Noor took off for a nap after checking in and made Ziya promise that they would do the cable car ride before sunset today. Since Gulmarg was a good two hours, it was going to be a little tight considering their saffron field meeting.
Ziya and Krivi arrived at the Jaanebahaar estate where the saffron fields were located and their owner Jahid Khan awaited them.
The fields were on the highway itself, blooming with healthy orange strands and little purple wildflowers that made her want to run out and gather up an armful.
~~~~~~
Krivi braked smoothly at a convenient spot off the shoulder of the road and Ziya hopped down before he could do much more than engage in neutral.
His eyes followed her slim jean-clad figure as she ran nimbly between the rows of saffron and wildflowers and suddenly knelt down and just touched a single bloom. His heart thudded uncomfortably, once and he gripped the steering wheel tightly before deliberately loosening his muscles one by one.
He went out and joined her at a brisk pace and was once again caught off-guard at the sheer, unguarded pleasure visible on her face.
Ziya Maarten didn’t know the first thing about camouflage. And he couldn’t understand how she’d survived without getting her heart shattered into a million pieces given her rough childhood and adolescence. Either she was the most deluded creature he’d ever come across or the strongest woman.
Ziya, unaware of the conflict inside her assistant manager’s brain, just smiled goofily at him as she knelt between the sea of purple flowers. Breathing in the heady scent of one of the costliest spices on earth.
In a reputable restaurant in London, a pound of saffron would be bought for a cool three hundred pounds without a flicker of an eyelash. Not to mention its dollar equivalent in the rest of the world.
He knew Ziya already had feelers out in a couple of places in downtown Mayfair and a place in Manhattan that were in desperate need of saffron. Milking them was not in the plans, but a healthy profit was nothing to sneeze at.
“It’s goddamn gorgeous, isn’t it?” she asked.
Krivi stuffed his hands in his pocket, a dark, unreachable shadow of a man in the bright noon sun.
“Yes,” he answered. Because saying otherwise would have been a lie.
Ziya stood up, brushing the mud off the knees of her jeans and smoothed the siren-red blouse she wore tucked into the waistband. It billowed out fashionably against her slim waist, and on her feet she wore smart black boots. Low-heeled that made for easy walking and she carried a black blazer that she slipped into when she caught sight of Jahid Khan coming their way.
Krivi noted the way she fluffed out her short hair against the collar of the jacket but kept his eye on Khan too. And the way the blond streaks shimmered golden in the afternoon light.
He struck his hand out to Bashir Khan before she could.
“Krivi Iyer,” he said briskly, in Hindi. “We are representing Goonj Enterprises. This is Ziya Maarten, my manager and Operations in Charge.”
Jahid Khan, a local Kashmiri who smelled of the saffron he grew and cigarette smoke shook hands with Krivi, sizing him up instantly. He regarded Ziya for a moment and then smiled as he shook hands with her too.
“Welcome, Miss Maarten. And may I say you are as lovely as your voice,” he added in English.
Ziya smiled, pleased but her golden eyes were cool. She nodded at the rows of flowers below them and said, “You have a beautiful setup, Mr. Khan. The sunlight is adequate, your irrigation system seems to be in perfect working order and the harvest seems to have been particularly kind to you this season.”
Jahid smiled modestly, his light green eyes cooling too.
“Allah is kind, Miss Maarten. And, please, let us not be formal. Call me Jahid miyan.” Brother, in Urdu.
“Jahid miyan,” Krivi said politely, “I was wondering if we could take a look at the property. Photographs haven’t done it any justice.” He tacked on a smile at the end, but caught Ziya’s frown before she hid it.
Why was she frowning when he was trying to be agreeable?
“Absolutely, Mr. Iyer. This way, please.” Jahid invited them on a well-worn pathway between the hedges. “And later on, if you are satisfied with what you’ve seen, maybe we can have a cup of kaawah.” A locally brewed tea that tasted delicious and smelled even better. “And talk terms.”
