The First Life of Vikram Roy (Many Lives Series Book 3) (18 page)

The gunman asks me, "Where are the plans?’

"What are you talking about?" I reply, trying to stay calm, struggling not to show how scared I am inside.
 

He only grins and in response, and without taking his eyes off me, holds his gun up and I know what what he is going to do and I scream. "No!" But it’s too late. This time he’s shot two more guys in succession. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. These guys are desperate, or crazy or both.
 

Besides me Neil stirs on the ground.
 

The gunman takes a deep breathe, as if trying to calm himself and says, "Don’t pretend to be dumb. If you don’t get me the blue prints of the security arrangements being planned by the force for Bombay; the one that you and your team mates are being trained for, then all the rest of you die too."

Only six of us left now. Four young lives, gone just like that. I feel sick. What the fuck are these guys upto? And … and how do they know about the plans? This is top secret. The only reason I know about it, is because I’ve overheard the training officer speaking with the ACP about it on the phone last week. And only because I happened to be waiting outside his room then. And how does this gunman even know that I know the details?

 
My head begins to whirl trying to piece this together.
 

If they want to know about the new security arrangements, then likely they want to intercept it. But if they do that, it will be clear that there is a security breach and all that we’d do is change the arrangements. Unless… unless they plan to kill us all, once they get the information. It’s all the impetus I need. Without waiting a second I hurl myself at the man, using the surprise to slam his gun up, grab it from him and smash the butt in his face. Behind him the other guy raises his gun, but Neil pushes back from the floor like a human catapult and head butts him in the stomach. The man goes down firing shots in the air, one of which bounces off the wall and hits the remaining cadets on the far end. One of the other recruits takes a flying leap towards me trying to help me hold the gunman down. I scream out in fear, in pain, in warning; but already the gun is firing and this cadet too is hit.
 

I struggle with the gunman and am aware of Neil being hit in the face again and again, by the balaclava clad guy he’s jumped. My phone, hidden below my pillow rings out.
 
It cuts through the sounds of the struggle. Then, suddenly the two gunmen jump up, let us go and we are free. The first gunman nods to my phone. I walk toward it pick it up and my instinct warns me about what is going to happen. No. No. No. It can’t be her. There is a missed call from an unknown number … and a message. Don’t open it, don’t.
 
I read the message which says,

What the fuck? I slam my phone on the ground and look up in time to see both gunmen flee. Chest heaving, the sweat pours down my forehead, down my shoulders, over my back; blood thudding in my ears I look to Neil, who is sprawled on the floor. Around me some of the wounded stir. The first boy who was shot moans, then pushes himself up and blinks.
 

"Wha-what happened?"
 

I run to him, drop down and rip apart his shirt to see the wound. Air bullets. Fake bullets. They hurt like a bitch but don’t kill. What was this? A hoax? A joke?
Her
kind of joke?
 

Behind me Neil’s voice rings out in surprise. "What the fuck was that all about?"
 

I sit back on my heels. I know who’s behind this. She’s putting me through the paces that’s clear. Making me a soldier. She’s toughening me up, preparing me. But for what?

 
It will be many months before the full extent of her plan becomes clear. But only when it’s too late do I get the full picture. Timing. Yes it’s always going to be my problem.

TWENTY-THREE

ELEVEN MONTHS LATER.

It's the
—are you kidding? Are you serious? Are you like completely off your rocker?—
kind of look which finally does it. I spring to my feet and am halfway across the airless little cubbyhole before I stop. I force myself to turn. I look across the rat-hole of a space, for what passes for the office of the head of Force One. The middle-aged man behind the desk at the far end, the current occupier of that position, has his head buried in the palms of his hands. Chest heaving, his little belly ripples over the belt that he has squeezed around his middle. He lowers his hand to wipe the tears streaming down his pink, fleshy cheeks. Is he crying?
 

My eyebrows point down towards my nose. I squint through the wormhole of his office, through the dust motes dancing in the twin rays of sunlight, shining through scum-coloured windowpanes. What is he up to?
 

The man looks at me. His Adam's apple dances as he swallows hard, before folding his arms over his paunch.
 

It is as if, looking at me suspended there, between the door and the desk, sets him off again. With a thump he slams the palms of his hand on the decrepit, teacup-ringed stained table, and this time he does not bother to disguise the full-bellied laughter that rips through from him louder than a fart.

What the fuck? He's laughing at me.
 

So, here I am regaling the head of the squad that had been cobbled together as a response to the 2008 Bombay terror attacks. Tellingly, just two days short of the first anniversary of the bomb attacks, the bureaucracy had hauled ass and finally gets its act together. No doubt someone higher up in the ranks realised they had to be seen to be doing something about the incident. Years later, the police are still scrambling. They're still trying to get a blueprint together to protect the city. It's into this system, one which doesn't know its head from its arse, that I am volunteering myself for duty.
 

Me. Former captain of the Oxfordshire County Cricket Club. The one who till a few months ago had lived the life of a normal student.
 
An
almost
normal life

Now, here I am, in my worst nightmare come true.
 
Back in the home country and at the mercy of its bureaucracy. Knocking on the doors of the Indian Police Service, asking to enrol.

It's ironic that they are headquartered in this imposing Anglo-Gothic building. I may have left Britain behind, but the long hand of the Raj has followed me here. Here I am then, at the meeting point of where my past meets my future, begging them to take me on as a recruit. Pleading with them to take me in so I can become Dr B's scapegoat.
 

I almost want to fail, so I don't have to do as she commands. But I cannot give up, not now.
I
don't matter anymore. I am here to save my family, perhaps even my country. And for that I have to swallow the bitterness surrounding me. I will have to drown in this mirage of my making; so I can wake up in a world that is truer, cleaner, one without
her
in it.
 

