The Sultan's Tigers

by Josh Lacey

  Five minutes later, she appeared at the end of our alleyway, her slim body silhouetted against the sunlight. “Hello?” she called out. “Are you there?”

  I’ve never been happier to see anyone in my life. Especially because she was carrying two big bottles of water.

  She gave Uncle Harvey a long hug and me a shorter one. Then she handed over the bottles. Once we’d drunk enough, she said, “So what are we going to do now? You want me to smuggle you out of the country? Shall I take you home with me to Tel Aviv?”

  “Yes, please,” said Uncle Harvey. “But first I need to deal with these.”

  He raised his right hand and showed her the handcuffs.

  “I saw a shop on my way in,” she said. “He should be able to handle it.”

  She led us down the street to a tiny shop, more like a cubicle, where a man in a brown apron was cutting keys. For a hundred rupees, he clipped the cuffs from my uncle’s wrists. For a hundred more, he promised to forget he’d ever seen us.

  Two blocks away, we found a cheap hotel. Tanya went into the lobby alone and booked two rooms, then came to get us. The clerk gave us a quick glance, then returned his attention to the cricket on the TV. India was playing Australia. The crowd was roaring. Someone had just dropped a catch.

  Our rooms were side by side on the first floor. I shut myself in the bathroom, stripped off my clothes, and inspected my body. I had some painful bruises along my ribs and several cuts on my arms, but they were already beginning to heal. I was going to be fine.

  While Uncle Harvey and I were getting clean, Tanya went out and bought bandages, antiseptic cream, new clothes for both of us, and takeout from the curry house across the street. I couldn’t quite understand why she was spending so much money on us. When I asked my uncle, he grinned and said, “It’s very simple. She likes me.”

  We sat on the floor in their room, eating spicy vegetable curry and clammy rice out of little metal boxes, mopping up the gravy with flat brown pieces of bread that my uncle said were called parathas. It was the strangest breakfast I’d ever had, and one of the best.

  “So what now?” said Tanya. “How am I going to get you out of here?”

  “We have something we have to do first,” I said.

  “Oh, yes? What’s that? Steal the Taj Mahal?”

  “Good plan,” said Uncle Harvey. “Will it fit in your backpack?”

  “We can try.”

  They grinned at each other. Then Uncle Harvey explained what we were actually planning to do. “J.J. stole our tiger. We’re going to get it back and take all seven of his, too.”

  We spent the entire day in that dingy little room. Tanya went out to buy more food and drink, but otherwise the three of us sat on the bed or paced back and forth across the floorboards, discussing what had been happening and what might happen next.

  Tanya wanted to know about the Trelawneys. We told her some family history, then described our adventures together earlier in the year, explaining about John Drake’s diaries and the Golden Hind and Otto Gonzalez and everything else that had happened in Peru.

  In return, Tanya told us about her own life. She had been born in a small town in the very north of Israel, near enough to Lebanon that mortars and rockets sometimes landed in the streets. She went to school and university, did her military service, and now worked in a computer firm in Tel Aviv. This was her third visit to India and she’d traveled all over the country. Her flight home left next Wednesday. When Uncle Harvey invited her to come and stay with him in New York, she nodded seriously and said, “I would like that very much.”

  40

  My phone woke me at five in the morning. I pulled on my clothes, tiptoed into the corridor, and knocked on their door. No answer. Uncle Harvey was meant to be up before me. Maybe he’d slept through his alarm. I knocked louder. A groan came from the other side. “Who’s that?”

  “Me.”

  Silence for a moment. Then my uncle’s voice: “Five more minutes.”

  “We have to go.”

  “Give me five minutes.”

  “You have to get up.”

  Silence.

  I rapped on the door with my knuckles. “Humperdinck! Come on, Humperdinck! It’s time to get up! Humperdinck!”

  I heard a thud. Footsteps. Then the door opened. He peered at me through half-closed eyes. “If you ever call me that again—”

  “Please just get up. Get dressed. We have to go.”

