The Virtuosic Spy 01 - Deceptive Cadence (26 page)

“I think you’d better be asking Conor instead of me.”
 

“Well I’m asking you,” Thomas said. “As I’ve asked for the past two months without a straight answer. You were going to come up with something simple. ‘Safe but scary’ you told me. You’d have him begging to go home within a couple of weeks, you said. Whatever happened to that plan?”

“That plan,” Sedgwick said irritably, “became obsolete once I learned he was a bloodless SOB who can see around corners and be a shrewd, deadly fucker when he feels like it. I brought him into the Khalil organization because it was easy, and I didn’t have time to be creative and then, to be honest, I unexpectedly—and rather foolishly as it turns out—got comfortable working with him.”

He shot Thomas a sideways glance, and his anger relaxed into an affectionate grin. “This probably comes as a shock, but your little brother is possibly the most gifted recruit British intelligence has sent into the field in ten years or more. There aren’t too many with both the skill and the stones to cheat Ahmed Khalil and then vanish like a puff of smoke.”

In the backseat, Conor slouched a little further into the shadows as his brother swiveled around, one eyebrow raised in astute observation.

“It’s not as shocking as you might think,” Thomas said wearily. He peered at Conor. “Are you all right? You look like you’ve got a fever again.”

“No, it’s just . . . ordinary, stress-induced sweat. I’m all right.” Conor pushed the damp hair from his forehead and tried shifting the conversation to a more practical topic. “Listen, can we discuss our next move, since the dumping of my remains is checked off the program? I can’t be flouncing around town, now that I’m dead, and I can’t hide at Kavita’s flat indefinitely.”

“Nothing to discuss.” Thomas turned back to face the road with an air of finality. “You’ll be going back home.”

“I’ll be doing no such thing,” Conor answered with equal resolve. “At least, not alone.”

“Conor, there’s no point in arguing.”

“I agree, no point at all in arguing, because I’ve—”

“There’s no point in either of you arguing.” Sedgwick’s voice was pitched to command attention. “It’s not up to you. It’s Walker’s call.”

Conor saw his brother’s back stiffen.

“You’d better not be suggesting what I think you are.”
 

“I’m not suggesting, or recommending. I’m informing.” Sedgwick paused to concentrate as he steered the SUV through a disordered intersection before continuing. “The decision’s made, and it’s not up for debate. Walker wants him dealt in on this.”

“Walker can go to hell,” Thomas said angrily.
 

“Who’s Walker?” Conor sat up and leaned forward.

“Greg Walker,” Sedgwick said. “Introduced to you as Grigory Lipvin. He’s a counter-narcotics agent with the US Drug Enforcement Agency.”

“The DEA?” He sat up even straighter. It was not especially illuminating information, but it did validate one technicality— Sedgwick had told the truth in swearing that he wasn’t working for the CIA.

“Yep. Special Operations Division.”

He looked at Conor in the rearview mirror, his cool, gray eyes indistinct in the darkness. He seemed prepared to reveal additional details but before he could, Thomas erupted. He sent a fist crashing onto the dashboard and bellowed a sound that seemed halfway between a sob and a roar.

“Goddamn it, shut up! You promised me. You said you would keep him clear of it. I don’t care what Walker wants. We agreed a long time ago that he would never hear about any of this.”

“He’s got to hear about it,” Sedgwick retorted. “He’s the one that forced the issue, so he’s got to hear it now. I have no options; the man is my boss.”

“One of your bosses,” Conor interjected.

“Yes, fine, one of them,” Sedgwick conceded. “Anyway, he’s the one calling the plays I have to roll with now, especially after the stunts you pulled this week. You managed to impress him and piss him off at the same time. He realizes now that it’s too risky to send you back to London, and we can’t leave you in Mumbai. We put on a show tonight for the two dumbest
taporis
in Mumbai, but it won’t hold up for long. Khalil will realize soon enough that he’s been tricked again. He’s also got an eager accomplice in your old friend Rohit Mehta, who wasn’t pleased to hear that he was holding wads of money stolen from his boss. Needless to say, he wasn’t allowed to keep it. We can’t even set you up to get arrested. With so many people wanting you dead, it’s too dangerous now to lock you up—they’d get to you in jail. There’d be hell to pay if word got around that we let a foreign agent go down when we knew he was compromised, particularly if he got killed by the gang we’d infiltrated ourselves.”

