by Susan Mann
Once at the top, she straddled the wall and gathered up the ladder. She handed it down to James, who dropped it to the ground. Then he lifted his hands toward her. She whipped her other leg over and slid off. James caught her and lowered her to the grass.
As James stowed the ladder, Quinn surveyed the house. All the interior lights were out. She guessed they’d never heard of leaving a light on in the house to discourage burglars. Like James and her.
They crept across the grass to a back door leading into the house. James examined it and then checked a large window to their left. Returning to the door, he lowered to his knees, took out his pick set, and went to work on the lock. “The sensors on the windows and doors are wireless. With the WiFi disabled, the alarm won’t go off.”
A minute later, they were inside the house. They moved through the first floor and began to hide their tiny listening devices. Quinn noted the furniture was elegant and high-end. Gill was doing very well for himself.
“I’m going to go look for an office and Gill’s computer. You go upstairs and bug the bedrooms and bathrooms,” James said.
“Roger that.” As she climbed the stairs, she thought about the poor analysts who would be stuck listening to the feeds from those bugs. They were sure to be serenaded by some really awkward and embarrassing noises.
She went to the master bedroom first. After stashing a couple of bugs, she slid open the drawer in one of the nightstands. It held a couple of paperback novels, a tube of hand lotion, scissors, and a pair of glasses. Not finding anything interesting there, she hurried around to the other nightstand. The pistol was interesting, but given Gill’s penchant for security and the fact they suspected him as the Falcon, it wasn’t surprising. The rest of the contents of the drawer were unremarkable: a wristwatch, a flashlight, several batteries, and an old transistor radio. There was a better than even chance her dad’s nightstand contained similar items. She could have spent an hour searching through the dresser drawers and closet, but she didn’t have an hour. Getting the listening devices deployed was her primary objective.
Next, she headed into the master bathroom. A quick perusal of it told her both Gill and his wife took various prescription medications. Once again, she found nothing out of the ordinary. She blew a sigh and hoped James was having better luck than she in uncovering evidence that linked Gill to the Falcon.
She left the master suite and moved down the hall to another bedroom. She placed a bug and moved on to the last room at the end of the hall.
She stopped into the doorway and looked at the low platform in the center of the otherwise empty room. There was a wide, flat object completely covered by an ornately embroidered swath of material. It was pretty clear to her that a copy of the Guru Granth Sahib was under that coverlet. She had no idea if it was common to have one in a personal residence or not. If not, perhaps Gill had some kind of special dispensation as a former member of the SGPC.
Indecision kept her frozen in place. The curious bibliophile in her wanted her to uncover it and take a peek but didn’t know if it would be considered disrespectful. After convincing herself that as a librarian, she would never do anything to harm a book, she crept into the room and knelt next to the platform.
Not wanting to examine the pages through night vision goggles, she swung the backpack off her shoulders and removed a mini flashlight. When she lifted off the goggles, she was pleased to find moonlight helped illuminate the room.
Pulse galloping, she carefully rolled the coverlet back to reveal the bottom half of the open book. A shimmering golden glow radiated from the pages. Not in a weird, paranormal way, but in a “this is why they call them illuminated manuscripts” kind of way.
She uncovered the book completely and turned her flashlight on the manuscript. Borders of intricate geometric designs in gold, blue, green, and red surrounded the thick, black handwritten Gurmukhi script at the center of the pages. It reminded her of the manuscripts she and James saw at the Library of Congress. The exquisite one she examined now could have easily been included in the exhibition.
As she bent closer to examine its golden paint, the words of librarian Harbir Kaur rang in her ears. Harbir had said as a child she’d seen a manuscript of the Guru Granth Sahib and thought it was “filled with magic because of the way it glowed.”
The air around her felt suddenly charged with electricity. Could the manuscript Quinn looked at now be the same one Harbir remembered seeing as a little girl?
No. It couldn’t be.
There had to be hundreds of illuminated copies of the Guru Granth Sahib in the world. There was no reason to assume this was the very one Harbir had seen.
