by A D Davies
“I’ll pick him up in Mumbai,” Jules said. “Bring back both bangles and the manuscript. I’ll take my mom’s, then you guys can go after the tomb if you want. I don’t care about that. Just leave me to it.”
The two men lunged, and Jules chose not to fight back. He had information to impart after all.
There was no need for cuffs. Colin had seen footage of the boy in action and knew he’d react differently if he wanted to. It was why he’d chosen Vic and Bryn as the men to watch Jules and—more important—act as bodyguards for Colin himself. He didn’t need Toby bloody Smith to spell out the danger Valerio posed.
The only reason Valerio wasn’t behind bars was that prosecuting him would reveal certain surveillance techniques to the world, and neither the UK government nor her crass cousins over the Pond wanted that. Until Valerio Conchin became a direct threat to either nation, he could gallivant around the world, raiding long-forgotten graves and mausoleums all he liked.
Toby’s presumption that Her Majesty’s head curator needed a worm to advise him spoke volumes about the man.
Yet Colin genuinely didn’t know what to make of Jules’s latest statement, given as it was with his arms forced behind his back by 300 pounds of SAS muscle.
“LORI found Valerio,” Jules said. “They know where he is. But they ain’t equipped to deal with him.”
Colin chose to play along for now. “And they want the resources of Her Majesty’s government to supplement their shortcomings.”
“Something like that, yeah. Guessin’ you said no.”
“Where is he?”
Jules twitched his head at Vic, whose hands held him in place. Colin flicked a finger, gave a single nod, and Vic let go.
Jules stretched his neck and arms. “Can you get us to Mumbai?”
“Of course.” Colin wiped more sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. “Can you be more specific?”
“About a hundred miles to the north of Mumbai, some guy called Sanjeev Kaur has a property. Valerio’s holed up there. And I’m coming. Unless your buddies called you back.”
Colin would verify the property, but it sounded about right. Sanjeev Kaur led a town in which Valerio thought he existed under the cloak of anonymity, and there was no way someone as unconnected as Jules Sibeko would make such a leap of logic. “Fine, you can come. But you will wait in Mumbai until we get back. Clear?”
“Clear,” Jules said, and strode toward the jet without being invited.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mumbai, India
As expected, Colin ordered Jules grounded upon landing. They used Mumbai’s main airport, Chhatrapati Shivaji International, landing at four a.m., then taxiing to a private terminal. The pilots disembarked before a thin Indian man in a crisp suit greeted them, and he and Colin spent ten minutes after their initial handshake talking on the tarmac. The man, presumably a manager, made two phone calls, then swept his arm between Colin and the building that would lead them to the freeways north.
Jules’s gamble had paid off.
It seemed logical that if Sanjeev Kaur was entertaining business associates in Mumbai, he must keep property here, be it via a shell or owned outright, and Jules’s hundred-mile estimate gave a flexible radius in that if it was over or under by twenty or even thirty miles, he could simply state that he was rounding up or down. As it turned out, 182 miles northwest of Mumbai lay a series of industrial estates on which Kaur owned three units.
“That’s around a hundred miles as the crow flies,” Jules said. “Hundred and twenty?”
Colin mapped it on his touchscreen and said nothing more on the subject. It would be a five-hour drive since they had been unable to procure a helicopter.
The curator took Vic and Bryn with him this time, Henry and Sally too, which left only the airport security guys to watch Jules.
It was as if Jules had reached the limit of his usefulness to Colin and had been discarded as a loose end to keep from unraveling too far. The Indian manager didn’t appear to enjoy relinquishing his guards for this duty, but whomever he spoke with next overrode his position.
Jules hadn’t changed clothes in a couple of days now, so he still wore the cargo pants and T-shirt Toby had supplied in Ulaanbaatar, his underwear now unpleasant to the touch. His leather jacket still looked pretty cool yet was anything but cool in the heat that was sure to descend. He was without cash and without identity documents; both real and fake were all still in Rome. Unless Toby or Bridget fished them out of the rental car’s trunk before leaving.
