by D. I. Telbat
At the moment, at least, the agents weren't aware that Corban was present. Instead of remaining exposed on the elevated steps, he chose to lose himself in the press of bodies closer to the riverbank, even though it drew him nearer to the agents. When he reached the river, he squeezed through the bathers until he found himself directly below the Brit from Paris. Now so close, when the black man looked at Corban, there was unmistakable recognition on his face. Seeing the man straight on, Corban memorized his face and features so he could identify him later in an Agency database. If the man even lived through the morning. And since Corban was just getting to know this man, it wouldn't do to see him killed. After all, Corban was in India to save a life, not to lead one to his death.
Corban turned his head and nodded at the nearest agents approaching the black man. The man seemed to understand the signal. He glanced around at the near-ambush, then darted into the crowd and was instantly in the water up to his waist. Fascinated by the man's speed, Corban watched as the Brit abandoned his bag, then disappeared in the polluted water.
Now Corban was close to being noticed by the other agents. He crouched as they passed him, pursuing as a pack of wolves after the Brit in the water. In a moment, Corban was back on the stairs, about to leave the river scene completely. Though he knew he should leave, Corban remained mesmerized on the set of steps, admiring the crafty Brit's escape from harm. In the same situation, it was exactly what Corban himself would've done, he thought.
Farther out in the river, people were parting mysteriously. The man was but a shadow beneath the surface, seen only from Corban's elevation, but not by the team on the bank who were still searching the crowd for the Brit. Before they spotted Corban as well, he slipped over the hilltop onto a busy street. As he moved into the city, he smiled. He was about to secure his future, and yet, he had just given a killer a very difficult decision to make. Would the man return the gesture and stop hunting him?
When Corban reached his hotel, he checked out and walked to a backup site—a parked rental car amongst a row of commuter cars. In the driver's seat, he prayed for guidance. He was there to save Kimberly Dench's life, but suddenly he was inclined to save another: the man who was trying to kill him.
Setting his laptop in the passenger seat, he logged into a server in Mumbai and got to work. It was going to be a long night.
*~*
Chapter Seven – The Recruit
Nace "Pyvox" Scanlon barely dodged an overburdened bus of passengers that careened past him without slowing. He paused, looking for a place to hide, at least until darkness covered the Indian city. Though he'd left the Ganges River two hours earlier, his clothes were still wet and muddy from sweating and falling in various alleys as he was chased.
Normally, he would've turned to face his enemies, but the German hunter-tracer team was seeing red. They were skilled professionals and brutally efficient, like hounds that anticipated his escape routes. And they were closing in.
He regretted the carelessness with which he'd killed the German assassin in Paris. If he would've continued his hunt for Corban on his own, all the force of German's intelligence community wouldn't be descending on him now. The dead man's teammates would probably never rest until he was sinking in a Haridwar sewer pond.
Panting, Scanlon put his back against a rickety wall and tugged a throwing knife from his left triceps. At least one member of the German team was a knife expert. And the knives he used weren't the normal kind, either. They were some sort of composite plastic that could pass through a metal detector.
Scanlon tucked the blade into his belt and pulled up his shirt sleeve. He usually traveled with several vials of choice poisons, but while running for his life, he'd lost all but one vial of a lachrymator, tear gas in a bottle, meant for dispersing in a crowd rather than for a single target.
A spare passport was sewn into his pant leg, so he didn't necessarily need to return to his hotel room. But returning to the airport wasn't the answer, either. The Germans seemed to have about a dozen assets in the city now, and probably at least that many locals in their employment.
Traveling inland was the answer, Scanlon decided. He would travel farther upriver, and reassess once he could get resupplied. It was humiliating to fail—a first time for him—but he couldn't complete the mission with a squad of assassins on his trail. Corban Dowler would receive a reprieve for now, and not because the man had warned him at the river, but because Scanlon was outmatched at the moment.
