The Shiva Objective (3 page)

"Sugar?"  She aimed.  "That's it, forget what I said about coming back for you.  This – this is for Chaudhry."  Her finger tensed, but then she saw the big man at the door move.  He put something to his lips, like he was about to play the flute.

That wooden object in his coat pocket…

Damn, I didn't check that out.  It's-

The red-feathered dart came whistling at her, striking her jugular.  Before she could pull the trigger, the neurotoxin paralyzed her and she slumped to the floor on top of one of the corpses.

The gun fell from her limp fingers and, just before everything turned to black, she saw a face looming over hers.

"See you in the game, Sugar."

TWO

She awoke in an alley.  A putrid smell assaulted her nostrils while thick flies buzzed around her head.  Her dress had been replaced by jeans that fit a little too snugly and a simple white t-shirt, already thick with sweat in the oppressive heat. Comfortable socks and a pair of new Reeboks had taken the place of her $800 designer sandals. 

I'm so going to get those back.

She stood gingerly, taking deep breaths and rubbing the welt on her neck.  Her ribs hurt, but nothing felt broken.  Above, sheets and loose garments hung in crisscrossing clotheslines for at least a dozen stories.  A pair of heavy rats scurried over bagged garbage near a crooked door and from somewhere ahead she heard the sound of traffic: engines and horns, squealing brakes.

And then, behind her: a shuffle and a throat clearing.

She spun around, hands up – and there was the big lug that had shot her with the dart. Blue turban now, looking like an unstoppable force of muscle and mass from one of the James Bond movies.

"Not you again."  She glanced around, seeing nothing else in the alley, nothing that could be used as a weapon.  "So what now?  Are you one of them – these hunters?  Going to shoot me in the back as I start to run?" 

The man shook his head, reached into his suitcoat, pulled out a gun and handed it to her.  A .45 Glock.  Not her favorite from the family of .45s, and she wondered what happened to her PCP.   

"Your weapon."

"It speaks!" Nina exclaimed.  She warily reached for the gun and the ammo.  In the next instant, she slammed home the magazine, chambered a round and aimed the gun at his face.  "Thanks, now what's to stop me from blasting your brains out the back of your skull?"

He didn't even blink as he stared down the barrel.  Those big, soft black eyes, so out of character for such a mass of villainous muscle, merely kept their slightly unfocused look.  "What would that serve?  I would be dead and you would have no better chance of surviving the game."

Nina kept the gun on him.  "It would make me feel a hell of a lot better.  Take another one of you down."

The man shrugged.  Folded his arms across his huge chest.  He kept his eyes on hers, until she finally relented and lowered the weapon.  Stuffed it in the back of her jeans and let her shirt hang over it.  Putting the spare clip in her back pocket, she asked: "So what now?"

"Now," he said, "I have been authorized to give you instructions."

"Fine.  What are the rules of this insane game?"

"There are no rules."

"But you just said-"

"Instructions.  Not rules.  You run. Try to make it as long as you can."

"Okay, Mr. – what do I call you?"

"It does not matter.  It is highly improbable that you will see me again.  But my name is Rakesh."  He sighed.  "You have no money, no credit, but even if you did – you cannot leave the borders without a passport.  And if you somehow managed it, they would just switch to a larger game board.  There is no escape.  If you make your way to the Taj Mahal, I will find you there and take you to the secret entrance below."

"Why?"

"Because you will have earned an invitation to the second and final round.  Where you have a chance to finish it.  To find the statue… and end the game."

Nina thought for a moment.  "And how many other… contestants have made it to the second round?"

"Under the tenure of Davarius Mahmud, and as long as I've been working for him?  Eight," he said.  "Including your fellow psychic last month.  It is… difficult.  In the old days, before our time, in centuries past, the prey was often sent directly below into the catacombs.  But the cramped quarters left many hunters longing for the open spaces and the thrill of using the environment.  Davarius opened the playing field.  The city is the game board.  The Taj is the final refuge of the first stage.  Get inside the crypt room and you are safe – but only until the end of round one, which must last, at a minimum, ten hours."

