Sagramanda

  “But first, we need to make a short detour and a quick visit. In Switzerland, to a certain banking institution, in the city of Zurich.”

  Entering their building, they made their way in the empty lift up to their apartment. Though it had been her residence for many months now, Depahli found that she was not going to be sorry to leave it. It had been a refuge, but not a home.

  A home. She had not experienced one since childhood, and that offered little worth remembering. She was going to start her own, and with the man she loved. Eyeing Taneer as he began pulling suitcases down from the shelf in the living room closet, she knew that she would follow him anywhere, even if he was dead broke.

  “I'll start getting things together in here, my love,” she told him. “Grab a case and take what you think we'll need out of the bedroom.”

  Turning, he nodded to her. What a woman, he found himself thinking as he watched her pack only what was necessary from their temporary existence. Not only beautiful and street-smart, but efficient. They were going to build a life together that would rival the fabled cohabitation of Vishnu and Lakshmi.

  In the bedroom, Taneer set the empty travel case down in front of the four-drawered dresser and murmured a command for the lights to turn on. As they did so, he was startled not by the intensifying illumination, but by a voice. A voice he recognized and had not expected to hear ever again.

  “Namaste. Hello, Taneer—my son.”

  Anil Buthlahee sat on the bed. The same bed in which his son and his son's Untouchable harlot had doubtless consummated their filthy, unnatural, offensive relationship many times. The vision nauseated him, and he put it out of his head in order to concentrate his attention on his startled offspring. And also to focus his aim.

  Taneer stared at the weapon in his father's hand. It was not large, but guns these days did not have to be, often possessing as they did killing power all out of proportion to their size. So tightly was his father's hand gripping the weapon that the skin of his fingers had turned pale.

  Looking tired but alert, as if he had come to the end of a long and difficult journey, the senior Buthlahee glanced in the direction of the door into the living room and inquired quietly, as if he had all the time in the world, “Where is the whore?”

  “Please, don't do this.” Calm in the face of Karlovy's bodyguard Punjab, fleet of foot in reaction to the attack of the tiger, in the presence of his father Taneer found himself shaking uncontrollably. He might have been shaking even if his father had come unarmed.

  The fear he felt was not for himself, since he had been prepared to die ever since he had fled the company and absconded with its property, but for Depahli. Depahli, whom he loved more than the money he had been promised. Depahli, who had risen from nothing to devote herself to him, and to them. Depahli, who was trapped in the living room with no way to escape. To try for the front door, she would have to cross in front of the entrance to the bedroom.

  “She's not here,” he said quickly. Perhaps a bit too quickly. “She's shopping.”

  Anil Buthlahee grunted disappointedly. “Do you think I am nothing more than a dumb, ignorant merchant? I heard you talking.” He gestured with the muzzle of the compact little pistol. “I will do what must be done, to salvage the honor of our family.”

  Within Taneer, fear was giving way slowly to anger. “Why, Father?” He gestured aimlessly. “Why do this? Why do you think this way? This isn't the seventeenth century. This is Sagramanda; now, today. Enlightened people don't go around committing suttee anymore, or honor killings! Caste is no longer what determines the worth of a human being. Things have changed.”

  “Not all things,” Anil replied unyieldingly. “I am my father's son. As such, I must honor him and preserve the reputation of the family, which you have so uncaringly desecrated.” He blinked, as if he had something in his eye. “I only wish you were your father's son.”

  “I am, Father! I am.”

  “No! No,” Anil added more quietly. “My son would not sleep with an Untouchable. That is abomination enough. But to contemplate marrying such a person, living with one…” He shook his head sharply. “Having children with one…”

  Desperate, Taneer tried another tack. “If you would only set aside your outdated cultural baggage, Father, long enough to just meet Depahli, I'm sure you would come to—”

  Moving the muzzle of the pistol slightly to one side, Anil fired. The muted puff of the silencer was followed by a crashing sound as the vase he had aimed at was blown to bits. It had the intended effect of shutting up his son. Words can be more powerful than bullets—but only when spoken or printed outside the range of the intended target.

