by Shamim Sarif
“I agree with Jessie,” Caitlin chips in. “Wi-Fi should be considered a contaminant, even if we can’t figure out how or why. Family First have already shown us they have access to super-sophisticated virus technology. Let’s not take a chance.”
Li hesitates barely a moment. “Fine,” she says. “Cut everything.”
While Luca takes care of killing the Wi-Fi, Jaya continues to watch over the girls, and Caitlin and I continue our patrol around the building. We head upstairs and walk through the bathrooms and dorms. Bedsheets are stripped and every mattress has been shredded. All the drawers that store clothes and personal stuff belonging to the girls are open. Even the shower drains are covered over with metal sheets, hammered in with nails. I give Caitlin a surprised look.
“Overkill?” she asks.
“No, I’m impressed. Better to go overboard than have regrets later.” I shrug.
“Ethan, do you copy me?” Caitlin says.
Ethan’s voice comes in on a radio unit in Caitlin’s ear. Not our Athena comms, but one connecting the three of us agents with Ethan and Luca—and now, Riya too.
“Copy.”
“Coming in,” Caitlin says.
We run up a final flight of stairs that leads to the attic. High up, I notice a mirror in the corner of the staircase that clearly reflects an image of me and Caitlin approaching back into the attic space. It seems that, even in the absence of Wi-Fi or clever surveillance apps, Ethan has some kind of security covered, as homemade as it is.
The attic runs the length of the building and is barely high enough to stand in. Both Caitlin and I have to crouch to walk through it. Ethan must be bent double when he stands up. But right now, he and Hala are sprawled out on the floor, on opposite sides of the room. Between them, they are covering the front and back of the school with a pair of sniper rifles.
Two more unmanned rifles sit on stands, aimed out of the remaining east and west windows, which look over onto the streets on the right and left sides of the school.
“Anything?” I ask Hala. If she had noticed something worth reporting, we’d know about it by now, but asking her the question gives me something to say, at a time when it feels frivolous to greet each other with the standard “Hi” or “How are you?”
“Nothing. I’m just scanning, one side to the other, all the time,” she says.
I lean down to look through one of the free rifle scopes. The school is surrounded by so many buildings. Most of them are at a distance, but still close enough to feel threatening. Is Family First hiding out in one of them, watching us the way we are trying to watch them? I zoom in and pick up one balcony after another on the buildings. Random images crystallize in my lens. A line of laundry strung across; an old man outside, smoking; a woman washing her child’s feet in a bucket. I zoom back out for a wider view—and the harsh sunlight glitters back into my eyes, refracted from a hundred different windows and surfaces.
Caitlin and I run back downstairs, where Riya is coming out of Jaya’s office, looking for me.
“It’s Sunil,” she says, waving her phone. She flips on the speaker. I know Amber and the rest of the team will be getting this conversation too.
“Family First called in a warning ten minutes ago that the school would be attacked at noon,” Sunil says. “The police are marshaling a response unit to come over to the school and evacuate the girls.”
“They said the school would be attacked, or the girls?” I ask.
“The school. Hence, the plan to evacuate,” he replies.
“When will they be here?” says Riya.
“Maneesh saw a commando response unit, fully armed, heading straight out from Juhu station, just a few minutes after the call. Which is strange, because the only police commando unit I know of is called Force One. They are based in the north of the city, much farther from you. They haven’t been used in years, yet today they seemed to be ready and waiting,” Sunil says, clearly stressed.
“Because they were expecting the call from Family First,” Riya says.
Sunil’s voice is strained. “That’s what I am afraid of. I’m heading toward you now too. I told them you are there—that we have a detective on site in the school. Whatever I can do, I will do—but be careful. I believe the police commissioner himself is giving the orders here. Because no one is listening to me.”
He ends the call. Caitlin looks at me.
“Doesn’t make sense,” she says. I know what she means.