Ziya smiled, non-committal and distant. “I’m afraid Mr. Iyer doesn’t make the decisions around here, Jahid miyan. I do. I have the degree in business management.” Her smile turned a little nasty. “He doesn’t.”
Jahid grinned and bowed before her. “As madam says.”
Ziya offered her elbow to the man and he took it gallantly, leaving Krivi behind to follow if he chose to.
~~~~~
“Tell me about your rainfall scarcity backup plan,” she invited. “And I am very interested in finding out if organic pesticide is as effective on the southern part of the property as it is here.”
She might have been distracted by a hot ex war-vet who seemed to put her down every chance he got, but she still knew her work better than anyone else. And she was damned if some man was going to take her work away from her.
As Jahid talked her through his operation, elaborating on the points that she wanted particularly clarified, she resisted the urge to look back and check the thundercloud expression on the man following them.
She would have been surprised to find that he wasn’t angry at her high-handedness at all.
In fact, if Ziya had looked back at all, all she would have seen in his midnight eyes were covert speculation and outright admiration.
~~~~~~
“Where have you guys been?” Noor demanded a couple of hours, later as she got in the car.
She was dressed in butter-soft jeans and knee-high boots with three inch heels. Her coat was a leather floor-duster that swept in her wake like a regal cape. In fact, with her flowing hair and the Jackie O glasses she wore on her thin nose she very definitely resembled a princess from some visiting principality.
She plonked on the passenger seat before Ziya could open the door for her.
“Can I get off now?”
Noor wriggled her butt and edged to the side so Ziya could get out and into the back.
Noor punched Krivi in the arm in a sisterly gesture. “You are late, Rambo,” she announced. “I had to have room service and you know I hate that.”
Ziya rolled her eyes as she settled herself in the back, after shrugging off the jacket and carefully folding it before placing it in the seat next to her, next to her laptop briefcase.
Because their meeting had run over, ending with a very successful kaawah tea meeting, she didn’t have time to change and get into more comfortable clothes.
Not that Noor cared about comfort, if the thin heels on her boots were an indication.
“Luckily, one of my students had a doubt on Kit Marlowe’s depiction of woman as the devil and I spent a pleasant ninety minutes disabusing that sweet boy of the notion.” Noor was also a respected mentor in her own right, with four students seeking her expert advice which she gave unstintingly but with a tartness that was all Noor.
“At least you got to have lunch, sweetie. We only had kawaah chai and you know how much I hate it,” Ziya retorted.
Krivi shot her a look on the rearview mirror as he gunned the engine and they took off in a blur of gravel.
Her stomach dipped again at the unreadable emotion in his eyes and the easy, almost animal confidence with which he handled the Rover as he drove, his long, dark fingers caressing the wheel in a gesture she couldn’t help but notice.
Dammit, but she didn’t want to notice anything about him.
“I didn’t know you hated kawaah,” he said, as he took the exit out of the city, flashing the Military Vehicle pass again at the checkpoint. “We wouldn’t have drunk it you’d said something.”
She shrugged, and felt her shirt blow out against her. “It wasn’t important. Jihad miyan was more inc
lined to negotiate in my favor if I drank the tea. And I knew that.”
“Smart strategy.”
She pressed her lips because she didn’t think he meant it as a compliment.
Noor on the other hand burst out with an amused chuckle and said, “You have no idea, how strategic my Zee is, Krivi. She scalped the sorority chicks in Trinity one semester because one of them dared her to wear a bikini in December for Pledge Week.”
Ziya thumped the back of Noor’s beret-clad head. “Stop talking. Now,” she threatened.
“You want to know what she did to get back at them?”
Krivi didn’t answer, so Noor continued anyway. “She posted a notice on the college website and charged a pound for all the frat house boys to see her parade in a Victoria’s Secret ensemble outside their frat houses. At two am.”
Krivi’s lips twitched but he kept his straight face on. “The sorority girl’s boyfriend was one of the idiots who paid up, I assume.”