  The gun's aperture shifted back to point at the stunned scientist. “I will meet her, Taneer. And then I will kill her. Then I will kill you. Afterward, I will walk out of this room and this building and this sin-ridden city. I will go back to my business and the rest of my family, that respects me and our common history, and I will try for the rest of my life to heal the hole in my heart.”

  Taneer swallowed. “It doesn't have to be this way, Father.”

  Eyes that had seen those of the other when they had first opened onto the world locked on them. “Yes, it does, Taneer.”

  In the living room, Depahli had been standing pressed up against the other side of the bedroom wall, listening. Everything had been going so wonderfully well. From standing outside the gates of Nirvana, she had suddenly found herself thrust into the pit of hell.

  She could not get across the room to the front door without Taneer's homicidal fanatic of a father seeing her. The communicator she could use to call the police was in the purse lying on the entryway side table. Not that calling the police would be a good idea or a final solution anyway. Even if by some miracle they could arrive in time to keep the senior Buthlahee from killing them both, she knew from experience that police had a habit of asking awkward questions. If they decided to do a quick search of the apartment and found the briefcase containing the equivalent of seven million American dollars, they might ask some that could not properly be answered.

  She could not stand there forever, frozen against the wall, paralyzed by indecision. At any moment, the elder Buthlahee might decide it was time to stop talking to his son and walk into the living room. She could not even reach the bathroom to hide in there. Besides, she did not want to hide. As a child, she had tried hiding repeatedly to avoid her uncle. Each time, he had found her. Each time, her unhappy life had been made a little more miserable.

  She remembered the tiger that had jumped out of the jungle to kill the enigmatic tracker. The tiger had concealed itself, only to attack with complete surprise when no one was looking at it. Frantically she searched the living room. There was nothing within reach she could use as a weapon; not even a letter opener. All she had were her hands and fists.

  She remembered something else. Like the tiger, she was the master of her immediate environment. Maybe she could use that. Sucking in air, she screamed rather than spoke the familiar commands, spewing a steady stream of them into the air. Recognizing her voice, the instrumentation that had been installed in the bedroom responded accordingly.

  A pair of naked apsaras appeared at the head of the bed and leaned forward, while two mightily thewed royal attendants whose origin could be traced to a passage from the Mahabharata rose from its mattress and straightened as they moved to engage the apsaras. Typically, she and Taneer would be kneeling on the bed between, awaiting the slightly warm but otherwise noncorporeal arrival. Instead, the apparitions closed on the preoccupied Anil Buthlahee. Startled and surprised, he whirled and fired wildly at the surrounding figures. Gun gas slammed miniature explosive shells into the wall, the headboard. In a moment, even the traditional merchant would recognize the quartet of unexpected visitants for what they were: high-tech, state-of-the-art virtuals.

  Reacting as quickly and with as much presence of mind as he ever had in his life, Taneer scooped up the finely carved reconstituted stone statue o
f Ganesh from its alcove, rushed forward, and brought it down on his father's head just as the old man realized the deception and started to turn back to him. The blow was not hard enough to knock the merchant unconscious, but it was sufficient to stun him. Dazed, he fell to his knees.

  “Depahli!” Still holding the statue, Taneer sprinted toward the doorway.

  She met him there, slamming into him and wrapping her arms around her beloved tightly enough to squeeze the wind out of him. He forced himself to break the embrace. Both of them regarded the figure of the old man on the floor, who was moaning and struggling to rise. The muzzle of the gun he held wavered dangerously, like a drunken asp.

  “Taneer…,” Anil grunted. “No good, Taneer, no good. I'm…coming….”

  “Run!” Pushing Depahli into the next room, the scientist followed. A wild shot flared through the space he had just been occupying to blow a dark hole in the living room ceiling. Behind them, Anil Buthlahee could be heard cursing and stumbling into furniture as he fought to recover his equilibrium and reload.