Looking around the plane’s cabin, he figured cash wouldn’t be a problem.
He unlocked the hatch, and once it opened and hissed to a stop, he stepped out onto the tarmac, carrying a knapsack the size of a child’s lunch box, the best bag he could find. It was cooler here than in Delhi, but the sun breaking on the horizon was already warming the air.
The two security guards in their dark-green uniforms snapped to attention and rested their hands on the butts of their guns.
Jules sat on the second step, indicating that he didn’t pose a threat, then opened the bag to prove he wasn’t armed. From the knapsack, he selected two of Colin’s watches. One was a Patek Philippe, a Swiss timepiece worth tens of thousands of dollars, with so many dials and colors it resembled a sailor’s navigation device; the other was a Ulysse Nardin, close in value, with a textured blue face and gold hands and trim.
Both guards brightened, then looked fearful.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” Jules said. When it became plain they spoke little English, he held up a single finger and pointed at a watch. “One hour. Me.”
He waggled two fingers to signal running.
The lead guard’s hand trembled as he reached for the Patek Philippe. He weighed it in his grasp. In India, this item was worth several years’ wages, even in a plum job like airport security.
Eyes still on the watch, the man held up a finger. “One... hour?”
Jules formed a wide smile and nodded. “Girlfriend.” He considered making another gesture with his fingers, something lewd, but the pair laughed jovially without the need to be too on the nose. The fear seeped out of them.
“One hour.” He stood and handed the other his new bounty. “Hide those. Tell no one.”
Beaming, the second guard said, “Secret!”
“Definitely. See you soon!”
After passing through the private terminal, which cut out the need for immigration, Jules opened every door using the chipped IDs he’d lifted from the guards and sauntered out front to join dozens of other travelers, where he simply caught a taxi.
He felt like crap as he watched the outskirts of the city pass by. He hoped the guards found a good hiding place for those items, or they’d be confiscated and the men fired or even jailed. He made a mental note to check up on their fate once this was over and offer financial support if they needed it—once Alfonse’s reward money came his way. If he kept hold of the stolen IDs, he could find them easily.
Damn.
When did Jules start caring about such folks? He’d bribed dozens of officials and low-level grunts and never thought twice about it. Perhaps because those recipients were always among the most corrupt, those who knew better. This pair appeared overwhelmed by the potential wealth on offer, in all likelihood thinking about the benefit to their families rather than simple greed.
In the knapsack, Jules had sequestered all he could from the Lear’s main cabin. He had taken four elite watches from the laughably simplistic safe, two of which had already found new homes, along with a giftwrapped box bearing a “Happy Anniversary” tag that contained a ruby-encrusted necklace, and two small bottles of thirty-year-old Scotch whisky from the liquor cabinet. Smaller items swiped from around the place included a cigar cutter, two cut-crystal tumblers, an iPhone with no power, and luckily, a charger. This time, Colin had kept hold of both Jules’s phones, so it wasn’t as if he could hock them.
The taxi ride from the airport cost him one bottle of fine liquor.
>
Mumbai was a lot like New York. No single city center but a ton of districts, similar to Manhattan and Brooklyn. He asked to be taken to where backpackers could find affordable accommodation, figuring the driver would almost certainly know one owner or another, and more important, he hoped he’d fit in better there. He wasn’t wrong.
He left the taxi and ensured the driver saw him enter the Blue Palm Tree hostel. Mooching around the lobby, he waited five minutes, perusing leaflets, the drowsy receptionist not bothering him at all. Right up until he departed.
Outside, he wandered as casually as he could, the ovenlike heat building quickly and smog descending as the city awoke and its inhabitants set out to work. He carried the bag on his shoulder, his jacket in one hand, and when he heard three Americans chatting loudly outside a café, he played his favorite character: fish-out-of-water student abroad for the first time. Shyly, he asked about a market or a place to barter.
