A Covert Affair

by Susan Mann

  The iron hit the dirt with a dull thud.

  Gupta swung it up again, took aim, and brought it down.

  She tumbled sideways the other way. The metal rod pounded the ground again, missing her by inches.

  Quinn grabbed a rusted exhaust pipe from the pile of junk she’d rolled up against and bashed it on the outside of Gupta’s knee with a fierce backhand.

  He bellowed in pain.

  She levered onto her knees and whipped the pipe around again, this time a forehand to Gupta’s other leg.

  He howled and dropped to his knees.

  Quinn grabbed the tire iron Gupta had dropped and clambered to her feet.

  James rushed up from behind. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” She tossed the exhaust pipe back on the junk pile, folded her arm back, and examined her elbow. The scrape was only bleeding a little. Growing up, she’d lived a rough-and-tumble life with five older brothers. She’d had worse.

  “And him?”

  “He tried to bifurcate me with this,” she said and pointed the tire iron at Gupta.

  James hauled Gupta to his feet and pushed him against the back wall of the silencer shop. “I’m not thrilled to hear you tried to split my wife in two, Vikram.”

  The pain in Gupta’s face morphed into fear. “Who are you? What do you want with me?”

  “It doesn’t matter who we are,” Quinn said. She brushed the dirt from her palms, stinging from the abrasions she’d acquired while scrambling across on the ground. “We just need information from you.”

  “I do not know what you are talking about.”

  “You must. Otherwise you wouldn’t have run,” James said.

  Gupta remained silent, his eyes darting back and forth between them.

  “Let’s not pussyfoot around anymore, Vikram,” Quinn said. “We know you were a jawan in the Ninth Infantry in 1984. You were at the Golden Temple during Operation Blue Star.”

  Gupta looked like he was about to lose his lunch. “How do you know these things? I do not speak about my time in the army.”

  Quinn softened her tone. “You’re afraid of reprisals, or at least resentment from Sikhs if they know you were part of Operation Blue Star, aren’t you? That’s why you ran. You don’t want your secret getting out.”

  “No, I do not. When I left the army, there was still much anger. I moved here and started a new life. If asked about the army, I lied.”

  “And now you’re afraid we’ll expose you,” Quinn said.

  “Yes.” He gulped. “What do you want with me?”

  “Like she said, all we want is information,” James said. “Answer our questions and you’ll never see us again.”

  “And we’ll take your secret with us,” Quinn added.

  Gupta nodded.

  She studied his face as she asked, “Did you go inside the Harmandir Sahib complex during the attack?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you there in the days after the fighting was over?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see what happened to the library?”

  “Yes. I saw the smoke when it burned.”

  “During the battle?”

  His left eye twitched. “Yes.”

  Quinn sighed. “See, Vikram? I’m disappointed in you. I thought we were having a moment, and you have to go and blow it by lying to us.”

  “What really happened?” James asked.

  Gupta’s lips stayed pressed tightly closed.

  “Whatever you tell us won’t come back to you, we promise,” Quinn said.

  James withdrew his money clip from his pocket. He flipped up five one hundred dollar bills and slid them from the wad of various currencies he carried. “Answer our questions—truthfully—and these are yours.”

  Gupta licked his lips and nodded.

  Quinn kept her gaze pinned to his left eye. “Do you know what happened to the books in the library?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell us what you know.”

  “We were ordered to never tell anyone.”

  “Tell us what you know,” Quinn said again.

  Gupta blinked as he accessed the memories. “Many of us jawan who survived the battle and were not injured were ordered to go to the library and put the books in gunnysacks.”

  Quinn tingled with excitement. “What happened to these gunnysacks? Do you know?”

  “We loaded them into trucks and drove them to a youth hostel on GT Road.”

  “Grand Trunk Road?” James asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why a youth hostel? What’s the name of it?”

  “I do not remember what it was called. And I do not know why we took the books there. We were only following orders.”