“If Family First want to make sure the attack happens without interference, why warn the police?” I wonder.
“And why is a rapid response unit ready so fast?” Riya broods. “Honestly, we are not usually that organized.”
Luca has joined us and looks completely pissed off at the details that he’s picking up.
“The police? This is bullshit,” he says, stressed. “We’ve spent the past twenty-four hours creating a perfect shell around these girls, cutting off any possible contamination. And now cops are going to come barreling in here, opening doors, spreading radio waves, bringing in weapons. . . .”
He’s right, it is a nightmare. Our secure, sealed-off bubble is about to get blown out of the water. And who knows which one of those cops might have been persuaded to work with Family First in exchange for a handy retirement fund, or medical treatment for a sick family member? There are infinite ways that people become vulnerable to criminals waving cash. Or, as Riya seems to fear, perhaps this entire police operation is the handiwork of Family First.
“Let’s stay calm.”
This suggestion comes from Riya. Which is an irony that’s not lost on me.
“Going back to the task you gave me, Jessie,” she continues briskly, “there are only two things I could think of that might link to what’s happening here. One—we missed something at the lab that day.”
“The lab was empty except for the vials with the nanoparticles,” I say.
“Or, secondly, we haven’t properly explored the weapons you found at the warehouse,” she says. “We logged all those using the photos you took.”
She brings up a list on her phone screen. It’s a police inventory of every item found in the warehouse that Hassan led us to a few days ago. It feels like a lifetime away and it doesn’t feel like it means much, but I need to trust Riya’s instinct. I need to do something.
Taking a breath, I run my eyes down the page, past the itemized list of Jingo’s campaign caps and T-shirts, and down to the catalog of guns and explosives we found in the crates. I rack my brains. Which of these things could be fashioned into a trigger for this specific virus? What could touch all the girls and finish them off?
“Holy crap,” says Ethan from his post upstairs. “The cops are driving toward us. I have two vans, approaching from the east.”
Downstairs, here in the foyer, it’s just me and Riya with Caitlin and Luca. The girls and Jaya are on the same ground floor as us, but they are down the long corridor that leads through to the dining hall. I step away from my teammates for a moment. Because, even in the chaos of the police arriving, and with all the panic and commands flying around, I’m still thinking about the list that Riya showed me. The inventory of stuff from the warehouse. In my head, I replay that night now. Trying to remember if there was anything else in the warehouse. Because, amid our current state of panic, something is bothering me, teasing at me, crouching right outside the edges of my conscious mind.
Ethan’s voice comes in again. “There are eight special forces–type cops. Getting out, lining up near our perimeter, getting a pep talk.”
Luca and Caitlin look out from the nearest window.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” breathes Caitlin.
“I can take ’em all out,” Ethan says. “Just an idea . . .”
Li and Kit and Peggy simultaneously echo into our Athena comms.
“No one starts a shootout with the police. Is that clear?”
“Clear,” Caitlin says.
“Clear,” replies Ha
la.
Caitlin instructs both Luca and Ethan not to engage. They confirm.
In my peripheral vision, I see Luca peer out of the window again. I see Caitlin sneak a glance at her watch. I feel Riya standing right beside me, watching me. But I make myself ignore her, I make myself forget about the police and the countdown and the fact that there are only seven minutes left. I try to think about that night at the warehouse. I close my eyes for three precious seconds, maybe four. And then it hits me. There was something outside the warehouse. My eyes snap open, wide.
“I think I know what the trigger is,” I say. “I think that’s why Family First want the police to evacuate the girls and get them outside. They want to hit them with the ADS.”
28
FOR A MOMENT, EVERYONE JUST stares at me as if they all think I’ve lost my mind. Riya is the first to agree with me.
“That has to be it,” she says. “After that night at the warehouse, we never recovered the ADS.”
