The Delhi Deception (38 page)

They ran in the direction Harry was pointing and opened the steel door. The room was bare except for some cut wires and strewn tools. An empty metal suitcase was lying open on a steel table.

Harry had followed, and inspecting the walls, he said, “I think it’s reinforced concrete. I want the two of you to stay here while I go on trying to disarm the bomb. You have a better chance in here in case it detonates. Close the door and lie on the floor. Cover your heads with your arms.” He turned around and ran back. Carla closed the door and noticed the guilt, pain, and regret in Elouise’s expression.

“It’s OK. I know we’re going to be fine,” Carla said, not believing a word of it but desperate to make her friend feel better.

At 14:16 Jim called George and told him that he had scanned the images up to present time, and at 12:30 the compound was cleared out. It was done quickly, and it looked like they were in a hurry. Two Tempo vans and an old black Mercedes Sedan had driven off with goods and passengers.

“What about Singh and the women?” George asked, concerned.

“It was difficult to tell for sure. There was a heavy pollution cloud hanging quite low. I saw two women leave, but they were dressed in hijab. I didn’t identify Singh, but my guess is that they’ve either been killed or they were taken with them, as the guards also left. The dog is running around outside without its handler.”

“Is the satellite tracking the vehicles?” George asked grimly.

“I’m afraid the Indian footage is not available anymore, unless they receive an updated report. The control center in California, however, is in the process of training our satellite on the targets. It should take about an hour.”

“Damn, that’s not good enough,” George said, dismayed. “Keep me up to date. We’ll check it out.”

George was quiet when he broke the satellite connection and his men, knowing him well, respected their leader’s silence. Kamal continued driving, while the men checked their ammunition as preplanned.

Finally George said, “We have an hour max to secure the building. Chances are it’s empty, but I want you to collect every piece of shit you find. I want fingerprints and DNA samples, toothbrushes, hair. You name it. Understood?” They detected the slightest quiver in George’s voice as he gave these instructions.

“Yes sir,” they replied, almost in unison.

“In roughly one hour, we should have surveillance of the vehicles, and then we’re going after them.” George sat very still, but his mind was in turmoil.
If Carla is dead, I will never forgive myself
. Rebuking himself for involving her in the first place, he started feeling dizzy and nauseous, something that had never happened to him before, even on the most dangerous of missions. He could smell her, fresh, clean, but with an exotic sweetness to her scent. He banned the image of her ready smile.
What the hell is wrong with you, George? You’re going to get yourself and your men into trouble if you don’t start thinking clearly.

At 14:40 the warehouse came into view. Asef and Naeem compared the images with the ones Jim had sent and confirmed it was the place. It looked completely abandoned; even the metal gates were unlocked. Kamal stopped the jeep and got out to inspect the gate. It looked safe, so they entered. The men got out quickly and silently. They surrounded the building within a few seconds. Mohanbir positioned himself on the concrete wall a little farther away, but with a clear view of the building and its windows. Through his telescopic viewfinder he started scanning the building. George and Kamal walked up to the steel door, while Asef and Naeem scoured the rest of the building for any other entrances. George stopped dead in his tracks when he heard the sound of a growling dog, and then it was eerily still. He knew Naeem would have been responsible for silencing the animal.

George studied the electronic lock on the steel door and said to Kamal, “What do you think? Disable it or just shoot it?”

Kamal studied it carefully and said, “I don’t know. What if it’s booby trapped?”

“What’s that sound?” George said as he held his ear against the door.

Kamal listened carefully and said, “I can hear it, too. Sounds like footsteps.”

George whispered into his Multiband Inter Team Radio, “Movement detected inside building. Mohanbir, do you have a visual?”

“Negative.”

“Asef, Naeem?”

“Negative.”

George, standing with his back against the wall next to the door, started weighing his options.

