you’ve truly lived in England if you haven’t been to Cornwall. And you can’t stay cooped up here forever.’

  ‘I know, but —’

  ‘But nothing,’ Rani said. ‘You have to come. We’ve been specially invited.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Zee said. What if she went and David showed up after all, and she wasn’t here to see him?

  ‘Okay,’ Rani said. ‘If you’re not going, then neither am I.’

  ‘But you’re looking forward to it!’

  ‘Yes, but if you’re not up to going, you certainly aren’t up to being left alone. I’m not leaving you here to mope on your own.’

  Zee sighed. Rani knew her like she knew herself, and used it to her advantage. She knew Zee would never make her miss the festivities, and played it to the hilt.

  ‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll come.’

  ‘You might even meet someone there.’ Rani smiled. ‘After all, you never know what the future holds.’

  They planned to leave early for the fair and Zee was up and dressed when Rani knocked softly at seven a.m. When the door swung open, she gasped. Rani seldom wore a sari unless she was going to a family wedding or celebration. This morning she was not only wearing traditional clothes but was dressed in the most beautiful sari Zee had ever seen, saffron-coloured with an intricately patterned border in a hundred shades of orange and crimson. She wore gold bracelets on both wrists and on her feet the blue crystal-embellished sandals Zee had brought her. In jeans and a T-shirt, Rani was a pretty, mischievous girl with dancing eyes. In a sari, she was a breathtaking beauty, the image of her great-great-grandmother, the Bollywood star.

  ‘Rani! You look like a princess!’

  ‘It’s the oddest thing,’ Rani explained as they headed for the train station. ‘I was going to wear my usual, when I heard great-great-grandmother Nalini telling me to wear this sari. Isn’t that weird? But no one ignored what Nalini said, so here I am.’ Rani laughed. ‘Who knows? Maybe I’m meant to meet a handsome Hindu prince!’

  Rani had been right that Cornwall was beautiful. When they emerged from the vactrain, they boarded an airbus that took them up into the giant hills that bordered the ocean and fell away to the sea. The air was clear and bright with sunlight that sparkled like diamonds on the water below. The hilltop was covered with booths and stands manned by people in peasant garb while gorgeously dressed members of the soon-to-fall aristocracy strolled the wide grassy lawn. Rani, in her saffron-coloured sari looked oddly at home next to the pink, pale blue and yellow satins of the old order.

  They strolled from booth to booth, enjoying the jugglers and trying to decide what to eat. Rani spotted a stall that was making chocolates as they had before the Revolution, pressing small moulds into a tray of powdered sugar, then removing the moulds and pouring melted chocolate into the indentations.

  As they walked, Rani kept looking over the crowd.

  ‘Looking for that Indian prince?’ Zee teased.

  ‘Something like that,’ Rani said.

  Finally they settled on strawberry crêpes and found space at one of the tables decorated with red, white and blue cockades and small French flags. With the warm July sun falling on her and the taste of sweetness and strawberries in her mouth, the world seemed almost hopeful again.

  ‘Thanks for making me come, Rani,’ Zee said. ‘I guess you’re right. Life does go on.’

  Rani smiled at her, but didn’t seem to be listening. ‘Oh my gosh, there’s Lucy Willis,’ she said, staring across the crowd. ‘We were best friends in primary school. I can’t believe it. Do you mind if I say hello? I’ll be back in just a second.’

  Zee motioned her to go and went back to her crêpe. She hadn’t had such an appetite in weeks, and contemplated finishing Rani’s crêpe if she didn’t come back soon.

  ‘Excuse me, is this seat taken?’

  Zee froze, knowing why and not knowing in the same instant. She looked up.

  Him.

  Her David. With his grey eyes and straight black brows. Nothing in her life had ever felt as wonderful as the moment when their arms went around each other once again. She pressed her face against his chest and inhaled deeply, taking in his scent, his warmth, and his love for her. In that single breath, her entire world expanded.

  ‘I thought I’d never see you again. I thought . . .’ She stopped, the salt of her own trickling tears in her mouth.

  ‘Shh, shh, Zee.’ When he kissed her, she tasted like fresh air and strawberries. The day would still come when he would have to give her up, but after she left Prambanan he realised what she’d known all along – that every day they could be together would be one of the best days of their lives.

  She pulled her head back and for an endless moment they stood like that, looking into each other’s eyes. ‘For as long as we have, then,’ she said at last, and he realised her fierce courage was greater than his own.

  Not long after that, Rani came up to them. ‘See.’ She beamed. ‘I told you you might meet someone. I just didn’t say who.’

  ‘You knew about this?’

  ‘Of course I did. And now that I’ve done my duty for true love, there’s a cute guy named Etienne over there who’s promised me an absolutely thrilling ride in his montgolfière, so I’ll catch up with you later.’

  There it was again, that funny French word that had been in the invitation: montgolfière. It must be a kind of airscooter, Zee thought, or an antique car. ‘Be careful,’ she called after Rani. ‘You know what your mother would say about riding in fast cars with strange boys.’