"Ten?  So if I get there early, I can catch a nine-hour nap?"

"Whatever you wish.  Now, go."  He pressed a button on his watch.

Nina hesitated, then thought of something.  She stepped toward him gingerly, craning her neck to look up into his face.  She glanced around, sure this alley was bugged.  And there above his shoulder, on the wall – a camera, trained on them.  Moving slightly until she was sure his back would block the view, she extended her right hand.

He frowned, staring at it.

Come on, take it. 

His hand rose and gently touched hers. 

Nina gave him a thin smile while she gripped his hand. "Thank you, Rakesh.  You've been very helpful.  I'll see you in ten hours."  Then she whispered, "Until then, think about this.  When I win this game, and I will, your boss will be dead, and so will every other hunter out there.  I'm giving you a chance to live.  Help me, or I'll show you how a true hunter tracks – and then skins its prey." 

Rakesh blinked.  His grip went limp under her pressure.  His eyes darted up and then down and around, as if expecting men to come out of the walls.   "I… cannot."

"You can," Nina whispered.  She closed her eyes, drawing something from his touch – a conduit that amplified her psychic abilities.
And then she saw it
– just a flash, but it was enough. A brief snapshot, like a Polaroid drying into clarity:
a young boy and a girl, sitting on the stained floor of a locked room. A slot in the door for food to slide through.  Two armed men outside, guarding them.

Nina blinked and it was gone.  She trembled at the vision, it having stirred up old memories she had tried hard to forget.  Rakesh pulled his hand away, but she had seen enough to guess at his motivation: that Davarius held the ultimate leverage over his key employee. 

She thought quickly.  She needed an edge, a way to break the game.  This was her one and only shot.  "Help me," she whispered, "and I'll help
them
."

Rakesh's eyes widened.  But then he blinked, and looked straight ahead again.  "Time is ticking.  If you don't start running, they'll come for you."

She waited a moment.  "Ten hours," she said sternly.  "I'll be in the Taj, admiring your beloved national heroes and enjoying a rest."

With that, hoping she had at least placed the seed of betrayal in Rakesh's mind – she turned and raced through the alley.

#

Just before the street – with the tumult of cars creeping along in thick traffic and people congesting the sidewalks – she skidded to a stop.  She had just come out of the shadow of the steep tenement walls and into the blazing hot sun, when she had a glimpse of something she had sensed before.

The high-rise buildings across the street.  The tallest among them, easily thirty stories, was just to the left, opposite from this side alley.

A flash and she saw:
Five men dressed in casual Western clothing sitting on fold-out chairs on the roof.  A keg of beer rested in a barrel of ice behind them and one of the men, wearing a cowboy hat and mirrored sunglasses, pumped the tap.  He had a silver .357 Magnum in his belt next to a sheathed KA-BAR knife.  The other four men peered into the scopes of their sniper rifles, angled downward.

Nina backpedaled, then pressed herself against the left wall. 
Seriously?  A sniper attack right out of the gate?
  She wondered how many others would have been picked off after only a few steps.  She supposed it added some degree of difficulty to hit a moving target from so far, and in the midst of all the crowds.  But still.  She also wondered about the pricing specifics of this game. Was there a refund for those who were waiting somewhere down the road and would be let down by a quick kill right here?  Consolation prizes?

She didn’t have time to think about it.  Right now she needed a plan or she wouldn't make it anywhere close to ten hours.  She looked up at the full clotheslines hanging in the heat and the non-existent breeze, and a smile slowly formed on her face. 

She started to look for handholds.  And began to climb.

#

Ten minutes later, she exited from the side entrance, dressed in a flowing Muslim jilbab with a head scarf and veil over her face.  As soon as she stepped into the sun she thought,
God, how do women not pass out in these things?

She slid into a crowd where many women wore similar garments.  Indistinguishable from the citizens of Agra, she moved calmly, head down, waiting at a street crossing, then shuffling ahead with the others. 
Try to find me now, bastards.