“I need to practice,” he said. “Starting business school in the fall.”
The three jock types assessed him, exchanged amused glances, and eventually sent him on a fifteen-minute walk to where a sprawling hangar-type structure housed an indoor market. By now the temperature had reached the high seventies, but with a roof overhead, it climbed into the nineties. It wasn’t difficult to find someone willing to exchange the iPhone for six thousand Indian rupees—less than a hundred dollars. The retailer sent him to a colleague, who bought the tumblers for another thousand—around fifteen bucks—and the cigar cutter netted him fifteen hundred. Not a fortune, but it was enough seed money to get around, possibly even disappear for the day.
At a different café from where he met the Americans, he bought a meal of chicken and rice wrapped in roti bread and washed it down with ice-cold lemonade. After buying a change of clothes and trashing his old ones, he took up residence in an internet café to research Sanjeev Kaur’s grand opening.
Gatecrashing the party would take dough and a backup plan and, if possible, a second backup plan. Pawning items wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped, so he accessed the Tor network, or the “dark web” in layman’s terms, and located a broker he’d used a number of times in the region. The broker recommended a fence a twenty-minute tuk-tuk ride away.
Operating out of one of the hundreds of building sites around the city, the man was open and easy mannered but drove down the price to a combination of local currency and US dollars, a total dollar equivalent of ten grand for what he would sell for around forty thousand retail. Not bad.
From there, Jules legitimately bought binoculars, dark loose-fitting clothes, a short-bladed hunting knife, and a ski mask, then headed for the most upmarket retail district his taxi driver could recommend, one easily comparable to Paris or Milan.
After picking up a cap to hide from most of the CCTVs, he went on to buy an off-the-rack but expensive tuxedo plus a straight-up Wall Street–style pinstripe with matching shirts, a selection of ties, and two pairs of shoes. He probably would not need every item, but in the absence of a firm plan at this stage he wanted to be prepared. On a whim, or an additional layer of prep, he added a prestigious watch, less-ostentatious than Colin’s so set him back a mere thousand bucks. He paid for a haircut and wet shave before checking into the fourth floor of a moderate hotel by the waterfront, the nicest place he could find that took cash and did not demand a photo ID.
Laying out his bounty on the air-conditioned room’s floor, he contemplated anything he may have forgotten. It was a seaport, so he could easily acquire scuba gear later.
Two approaches: undercover or burglary.
From his perusal of previous gatherings hosted by Sanjeev Kaur, the man surrounded himself with many people. An egomaniac who, like Valerio, believed himself to be above reproach.
Using the binoculars, Jules scanned the harbor from his window.
The new marina, named Visk Landing for reasons he did not care about, was busy with yachts and people. Far north of the Mallet Blunder dockyard, the multimillion-dollar development covered two square miles, boasting space for up to a hundred vessels of varying size and providing repair services, fueling, and maintenance. Cafés, bars, and restaurants lined up beside art galleries, bespoke fashion boutiques, and companies selling more boats, all secure behind a chain-link boundary, cutting off the riffraff and the working boats that occupied piers half a mile on either side.
Unable to make out faces, it was still clear the eateries were bustling with the expertly quaffed, the bejeweled, and the stinking rich of both Indian and Caucasian descent.
Amid the forty- and fifty-meter crafts, the Lady Mel stood out: seventy-two meters with twin 1,070-horsepower engines, three stories with a pool on the top deck and platforms at the aft and stern. Gleaming white, its $52 million price tag oozed from every perfect angle. Valerio’s yacht. Not exactly a secret out there on the standard web.
Jules lowered the glasses.
A high-profile development hosting its gala opening.
Valerio certain to be there.
Tight security.
No one would know Jules.
A failed break-in meant arrest or death, but a failed gatecrashing meant being thrown out.
And he could always return after being dismissed.
It was settled.
He had four hours to sleep and to prepare.