  Rani looked back at Zee and laughed. ‘Of course. But she’s said nothing about riding in strange cars with fast boys!’ The musical notes of her laugh were torn and carried by the wind, and the last Zee heard from her as she vanished into the crowd.

  David was looking a little chagrined. ‘I hope you don’t think I put Rani in danger,’ he said, ‘but they’re still monitoring me, so I needed a place where we could meet in public, and I needed a way of making sure you’d be here.’

  ‘Won’t they wonder why you’re here on your own, though?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not alone. Mia’s floating around here somewhere. With a new boyfriend, of course. Really, she and Rani are two of a kind.’

  They spent the next hour drifting around the fair, then found a grassy spot looking out over the water and sat, leaning against each other in the warm sun. Suddenly, David felt Zee’s muscles go tight against him. She leaped to her feet and stood trembling.

  ‘Zee, what is it?’

>   A large hot-air balloon had come into view several miles south and appeared to be coming towards them. A second soon followed, then a third. Silhouetted against the sun, Zee saw it clearly – the inverted teardrop shape of each balloon, the passenger gondola below it and the fretwork of cables that tethered the two together perfectly mimicked a shuttlecock.

  David was on his feet too, putting a calming hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s okay, Zee. They’re just hot-air balloons.’

  ‘In French,’ she said. ‘What are they called in French?’

  ‘Montgolfières.’

  Zee went rigid with fear. She realised now that her dreams had been a series of warnings – warnings she had once again failed to interpret correctly. And because she’d failed they were now all in danger. And Rani – lovely, lively Rani – she feared was in the most danger of all.

  ‘There’s going to be an anarchist attack,’ she said. ‘From one of those balloons. Go and find a policeman or a security guard and bring him back here as quickly as you can. Drag him, if you have to.’

  While David was gone, Zee called Major Dawson and told him what was happening. ‘We have to stop them. Are there any MI5 here?’

  ‘No,’ the Major said. ‘No, they’ve been spread very thin lately.’

  ‘Then we have to stop them ourselves. Can you help us, Major?

  Everything that happened next seemed to take hours to unfold, just as it did in the interviews and written statements gathered later. In reality, events took little more than an hour. David had found a policeman and explained the situation, but his demands for proof were so loud Major Dawson must have heard them over the handheld. ‘Ask him if he’s ever heard of suicide by brain implosion,’ the Major said, ‘and tell him he’s about to talk to the man who invented it.’

  After the policeman spoke to the Major, step one was to order an immediate halt to further balloon launches. Then they found a car and drove the few short miles to the launch site. None of the four balloons remaining on the ground looked like the one in her dream, or triggered a response in Zee, which meant they would have to go aloft and try to identify and chase down the threat.

  ‘One thing you all need to know,’ the Major said. ‘We don’t think this is a standard shock bomb. The threat assessment team thinks it’s biochemical and nearly one hundred per cent lethal. If it’s released over that crowd, almost everyone in it will die within a few hours. That means it’s lethal to you as well. This is strictly a volunteer mission. No one will think less of you for bowing out.’

  Zee, David, the policeman and the balloon pilot who’d agreed to take them up looked at each other.

  ‘I’m the only one that can identify the balloon,’ Zee told David, ‘but you don’t have to go. Stay here and wait, I’ll be okay.’

  David took her hand. ‘You’re not going alone.’

  Finally, the pilot said, ‘Let’s do it, then.’

  Despite the fact that the balloon was equipped with air jets and a modern steering mechanism, they rose with maddening slowness. As they did, Zee tried to look down into the gondolas of the grounded balloons. Was Rani in one of them? There hadn’t been time to find out. Every minute they lost brought all of them, and the hundreds of people at the fair, closer to death.

  When the balloon rose to the top of the cliffs, they could see six other balloons. Two of them Zee had already seen and ruled out. That left four. She handed her handheld to David, who took over relaying the Major’s directions to the others. Zee closed her eyes and cleared her mind. She saw again the balloon in her dreams, its brilliant colours and intricate patterns. When she opened her eyes, the pilot had brought them much closer to the other balloons, and Zee knew at once which balloon it was. She also knew it was the balloon Rani was in, for even at this distance she could see an edge of her saffron sari fluttering in the wind. Oh, Rani, why, just this once, couldn’t you have said no to the exciting boy offering you a ride? Quietly, Zee reached for the edge of the gondola and gripped the rail to steady herself.

  The Major’s plan was for the pilot to manoeuvre their balloon between the anarchist’s and the crowd on the ground, then force the anarchist out over an uninhabited stretch of land. By the time the pilot had been able to do this, Major Dawson had pulled up information on the range of the policeman’s standard issue compression gun as well as a diagram of a balloon similar to the one Rani and the anarchist were in.

