One shot, fly fast and far, oh arrow sharpened with prayer.
—RIG VEDA
Atlanta, Georgia
Inside the mobile command post, Thomas sat beside Porter and Pritchett, listening to the radio traffic as the SWAT team moved in. Words were few; commands were terse. The team knew its moves and executed them flawlessly.
Three minutes after the raid began, the ground leader of the exfiltration team, Special Agent John Trudeau, came on the line.
“Any sign of the girls?” Pritchett asked.
“Not yet, sir.” Trudeau’s voice was slightly distorted by static, but his puzzlement was evident. “We’re still looking.”
Pritchett cursed. “What about the Kleins?”
“No idea, sir,” Trudeau said. “The house is so quiet it’s eerie.”
“And DeFoe?”
“Hold on.” Trudeau came back on the line a few seconds later. “Striker says the door was locked when he and Evans knocked. DeFoe didn’t respond.”
Pritchett pushed his mouthpiece aside and looked toward the front of the vehicle. “Get moving!” he shouted to the driver. “Get me out there as fast as you can.”
The huge vehicle roared to life. Thomas held on as the driver gunned the engine and accelerated toward the parking lot exit.
Pritchett spoke into his mouthpiece again. “Tell Striker and Evans to break down the door if you have to. DeFoe is in there with the girl. The GPS confirms it.”
“What if the Kleins are with them?” Trudeau asked.
Pritchett’s eyes darkened. “Sit tight for a second.”
Suddenly, Pritchett’s mobile phone rang. He put the phone to his ear irritably. His face changed in an instant. At once he looked nervous.
“Yes, sir,” he said into the phone. He listened for a moment, and his mouth came open. “Mother of God. Okay, put him through.”
Pritchett hit a button and put the phone on speaker. When the connection was established, a man spoke. His voice carried the faintest trace of a European accent.
“This is Dietrich Klein,” he said. “Are you the agent in charge?”
Pritchett took a sharp breath. “That’s right. Agent Pritchett.”
“Very good. Now, Pritchett, I want you to listen to me very carefully. Your undercover agent is lying on the floor with two bullets in his chest. I have a hostage—a girl—and my wife has others. They will die if you do not do exactly as I ask. Are you ready?”
Pritchett’s eyes flashed and he squeezed the phone until his knuckles turned white.
“I’m ready,” he said.
“There is a small airport in Cartersville. I want a fully fueled Gulfstream on the tarmac in forty-five minutes. The pilot will be a civilian. If he is armed, the girls will die. There is a vehicle in the garage that we will use to drive to the airport. Your team will clear the area. If I see anyone, the girls will die. I have no interest in talking to you or anyone else until the plane is on the ground. The deal is simple. I will give the pilot directions after takeoff. When we land, I will leave the girls in the plane. Are we clear?”
“We’re clear,” Pritchett barked. “Anything else you want?”
But the line had already gone dead.
Sita watched as Dietrich Klein turned off the phone. She couldn’t control her shivering. She glanced at the shirtless man lying on the floor, the man who had promised to save her. He hadn’t moved since he fell. She was certain that he was dead.
Klein put the phone back in his pocket. He took a seat on a chair across the room, pointing the gun at her.
“You are my guest,” he said. “And I am known for treating my guests well. If you do as I say, you will not get hurt.”
Sita stared at him, trying to stop her muscles from trembling.
Klein smiled. “Yes, yes, I know you are afraid. But you must understand. I am just a businessman. I do not like guns.” He held up his weapon and put it on the table beside him. “You think I am a monster, no? That I have no soul?”
Sita didn’t reply and Klein didn’t seem to care.
He asked her another question. “Do you know why you are here?”
She met his eyes. She wanted to answer him, to let out the scream that had been building in her ever since Kanan turned his truck down the dusty road to Chako’s flat and sold her into slavery. But she didn’t scream. She had no voice.
