Fortunately for us, the bomb was too small to actually kill us. Or maybe we were just lucky, saved by the vehicle’s frame, which took most of the blow.
Shotgun’s face was blackened, his hand was burnt, and his arm was covered with little bits of glass. He was lying on his back in the mud when I reached him. It wasn’t until he blinked that I knew he was alive.
And then he started to laugh.
“You think that’s funny, asshole?”
“No, I think you’re funny, skipper. You should see your hair. It’s all up like a beehive.”
Shotgun’s a big boy, but I was damn tempted to put him over my knee and give him a good education.
The interior of the car was still on fire. The truth was, it probably wasn’t much of a loss — the Indians were unlikely to spring for a DNA test, and even if they did, there wasn’t a terrorist chromosome index handy. But the bomb was one more indication of how well organized these guys were. This wasn’t your ordinary group of ragheads fresh off the madrassa.
We wiped some of the mud off our clothes and walked back to the cab. Urdu wrinkled his nose as soon as he was downwind.
“Five hundred rupee each, you sit in car,” he said. “Must needs clean after ride. Otherwise, you go in trunk.”
The trunk would have been a perfect punishment for Shotgun, but I’m positive he wouldn’t have fit. So I paid the thousand rupees — about twenty bucks — and had him take us up to the Maharaja. From there, I called Captain Birla and told him that I’d spotted the getaway car by the water, and gave him directions.
He didn’t ask how I knew, which was good, since I wasn’t going to tell him.
I took a quick, cold shower — Shotgun had used up all five seconds of the hotel’s weekly allowance of hot water — then went back to work.
* * *
Urdu was relieved not to smell us when we returned to his taxi. He’d vacuumed and shampooed the cab while we were inside, and now had so many sticks of incense going that the interior of the car smelled like a Venice, CA, head shop.
The locator signal had stopped moving in the Zakhira area of the city, south of Rama Road. As the crow flies, this was nearly ten miles from the spot where we’d found the car, and on the other side of Delhi. It was also one of the city’s more notorious slums, though a good distance from the worst.
Delhi has a population somewhere around fourteen million people. Of that, four million are estimated to live in slums. These ghettos are all over the city, your basic shantytowns for the most part. Conditions vary but in general the buildings are one good huff from falling down. Depending on where in the city they are, they may be made of mud bricks or discarded wood. Mostly, though, they’re collections of tin, wood panels, and plastic tarping. They usually don’t have running water in the houses, and no electricity. Sometimes people cut into the city pipes for clean water, but usually they scrounge from whatever source they can find — rainwater, or the ridiculously polluted river or a stream.
Pleasant places.
The slums have long been viewed not just as breeding grounds for disease, but the birthplace of terrorists. The truth is more complex. If you look at the profiles of the terrorists who have tried to attack America and the West, most have actually come from middle class and even upper middle class families. People in the slums, at least in India, seem for the most part to spend too much time trying to eek out a living to be seduced by promises of paradise.
There’s no question, though, that the slums harbor a good number of criminals, organized and otherwise. Which was why Urdu balked when I told him where we were going.
“Very bad,” the driver said. “No, no, you go there.”
“Why is it bad?” asked Shotgun.
“People see you, they think you rich. Take money. Maybe kidnap. Ransom.”
“I don’t think we’ll have that kind of trouble at four o’clock in the morning,” I told him. “Just take us as close to the road as you can.”
“No road there, Mr. Dick. I take you to the circle. There I wait. You walk. But give me your money.”
“We’ll settle up at the end of the week,” I told him.
“No, no, you don’t understand. It is not safe for you to take money there. You will be robbed.”
His concern was touching, even if it was only for his pay.
“There’ll be a bonus,” I assured him. “So make sure you’re here.”
“I be here. You make sure you are in one piece,” he told me. “Do not be too careful.”
* * *
It was barely four in the morning, but already the place was awake. As wretched as the houses were, the majority of the residents actually had jobs. Some had two or three. The problem was that they didn’t pay much. I’m not talking about the low wages the people make in the phone centers and factories that have been outsourced from the U.S. Their wages, by Indian standards, are considered high. I’m talking about the one thousand dollars a year and less jobs — the janitor at the small factory on the other side of the train station, who’s lucky to make half that. And then there are people who pick rags from the garbage, clean them, and sell them. They might net three or four hundred a year. Not enough to keep them in rice, even in India.
We picked our way through a rubble-strewn field, then detoured around a mound of garbage — there is no city pickup in the ghetto — before finding a small alleyway that took us toward the locator signal. The houses were packed tight on either side, and it was an especially good place for an ambush.
When we got within twenty feet, I was able to narrow the signal’s location down to a house covered by a purple tarp. The house was a relatively solid-looking building made of scavenged bricks. It had been erected inside the foundation of an older brick building that had been partially destroyed. About half the original walls of the older building remained, so from the outside it looked as if the house was double-walled.
“Do we take them?” asked Shotgun.
“First we see what it looks like,” I told him.
“We can blow their house apart with half a stick of dynamite.”