“Yep,” Noor confirmed with an urchin’s grin. “He was. And all of his friends too, who were, of course, her girlfriends’ guys. Needless to say, there were a lot of breakups that week. And my Zee got a lot of desperate offers for dates.”
“Of course.”
“Noor?” Ziya said conversationally.
“Yeah, Zee.” Noor fiddled with the radio controls right as her cell phone started ringing. And the display picture was Sam. She turned the volume on high to drown out the sound of the ringing.
“If you don’t shut up I will rip my earmuffs off your pretty ears… along with your ears.”
Noor held her hands up in a gesture of surrender and tossed her phone to the backseat, and Ziya sighed. The rest of the ride was accomplished to the sound of raucous music and the intermittent ringing of a cell phone.
Six
The first thing Krivi noticed when they got to the Gulmarg Tourist Office parking lot was that the immediate area was almost empty of parked cars. The horse handlers were also leading their horses away from the sloping parkland.
Tourist mania that was May in Gulmarg was conspicuously absent.
Then his twenty-twenty vision spotted something near the cable car station.
The station was about a kilometer in to the parkland and swarming with people.
At first glance, they looked like normal civilians, tourists. But his veteran eyes could make out the outlines of firepower, guns, hanging from the sides of the perimeter guys.
Which begged the immediate question, why the hell was a perimeter being formed at the cable car station at all?
Krivi recalled similar situations from news reports and snippets of news broadcasts he’d read and seen over the years.
Unidentified vehicle in Srinagar contains IED. 10 dead, 44 injured. A car bomb in July of 2011 resulting in the death of 22 people and several more injured, some maimed for life. And that deadly suicide-bombing of the Raghunath Temple, where terrorists affiliated to one of the jihad groups entered the temple twice, and killed closed to 60 people, injuring almost a 100 of them, all of them unarmed. All of them innocent.
Security was not just an issue in Kashmir, it was a foreboding presence.
Military personnel at the cable car park could be a regular exercise. But something in his gut, his spide-y sense, told him that wasn’t the case.
He was out the door before he could stop himself.
“Krivi?” Ziya called out, in an uncertain voice.
He looked back at the two women still sitting inside the car.
“Stay inside. Don’t move,” he ordered.
He was sprinting towards the cable car station and covering it at a rapid clip before Ziya could process his action.
~~~~~
Then she turned the door handle and leaped out of the Rover. Noor followed her, jumping out and keeping pace with her stride effortlessly. By now, Krivi was a distant blur as he’d already reached the perimeter.
“You know, he’s going to be very mad because we didn’t listen to him,” Noor said, as she tried to keep her breathing even in the freezing temperature.
Sunset was about forty minutes away and the air was turning colder by the second.
“He’s not my boss. I am his employer,” Ziya corrected Noor as she walked rapidly to the crowd that was formed around the cable car station. “He has no right to order me around.”
She wasn’t sure but she thought they were all military personnel, which was very odd and a lot frightening. There were only a couple of reasons why the Army would make an appearance at a hopping tourist spot.
Noor gasped next to her and caught her arm, pointing at the crowd.
“Sam’s Jeep. I see his Jeep, Zee.” Noor sprinted past Ziya, all her fear and love focused on the jeep and the man inside it.
Ziya ran faster and passed her and was almost at the crowd when she was lifted off the ground and thrust back with an almost violent force.
“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” Krivi asked her tonelessly, his black eyes pitch dark.
She stumbled away from him and Noor crashed into her and he steadied them both. His fingers bit into Ziya’s skin.
“I asked you two to stay in the goddamn car.”
“She said…you’re not…her boss. Sam’s Jeep.” Noor bent over, trying to catch her breath.
Ziya simply glared at him and tried to stalk past him. He hauled her back again with insulting ease and this time her fist plowed into her stomach. It didn’t even faze him as he stared at her with infuriating calm.
“Go back,” he repeated, as if she was a five-year old.