Pushing away from the wall, he found himself in the path of two German operators. They both wore a local cloth over their shoulders, perhaps in an attempt to blend in. But Scanlon hadn't had time to disguise himself since leaving the river. Between avoiding agents and dodging knives—and not too successfully—he'd left himself exposed.
In that split second, staring into the eyes of a blond man in glasses, Scanlon thought about how disgraceful it was to die in the hands of these foot soldiers. However well-trained they were, that's what they were to him. He'd been an independent operator for years, almost exclusively for the British. His craft had become sophisticated with most of his chemicals untraceable. Even those he called friends feared him.
Backing away from the agents, he reached for his sleeve. The lachrymator needed a distribution system, like a can of compressed air, but maybe if he threw it on the pavement hard enough . . .
Two more agents rounded the corner and stopped with drawn side arms. Scanlon looked around him. There were no bystanders he could push in front of any oncoming bullets. A dead end loomed behind him with only sales booths on both sides. Though he accepted that he was about to die and enter the great beyond, he didn't like leaving a sanctioned hit undone. It wasn't the legacy he had in mind. Now someone else would kill Dowler, the true master, and—
Corban Dowler walked slowly behind the four German agents, and for an instant, Scanlon thought Corban had joined the Germans to kill him. But then he saw that Corban carried a crooked branch broken from a tree. In the hands of a common man, a stick meant very little. However, a three-foot stick in the hands of a hunter-tracer ghost could be a game-changing weapon.
When Corban struck, Scanlon flinched. All of Corban's force went into that first blow against one of the gunmen, instantly paralyzing the man's arm and causing the gun to clatter to the street.
Proving he wasn't at all at the end of his age of fitness, Corban spun and kicked. He thrust the stick at the next gunman. The other two with knives were upon Corban then, and Scanlon saw his opportunity. While Corban was whipping the stick at the Germans, Scanlon picked up the dropped gun and held it on the fighting men.
Though outnumbered, Corban didn't appear to be overwhelmed. The Germans had been overconfident while targeting Scanlon, but Corban had caught them off-guard.
The men seemed to see Scanlon and the gun trained on them at the same instant. In his hesitation to fire, they abandoned their scuffle and fled the scene, taking their injured with them.
Breathless, Corban dropped his stick, and Scanlon aimed at his target's chest, content with taking a break from his preferred method of elimination just this once, if it meant a finished contract.
"Seems like the right way to repay the one who has now saved your life twice," Corban said, his head down and hands clenched into fists.
"I can't afford to get sentimental. You know who I am."
"Pyvox, right?" Corban raised his head and looked Scanlon in the face. "You're not that much of a mystery, Nace Scanlon. You're like the rest of us—lost in a sea of darkness, desperate and lonely, thinking there's no other path for you."
"It is indeed my path." Scanlon wasn't amused, or even bothered. All of his targets, given the chance, begged for mercy in their own ways. "It's the only path I know."
"No, it isn't. Come on. We have a girl to rescue. You want to still be standing there when the BND come back?"
"German's Federal Intelligence Service is in India to kill you." Scanlon chuckled, enjoying the banter with a peer, an equal
of the highest caliber.
"Yeah, well, when they come back for me, who do you think they'll kill first—the man with the gun or the man with empty hands? Come on."
Scanlon's smile disappeared. This man he was tracking to kill was actually talking to him as if he were a partner!
"What's this business about a girl to save?" Scanlon felt his resolve soften. This had never happened before—almost as if something had turned off the savagery inside him. The only thing he could think to blame it on was his dip in the holy Ganges, and he knew that polluted water had no special powers. "I work alone. I'm not going anywhere with you."
"Fine." Corban held up his hand as if to signal his departure. "After I show you where she is, you can rescue her yourself, alone, as you wish."
Corban walked away. Scanlon looked to his left and right, then tossed the gun into a carpet seller's booth.
"That's not what I meant. Hey!"
Scanlon cursed and stomped after Corban, yet kept a careful eye out for the Germans.