Klein answered his own question. “You are not here because I enjoy the sale of sex. You are here because men enjoy the purchase of it. I am simply the broker. Some businessmen sell objects. Others sell knowledge. I sell fantasies. It is all the same.”
He checked his watch. “They have thirty minutes left.” He inclined his ear and listened for any sound of human presence. The house was silent.
“Have you ever been to Venezuela?” he asked, looking at her again. “It is a wretched place, but it has its uses. You will see it soon.”
The mobile command post arrived at the property ten minutes after Klein cut off the call. Pritchett had turned into a bear, growling into his mouthpiece. Thomas watched the transformation with a deep sense of foreboding. Pritchett’s discomfort meant only one thing—Dietrich Klein had the upper hand.
“Michaels,” Pritchett shouted to a female technician on the far side of the vehicle. “What’s the status on the plane?”
“There’s a Gulfstream IV at Hartsfield-Jackson,” she replied. “It’s a corporate jet. Biotech company. We’re trying to contact the owner. A pilot is standing by.”
“Who’s the pilot? Can we trust him?”
“Her, actually,” Michaels corrected. “She used to fly in the Air Force; now flies business charters. She was in the hangar when I called.”
Pritchett nodded. “Get the police over there. If you don’t get through to the owner in two minutes, put me through to the chief. I’ll take the heat for commandeering the plane.”
Pritchett spoke into his mouthpiece again. “Trudeau, where is Kowalski?”
“He’s moving into position now,” Trudeau replied.
“Tell him to move faster,” Pritchett said. “We’re running out of time.”
On the other side of the Klein property, Special Agent Kowalski listened as Trudeau gave the order.
“A few more feet,” he whispered into his mouthpiece. “I can see the window, but I don’t have an angle.”
He slithered his way along the limb of an oak tree, measuring his progress in inches. The ground was twenty-five feet below him—a long way to fall, especially with a rifle strapped to his back. The tree was the tallest on the property, with a clear line of sight to the upperstory windows of the guesthouse, but the house was two hundred feet away.
It took him four minutes to reach the perch he had scoped out from below. Halfway between the trunk and the end of the limb was a place where the exterior branches twisted away, leaving a hole open to the sky. If he had any chance of making this shot, his line of fire had to be unobscured.
He bent his knees and planted his feet firmly on a couple of branches. Then he lifted his rifle over his head and set it down on the limb in front of him. He attached a tripod to the forestock of the gun and placed it on the limb. After chambering a round, he looked through the thermal imaging scope. He swung the butt of the rifle until he could see the upper story of the guesthouse.
He saw them immediately.
Four heat sources.
The first was compact and appeared to be hovering above the floor. Perhaps the girl’s sitting on the bed, he inferred. The second and third were stretched out on the ground, but the heat signatures were different. One was normal; the other was waning. Kowalski cursed. DeFoe was down, just as Klein had said. Who’s the other TKO? he wondered. The fourth body looked to be sitting on a chair.
“Gotcha, you bastard,” he said out loud and then finished the thought in his mind. Now we just have to find a way to get you to the window.
The radio squawked. “Kowalski’s in place,” Trudeau said. “He sees them. But Klein isn’t in front of the window.”
Pritchett checked his watch. “We have twenty-five minutes until the deadline. The plane is being fueled. The owner consented. We’re working on clearing the airspace, but flight time is ten minutes to touchdown.”
“How long until the plane is on the runway?” Trudeau asked through static.
“The pilot says she needs ten minutes to max out the tanks. It’s five minutes to taxi.”
“That doesn’t give us much to work with.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. Who’s closest to the window?”
Trudeau came back on the line a few seconds later. “Striker.”
“Tell Striker to find a rock and get his derriere under the eaves.”
Inside the house, the minutes passed with agonizing slowness. Sita sat on the bed, staring at the floral print sheets and trying not to cry. The adrenaline high she’d felt earlier had passed. She thought of all the death she had seen. Her parents drowned by the waves. Her grandmother in the living room. Jaya in the kitchen, not fast enough to escape. The fallen hero on the floor in front of her, bullets in his chest. The world made no sense.
