The Case of the Love Commandos (27 page)

“Have no fear, ji! I will be like a chameleon—invisible to the naked eye. No one will see me!” he declared in a movie-trailer voice-over tone.

“Kindly don’t do time-waste,” Mummy implored him in the knowledge that Jagdish Uncle was also fond of banter and jokes and often engaged with total strangers in the street. “Situation is serious.”

“I will try my level best,” he assured her. “But with so many of people, how I’ll spot these Dughals?”

“She you cannot miss—size of a buffalo,” said Mummy.

By eight P.M., Jagdish Uncle was in position at the bottom of the mountain, from where he could see the queue of pilgrims backed up along the pathway behind the special security checkpoint that had been set up.

Although he’d donned a baseball cap and black wraparound sunglasses, a number of locals saw through Jagdish Uncle’s disguise and stopped to chat. He was crestfallen at being so easily unmasked. Yet being a self-declared “socially minded person” with a reputation for enjoying a good gossip, he could hardly ignore them.

On a couple of occasions, the temptation to reveal that he was engaged in “top secret work” proved too hard to resist.

The mocking laughter that his claim provoked from a Jammu taxi wallah resulted in Jagdish Uncle blurting out that he was on the lookout for the thieves who’d robbed the Vaishno Devi shrine.

“Go ahead, make fun, but I will be the one smiling when the reward is mine!” he declared.

When the Dughals finally appeared at ten P.M., Jagdish Uncle was talking with a candy floss seller who said that he’d
heard that ten million rupees had been stolen from the shrine.

Had the couple not stuck out so prominently from the crowd, they would have slipped by Mummy’s man. And had the same Jammu taxi wallah not reappeared at the very moment that the couple was being helped into the back of a large Toyota four-by-four and called out in a mocking voice, “Oi, detective sahib, you’ll need a big cell to contain those two!” then perhaps Jagdish Uncle might have gone unnoticed as well.

Pranap Dughal, however, turned, caught Jagdish Uncle’s eye, and then climbed into the vehicle.

The Toyota promptly pulled away, the driver flashing his dippers and honking at the dozens of pilgrims and touts milling about on the road.

Fearing that he might have been spotted, Jagdish Uncle deemed it wise to take off his sunglasses and baseball cap before setting off in pursuit in Sweetie. Just like his fictional hero, Vimal, he was also careful to keep his distance as he followed the vehicle along the bypass that skirted Katra town. This became increasingly challenging when they joined the main road to Jammu and started to wind down through the hills. Despite the hour, the traffic was still heavy, and when the Dughals’ vehicle got stuck behind three trucks, Jagdish Uncle soon found himself only a couple of cars behind.

It was at this point that Mummy called for an update.

“I’m in pursuit, ji,” he assured her. “Target is in my sight. Everything is going to plan.”

He saw no need to mention his earlier indiscretion or the blather-mouthed taxi driver’s faux pas. No harm seemed to have been done.

“The traffic is quite heavy. We will reach Jammu in one hour fifteen minutes,” he reported.

When they reached the next bend, the Toyota managed
to overtake two of the three trucks, narrowly missing an oncoming bus and almost forcing a motorcyclist off the edge of the precipice.

Jagdish Uncle, who’d driven this stretch of road countless times, saw nothing unusual in this maneuver, even in the pitch dark, and after another half a mile, he managed to also pass the two trucks without sustaining so much as a nick on the car’s bodywork, although, admittedly, he passed within millimeters of a sedan.

On the next bend, the Toyota cleared the last truck, and not to be outdone, Jagdish Uncle quickly caught up. But when Pranap Dughal turned around in his seat and glared back at him, he knew for sure he’d been rumbled and that he and Sweetie were in for a daring chase. Indeed, on the next open stretch the Toyota accelerated away, and Jagdish Uncle slipped her into fourth and floored the accelerator.

He rounded the next bend at forty, nimbly overtaking an Ambassador.

A queue of cars stuck behind a tractor belching out a cloud of thick diesel fumes proved no obstacle either, and Jagdish Uncle and Sweetie proved yet again how accommodating oncoming traffic could be.

It was a beautiful thing, the synthesis between man and machine, he reflected as the Toyota appeared in his sights once again.