There was one way to be sure. Harbir had mentioned an inscription written in the hand of Guru Gobind Singh. The problem was she wouldn’t recognize his signature if she saw it. It wouldn’t exactly be written in English. That wasn’t going to stop her from checking to see if anything was there, though.
Since inscriptions are usually written on the flyleaf, she moved a bit of the coverlet over the corner of the page to use as a bookmark. Then she used both hands to close the book before opening the front cover.
“Whoa,” she breathed when she saw the inscription. The handwriting was different from the text of the book itself. While that writing was tight and cramped, the handwriting on the flyleaf was grand and free. Many of the characters had long, swooping tails.
She couldn’t trot around the bases yet. She needed to know what the writing said. She grabbed her phone and snapped a picture. Knowing at the moment Ravi had his hands full dealing with whatever the shipment was, she had to get help from another source. It took all of two seconds to come up with the perfect person. She tapped out a high-priority email to Patricia and asked for a translation.
She put her phone away and returned the book and coverlet back the way she’d found it. In all the excitement, she almost forgot to bug the room. She slid one of the devices under the platform and cleared out.
Night vision goggles on again, she hustled down the stairs in search of James. She spotted him walking toward a closed door in the far corner of the living room. It seemed like a strange place to put a closet or bathroom.
“Hey,” she said when she caught up to him in front of the door. “How’s it going?”
“Good. I uploaded the virus onto his computer. He really needs to think about using more than one password.” The doorknob didn’t turn.
“Find anything that links him to being the Falcon? Schematics for the Library of Congress? Emails to Samir Singh? Feed from a video camera trained on Ambassador Sharma?”
“Nope. Nothing. From the few English things I glanced at, he’s all about raising money for his run for office.” He unzipped his pick case and said, “I should have you work this for practice, but I get the feeling now is not the best time.”
She snorted. “You think?”
He slid the implements in the keyhole. “This is a pretty serious lock. Whatever is behind this door, he wants to keep it secure.”
“Weapons stash?”
“That’s my guess.” He moved one of the picks back and forth. When the lock didn’t do what he wanted, he mumbled a curse under his breath, rolled his shoulders, and started again. “How about you? Anything interesting upstairs?”
“As a matter of fact, there’s a Guru Granth Sahib that’s suspiciously similar to the one Harbir told me she saw at the Sikh Reference Library when she was a kid.”
“That’s weird. How could Gill have ended up with it?”
“Good question. You know how Deputy Superintendent Dhami gave the things he swiped from the youth hostel to a guy from the SGPC? Maybe Gill is the SGPC guy.”
“Booyah.” James turned the knob and cracked open the door. “Either way, why wouldn’t he have given the stuff back to the library?”
“Another really good question. It may not even be the same manuscript. If it’s not, then all of these questions are irrelevant. I’ve got Patricia looking into it for me.”
“She’s a crack librarian.” James stood and stowed the pick set. “She’ll have an answer in no time.” He swung the door open wider to reveal a staircase leading down.
James bounded down the steps.
“How cool would it be if we found Ambassador Sharma being held prisoner down here and saved him?” Quinn asked, following right behind him.
“Very.” He came to an abrupt stop on the bottom step. “Not gonna happen, though.”
Quinn squeezed past him and looked around. The unexpectedly large concrete bunker was packed with metal trunks stacked two or three high.
“There’s gotta be a hundred trunks in here,” James said.
“Gill’s got enough weapons here to outfit an army. Is he seriously thinking about an armed insurgency? That’s crazy. The response from New Delhi would make Operation Blue Star look like a paintball battle in my parents’ backyard.”
“Whatever he’s got planned, this isn’t good.” He dropped his backpack to the floor, took his flashlight from his pocket, and removed his goggles and gloves. Quinn did the same. He shined a circle of light on the closest container. “Let’s see what kind of weapons he’s got squirreled away.”
