“And the Anti-Corruption Squad might have been on to the lot of them, and used Derek’s arrest to flush them out. Unfortunately, Derek didn’t have real evidence or names, and they had to keep sweating him in case he was lying and protecting either his sources or them. The squad must have suspected who they wanted to go after, but these officials might have been too well connected for them to risk going after without concrete evidence. That they had the privilege of being sent to Hong Kong was a sign of their high status within the party.
“So Derek’s original source for the book might have been the squad themselves, the information passed to him via proxies in Hong Kong. I started to have a feeling that Marie might be one of those proxies. She might be the one who helped Derek write the book after all. After all, who else could he trust enough to do that, and for a book like this? He probably didn’t think it was anything more than another gossipy book like the ones he usually published as his company’s bread and butter, and wasn’t expecting to get snatched and spirited across the border for it. Perhaps Marie didn’t expect this either, and in desperation, she called me to help get him back. I’d known her since secondary school in London, so of course I’d come back and help my friend in her time of need. Did Marie know she was acting as their agent or was she as much of a patsy as Derek was?
“That means they might have known about me all along.
“Bugger. Piss! Shit! Buggeration!
“For all my vaunted attempts to remain anonymous, in the shadows, I may have been operating at their leisure all this time, a useful tool that they let run free. Did they know about my hacking skills? Or did they just know me as Wong Ong Meng’s black sheep daughter who worked as an analyst for Golden Sentinels and therefore was a deniable third party who helped them maintain their cover?
“I’m clever, and clever enough to know that us clever people will always get tripped up by our cleverness. You’re never as safe as you think you are, no matter how much precaution you take. I hate that. To be clever is to be cursed with knowing that you will never, ever be clever enough, or safe enough.
“This was the chess game being played, and we were all pawns. Did Marie know? Was she a willing asset? Was I always part of their stratagem or the unknown factor that delivered the final piece of their puzzle to them? I was never going to get any clear answers, and probably shouldn’t bother trying.
“I did my duty next: briefed Golden Sentinels Hong Kong and Roger. I went in the office and gave them the rundown, with Roger on speakerphone in London, staying late at the office to hear how this all turned out. Unsurprisingly, Cheryl was there and so was Marcie Holder. Marcie must have been chuffed to have some new information on how they played their games in China. Roger seemed pleased. He always seemed pleased with a successful result from an international case. He said he had spoken a day before to some prospective Chinese clients who were eager to have Golden Sentinels on retainer for jobs, to be paid at top rate. Apparently, what I had been up to in Hong Kong for the last few weeks impressed them enough to want to become clients. How did these people know about me unless they had ties to the government?
“This was my cue. I’ve been here long enough and I don’t want the Mainland taking any further looks at me. Time to head back to London. Cold, gray, messed-up Blighty, oh, how I’ve missed you. Even Benjamin and his sarky South London silliness. There, I’ve said it, Benjamin. I actually missed you. I’ll see you all in a few days.”
TWELVE
I woke with a splitting headache, in a tangle of sheets and limbs.
. . . Wait, there were more limbs than just Julia’s.
My eyes focused and a familiar tattoo of Kali caught my attention. Then the arm the tattoo rested on. Julia sighed and shifted, and Ariel rolled over to me and curled around me.
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The night before was a blur. We were at a bar. I remember Ariel whipping out a bottle of tequila. Then another. I’d been wound up so tight for the last few days that the booze hit me like a tsunami. Julia was laughing at something I said. Jarrod, Reyes, and Mikkelford stayed with the car and the rest of the guns, even though they said all imminent threats had been neutralized. Jarrod gave the nod for Ariel to go off to the room with Julia and me, where we continued to drink and talk. Then I didn’t remember when we went beyond just talking.
I sat up and looked around for my clothes. Saw the used condoms wrapped in tissue paper and dropped in the plastic wastebasket. Oh, thank God we remembered condoms!
And of course Kali was in the room watching me. This was the payoff she’d been waiting for. I should have known. She sat in the chair, her legs crossed, licking her lips. This was the last thing I wanted to happen with Ariel. Now we’d never be rid of her. This would bind her to Julia and me even more than ever! Kali seemed to be reading my mind and shook her head in amused sympathy. Thanks a lot.
I got dressed and went outside. Jarrod and the men were gathered at the cars.
“Water?” Jarrod said, holding out a bottle of mineral water from a small cooler they had in the backseat of their SUV. I murmured something and accepted it, took several large gulps. The winds seemed to be dying down, and Reyes was sitting in the SUV, listening to the news. The fires seemed to be subsiding. Traffic on the freeways was finally easing up, so we were clear to go.
Hamid was long gone. The moment traffic opened up, he had Williams and DuBois drive him back to his hotel in Beverly Hills.
“Confirmed the rendezvous to hand over the package to Hamid’s military attaché,” Jarrod said, indicating his smartphone. “Final stretch, brother. We get the hell out of the Valley, up towards the hills again, near the woods, for the handover. You can call your people to pick you and the princess up before the attaché shows up for the guns.”
“Isn’t it a bit irresponsible for Ariel to go off and get drunk the night before an op?” I asked. “Even if this thing is almost over?”
