A Covert Affair

by Susan Mann

  “You think she went to Varanasi?” he asked.

  “Think about what happened during Operation Blue Star. Her father was taken away from her. She kidnaps Sharma, the man who hauled him off. The Indian Army took the Sikh Reference Library. She steals priceless Hindu manuscripts. The holiest city in Sikhism was invaded and its sacred shrine desecrated.”

  “She goes to do the same to a temple in the holiest city in Hinduism,” Ravi finished for her.

  “I bet this was never about Khalistan for her. Just like Gill, she used it to get Samir Singh and the soldiers at the Library of Congress on board. For them it’s about Khalistan. For her, it’s revenge.”

  James reentered the room. “Revenge?”

  Quinn filled him in on what she and Ravi deduced.

  Ravi rubbed his hand over his face in frustration. “The problem is if Harbir is going to go desecrate a temple, which one? I bet there are a thousand in Varanasi.”

  Quinn crossed the room, sat down on the couch, and set the open book on her lap. “It’s got to be meaningful. It has to connect back to Operation Blue Star somehow.”

  “I’ll dig deeper into her browser history,” Ravi said, turning back to the computer.

  Quinn skimmed the page about Varanasi’s long history and turned to the next. When she read two words, a sense of dread flooded her. “I think I know where she’s headed,” Quinn said in a quiet voice. “There’s a temple called the Kashi Vishwanath. Some consider it the most important temple in Varanasi because it houses a sacred artifact of Shiva.”

  Ravi stopped typing and looked at Quinn over his shoulder. “I’ve heard of that temple.”

  “You think she’s going after that temple because of that object?” James asked.

  “No. The spires of the temple are covered in gold donated by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He’s the same guy that gilded the Harmandir Sahib.” She paused. “The Kashi Vishwanath is also called the Golden Temple.”

  The words had barely passed Quinn’s lips before James was on the phone with Meyers again.

  Ravi spun around again and pounded at the keyboard. “From here to Varanasi is about twelve hundred kilometers.”

  Quinn did a quick conversion in her head. “About seven hundred fifty miles. If Harbir drove or took public transportation of some sort, it would take a couple of days. She might be just getting there now. It’ll take too long for us to drive.”

  James ended his call. “We won’t drive. By the time we get to the airport, the agency will have a plane gassed up and ready to go.”

  * * *

  From the time they left Harbir’s flat to when James landed the Cessna TTx at the Varanasi airport, only five hours had elapsed.

  The last couple of miles of their cab ride from the airport to the temple were the slowest and most maddening part of the trip. As advertised, Varanasi was incredibly old, and as such, the streets were narrow and congested.

  The taxi dropped them off as close as they could get. They would have to walk the rest of the way to the temple itself. Apparently, the Indian government had taken their warning to heart, since the area was crawling with armed soldiers. The temple itself remained open, along with its long-established security checkpoints.

  As they pushed through the crowd toward the alleyway that led into the temple, Quinn couldn’t help but notice the stark differences between the two Golden Temples. The one in Amritsar was straight lines and right angles. The shrine was set off by itself with space around it. It was the center of everything and could not be ignored. The buildings around it were spotless and bright and orderly.

  The Kashi Vishwanath temple and the area around it was the opposite. It was loud and dirty and chaotic. The temple itself was almost hidden by the buildings around it, wooden signs attached to walls, and multiple lines of telephone wires strung every which direction. In Varanasi, the exterior of the Golden Temple featured spires that were tall, round, and pointed. She wondered if it was as crowded and smelly and overwhelming inside of the temple as it was outside. It wasn’t that she thought one group was more or less devout than the other. To an outside observer like herself, it was just the aesthetics were very different.

  Quinn’s eyes never stopped moving as she scanned faces outside the entrance in hopes of spotting Harbir. “I don’t know how she thinks she’s going to get inside with all this security,” Quinn said. “It’s not like they won’t see what she’s got in her bag.”