  “Will you ever call me that again?”

  “No.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Fine. Come in. I’ll get dressed.”

  We went inside. I pulled the door shut after me and hoped I hadn’t woken any curious fellow guests along the corridor. Tanya was sitting up in bed, a sheet wrapped around her body. She smiled. “Morning, Tom. Sleep well?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Do you want to come and have something to eat? There’s a bit of food left from last night.”

  We ate a hurried breakfast of soggy parathas left out from last night’s supper. Uncle Harvey grumbled about the lack of coffee. How was he supposed to commit a robbery, he said, if he hadn’t even had a decent cup of coffee?

  Tanya kissed me on the cheek and Uncle Harvey on the lips, then whispered, “Good luck. Be careful.”

  “We will,” said my uncle. “Now go back to sleep. We’ll be back before you wake up.”

  “I hope so.”

  We snuck out of the room. My uncle closed the door and hung a Do Not Disturb notice over the handle.

  Downstairs in the lobby, the clerk was head down on the desk, fast asleep. He didn’t even stir as we tiptoed past. Uncle Harvey unbolted the front door and we walked into the street.

  It wasn’t yet dawn, but Bengaluru was already full of noise. Shopkeepers were opening their shutters, and jammed buses were bringing workers into the city. A stall on the other side of the street was selling glasses of tea or coffee. I thought my uncle might try to delay our departure even longer, but he stepped straight into the street and waved at a taxi.

  The drive took about an hour. We arrived in daylight. To my surprise, the driver didn’t ask why we wanted to get out in the middle of the woods beside a half-built museum, just took my uncle’s money and accelerated away.

  We walked through the trees to the village. The houses looked as if they were held together with nothing more than mud and luck. A storm would have lifted the rickety roofs and whisked the walls away, leaving the villagers huddling on the ground, wrapped in their blankets.

  The only sign of life was an old goat tethered to a stake stuck in the ground, nuzzling the earth with his rubbery lips.

  We had almost reached the nearest house when three skinny teenagers strolled out of the village. I don’t know if they’d been watching our approach or had just happened to walk past now, but they swaggered into the middle of the road and stared suspiciously at us as if they had been appointed to protect the village.

  They were soon joined by another kid, then two more. Six against two. They blocked our way, their heads raised, their faces defiant. This is our home, their expressions said. It might not look like much, but it’s ours, and we don’t like intruders.

  One of the kids raised his right hand, pointed at us, and yelled a few words, a short phrase. He must have been warning us. Telling us to turn around and go home.

  He said the same words again. Now I realized he was speaking English.

  “You must give me money!”

  “Here you go.” Uncle Harvey reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled bill. “Here’s five hundred rupees.”

  All six kids ran forward, but my uncle raised his hand and held the money over their heads, the note flickering on the breeze like a worm on the end of a hook.

  “I want to speak to Methi,” he said. “Where’s your friend Methi?”

  Their faces were blank. They didn’t know what he was talking about. One of them tried jumping higher for the mo
ney and another wandered a few paces away, bored or distrustful. My uncle didn’t give up. “Methi,” he said. “He’s a boy who lives in this village. His name is something like Methi. Come on, you must know him. Methi. Mathi. Mothy. Murphy.”

  Finally one of them answered. “Methi?”

  “Yes! Methi! Where is he?”

  “Methi! Methi!” They were all laughing and chanting Methi’s name. To me, it sounded exactly the same as what my uncle had just been saying, but it was obviously quite different to their ears. One of them sprinted back to the village and returned after a couple of minutes with Methi. He was looking nervous. “You want me?” he asked. He must have thought we were accusing him of something. Had we returned to ask for our money back?

  Uncle Harvey explained what he wanted.

  Methi listened. Then nodded. For five thousand rupees, he would help us.

  Uncle Harvey tried to bargain him down, but Methi refused to budge. Five thousand or nothing, he said.