Still, there was no accounting for nature.

Jagdish Uncle had but a second’s warning to brace himself before a small boulder vanished beneath his wheels and there was an almighty crunch.

Sweetie swerved violently to the left and Jagdish Uncle slammed on the brakes, grinding to a halt inches from the edge of a two-hundred-meter drop beyond.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the Toyota racing on and two of his wheels rolling after them down the hill.

Tubelight and Zia were sitting outside their ragpicker tent on the plot across from ICMB playing cards around a cow-dung fire.

It had been nearly an hour since the SUV with the tinted windows had returned with its front smashed in—the result of a head-on collision.

Fifteen minutes later, Dr. Sengupta, the head of research, had left work and Shashi had set off after him on his Vespa.

The operative had soon realized that he wasn’t the only one following him. A black car with two moustachioed men inside followed the geneticist to his house, parked across the road and sat waiting.

“Sir, they look like plainclothes,” Shashi reported to Tubelight, who ordered him to stay put and provide him with regular updates.

After assigning Zia to the first watch, Puri’s chief operative then lay down on a rank-smelling mattress to try to get some sleep.

At five o’clock, he was rudely awoken. The gora director, Justus Bergstrom, was leaving in a car, Zia told him.

The two operatives set off after him.

Half an hour later, they found themselves at Agra airport.

Bergstrom left the car carrying a briefcase and hurried into the VVIP terminal.

Ten minutes later, a jet took off.

Tubelight watched it circle in the sky and then turn east in the direction of Lucknow.

Ram awoke on the backseat of a moving car with his wrists handcuffed. He attempted to sit up, but the pain in the back of his head was too much to bear.

Grimacing, he lay back down again.

It was early morning—by the light in the sky he guessed it was around six A.M. How he’d come to be there was not immediately clear to him. He had to concentrate hard to remember the events of the night before.

There had been a car chase. In Agra. A black SUV had tried to force the car he’d been traveling in off the road. But it had crashed into a lamppost. At some point, they’d stopped at a dhaba. That had been later—on the side of a highway. A man who smoked a cigar had stood in the parking area talking on his mobile phone. There had been a couple of others working with him. One of them had arrived in another vehicle. Ram had recognized him. He’d been one of the men who’d chased him.

The events in the garden came rushing back to him.

“Tulsi!” he cried out.

A face appeared between the headrests of the front seats. It was the man who smoked cigars.

“Aaah, sleeping beauty is awake at last,” said Hari with a smile. “How are you feeling, young man?”

Ram felt nauseous—the effect of the cigar smoke as much as the concussion he’d sustained.

“A little worse for wear?” asked Hari. “My apologies for the knock on the head. Rishi got a bit carried away. He’s young and somewhat inexperienced.”

“Where is she?” asked Ram, his voice hoarse.

“Tulsi is with your friend Vish Puri, I would imagine.”

It took the young man a moment to place the name. “The fat jasoos? He’s not my friend,” said Ram.

Hari chuckled. “Well, I can hardly blame you. Such a pompous, irritating little man. I’m sure he told you that he’s the best detective in all of India. He didn’t? Well, he’s absolutely convinced of it. And of his damn dharma. One of those self-righteous crusaders. And don’t get me started on his fashion sense. Who wears safari suits and flat caps these days? He looks like he should be out walking a whippet.”

Ram managed to sit up despite the pain. Through his window he could see high walls that demarcated large private properties. Farmhouses lay beyond. It looked like one of the wealthy suburbs of Lucknow.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked.

“To meet my client.”

“Who’s that?”

“You’ll find out soon enough—ten minutes, give or take.”

Hari handed Ram a bottle of water. Despite the handcuffs, he managed to gulp down a quarter of the contents and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Why are you doing this?” Ram asked.

“I was hired to locate you and that’s what I’ve done.”

“Do you care what happens to me after that?”

“I’m taking you to the one person who can offer you the
protection you need. By lunchtime you will be reunited with Tulsi and the two of you can ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after.”

Ram held up his hands and rattled his cuffs. “Then why these?”

“We can’t have you running off again. I wouldn’t give you a very high chance of survival. Half of Uttar Pradesh is looking for you.”

