The Shadow Mission

by Shamim Sarif

  Our first stop is a monolithic, faceless apartment building in Andheri. We approach it along side roads where people linger at tea and food stalls built in ramshackle lines along the sidewalks. It’s here that Caitlin and Hala will stay. The building is popular with tourists who can book its apartments through an online app, so it’s a place where newcomers are always coming and going. This way, they should attract as little notice as possible. They exit the cab and collect their backpacks from the trunk. Before I continue on in the taxi, Caitlin looks in at me through the window, while Hala waits behind her.

  “We’ll go get some food and clothes. Then we’ll explore how to secure the girls at the other school,” says Caitlin.

  “Keep me updated,” I say.

  “Yeah. Enjoy your swanky hotel.” She smiles briefly, trying to lighten the heaviness we all feel.

  “I will,” I say, giving the taxi driver the address of the hotel where Kit will be staying when she lands later today. The plan is for me to stay at the same place, posing as an investigator working for her foundation, the person she wants the police to keep apprised of their findings. I check my watch. Kit will be on the plane, mid-flight by now. She’s on a commercial flight, but she will be greeted off the plane by the airline’s special services crew, who cater to celebrities and make sure they don’t have to negotiate the queues at immigration with people who might gawk at them or try to snap a selfie.

  In the absence of any air-conditioning, a fine mist of sweat gradually coats my arms and forehead as we drive. We pass a temple, tall and white and gleaming; then a shopping mall; then a line of shanty homes. They form incongruous neighbors on this one stretch of street. Soon, we veer back onto the main road and the sea comes into focus on one side. The shoreline curves around, lined with high-end clubs, restaurants, and hotels; places that can afford to buy or rent a coveted view of the ocean. Along the way, I ask the driver to stop at a drugstore. He swerves to the curb in front of a row of tiny shops, their merchandise piled up on all sides, protected from rain only by tarpaulins stretched across to form an insubstantial roof. But one of the vendors has all the paraphernalia of a drugstore, including the hair dye I need. Quickly, I make my purchase and get back into the taxi. As we go to turn into the driveway of the hotel, private armed guards stop the car.

  “What’s going on?” I ask the driver.

  “They check for explosives,” he says. “Since Mumbai suffered the hotel terror attacks years ago.”

  I watch as the guards look beneath the vehicle with mirrors on poles, check inside the seating area and trunk, and finally wave us through.

  The lobby is enormous; an air-conditioned, high-ceilinged, marble-paved oasis. A fountain trickles peacefully. A smiling bellman spirits my luggage up to my room. The receptionist offers me a complimentary beverage. I glance at the windows. But smoked glass now protects me from a view of the messy, busy street outside, and the soft tones of Billie Holiday singing “Stormy Weather” drown out any external noise that might penetrate the soundproofed windows. It’s a weird contrast to the crush of life on the streets beyond. I grab a hot drink and pastry from the hotel’s high-end espresso bar then go up to my room.

  I unpack by opening up my bag and upending the contents onto the bed. Then I go straight into the bathroom and apply the hair color to my head. While I wait for it to work, I call Amber.

  “Where’s my package?” I ask.

  “Good morning to you too,” she says tiredly. “My tracking shows it was delivered to the hotel ten minutes ago. . . .”

  “Thanks—I’ll check with the front desk.”

  But even as I’m heading for the phone next to the bed, there’s a knock at the door of my room. I open up and a square box, tightly wrapped in layer after layer of plastic, is handed over to me. Still on the line with Amber, I take it, lock my door, and cut it open using my penknife. I smile.

  “Got it,” I tell her, stuffing the contents into my backpack.

  “Good to know,” she says dryly. “Send pictures of yourself. I’d like something to throw darts at.”

  I smile and hang up. It’s time to rinse off my hair and get over to the school where the attack happened.

  Sitting in the cab, watching my driver edge forward about ten inches every five minutes, I have plenty of time to assess how the traffic works here. Most trucks have a sign on their backs asking for “Horn Please.” Far from blaring horns to indicate annoyance, the driver explains, horns are used all the time to ask slower vehicles to move to one side, so that the car behind can pass.

