by Shamim Sarif
When we finally get closer to Kit’s school, we park nearby. Riya stays on the bike for a long moment after we stop, and I stay there too. Her arms remain around my waist. Gently, I bring my hand up to cover hers, and for a moment our fingers intertwine. I feel as if my heart might stop—and it nearly does but in a different way when a low, male voice says my name, inches from my ear.
I spin around and find myself face-to-face with Luca, the former Navy SEAL. He raises his hands with a grin.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. “Ethan clocks anyone who parks on this block and your bike showed up, so I came out to see if we had anything to worry about.”
“No, it’s just me,” I say, trying to get over my inner fluster caused by the handholding with Riya. “I need to see the headmistress for a few minutes,” I say.
“Jaya? She’s in her office,” Luca says. “Come on, I’ll take you over.”
In the meantime, Riya has swung off the motorcycle and removed her helmet. I introduce her to Luca, explaining to her that Kit has hired private security to watch over the girls. We both follow him across the street and into the school grounds.
“The girls are back on their timetable. Nothing strange has come up on our watch yet. I feel good about security,” Luca tells us. “We’re still not letting them out in the playground though.”
“Sounds smart,” I comment.
“You bet.” Luca nods.
On the front steps of the school, I pause and take a look around again. The building is set back from the street, but the road that runs outside it, the one we parked on, is really busy. Beyond the road, over on the other side, low apartment blocks rise up; the top layers of them overlook the playground. Colorful scarves, saris, and shirts hang from lines on each level of the blocks, like festive bunting. Posters for various political candidates are plastered haphazardly over any free wall space and a lot of telephone poles. Trees are scarce, but satellite dishes and complex tangles of wires are everywhere. It looks like some of those apartments are using those wires to cadge electricity off others, which is not the first time I’ve noticed that happening in this city. When I turn back, Luca’s tying on a paisley-print bandanna.
“Like it?” he asks.
“Very cool.” I feel like I’ve seen a similar one recently. “Where’d you get it?” I ask.
“Caitlin gave it to me,” he says with a grin.
That makes me smile too. Caitlin has a stack of these and wears them herself once in a while. Now that she’s passing them around to certain handsome SEALs, I’ll have something to tease her with to pass the time at tonight’s stakeout.
We walk inside but before we get very far, Jaya herself ricochets out of her office and into the large foyer, bounding toward us.
“How wonderful to see you,” says Jaya, shaking hands all around. “I hope all is well?”
I assure her that everything is fine.
“How can I help you?” she asks, turning to lead us inside. Luca raises a hand to say goodbye and disappears back to his post. Not wanting to waste time, we both step in to walk beside Jaya. I nod to Riya to go ahead.
“It’s just routine, ma’am,” Riya says. “We have a couple of pictures to show you.”
“Not a problem,” says Jaya. “Let’s step into my study.”
Inside the office, the blinds filter out the harshness of the afternoon sun, but the room still feels cheerful. A couple of saggy armchairs look well used, and there’s a desk covered in paperwork, china cups, and biscuit packets. Jaya offers us tea, coffee, snacks—but we politely decline, eager to cross this task off our list and be on our way.
“What did you want to show me?” Jaya asks.
I hold out my phone and flick through the pictures of the two guys from the lab.
“Have you seen these two men before?” I ask. “Take your time.”
While Jaya peers them, I take in the walls of her snug office. They are covered in artwork made by the pupils, showing what they want to be when they grow up. Riya joins me and our eyes range over them. The scale of the girls’ ambitions makes us both smile. Some want to be astronauts, others scientists, doctors, explorers, songwriters. . . . For a moment, I feel—well, not pride, exactly—but appreciation. That Kit has offered these young women the chance to learn, to study, to aspire to be something in addition to wives and mothers. But inevitably, it sharpens the loss too, of the eleven girls who have had their lives and their dreams snatched away by Family First.
Jaya scoots behind her desk to retrieve wire-rimmed glasses, then she returns to study the pictures again.
“They do look familiar . . . ,” she says.
Riya shoots me a concerned look. “Are you sure?” she asks the headmistress.
Jaya sniffs, uncertain. But she keeps studying the photos. Before long, she gives a decisive snap of her fingers and looks up at us.
“I’ve got it. They’re the doctors. I didn’t recognize them without their white coats on.”
Tension floods through me. From Riya’s brisk, urgent tone I can tell she’s stressed too.
“What doctors?” she asks. “Where?”
“They came here. To both schools, in fact,” Jaya says, looking first at Riya and then at me.
“Why?”
“It was only for the vaccines,” she explains, keen to reassure us. “This was long before the attack. Maybe two weeks before . . . Here, let me look up the date. . . .” She bounces behind her desk and Riya follows, on top of her like a ton of bricks.
“Never mind the date right now. Please. What vaccines? Injections?” Riya demands.
“TD. Tetanus and diphtheria. There have been so many diphtheria outbreaks in the city that when they offered them to us, I decided it would be safer to get it done than risk the girls falling sick.”
Riya almost collapses on the desk, as if her legs have given way. Her gaze turns to me, and it’s filled with fear.