“She dances to her own tune, brother,” Jarrod said. “Besides, she never gets hungover. At least, we never saw that happening. Always on point on the job.”
“She’s a damn good driver and wingman,” Reyes said.
“Sniping skills ain’t bad either,” Mikkelford said.
“She’s solid backup,” Reyes said. “Team player, even if she’s a pain in the ass. Knows her shit. Five-by-five.”
This didn’t reassure me about her mental or moral state.
Eventually, Julia and Ariel showered and came out. We bought breakfast from a drive-through and headed to the rendezvous point. I still took the wheel of the car, Julia next to me while Ariel rode in the back, guns loaded.
“So Julia said you were thinking about quitting,” Ariel said. “After all this fun?”
“Fun? We’re running guns to a CIA-backed oppressive regime in the Middle East. They’re going to be used to kill people, and I’m party to that. I already got an entire family killed back in London,” I said.
“They were a bad family,” Ariel said. “Bad, bad, bad.”
“Ariel, they’re not a bunch of naughty dogs. They were people.”
I didn’t even stop to ask how the hell she knew about the Harkingdales, but of course she would know about them. Interzone kept tabs on us. Bastards.
“Dude, you are in sooo much denial,” she said. “I saw your face during the shoot-out. I saw the look in your eyes when the sinkhole opened. You were so fucking alive you were ready to explode.”
I glanced at Julia. She was watching us intently. When I turned back to Ariel, Lord Krishna was standing behind her looking at me, his arms crossed, a smug smile on his face. I didn’t like where this was going.
“Come on, Ravi,” Ariel said. “Don’t you remember the Bhagavad Gita?”
Of course.
“I know that’s a rhetorical question,” I said. “Don’t tell me you’ve read it. Which edition?”
“The classic translation, of course.” She smiled. “The one the Hare Krishnas used to try to give out
at airports. That one was actually shocked that I not only accepted it, but gave him money and asked about it.”
“You read all of it?”
“Hey, deployments are long, boring periods of waiting broken up by moments of sheer violence. I get a lot of reading done on the job.”
I sighed.
“Where is this going, Ariel?”
“Think about it. It’s about Arjuna feeling doubt and questioning whether he should keep going.”
“So now you’re saying I’m Arjuna?”
“You’re in the same place he was in the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna tells him he should keep doing what he’s doing because of his obligation and his duty. It’s pretty much his lot in life. It’s his mission. It’s his path. What would he do if he quit? He’s a warrior, so shut the hell up and get on with it.”
“Thanks for taking a key epic text in Hindu culture and making it all about me,” I said. “If I were a flaming narcissist, I would have thought every single religious text I read back when I was doing religious studies was about me.”
“Ravi, you’re all about doing what’s right,” Ariel said. “You can’t help it. You have the most developed superego I have ever seen. And you keep beating yourself up over it.”
I saw Krishna saying all this to Arjuna in parallel to Ariel and me. This was starting to piss me off.
“So you’re saying we just survived an epic battle in the last few days?” I said.
“And we came out of the other side,” Ariel said, eyes ablaze. “The fire in the hills is finally dying out. We passed through a crucible.”
“And the San Fernando Valley has been our field of dharma,” I said.
“You’re getting the picture,” Ariel said, relishing the imagery.
I turned to Jarrod.
“Does she talk about this with you all the time?” I asked.
“All the time, brother,” he said and shrugged.
I looked out over the hills, at the dark smoke plumes rising into the skies and swirling in the gusts of the Santa Ana winds. The gods stood at the edge of the precipice surveying the Valley and the hills as if they’d orchestrated it all.
THIRTEEN
We drove all the way back to the Hollywood Hills. Through Laurel Canyon, onto Mulholland Drive, past the well-off neighborhoods and up, up, up into the wooded area off the beaten track. This was where the contact was supposed to show up to collect the damn guns. This might also be the perfect place to disappear someone. Ariel cheerfully explained to Julia and me what a good spot these hills were for dumping bodies. Hikers may venture through these woods, but very few of them would go this deep off the beaten track. Coyotes, stray feral dogs, mountain lions, even the odd wolf lived and fed in these hills. They were also full of ravines for tossing a body down. Someone could disappear for years or forever up here.
Were they going to get rid of Julia and me here? Did we know too much? Were we too inconvenient? Would this be a message to Roger? A salvo in the war that was brewing between Roger and Laird Collins? Would Collins kill us just to fuck with Roger, to show his superior power and ruthlessness? Why was I thinking all this now? Was this going to be the gods’ final joke on me? For all my efforts to do the right thing, and all the failing, was I going to end up as coyote food in a ditch here in the hills?
I looked over at Julia. Was she thinking the same thing? She was as calm as I looked.
“End of the line,” Ariel said, and we got out of the car.
The gods were all here, gathered like an audience at an outdoor play.
The winds were still blowing lightly. Vayu was still gently blowing. The sky was blue and clear again. The dry air almost stung my nostrils. I pulled the car over at the side, not far from the edge of a ravine. Jarrod, Reyes, and Mikkelford were out of the black SUV and lighting up cigarettes. They were relaxed, guns holstered.
