“Sunny, is he alive?”
“Yes!”
Tinu collects himself. “OK. There may be time. Listen carefully.”
Sunny begins to sob. “I did it for him, Tinu!”
“Don’t fall apart.”
“Tell Papa. I did it for him.”
“Listen carefully.”
* * *
—
It happened like it was happening to someone else. Tinu gave an address on Amrita Shergill Marg. “A man called Chandra will meet you there. Do everything he says.”
* * *
—
The man called Chandra was waiting on the lawn of the high-walled compound with the three-story bungalow looming behind, sitting on a deck chair in the moonlight, smoking a cigarette. He wore a camel-hair overcoat over a pair of powder-blue pajamas. His rubbery face under the floppy fringe had an aspect of weary bemusement. Seven or eight men in black Pathani suits and surgical gloves were waiting on the driveway ahead. When the SUV came to a stop and the gates were closed, they opened its doors and got to work.
Neda and Gautam were removed from the rear seat first, their phones and wallets and other personal effects stripped from them, placed on the low wooden table at Chandra’s side. Gautam was carried across the lawn to a second driveway. There were two cars: a white, government Ambassador at the front, a BMW behind. Gautam was placed inside the rear of the Ambassador. A police driver and a Black Cat Commando sat inside. A uniformed cop climbed into the back alongside Gautam, propped him up, pulled the rear net curtains shut as the driver put it into gear. Then the gates were opened, the Ambassador pulled away, and Gautam was gone.
As this was happening, two men carried the still unconscious Neda round the side of the main building.
Sunny gripped the wheel of the SUV and watched her go.
Chandra rose from the deck chair, buttoned his coat, came to stand beside the front window. Tapped on it.
“My dear, it would be wise if you stepped out now.”
Sunny did as he was told. “I didn’t hurt her,” he said.
Chandra nodded absently. “That’s not for me to say.”
“What will happen?”
“She’ll be afforded every courtesy.”
“What happens to me?”
“Are you in possession of a firearm?”
“In the dash.”
“Drugs?”
He fingered the bags of coke in his pocket.
“I threw them out.”
“Where?”
“On the road.”
“Where on the road?”
“Nowhere. In some bushes.”
Chandra examined Sunny coolly.
He pointed toward the BMW.
“Get in the car and go.”
* * *
—
The BMW slipped through the streets with funereal calm. The city reeled through the black glass, signs of morning emerged in the sky.
He began to search the back.
The driver glanced in the rearview mirror.
“Looking for something?”
It was Eli, the Israeli, the Cochin Jew. A member of his father’s security detail. The one who’d trained Ajay.
“I need a drink.”
Eli raised an eyebrow. “You and me both, buddy.”
“Do you have one?”
“This is more than my job’s worth.”
But a minute later he produced a hip flask from his pocket and passed it back. “Don’t finish, OK?”
Sunny unscrewed it, sniffed, recoiled.
“What is this?”
“Israel arak, my friend.”
Sunny took a hit and winced.
“No good?”
“Tastes like shit.”
“So give back.”
Eli held his hand out.
But Sunny drained the flask all the same.
* * *
—
They entered the farmhouse estate by the service gate that passed through the woodland. It was nearly five a.m., and the BMW went slowly along the shadowed track, the lights picking out the moths and potholes, the dark blue sky elusive in the trees. The arak burned. But it was an abstraction. Eli’s phone rang. He picked up and listened and held it back toward Sunny.
“It’s for you.”
It was Tinu.
“You were at the farmhouse all night, in the villa. Put that in your mind. There’s Valium by your bedside, the correct dose. Go to bed, take the pills, close your eyes.”
“Did you tell Papa?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him I did it for him?”
“Just go to bed.”
“What did he say?”
“Give the phone back to Eli.”
“What did he say?”