“Fifteen minutes,” Klein said, looking at her and trailing his fingers across the gun. “Do you think they’ll make it?”
Sita shrugged and hugged herself. The hibiscus fell from her hair and landed on the bed. At the sudden appearance of the flower, her tears came unbidden, and she did nothing to wipe them away. She remembered the day when Ambini had picked a hibiscus from the garden and put it in Ahalya’s hair. It was her sister’s sixteenth birthday, and the placing of the flower had symbolized her blossoming womanhood. “Many boys will call on you,” Ambini had said. “But you will have only one husband. Wait for him. And the day will come when you will wear red and dance the saptapadi.” Ahalya had believed Ambini. Both of them had believed. Now Ahalya was a beshya in Bombay, and she was on the far side of the world, sitting across the room from a man with a gun.
Pritchett glanced at his watch and cursed again. “Ten minutes until the deadline,” he raged, “and the plane isn’t in the air. What the hell is taking so long?”
Michaels answered: “It’s on the tarmac. The pilot had to use an alternate taxiway because the main taxiway is full.”
“Goddamnit!” Pritchett spoke to Trudeau. “Is Striker in place?”
“Roger that. He found a few stones from a gravel path behind the house.”
“Is Kowalski clear?”
“Kowalski is a go.”
“Time for Plan B. Tell Striker to make just enough noise to get Klein interested. And tell Kowalski the order is weapons free. Take the shot. But make it count.”
Sita blinked when she heard the sound the first time. She listened intently and heard it again—a strange rattling. She saw Dietrich Klein turn toward the window and pick up his gun. He waited until the sound came a third time and then stood up slowly.
Klein glanced at her, and she stared back at him. He looked puzzled, but his confidence was unbroken. He moved across the room, stepping carefully, focusing on the window. She heard the sound a fourth time, this time as a rap instead of a rattle. Klein stood in place, thinking. Then he moved closer to the window, holding the gun.
Kowalski watched through the thermal scope as Klein stood from the chair and crossed the room. The path from the chair to the window was oblique, so he would not have a shot until Klein was standing directly in front of the glass. Kowalski gauged the wind and recalculated the drop across two hundred feet. It was minuscule, but so was the margin of error.
At once Klein stood still. “Come on,” Kowalski said in frustration. “Come on!”
Then Klein started moving again.
Kowalski tightened his finger on the trigger. “Two more feet …”
His voice trailed off and his eyes locked onto Klein’s body. Suddenly he was there, standing before the glass, his body on edge to the line of fire, his arms out in front of him, as if holding a weapon. A chest shot wouldn’t work. A head shot was the only option. Kowalski placed the centerpoint of the crosshairs directly over the hottest part of Klein’s head.
And then he pulled the trigger.
Sita jumped with fright when the shot was fired. In the still air, its highpitched crack shocked her senses. She was even more terrified when Dietrich Klein crumpled to the ground in front of the window, blood pooling under his head. She sat paralyzed for long seconds until sounds erupted on the floor below. Boots stomped and voices shouted. When the heavy footsteps reached the stairs, she began to rock back and forth, nearly insensate.
Seconds later, the door crashed in and men rushed into the room, dressed in black and khaki and wielding machine guns. One of the men ran to the body of Dietrich Klein and checked his pulse. The other slapped cuffs on Li, who was still unconscious. The second man then turned to DeFoe and knelt before him, closing his eyelids.
“Clear,” the first man said.
“Clear,” the second echoed.
The first man approached the bed and took off his mask. “You must be Sita,” he said.
She looked at him, dazed. In his helmet and combat dress, he looked like some sort of fearsome monster. Yet his voice sounded no different from a man’s.
She hesitated and began to breathe again. “Yes,” she said.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“I’m Evans,” the agent said. “This is Garcia. Can you walk on your own?”