  As he set Ganesh aside to grab the case and its precious contents, Depahli snatched up her bag, which contained their passports and other critical documentation. Breathing hard, Taneer followed her out the door and into the hallway. Disdaining the elevator and ignoring the probing stares of the recently awakened, they raced down the fire stairs. The building lobby was deserted when they reached it, as was the street outside. Off to the east, the sun was now showing itself over the nearest structures.

  As they started running up the road, a third figure emerged from the entrance to the apartment building. Shouting and screaming threats and imprecations, it waved in the air a small, deadly object.

  To their great good fortune, the infuriated, raging Anil Buthlahee chose to first look down the street instead of up it, to the north. It gave them just enough time to frantically hail the passing rickshaw, climb in, and deliver instructions to the confused but willing driver. Behind them, Anil Buthlahee finally turned, just in time to see his son climb into the vehicle. As it accelerated up the road, the old man broke into a run, gesturing threateningly with the gun in his hand. He might have fired once; neither Taneer nor Depahli could be sure. But the determined merchant was still dizzy from the blow to his head and could not take proper aim.

  Standing behind counters and sitting at a desk had not prepared him for trying to run down a public vehicle. He slowed, staggering, and stopped. Bending forward at the waist, hands resting on his knees, he gasped for air as the silent rickshaw sped on out of sight.

  “There's nowhere you can go, you and your slut!” he wheezed loudly. “Wherever you go, wherever you run to, I will find you! On my honor, I will find you!”

  Scientist and dacoit did not hear him. The unpretentious, unadorned interior of the electric rickshaw enveloped them, shutting out the outside world, blocking out the last, ineffective threats of Taneer's hidebound father. Once again there were only the two of them. Soon it would be that way forever.

  Then the scientist started laughing. The rickshaw's owner glanced back briefly, eyeing him through the window of the passenger compartment before returning to his driving.

  Alternately smiling and confused, one hand on her beloved's shoulder, Depahli looked at him with some concern. “Taneer—Taneer, my darling, my sweet man—are you all right?”

  Choking back tears, he took her other hand in his and looked into her beautiful face, perfect down to the single red jewel that glistened on her forehead. “I was just thinking, Depahli. Though I have great respect for all the traditions of my family as well as those of my ancestors, I'm not really what you would call a religious person. But after all the prayers of my childhood, and all that were never answered, I have to admit that Lord Ganesh finally came through with some help.”

  “Very substantial help, I should say.” Her smile grew suddenly uncertain. “Do you think that your father will ever be able to find us and make trouble for us again?”

  He shook his head. He was confident now, sure of himself and his future. Of their future. “My father is a smart and clever man, but only within the world he knows. That is the world of eastern India, from Sagramanda south to Puri and onward as far as Visakhapatnam. He knows nothing of the world beyond except what he has seen in movies and on the vit, and that will not be enough to enable him to find us—even if he can find the will and the money.” He smiled at her. “Besides, he knows nothing about skiing.”

  She cocked her head sideways at him, one golden earring dangling. “Skiing? You know nothing about skiing either, Taneer.”

  “I know. But I will, and soon. You will, too.”

  Turning, pressing her back into the single bench seat of the rickshaw, she snuggled close, his hand still holding hers. “I have never seen snow, my love, except on the tops of the Himalayas, from a distance. In the movies, everyone is always talking about how cold it is.”

  “They're right.” He let his cheek rest gently against the top of her head. “It is cold. But we won't be.”

  Forensics had largely finished their work, and the morgue detail was cleaning up. Even for those who dealt daily with the violent consequences of the seemingly endless conflicts that characterized Sagramanda's merciless underbelly, the remains of the bodies of Jena Chalmette and the tall assassin were sufficiently grisly to make a strong man blanch. It was what they were paid to do, however, and the crew went about its gruesome work enveloped in a respectful professional silence.

