The Virtuosic Spy 01 - Deceptive Cadence (16 page)

The idea of venturing into Mumbai’s healthcare system held little appeal—he had to assume it would be as chaotic as every other facet of Indian life—so he’d been counting on the symptoms to dissipate on their own. On good days, it seemed they might; but on other days, he was unaccountably exhausted, and the cough felt like it was ripping shards of glass from his lungs.

“You’ve gotten skinnier, too,” Sedgwick observed. “Lost that famous appetite of yours?”

“More or less,” Conor admitted. “I can’t say I’ve much of one right now, at least, so I’d hate wasting your money on a posh dinner at this place.”

“Makes no difference to me. I’m not paying for it. The people we’re meeting are picking up the tab.”

Conor’s cheeks puffed in a deflated groan. “I knew it. What kind of people? Who are they?”

“Very tame people. Very sophisticated. Very safe.” Sedgwick’s tone was reassuring, but a remote annoyance flickered over his face.

“Are you going to tell me who they are?”

“Yeah, sure, of course.” With a hand on Conor’s back, Sedgwick propelled him toward the Gymkhana’s entrance. “I’ll tell you about it at the bar.”

The Bombay Gymkhana was one of the oldest private sporting clubs in India. Originally established as a British-only retreat in the 1870s, it now functioned as an equal opportunity status symbol for the upper echelons of Mumbai society.

The main clubhouse was a long, multi-gabled building with an architectural style that resembled a Swiss chalet, and its veranda looked out over an expanse of open ground, which was in a peak state of grooming for the cricket season.

Gym’s Inn, the club’s bar, and the main dining hall mirrored the chalet theme in décor, with an abundance of exposed beams and polished wood. The bar enjoyed a mythic reputation for dispensing the largest volume of alcohol in all of South Mumbai, but Conor was doing nothing to help advance that reputation. Settling tiredly onto a stool, he asked for plain hot tea with lemon. The request raised the ire of their bartender. With tight-lipped disapproval, he slapped down a cup with a single teabag and a thermos of boiling water. Conor slid a generous pile of rupees over to him with an apologetic smile, which had an instantly taming effect. Sedgwick shook his head in exasperation.

“Haven’t learned much, have you? You’re still one helluva soft touch. You don’t even make it challenging for them.”

Ignoring the dig, Conor reached for the thermos, but the bartender, now in a jovial mood, beat him to it. Uncapping it with a flourish, he poured hot water into the cup as though filling a martini glass. He disappeared and returned with lemon slices, three more teabags, and a complimentary plate of vegetable
pakoras
. Arranging the offerings in front of Conor, he made a slight bow before retreating once more. Conor looked at Sedgwick with deadpan innocence.

“No snacks on the house for you, then? And you the great man of experience?”

Sedgwick conceded the point with a wave of surrender. “Okay, you win that round. Enjoy the spoils.”

“I wish I could.” Conor looked wistfully at the fried vegetables and pushed the plate across the bar. “You have them.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Sedgwick extinguished his cigarette and indicated the box sitting next to the ashtray. “Have a smoke instead, if you want.”

Conor hesitated and exhaled an oath as he tore his eyes away from the cigarettes. “I’m trying to quit. Between those feckin’ things and the air quality in this city, it’s no wonder I can’t breathe.”

“Good luck with that,” Sedgwick mumbled cheerfully around a mouthful of pakora. “I’ve tried it myself more than once and haven’t managed it yet. Getting off heroin was a piece of cake by comparison.”

Conor gazed down into his teacup, and Sedgwick continued before the silence between them could become awkward. “Damn. You can’t eat, you’re not drinking, and you won’t smoke. You’re getting to be kind of a bore, Clancy.”

Conor sniffed in mingled amusement and weariness. “Well, you’ve only to say the word and your man Clancy will be happy to remove his monotonous presence. I wasn’t the one looking for this mix and mingle, after all. It was your idea.”

“Not exactly,” Sedgwick muttered. “No? What’s that mean?”

“Oh, never mind. Let’s just get to it. It’s almost nine o’clock.”

With edgy irritation, Sedgwick pushed the empty plate away from him. He pulled another cigarette from the box, lit it, and tossed the lighter back onto the bar. Leaning back on one elbow, he gave the inside of his whisky glass a speculative stare. “Do you speak any Russian?” he asked abruptly.