  “Did you see anyone at the hostel?”

  “Yes. Several men.”

  “Who? Army brass?”

  “No, not army. I did not know them. One man wore a Punjab Police uniform.”

  Quinn took a step closer. “What happened next?”

  “We carried all the sacks into the hostel. Then we drove away and were told never to speak of what we had done.” His gaze darted between their faces. “I am telling you the truth.”

  James glanced at Quinn, who nodded. He handed Gupta the bills and peeled off three one hundred euro notes. “Fix our tire as fast as humanly possible and you get these, too.”

  “What do we say to Gurnam? He saw me leave and you come after me.”

  “Tell him it was a case of mistaken identity,” James said. He stuffed the euros in one pocket and returned the money clip to the other. “It’s cleared up now and there’s nothing else to discuss.”

  Vikram nodded.

  Quinn brushed the dirt from the back of her slacks as they walked down the alley to the back of the tire shop.

  Upon their return to the service bay, Gurnam looked at them, his face filled with apprehension. “Have we done something wrong? Is there trouble for us?”

  “No, not at all,” Quinn said and set the tire iron on the top of a metal tool chest. “It was just a terrible mix-up. My husband and I have apologized and everything is fine, right, Mr. Gupta?”

  “Yes. Everything is fine.”

  “My husband and I really need to get going.” She held an open palm out to James. A tiny smile formed on his lips as he dropped his money clip into her awaiting hand. She thumbed through the notes and pulled out five thousand rupees. To Gurnam, she said, “Put your best tire on our car, have it ready for us in twenty minutes, and this tip is yours.”

  It was ready in fifteen.

  Chapter Seventeen

  By the time Quinn and James returned to the hotel from their trip to Ludhiana, both were desperate for cool air and even cooler showers.

  After dinner in the hotel’s casual dining restaurant, they returned to their room a few minutes before the videoconference with Aldous Meyers was scheduled to begin. James had barely finished setting up his laptop on the room’s coffee table and establishing a secure link when Meyers’s face appeared on the screen.

  “Good morning, sir,” James said.

  “Good evening to you,” Meyers said in his usual brusque tone. “Sitrep.”

  Quinn spoke up first. She spent the next few minutes relaying her findings during her visit to the Sikh Reference Library the day before, her and James’s invitation to the Sandhu nuptials, their encounter with Vikram Gupta, and his statement that the library books had been taken by the army to a youth hostel.

  Meyers never blinked during her recitation. When she finished, he snapped a nod in approval. “Very good. I trust you’ll be following up on the youth hostel angle. Do you know which one the books were taken to?”

  “Not yet,” Quinn answered. “My initial research found three. We’ll tackle checking them out tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be coordinating with techs in Langley to establish a cover that will allow us to visit them and ask questions,” James said. There was no reason for James and Quinn Riordan to be checking out
youth hostels, and they couldn’t take the chance of blowing that cover. New, temporary covers complete with disguises would be put in place. “And as Quinn already mentioned, we’ll be attending the wedding of Karnail Singh Sandhu’s son on Saturday. Sandhu is a real mover and shaker in the region, so we’re assuming there will be a lot of influential people there. We’re not sure we’ll uncover much, though.”

  “Why is that?” Meyers asked.

  “It’s hard to listen in on conversations spoken in Punjabi. And it seems from the people we’ve spoken to so far, especially those directly impacted by Operation Blue Star in some way, most want to leave the past alone,” James said.

  Quinn nodded. “If there’s a group here that seems to harbor grievances about the past, it’s the younger generation. Bhindranwale’s become kind of a cult figure. He’s plastered on mugs and bumper stickers and T-shirts. He’s the hero that stood up to, in their view, the oppressive Hindu majority.”

  “An ‘us versus them’ mentality,” Meyers said. “Attending Sandhu’s son’s wedding should put you right in the middle of that demographic.”