“And, at the lab, Raj mentioned microwaves as a possible trigger,” I tell her. “He was just spitballing, and I never made the connection because the ADS doesn’t really produce microwaves, but it does act on water molecules in the skin, sort of like a microwave would, except it can be directed and targeted. . . .”
I feel my mouth running at a hundred miles an hour. Luca puts up his hands, lost.
“Someone wanna fill me in?” he begs. “ADS? You mean an active denial system? Those things are huge, they sit on top of tanks last time I looked.”
“When did you last look?” Caitlin asks.
“Six, seven years ago.”
“Well, tech has moved on,” I say. “We were hit with one last week that’s still pretty big but more or less handheld.”
“From what distance?” Luca asks.
From her sniper post upstairs, Hala, following the conversation, answers into our comms: “Ours was around a hundred meters away,” she says.
Meanwhile Riya’s frantically looking through the documents on her phone. She finds something and looks up at us.
“These are my notes from when I interviewed the head of the military base. He told me they can range up to three hundred meters,” she says.
That dampens the mood.
“That means some guy carrying the ADS could be in any of those apartment blocks, at least two streets back,” Caitlin says. “We’re literally surrounded.”
My glance goes to Riya, wishing she didn’t have to be part of this panic, watching what could be the last minutes of her life tick down, slip past, while we try to figure out what to do. While we seem so powerless. I look at Luca and Caitlin.
“We need two more people up in the attic,” I say. “Covering the areas facing east and west.”
I glance at Caitlin. Technically I’m the best sniper. But I want to stay with Riya. In case.
“Police are opening the front gate,” Ethan advises over the comms. “They’re coming in.”
“Luca, let’s do this,” Caitlin says. They run for the stairs, heading to the attic to cover the extra sniper posts.
That leaves just Riya and me at the door as the police start hammering on it. Riya turns to me.
“Put your hands up,” she says. “In case they’re trigger-happy.”
She shouts through the door in Hindi, identifying herself, calming down the situation, while also playing for time. But she takes too long; they start ramming at the door, trying to break it down. Riya shouts again and the battering stops. She opens the front door, slowly, telling them what she’s doing the whole time, keeping them feeling like they are in control. I keep my hands raised.
The police team push inside, covering me with an automatic rifle. Riya holds out her detective badge and ID, tries to establish a connection with the men. Four of the policemen are inside, each of them armed. There’s a ton of urgent chatter back and forth between Riya and the first cop on the scene. He’s a young guy, in a blue uniform and cap and a bulletproof vest. He keeps his rifle trained on me and Riya switches their conversation from Hindi to English so I can follow.
“This young woman works for the owner of the school,” she says. “She can be trusted.”
Hesitant, the cop lowers his gun.
“I’m Riya. What’s your name?” she tries.
“Dev,” he answers. “Who else is here?”
“Just the girls and the headmistress,” Riya says, not missing a beat.
“Where are the girls?” Dev asks.
Riya dodges the question. “Look, I have very good reason to think the girls are safer inside. . . .”
Dev ignores her. He jerks his head and snaps at his three colleagues to go find the girls. They disappear into the building.
“They are on the ground floor, at the back,” I call after them. The last thing I want is police crawling all over the building, or anywhere near the attic, where our four snipers are lying in wait.
Now Sunil comes onto Riya’s phone.
“It’s my boss. Detective Sunil Patel,” she tells Dev, flicking on the speaker.
“I’m literally door-to-door with Maneesh at the apartment blocks around the school, with the picture of the ADS,” Sunil says. “Someone saw a man pull it out of a van not long ago. But they don’t know where he went and we haven’t found him yet.”
“Dev,” Riya says. “Detective Patel and I have been working this case from the start, and I believe Family First wants you to take the girls outside, so they can kill them. Please, try to understand . . .”