  Keshu and his people were able to readily identify the foreign woman not only by matching her image to that of the carefully crafted computer composite, but through the false identification papers she carried in her large shoulder bag. The assassin proved more problematical. He had no individual ident on his person, and they could not attempt a visual match because, due to the tiger's brief but ferocious intercession, the dead man's face had largely gone missing. The chief inspector was not concerned. Subrata and his resourceful colleagues would work their magic with research and reconstruction to produce an identification.

  He knew that not only had they found the mystifying, secretive serial killer they had sought, but that the government of India and the municipality of Greater Sagramanda were to be spared the expense of incarcerating and trying her. It was not the resolution he had sought, but it was one he was content to live with. Of course, there remained the mystery of what the three, and subsequently five, people she had been stalking had been doing in the middle of the night in a restricted area of the Sundarbans Preserve, but that was not a problem for him to puzzle out. Others should, and would, attempt to follow up on that.

  Then what was he still doing here? he suddenly asked himself. The sun was up, the temperature was doing likewise, he had been awake all night, and he ought not only to be on his way home—he should be home by now, snug and asleep in bed beside his wife. If she was awake, she would be concerned at his absence, but not frantic. Time and experience had taught her years ago that her husband's profession was not one that was respectful of regular hours.

  Morning was always the most beautiful time of day. The ambrosial time was even more enchanting in the forest preserve. As a city cop, except for formal vacations and the occasional case that took him into Sagramanda's municipal parks, the only greenery he encountered was in the form of vegetarian meals in the departmental cafeteria.

  The team from the morgue was wrapping up its macabre labors, their exertions chilling even on an increasingly hot morning. Lieutenant Johar and several of his colleagues were compacting the crime scene, recording the last bits of environment and evidence for official records. They were taking extra care because a foreign national had been at the crux of the investigation, and details would have to be provided to Interpol, the EEU, and the French government. That left him free to take a walk: something else he rarely had time for.

  Two trails lined with brush that had been snapped and broken by those who had fled the tiger led off into the undergrowth. Given all the intensive h
uman activity, including the presence of choppers, the chief inspector felt confident that the big cat was now nowhere in the immediate vicinity. Informing Johar of his intentions, Keshu struck off into the bush.

  It was marvelous in the forest. Still cool enough to stroll, with the nocturnal biting insects having clocked out and their diurnal counterparts not yet having clocked in, he was able to wend his way through the tall trees in comparative comfort. Monkeys gamboled in the branches, occasionally pausing to inspect the perambulating inspector. Rollers and other birds sang songs of awakening. Ants, the true masters of the planet, scurried everywhere, busy at the same work they had performed for the forest since time immemorial. He was enveloped by green and brown, with not a machine in sight. He wandered through surroundings that were scenic, stunning, picturesque.

  After ten minutes of it, he found himself starting to grow irritable.

  City boy, he chided himself lamentingly. Who are you kidding here? Better stick to what you're familiar with, with what you know. Concrete and rubberized walkways are your real paths, nanocarbon pillars and glass sheathing your jungle. He started to turn to retrace his steps.

  As he did so, sunlight reflecting off something on the ground caught his eye. Squatting, he reached down to pick up the piece of folded glassine. Its torn edges showed that it had been part of a larger packet. Now it was empty, except for what looked like a clutch of small seeds. Frowning, he turned the fragment of see-through envelope over in his fingers. Definitely seeds. Rising, he looked up the trail, then down. Dropped by someone, probably, in their headlong flight from the tiger.

  Even ordinary seeds deserved a chance at life. Almost absently, he shoved the piece of transparent wrapping into his shirt pocket, making sure to fold it double to keep its humble contents from spilling out. Plants were just like visiting relatives, he reflected. He might not be comfortable completely surrounded by them, but in moderation and kept at a reasonable distance they could make for pleasant company.