A Covert Affair

by Susan Mann

  Still in the shadows, she reapplied her lipstick, ran her fingers through her hair to give her an appropriately tousled look, and slipped off her shoes. She headed for the valet stand, circling around so that it appeared she had just left the building. No one paid her any attention.

  With her shoes dangling from two fingers, she sauntered up to the twentyish-year-old guy in a red jacket and black pants—a different valet than the one they’d left the car with—and held out the parking stub. She lowered the register of her voice in hopes of sounding sultry. “Be a doll and bring my car around, please.”

  “I’m sorry, miss, but I’m not authorized to release any cars right now.”

  Her lower lip stuck out in a pout. “I just want to go home. I swear I didn’t have anything to do with all that craziness in there.”

  “I wish I could help you, but until the police give me the go-ahead, I can’t.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. Facing forward again, she stepped closer. “Here’s the thing. I don’t want to talk to the police ’cause I was sorta paid to be here tonight.”

  His eyes nearly popped out of his head.

  “Oh, no! I don’t do anything illegal. I’m an escort. It’s all on the up-and-up. I was hired to come to this party tonight by a librarian.” She said the word as if it was the lamest thing ever. “It turns out he’s a really sweet guy. He’s just kind of a nerd.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense. You’re way too hot for a librarian.”

  She wanted to smack him with her purse for that crack. Instead, she winked and cooed, “The thing is, if the police run my name, my priors will pop up. I’m completely innocent and those convictions were based on some unfortunate misunderstandings. They’ll come to the wrong conclusion about what I was doing here tonight.” She invaded his personal bubble and settled a hand on his arm. “You can see my problem.”

  Equal parts awe and uncertainty overtook his face.

  She could tell he was beginning to waver. Hoping to push him over the edge, she lifted her hands, her shoes still dangling, and slowly spun around. “I mean, I obviously didn’t take anything. Where would I hide it?”

  Completing her revolution, she lowered her chin and held his gobsmacked, unblinking gaze.

  He shook himself from his stupor and peered over his shoulder toward the cluster of police officers not far away. He leaned in and said conspiratorially, “I can’t bring you the car ’cause I can’t leave my post. You’ll have to go to it.”

  “That’s okay,” she said and gave him a coy smile. “I can walk.”

  He swallowed, blinked a couple of times, and took the ticket from her. As he searched the box filled with keys on hooks, he asked, “Which car is yours?”

  “The dark gray Lotus.”

  His jaw dropped and stared at her. “The Lotus is yours?”

  “What can I say? I’m good at my job,” she purred.

  The valet gulped, unhooked the keys from the panel, and held them out. He pointed back toward where James waited. “It’s, um, it’s right over there on First Street.” There was a serious croak in his voice.

  With two fingers, Quinn slid out the twenty-dollar bill she’d stuck between her bra and boob earlier and slipped it under the lapel of his jacket. “Thanks, sweetie.” She plucked the keys from his hand and chucked him under the chin with her finger. “See ya.” She turned and sauntered away, adding extra sway to her hips for fun.

  When she reached the street, she slid her shoes back on but kept her pace nonchalant as she crossed to the other side.

  James stood on the sidewalk, his eyes glued on her from the moment she came into view.

  She smirked when they grew wider the closer she came. Stopping in front of him, she dangled the keys from her index finger and asked, “Do you want to drive, or should I?”

  Chapter Eight

  James set a mug of steaming tea on the conference table in front of Quinn. She breathed in the pungent aroma of bergamot and gave him a tired smile. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” he replied and slid into the leather chair next to hers. “We can both use some more caffeine after our short night last night.”

  After locating the Lotus, she and James had driven to headquarters, arriving around midnight. By the time their debriefings had finished and they were back at her apartment, it was 2:30.

  Three hours later, Quinn’s ringing cell phone woke her from a sleep like the dead. It took every ounce of control not to hurl it against the wall. As satisfying as it would have been, she answered and was summoned, as was James, to an early-morning meeting at Langley.