  Something struck Quinn. “Why haven’t the men who stole the manuscripts from the Library of Congress gone public with their demands?” she asked. “Why not make a big stink about the missing Sikh library in the media and use it as a way to stir up public support?”

  “I think the saying ‘Don’t ask a question unless you know the answer’ might apply,” Meyers said. “What if they go public but the government provides proof they don’t have the library books? The agitators lose credibility within the community they’re trying to persuade. On the other hand, if the government did have them all along and give them back, they can come out heroes for forcing their return. Until they know one way or the other, it’s better for them to stay quiet about it until there’s a final resolution.”

  “What if there isn’t?” Quinn asked. “What if the government doesn’t know where the books are and we come up empty, too?”

  Meyers’s lips pressed together. “You need to see the latest DVD the embassy received.”

  The screen went black. A second later Samir Singh, the same man who had been in the first video, appeared. An icy chill shot up Quinn’s spine at the sinister rage darkening the man’s face. His black eyes snapped with malevolence. “The Falcon is not pleased,” he said in a voice brimming with vitriol. “Your silence in the face of our demands is disappointing. Do you not value the life of your ambassador? Are you so spiteful that you will not return our precious saroops to us, ones that were written in the gurus’ own hands?

  “Perhaps you do not fully understand what it is to weep over the scars left by the bullets that ripped through the saroops during Operation Blue Star,” Samir spat.

  A picture of an open Guru Granth Sahib with a slug embedded in it appeared on the screen. A second picture showed a close-up of a page where the bullet had ripped through it. The edges of the gash were singed black.

  Samir’s face returned and the camera zoomed out. On a stand next to him, one of the manuscripts taken from the exhibition sat propped open. Quinn wasn’t 100 percent sure, but she thought she recognized it as the Bhagavad Gita she and James had viewed.

  Her eyes widened in horror when Samir raised his arm and pointed a pistol at the manuscript. Without a second’s hesitation, he pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession. Bile surged up her throat at such a wanton act of destruction.

  Samir sneered back at the camera. “Now you understand.” His tone dripped with rancor when he said, “You should hurry. The next bullet will go into a heart, but not of a book.”

  The screen went black before Meyers’s stern countenance reappeared.

  “That guy is a big bag of pure evil,” Quinn said with a snap in her voice. “I hope that doesn’t get released to the public. The Sikhs I’ve met are nothing like him. I’d hate for them to suffer a backlash because of that weasel and his thugs.”

  “If it is leaked, it won’t be from us,” Meyers said. “Follow your leads and report back your findings.”

  James spoke for them both when he replied, “Yes, sir.”

  The transmission ended as abruptly as it started.

  Quinn heaved a deep sigh and slumped back. “We’re never gonna figure this out in time, if we figure it out at all.”

  “Let’s hope Samir’s tantrum was all show. He’s gotta know killing their main bargaining chip is counterproductive. Otherwise, there’s no reason to meet their demands and they end up with nothing.”

  “I hope you’re right.” She thought of Kavita. “If my dad had been kidnapped, I’d be a complete basket case.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. You’d leave a trail of scorched earth as you searched for him like an avenging angel,” James said. The seriousness in his tone told her he was in no way teasing her.

  She tipped her chin up. “You’re right. I wouldn’t stop until I found him in whatever godforsaken craphole they’d stashed him in. Then I’d hunt down whoever took him. I can guaran-damn-tee you they’d be missing some parts when I got through with them.” It was no accident she sounded like her dad just then.

  “No doubt.” He shifted and took her hand. The sincerity she saw in his face made the breath catch in her throat. “Take the passion you feel right now and harness it. Use it to help Mrs. Sharma and Kavita get their husband and father back.”

  He was right. She couldn’t let anything, even the seemingly impossible task of finding something that had been lost since before she was born, stop her from doing everything she could to reunite the Sharma family and bring the kidnappers to justice. “I’ll see if I can dig up some information on those youth hostels right now.”