I doubt it would have taken anywhere near a half stick of dynamite — Shotgun could have stood next to the wall and shouted, and half of the bricks would have fallen in.
“We want these guys alive, remember?” I told him.
“You take the fun out of everything,” he answered, pulling a Twinkie from his pocket.
When I slipped around to the far side of the building, I saw that the inner walls had not actually been completed — this whole side was made out of canvas, which was stretched down from a few poles that were part of the roof structure. The fabric was patched and sewn together, and there were three separate flaps — doors to the separate apartments inside a building that was no bigger than the average toolshed back home.
The transmitter was in one of the two “apartments” on the right side of the building. Unfortunately, the only way to find out which one was to go in.
I slipped back the curtain that acted as the door and stepped inside the room on the right. Water jugs were lined against the canvas wall that separated the apartment from the others. There were two empty pails next to them. They were large, the kind that plaster comes in.
I tiptoed inside, pistol ready. The place was maybe ten feet by ten feet, and had only one room. Two figures were sleeping on a mound of blankets and cardboard to the right. To the left, where the signal would have been coming from, were a pair of boxes. Not sure whether the shirt was inside, I went over and took a look with the help of the LED flashlight I keep on my key chain. There were pots in the top box; the bottom had some dishes.
Wrong apartment. Sorry.
I backed out slowly, trying not to trip. I took a couple of breaths, then pulled back the second door.
This flap led to a hall that ran through the middle of the building. There were three more flaps on either side of the hall — a total of six different apartments, all separated by canvas. None of them could have been more
than six feet square.
I froze for a few seconds, listening. If the GPS was right, I wanted the unit in the middle on my right.
I put my hand on the curtain and pulled back gently.
There was a tangle of blankets in front of me. I picked out four arms, five, six, twisted.
There was an adult on the right, sleeping, and six kids.
And a man standing at the right side of the room, holding something aimed at my chest.
* * *
One of the things we train on extensively in spec ops is differentiating between the enemy and civilians in an urban setting. It’s not as easy as it sounds. You have a split second to decide, and the consequences of a mistake are a hell of a lot more severe than what happens in your average video game. You can’t hit the pause button when a real-life tango unzips your chest cavity.
Even with all that training, the moment of truth depends on a kind of sixth sense as much as anything. Things happen so quickly that there’s no time for your brain to completely frame the image, evaluate it, make a computation, then send the data to your fingers for processing.
Shoot, or don’t shoot.
Kill, or maybe be killed.
I didn’t fire.
* * *
He had a pot in his hand.
He dropped it as soon as he realized I was holding a gun in mine. I’m guessing he saw his life whiz by in front of his eyes.
“Namaste,” I said. That’s Hindi for hello. It pretty much exhausted my store of nonfood or nonsuggestive phrases.
It didn’t matter. He was as tongue-tied as a minister caught in a whorehouse.
I glanced to the left and saw the prison shirt I’d been following. There was a kid inside it, a thin rail of a thing.
“That shirt belongs to me,” I said, in English.
The man didn’t say anything. It was impossible to tell if he even understood what I was saying.
I glanced around the small room. Things were jumbled in different piles — clothes in one pile, cooking gear in another, some firewood in a third. There was a camp stove next to the man, and a small can of kerosene. I’m guessing he’d been planning on making some tea for his breakfast.
“Where did he get the shirt?” I asked. “Did he take it from a car? Did she see who was wearing it?”
He didn’t speak English.
“I’ll be right back,” I told him.
I assume he was the kids’ father, though to be honest he looked barely old enough to be an older brother. Outside the building, I whistled for Shotgun. He came lumbering around the side, munching on jalebi — a deep-fried, syrup-soaked twist of a cake that is sometimes called a sweet pretzel.
“Check it out, Dick. Guy over there sells this stuff. Costs like two rupees.”
“A kid stole the shirt,” I said. “Watch the building. Nobody in or out until I come back with the cabdriver.”
“You sure he’s gonna come?”
“Maybe on my back, but he’s coming.”
It actually didn’t take much to convince Urdu that he should join us — the hundred-rupee note in my fist strengthened his courage.
The fact that my PK was still in my hand may have had something to do with it as well, though I prefer to believe my charm was the greatest factor.
By now it was a little after five. The sun was up and more people were awake. If anything, the place was even more depressing in the light.
“Hey, skipper! Hey, Urdu!” yelled Shotgun as we turned the corner. “Come on. Meet the family.”
My erstwhile sidekick was surrounded by children, who were hanging on to him as if he were a set of monkey bars. On top of his shoulders was the kid who had snagged the shirt.
“Man, they love these pretzel things,” said Shotgun, producing another from his pocket. He broke up pieces and handed them around.
“Shotgun friend to all,” said Urdu, smiling.
I told him I wanted to talk to the tyke with the fancy orange shirt.
“Ask him where he got the shirt,” I said.
Urdu gave me a funny look, then said something in Hindi. The kid shook his head.
“Tell him it belongs to me,” I told Urdu. “And I want him to give it back to me right now.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Richard,” said the driver. “But the child is a girl.”