Harry went cold on hearing the motor engine. He ran upstairs and peered through windows, watching in dread as five armed men jumped from a jeep with alacrity.
The death squad,
he thought as his stomach cramped. He ran to the rear as he watched them surround the house and then head back to the front. He ducked quickly when he spotted the sniper on a concrete wall about 80 meters away. With his heart hammering, he peered through the window again and watched the two men at the front door. The tall Afghan, was talking into his radio, and the other younger man, wearing jeans and a white shirt, looked up, scanning the walls. Harry opened his eyes wide in surprise when he recognized the man looking up, as Kamal, George’s driver. He sat down and tried to think calmly. The suspicion that George worked for the CIA or NSA was always at the back of Harry’s mind.
Could this be a rescue mission
? He hurried back to the bomb and saw that twelve minutes and six seconds remained until detonation. Making a split-second decision, he ran into Nadir’s office, and finding a black marker, he scribbled a message on a sheet of printing paper and ran back upstairs.

Mohanbir was still monitoring the building. As he swept his telephoto lens back to the front windows, he saw the paper, with something written on it, held up against the window. Talking into his radio, he said, “Sir, I see something. Someone’s holding a note up against the window.”

“What does it say?” George asked urgently.

“Please help, doors booby-trapped with time bomb. Twelve minutes to detonation.”

“Shit,” George said and continued talking into the radio. “Naeem, get to this side; we’ll have to help this guy disarm the bomb.” Naeem was a bomb expert for the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence. George had recruited him in Peshawar after the November 2008 attack on two hotels in Mumbai. With suspicion falling on the ISI, he had become disillusioned and agreed to help seek out the traitors in the service. His intelligence gathering was crucial and proved to be of utmost importance.

Naeem was at his side within twenty seconds. “Can we communicate with the guy inside?”

George ran to a window about three meters off the ground. He went down on his haunches, and Naeem instinctively hopped onto George’s shoulders. He stood up and, steadying himself against the wall, reached for the windowsill. Then he pulled himself up. “Do you have a visual?” George asked.

“Affirmative. An individual is pointing out the bomb to me. This window is not booby-trapped. I’m going to break the window.” Using the back of his handgun, he smashed the window. “Identify yourself!” he shouted.

“Dr. Harry Singh.”

“Are you alone?”

“No, my wife, Elouise, and her friend, Carla, are here, too. They are hiding in a reinforced concrete bunker. Can you help me disarm this bomb?”

“Yes. Stand by.” Naeem had a good view of the bomb, using his Steiner binoculars. On his instructions, Harry carefully complied, lifting and separating wires. Nine minutes and thirty seconds remained.

Carla patted Elouise on the arm, trying to console her. “We’re going to be all right.” She closed her eyes and tried to think of her family. She pictured her parents on the wide veranda of their farmhouse, her father glaring at her mother as she chatted incessantly on the portable phone.
Always talking to your friends, what about me? Can’t we spend a quiet evening together without your friends?
Carla smiled; oh how she missed them now. An image of Andrew drifted briefly into her mind, and then she felt rather than saw George. She remembered how he had kissed her in the swimming pool, the taste of chorine on his lips.
Could it be only a week ago
? The awful reality that this was in all likelihood the end of her life made her admit her true feelings for George.
I’m in love with him. The moment I met him he stole my heart. Is Leila telling the truth? Is it possible that he doesn’t care, at all? Maybe I deserve this. I didn’t give Andrew a chance to explain himself. I think I was secretly glad to have an excuse to fall in love with George.
Carla felt tears run down her face and onto her arm. She stared at the tears pooling into the crook of her arm; she felt like Alice in Wonderland, drowning in her own tears.
It can’t be much longer now
, she thought, as an unnatural calmness engulfed her.

.

CHAPTER 28

E
louise startled Carla out of her reverie as she suddenly sat up and said, “Do you hear that?” She was frowning, an expression of hope and fear in her eyes.

The door opened; Harry ran in and half-lifted Elouise off the cement floor. He embraced her, whispering consolingly, “It’s OK. It’s over. You can go home to our babies.” But Elouise stood transfixed. It was all too much, all too sudden to assimilate.