  “Unless she found a tunnel or something to get in some other way,” Ravi replied.

  “Let’s hope that’s not a thing,” she said.

  Ravi surreptitiously handed his nine millimeter to Quinn and said in her ear, “I’m going inside the temple and check things out. You and James can’t get in because you’re not Hindu. If I don’t see Harbir, I’ll stay in there as long as I can on the chance she gets through security.”

  Quinn slipped the pistol into her bag. “You won’t be armed.”

  “That’s okay. If I spot her, I’ll find someone who is and have them arrest her.” He turned and disappeared into the crowd.

  James and Quinn patrolled the area for an hour, continuously searching the crowds that flowed around them. She felt like a salmon swimming upstream.

  The oppressive heat and the noise and the stench and the mass of humanity pushing in on Quinn wore her down. Dripping with perspiration, she said, “I was wrong. Coming here wasn’t Harbir’s plan at all. This soul-sucking humidity is gonna kill us while we wait for someone who’s not even gonna show up. She’s about to do something terrible somewhere, and it’s my fault we’re not in the right place.”

  “It’s not your fault.” James’s eyes never stopped moving even as he responded. “If Ravi, Meyers, the agency, or the Indian government thought you were wrong, don’t you think one of them would have spoken up? I don’t think you’re wrong. There are a lot of reasons nothing has happened. Maybe she changed her mind. Or she’s waiting for something or she had travel delays.” He rubbed a circle on her back with his hand. “This could take some time. We just have to be pa—”

  The sound of rapid gunshots from an automatic weapon filled the air. Quinn ducked and looked around for the shooter. Pandemonium erupted as people screamed and scattered for safety.

  James grabbed Quinn’s hand and ran for cover. They plastered themselves against a wall.

  There was no spray of dust coming up from bullets hitting the ground. No victims fell prostrate, wounded and bleeding. And yet the noise of the gunshots continued.

  James and Quinn peeked around the end of the wall toward where the sound originated. A rifle barrel poked out from a window of the uppermost floor of a building across the street from the temple’s spires. It wasn’t aimed at the people in the street below. The rifle put round after round directly into the gilded pinnacles of the Hindu Golden Temple.

  The boots of soldiers armed with rifles pounded the ground as they ran past James and Quinn and toward the building.

  “Bullets into the temple,” Quinn shouted at James and pointed up at the window. “Just like the beginning of Operation Blue Star.”

  He nodded, his face grim.

  Soldiers sprinted toward the entrance of the building. They were driven back by a second rifle firing at them through another window.

  “She’s not alone,” James said.

  “I’ve got to talk to her.” Quinn bolted from their shelter and ran for where the soldiers were hunkered down.

  “Damn it, Quinn! No!” James shouted and raced after her. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  They joined the line of soldiers. Quinn headed toward the man in charge. “No, but I have to talk to her. She might listen to me.”

  The second they reached the commander, a bullet whizzed past and embedded in the plaster of the wall behind them. He scowled at them. “You should not be here. Go back to safety.”

  “But I know one of the people up there. I need to talk to her. She’ll listen to me.”

  “No!” the comma
nder shouted. “It is not safe. Go!”

  Quinn started to push past the commander. Her plan to run for the building was thwarted when James’s arms shot around her waist. He pinned her firmly to him and said, “Oh no, you don’t.”

  “But I have to talk to her.” Quinn’s voice was strained and desperate.

  “Then yell at her from here.” His arms cinched tighter.

  She dropped her head back against his chest and sighed in defeat. “Fine.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Harbir! It’s Quinn Riordan. Please stop shooting and come out. You don’t need to do this. The library was returned to the Harmandir Sahib this morning. You got what you wanted. Tell us where Sharma is and give yourself up before anyone gets hurt or killed.”

  A man’s voice yelled at them from above. “The Falcon is not here.”

