A Covert Affair

by Susan Mann

  Tendrils of panic slithered up her spine. What if she couldn’t get the ring off? She beat back the whispering fear by tapping into her innate tenacity. Her dad called it being pigheaded, but whatever. Never giving up until she discovered the answer to a question was one of the things that made her a good reference librarian. Now she’d call on that pigheadedness to get her and James out of the jam they were in.

  She flexed and wiggled her fingers to get the blood circulating, then tugged at the ring again. It moved. She almost blurted an “Oorah!”

  It took a little time and a lot of twisting, wiggling, pushing, and tugging, but she successfully worked the ring over her knuckle and onto the pinkie of her right hand. Thankfully, the wedding band removal was less of an ordeal. Still, by the time it was off, she dripped with sweat, her shoulders ached, and she struggled to breathe through the thick material of the balaclava.

  She ran the tip of her index finger along the inside of the wedding band and over the ridge where a two-inch-long, eight-inch-wide stainless steel saw was embedded. She dug her fingernail under the strip and pried it from its hiding place. It was extremely thin and its flexibility would be a detriment. She was nevertheless confident the saw’s razor-sharp teeth would cut through the bootlace. Eventually. She hoped time would be on her side.

  With her wrists tied and her hands crossed behind her, her brain had a hard time figuring out which finger the rings should be returned to. Nevertheless, she worked it out and successfully slid the wedding band back on. The transfer of the engagement ring didn’t go as smoothly. She dropped the saw.

  She swallowed a curse and jammed the ring on her finger. She was trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey and had let the one thing that might save her and James slip from her fingers. Hot tears burned her eyes. A toxic sludge of panic, doubt, exhaustion, and frustration churned in her gut and threatened to defeat her.

  She gritted her teeth and forced herself to concentrate. She and James were in a serious predicament. And damned if she’d allow the man she loved to end up buried in a shallow grave in a suburban backyard like Bailey’s dead goldfish. She’d destroy anyone, including herself, to save him.

  With a renewed sense of purpose, she focused on the task of reacquiring the saw. Knocking it to the floor would be a disaster, so she lightly brushed the tips of her fingers over the wood of the seat. She touched the thin piece of metal and carefully pinched it between her thumb and forefinger. Once the saw was secured, she expelled a slow, silent breath in relief.

  Fixing all of her mental energy on her fingers, she put the Tiniest Saw Ever to work. Her hands were in an awkward position, but she managed to get the teeth to gnaw at the restraint. She just needed time and persistence. While she had an abundance of the latter, she was running out of the former.

  She was so engrossed in working the tiny blade it startled her when she heard a man’s voice. The balaclava was abruptly snatched off Quinn’s head.

  She clamped her eyes shut against the sudden light. After a few seconds, she peered through slits at Mr. Gurbachan Singh Gill. From his thunderous countenance and the way his dark eyes glowered at them from under thick eyebrows, it was clear he was incensed by their high crime.

  “Who are you?” Gill barked.

  Quinn stared at him with a flat expression and kept sawing.

  He stepped in front of Quinn and scowled at her. He was wiry, with spindly limbs and long, bony fingers. Still, he by no means looked frail. To her, he looked scrappy. “Who are you?” he asked again. His voice grew more sinister as his fury deepened. “You will answer me.” He drew a hand back and slapped Quinn hard across the face.

  “No!” James shouted.

  The force of the slap snapped her head to the right. Her cheek flamed hot and prickled like the stings of a thousand bees. Indignation blazing in her chest, she slowly turned her head and glared at Gill. “I’m a librarian. I’m here to recover some overdue library books.”

  Gill’s thin lips turned white and he trembled with rage. He cocked his arm and smacked her other cheek with a backhand. It sent her careening to her left.

  “You son of a bitch!” James yelled. “I’m gonna kill you!”

  “Silence!” Gill roared.

  Quinn righted herself again. The coppery taste of blood invaded her mouth. Through the blurriness of her watering eyes, she saw James straining against his restraints. And still, she sawed. Another thread gave way. She needed a little more time.