*~*
Chapter Eight – The Rescue
Corban Dowler sat in a borrowed motorboat two hundred yards upriver from the temple tower in which Kimberly Dench was being held. With more preparation and better resources, he would've had night vision and more backup, but as things stood, he was just glad the Germans hadn't found them again. As for backup, he had Nace "Pyvox" Scanlon, a man contracted to kill him.
This wasn't the first time Corban had appealed to an enemy's sense of honor to do the right thing against all odds. But this was the first time Corban had recruited an enemy for a purpose that wasn't expressly selfish. He'd invited Scanlon to join him first for Scanlon's sake, and second, to help him free Kimberly.
According to schedule, ten minutes had passed, and Corban started the motor. In the distance, the Hindu temple tower was lit up by its sparkling lights, which illuminated several gunmen on the walkway above the water.
What the lights didn't illuminate, hidden in the shadows of the walkway, was Nace Scanlon in the water wearing a dark wetsuit.
Scanlon had bought a tank of compressed air and attached it to a four milligram vial of lachrymator. The powerful form of tear gas would burn the eyes, throat, and skin upon dispersion. Corban approved of the offensive method since it was a non-lethal weapon system. Scanlon's deadly poisons for which he was known had been lost, the man had claimed, but Corban didn't completely trust his word.
As Corban slowly motored the five-seat boat toward the tower, he appreciated the quiet water. In a few hours, millions of lost souls would begin to gather again for another day of Kumbh Mela.
Before he reached the tower, Corban adjusted the dark beard that covered his cheeks and chin. Thick-rimmed glasses completed the disguise he'd used many times. The identity was known in Muslim circles as an arms dealer and sometimes smuggler. But as well-known as his false identity was, Corban didn't like going into a meeting without some sort of defensive weapon on his person. If he survived this op, maybe he would turn his glasses into a weapon like Chloe had done, perhaps with a tranquilizer dart. Even a single-fire weapon would be better than what he had now—nothing but his hand-to-hand skills against men with automatic weapons.
Two of the gunmen on the tower walkway leaned over the edge and caught the bow of the boat as Corban drifted up to them. They held the small vessel as he received one of their hands to pull him onto the walkway.
For just an instant, Corban thought he glimpsed Scanlon below the walkway, submerged up to his neck in the calm water. Corban prayed that Scanlon didn't have an ulterior motive for accompanying him on the rescue operation. He had to leave that in God's hands—to watch over what Corban couldn't watch himself: his back.
Corban held his arms out as one man frisked him. As agreed, he'd arrive with no firearms.
He was led around the walkway, and a narrow door opened for him. Without hesitating, Corban entered the tower, the small circular room lit by candles, mirrors on the walls giving the room an illusion of being larger than it was. Four more gunmen stood against the mirrors, two on the left and two on the right of Corban. In the center, seated on the floor, was a veiled, bowed person under drab clothing. It had to be Kimberly. Near her, the Sadhus, whom Alan Doutrice had described, sat on a large cushion that looked to be from a sofa. The man wore a permanent scowl, which was disconcerting on a supposed holy man's face.
"Peace to you," Corban said with an Arabic accent, and offered a low sustained nod that the Sadhus was free to interpret as a bow. "I am Muhammad ibn Affal. I have come for the American vermin."
The Sadhus, who wore a gold-colored robe, gestured to another cushion. Dressed in baggy pants and shirt bought at the carnival bazaar, Corban seated himself, but he remained poised. In an instant, he could rise and defend himself or Kimberly.
"Tell us, Muhammad, how you like India?" The Sadhus spoke slowly in heavily accented English.
"I am honored to be here during your holiest of festivals." Corban spoke just as slowly, knowing he was being tested. Due to Pakistan's war in the north with India, Hindus and Muslims didn't usually ally themselves for extremist motives. "It has been an enjoyable but brief holiday from my homeland."
"Lebanon?"
"Egypt, Your Eminence. Alexandria is a rich land, and my home is open to you if ever you should visit, as your hospitality has been gracious toward me this night."
Everyone from North Korea to Belarus knew Muhammad ibn Affal was Egyptian, Corban understood, but he appreciated the caution of the Sadhus.