“Jessie?” she breathes as Jaya stares at her, then whips a questioning look over to me.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “We’ll figure this out.”
That’s what comes out of my mouth, but inside, I’ve hit full panic mode. Those men at the lab, the ones Jaya recognizes, are not doctors. Or if they are, they are not trying to make anyone well. Nor does it seem likely that they work for any legitimate vaccination clinic.
“I have to tell Sunil,” Riya says, her tone desperate. “He has them in custody. He can push them for information.”
“Someone please tell me what’s happening?” Jaya interrupts.
I look at her. “We have to get blood tests done on every one of the girls.”
21
JINGO’S HOME IS RELATIVELY MODEST for a man of his political stature; a compact, white bungalow with a decent-sized garden in the front. Palm trees and bushes fill every part of the yard except for a thin, paved pathway that leads down to imposing iron gates that separate the plot from the street itself.
The early-evening light is golden, the heat less intense than it was during the middle of the day—but I can’t enjoy it. I sit in our rental car, keeping an eye open for Jingo, and all I can think about is the schoolgirls. What was in those injections that the two lab goons put into them? It’s been nearly an hour since Caitlin arrived at the school to change places with me. Between them, she and Luca are watching over doctors from Ajay’s lab as they take blood samples from each girl for testing. They will rush the results, but every minute seems to drag as we wait.
“Cait?” I ask over our comms. There’s a brief pause before she responds.
“Jessie, we’re on it,” Caitlin replies patiently. “First batches of blood got back to the lab thirty minutes ago. They should have something for us soon.”
In the side mirror of the car, I watch Hala, far down the street behind me. She’s standing at a colorful street cart hung with garlands of marigolds. I watch her pull out some rupees and offer them to the vendor. He chats with her while he slices the tops off two bulging gree
n coconuts, puts straws into them, and hands them over. Cradling them in her arms, she comes back to the car and hands one to me.
“Coconut water has electrolytes,” is her sales pitch.
“I don’t want it, thanks,” I say.
“Did I ask?” is Hala’s charm-filled reply. “Drink it.”
I drink. The freshness of the cool liquid on my tongue feels like relief. Hala watches me while she sips too. If nothing else, it’s calmed my breathing, just by making me swallow a lot. And the truth is, I was getting thirsty.
“Better?” she asks.
I nod my thanks. The sun is slowly sinking behind houses and the last, crimson rays glitter on windows and sparkle on the windshields of cars in driveways. It’s coming up to seven thirty; about the time that Jingo should be leaving for his 8 p.m. extramarital rendezvous. Sure enough, within a few moments, his front door opens and he gets into his car. During the day he has a driver hanging around, but I have no doubt that he prefers to do this kind of excursion on his own. Hala watches him pull out, then waits for several other vehicles to pass and fill the space between us before she follows.
As we drive, Caitlin’s voice comes in over the comms:
“Blood tests are still in progress, but so far they’re showing nothing.”
I’m relieved but also doubtful. “Are you sure?”
“I mean, they do have the diphtheria and tetanus antibodies,” she says. “But nothing else. So, it looks like they were clean vaccines.”
“Did they check for everything?”
“All the basics,” Caitlin confirms. “A couple of the girls are low on iron; normal stuff like that. But there’s nothing sinister that cuts across all of them. This is just first-round, basic testing and they still have more detailed tests to do. Stuff that takes longer. But it’s a good result to start with, Jessie.”
Hala looks at me with a brief smile of relief.
“Feel better?” she asks.
“A little,” I say, trying not to scowl. But the truth is I don’t feel completely relieved about the girls. I’m still wary. The men who had access to them just shot at me in the lab this morning, so something is up. We just don’t know what it is yet, what clue or information is hanging there, just outside our reach. I look out of the window, keeping my thoughts to myself while Hala negotiates the traffic. It is great the blood tests were clean, and yet . . .
“What’s the matter?” Hala says.
I don’t have an answer for her, but out of the blue, I come up with the word that sums up how I feel right now. Dread. But what I’m dreading and why, I really have no idea.
Up ahead of us, Jingo turns into a side street and parks his car. We stay on the main road, hidden by the constant flow of pedestrians and traffic. This is not the address we tracked on the cell phone. But it seems that Jingo’s just taking precautions. When he exits the car, he’s wearing a cap and glasses, which create an effective disguise. He walks back in our direction, onto the main road, making sure to look around him discreetly. But he can’t see us. Hala has tucked our car behind a busy street stall selling hot fried samosas. Jingo hails an auto-rickshaw and we watch him get in and instruct the driver.
We continue to trail Jingo for another ten minutes or so, through streets that twist and turn, finishing up on a residential street that feels quiet and wide; expansive and expensive. The rickshaw stops about a hundred yards ahead of us. We park and watch. Jingo pays the driver and waits for him to leave before crossing the road and heading into the driveway of a detached house, enveloped by overgrown bushes and trees.
“Let’s go,” says Hala.
