by Bapsy Jain
“Worli naka” she instructed the driver and then offered him double the fare if he sped. He looked at her closely in the mirror while he drove away. Her heart raced the whole way, and she couldn’t stop herself from turning around every few minutes to make sure no one was following.
Once out of the taxi at Worli, Lucky went up the stairs to a restaurant on the first floor. She ordered curry and rice for takeout, trying unsuccessfully to keep her eyes from darting to the door. When the food arrived, she went to the bathroom and stuffed her burqa into the bag underneath the food.
She took another cab, this time to the Gateway of India, then walked back to the Taj Hotel. Crisscrossing the corridors of the hotel, she entered her room. Once safely behind the bolted door, she drew the curtains and sat on the chair near the window in darkness. Her peace was interrupted a few minutes later by a call from Karsan Kaka, calling on the cell phone he had given her.
“Lucky, are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“I am so sorry! We did not know Sonam or Gautam, you must believe this, but we trusted Mohammed. We were just trying to help, but these people were no good. They must have wanted to extract money from you. Mohammed now tells us they do work for money, but he did not expect that they would behave like this. They are his friends. Now they say they want Rs. 100,000 to find Lobsang.”
Lucky listened, knowing Karsan Kaka was speaking from his heart and was genuinely worried. She also knew that she had been compromised and now, she couldn’t give too much away.
“A bribe? No way,” she almost said aloud. But she paused before saying,
“Karsan Kaka, I am fine. I will contact you again when I need to. Please forget about this. If anyone asks, say you do not know where I am.”
“Yes, yes, I understand, Lucky, and no harm will come to you, not from Mohammed’s people. It was a misunderstanding. They only wanted money to find the doctor for you. They will not harm you. Of that, I am sure. I will pray for you.”
Lucky thanked him and ended the call.
“Now what?” she thought as she sat back in the darkness.
Rs. 100,000—well in dollar terms, it was around $1,600 but how would she arrange this? “No way,” she chided herself again and then she remembered the other lead.
Dr Eruch Vakil. That would be too dangerous. Coleman’s team could be watching him. But wasn’t she in the thick of it already?
Then it struck her. She knew that there was a good chance he would be playing cards at 6 pm at The Willingdon Club near the race course. Surely, he wouldn’t be followed there? And not within the club. She would have to take her chances; she knew the club well.
Lucky entered the Willingdon Club from the main entrance and turned right to the card rooms.
She summoned a waiter and asked him to call Dr. Vakil. “Tell him it is Hutoxi,” she said, knowing that Dr Vakil would instantly remember her mother Hutoxi. And then she placed a Rs. 100 rupee note in the waiter’s hands when she detected his reluctance.
It seemed like a long few moments before Dr. Eruch Vakil appeared. From his welcoming expression, she knew instantly that he had not linked her e-mails to the robbery in his house.
“Lucky, how nice to see you.”
“I need your help. Please, can we talk? It won’t take long.”
“Take all the time you need! I am so happy to see you, my dear. After so long. Next time, though, you can use your own name.”
Lucky explained her plight as best as she could without making it sound too bizarre. Dr. Vakil listened in silence. After a few moments of contemplation, he said, “Leave it to me. I will contact my friend and let you know if he can help.”
“But Doctor, I need this to be done immediately, you can understand.”
Without glancing at her, he pulled out his cell phone. Lucky stopped him.
“No, Doctor—use the landline in the corner.”
He obliged, although he looked at her strangely. Lucky stood beside him and listened to every word — and couldn’t believe what she was hearing: that he would contact Lobsang and get back to her as soon as possible. She asked to be contacted at the Taj Hotel, room number 363, and as she thanked him, he asked her to come over to his house for dinner.
“I will as soon as I finish this business. Give my love to Mehroo and the kids.” She hesitated. “Is there any untraceable way that I can use to contact you?”
The doctor thought for a moment. “Maybe my emergency number? I don’t use it for anything beside hospital emergencies, so it’s unlikely that anyone would be tracking it.” Lucky wrote the number down and thanked him again.