  “While you do that, I’ll do some prep work for my meeting with Sandhu tomorrow. We can watch a movie or something on TV a little later.” Warm embers smoldered behind her sternum at the slow, sexy smile that spread across his face. “Even avenging angels need a little time to unwind.” James’s gaze lowered and settled on her lips. His smile never wavered as he leaned toward her and gave her an unhurried kiss. The tension in her body melted away as the heat in her chest slowly spread through her extremities. The kiss ended, but their lips remained only a fraction of an inch from each other’s when James whispered, “Sound like a plan?”

  “Mm-hmm,” she hummed and went in for another kiss. A tingling sensation joined the heat and rippled through her body. “Great plan. I really like this beginning part.”

  He cupped her face with his hand and brushed his thumb across her cheek. “I’m a genius.”

  “You really are.”

  He smiled and pecked the tip of her nose. “You want a bottle of water?” he asked as he rolled onto his feet and headed for the room’s minibar.

  “Sure.” Quinn pushed her hands through her hair. She was going to miss him something fierce when he went to Moscow.

  “That was a pretty massive sigh,” James said.

  She took the proffered water and thanked him. “Was it? I didn’t even realize.”

  “What were you thinking about?”

  She wanted to say, “I was thinking how much it’s going to suck when we’re apart,” but refrained. Bringing it up wouldn’t change anything. “I was thinking about how much I love you,” she said. She stood, rose up on her tiptoes, and gave him a quick kiss. “And now I’m thinking about doing some research on youth hostels.” She grabbed her laptop and flopped back on the sofa.

  Getting to work, she researched the hostels on GT Road. There was little to no information on them other than their addresses. Nothing indicated if they were even around in 1984. On the flip side, there was no way of knowing if the place the books were left was still a hostel. “I’m not finding much,” she told James.

  “That’s okay. It shouldn’t take long to check them out.” He stopped shuffling through the papers on his lap. A devilish gleam appeared in his eyes. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll want to move out of here and stay at one.”

  “Yeah,” Quinn
answered in a dry tone. “Because staying in a luxury hotel with air-conditioning, Internet access, and an en suite bathroom is an incredible hardship.”

  “We’d be saving the US government money.”

  “Fine,” she said, squinting at him. “You go ahead and stay in a three-dollar-a-night place with no privacy or A/C. I’ll stay here. The government can take the difference out of my next paycheck.”

  He blew out a sigh. “I’m all for saving the government money, but it would be bad form for a husband to move out on his wife over the cost of a hotel. I guess I’ll just have to stay here with you.” His impishness was completely adorable.

  “I appreciate your sacrifice on my behalf.”

  His playfulness fell away. He gazed at her with an unguarded sincerity. “Anything for you.”

  Before she could respond, Quinn saw a sudden flash of inspiration in his eyes. He tossed his papers on the table and leapt to his feet. “I’ll be back in ten minutes,” he announced and bolted from the room.

  He left her staring at the door in bewilderment.

  She shook off her astonishment and checked the app on her phone to see if he had taken off in the car. No, he was still in the hotel, but she didn’t know exactly where. Her eyes remained glued to the blue dot. A few minutes later, it moved again and toward their suite.

  She jumped, startled by an odd thumping on the door. Was he using his foot? She cautiously approached the door. “James?”

  “It’s me.”

  “What the . . .” She opened the door.

  James stood in the doorway, his face incandescent with excitement. In one hand, he gripped a bottle by the neck and held two champagne flutes between his fingers.

  In his other, he balanced a parfait glass filled with chocolate on a white plate. A dollop of whipped cream and a sprig of mint topped the dessert. Raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries surrounded the base of the glass.

  “I got chocolate mousse from the pastry shop downstairs for us to eat while we watch TV.” He strode to the coffee table and set his load down. “It’s not exactly popcorn, but I figured since we’re staying at this fancy-schmancy place, we might as well take advantage of it.”