  “Harbir!” Quinn hollered. “Please!”

  “I have told you already,” the voice said. “The Falcon is not here. She has sent us to inflict wounds on the Hindus’ holiest temple. They will know our pain. We will continue until we are out from under Hindu oppression and live in a free Khalistan.”

  The rifle pointed at the temple disappeared from the window. It was immediately replaced by something the size and shape of an angular bowling pin.

  “RPG!” James shouted.

  The rocket-propelled grenade launched and hit one of the spires with an earsplitting explosion. Fire and thick black smoke boiled up. Then six rapid fwoomps sounded. One after the other, six grenades detonated and blew the other spire to smithereens. Chunks of debris hurtled through the air.

  Flying rubble rained down. Quinn’s hand flew up to the top of her head when it felt like someone drove a spike through her skull. She felt something warm and sticky, and looked at her hand. Blood.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Quinn! You’re bleeding!”

  “I’m okay.” Pinpricks of light sparkled in her vision. “Although I think I’m literally seeing stars.”

  James scooped her up and started walking. “I’m getting you out of here. You can’t help Harbir now. After the stunt they just pulled, the army will use deadly force to take out whoever’s up there.”

  Bleeding and woozy, she was in no position to argue. She closed her eyes and rested her head on James’s shoulder.

  She opened her eyes again when he lowered her to the ground and leaned her against the side of an ambulance. The vehicle seemed to be momentarily abandoned. Given the commotion, that wasn’t really a big surprise. James opened the back doors and climbed in. Thirty seconds later he hopped out with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a wad of gauze. He knelt down next to her. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like Wile E. Coyote when one of his contraptions backfires and an anvil drops on his head.”

  “Do you know where you are?” He poured some of the liquid onto a piece of gauze and dabbed the gash. She sucked in air through gritted teeth.

  Despite her stinging scalp, she cut her eyes up at him. “I do. Why? Did you get clunked on the head, too? Amnesia is so clichéd.”

  He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Humor me.”

  “We’re in Varanasi outside the Kashi Vishwanath temple.” She looked over at its entrance. People streamed out. Many were covered in dust. Some were hurt and helped out by others. “Ravi. He was inside.” She struggled to get up.

  James kept her down with a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not going anywhere. I’ll go check on him after I get you cleaned up.”

  “I’m okay. I’ll just have a gargantuan headache later. Please go find Ravi. He might be hurt a lot worse than me.”

  He helped her stand and walked her to a more protected area. “We don’t want anyone finding you and asking how you know Harbir.” He pinned her with a penetrating stare. “You’d better be right here when we get back. No rushing into burning buildings, no tackling terrorists, and no shoot-outs at the OK Corral. Got it?”

  “Got it.” She sat on the ground and gave him a three-fingered salute. “Scout’s honor.”

  He took her raised hand and put a piece of clean gauze in her palm. “Hold this,” he said and guided her hand and dressing to the laceration. “Right there. I’ll be back in a few.”

  She watched him speed off toward the temple.

  From her position, she could see the action at the building where the attacks had been launched. Gray smoke billowed from the upper windows. Tear gas, she presumed. A couple of minutes later, two Sikh men were frog-marched from the building by a cadre of soldiers in gas masks. There was no sign of Harbir.

  James returned with Ravi ten minutes later. His clothes and hair were dusted gray with fine, powdery grit. Other than a cut on the bridge of his nose, he appeared unhurt.

  “Glad you’re okay,” Quinn said. “How’s it inside the temple?”

  James and Ravi sat on the ground on either side of her. Ravi took the sterile pad she offered him and gingerly blotted the cut on his nose. “It’s a pretty big mess. There are some serious injuries, but no fatalities. Not yet, anyway. There’s a pile of rubble they have to sift through.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” she said.

  “It’s not,” James said, his voice grim. “Anything happen while I was gone?”

  “They took two Sikhs into custody.”

