The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3

by Kathryn Guare

  He hadn’t intended to hire a guide, but it had quickly become apparent that it was easier to pick one rather than combat the unflagging advances of all the others. He’d selected Bishan Singh—a large, solidly built Sikh with a crimson turban—on the basis of his brilliantly white starched shirt and the fact that he had his own car.

  He had a deferential but cheerful, self-assured demeanor, and once Conor had made it clear that he was not interested in procuring drugs, women, or young boys, the two of them had passed an agreeable afternoon together visiting the main tourist attractions.

  Bishan was an amiable companion, and Conor believed him to be reliable, but the dilemma of the Chole House was putting a strain on their budding friendship. His uncertainty caused his guide’s face to stiffen with a dignified, stony expression of injured pride.

  “It isn’t that I don’t believe you,” Conor said. “I’m just wondering if . . . well, if maybe there is more than one. Is this the only Chole House restaurant in Mumbai?”

  “In all Mumbai?” Bishan’s thick eyebrows shot up toward his turban. “It could be or might not be, but you said also Ganesh Bazar. This is the only Chole House in Ganesh Bazar.”

  “Okay. Fair point.”

  He glanced around the square, searching for additional clues, and when his eyes returned to Bishan, he looked past his shoulder and saw Sedgwick ambling toward them, wearing an unmistakable smirk.

  “Ah, sure you’re the real cute hoor, aren’t ye,” Conor crooned, watching the agent’s approach. “Just wanting to make me sweat.”

  Sedgwick dodged between two auto-rickshaws and came to stand between the two of them. “Sorry I’m late,” he announced, watching Conor’s face.

  “Yeah, no worries,” Conor replied. “We just got here as well.”

  Sedgwick laughed and made a cursory study of the tall, muscular Sikh. “Make a new friend?”

  “I did, actually. This is Bishan Singh. Bishan Singh, this is my . . . this is Sedgwick.”

  Unsmiling, Bishan gave a small, curt bow and then turned a questioning gaze back to Conor. He gave a quick nod.

  “Right. We’re just finishing up here.”

  “I’ll meet you inside.” Sedgwick turned and headed for the entrance of the restaurant. “Come to the room in the back,” he called over his shoulder. “And don’t pay him too much. He’ll lose respect for you.”

  Conor took a wad of rupee notes from his pocket, and after a quick calculation, handed Bishan what he thought was fair.

  The guide looked at him with grave concern. “Sir, I do not like this place. And this man, how do you know him? He has a cunning face. He does not look like your friend. I am not happy leaving you with him. I will wait here until you return.”

  “No, it’s fine.” Conor grinned. “He’s a bit of a prick, but he’s not going to hurt me. I’ll be fine. Thanks for your concern, though. If I ever do need protection, you’ll be my first call.”

  Bishan nodded soberly. He fingered the bundle of rupee notes in his hands, and with a small shake of his head, handed half of them back. “It is because I do respect you,” he said, gripping Conor’s shoulder in a gesture of farewell.

  Picking his way through the restaurant to the room at the back, Conor could appreciate Bishan’s reluctance—the place had an unsavory atmosphere. The series of dingy, half-lit rooms that opened one on to another were small and cramped, and the close, humid air was made even more oppressive by the stale odor of spent cooking oil that drifted overhead in a greasy vapor.

  He found Sedgwick in a booth in the very rear of the last room and slid into the seat across from him. A man, perhaps in his early twenties, sat next to Sedgwick against the wall. He was painfully thin—a long, thin frame topped by a long, equally thin face—with a swath of black hair that hung limp across his forehead. His protruding brown eyes gave him the look of a trapped animal whose initial terror has subsided to taut watchfulness. Sedgwick did not introduce him.

  He ordered beer for the three of them, along with plates of chiwda. When the dry snacks and large, sweating bottles had been placed on the table, he poured the beer into his glass and raised it to offer a facetious toast.

  “Knowing how things work over at the Fort, I’m sure nobody bothered to congratulate you on completing the training, so let me be the first.”

  “Thanks. I did get a handshake, but that was about it.” Conor shot a pointed glance at the unidentified companion, and Sedgwick dismissed the implied question with a shrug.

  “Don’t worry about him. He doesn’t speak English. We’ll get to him later. Anyway, maybe they didn’t let you in on it, but they were certainly celebrating your graduation,” Sedgwick said. “Not many opportunities for that since 9/11, but they’re practically peeing themselves over you, dude.”

  “Are they?” Conor took a sip of beer and tilted his head with polite interest, refusing the bait. He would hear the story eventually. It was clearly one Sedgwick wanted to tell. The silence didn’t last long.

  “Quite a surprise for them too, since at first they didn’t even want you there. Before you showed up, opinion was divided between those who thought you’d be a spindly, weak-chinned musician with oh-so-delicate hands and the ones who were sure you’d be a knuckle-dragging cretin with the barnyard still stuck on your boots. The common link was that both groups thought you were going to be a useless waste of time for them.”