She had barely returned to her hotel room when there was a loud knock on her door—and she was sure she heard a voice she seemed to have heard before, but couldn’t place. “Who could it be?”
She opened the door and framed against the white wall behind was the monk from the PETA protests in New York, Usko Tahti. “What are you doing here?” she managed to stutter, quite aghast.
Chapter 16
Usko silenced her with a finger on his lips. “You need to check out right now. Pack up, pay your bill, and meet me outside around the corner at the Starbucks.” He then left as fast as he had appeared.
Lucky rushed to get her bags together and stop at the hotel front desk before running into Usko at the entrance of Starbucks. He gestured to follow him to a car parked across the street and as they drove off, Lucky started her barrage, “How did you… how did you…”
“Find you?” Usko got up, stuck his head out of the window, and looked left and right. Satisfied, he shut his eyes, looking suddenly exhausted. Then he became alert and smiled. “I’ve been on you from the day after you arrived, but there was no way to scoop you up, so we followed you all over town. We almost had you there, but you slipped out each time and we lost you for a while. You really blew it, you know. You should stick to teaching. They could have harmed you.”
Lucky nodded. “Which ‘they?’ Coleman? Sonam? Gautam? Who?”
“I don’t know. Who knows? Many have been looking for Lobsang for years, too. Does it matter? What I want to know is, why are you looking for him?”
“Does it matter?”
Usko frowned. “It does to me.”
“At first, I wanted him because I believed Coleman and agreed to work for him. Now, I think Coleman will stop at nothing to get his mushroom. Even kill Lobsang. That wasn’t part of the original bargain. Find a cure for disease? Sure. Kill a man to get it? No, thank you.”
Usko smiled. “I hear Lobsang is very careful about whom he meets. Who knows? Maybe if he knew why you were here and what you risked for him, he might meet with you. But I doubt if he’d part with any samples.”
Lucky shut her eyes. “All I ever wanted to do is to convince Lobsang to use his mushroom for the good of humanity and then get this mess behind me. That’s all I want.”
“I know, Lucky. And that’s why I am here, as well. To help the good.”
“I guess so, but stick to… well, whatever it was you said you did before you went to work for Coleman.”
“I was a yoga teacher.”
“That sounds good. So, how did you find me?”
“You know a kid named Collette?”
Lucky looked up.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Where is the amber necklace she gave you?”
“Why?”
“It is near you somewhere, isn’t it?”
“Yes, in my bag.” Lucky pulled it out.
“A transmitter,” he said smiling. He dug in his pocket and produced a small, black plastic device that looked like a cell phone or a remote control. He showed the screen to Lucky. It featured an electronic face that pointed toward the transmitter, with a readout below showing the distance in meters. He shrugged. “You can order this online from any spy store.”
“Collette?”
“She’s a real pain, isn’t she?”
“She called you?”
“She wouldn’t stop call
ing me. I had to cancel my speech at the Lions Club to come to Mumbai to save you.”
“So she’s okay?”
“Of course she’s okay. Why wouldn’t she be? She’s pretty sure she’ll be grounded for a long time.”
“But she’s safe?”
“Last I heard,” Usko said. He looked at his watch. “An hour or so ago.”
“And my son—Sean—is Sean okay? And Amay? And Maria?”
“They’re okay. So far as I know, the only one in trouble right now is you.”
Lucky looked away, tears brimming in her eyes. “So what happened? Tell me from the beginning.”
“The beginning?” Usko repeated.
They were at Marine Drive now. Usko stopped the car and told the driver to take Lucky’s luggage to a house. Then he strode away along the oceanfront, as Lucky followed.
“Yes, the beginning. How did you get here?” Lucky questioned.
“Collette and some of her punky friends called me. I guess they were snooping around in your computer and found this thing—Bloodhound. Somehow, they were worried about you, but then they found me, and they knew we had met from the e-mail you sent thanking John Black for the bail. They said now you needed a little help, so here I am returning the favor. And now I know how you found me. You had used this program to spy on me.”