  “It’s a wonderful mode of communication,” he explains ecstatically, in lilting English. “It means everything runs smoothly.”

  Well, that’s a rather optimistic take on the traffic carnage outside our window, but I let it pass. After a few more frustrating minutes, I bail out on the bumper-to-bumper gridlock and walk the remaining mile to the school. On the way, I pass an electronics store where televisions line the windows—on each one of them the attack on Kit’s school is the major news story of the morning. In all, eleven girls have lost their lives. I pause to watch. Old photos and concert clips of my mother are interspersed with live footage of the crime scene, sealed off by police guards and reams of police tape. Family First has taken responsibility for the bomb, releasing a brazen statement that demands that foreigners stop coming to India to corrupt young women and enslave them with Western values. I feel my temples throb with anger as I watch the news feed, but I turn away newly energized by my mission to track down the monsters who find it acceptable to kill young girls to make their point.

  As I approach the school itself, I slow down so I can scope it out from a distance. Mournful threads of smoke still curl up from a damaged roof. Blown-out windows gape emptily. And police guards are everywhere. The school sits on its own large plot at the corner of a busy city block, much of which is sealed off right now. But two streets along is a row of shops and restaurants thronged with people; probably locals hanging around to see what’s happening in the aftermath of the attack. I choose a bustling burger place crammed with customers, and hurry inside, making straight for the bathroom.

  As I empty my bag, I look at myself in the chipped mirror that sits over the sink. My hair is much darker now, almost black. It looks natural but my skin still feels too pale for this ruse to work, surrounded as I am by Indians with a richer skin tone. But there’s not much I can do about that now, other than inserting dark brown contact lenses to cover the green color of my eyes. I pull on the items that Amber had delivered to my room—khaki pants and standard lace-up shoes that pinch at my toes. Next, I button on a khaki shirt with chest pockets and epaulets. It fits snugly on top of my skinny T-shirt. Lastly, I try on a navy cap carrying an embroidered logo on the front, and the words “Mumbai Police” on the side. I tug the cap down, trying to hide as much of my face as I can. Thrusting my jeans and boots into my backpack, I head out into the street, trying to look as if I know where I’m going.

  Walking with an air of confidence, I circle around toward the school, looking for an entry point. There are police on all the corners of the building, while at the front gates, TV news vans, photographers, and reporters jostle for position. There’s certainly plenty of confusion there, and because of that, a possible way to slip in, unnoticed, but it also feels very exposed. Then, from the corner of my eye I see a police van pull up to a side street. A group of twelve officers, a couple of them women, jump down and wait to be deployed. I sidle closer as someone senior in plain clothes comes over to them and barks some instructions in Hindi. They all start moving, briskly, toward the school, and as they duck under the police tape, I step in alongside them and move inside too. There’s a sense of urgency to everyone’s movements, which means no one stops to talk or look much at each other, thank goodness. I don’t wear out my luck though. As soon as I can, I drop back, a little behind the others, and duck into the first doorway that I find.

  I’ve been briefed that there are eight classrooms in the thr
ee-story whitewashed structure, as well as a computer room, music room, and, upstairs, several dorms for the girls, who are all boarders, since they often come from smaller towns and villages some distance from Mumbai. The place is empty, now, of course. I’m in a corridor that leads away from the classrooms. Much farther ahead, I can see more police tape hanging in limp ribbons around the section of the building where the explosion must have happened. There’s a pit in my stomach as I think about the devastation that so recently occurred there. I make myself turn away and focus. Putting my head into each doorway, I find a large kitchen, mostly intact, and next door to the kitchen are the rooms I’m looking for—administrative offices.

  It’s not my job to crash the heart of the crime scene and potentially mess up forensic evidence. That needs the police, coroners, and a whole host of pathologists—and, presumably, they are all hard at work this morning. What I’m looking for is any information about the running of the school. Who works here, who might have been a recent hire, who might have been a temp worker. Anyone who could have been in on this plan; anyone who may intentionally, or even inadvertently, have given the bombers access.