  Conor had to chuckle at that; the characterization rang true. It was a clever depiction of the class-conscious divide that existed among the Fort Monckton officers, and it helped explain the startled expressions he’d so often encountered during his first few weeks of training.

  “Being Irish didn’t help either, I imagine. That would have been another point of shared annoyance.”

  “Yeah. I’ve never understood that,” Sedgwick said. “Shit, everyone else likes the Irish.”

  “Long story.” Conor poured more beer into his glass. “Are you suggesting I turned out better than they expected?”

  “So they say.” Sedgwick’s face became rigid. “Nice for them, I guess. Gives them fresh hope. Recruits often don’t perform as well as their officers anticipate. Then again, the recruits don’t often anticipate what the officers will ask them to perform. Hard to know who’s at fault, since the game requires everyone to be lying to everyone else, most of the time.”

  Conor regarded the hardened face with a cool gaze and remained silent. He wondered if the agent was blowing off steam or was trying to draw him into more complicated territory.

  With a mirthless huff of laughter, Sedgwick sat up and reached across the table for the bottle. The movement exposed the inside of his right forearm and revealed an extensive network of scars. He saw Conor’s involuntary glance, and with a tight smile, rolled his arm over and planted it on the table between them.

  “Yeah, I figured they’d tell you about that.” His tone was nonchalant, but his faded gray eyes flashed in anger. “Go on, take a closer look, why don’t you? I don’t mind. Maybe you’d like to send a report home. Tell them whether they look fresh or not. What do you think, Rafferty? Think I’m going to screw them over again?”

  After a long pause, Conor gave an impassive shrug. “You tell me. To be honest, as long as you don’t screw me over, I don’t much give a damn.”

  An unusual change passed over Sedgwick’s face, an almost elastic rearrangement of features that—for just an instant— made him look boyishly quizzical. Before Conor could even be sure he had seen it, it was gone. Sedgwick rubbed a hand over the lower half of his face and narrowed his eyes. “You are a cool customer, aren’t you? They said that about you, too. A ‘talent for repose,’ they called it. That, and a gift for languages, a nearly photographic memory, superior balance and athletic ability, and you can apparently shoot the balls off a fly at a hundred yards. You’re an intelligence director’s wet dream. It’s a tricky line of work, though, sonny boy. You’d better go slow in deciding how good you want to get at it.”

  “I�
��m not interested in getting good at it,” Conor replied. “I’m interested in getting it over with and getting out.”

  Sedgwick nodded. “Sure. Point taken, but I’m sure you’ll understand that after being bombarded with tales of your prowess, I’m eager to see some evidence of it.”

  He reached down and lifted up a small black bag that had been sitting on the seat next to him. The mysterious young man who had been hunched over his glass of beer moved even farther against the wall. Sedgwick tossed the bag onto the table, its contents jangling as it landed.

  He didn’t need to open the bag to know what it was and what Sedgwick wanted. Conor felt a rush of intense irritation. The wisecracks and cheap theatrics were wearing thin. He was beginning to wonder if managing a spiteful recovering heroin addict might be a greater strain on his patience than dealing with an active one.

  “Here? In the middle of the restaurant?” he hissed. “Is there something about the word ‘covert’ you don’t understand? We might as well slap signs on our backs. And what about yer man, there?” he added, jerking a thumb at the huddled figure. “What’s he going to think?”

  “Like I told you, he doesn’t speak any English.”

  “Sure, he doesn’t need to,” Conor argued. “He’ll bloody well know a gun when he sees one, won’t he?”

  “Just get on with it.” Sedgwick nudged the bag forward. “Trust me, in a place like this, no one will take much notice.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” With a frown of annoyance, Conor pulled the bag forward and unzipped it. “A Walther,” he said, poking a finger among the parts in the bag. “Why not a Colt 1911? Give me a real challenge.”

  “I only wish I could turn out the lights,” Sedgwick said in a soft undertone. “Shall I time you?”

  “I assume that’s the point, isn’t it? And if it’s a show you want, let’s have the full treatment. Arrey . . . ” Conor rapped a knuckle on the table in front of the young man and pointed to the scarf around his neck. “Let me have that for a minute.”

  He wrapped the scarf twice around his head, covering his eyes, and knotted it in the back. Then, he carefully tipped the parts of the stripped down Walther semiautomatic out of the bag and onto the table. He assembled it quickly by touch, and when he had hammered the loaded magazine into place and placed the gun on the table, he removed the scarf and threw it back across to the young man, who fumbled with it clumsily.

  “Nine seconds. I’m impressed,” Sedgwick purred with a mocking grin.