“I wasn’t spying,” Lucky said. “I was curious.”
“Hmmm.”
“It doesn’t matter—I helped you. I bailed you out of jail, remember?”
“Out of the frying pan and into the fire, if you ask me. If this is what ‘help’ looks like, next time call NYPD.”
“They wouldn’t have helped me. Not here, anyway.”
“Maybe not,” Usko said. “Anyway. Collette got my number and started calling me, and she wouldn’t quit until I agreed to help you. To tell you the truth, I didn’t think a whole lot about you, but there was something sweet about you. Your story—I thought you were working for Coleman, but when Collette told me about him, his program, and what he could do to you—I knew this was my chance to nail him.”
“But how did she know what was happening to me? I mean, here in Mumbai?”
“Don’t you get it? Coleman used this program to create a mirror site to follow your every move. But that site is tied right back to Coleman. Collette and her Bulgarian friend—all they had to do was follow the program right back into Coleman’s computer and create a mirror site of their own. Coleman doesn’t know yet that we have the program. We’re listening to every phone call, reading every e-mail, even watching video feed in real time.”
“But Coleman is the head of the Global Wellness Council! He’s a part of the government. You can’t hack his site!”
“Two things, Lucky,” Usko said. “Government sites get hacked every day. And this is not a government site. It’s not even on government servers. It’s not without firewalls, but it’s not perfect, either.”
Lucky stared at Usko hard. “If it’s not a government site, then what it is it?”
Usko shrugged. “Coleman’s a rogue. He’s not in this for the government. Coleman works only for Coleman. He’s got his own thing going on. He’s just using his high position the same way he is using you. He set you up with the help of his few cronies. I’ve been trying to get to this guy for a year now — and then you come along. Look, I knew he was crooked, but I had no idea how crooked ‘crooked’ could be.”
“And you figured this out?”
“Well, I had help. Collette and her friends.”
“Great,” Lucky said. “My future depends on a sixteen-year-old antisocial dropout.”
Usko shrugged again and held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Hey, you’ve got me.”
Lucky looked at Usko.
“I mean, we’re all on your team, you know. We managed to reach you in Mumbai.”
Lucky laughed. “I suppose she couldn’t do any worse than I’ve done.”
“Lucky,” Usko’s face was tense and earnest. He leaned close to her, his voice lowering almost to a whisper. “We have enough on Coleman to nail him forever. Bank accounts, a black-ops testing lab in Latvia, e-mails, test results…it’s a freakin’ gold mine. And Collette keeps sending it on. I got a guy in San Francisco organizing it all, and he’s sending encrypted copies to friends in Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Spain, and Indonesia. They can’t shut us down or wipe us out if we come out with this. And when we do, Coleman is history.”
“But how will you get it out? And even if you have the proof, I mean, who will believe it?”
“TV, blogs, you name it. Some people even still read newspapers. PETA activists are everywhere. We have thousands in the US alone. You’ve seen the demonstrations. We have some power. People power. But the real power is in politics. What Woodward and Bernstein wouldn’t want to break this story? It’ll be the biggest American political scandal since Nixon bit the dust.”
“No, Usko, there’s no time to run around playing politics,” Lucky said. “My problem—our problem—is here and now. If Coleman finds Lobsang, there’s no telling what he’ll do. And if Coleman is as crooked as you say—well, even if he gets the mushroom…” she shrugged her shoulders, “who knows? Maybe he’ll use it for good, and maybe he won’t. I have some leads to Lobsang…”
“Not now. Let’s hear it all when we reach the apartment. It’s a long walk, but then we can have dinner and discuss how to proceed.”
They headed south along Chowpatty Beach until they found a place where they could sit for a while and then they walked toward Worli. “You were in the army?” Lucky asked.
“Twelve years.”
“Why? Why the army?”
“I wanted to make a career of it, ever since I was a boy. I guess it sounded like a shortcut to adventure. We have our heroes, too, even in Finland. And our enemies.”
“I read about you.”
“And what did you read?”
“You were a hero.”