  She narrowed her eyes at Gill. “Did you know when a library does an inventory of its materials, they find that at least four percent of their collection is missing? We’re not just talking about things people check out and never return. These are things that were just flat-out stolen. Can you believe people steal library books? That’s just low.”

  “Is that why you have broken into my home? To steal my books?”

  “Your books?” Quinn said with a derisive laugh. “The books stashed downstairs were taken from the Sikh Reference Library during Operation Blue Star.”

  His chin jerked up in surprise.

  Quinn kept at him. “You know what? You should really give those books back. Especially that nice saroop of the Guru Granth Sahib you’ve got upstairs.”

  That earned her the hardest slap of all.

  “I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna kill you, you son of a bitch!” James raged.

  Quinn glanced over at her partner. His eyes were wild with fury and the veins in his neck bulged. She looked up at Gill again. “You’re making my husband mad.” She turned her head and spat a glob of blood onto the Persian rug. It felt good. “You better knock that off, Mr. Gill. Or should we call you the Falcon?”

  Gill frowned. “The Falcon? I do not know what that means.”

  “Don’t play dumb with us. You had the ambassador kidnapped. You called for the library to be returned. And since you already have it tucked away in your house, you know the books won’t be. It keeps the Sikh people distrustful of the central government. You want to lead the charge for Khalistan. You want to be the big kahuna if it’s ever established. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “You are not in a position to ask me questions.”

  “Oh, come on, Mr. Gill. Don’t you read? This is the part where the villain reveals his whole nefarious plan.”

  The force of the slap knocked her from her chair. She hit the floor with a grunt. She rolled onto her back in time to see James go into full Hulk mode.

  With a primal roar, his arms jerked up and broke free. He launched from his chair and rammed his shoulder into Gill’s gut. His momentum drove them both into Miss Pragmatic. The Beretta fell from her hand when they all smashed against the wall.

  With every ounce of strength she had, Quinn strained at the compromised bootlace around her wrists. It snapped.

  Quinn stretched for the Beretta. It was beyond her reach. She needed to get to it before Miss Pragmatic, but her ankles were still tied. She pushed up onto her hands and knees and inchwormed toward the gun.

  Miss Pragmatic untangled from the two men and made a break for the Beretta. The two women reached for it at the same time. Miss Pragmatic grabbed it. Quinn gripped the other woman’s wrist and beat her hand against the wall. She pounded away until the pistol clunked to the floor. Quinn went to snatch it but was jerked back when Miss Pragmatic yanked Quinn’s braid.

  “Ow! No hair pulling, you bitch!” Quinn yelled. She grabbed the belt around Miss Pragmatic’s waist with both hands. With her full weight, Quinn hauled at Miss Pragmatic and toppled her backward. Quinn lunged for the Beretta and grabbed it by the top slide. She spun around, drew her arm back, and threw a right cross. Fist connected with jaw. The added weight of the pistol made the punch so powerful, Miss Pragmatic was knocked out before she landed facedown on the rug.

  Quinn heard grunting and scrabbling on the floor behind her. She spun around. “James!”

  Gill had James pinned. The sharp point of Gill’s unsheathed kirpan hovered an inch from James’s face. His grip o
n Gill’s wrist was all that kept the dagger from plunging into his eye socket.

  Quinn aimed at Gill and was about to pull the trigger when James threw Gill off.

  A shout from behind drew Quinn’s attention. A big man armed with a semiauto rifle charged at them. She leveled the Beretta at him and squeezed the trigger three times in quick succession. He crashed to the floor.

  Quinn turned back toward James and Gill. Their positions had reversed. James pressed the edge of the dagger against Gill’s throat. “Where’s Sharma?”

  “I do not know.” Gill’s bravado was gone, and the tremble in his voice told Quinn he was absolutely petrified.

  “You had him kidnapped,” James growled. “Where is he?”

  “I did not. I do not know anything about that. I swear.” Gill sounded like he was on the brink of tears.

  James’s nose was inches from Gill’s. “What about the shipment of guns going down tonight?”