“My name is Leya!” said the girl, swinging down off Shotgun’s neck. “You are American?”
“You speak English?” I asked.
“English everyone knows,” she told me. “All kids! You need English for Internet. Big job.”
Even in the better light, it was hard to tell she was a girl. Her hair was cropped very tight, and she was skinny as a rail. She couldn’t have been more than nine. I eventually found out that her hair had been shaved completely off because of lice.
“Where’d you get that shirt?” I asked.
“Shirt?” She grabbed the front. “Present.”
“No it wasn’t,” said Shotgun. He reached down and grabbed the back of it, lifting her up.
“Let me down, Joe.”
“Shotgun,” he said with a mock growl, “don’t like liars.”
“Let me down!”
She started kicking and swinging her arms. Shotgun laughed and let go of her. She tumbled to the ground but bounced right back up, none the worse for wear.
By now we had quite an audience. I asked her a few more questions about where she had gotten the shirt. She kept claiming it was a present.
“Who gave it to you?” I asked.
“My auntie.”
“Do we look dumb?” asked Shotgun, bending down.
Some of the other kids giggled, but our little Leya just became more indignant.
“The car you took it from blew up,” I told her. “The man who was wearing that shirt was very bad. It would help me if you told us something about him.”
“There was no man.”
“I’ll give you a sweet pretzel,” said Shotgun.
Instantly, he had a dozen informers, ready to describe all sorts of people — old, young, tall, short, big, fat.
“Time to go,” I told Shotgun. “We’re not going to get anything we can use here.”
Urdu was more than ready to leave. He spun around and made a beeline for the cab. Shotgun and I took our time — him because he kept on doling out pieces of pretzel to the kids, me because I was looking to see if anyone was watching us.
We were being watched, but mostly by kids. We were a sensation — I haven’t had so much attention since my last book signing. Our flock grew as we walked, until at last we had a veritable flood of people behind us. It looked like a royal procession.
Urdu had the car started and ready. When we reached it, the kids pressed in close, and he had to beep and wave to start through the crowd.
Suddenly something banged hard on my window.
It was Leya’s hand.
I rolled down my window.
“There were five men,” she told me. “They had a boat.”
“What kind of boat?”
“With a motor.”
“What did the men look like?”
She gave me a general description — two were about her father’s age. Two closer to her grandfather’s. She hadn’t seen the last.
“I could not tell you before,” she said. “My father would think I am stealing. That is very, very bad.”
“It is bad,” I told her. “How did you see them? Did you follow them there?”
“I was with cousin. We catch fish.”
“They were probably stealing from cars in the neighborhood,” said Urdu. “Little thieves.”
Leya didn’t deny the accusation, pretending instead that she hadn’t heard it.
“One man have scar on cheek,” she said. “Very dark face.”
Was that worth ten rupees? Frankly, it sounded completely made-up. But what the hell. I reached into my pocket and gave the girl a coin just as Urdu found an opening in the crowd and eased away.
( V )
It was too late to go to sleep. Shotgun and I drove out to the airport and picked up Sean, Mongoose, and Junior. After exchanging the usual terms of endearment, we unloaded their luggage at the fancy hotel, secured more rooms at the Maharaja Express as a backup, then embarked on a whirlwind orientation of Delhi.
If the night before had been dedicated to the dark side of the city, the morning was spent in the light. Our first stop was India Gate, the massive sandstone monument built to honor India’s war dead in World War I.
India was involved in World War I?
It’s a little known fact, but India sent over eight hundred thousand troops to the Allied cause. One hundred and forty thousand served in Western Europe. A total of over seventy thousand Indians died in the war, more than any other Commonwealth country except for Great Britain herself.
The arch also holds the Eternal Flame, a memorial to the soldiers who died during the 1971 war with Pakistan.
We paid our respects, then moved on.
Delhi’s version of the White House is Rashtrapati Bhawan. The president lives here, somewhere, in one of the 340 rooms. Or maybe inside the green dome that sits on the top like a giant pot cover. The building was erected for Great Britain’s viceroy, and by some estimations puts even Windsor Castle to shame. Which gives you some idea of what the colonial governors thought of themselves.
We couldn’t go inside, and none of my guys are much on flowers, so we skipped the Mughal Gardens that border the residence and drove past the Red Fort. This is Delhi’s real castle, the place from which the Mughal Empire ran the country in the seventeenth century.
The Brits stormed the place after the locals rebelled in the 1857 uprising known as the War of Independence; from that point on it became a British stronghold until handed over at independence. It’s a veritable city to itself, with ornate “pavilions” or buildings that are recognized as important architectural treasures. If you like ornate marble, elaborate carvings, fancy roof projections, the Red Fort is the place to go.
(Today’s tourist hint: visit the War Memorial Museum, which is in Naubat Khana, or Naqqar Khana — or to us Westerners the Drum House. Shotgun got so wrapped up in the old Mughal weaponry that he forgot to eat for several hours, probably a record for him. The Drum House is the big red rectangle made out of sandstone in the middle of the compound. If it looks a little plain, just remember that the carvings on the outside were once covered with gold.)
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