  She glanced up at the clock. The meeting was to start at seven, and that was in three minutes. So far, she and James were the only attendees.

  “I dreamt you and I were spending the weekend together in Virginia Beach,” James said before taking a sip of coffee. “It really was magic.”

  “Yeah? Now we have to go there someday.”

  “I’m in,” he said with a smile.

  Her lewd response died on her lips when the conference room door swung open.

  Quinn and James rose to their feet and watched the rest of the meeting attendees file in.

  Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service Diane Marchelli led the way. Aldous Meyers, a woman Quinn didn’t recognize, and a younger man with a laptop under his arm followed the deputy director. Her grandfather brought up the rear and closed the door behind him.

  Quinn’s grandfather headed for the open seat next to Quinn while Deputy Director Marchelli, Meyers, and the unknown woman took their places on the other side of the table.

  As they all settled in their seats, the guy with the laptop immediately set to work plugging cables into his computer. When the giant flatscreen monitor attached to the wall flickered on, Quinn wanted to lean over and quip to James her disappointment there wouldn’t be 3-D holograms projecting up from the center of the table. The sober mood of the room made it clear she should keep her snarky comment to herself.

  Deputy Director Marchelli, a woman who exuded authority, clasped her hands and set them on the table. “As you are all well aware, an incident occurred last night during a reception in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. Coincidentally, James Anderson and Quinn Ellington were in attendance.” She made eye contact with them when she spoke their names. “They have been debriefed, and their accounts have been critical to our understanding of the overall narrative. However, due to the effects the stun grenades had on them, important pieces of the story were understandably missing from their reports. We have obtained various closed-circuit security feeds that fill in those gaps.” She looked to the guy manning the computer. “Kevin, if you will.”

  Kevin furiously tapped at his keyboard. Video recorded from a camera above the Great Hall and looking down on the partygoers began to play.

  “This recording begins approximately two minutes before the commencement of the incident,” the deputy director said.

  Quinn rested her elbows on the chair’s armrests and leaned forward. The view was from above the staircase she and James had used to go up to the exhibition hall. She spotted James and herself talking with Darvesh Singh, Mrs. Sharma, and Kavita. She also saw the ambassador speaking with the two musicians seated on the platform.

  As if reading her mind, Deputy Director Marchelli said, “Please note Ambassador Sharma’s location.”

  A moment later, everyone in the room looked up at the same time. That was the moment someone had shouted, “Grenade.”

  A sudden, silent flash turned the screen white, like the frames of a nuclear bomb test film from the 1950s. The camera, like the human eyes in the Great Hall, had been momentarily blinded. When the images reappeared on the screen—at first washed out and then slowly sharpening—every guest was laid out on the floor.

  “Kevin, pause, please,” Deputy Director Marchelli said. The images on the screen froze. “As you can see, everyone in the room was incapacitated by the concussive effects of the flash
bang.”

  An eerie tingling crawled across Quinn’s skin when she spotted herself, James, the Sharmas, and Darvesh Singh collapsed on the floor.

  “The question is”—Deputy Director Marchelli paused until everyone’s attention was riveted on her—“where is Ambassador Sharma?”

  Quinn’s eyes snapped back to the place where the ambassador had been standing. The deputy director was right. He wasn’t on the floor as expected. “Maybe the guards did that Secret Service thing and hustled him away,” Quinn ventured.

  “You’ve come to the most logical conclusion,” Marchelli said, nodding at Quinn. “However, the problem with that scenario is—”

  “The guards would have been incapacitated, too,” James and the deputy director said at the same time.

  It felt as if a rock lodged in Quinn’s chest. She didn’t like where this was going. From the serious expressions on the faces of those sitting around the table, she wasn’t alone.

  Marchelli looked at Kevin. “If you could go back to where it started, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said and tapped at the keys.