  “The shipment is not guns. It is heroin. I will use it to buy votes.”

  “To get elected and agitate for Khalistan?”

  “I do not care about Khalistan. I only say those things to make angry Sikhs in the UK and US and Canada send money to the Khalsa Federation.”

  “Is that why you kept the library books downstairs? To keep people bitter and angry?”

  “Yes.” Gill heaved to catch his breath. “Please do not kill me.”

  “How did you get the library books without anyone else knowing about it?”

  “A man from the CBI contacted me when I was a member of the SGPC. The books were in a warehouse in New Delhi. He was told to contact us to have them returned under the condition we admit Bhindranwale ordered them hidden for safekeeping, a secret kept even from us. The location was lost when the Sant and his men were killed. I was to say I discovered them in a warehouse in Amritsar.”

  “And you hatched this plan to not tell anyone the truth so Sikhs would stay angry and send you money?”

  “Yes. By that time I had learned bitterness is very lucrative.”

  “You’re a real miserable piece of shit, you know that?” James snarled.

  Quinn spoke up. “So when government officials said the materials had been returned, it was true. But because the government didn’t want to admit they ever had them, they denied everything and continue to stick with the story that the books burned when the library caught on fire.”

  “Yes. The books were delivered to a warehouse in Amritsar to support what they wanted Sikhs to believe. I told the CBI I would reveal my discovery when the time was right. When I moved into this house, I had the basement added to keep them here.” His voice was pleading when he croaked, “I have answered your questions. Please do not kill me.”

  “He really is a miserable piece of shit,” Quinn said to James. She felt no regret when she spat blood on the rug again. “You can kill him now.”

  “With pleasure.” James lifted the knife from Gill’s neck and dropped it to the floor. He slapped Gill four times hard across the face. “That’s for Quinn.” Then he clenched his hand into a fist and, before smashing it into Gill’s face, said, “And this is for everyone else.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Quinn sat on the floor of Gill’s dining room and stared dully at the glob of blood she’d spat on the rug earlier. She yearned to flop on her back, spread out her arms like an eagle, and contemplate the ceiling for the rest of the night. But she couldn’t. She was surrounded by chaos. Miss Pragmatic was still unconscious. Gill was curled in the fetal position with his hands clamped over his face, slowly rocking back and forth. The big guy with a gunshot wound or three called out. And the basement was filled with thousands of purloined library books. Her retreat into a blissful, catatonic state would have to wait.

  James picked up the kirpan and sliced through the bootlace around his ankles, then the one around Quinn’s. He scooted next to her, held her chin between his thumb and forefinger, and turned her head one way and then the other. “The son of a bitch turned both of your cheeks bright red. When he slapped you over and over like that, I really did want to kill him.”

  “I know.”

  “How’s your mouth? Still bleeding?”

  She probed the inside of her cheeks with her tongue. “I think it’s stopped. There’s a pretty big gash on one side.”

  He nodded. “You pissed him off pretty good.”

  “That first slap pissed me off pretty good. I get snarky when I’m mad. Plus, needling him gave me time to keep sawing through the bootlace.”

  “I used my saw, too.” He smiled at her. “Getting the ring off wasn’t easy, was it? My fingers were so slippery and sweaty, I almost dropped it.”

  “I actually dropped my saw.” When his eyes widened, she added, “But luckily it landed on the seat of the chair.”

  “I was almost all the way through when he knocked you out of your chair. It snapped with that boost of adrenaline.”

  “Same thing happened to me when you tackled Gill.”

  He gave her a soft kiss on the lips. “I’d love nothing more than to sit here with you, but we have a pretty colossal mess to deal with. The first thing we need to do is make sure no one else is lurking around. I’ll go check the perimeter. Can you check on Mr. GSW over there?”

  “Nice descriptive name,” she said with a smile. “I’m so proud.”

  He winked, clambered to his feet, and offered her his hand. She took it and he hauled her up. “There are some plastic handcuffs in my backpack. Secure Gill and Miss Pragmatic, would you? I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He slid his feet into his boots and clomped to where Miss Pragmatic had left his Sig and tranq pistol. He returned the latter to its holster around his ankle while the former stayed gripped in his hand.