Sita swung her feet over the edge of the bed and stood up. “I’m all right.”
She followed them to the door and out into the hallway. The guesthouse was crawling with black-clad men with guns. Evans led her down the steps to the living room, and Garcia followed. Evans gestured for Sita to sit on the couch, and then he and Garcia spoke with another man. Sita overheard their words.
“Where are the other girls?” the third man said.
Evans shrugged. “She was alone.”
Sita stood up and touched his shoulder. “Excuse me,” she said.
The men turned toward her.
“You haven’t found the other girls because they are hidden.”
“Where?” Evans asked gently.
“In the basement.”
The third man spoke. “I’m Agent Trudeau. I’m in charge. Just tell us what you know, and we’ll take it from here.”
Sita shook her head, feeling almost weightless in her freedom. “It’s difficult to explain. I have to show you.”
“You sure about that?” Trudeau asked.
She nodded.
“Suit yourself. I’ll take the point.”
Sita entered the pitch-dark wine cellar like a celebrity surrounded by bodyguards. Agent Trudeau was in front of her, his gun at the ready, and Evans and Garcia followed behind. Trudeau found the light switch. Bottles of wine gleamed in the light, but otherwise the cellar was empty. They stood still and listened but heard no sound.
Sita walked to the far side of the room and opened the door to the storage cabinet she remembered Li selecting. She looked closely at the rack and blessed her memory for detail. The bottle Li had manipulated had a black and gold label. She saw the bottle and turned it over. The motor engaged and the hidden chamber opened.
Agent Trudeau gestured for Sita to stay back, and he and Evans entered the hallway, pointing their guns at the doors. They paused, listening, but heard nothing. Trudeau and Evans knocked on each door and repeated: “FBI! Open up!” None of the doors opened.
Evans stood beside Sita, shielding her with his body. She tapped him on the shoulder.
“I saw him punch in the code for the room at the end.”
“What’s the number?”
She closed her eyes and tried to remember. “I only know the placement of the buttons.”
Evans waved at Trudeau and relayed the information.
Trudeau looked at Sita. “Will you enter the code for us?”
“Yes,” she whispered and followed him down the hallway toward the studio.
She stood in front of the door and closed her eyes, replaying in her mind the rapid five-key sequence Li had tapped out, and repeated it flawlessly. She heard the latch disengage, and then Evans lifted her off her feet and carried her back to the wine cellar. A moment later she heard the piercing sound of gunfire. Then all was still.
Garcia poked his head out of the door. “You guys deserve to see this.”
Sita took Evans’s hand and walked with him to the studio. They entered the room and found the blond woman lying in front of the bed, a gun in her hand. An auburn-haired girl sat on the ground in front of her, shaking in terror.
“She was holding the girl hostage,” Garcia said, shaking his head.
Five more children between the ages of twelve and sixteen were tied up on the bed, their wrists and ankles bound and their mouths sealed with tape. They sat up one by one and looked at Sita, their eyes round and fearful. For a long moment she stood unmoving, hearing again the sound of Li’s camera and feeling the shame of undressing before Dietrich Klein. Then she shook her head. It was over. Klein was dead.
She crossed the room and touched the face of the youngest girl, peeling back the tape from her mouth. The girl winced, but Sita soothed her with a smile.
“It’s all right,” she said. “You’re safe now.”
When the girls were free and able to walk, Trudeau and Garcia took them upstairs. Sita, however, asked Evans to wait for her while she retrieved her coat from the corner of the basement studio. She put the coat on over her sari and then reached into the inside pocket, tracing the outline of Hanuman. She took a deep breath, vowing in her heart never to forget Shyam, and then followed Evans to the stairs.
Evans took a seat in the dining room off the entrance hall and delivered a statement to another man wielding a clipboard. Sita sat beside him but found it difficult to pay attention to what he was saying. Instead, her mind drifted. She remembered her father standing on the beach in front of their bungalow, waving for her to join him for the sunset. She remembered walking out on the beach and seeing her parents waiting for her. Ahalya was down by the waterline, searching for conch shells. It was a day like any other—a good day.