  Five thousand rupees is about one hundred dollars. That’s a tidy sum of money at home, but a small fortune in India. Methi must have realized we were desperate. He knew he could ask for whatever he wanted. I started to feel angry with him, but then I remembered the rickety old shacks where these kids lived and decided they deserved all the money they could get from us.

  Tanya had taken all the cash she could from an ATM and given it to us. Luckily we had enough. My uncle counted out three thousand rupees, pressed it into Methi’s hand, and promised to pay the rest once we came out of the museum.

  Now it was Methi’s turn to argue and Uncle Harvey’s not to budge. He wouldn’t pay the full sum, he said, till he was sure Methi was telling the truth. Otherwise, said my uncle, Methi and his friends would take our money and give us nothing in return.

  Methi talked to the other kids. They argued and waved their arms. It looked as if they were about to break into a big fight. Methi kept gesturing in our direction. I hoped he was saying that we could be trusted. Eventually he and his friends said yes. Which was how the three of us came to be hiding behind one of the shacks at the edge of the village, listening for the sound of an engine.

  41

  Methi heard it first. He turned to us and put his finger to his lips.

  We listened to the engine getting louder, coming closer. When it was almost level with our hiding place, a ball rolled through a gap between two huts and bounced into the road.

  Two kids sprinted in hot pursuit. They appeared to be so focused on the ball that they hadn’t even noticed the truck bearing down on them.

  The driver slammed on his brakes.

  The wheels screeched. The truck shuddered to a halt only a few inches from the boys. The driver leaned out of his window and yelled at them.

  Their ball forgotten, they screamed back, shaking their fists. Who knows what they were saying, but it must have been rude enough to enrage the driver. His door swung open and he sprang out, determined to catch those pesky kids and show them who’s boss.

  I didn’t see what happened next, because Methi had pushed me into the road. Now I was scrambling into the back of the truck.

  I rolled over, trying to keep out of sight, and came face-to-face with a goat.

  It was lying on the floor of the truck, its front and back legs knotted together with brown twine. Its big black eyes stared at me in astonishment, then swiveled to look at my uncle rolling after me.

  Poor old goat. Not only was it going to be eaten by tigers, but it had to spend the last few minutes of its life sharing its space with a pair of Trelawneys.

  I squirmed against one wall of the truck, trying to keep out of the goat’s way. Uncle Harvey pinned himself in the other corner. We’d barely taken our places when the truck jerked forward down the road. It drove a little way, then turned a corner and braked.

  I heard voices. The driver was talking to the guards, probably complaining about the behavior of those kids. There was some loud laughter. Then we were moving again.

  If the guards had looked into the back of the truck, they would have seen us immediately, but they didn’t bother. The driver came here every day, bringing breakfast for the tigers, so they had no need to check on him.

  Off we went again, through the gates, up the drive to the museum.

  I wanted to sit up and wave to Methi, to say thank you, to promise to be back soon with the rest of his cash, but I knew I couldn’t risk it. I didn’t want to be seen. I tucked myself against the side of the truck and worried about what might happen next. I didn’t want to feel scared. This was my plan. My idea. Uncle Harvey had agreed. Tanya had funded us. Methi had helped us. But the idea was mine. So was the responsibility. It had to work out. It had to.

  The instant the truck stopped, my uncle rolled over the back. I scrambled after him. My eyes caught the goat’s for an instant. Then I was landing on the earth with a jolt and running after my uncle.

  42

  I had been worried about guards and alarms, but there was no sign of either. The museum’s front door was propped open with a broom, and the only sound in the air was birdsong.

  My uncle leaped over the broom handle and ran inside. I was a couple of paces behind him.

  The first gleams of the early-morning sunshine were shooting through the vast glass dome at the top of the museum. I could see a bucket and another broom, and two people, staring down at me. As we ran under them, Tipu Sultan and J.J. seemed to follow us with their eyes.