It sounds outlandish, and in any event, Dev is clearly not in charge here—he is a highly trained order-taker. Worse, all this information is making him nervous. He tunes us out, and listens to a crackling voice on his radio, paying no more attention to Riya. She looks at me, desperate, then her eyes move over my shoulder to where a column of wide-eyed girls is marching through the corridor, approaching the foyer. The other three armed policemen walk behind them, ensuring they all stay together and keep moving. Some of them start to cry, others to ask questions, but Jaya encourages them to stay quiet.
Dev turns to us.
“This school will be attacked at noon—in three minutes,” Dev says. “My orders are clear. Get everyone evacuated now.”
What an idiot this guy is, saying that right in front of the girls. A ripple of fearful gasps rises up into the tense atmosphere, and the girls all surge forward, wanting to get out. Dev opens the front door and, instinctively, I run over and shut it. The sudden slam echoes in the foyer, sending a shiver through all of us.
“Stay back,” I yell at the students.
Immediately, Dev’s weapon is thrust upward into my face. Riya cries out, but I step back and raise my hands again. The last of the girls are here now, pooling into the back of the hallway.
“Turn around and face the wall,” Dev barks at me. “Hands on your head.”
I throw Riya an agonized look as I obey. Behind me, Jaya comes forward.
“Officer, is this really necessary?” she demands.
With my hands still on my head I can’t see my watch, but I know the deadline is right on top of us.
“Anything, anyone?” I mutter under my breath, willing our attic team to give us some good news.
“Nothing,” Ethan replies. “We’re scanning but they’re likely waiting for the girls to exit before they show themselves. I don’t know how we’ll see them in time. . . .”
Riya hears that and exchanges a look with me. She tries talking to Dev again, tries appealing to the other cops, but they keep back behind the girls and generally behave as if she doesn’t exist. I watch the policeman hold open the door once again. The girls are shepherded out toward the threshold. Toward their deaths.
I turn, braving Dev’s wrath.
“I have to stop this,” I say to Riya.
Riya shakes her head at me. “And get killed?” she says. “It’s not your time. If anything, it’s mine.”
But there’s no space for this conversation now, and the strange thing is
, I don’t feel afraid of dying at all. The world starts to move in slow motion, and for this moment at least I feel that I have the capacity to take control of everything around me. I sense Dev’s gun turn toward me again. I see in my mind how I can dodge low and bring him down.
But there are three more armed men behind me.
Riya is right, I realize. I will get killed. And the girls will be sent outside anyway. And yet—I don’t have it in me to just stand here and watch them all troop out and be obliterated.
I duck low, stepping toward Dev. From the corner of my eye, I see Riya slam the door shut yet again and shout at the girls to stay back. Dev swipes at me with his rifle, catching me under the chin, sending a juddering vibration through my skull and knocking me off-balance. I stumble, but I grasp hold of Dev’s gun as I fall, unbalancing him too. We both hit the ground, hard.
I lie there, stunned, trying to get up before Dev does. In my line of vision, behind Dev, I see Riya turn and grab one of the school blazers off a peg. She shrugs it on. It makes no sense to me, but I can’t fathom it out now. My head is thick from the blow I just took. I fight to stay alert. Riya’s voice floats into my brain. She’s yelling, but not at me—at Jaya.
“Keep the girls inside. . . .”
Grappling with Dev on the floor, I look up as Jaya brushes past me, to the front of the foyer, pushing the girls back inside. The other cops are shouting, directionless. Now the front door opens again, and Riya, in her school blazer, touches the comms unit in her ear.
“I’m going out. Watch for the direction of the ADS,” she says to the sniper team. Then she looks back at me, her gaze intense.
“Keep doing what you do, Jessie. The world needs it.” She turns away.
I scramble up, yelling at her to stop, trying to get my footing, as Dev strikes me again. I don’t even feel the blow, I move straight past it, but I can’t reach Riya before she’s through the door. I make it outside, but only in time to see her standing in the center of the playground. She suffers for a second under the burn of the ADS and lifts her hand to point to the east. Then she drops where she stands.