She looked up as two men entered the house in civilian clothes. One was tall, with dark hair and kind eyes, and the other was shorter and more muscular. She stared at the tall man. She had seen him before. She wracked her brain for the connection. Then it came to her. On the street outside Dmitri’s flat in Paris. He was the one who had chased their car down the street.
At once all of the pieces fell into place. He had been looking for her! But how had he known? And why had he cared? She was sure they had never met before. She followed him with her eyes, wondering whether she would get a chance to speak with him.
Thomas stood in the foyer and searched among the milling agents for a sign of Sita.
“Where do you think she’d be?” he asked Porter.
“They probably have all of the girls together,” Porter replied, starting down the hallway toward the living room. “I’ll see if I can find Agent Trudeau.”
Thomas was about to follow him when he glanced to his left. At a polished mahogany table sat a towering SWAT commando, a jacket-clad field agent, and a thin-boned Indian girl dressed like a princess. The girl was staring at him, her lovely eyes wide. She was older than she looked in the photograph in his pocket, but it was her. He knew it right away.
He stood frozen for a moment, and then he began to finger the bracelet on his wrist. He walked slowly toward her.
“Are you Sita Ghai?” he asked.
“Yes,” Sita replied.
He unfastened the rakhi bracelet, bent down, and placed it on the table before her.
“I’m Thomas Clarke. Your sister asked me to give this to you.”
He saw tears come to her eyes. “You know Ahalya?”
He nodded, finding it hard to breathe. “We rescued her from Suchir’s brothel. She is waiting for you at an ashram in Bombay.”
Thomas marveled as the radiance of the dawn spread across her face. She clutched the bracelet and began to sob. It was as if all of the terror, the doubt, the despair, and the failing hope of the past two and a half months had converged in a great tide of tears.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Porter. “It seems that you found her,” he said.
Thomas let out the breath he was holding and began to smile.
“Well done,” Porter said.
When the gale of Sita’s emotions subsided, she fastened the bracelet on her wrist. “I made this for her birthday last year,” she whispered. “She said she would wear it always.”
“You’ll have to return it to her, then.”
Sita thought for a moment and reached into her coat, extracting Hanuman. She held the figurine reverently, then placed it on the table.
“Do you know the story of the Ramayana?” she asked him.
Thomas nodded, staring at the little statue.
“Hanuman was a friend of Rama. He found Sita. You should have him.”
Thomas picked up the statue. He remembered what Surekha had said about Priya’s father at the mendhi event. “When Priya was young, he told me that the man who married her would have to possess the character of Lord Rama. Rama is a guiltless man.” Thomas knew he would never live up to such a standard. But Rama wasn’t really the hero of the story. It was Hanuman who had crossed the ocean and rescued the princess of Mithila.
“Thank you,” he said. She would never know the importance of the gift.
Sita looked around at the FBI men. “Will they let me go?” she asked.
Agent Evans attempted an answer. “It’s complicated. But we’ll do everything we can to get you home soon.”
Thomas glanced at Porter. “Holi is on the twenty-sixth. It’s the second biggest holiday in India. Any chance you can pull some more strings and get us on a plane before then?”
Porter laughed. “I’ve pulled so many strings in the past few days that I’m starting to think about a career as a marionettist. I’ll put in the request and see what the people on high have to say about it. A lot of it will depend upon the Indian government. They’ll have to take her into custody on the other side.”
“What happens now?” Sita asked, glancing between Thomas and Evans.
“We’ll put you under protection and ask a lot of questions,” Evans responded. “We need your help to put quite a few criminals behind bars.”
“Will you stay with me?” Sita asked Thomas.
Thomas nodded, holding little Hanuman and relishing the sweet exhilaration of victory.
“I’ll stay with you as long as it takes to get you home.”