Chapter Thirty
The chain-link fence was not a problem for Jules even dressed in a tuxedo and bow tie. He carried his brand-new shoes, shined to mirror-quality blackness, in a bag clenched between his teeth and climbed barefoot, having accessed the perimeter via a rowboat bought for $200. Trusting his backup scuba gear would be safe under this isolated section of harbor, it would either wait until he returned needing to access the yacht after the party, or someone would happen along the next day to give it a good home.
With no one patrolling the outer limits, he donned his socks and shoes and sauntered toward the strings of lights and the hum of voices and music.
The marina was transformed into a neighborhood fair, except the women mostly wore cocktail dresses and the men tuxedoes, with a smattering of both genders showing off the formalwear of their heritage; saris and turbans, robes and traditional tribal outfits. Designer boutiques stayed open after dark, and the bars were making a killing. Hundreds of people swarmed the eateries since even a yacht the size of the Lady Mel was unable to cater for all of them. Unlike similar gatherings in the States, a black man was not an uncommon sight here, many with distinctly African tones amid the Caucasian Europeans and the more local ethnicities. No one looked at him twice except for the occasional lingering glance. But that was okay; he looked fine.
Not even the cops dotted around seemed suspicious of him.
He spent the next half hour mingling, faking that he was happy here, pushing the visual cues into his performance without fully understanding the underlying reason for them. At one point, he engaged in small talk with a Frenchman and picked the man’s pocket, coming away with a wallet and a flyer for an aquarium. Instead of keeping them, he returned them to the man, saying he just found the items on the floor. He repeated this in four more establishments, drinking water or lime cordial, until he dipped into the handbag of an Indian woman in a blue silk sari.
In there, he found an exclusive invitation to the Lady Mel in gold leaf printed on heavy white cardstock. Unfortunately, it was a named invite: Ojal Bhatia.
Two choices: keep plugging away until he found a man’s name or trust that Ojal was either unisex or that the security guard wouldn’t know the difference.
Reconnoiter, then decide.
On the walk along the pier where the majority of yachts and plush smaller vessels congregated, red-vested waiters handed out flutes of champagne. Jules accepted one as camouflage. They all came with berries nestled at the bottom, apparently a trendy addition among the mega rich.
The gangplank reached the Lady Mel from a raised stone platform, which appeared designed specifically for larger vessels, a short
walk up a staircase that came equipped with a wheelchair elevator on the side. Jules paused to assess the security guards checking invites: two Indian, two white. There was a steady stream of guests ahead of him, six to be exact, all couples.
Picking the pocket or bag of someone headed directly for the Mel made a certain sense, maybe even a black someone. But if that person kicked up a fuss and revealed his name, and if one of the greeters recalled admitting someone with that invite moments earlier, Jules would have to flee. Using the name of someone who appeared uninterested in using their invite at the moment gave him more time.
He thought it through no longer, ascending the stairs with his chin high and smile wide. Two couples behind. The Indian men, who might clock Ojal as a female name, checked the invite of a Caucasian couple, while the white men attended to a black man with an Indian woman on his arm.
I belong here.
I am one of them.
These bouncers are flotsam in my shadow.
I belong here among the elite.
The white guards were freed up first.
“Hey.” Jules handed the first guy the card. “How’s it going?”
Both eyeballed him and nodded. One said, “Good, sir, thank you.”
“Cool.”
The other read from Jules’s card, drawing out the words. “Ojal Bhatia.”
Jules turned his head slightly to see whether the Indian men had heard, but they hadn’t. Back to the white guys, he said, “It’s Nigerian. Means ‘babe of the sun.’ My mom was kind of a hippie. Only, y’know... African.”
The guard looked right at him. A cop’s death stare. Waiting for a suspect to wither under his suspicious gaze.
What a dork.
You’re blowing this.
“Thank you, sir.” The bouncer with the invite handed it back to him with a slight bow of the head and stood aside.
His pal said, “Have a good night, sir.”