“So, I’m not going to London, and I can’t stay in Mumbai. Where are you proposing that I go?”

“North,” Sedgwick said, with a wary glance at Thomas. “The plan is to give Con the paramilitary monk a new assignment with a new outfit. You’re going to be attached to the DEA’s operation as the bodyguard for your brother, who is on his way north as well.”

“Not a chance.” Thomas spat the words ferociously. “If that’s what you’ve in mind, then stop the car right now. You can count us both out of it. I’m done. I’ll take my chances with the feckin’ British before going along with any more of this horseshit.”

To Conor’s surprise, Sedgwick abruptly brought his foot off the accelerator. They were on the MG Road near the main Fort campus of the University of Mumbai and not all that far from the Bombay Gymkhana. Braking to a stop on the side of the road, the agent turned to regard each of them in turn. His face looked tired and strained, but again he addressed Thomas with uncharacteristic restraint.

“We’ve been together on this for a long time, Tom,” he said. “A few phone calls to the right people, and you could sabotage the whole thing, but that’s been true from the start. I somehow knew I could trust you, and after a shaky start, I’ve tried to be someone you could trust, too.” He indicated Conor with a nod. “I know what he means to you. I know what I promised, and . . . I know what I owe you. I can’t believe after coming this far and knowing what’s at stake that you’ll set this whole operation on fire; but if you want out of it, take him and go. I won’t stop you, but I can’t protect you, either. Or him.”

Thomas stared ahead, and in the windshield’s ghostly reflection, Conor could see his features hardened in sullen indecision. He sat back in his seat and remained quiet. After a few tense minutes, his brother’s face crumpled.

“What will you be doing, then?” Thomas asked, his voice grown hollow. “You were supposed to play the bodyguard.”

Sedgwick released a long sigh of relief. He put the car back in gear, and they started forward again. “Don’t worry, there’s still plenty for me to do. Anyway, he’s better at it than I am. You’ll be safer with him.”

Conor cleared his throat tentatively. “I don’t suppose anyone wants to explain what this DEA business is all about or what I’m meant to be guarding him from?”

“All in due time,” Sedgwick assured him. “We’ve still got a long night ahead of us.”

“He needs to be in bed,” Thomas objected. “The doctor says he’s got TB.”

“I know.” Sedgwick again looked in the mirror at Conor. This time, the darkness did not obscure a sarcastic gleam creeping back into his eyes. “Kavita passed along that news earlier this week. She’s wracked with guilt for not making you get tested earlier, so she’s had me playing community health worker for the past few days, finding everyone who’s ever shaken hands with you to make sure they get a skin test. That’s made me even more popular with the
goondas
, as you can imagine. I assume you’re on antibiotics?”

Conor nodded. “I’ve been pretty careful around people for the past few weeks. I sort of had a feeling . . . ” he trailed off with a self-conscious shrug.

“Ah, yes, the McBrides and their famous intuitions,” Sedgwick said. “We’ll have to take our chances around you now. Where you’re going, you should get a couple more weeks of recuperation before your services will be required.”

“And it looks like we’re going by train?” Conor observed that the SUV was rolling up to the main entrance of the rambling, Gothic pile formerly known as Victoria Terminus, now renamed Chatrapati Shivaji, the main railway station for Mumbai.

“Correct,” Sedgwick confirmed. “You’ll be riding in style, too. Wait till you see it. You’re in for a treat.”

“You said north. Care to narrow it down a bit?” Conor asked. “More than half the country is north of here.”

“Rishikesh.” Thomas’s sepulchral, dispirited intonation made the word sound like a feeble expletive. “We’re going to Kavita Kotwal’s ashram in Rishikesh.”

25

“I’
VE
NEVER
KNOWN
A
CHEAPER
BASTARD
,” Thomas sighed.

“He is pretty tight with the
baksheesh
,” Conor agreed. “I’ve noticed that.”

“They’ll get it out of him eventually, but he always has to make a bleedin’ production of it. Probably still has his confirmation money, the mingy little blirt.”

“Just part of his winsome charm.”

Thomas aimed a skeptical squint at him, and they both chuckled. They were in one of the main halls inside the train station, dwarfed by vaulted ceilings and soaring cathedral-like arches, trying to hold their ground as the only bodies at rest in a swirling tide of motion. They were standing where they’d been told to and had no occupation other than to watch the American agent reveling in his element.