  They were close enough now to make out Rani and the young man she’d called Etienne. Etienne was no match for their own pilot, who was able to easily get within firing range. Zee had willed herself not to listen when David relayed the details of the Major’s plan, telling the policeman where to shoot to send the balloon plunging swiftly to the ground, without giving the anarchist a chance to release the biochemical spores or to return fire.

  ‘He’s getting close to the sea,’ David informed the Major.

  ‘Then get in fast and take your shot,’ the Major advised. ‘If he releases his load over the water it will be an ecological disaster of unimaginable proportions.’

  Zee was shaking. It was freezing up there. But when she looked at the policeman, she saw that he was perspiring with fear. He was young, not much older than David, and firing his weapon had clearly never been part of his career plan.

  ‘Okay,’ the pilot said, ‘in about a minute we’ll be in position.’

  The silence was unendurable. Then, when they were almost there, the policeman froze. ‘Are you sure that’s the right one?’ he asked Zee. ‘I can’t – I won’t – fire without your say so.’

  She had to give the go ahead. She knew she had to, but the minute she did, Rani’s life would be over. She looked across to the other gondola, close enough now for her gaze and Rani’s to meet. The intensity of their feelings formed a bridge for all that was in their hearts, and Zee felt Rani’s thoughts as strongly as if they were her own.

  Wrong boy again. My fault, Zee. Not yours.

  Never dropping her gaze, Rani kissed her fingertips and tapped them against her chest.

  Zee felt a tremendous throb, as if in that one gesture Rani had conveyed all of her lifeforce to Zee and set her free at the same time.

  Not your fault, Zee.

  Then in one fluid movement, Rani placed her slim foot on the rail of the gondola, brought herself to standing position, and stepped off into the air. Her sari wrapped and fluttered around her like a golden flame all the way to the ground.

  ‘Shoot!’ David yelled. ‘She’s sure, and her best friend just gave up her life to prove it to you. Don’t you see? Rani knew Zee would never give the go ahead with her in the gondola. That’s why she jumped. So shoot, before he shoots us and releases that stuff all over Cornwall.’

  The policeman fired, but his shot was a second too late. The anarchist managed a volley of shots before he collapsed, and Zee reeled as the balloon started to plunge. She couldn’t see what happened to the pilot, or to the policeman, but she and David stayed together and held each other all the way down.

  CHAPTER 17

  ALPHA AND OMEGA

  It was Mia who found them. Zee could hear her yelling at David to wake up. Wake up, get up and get out of there.

  Zee tried to move but couldn’t. She was surrounded by something firm and white. It crushed against her rib cage, forcing the air from her lungs. Even her face was covered, and she had to twist her neck just to breathe. If it hadn’t been for David’s hand still clutching her fingertips, she might have thought she was dead. It was the air bags, she finally realised, trapping the four of them in the tangled positions they’d fallen in. Finally, Mia got David out of the tipped gondola, and this gave Zee enough slack to slide out as well.

  ‘The other two?’ she asked Mia.

  ‘They’ll be out for a while,’ Mia replied confidently, as if she’d had something to do with it.

  ‘Good. David, Mia’s right. You have to go.’

  ‘I’m not leaving you, Zee.’

  ‘But you can’t be found here. This was
an anarchist attack. They’ll want to interview each of us.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Mia said, and Zee shot her a grateful look. ‘There’s no way this isn’t going to get back to Omura. You two can’t be found together.’

  ‘But the others will remember that there were four of us in the gondola. What will you say?’

  ‘That you were someone I just met. That all I know about you is that your name is Reggie and you said you’re from Bournemouth, or Weymouth, I don’t remember. Hurry,’ Zee cried. ‘You have to be gone before they get here.’

  ‘All right, but I’m not going back to London without you.’ He looked beseechingly at Mia. ‘Will you stay one more night, to give us cover?’

  Mia rolled her eyes but agreed. She wrote a number on a scrap of paper and thrust it into Zee’s hand. ‘Call me when they’ve finished with you. I’ll come and get you. Safer me than David.’

  Zee did not breathe easily until they were safely away.

  The hardest part was calling Rani’s parents. Zee insisted on doing it herself. She didn’t want them hearing from a stranger that their daughter was dead. Pending identification by next of kin, Rani’s body was being held at the hospital morgue, and Zee told the Kapoors she would meet them there. There was nothing she could do to change things, but she could at least make sure Rani’s parents knew how brave their daughter was, and that her courage had helped an MI5 team recover their first undetonated anarchist bomb. What they learned from it would help them trace members of the group and how they operated.

  Most of the afternoon, though, was spent being interviewed by government security forces. Initially, the questions were aggressive. Since her best friend had died with an anarchist, both she and Rani were suspects. However, once the head of the investigative unit spoke to Major Dawson, the atmosphere changed. The questioning shifted to things she might have observed or felt, and since she was no longer a suspect, their interest in Reggie from Bournemouth disappeared as well. By the time they finished, she’d convinced them that Rani was an innocent victim, and took some comfort in knowing that her friend’s parents wouldn’t be confronted with accusing questions about their daughter.