  It’s also important that I don’t get caught impersonating a police officer. Most jurisdictions find that unpalatable, to say the least. In any event, my disguise has already done its job, allowing me to get into the crime scene. Swiftly, I pull off the police uniform, revealing just my T-shirt. Then I pull my jeans back on. I step back into the kitchen and hide the uniform by stuffing it deep inside the back of a washing machine that’s under the sink. Lastly, I remove the brown contact lenses. Then I turn my attention to the offices.

  I hack open the desktop computer and start uploads of the data to a secure cloud server; a server that is monitored directly by Amber in London. Then I start working through the sheets of paper on the desk and in the drawers. There’s even a filing cabinet—how irritatingly retro in a cloud storage world. Like I have time to filter through the paper crammed inside. And it’s going to be hard enough getting out of here under the radar without dragging stacks of files along with me.

  Sitting at the desk, I quickly become absorbed in recent paperwork tossed in a tray, perhaps waiting to be filed. It details annual maintenance work completed just two days earlier by a local plumbing company. I snap some photos of the documents, then slip my phone back into my pocket and lean down to check inside the desk. And it’s while I’m down there, my head deep in a drawer, that I hear the click of a gun safety being removed. I freeze.

  “Put your hands where I can see them,” a voice says softly.

  6

  I OBEY, RAISING MY HANDS high and moving my head extremely slowly back up above the desk. A young woman stands there, aiming a gun at my chest. But she’s not in a police uniform. She wears a navy pantsuit over a crisp white shirt. Under her jacket a badge of some kind gleams.

  “Look, I’m terribly sorry,” I say, dusting off my own British accent but dialing it up a bit, to help me sound like a fish out of water. I throw in a gulp and stutter too, like I’ve never seen a real gun before. “I work for Kit Love. She sent me here, and I couldn’t find anyone to ask permission from, so I just came in. . . .”

  “Hands on your head. Interlace your fingers,” the woman commands.

  I do as she asks. “Can I show you my ID?” I try again. My hand slips down from my head to reach for it, but a jerk of her weapon persuades me not to.

  “Get up and stand facing the wall,” she says. Once I’m there, she approaches, still holding me at gunpoint.

  “Where’s your ID?” she asks.

  “Back pocket of my jeans.”

  She pats down my pockets and extracts the fake ID that Amber gave me. On it is a fictional name—Jessica Flynn—instead of my real name, Jennifer Archer. It means I still get to be called Jessie, though, which makes my life easier; at least I don’t have to train myself to respond to a name that’s completely new to me. The ID also has a different date of birth, one that puts me a little older than I really am. The woman gives a sound of acknowledgment.

  “We were told by Kit’s office to expect you, Jessica. You can turn around,” she says, holstering her weapon.

  I turn and offer her my hand. “Kit has asked me to oversee the investigation.”

  “Detective Riya Kapoor,” she says, ignoring my hand. I drop it, taken aback. She is probably mid- to late twenties, my height, slim with wide, brown eyes and improbably long lashes. Her dark hair is pulled back into a loose ponytail and she wears no makeup, making her look even more youthful.

  “You seem very young for a detective,” I say, taking a gamble that charm might be my best strategy.

  “You seem very young—and not very bright—for an investigator,” she returns.

  So much for the introductions. I cross my arms, a bit riled.

  “Tell me, Detective, did you flunk out of etiquette school, or is it just your job that’s made you cynical?”

  She raises an eyebrow at me. “Why don’t I ask the questions?” she says. “And the obvious one is—why are you prowling around my crime scene, disturbing evidence?”

  “Your crime scene?”

  She bristles. “I’m one of the detectives assigned to this case. And you are not allowed in here until the police investigation is over.”

  “I’m appointed by the owner of this school. Maybe you should start thinking about it as our crime scene.”