Oh, Janey, what now
?
Conor thought. He put his cup down and looked longingly at the cigarettes again. “I don’t, no.”

“Not even the basics? Hi, how are you? How about this weather?”

“Not even a syllable.”

Sedgwick nodded, and a gleam of something lit his eyes before he snapped them away to signal the bartender for the check. Conor thought it looked like relief.

“Doesn’t matter. It’ll just be a little dull for you. They don’t like speaking English.” Sedgwick patted the pockets of his trousers and searched the inside of his jacket with an air of nonchalance. Conor didn’t like what he was seeing in the agent’s long, thin face. Despite an effort to appear unconcerned, he was clearly nervous and had been avoiding eye contact for the past several minutes.

“We’re having dinner with Russians, then, is that it?” he asked.

“Crimeans, actually,” Sedgwick said. “But I don’t speak Crimean Tatar, so we’ll have to get along in Russian. They’re associates of Khalil’s, from a ‘sister organization.’ There’s a joint project coming up in a few months, and they’re over for a few days. I haven’t even met them myself. Khalil wanted them to start getting to know some of the key people on the Mumbai side, especially the foreigners. They’re not all that keen on working with Indians, so he wants to show off his
goras
. All you have to do is sit there and look impressively Caucasian.”

“I will in me arse.” Conor spat out the refusal with a snarl. He felt his blood pressure rising as the agent’s intentions became clear and thought he damn well ought to look nervous about trying to make him collaborate on one more diversionary operation. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to come here tonight. There’s just one project I care about, Sedgwick, and it’s nothing to do with any bleedin’ Crimeans. I’m already sick to death of the shite you’ve had me neck-deep in since I came, and it never seems to get anywhere, so you can be dead certain that I’m not about to start foostering about on some . . . ”

The force of his dissent prompted another round of coughing, preempting the rest of his objection. Sedgwick continued to avoid looking at him. He had located his wallet and began digging for the grimy bills inside it.

“Look, you’ve got nothing to worry about; I’m not trying to get you involved in anything. It’s one dinner, and you’re just a stage prop. Seriously. It will all be over in two hours.”

“One dinner and done?” Conor asked. “I’ll never have to see them again?”

“That’s right.”

“And can we agree that you’ll not be trying to drag me into any more of these sideshows?”

“Agreed.”

He pressed the advantage even further. “And that we’ll stop arsing around and form a real plan for how to find my brother so I can get the hell out of here?”

“Yes, all right.” Sedgwick nodded, throwing the rupees onto the bar. “I agree we haven’t made much progress. I know you’re frustrated. We’ll work on something.”

“Do I have your word on it?”

Sedgwick didn’t respond immediately. He bit his lower lip and looked down at his hands with a peculiar smile. “If you think the word of an addict is worth anything, then you’ve got it. Is that good enough?”

Conor hesitated as well. Again, he felt a vague suspicion that he was missing clues, but he still couldn’t put his finger on the source of his mistrust. “I guess it will have to be, God help me.” He winced as another cough rattled painfully against his ribs. “I may not survive the night, so you could be off the hook soon enough.”

“I’m beginning to wonder if you’ll even make it through dinner.” Sedgwick gave him a worried scowl. “You should get that checked. Sounds like it needs something stronger than tea.”

“Well, as it happens, I have something stronger, but I don’t like to use it much.”

Conor picked up the knapsack sitting on the floor by his feet. From a zippered front pocket, he removed the small brown bottle that he had first seen in a British Airways plane bound for India.

Kavita had been worried about him also. He had so far resisted her appeals for an examination at the hands of her personal physician, but he’d compromised by reluctantly accepting a bottle of her homemade physic. Although it was remarkably effective, he had used it only a few times. The taste was something altogether shocking, and he didn’t know what the hell was in it.

He could detect the presence of ginger, anise, hot chilies, and mustard oil, but these ingredients did not account for the rush of relaxed euphoria he experienced after taking a dose of it. Clearly, there was a pharmacological wildcard in the mix, and since he had no idea what it was, he restricted the medicine to an intervention of last resort.

He put the bottle down on the bar, and Sedgwick immediately picked it up with a look of intense interest. “Where did you get this?”

“Ehm . . . ”

The question was natural enough, but he wasn’t prepared for it. Conor hid his momentary confusion with a gulp of tea. “Bishan’s wife, Meera,” he said. “She’s always pouring her Ayurvedic recipes into me. This one works pretty well.”