As we exit the car, I put in my night-vision contact lenses. They have the added benefit of turning my own green eyes a murky shade of brown. It’s not a full disguise, but it’s something. Immediately, I can see Jingo’s outline, small in the distance, going to the back door of the house, which opens and shuts briefly to let him in. We circle around toward the house, trying to decide the best way in.
Once whitewashed, the exterior of the place is now faded, coated with layers of peeling paint. But the structure itself is beautiful—a wooden, two-story home with plantation shutters at the window frames and a porch that winds around the sides.
“I can’t see any cameras,” Hala says, glancing at me for my opinion.
“Me neither,” I reply. Maybe Jingo realizes that the smart way to cheat on his wife while upholding family values is to not leave any digital evidence that he was ever here.
We pad quietly up to the house. The rooms are dark except for one on the ground level, and one on the floor above. We check out the downstairs room first, through the window. It’s empty and a subtle glow of lamplight illuminates an expansive living room filled with beautiful paintings and antiques. A fireplace, set ready with kindling and logs, completes the country club look.
“He must be upstairs,” I whisper. Hala nods, pointing up to a very low light issuing from a room on the top floor. It’s to the rear of our position in the grounds below. We walk around to the back door that Jingo used to come into the house. It’s not a hard lock to pick, and it leads us directly into a clean, tidy kitchen.
Moving stealthily past, we both pull up neck scarves to cover our mouths and noses, then climb up wooden stairs that are worn with age, and also creaky, even at the edges. I signal Hala that we might as well go faster. If they hear our feet on the groaning steps, it’s best not to leave much time for them to panic about it.
Quickly, we run. Hala goes ahead of me, turning at the top of the stairs and opening up the only room with a thin bar of light under the door. I have a knife at the ready, while Hala has her phone out, taking video. Jingo is certainly in a compromising position but, funnily enough, it’s not with a woman. A young man, slim and with a delicate, beautiful face, looks up at Hala and me. So much for Family First’s anti-LGBTQI+ stance.
Jingo takes a moment to process and then he’s up, snatching his pants from a chair next to the bed. But before he can get a leg anywhere near them, I push him back onto the mattress and show him my knife, keeping it close to his throat. Hala is busy turning his young companion toward the wall so he can’t watch us, pulling his arm back behind him so that he feels it will break if he moves. He whimpers but complies.
With my free hand, I rummage around in Jingo’s trouser pocket. Inside is his phone. I message my own burner handset from it, then text back a little attachment that will give us access to everything on Jingo’s handset at all times. Then I turn my attention back to Jingo himself, keeping a knee pressed to his chest. He watches my blade, gleaming in the lamplight. Dim lighting is supposed to be kinder to people, but he looks older up close, his eyes wide and strained, his body lean and pale, without much hair on his chest and legs.
“Tell us about your links to Family First,” I say.
Jingo hesitates, then clears his throat, like a politician about to give a speech. “As I have said on record, I am shocked by their terror tactics and condemn them in the strongest possible—”
He stops talking when I carve a line in his chest, drawing blood just from the top layer of skin.
“Let’s stop wasting time,” I suggest. “Does a company called AAB Enterprises ring a bell?”
Jingo watches, dismayed, as the blood rises to seep out from the cut on his chest. He begins to shiver now, perhaps from the pain, but more likely from my question.
“They paid you,” I continue. “By putting shares of a medical company into your name.”
“Not in my name,” he says. His eyes slide away from mine.
“My mistake,” I reply. “The shares are in the name of your shell company. You know the one—it uses the Cypriot Private Bank as a trustee.”
Jingo looks at me again, his eyes wider now and more anxious. “Who are you?” he asks.
Well, obviously, the information flow is only going to go one way here, so I ignore that question.
“We have enough to send you to prison right now,” I say. “Not to men
tion pictures and video that will make you a beacon of hope for the LGBT community in India. So, do you want to talk, or play games?”
On that, the young man tries to make a break from Hala.
“Give me those pictures!” he mutters, going for her pocket, looking for her phone.
Hala doesn’t take kindly to that. She kicks him behind the knees so he hits the ground, and cuffs him on the head, twice, till he falls flat. He lies there, arms spread out, too fearful to move, but she keeps her boot on his head for good measure.
Watching his boyfriend get a little beaten up seems to affect Jingo and loosen his tongue. His breath becomes ragged, audible shreds of sound that follow the rise and fall of his thin chest.
“I need immunity. I want to know I’ll be safe.”
“You’re not really in a position to bargain,” I point out.
“What are you hoping?” he asks, his voice shaky. “To stop Family First?” He smiles but it’s not a happy look. More like a wide-eyed grimace. “Their power base is growing internationally.”
“Who is behind them?” I ask.
“A few, very powerful men.”
“Names?”
“You think they give me their business cards?” He laughs mirthlessly. “They are deep in the shadows.”
“Where are they based?”
Jingo hesitates. “Here. Pakistan too.”
“Who do you report to?”
“Nobody. All communication, from the start, has been through low-level bankers, lawyers. . . . Even with them—it’s not like they deliver checks by hand or come anywhere near me. It would look bad for me and make their strategy too obvious. They fund me very indirectly, because we believe in the same things.”