James unfastened the metal clasps while Quinn checked her phone, which had just vibrated. “Patricia says the inscription is called the Mul Mantar. It’s kind of a mantra from the Guru Granth Sahib. And the signature underneath is Guru Gobind Singh’s.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I think it’s the same manuscript.”
James lifted the lid of the trunk and peered in. “Uh, Quinn?”
She took a step forward and stared at the contents. The container wasn’t crammed with automatic rifles, rocket propelled grenades, boxes of ammunition or plastic explosives. It was packed to the brim with books.
Her mind could barely process what she saw. “What the . . .” She picked up a book and noted the label on the spine. “This is a library book.”
James flipped up a dozen books and checked the spines. “They all have spine labels.”
Quinn opened to the title page. There was a stamp of ownership. She’d seen it before. It was the same stamp as on the books she found at the youth hostel. “It says Sikh Reference Library.” Dumbfounded, she stared at James. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Is this it? Did we find it? Is this the library?”
James opened another container. And another. And another. All were packed with books. He checked several books in each. “They’re all stamped Sikh Reference Library.”
Her gaze swept the room. “I don’t get it. Why would Gill as the Falcon insist the books be returned if he has them here all along?”
Quinn’s internal organs liquefied when she felt hard metal press against the back of her skull. The voice directly behind her spoke in words she didn’t understand. She took them to mean “Don’t move.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
James whirled around, and in a split second, Quinn watched an array of emotions crash over his face: shock, fear, anger, inspiration, desperation, and finally surrender. She knew he wanted to fight but couldn’t chance it. One wrong move from either of them and Quinn’s gray matter would end up splattered all over the trunks filled with the books of the lost but not forgotten Sikh Reference Library.
From behind her, a hand stretched out toward James, palm up. James placed the flashlight in the hand and raised his in the air.
The pressure of the gun muzzle on the back of Quinn’s head was unrelenting. In a stern tone, their captor said something in Punjabi and pointed the beam of the flashlight up the stairs. James slowly and deliberately began the climb up.
Quinn followed James, her hands up in surrender. The gun threatening to turn her brain into Swiss cheese finally relented. Her level of fear went from almost passing out to only almost throwing up.
She made it up the stairs despite terror rippling through her. They shuffled to the center of the living room now awash with light and came to a stop at the bark from behind.
Their captor stepped around and stood before them. Quinn sucked in a quick breath. It was Miss Pragmatic. Quinn noted the exact second surprise registered on Miss Pragmatic’s face when she looked into their eyes. Both sets staring back were blue.
Nostrils flaring with indignation, she stepped in front of Quinn and ripped the balaclava off her head. Her recognition of Quinn was instantaneous. She flung Quinn’s mask to the floor, grabbed James’s covering, and snapped it off.
Miss Pragmatic stepped back, clearly shocked to find a couple of Westerners burgling Gill’s house. Her astonishment transformed to aggravation as she considered them, obviously trying to work out what she should do next.
James tensed, like a tiger ready to pounce. Miss Pragmatic shrewdly recognized it. She stared him down, extended her arm, and trained her Beretta at Quinn’s forehead. He stood down.
Miss Pragmatic’s dark, blazing eyes never left James as she held the gun to Quinn’s head with one hand and patted her down with the other. All Quinn could do was close her eyes and concentrate on not blacking out. Miss Pragmatic took Quinn’s phone and tossed it onto a nearby armchair. She then crouched, ran her hand over Quinn’s thighs and calves, and relieved Quinn of her Baby Glock.
Quinn opened her eyes. Miss Pragmatic pointed the Glock at James while the Beretta remained on her.
Miss Pragmatic barked at him, presumably telling him to divest himself of his weapons. Her tone grew more menacing when he didn’t move. She cocked the hammer of the Beretta.
Quinn didn’t move, barely daring to breathe. A bead of sweat sprang from her temple and raced past her ear. The situation had grown so volatile it was like a room filled with hydrogen. One tiny spark and the whole thing would explode into a roiling ball of fire.