She glanced around, getting her bearings.  This city was unfamiliar enough, although she had made a quick study of the map on the way to the hotel.  She knew she had to make it to the Taj Mahal and it shouldn't be hard – she could even catch a tourist bus right now and it would probably take her right there, but she had no money.  But she did have other options.  She could go to one of the numerous Internet cafés she had seen earlier.  Humbly ask to borrow someone's account – and then send an email to Waxman to fill him in on what's going on and to request a team of bad-ass commando types to come in and clean house.  Davarius wanted a challenge? Well, that would up the difficulty level of this game considerably. 

And sure, Davarius claimed he had the resources to track them down if she fled, but leaving was an option too.  Waxman could wire her the money, then she could get out of Dodge and live to fight another day, and on her terms.

So many options.  She hesitated a moment as men in business suits walked past her without a glance and old women pushed her this way and that.  Someone grumbled something and three Muslims wearing similar jilbabs came up behind her.

One suddenly cried out in pain.  Then another screamed and suddenly the crowd split apart, people running away from her – and the two women on the ground.  One was on her back, dead eyes looking up as blood trickled from the hole between them.  The other was clutching her shoulder, screaming as blood sprayed from between her fingers.  Nina gasped, already backing up – just as the woman jerked sideways, another splotch appearing on her back, sending her face down over her dead companion.

How the hell!?

Nina turned and as she lowered her head she saw the laser-red dot of light dancing on her own chest.  She ducked and rolled, and a piece of the sidewalk exploded behind her. 
Damn it, they know!

Head down, she sprinted into the fleeing, screaming crowd, where she peeled off her jilbab in the confusion.  No point now and it might buy her a few seconds. How did they know?  Maybe someone had seen her scaling that tenement wall and relayed the information to the rooftop snipers?

Well, this should confuse them for a time.  Maybe enough to get to the next objective – which had just changed.

No chance she'd make it to a bus stop or taxi, much less the Taj, if she didn't get out of the range of those snipers first.

Either that, or…  She had a sudden thought that brought a smile to her face.  She quickly switched directions.  Heading against the crowd, she made her way to the high-rise.

THREE

In the elevator, head-down, she glanced at the control panel, seeing the numbers light up.  They stopped on the fifteenth floor and half the people got out.  On the twentieth, all but two left.  One was a thin Indian man wearing a traditional surka.  The other was a German-looking guy with slick wavy blond hair, dressed in a blue business suit and carrying a silver briefcase.

Stands out like a sore thumb. 
She leaned against the back wall, between the two men, inching slightly toward the German, who was now whistling softly.  His eyes darted sideways once, then back to the door.

Nina brushed against his shoulder, closed her eyes and got a flash of something…

That briefcase, open… a soft black Styrofoam interior, revealing a silver .38 revolver with a scope and a section for six gold-tipped bullets.

Smiling innocently, Nina turned to the Indian man as the twenty-seventh floor lit up.  "Can I borrow a pen?" she asked, nodding to the three pens in his shirt pocket.

"Sure," the man said in decent English, handing her one as the doors opened.  "My floor, so just keep it."

Nina leaned back, twirling the pen in her fingers.  She glanced sideways and the German looked at her, nodding.

"Enjoying your time in Agra?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, then frowned and looked ahead, back at the panel. The 30
^th
floor lit up, two away from the Roof, and she imagined what he was thinking: she hadn't pressed another button, which meant… He turned, slowly, looking back at her, eyes widening.

And she sprang at him, burying the tip of the pen deep into one of those eyes.

When the doors opened, Nina stood up from the body, holding the .38, chambering the last of the six hollow-point rounds.  She hefted it, appreciating the weight. 
Forget the Glock.  This will do nicely for now.

She stepped out into the hot sunlight under a cloudless blue sky.  Took two steps on the hot asphalt, smelled beer and rank sweat, and then froze.  The four chairs ahead – empty. 

No time to think, she ducked and rolled to the side – just as three shots rang out, bullets slamming into the closing door.  She spun around the side of the door, then sprinted to the next bit of cover – a rooftop air conditioning unit ten feet away.