“You call your friend?” Jarrod asked. “He coming to pick you up?”
“He’s on his way,” I said.
Julia came over and stood with me as I looked over the horizon. If these was going to be my last moments on Earth, I wanted to get a good view.
“Ravi.” Ariel came up to us. Was she going to be the one to pull the trigger? “Boss wants a word,” she said, and handed me her phone.
“Ravi.” Laird Collins’s voice, smooth as ever.
“Mr. Collins. What can I do for you?”
“Oh, you’ve done plenty. I’ve been talking to Roger, and once again, our people have worked together like a smooth, well-oiled machine.”
“That’s up for debate,” I said.
“Modest as ever,” he said. “I just wanted to congratulate you for a job well done. You did the Lord’s work.”
“I don’t really see it that way.”
“Everything goes according to God’s Plan, Ravi. You just have to embrace it.”
“God’s Plan is to run guns to a violent rebel group trying to take over a government?”
“I’ve said this before, every action, every outcome we effect is another step towards bringing the return of the True Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth, Ravi. And you’ve played your part.”
“I think things are a lot more chaotic than you think, Mr. Collins. And you don’t always get the outcome you want.”
How long before I feel a bullet slamming into my back and everything going black forever?
“That’s why we must be careful how we move the pieces, Ravi,” Collins said. “Ariel told me how calm you were through this whole operation. She was impressed. I want to extend my offer of employment to you again.”
“I’ll pass, thanks.”
“Let me give you some free advice. Roger Golden only cares about money and power, without any ideals or higher purpose behind it. That means one day, he will sell you and everyone in the agency out. And he won’t lose a night’s sleep over that.”
“Thanks, but this isn’t exactly news to me.”
“And the day that happens, I want you to remember that I offered you a place.”
“Honestly, Mr. Collins, you can do much better than me.”
“You’re selling yourself short again. You have access to your gods, to signs and portents that have kept you alive and thriving. I have to know your place in God’s Plan.”
“I’m just muddling along. The gods are just watching me for shits and giggles. That’s all there is to it. You could say I’m just mentally ill. Or some kind of holy fool.”
“Holy fools and shamans speak the truth, Ravi, and have insight that no one else does.”
“You’re saying you want every card in the deck so you’d have a full set for your plans.”
“I think more in terms of chess.”
“Mr. Collins, I’m just a failed religious scholar and failed high school teacher. The things I said that you took far too seriously are just snarky jokes that any Londoner makes on a Tuesday night at the pub. We take the piss out of Morris dancing because it just looks naff.”
“ ‘Naff’?”
“It means silly. Tacky. Excuse me. British slang. I’m just earning my salary and trying not to get killed. I don’t fire guns. I don’t do targeted assassinations. And I’m certainly not happy that I’m helping you deliver guns that would start a small war that is almost certainly going to kill a lot of brown-skinned people abroad. According to your beliefs, the non-Christian citizens are going to hell for not being Christian. And that goes for me, too. I don’t agree with your vision of the world. It disgusts me. I will never come to work for you.”
“That day may come sooner than you think, Ravi,” Collins said, not a hint of emotion in his voice, still casual and courteous. “Don’t be surprised if our companies end up working together again.”
“Next time I’ll take a rain check.”
“Roger may despise me, but he’s a pragmatist, and he might have to use my services for some of his plans for the future. Sometimes I might need his, case in point you lucking into this situation and helping us out. Roger’s ambi
tions are small, but he needs a lot of resources, which includes you and our coworkers.”
“Why are you talking in code, Mr. Collins? You seem to know something I don’t and you’re dying to tell me.”
“All in due course, Ravi. I would love to ask you what your gods have been telling you. It has to be exquisite.”
“It really isn’t,” I said. “What my gods do is tell stories. They reenact stories that are parables. It’s about metaphors and allegories of human life experiences. It’s about our aspirations, our fears and our hopes. My gods don’t declare absolute power and dominion like your God does.”
“And yet you’ve helped my people deliver those guns.”
“That was self-preservation on my part.”
“That’s only what you think. Even though we’re going around in circles, I do enjoy talking to you, Ravi. You know things you think you don’t know. You are truly blessed. I have never met someone who was as touched as you are, and that makes you valuable. Until we meet again, Ravi.”
He hung up.
I handed the phone back to Ariel.
“Told ya he had a hard-on for your gods and shit,” she said.
“So I’m part of his God’s Plan,” I said.
“That’s what he really believes,” Ariel said.
“Do you believe that?” I said.
“I believe you’re never boring. You’re just bags and bags of fun.”
Julia was watching me, and behind her, so were the gods. Kali and Vishnu stroked their chins, waiting for what would come next.
What didn’t come next was bullets for Julia and me.
“What did your boss mean about us working together again soon?” I asked.
“Your boss has plans,” Ariel said. “You ought to ask him when you get back to London. Or maybe you should stay here in LA. Start working over here. That way, you can get out of Roger’s clutches and still do what you do.”
“No, thanks. I’d rather go back to London. Less guns and less apocalyptic fires there.”
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