“You don’t need to do that,” James said in a conciliatory tone. He gingerly lifted the hem of his shirt to reveal his Sig.
That set Miss Pragmatic off on a screaming jag. Quinn squeezed her eyes shut and hoped the pistol didn’t have a hair trigger.
James spoke in a soft, singsong voice. “Relax. I’m not going to do anything crazy. I’m taking my gun out with two fingers and setting it on the floor. See? Now quit pointing the cocked Beretta at her chest.”
Quinn peeked through cracked eyelids when Miss Pragmatic spat another order at James. The Beretta hadn’t moved, and she waved the Glock in the direction of James’s calves. He removed the tranq pistol strapped to his ankle. Then he pulled up the bottom of his other pant leg to prove it was free of weapons.
Miss Pragmatic kicked away James’s weapons and jerked her head toward the dining room. She picked up the balaclavas and clamped them between her arm and rib cage. Quinn and James marched to two wooden chairs and sat. Miss Pragmatic pointed at their boots and spoke in an insistent tone. When Quinn raised her eyebrows in question, the woman gestured at the laces.
“I think she wants us to untie our boots,” Quinn said.
“She’s going to use the laces to tie us up.” James tugged at the lace on his right boot. “Do what she wants. No telling what she might do when she’s so hopped up on adrenaline.”
Miss Pragmatic scowled at them and ordered them to be quiet. That’s what Quinn assumed, anyway. Regardless, they silently pulled out the laces and tossed them to the floor at Miss Pragmatic’s feet.
The constricting tightness in Quinn’s chest gave way, at least a little, when Miss Pragmatic finally decocked the pistol Quinn had been staring down the barrel of for the past five minutes. Miss Pragmatic set the Glock on the floor and tossed a balaclava onto each of their laps. After some miming, they figured out she wanted them to hood themselves by putting the headgear on backward to completely cover their faces.
“Don’t worry, baby. We’ll get out of this,” James said and pulled the mask on over his head.
Quinn was plunged into darkness when she brought the balaclava down over her face. Her eyes strained to try to see any light or shapes. It was hopeless. The material was too thick. She was effectively bl
ind.
Quinn heard noises two feet to her right. No doubt Miss Pragmatic was tying up James. Knowing their captor was occupied, ideas of escape crackled through Quinn’s mind. She pictured where Miss Pragmatic had set the Baby Glock on the floor a few feet in front of her. Could she rip off the balaclava, snatch the pistol, and fire off a round? What if she hit James by accident? What if Miss Pragmatic put a couple of rounds in her before she even reached the Glock? What if she’d picked up the Glock and it wasn’t even on the floor anymore?
There were too many what-ifs. At the exact moment she realized she had no choice but to stay put, James said in a low tone, “No, Quinn. Don’t.” He knew exactly what she’d been thinking.
A minute later it was her turn. Miss Pragmatic yanked Quinn’s hands behind her, wrapped the bootlace tight around her wrists, and secured it with a knot. The lace dug into her skin, and her fingers began to throb.
Miss Pragmatic slid Quinn’s laceless boots off her feet. Quinn heard two clunks a short distance away, just as she had a moment before. In her mind, she pictured four boots piled against a wall. She felt the lace wrap firmly around her ankles.
When Miss Pragmatic spoke again, Quinn wasn’t sure if she was addressing them or not. After listening for a minute, Quinn realized she was having a phone conversation. It might have been a call to the police, but she doubted it. The last thing you want is the police poking around when a stolen library is in your basement. The more likely scenario was Miss Pragmatic receiving instructions from Gill about what to do next.
Quinn had to get her hands free. Thanks to the good people at the CIA, she had a plan for doing exactly that.
Quinn couldn’t see anything, but still she closed her eyes to concentrate on her first task. She had to get her wedding rings off. With the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, she gripped the diamond engagement ring and went to slide it off. It wouldn’t budge. Her fingers had plumped up like bratwursts.