"When we heard there was someone interested in the American Christian, we were hesitant to respond to your inquiries, Cousin Muhammad."
"The Americans boast of their greatness, my Sadhus, but they only pollute our lands. It is a small matter to express my gratitude by adding to your great wealth—and allow my people to use this woman as a trophy against her own people, especially her father."
"You are brave to do this thing."
Corban nodded low again, but he knew the Sadhus would have used Kimberly Dench for his own trappings if the holy man's coffers had been more abundant, and his courage greater. This meeting had been made possible simply because Corban knew the Hindu man's riches were lacking.
"I do the work of the Holy One, and you work in your way. We each secure a spiritual reward, Your Eminence." Corban was ready for the transfer, but it would be impolite as a guest to bring up the subject of money. "A common enemy has made us friends."
"As you requested, she is unharmed." The Sadhus gestured to the figure in the center under the cloth. Even by candlelight, Corban could see she was listening, making small movements as they spoke. "We have our own methods here in India to punish Christians. But this is an occasion to make new bonds, even if it is with a Muslim."
"You are most gracious." Corban held up his hand to Kimberly. "May I?"
"Of course. She is to be yours after a small exchange."
Corban rolled onto his knees and lifted the front of Kimberly's veil. The candlelight illuminated a wide-eyed woman, and not a girl at all. Her face was full of fear, punctuated by a dark bruise on her left cheek. A brown cord wrapped her wrists and attached to her neck.
"Very well." Corban returned to his cushion. "I will take her before the morning worshippers arrive."
"Then we have only one more item to arrange." The Sadhus produced a laptop from behind him and offered it to Corban. "I believe ten million Euros was the amount we agreed upon."
Placing the laptop on his lap, Corban repositioned his feet. In doing so, he stomped his heels hard on the carpeted floor, one after the other. It wasn't much of a signal, especially through the cement structure. But if Scanlon was listening with a hand on the support beam, he would understand the signal.
Taking his time, Corban logged into a bank in the Isle of Man, then transferred ten million Euros to the Indian account number at the top of the screen. He passed the laptop back to the Sadhus for confirmation.
Outside the tower, on the walkway, Corb
an could hear one of the gunmen cough and another sneeze. Evidently, Scanlon had begun to disperse the lachrymator.
"Perhaps she is worth more?" the Sadhus said, glancing at his gunmen, who seemed to follow every word, especially now. "What is five million more to you, the Great Muhammad?"
"Too small an amount, Your Eminence, to ruin our new friendship." Corban tensed, sensing the greed in the man's words. "There will be others in the future perhaps?"
"Of course." The Sadhus waved his hand, dismissing his previous words, but Corban wouldn't forget the man had been tempted to double-cross him. "You have a boat waiting. May you return to the Ganges as a pilgrim one day, Muhammad."
"Perhaps one day."
Corban stood as his eyes began to burn. The Sadhus coughed, obviously beginning to feel the effects of the gas as well. With an exaggerated gag, Corban doubled over and took a knee.
"What is this?" Corban pawed at the air as if he were choking. "Is it coming from the river?"
Before the Sadhus or his bodyguards could gather their wits for a response, Corban gripped Kimberly's arm and dragged her toward the door. He wasn't sure how much she could see through her heavy veil, but they needed to leave now. Kimberly was beginning to cough, and Corban's own eyes were watering, but the lachrymator was still safer than risking a double-cross by the Sadhus before Corban could make his getaway.
Outside, the chemical was denser, and Corban forced himself to remember he wasn't experiencing any permanent effects. Scanlon had warned him that tear gas was partially effective due to its victims not knowing what was traumatizing them.
The gunmen on the walkway were both blinded and breathless. Through his tears, Corban shoved Kimberly toward the front of the boat, threw off the bowline, and started the engine. He guessed he could've escaped the tower without Scanlon's help, but including him secured Kimberly's safety as well as implicated him in the safeguarding of Director Dench's daughter. And the operation tied Scanlon to Corban.