“Uh-huh.” Sedgwick removed the cap. As he leaned over the bottle to take a sniff, a portion of his silky hair fell over one eye, and a slow, reflective smile crept over his face. With a soft laugh, he nodded.

With a sinking feeling, Conor watched him reach across the bar to pick up a shot glass. He didn’t know how, but it was clear from the recognition in his cool, gray eyes that Sedgwick knew all about the little brown bottle and its contents . . . and knew who had provided it.

He filled the shot glass with the brown, viscous liquid, and their eyes met as he passed it over with a gently sardonic salute. “She probably told you take it like this, right? Meera, I mean?”

Conor played the hand the only way he could—with feigned innocence. “She did tell me that, yeah.”

He accepted the shot glass and tipped its contents down his throat, his mouth puckering at the revolting taste. The heat from the chilies made his eyes water as the medicine burned its way down his gullet, but almost immediately he began to feel its beneficial effects. The tickle at the bottom of his windpipe retreated, and he seemed able to breathe a little easier.

“Better?” Sedgwick asked.
 

Conor nodded. “I’d feel even better if the ingredients were listed on the bottle.”

“That would be telling though, wouldn’t it?” Sedgwick said, with a wink. “There’s always a secret ingredient. Anything else on your mind? Before we go do this?”

“Nope.” He tucked the bottle back into the knapsack. “How about you? Anything you want to add? About your Crimeans?”

“Nope. Except that I’m as anxious to have it over with as you are.”

15

P
ERHAPS
BECAUSE
THERE
HAD
BEEN
SO
LITTLE
IN
HIS
STOMACH
when he’d swallowed it, the shot of Kavita’s mysterious brew affected him faster—and more forcefully—than previous doses had. As Conor trailed Sedgwick out of the bar toward the restaurant, he felt a woozy, hypnotic warmth begin to envelop him. When the agent stopped short in the corridor with a whispered obscenity, his reflexes were not quick enough to avoid stumbling against him.
 

“
Arrey, gabh mo leiscal, yaar
.”

The apology, offered in a jumble of Hindi and Irish, caused Sedgwick to turn back to him in startled confusion. “What did you say?”

Conor blinked. “Jaysus, I’m not sure. What did it sound like?”

“It sounds like you’re drunk.”

“Secret ingredient,” Conor suggested with an uncharacteristic snicker. “What’s the matter? Aren’t those your lads up ahead, there?”

Sedgwick released his breath in a long, slow hiss of resignation and nodded. “They’re not what I expected. Are you going to be all right?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Conor gave himself a slight shake and stood up straighter. “Anyway, I’m the dark, quiet sidekick, right? I’ll be a bit darker and quieter for a while. It will wear off before long. I hope.”

“I hope it doesn’t.” Sedgwick started again toward the two men who were standing near the doorway of the restaurant. “It might be easier for everyone if it didn’t.”

At first, it seemed Sedgwick might get his wish. They approached the strangers, and during the introductions, Conor wallowed in sleepy affability while trying hard to maintain his role as one of Khalil’s mysterious, deceptively tranquil
goras
.

He was cautiously silent as they exchanged greetings, shook hands, and made their way in to the dining room. After taking a seat at a large round table that could have accommodated twice as many people, he began discreetly applying himself to the task of clearing his head.

About fifteen minutes later, the cobwebs began to disperse, helped along by several glasses of water and a few
pappadams
slathered with hot, mixed pickle. With clarity of thought returning, he began a more discriminating assessment of their dinner companions.

The men had introduced themselves as Grigory Lipvin and Anatoly Kovalevsky. Lipvin, the older of the two, was seated across from Conor next to Sedgwick. He was tall, appeared to be in his early sixties, and had a solid, athletic-looking frame. A shaved fringe of gray hair served as a notional border for the gleaming dome of his bald head, and he had small, dark eyes that looked out from behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.

His associate sat on Conor’s left. Anatoly Kovalevsky was a short, slender, and dark-haired young man, no more than twenty-five if he was even that old. He had extremely fair skin; red cheeks; large, round eyes; and a conservative hairstyle featuring a straight, severe part down the side. He was the exact portrait of a young overachiever, right down to the conventional navy blue suit, identical in cut and style to the one worn by his elder counterpart.