  We sprinted up the main hallway. There were doors to the left, doors to the right, and a man up ahead.

  A cleaner.

  That wasn’t in the plan.

  He was holding a brush in one hand, a cloth in the other. He turned his head and stared dreamily at us, trying to make sense of the two people running toward him.

  He opened his mouth and took a deep breath to scream for help.

  Too late.

  We were upon him. Not giving the cleaner time to make a noise, my uncle swung his fist and knocked him to the ground. Then he turned to me. “Sit on him!”

  I did as I was told and sat on the poor guy, pinning him to the ground, my knee in the middle of his back. I’d done that before, but only to people I didn’t like, such as bullies in the playground. Never to a complete stranger, and I didn’t like doing it. The cleaner struggled, trying to turn himself around and tip me off. I pushed down on him with all my strength. He was bigger than me and I wouldn’t have lasted long in a fair fight, but my uncle came to help just in time. He had pulled two cloths from the bucket. He tied one over the cleaner’s mouth and used the other to tie his hands behind his back.

  “Run,” said my uncle.

  “But shouldn’t we—?”

  He was already moving. I glanced once more at the cleaner, then sprinted after my uncle. The knots wouldn’t hold for long: we’d just have to be quick.

  We sprinted through the museum. I kept expecting to see another cleaner or a guard, but there was no one. Where were they? And why hadn’t the alarms gone off yet? Where were the motion sensors, the laser beams, the sophisticated system that surely guarded J.J.’s priceless treasures? Had it been disabled so the cleaner could do his job? Or were the alarms ringing right now in the nearest police station?

  We had only been here once before, but the layout was very simple, so there was no chance of getting lost. Soon we arrived in the heart of the museum, that huge room with a throne standing in the center.

  There it was. Tipu Sultan’s throne. Covered in cushions and surrounded by the bejeweled heads of eight golden tigers, their rubies and emeralds glistening under the strong lights.

  Eight tigers!

  All of them were here. Ours and his.

  What should we do? Take all eight? Or just nab ours and leave his?

  Uncle Harvey pulled a black plastic bag from his pocket and reached for the nearest tiger. I didn’t know if it was ours, and he obviously didn’t care. He was just going to grab everything. Good decision, I thought. That way, J.J. would defi
nitely have to deal with us. He might not hand over Marko in exchange for one tiger, but surely he’d surrender him for all eight.

  Uncle Harvey’s fingers encircled the tiger’s neck. He lifted it up and turned to me, grinning with triumph. His mouth opened and he started to speak, but I never got to hear what he said, because at that moment the alarm went off.

  It was the loudest noise I had ever heard. A scream that pierced my bones. I thought my ears were going to explode.

  Uncle Harvey yelled something at me. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I knew he was telling me to run.

  He was already sprinting toward the exit.

  I darted after him.

  We hadn’t even covered half the distance when a thick steel shutter slid smoothly down and covered the doorway.

  I whirled around.

  More steel shutters were sliding down over every door and window.

  We were trapped.

  43

  I ran one way around the room and Uncle Harvey went the other, checking every door, searching for a crack or a crevice, some way to get out of here, but there was nothing. The steel shutters fitted the doors and windows perfectly, sealing this room like a fridge. Nothing could get in or out.

  “Give me your phone,” said my uncle.

  I handed it over. He fiddled with the buttons, then shook his head.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Either there’s no reception or they’ve put something in here to block calls.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “Sit and wait. There’s nothing else we can do.”

  “We could fight our way out,” I said.

  “How?”

  “With those.” I pointed at the swords hanging from the walls.

  We had no gunpowder or ammunition, so we couldn’t use the muskets and pistols displayed in the glass cases at the end of the room, but the swords and spears displayed on the walls were in perfect working order, their blades so sharp and gleaming that they would have brought a satisfied smile to the lips of even the sternest sergeant inspecting his troops.