'Oh yeah.' I waved my hand. 'I've been handling guns since I was seven.'

Lizzie was about to say something when her mobile rang. She listened and then swore. 'Shit!'

'What happened?' I asked.

'It's ears-only information. We inserted an indigenous for an over-the-fence op in Tibet. Now the plumbing's come unstuck and I have to arrange a nine-millimetre pension plan for the joker.'

'What kind of plan is that?'

'That's one plan you don't need in a hurry,' Lizzie laughed. 'It's Agency code for termination with extreme prejudice. Look, I have to leave right away. I'll get someone to escort you out.'

Lizzie took off faster than a prom dress, but no one came to take me. I waited for half an hour before walking out of the secure room on my own. I found myself in a beautiful garden. There was not a soul in sight. With fifteen million dollars in one hand and a gun in the other, I was a pig in clover. I'd been handling toy cowboy guns since I was seven, but this was the first time I had held a real gun in my hand. It was a mighty fancy piece, with a barrel as long as a dog's tail. I was fumbling with the magazine when suddenly there was a click and the dadgum gun recoiled in my hand like a startled mongoose. Little wisps of smoke were curling from the barrel. It seemed to have a mind of its own, so I locked it inside the Samsonite and strolled towards the exit.

There was a big black limo parked near the steps and a dude with white hair wearing a blue suit was lying face-down on the ground. The marines were all over him like flies on shit.

'What's the matter with him?' I asked a marine who was bending over the old guy.

'A sniper just tried to kill the Ambassador!' the marine screamed. 'Get down, get down!'

I hurried to the main gate, where a guard took back my visitor's badge and waved me through.

Once out on the road, I patted the Samsonite. If there were crazies roaming the city shooting people, I sure was glad to have some protection of my own. With Lizzie's gun, I'd tell the Al Qaeda dudes to KMRA – that's Page family jargon for Kiss My Royal American!

12 The Curse of the Onkobowkwe

THE TRIBAL from Little Andaman sat on tram number thirty plying between Kalighat and Howrah Bridge and felt the breeze caress his face.

It was nine thirty a.m. on 19 October. The air was pleasantly warm, the early-morning smog had lifted and the sky was without a cloud – a seamless expanse of blue broken only by the jagged pinnacles of the high-rises. The tepid sunlight tickled Eketi's skin.

He inhaled the heavy, acrid smell of the city, spread his arms wide, threw back his head and revelled in the dazzling delight of being alive. As if on cue, two grey pigeons fluttered over his head in synchronized unison, sharing in the day's jubilation. He was in Esplanade, the teeming heart of the metropolis, and everywhere he looked he saw people and more people. Children pointed at him excitedly, men simply gawked, and women drew their breath sharply and covered their mouths with their hands; he smiled and waved at them. All around the tram was a vortex of traffic – cars, taxis, rickshaws, scooters, cycles. Horns blared, honked, buzzed and screeched. Swarms of battered private buses hurtled along the road, with uniformed conductors hanging out from the side shouting destinations at the top of their voices. Garish advertisements for toothpaste and shampoo screamed for attention from huge billboards. The tall decadent buildings on either side of the road loomed like a range of ancient hills. Eketi felt as if he was floating through a magnificent dream.

It was just over a fortnight since that fateful day when he had volunteered to recover the sacred rock stolen by Banerjee. The Elders had been taken by surprise by Ashok Rajput, the junior welfare officer, who had eavesdropped on their deliberations. They had been even more surprised by his willingness to take Eketi to India by ship and help recover the ingetayi. Under duress, they had grudgingly accepted his offer. Not only had he discovered their plans, he was the only one who knew Banerjee's address. But they had cautioned Eketi to be wary of him. The welfare officer was to be used to reach the sacred rock and then discarded like a pesky fly.

The preparations for the trip had taken more than a week. Ashok had to obtain leave from the Welfare Department. And Nokai, the medicine man, took his time putting together Eketi's 'survival kit' – tubers and strips of dried boar for eating, medicinal pellets for healing, lumps of red and white clay for body-painting, a pouch of pig fat for mixing the clay, and the pièce de résistance, the chauga-ta, a charm to ward off disease, made of the bones of the great Tomiti himself. Eketi had hidden all these in a black canvas bag – a fake Adidas he had picked up from Hut Bay – and covered them up with a few old clothes. Following a night of feasting and festivity, he had received a hero's send-off. The next day he had left Little Andaman with Ashok for Port Blair in a government speedboat. That same night he had been smuggled aboard MV Jahangir, a large passenger ship which sailed three times a month to Kolkata and whose captain was known to Ashok. The welfare officer had taken a deluxe cabin while Eketi had been dumped in a third-class bunk, to stay hidden from prying eyes in a cramped closet close to the engine room.

'Now remember,' Ashok had instructed Eketi, 'no one must find out that you are an Onge from Little Andaman. So you must keep your hair covered at all times with your cap and ensure that the jawbone around your neck is hidden underneath your T-shirt. If anyone asks, you should say that you are an adivasi, a tribal called Jiba Korwa from Jharkhand. Jharkhand is an Indian State which has many primitive tribes like yours. Understood? Now repeat your new name.'

'Eketi is Jiba Koba from Jakhan.'

'Idiot!' Ashok knocked him on the head. 'You need to say, "I am Jiba Korwa from Jharkhand." Now put on your cap and repeat after me twenty times.'

So Eketi had put on his red Gap cap and repeated his new name till he had memorized it.

The ship had completed its 1,255-kilometre journey in three days, arriving at the Kidderpore Dock in Kolkata the evening before. They had waited for all the passengers to leave and for night to fall. Then they had disembarked and taken a taxi.

No sooner had the taxi left the docks than the night sky had come alive with a brilliant display of fireworks. The ground shook with the sounds of exploding crackers. 'Are they welcoming me?' Eketi asked excitedly, but Ashok shushed him and tapped the driver's shoulder. 'How come you guys are celebrating Diwali twenty days before it is due?'

The driver laughed. 'What, you don't even know that you have arrived in Kolkata at the time of our biggest festival? Today is Saptami, tomorrow is Mahashtami.'

'Oh shit,' Ashok swore under his breath. 'I didn't realize we were landing here bang in the middle of Durga Puja.'

The city was indeed in the grip of puja fervour. There were magnificent pandals at virtually every street corner, glittering in the night like lighted palaces. Eketi sat in the front seat and gaped at the temporary temples of cloth and bamboo, each competing with the other in raucous gaudiness. Some had domes, some had minarets. One called to mind a South Indian temple tower, while another harked back to a Tibetan pagoda. There was one shaped like a Grecian amphitheatre and another which resembled an Italian palazzo. The approach to these pandals was lined with red carpets and lit with a series of illuminated panels.

The streets were full of people, more than Eketi had seen in his life, and the city was slick with sound. Loudspeakers boomed from every pandal. Drum beats reverberated from every corner, a primal call for the tribe to gather. And they gathered in their millions, in their starched saris and immaculately ironed shirts and trousers, converting the city into one giant carnival. The taxi was forced to take several detours as entire streets were blocked off by the police, who blared out cautionary instructions to pedestrians from their megaphones.