Noor’s eyes were streaming and she screamed, “Sam. Sameth! Answer me if you’re here.”
Krivi closed his eyes as the crowd parted and turned as one to look at the two females and one male who’d intruded on their party.
Then, Sam came forward, walking fast and with every step running towards Noor. She couldn’t be held back by even Krivi’s hard arms as she ran towards him and he caught her up in a bruising embrace.
“Go back,” Sam yelled as soon as he was done embracing her.
“No.” She shook her long hair back, her Jackie O glasses on the ground somewhere, naked fear in her eyes. “Not without you.”
“Nuria—" He closed his eyes.
~~~~~
Ziya sighed and shook herself free from Krivi’s tight hold. Her skin hurt with the force of his fingers on her. He didn’t look all that happy with the way she surreptitiously rubbed her shaking fingers over her upper arm.
“Noor, maybe we should leave—"
“No.”
Sam looked at Krivi, who shrugged; a movement that Ziya felt because he was still standing way too close for comfort.
“IED? Insurgents?” He clipped out.
Sam nodded, hooked his glasses up. “I shouldn’t be telling you this…but it’s an IED. Found in a child’s backpack. The tourist admins were not sure at first, and by the time they reported it the thing was live. BDS is ten minutes out.” BDS was the Bomb Disposal Squad of the Indian Army that handled, well, disarmament of hot loads.
“IED?” Noor shrieked.
“Stop the hysterics,” Ziya said firmly, taking her friend by the arm. And shooting a fulminating look at Sam at the same time. “Sam’s Army guys are going to disarm the thing before we know it. It’s his job, isn’t it, Sam?”
“Yes.” Sam nodded reassurance emphatically, but his expression was very grave. He looked at Krivi. “Can you make it out of here, pronto?”
Krivi walked forward and removed his wallet. He flipped open the worn black leather which was even torn at the edges and flashed a badge at Sam, whose eyes widened when he saw it.
Severe speculation and respect filled them a second later.
“I could take a look,” he offered quietly. “If you can tell me the specs.”
Ziya’s stomach did a slow, nauseating roll as she heard the casual words. She suddenly understood Noor’s hysteria a lot better than she had five seconds ago. Her fists c
lenched at her sides as Sam spoke about a standard Iraq-style IED.
Cylindrical container with suspected C4 and an initiator pin that held the mouth of the container closed. Trigger mechanism was probably det cords, and there seemed to be no timer, except the tourist fools had moved the backpack and the load had jostled and gone live.
The bomb’s power source was a tiny switch that had been hidden in a side-zipper that had flipped on when the fool admin guy had handled the package.
Krivi nodded as if he understood all these terms.
Then he said, “Standard disarmament procedure isn’t it? Works with pliers, cutting off the PS is first priority.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. I’ll talk to my superiors. Give me sixty.”
Ziya swallowed as he went back in and Noor went after him. She was stopped by the guards and her gestures became threatening.
“Krivi?” Ziya asked, trying to even her tone.
He didn’t turn to look at her. “Yeah?”
“You’re going to defuse that bomb?”
He shrugged and her stomach pitched violently.
She reached out and caught his arm which made him turn to look at her. Her eyes were shadowed, her quietly lovely face was composed but with the vivid red of her shirt blowing against her slim form he became aware of a terrible fragility in her.
“Don’t blow us all up to kingdom come, okay?”
He smiled. A real genuine smile that made her heart clench with sudden, appalling fear. And he disengaged from her light hold. “I won’t. I promise.”
Then he disappeared inside the perimeter which, of course, let him in and not Noor, moving with lethal grace and the absolute promise of using it.
Seven
As Krivi suited up inside the five hundred pound bomb suit they had on emergency supply, all he could focus on was the mission. His breathing slowed, evened out in time with the beat of his heart.
Back when he’d been a rookie, one of his instructors had spoken about adrenalin and how it affected your responses and actions. When a split second was all you got to save everyone’s life – yourself and your team’s.
Warrior Knight Page 5