  “As you watch this time, pay close attention to the upper right corner of the screen,” Marchelli said.

  Quinn stared at the spot on the monitor. To her surprise, the Sikh guard stationed in that corner of the room slipped away from his post and disappeared through an archway in the staircase. A half minute later, a small canister flew through the air from that same archway. She already knew what happened next. She stayed quiet, but her eyebrows knit together in confusion. Had the guard tossed the flash bang into the room?

  “The other angle, please, Kevin,” Marchelli said.

  Images of the Great Hall recorded from a camera mounted on the opposite side of the room as the first appeared. As on the other side, two Sikh guards stood sentry in their corners. The guard stationed at the bottom of the staircase—the one Quinn and James had passed when they went to the second level—stepped through the closest archway and out of sight. A few seconds later, a stun grenade could be seen soaring through the air and into the crowd. Seconds later, the screen went white. Kevin paused the recording.

  James shifted in his seat. “There was a second flash bang.”

  “Yes,” Marchelli said. “From the time stamps of when they were deployed, they went off nearly simultaneously. Given the size and cavernous quality of the room, the soldiers must have felt it necessary to use two to ensure everyone was affected.”

  “Affect everyone except those who set them off by protecting themselves beforehand,” Meyers added.

  “You believe some, if not all of the soldiers were somehow involved?” James asked.

  Deputy Director Marchelli didn’t answer. She only nodded at Kevin, who then resumed playing the recording. She continued her narration of the scene once the effects on the camera had passed. “From this angle, you can see that the guard who did not leave the room was as debilitated as everyone else. The same can be said for the guard on the other side of the room.”

  After a few more seconds passed, US Capitol Police flooded into the room from all directions. There was a lot of pointing and running around and talking on radios. In the pandemonium, no one seemed to notice when two Sikh soldiers hurried down the staircase and walked straight for the doorway that led to the downstairs steps.

  At the same time James’s entire body seemed to tense, Quinn sucked in a sharp intake of air.

  She immediately recognized those two men. They had been guarding the manuscripts. They left the scene with rucksacks strapped to their backs.

  “It appears you both have come to some kind of conclusion,” Deputy Director Marchelli said. “Care to share?”

  James spoke first. “Some of the manuscripts had been removed by the time I got to the exhibition hall. It looks like those two guards snuck them out in their backpacks.”

  “Why would they do that?” Quinn asked.

  The deputy director pursed her lips. “A video the Indian embassy received a few hours ago will shed some light on that. Kevin?”

  A man in his forties appeared on the screen. With dark, piercing eyes, he stared at the camera with a gaze so fierce he appeared to be trying to melt it. His long black beard—one that looked to have never been trimmed his entire life—was in stark contrast to his crisp white tunic. His turban was royal blue, and the bandolier of bullets slung over his shoulder and across his chest gave him the air of an Old West gunslinger.

  “I speak for the Falcon, who has decreed that it is time we Sikhs act,” he said in English that bore no hint of an accent. The intensity in his tone was only surpassed by his intimidating glare. “We demand you, the government of India, allow us to establish our sovereign homeland of Khalistan. We have been ignored for too long. Our patience is at an end.”

  Quinn frowned and squinted at the man on the screen. She had no idea what he was talking about. When he held up what was clearly a very old book, her eyebrows shot up her forehead. It wasn’t much of a stretch to guess it was one of the stolen manuscripts.

  “Over thirty years ago, you stole irreplaceable treasures of our religion and heritage. Now you taste the same bitter tears we have wept for decades, tears that come from the pain of precious artifacts of faith being ripped away.”

  James turned to Quinn and gave her a puzzled look. She shrugged and made an I-have-no-idea-what-he’s-talking-about face in response.

  “The Falcon is aware that there will be those in the government who do not see any value in these rare and precious items. To them, these are simply worthless scribblings on old, crumbling paper.” The man set the book down and brought into view the Kama Sutra James and Quinn had been teasing about only a few hours before. “Or palm leaves. In case they do not feel the issue warrants their attention, we have taken a further step we believe will motivate them to act.”