He was arguing with a growing clutch of railway staff and curious onlookers, trying to confirm both a train and a departure platform for their journey. Apparently, they were traveling via the Kotwal family’s private carriage, and it was still parked on a siding somewhere, waiting to be hitched to one of the many trains in the station heading north that evening. Sedgwick was bargaining for the best route to Rishikesh.

The city was located in the foothills of the Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttaranchal. Conor remembered Kavita had referred to the state as her “home region,” but how she came to have an ashram there and why they were going to it was just another mystery that remained to be explained.

In fact, beyond the immediate prospect of a train ride, Conor had very little grasp of what was going on and thought he probably wouldn’t like it once he did. At one time, he would have found such ambiguity insufferable, but India had taught him patience, as had the surprisingly disheveled, bumbling universe of international espionage.

Whatever the Americans were up to, and whatever results his latest mutation to DEA operative might yield, at least he was in no immediate danger of a mob assassination or of being separated from Thomas. Apart from the heaviness in his chest reminding him of his indifferent health, he felt more sanguine about the future than he had for months. Watching Sedgwick approach them, quivering with irascible energy, Conor felt content to let someone else direct the agenda. For now.

“Tom, what are you carrying for rupees? I don’t have any small money, and I’m damned if I’m going to give one paise more than this is worth.”

Thomas pulled a roll of bills from his pocket with exaggerated patience. “How small does it need to be? I doubt I’ve got anything to suit tight-fisted assholes like—”

“Just hand it over. I’ll bring you the change.” Sedgwick swiped the money from Thomas’s hands and headed back across the hall.

“Sure I’ll not be seeing any of that back again,” Thomas grumbled, philosophically. “But he’ll be quicker about it at least, now he’s working with my money.”

“Why do you let him call you Tom?” Conor asked. “You never let anyone at home get away with that.”

Thomas shrugged. “I tried to get the upper hand on that for a while, but it wasn’t any use. It’s what he wanted to call me, so I had to give up on it. He usually gets his way.”

“I’ve noticed that as well.” Conor lifted his gaze to survey the stained glass windows and elaborate iron railings above them. “I’m sure this will be no exception. He’s as tenacious as he is cheap. I wouldn’t want to see what he’s like on heroin.”

“Hopefully, you never will,” Thomas said, quietly.

Conor winced, regretting the offhanded tone of his remark. “Sorry. That sounded more flippant than I meant it to. How long has he been clean?”

“About two years. This time. I know he acts the prick a lot,” Thomas said, “but it’s mostly out of fear. He thinks he needs an edge to keep himself alert.”

“You’re fond of him, aren’t you?”

Conor studied him, intrigued by the idea that a friendship existed between his brother and the American agent. He had occasionally felt sympathy for Sedgwick, and they had shared a fractious camaraderie, but the nature of their association hadn’t been conducive for building mutual warmth.

“We’ve come through a lot of shite, and we’ve done a few things for each other.” Thomas’s forehead puckered. “I suppose you could say I’m fond of him, but don’t take it the wrong way. We’re not sweethearts, for fuck’s sake.”

Conor laughed but was surprised to also feel a small twinge of something that bore a passing, if not precise, resemblance to jealousy.

As Thomas predicted, the bargaining process moved at a brisker clip with Sedgwick in possession of the “small money” surrendered to the cause. Before long, he was striding back with an air of smug satisfaction.

“Got it for practically nothing,” he boasted. “The carriage will be hitched to the Chennai Mail on Platform 6. You leave at forty minutes past midnight.”

“Hell of a bargain,” Conor observed. “You paid for a train going south when we’re supposed to be going north.”

Sedgwick waved a dismissive hand. “It disconnects you at Pune, and you get hooked to another one going up to Ahmedebad, then on to Agra, and so on. So it takes a little extra time. No big deal.”

“How much extra time?” Thomas asked suspiciously. “How long will it take?”

Sedgwick shrugged. “I don’t know. Five, maybe six days, but most of that is just getting to Agra. It’s a fairly straight shot after that.”

“Six days! Jaysus, we could be there by supper tomorrow night if we booked the AC chair car on an express, like normal people.”