  James disappeared out a side door and Quinn got to work. She found her Baby Glock on the table where Miss Pragmatic had set it when she tied them up. She exchanged the Beretta for the Glock and returned her firearm to its holster. Next, she picked up Gill’s kirpan from the floor and removed Miss Pragmatic’s from her belt. Those went next to the Beretta on the table. Finally, she retrieved the rifle Mr. GSW had dropped and lined it up with the rest of the weapons.

  Mr. GSW groaned in pain. She went and stood over him. His blood-drenched hands clutched his right thigh. He was pale but alive.

  “I gotta go handcuff your friends first,” she said. “In the meantime, I don’t want you getting any ideas.” She knelt next to him, removed his kirpan, and patted him down. He carried no other weapons.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  She hustled across the living room and ran down the stairs to the basement. The books called to her like a Siren’s song, enticing her to open their crates and gaze at them. “Later,” she promised.

  She gathered up her and James’s backpacks and bounded up the steps, taking them two at a time. By the time she returned to the dining room, Miss Pragmatic had managed to sit up. She still looked dazed and confused.

  “Hello, sunshine,” Quinn said and set the backpacks on the table. She rummaged through James’s until she located the plastic cuffs. In less than a minute, they were cinched tight around Miss Pragmatic’s wrists. “It’s not as much fun when you’re the one tied up, is it?”

  Quinn moved over to Gill. He released a long, tortured moan when she pulled his hands away from his face.

  “Suck it up, dude,” Quinn said.

  Now that neither could cause any more trouble, she returned to Mr. GSW. Even in his debilitated state, he glowered at her and muttered in a tone that made her glad she didn’t understand what he said.

  “Yeah, well, you work for a really bad man,” she said.

  She knelt next to him again with the intent of examining his wound. When she tried to move his hands, he resisted. “The only way I can help you is if you let me look at it.”

  He squinted at her, and when she arched an eyebrow in response, he capitulated. “There’s no blood spurting, so that’s good news.” Dark red blood seeped
up from the wound. “A doctor will take a look at it, but if he thinks taking the bullet out will hurt you more than help, you’ve got yourself a nice new souvenir. Good luck going through security at airports.” She stood. “We do need to make sure the bleeding stops, though. I’ll be right back.”

  She went to the kitchen and opened drawers until she found some towels. She grabbed several, then ran to the living room and gathered up three sofa cushions. Mr. GSW hissed in pain when she lifted his leg and set it atop the stack of cushions.

  “It needs to be elevated.” She put the towel over the hole in his leg, grabbed his hand, and placed it on top of the towel. Pressing her hand atop his, she said, “Keep pressure on it.” To make her point, she put more weight on her hand. “Pressure.”

  He nodded and the anger in his eyes receded.

  “Here, this will make you a little more comfortable.” She lifted his head with one hand and slid two towels under it. After gently lowering it, she patted his shoulder.

  James returned. “There’s no one else around, although Gill’s wife is unaccounted for. There could be more trouble if and when she shows up.”

  “Hold that thought.” She left a puzzled James, pounded up the stairs, and yanked the bedspread off the guest bed. She bounded down again and said as she covered the wounded man, “He’s looking a little shocky.”

  The thought that unexpectedly hit her made her grimace like she’d sniffed one of Monroe’s dirty gym socks. “What if Mrs. Gill planned on staying in town all night and Miss Pragmatic came here to hook up with Gill while she was gone? That would explain why she showed up while the Gills were out. And why Mrs. Gill isn’t here now. He’s old enough to be her father. That’s just. Ew.”

  “Isn’t adultery a big no-no?”

  “Yeah, but I gotta believe stealing libraries and trading drugs for votes isn’t exactly gonna win you Sikh of the Year, either.”

  “That’s true. What’s more likely is that she came here to wait for word on how the deal went down with Captain Sanctimonious and Pink Shirt Guy. And us being here meant Mrs. Gill needed to stay somewhere else.”