An inquisitive smile crept across Hari’s face. “By the way, I’m curious about something,” he said. “How did you get away from the Gurkhas—the ones working for ICMB? They’re former soldiers. It can’t have been easy.”

“Did they kill my mother?” asked Ram, his eyes as hard as flint.

Hari turned back in his seat. “No, it wasn’t them,” he said.

“Then it was Dr. Bal Pandey,” said Ram.

Hari gave no indication of whether he believed this to be true. He simply stared ahead impassively. But Ram said to himself, “It was him. He murdered her,” and buried his face in his hands.

The sedan pulled through a set of gates guarded by a dozen jawans armed with Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifles and the odd submachine gun. A driveway lined with pots of marigold flowers led to a modern bungalow clad in white marble. Hari’s sedan stopped behind three white Ambassadors with Uttar Pradesh state government plates, their roofs replete with antennas and blue emergency beacons.

Ram was helped out of the sedan, his handcuffs were removed and he was led to the front door of the bungalow. It was answered by a male peon in a gray, half-sleeve safari jacket. With swift efficiency, he led them across a hall and
down the corridor beyond. They passed a collection of multicolored glass Buddha statues arranged on antique French side tables with delicate, bowed legs. On the wall hung a series of oil paintings featuring giant fluorescent roosters.

The peon stopped in front of the last door, knocked, waited for a second and then pushed it open. Ram stepped into the room beyond to find two men looking over a collection of architectural drawings spread out on a table. The man nearest to him appeared to be south Indian, the bright white of his kurta pyjama in striking contrast to his dark skin, wavy jet-black hair and big, bushy moustache.

More dazzling still was the sight of the second individual. Standing at just five feet and six inches tall and dressed in a dhoti with unshorn tufts of hair protruding from his ears, it was none other than the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the self-proclaimed “messiah of the Dalits,” Baba Dhobi.

“At last you’re here safe and sound!” he exclaimed as he stepped away from the table and greeted the young man with a large, generous smile.

Ram stooped down and touched his feet, but Baba Dhobi raised him up by the shoulders in an avuncular gesture.

“It is
I
who should be doing you such an honor, young man,” he said, now speaking in Awadhi, his and Ram’s mother tongue. “You have shown great courage and determination in the face of oppression and danger, and I for one am proud to call you brother!”

Baba Dhobi placed a hand on one of Ram’s shoulders as the young man, who was speechless, raised his hands and pressed them together in another gesture of respect.

“We have been looking for you everywhere all these days,” the chief minister continued. “When I heard about your poor mother, I called Hari Kumar personally and instructed him to find you right away. He has worked for us
in the past once or twice and always proven reliable and proficient, and I had every confidence that he was the right man for the job. Fortunately, I was right. Thus you are standing before us alive and well. We are in his debt. Now come, I will introduce you. This is Viswanathan Narayanaswamy, the Vaastu practitioner who is overseeing the design of my new house.”

By “house” Baba Dhobi meant “palace.” And by “Vaastu,” he was referring to the Indian science of construction in which invisible elements and natural forces were taken into account in order to ensure the well-being of the occupants.

“It is being conceived in a traditional way, mirroring a mandala,” continued the chief minister. “See, the prayer hall will be in the northeast and the bedroom to the south. There will be a cow shed, of course. That will be positioned here, to the northwest of the building.”

“The dwelling itself is a shrine,” said the Vaastu practitioner in heavily accented Hindi. “It is not merely a shelter for human beings to rest and eat. Like a temple, it is sacred. Therefore the occupier should enjoy spiritual well-being and material wealth and prosperity.”

“Very impressive, sir,” said Hari.

“Truly beautiful, sir,” agreed Ram.

“You really think so? I’m so glad!” declared Baba Dhobi, who was beaming with pride. “Construction is to start within the month,” he added. “When it is finished you will all be my guests at the opening ceremony. Now come. We will eat together. We have much to discuss.”

They sat in the dining room at a long table laid with china and silver and starched napkins folded to look like hens. Liveried servants came and went through a door to the adjacent kitchen bearing platters of food and pots of steaming tea.
With quiet deportment, they served each of the guests in turn and then stood with their backs to the wall, ramrod straight with impassive expressions.