CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Wednesday, 4:33 p.m.

Bangalore, India

Nicholas Bretti did not loosen his grip on his airline seat until the small plane had landed safely at the Bangalore airport. He wondered if he ever relax again, ever sleep without nightmares, would ever stop jumping and twitching at every little unexpected sound.

It wasn’t likely to happen any time soon.

Exactly two hours after leaving Mr. Ambalal and the Liberty for All party in New Delhi-fifteen hours after taking off from O’Hare in Chicago, and less than a day after shooting an FBI agent-Bretti was sober and ready to meet the people who had paid his bills over the past year. He had to make this good, or else they would never help him out of this mess. What other choice did he have?

He worried that his reception in Bangalore would be no different from what he had experienced in New Delhi. Despite the $25,000 he had already pocketed, he was beginning to wonder if Chandrawalia would make good on his promise to come through with the rest of the money.

Twenty-five grand-a year’s salary. Was that enough for the hell he had gotten himself into? Shit, no. Now it was up to the Indian government to salvage the situation, but he had no idea if they would be sympathetic.

Exiting the jet ramp into the terminal, Bretti was mobbed by a dozen children. They swarmed around him, plunging their hands into his pockets, searching for coins and jabbering the only English phrases they knew, “Please give, sir! Please give!”

Scents of incense and curry mixed with the pungent odor of unwashed bodies. Unprotected by the buffer of a customs area this time, Bretti fought his way through an ever-shifting mob toward the airport exit.

The terminal building bustled with people, some wearing sarongs, others, like the children around him, in shorts and dirty white T-shirts. He saw men, women, boys… but there were no little girls in sight. Maybe the families kept them locked up somewhere.

A cackling chicken flew into the air as a family tried to stuff it back into a cage at the check-in counter. A dark-robed old woman with a small gold stud through her nose and a red mark on her forehead, clutched a baby goat to her breast.

Fifty feet away by the outside door, a man wearing a black-and-yellow splotched shirt held up a sign, Bretti. Bretti made eye contact with the man, who waved for him to follow. “Here, sir!”

Bretti pushed through a forest of chattering, begging children. They all tried to touch him, all pleaded for his help. Bretti felt one hand slip into his back pocket. Grabbing a slender wrist, Bretti whirled the young pickpocket around, keyed up and angry from his long tension.

With wild black hair and a dirty face, the boy could not have been older than ten. He laughed as Bretti held him up by his arm; the boy dangled in front of the other children and tried to swipe at Bretti with his free hand.

Before Bretti could admonish the pickpocket, another hand clawed at the back of his pants. Bretti threw the boy backward, bowling over two other children behind him. He knocked the prying hands away. “Get out of here, you little bastards!” He shouted, and the kids howled with laughter.

Bretti pushed his way through the crowd, paying no attention to who he ran into or pushed out of the way.

He kept a free hand on his wallet. The crowd parted as he shoved through.

The man with the sign waved out the door. He smiled beneath a scrawny mustache. “This way, please, sir.” He disappeared from sight.

Bretti pushed out of the crowded building toward a dark blue sedan with tinted windows. A driver wearing a black British polo cap stood beside the long car. When he saw Bretti, he opened the car door.

The humid air still stank outside the terminal, but at least there were fewer people. Bretti strode toward the car, his skin crawling from the overpowering crowds. The driver opened the door, and Bretti dove into the luxury of the air-conditioned interior. As he relaxed back into the seat, someone pounded at the tinted window. It was the first boy who had tried to lift his wallet. The boy and two of his friends pressed their faces against the tinted window, trying to look in. They hammered with their fists, then pressed their tongues against the window, leaving long, slimy wet spots.

The man with the sign slipped into the car’s front seat, and the driver pulled out immediately, oblivious to the children, the crowds, or any other obstacle. The first man turned and grinned. “Welcome to India, Dr. Bretti. How was your flight?‘’

“Mr. Bretti,” he said sourly. The car moved slowly through road construction as they left the airport. “I have an important package in a diplomatic pouch-”

“We have made arrangements for it to be delivered, sir. Only the very best for your visit. The Sikander Lodi Research Center is only a short drive from here. You are to meet with the scientific staff before going to the Regency Hotel. Very nice accommodations-four-star.”

“Great,” muttered Bretti. “Four-star.” He dreaded finding out what the Indians meant by that.

Looking through the saliva-streaked window, he spotted a gleaming, arrow-straight building that rose a hundred feet into the air, as modern as anything he would find in Chicago… but it was surrounded by dilapidated shacks that swarmed with pigs, chickens, and scrawny dogs. Barefoot men sat on their haunches smoking cigarettes while men in expensive suits hurried past them into the skyscraper. It was a comedy of extremes, an excess of dissonance. Two young men urinated openly against another ultra-modern building.

The limousine eased into a traffic circle behind a cart pulled by a camel. White Brahma bulls munched on grass in the center of the circle. A pair of monkeys scampered across the windshield, then dashed off onto the hood of another vehicle. Bicyclists, sandal-footed pedestrians, women in sarongs paraded in front of him. A dark raj wearing a British pith helmet, red jacket, and white gloves nonchalantly directed traffic at the end of the traffic circle.

Bretti shrank back in his seat, overwhelmed by the people, the chaos. “This is like wandering through the movie set of Jumanji.”

His guide twisted in his seat. “Yes, much to see here, sir.” He hesitated, as if worried he might offend Bretti. “If I may make a small suggestion, I noticed that sir was having difficulty with our street urchins. They mean no harm. But if sir would be kind enough to keep his wallet in his front pocket, then he will not have to worry.”

Bretti grunted and transferred his wallet to his front pocket, dreading how much he would have to get used to in this crazy, mixed-up place. His stomach felt like lead. What if he had to remain here in exile for the rest of his life? Maybe even prison in the U.S. would be better than that.

The limo turned right and stopped at a gate in a high brick fence that shielded a large, enclosed compound from view. The driver flashed an ID, and the guard waved them through.

Once inside, Bretti felt as if he had been transported to another world. Yellow, red, and blue flowers provided startling color in immaculately groomed gardens arranged in curving lines that drew the eye toward a central white building, four stories tall. Neatly trimmed trees with white lines painted around their bases were widely spaced in radial lines emanating from the main building.

Bretti noticed several cottages and a dormitory beside the central building, with a volleyball net and swing sets in the rear. Three satellite dishes, each thirty feet in diameter, pointed at different azimuths. Aside from the guard that had waved them in, he saw no people or animals. Only blessed peace and quiet.

They drove along a curving path to the front of the building. A big-boned man with a potbelly and a blue turban stepped out from under an awning as the car glided to a stop. He made no attempt to open the passenger door, so Bretti opened it himself and stepped out.