Usko shrugged. “What’s a hero?”
“You served in Bosnia.”
“Lots of people served in Bosnia.”
“But you left under some kind of cloud.”
“Let’s just say I got out.”
They were passing the building where she and Viki had lived all those years ago. She thought of how many fears had she faced since she was that young, foolish girl in love with a handsome playboy. It had started drizzling, Lucky started sneezing. She coughed. Her sinuses felt scratchy. She looked at Usko. “Why did you come to help me?”
Usko looked up to the sky. The drizzle lightened and stopped “I am obligated to help people,” he said. “It’s my penance. Besides, I misjudged you. Funny how you can see somebody once and then……” his voice trailed off.
“And then…what?” Lucky asked.
Usko looked out over the ocean. “Sometimes you just can’t forget the look in their eyes.” He looked back at Lucky, looking at him. “Anyway, when Collette called, I didn’t believe her at first. It sounded like such a far-fetched story. But then, I know what governments are capable of. I’ve heard worse. I’ve seen worse.” He looked at Lucky. “You read my story. You know where I was.”
Lucky stopped and looked at him.
“The ethnic cleansing in the Balkans was planned fifteen years in advance. Can you imagine that?” He turned and walked on.
Lucky hurried after him, taking Usko’s arm and stopping him on the sidewalk. “What happened? What happened to make you change, Usko Tahti? Why did the soldier lay down his gun?”
Usko looked Lucky in the eye, held her gaze and then looked away. “You’ve heard of Srebrenica?”
“I have.”
“And what have you heard?”
“There was a massacre.”
“Massacre is too nice a word.”
They had reached the Haji Ali Mosque.
He continued. “I was at Srebrenica in June and July of ‘95. It was near the end of the war. I was with the UN. The Dutch were in charge. Colonel Karre
mans. He wasn’t a bad man, but he didn’t have much to work with, and he wasn’t sure what to do with what he had. We were outgunned and unsupported. We knew what was going on. But Karremans had no tanks, no artillery, only about six hundred men with sidearms and not much ammunition. And there hadn’t been food delivered since May. The Bosnian Army, under the terms of the deal that made Srebrenica a ‘safe haven,’ had surrendered their weapons. The Dutch held them under lock and key.
“The Serbs made no secret that they wanted all the Muslims out. They encircled the town. When they captured the first Dutch outpost, they took thirty hostages. The Dutch never fired a shot. Karremans called for air support but when the allies finally sent bombers, the Serbs threatened to kill the Dutch hostages, so he called them off. There were 30,000 people in Srebrenica, mostly women and children and old men. The Bosnians didn’t want to let go of their homes. So Karremans cut a deal. The women and children were bussed out to Tuzla, but the men stayed behind. It was all very confusing. The men were trying to get their arms but Karremans wouldn’t allow it. We all knew what was going to happen. It had been going on for years in the little villages surrounding Srebrenica.”
They stopped to enjoy a view of the beach, the sea link and the lights of Bandra and beyond. There were hordes of people out, taking advantage of the cooler air.
Usko hung his head. “Do you know what bullets sound like when they shatter skulls?” he asked.
Lucky shook her head.
“It is enough to make you wish you were deaf.” He turned to Lucky. “I shot two Dutch soldiers. I killed them to get the keys to the armory. They call it mutiny, and they hang people for that. I was passing out weapons to the Bosnians so they could defend themselves, but it was no use. There was me and a few Bosnians against 600 Dutch and 2,000 Serbs. The Dutch took me down, killed two of my men. It’s one of those dirty little secrets of war — like all the men who rat on their officers. I was held for a while in a military prison in Amsterdam, then deported to Helsinki. I expected to be tried, but things were hushed up. Nobody wanted any more bad publicity about the debacle. Especially the Dutch. I was told that if I kept my mouth shut, the charges would go away. In the end, it all came to nothing — except for the 9,000 Bosnians buried in mass graves. That’s how government works, Lucky. Backroom deals. So when Collette told me this crazy story about some guy in the GWC—”