  “Was Harbir one of them?”

  “No. Unless they left her dead inside the building, the guy was telling the truth. I don’t think she was up there.”

  “Crap,” James grumbled. “That means she’s still running around India with a bomb. What’s her plan for it?”

  Quinn said, “She’s been carrying out precise revenge for specific elements of Operation Blue Star and how it affected her. She’s already taken revenge for the books and manuscripts, her father, and the Golden Temple. The only thing she hasn’t done yet is set fire to a Hindu library.” The second the words left her mouth, three sets of eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

  “Do you think she’s going to burn down a library?” Ravi asked.

  “I wouldn’t put it past her,” James said. “Like Quinn said, it’s the one thing she hasn’t done yet. Which library? Is there one connected with this temple?”

  Quinn pondered the question. “If there is, I think she would have been here to watch it burn.” Her eyebrows bunched in thought. “Maybe she went to blow up the equivalent of the Library of Congress?” She pulled out her phone and did a quick search. “The National Library is in Kolkata.”

  Ravi’s face scrunched and he shook his head. “No. Like you said, she’s after a specifically Hindu library. We’re in the most sacred city in Hinduism. What about libraries here in Varanasi?”

  Quinn pulled up a list. “There’s one at a public university called Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith,” she said, scrolling through the list. “Oh boy.”

  James stiffened. “What?”

  “Banaras Hindu University. It’s only a few kilometers south of here.”

  “It’s got ‘Hindu’ right there in the name,” Ravi said.

  Quinn skimmed the information on the university. “Among other things, they study the Hindu Shastras and Sanskrit literature. The problem is, they have a whole bunch of small departmental libraries in addition to a main one. Which one will she go to?”

  “I’ll call the university and tell them they need to evacuate all of them,” Ravi said.

  “We need to get there.” James surveyed the area. Not far from them sat an unmanned police car. He stood and offered his hands to Quinn and Ravi. “Our ride awaits.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  They piled into the police car. James sat behind the steering wheel, Ravi rode shotgun, and Quinn was firmly ensconced in the backseat. With Ravi’s help, James entered Banaras Hindu University into the police car’s satellite navigation system. James studied the map on the screen, then put the car in gear and raced off.

  While James careened through the narrow, winding streets with lights flashing and siren blaring, Ravi
called the university’s security office. At first, his tone as he spoke in Hindi was calm, yet urgent. It wasn’t long before it escalated into a shouting match. He yelled. He shrugged. He pounded the dashboard with a clenched fist. After an extended tirade, he yanked the phone away from his ear and jabbed at the screen with his finger.

  “Sounds like that didn’t go well,” Quinn said.

  Ravi cut loose with a rant in Hindi that could peel the paint off a wall. He switched to English and spat, “Those idiots won’t evacuate the libraries. They won’t act until they’re sure it’s a credible threat.”

  “I assume you told them about what happened at the temple,” James said.

  “I did. The guy’s response was, ‘We are not a temple.’” He glowered out the window and muttered, “Moron.”

  James glanced in the rearview mirror. “I hope things are going better for you, Quinn. Figure out which library Harbir might go to?”

  “I’m working on it.” She scrutinized the main library’s website. “Cool. They have a library school.”

  “You’re such a library nerd.”

  “You love it and you know it.”

  “I do.” James paused a beat before asking, “Okay, Miss Library Nerd, let’s start with the central library. Can anyone just walk in, or is there some kind of process you have to go through to get a pass?”

  Quinn skimmed the access rules. “It’s pretty strict. You can only get in with a university ID. Without that, you have to pay twenty rupees and need a letter of introduction from a department head.”

  “Theoretically, then, if Harbir got a letter, or forged one, she could get inside.”

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “Wouldn’t getting into a faculty or departmental library be even more restrictive?” Ravi asked.

  “That’s my feeling,” Quinn said.

  “So we start at the central library,” James said. “Get us there.”