  “I don’t think so,” she says simply. She takes off her jacket and drapes it over her arm, revealing a shoulder holster containing the gun she threatened me with. It is sweltering in here.

  “I’m happy to share information once we have it,” she concedes finally. “But just to be clear—I don’t have to.” She casts a suspicious glance at the desk, then at my hands. “Did you take anything?” she demands.

  “Of course not,” I exclaim, as if I’m insulted at the mere idea. The detective seems to relax a bit more at my assurance. Meanwhile a tiny blue light flashes at the base of the screen of the desk computer, reminding me that its contents are uploading to Athena’s servers as we speak. At the doorway, a policeman appears and asks something in Hindi. Detective Kapoor rattles off a reply that sends him packing. Then she looks at me.

  “Come with me,” she says.

  I resist the urge to look at the computer again. When the upload’s complete, it should switch off and leave the desktop looking completely normal.

  “You can’t stay here unsupervised,” the detective continues. “Everything is potential evidence.”

  “Yes, but how long will it take the police to go through all of it?”

  She starts walking, leading me away from the body of the building.

  “You’re from England?” she asks.

  “Wow, you really are a detective,” I say. The snark makes me feel better, but it doesn’t earn me much love from my companion. She narrows her eyes at me.

  “What are the police like there?” she asks, ignoring my sarcasm.

  “Bureaucratic. Overworked.”

  “Well, it’s no better here, and possibly much worse,” she says. “They’ll get us what they can as soon as they can.” She turns to me. “Believe it or not, we do our best, ma’am.”

  “Call me Jessie,” I offer, trying to cut through the formality and mend some fences. “Can I call you Riya?”

  “No,” she says curtly. “Anyway, here in Mumbai, it’s the same as in most cities. A lot of crime, and not enough manpower.”

  “And I get that,” I answer. “That’s why I’m here to help however I can.”

  With my gaze, I try to convey how earnest I am, how much I want to cooperate. She watches me for a moment and then smiles suddenly. It’s a great smile and it lights up her whole face. Finally, some glimmer of a real person under the officious exterior.

  “You really want to help—Jessie?”

  I nod, eager to get her on my side.

  “Then stay the hell out of my way,” she says abruptly. “There, that’s the
exit,” she continues, pointing to the street. Just for good measure, she pauses to call over a uniformed cop. “Anil here will escort you out.”

  Since Detective Kapoor threw me out, my scope for snooping around the crime scene is much more limited, but at least Amber has the computer uploads and the pictures I took of the recent plumbing maintenance that happened at the school. While she goes through everything, I hail a taxi and head over to the next district, Bandra, where the second school is located, to check in with Caitlin and Hala.

  Bandra is a busy area of the city, but one that also fronts the sea. It has plenty of leafy streets too, shaded from the brutal sear of the sun. Back lanes filled with old heritage buildings, arts and crafts stores, and cool cafés create a gentle contrast to the blaring traffic on the main roads. Driving along the seafront road, I take in an old fort that rises at the edge of the foaming waves. Beyond the worn stone of the fort, the bright, clean, ultramodern Bandra-Worli Sea Link bridge stretches out effortlessly across the bay, its enormous girth laden with cars moving from one side of the city to the other.

  I have the driver take me past the other school, which is currently empty, just to have a look at it. The pupils and staff have been evacuated, and police guards are set up here as well. The building is on a residential street, which is otherwise a mix of small houses and low apartment blocks. Taller blocks rise up in rings all around the school, in the immediate vicinity and then radiating out from there. Mumbai is a city where land is so much at a premium that even billionaires build their dream homes upward, in towers that reach toward the sky. Driving on from the school, we turn into a side street where Caitlin has messaged me the name of a café where we can meet.

  Inside, the atmosphere is cool, freshened with air-conditioning. Both my teammates are sitting at a wide table made of polished wood. Handcrafted cushions liven up the bench seating, and art by local painters covers most of the wall space. I order a coffee before Caitlin presses me for an update.