Only brave fools and patriots—like my father—tread the path I am about to go on. But, I am not my father. I never was. And what I am going to do is going to take me down a path of no return.
 

I stand ramrod straight, in my ancient blue Levis, shuffling my feet clad in faded leather moccasins, which are already wilting after a few days of the searing-through-your-soul Bombay heat. Mirroring the other man's gesture, I fold my arms over my stomach, and almost sneer in satisfaction at the muscles I feel under my skin. It's in stark contrast to the out-of-shape silhouette of my prospective superior. Faint consolation, but I'll take what I get just now.
 

The sweat runs down my back and I try to ignore my white cotton shirt, which is sticking to my back, lover-like. It brings to mind the embrace of soft arms, palms smelling of lilies, of the moist-green countryside I had walked through with my lover just a week ago. I let it rush over me, breathing in deeply of its comfort before I shove it aside, and watch … as those dreams crash to the floor between the now-silent man and me. He points to my just-vacated seat with his eyes. I walk towards him, standing on the other side of the table, but don't sit.
 

My wounded pride has shoved a stick up my backside, refusing to let me bend. I stay fixed to the spot.

"So you want to join us?" His gravelly, cigarette-smoke-hurt voice scrapes over my skin, making the hair on my forearms stand on edge.

"I want to join Force One." I refuse to give into the impulse to salute in response to the authority in his statement.

"Why?"
 

Such a simple question. One word. Three letters.

Why?

Why are you offering yourself up as a fall guy?

"I want to protect Bombay." I say it slowly, as if meaning every word. Inside I want to catch the sounds even as they fall from my lips. If I could, I would have taken them all back, turned back the clock, gone back to a year ago, to change the course of my life.

But I can't. So I am here.
 

And so is this stuffed-shirt bureaucrat, a cop gone to seed. One who I have to convince of my intent. Just enough to get him near enough to me. Just a few steps closer. I look around the room, making sure once more there are no security cameras in the room. I can't see any.
 

"Mumbai," he says.

"What?" My voice comes out in a forlorn bark which bounces off the walls of the room.

"It's Mumbai," he repeats, a smile threading through the words. "You people who spend time outside the country, you'll have a perverted sense of nostalgia. You insist on calling this city by a name which does not exist anymore.
Bombay
doesn't exist anymore. It's a mythical city, consigned to the dreams of the cosmos … to nothingness."

Like I will be. Swallowed up in the depths of the monster whose belly I am asking permission to enter. The thought makes me clench my jaw till it hurts; my throat closes up. The band around my chest tightens till I can hardly breathe.

Avoiding eye contact, I say, "Bombay."

My voice comes out thin but firm. Convincing. It should because I mean it. All I can do is cling to the remnants of a dream, whose fragments tear at my conscience.
 

"It's Bombay," I insist, stretching to my full six-feet-two-inch height. Not for the first time I am thankful to have the weight of my physical presence behind me.
 

He gets to his feet and walks around the table to stand in front of me. Upright, he looks very different from the overweight public servant who had cowered behind the wall of his desk.
 

Standing up, the folds of skin stretch and disappear miraculously. The belt around his gut is now stretched, not by a roll of fat, but by the weight of his holstered gun hanging casually at his side. He meets my gaze eye-to-eye, for he is
almost
as tall as me.
 

"Suit yourself." He shrugs. "Mumbai or Bombay, the city by any name smells as bad." He throws back his head and laughs at his own joke.

He is at arm's length now. Close enough. The ball of tension I had not been aware of, between my shoulder blades, loosens in response to the shared mirth, and my shoulders sag in relief.

"What's your name again, young man?"

Young …? I have aged a million years in the last week.
 

"Vikram," I say aloud. "Vikram Roy."

"Okay, Roy. You have some great credentials, as you are well aware. And it's not every day—" His eyes light up with a wicked glint, making them appear almost catlike. I blink. This chap's more intelligent than I gave him credit for. Unbidden, I recall the results of a test for hidden bias, taken at Oxford … Turns out I
am
biased … towards my elders. Apparently, the older they are, the less respect I have for them; for they are, after all, out-dated, past their sell-by date. Big fucking deal. I could have told them that for free. Still, it had rankled—this problem of mine with authority and experience, as the assessor had clearly pointed out.

"—It's not every day that a student from Oxford—much less one with your talents and abilities joins the force—"

I wait for him to make the inevitable comment about my graduating so early and asking if I was just a little too smart or something to that effect … and I am both surprised and grateful when he just moves on.

"—You may be running away from something … or someone … a broken heart perhaps." He puts up his hand to stop me when I start to protest. "Honestly, I don't care for explanations."
 

That
shuts me up. Not that I care to explain myself. I have other things on my mind just now. Like how to finish the job I have come here to do and get the hell out of this place.
 

"You have your reasons." He shrugs. "Keep them to yourself. It's just another sob story lost in the vortex of pain this city attracts. And while we do need good recruits."
 

His eyes scan down the length of my body, and in that subtle gesture he acknowledges my youth, my superior physical prowess. Clapping his palm on my shoulder he continues, "You may have made it through entrance exams of the police force, but you still need to apply and get picked for Force—"

His features meld into a look of surprise as the gun recoils in my hand. He looks down at the growing blot of red on his chest, over his heart. I watch, fascinated, as it increases in size, from the dimensions of a tiny island to a vast continent.
 

"You … you shot me?"
 

The words tumble out from between a shower of spittle. Hearing his own voice seems to sap the strength from his legs, which buckle under him. He tumbles towards me and I catch him before he falls on me. Bam! Bam! Bam! My heart slams against my chest. What the fuck have I done?
No, don't lose your nerve. Not. Now. You've come this far just see it through.
I drag him to his chair and manage to heave him onto it.