  The camera’s view widened to show a disheveled Ambassador Sharma sitting on a chair. His tuxedo jacket and tie were gone. His white dress shirt was wrinkled and smudged with dirt and black grease. The man had most likely spent some time in the trunk of a car. From the way the ambassador sat with both hands behind him, Quinn surmised they were bound together. Ambassador Sharma stared at the camera with stoic defiance.

  “Oh boy,” Quinn whispered to herself.

  “The fullness of Khalistan cannot be reached until every book and precious object you stole from the Sikh Reference Library three decades ago is returned to the Sikh people.”

  Quinn bolted forward when he mentioned the Sikh Reference Library. She didn’t know what that was, but now she had an inkling as to why she’d been summoned to this meeting.

  “When you have met our demands, the establishment of Khalistan and the items of our heritage returned, this man will be released, along with your priceless manuscripts. Until then, he is our prisoner. Know that this is only the beginning. Very soon, acts of death and destruction will rain down until our demands are met.” A malevolent shadow settled over his face, and his voice turned hard and cold. “Act quickly. As I have said, our patience is at an end.” With that, the screen went black.

  Chapter Nine

  A bleak silence hung over the room.

  “I’m sure you have a million questions,” Deputy Director Marchelli said eventually. “I’ve asked Sadie Morales from our Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis to give you some historical context that should help you understand his demands.”

  With a fingertip, Sadie pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and cleared her throat. “Thank you, Deputy Director.” Sadie stood and Kevin handed her a small remote control. “As I’m sure you already know, the man on the video is a Sikh. Sikhism is a monotheistic religion that began in the Punjab in the fifteenth century. It is the fifth largest organized religion in the world.”

  She clicked the remote, and a map of India appeared on the screen. A section in the northern part of the country was highlighted in green. “Most Sikhs in India live in the state of Punjab. Primarily
agrarian, it’s known as India’s breadbasket.” She touched the remote again bringing up a different map. “The state of Punjab, by the way, should not be confused with the region known as the Punjab. The Punjab, which means ‘five rivers,’ covers an area that includes parts of both Pakistan and India.

  “While Sikhs make up the majority in Punjab, they comprise only two percent of the total population of India. Some Sikhs feel they are not treated fairly by the Hindu majority in the central government and have for years fought for greater autonomy. The most extreme is the call for a sovereign Sikh nation carved out of India called Khalistan.”

  “Where does the name Khalistan come from?” James asked.

  “It’s derived from the word khalsa, which means ‘pure,’” Sadie answered. “Those who have chosen to go through a ceremonial initiation called amrit, basically a Sikh version of baptism, are members of the community called the Khalsa.”

  “There’s a great deal we could say about the religion itself,” Marchelli said. “I’ve asked Sadie to focus on the issues raised in the video.”

  “Right,” Sadie said. “The man in the recording is referring to the events surrounding a military incursion called Operation Blue Star. In June of 1984, the Indian Army stormed the Golden Temple complex, the holiest shrine in Sikhism, to apprehend a radical and his men who were holed up there.”

  A satellite image of a large square pool surrounded by a wide walkway and buildings appeared.

  Quinn’s eye was immediately drawn to a building at the dead center of the pool and the bridge across the water leading to it.

  “Located in Amritsar, Sikhism’s holiest city, the complex consists of a number of buildings. The holiest is the Harmandir Sahib, or Golden Temple itself.”

  As Sadie spoke, a picture of a blocky, rectangular building surrounded by water appeared on the monitor. Its gold-covered walls and domes gleamed in the sun. She pressed the remote button again.

  “The targeted radical’s name was Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.” A photograph of a man in nearly the same attire as the man in the video filled the screen, complete with cartridge belt across his chest. His intense stare made him look more than a little intimidating.