  An instant later, the blond agent’s face was pressed against the table, and a small trickle of blood was seeping over his lip where the point of impact had forced it against his teeth. With lightning speed, Conor had seized his hair and snapped his head down, and then, still holding him, he had snatched up the gun and come around to the other side of the booth. He slammed in against him, pressing him up against the nameless companion, who in turn was pinned against the wall.

  “And how about this?” he asked with icy calm, thrusting the barrel of the gun against his controlling officer’s ear. “Pretty good trick, too, right? How many points do I score for this one, boss?”

  “Perfect ten,” Sedgwick said, his voice muffled by the table.

  “Then, if you’re satisfied, maybe we can knock off the caustic commentary and horseshit games from now on, right? I haven’t known you more than a day, and you’re already on my last nerve.”

  Sedgwick made a strangled, inaudible comment, and his shoulders began shaking with silent laughter. Conor gave him another irritated shove, and the young man against the wall yelped in alarm.

  “Who the hell is this guy, anyway?” He released his hold on the back of Sedgwick’s neck and dropped the gun back onto the table. The agent sat up slowly, putting his fingers to his lip. “Don’t shoot him. I brought him here to meet you, after all.

  His name is Raj. He works for your brother.”

  Conor swiveled around the table, taking his seat again, and looked at the long, thin face with greater interest. Raj watched him nervously and shifted away from the wall. Conor opened his mouth, mentally formulating the words to the question in Hindi, but then remembered himself and stopped, even before he saw Sedgwick’s hand flash across the table in a gesture of warning. He was supposed to be a tour operator investigating new trekking tours. He wasn’t supposed to know anyone named Thomas McBride.

  “Does he know where my brother is?” He addressed the question in English instead to Sedgwick, who shook his head.

  “Nobody does. I think your brother got spooked. Frank told you about the agent MI6 sent over last year to flush him out?”

  Conor nodded.

  “The guy was supposed to find him—with my help—and offer him an immunity deal in exchange for cooperation. London is after the ringleader—the ‘wizard.’ Well, their agent managed to find me at the airport, but in every other respect, he was a train wreck. Half the time he was drunk, and the rest of the time he was careening around town interviewing the club owners and bartenders and making no secret about who he was looking for. He blew his own cover and nearly blew mine as well. And they called me a security risk.”

  Grimacing in disgust, Sedgwick drained his glass and signaled for another round. “Thomas and I used to cross paths occasionally, but he went to ground once that fathead showed up, and I haven’t seen him in Mumbai since the beginning of July. I’m not sure Raj here has ever even met him.”

  “If he’s never met him, how can he be—”

  “I’ll tell you how he can, if you’ll shut up and let me finish,” Sedgwick said affably. He took a deep breath and arched his back in a long stretch. When he sat forward again, his face had smoothed into a more sober expression. “The money your brother has been laundering belongs to Ahmed Khalil. He’s a businessman and a gangster—big in the Bollywood racket and the mobile communications business, but he’s got a sideline trade in drugs and prostitution that brings in more cash than anything else he’s got going on. The way it used to work is that Thomas would go around to all the collection points in Mumbai and pick up the cash. Nobody knows what he does with it, but eventually it shows up as a deposit in a series of Swiss accounts that he and Khalil control. Then, when Khalil’s crazy friends up north need some firepower, Thomas goes to the meetings with the arms dealer and sets up the payment transfers. That’s how it used to work.”

  The waiter appeared with three fresh bottles and placed them on the table, removing the empties. For the sake of appearances, Conor filled his glass again but didn’t drink any more. It was hard enough to absorb yet another confirmation that Thomas had become enmeshed in a world as alien as the far side of Mars. He didn’t need the fog of alcohol amplifying his distress.

  “How does it work now?” He maintained an appearance of unemotional interest, but Sedgwick appeared to sense his discomfort and regarded him with an almost sympathetic smile.

  “A few months ago, he introduced a few new layers of security between him and the daily grind, and one of those layers, however skinny, is Raj. He’s making the cash pickups now and delivers them to a drop point. Somehow it gets moved on to Thomas, and he does whatever it is he’s been doing with it.”

  “But Raj doesn’t know what happens after he makes the drop?” Conor asked. He looked over at the younger man, who perked up slightly at the sound of his name. He now looked simply sleepy rather than nervous.

  “Nope.”

  “Brilliant.” He sighed. “So what are we doing here? You brought him to meet me. Who does he think I am?”

  “His new body man,” Sedgwick said, with matter-of-fact promptness. “Mine too, as a matter of fact. You get to take the gun home with you tonight. And that little acrobatic move you pulled on me was helpful. Scared the piss out of him. You’ve got him thinking you’re a real badass.”

  Conor stared at him. “I’m not following you.”

  “Look, McBride—”

  “Will you ever please stop using—”

  “Oh, fine, whatever.”
Sedgwick tossed his head. “Listen, I’m sorry if you spent a lot of time memorizing it, but this tour guide cover they assigned you is crap, and as soon as Frank Murdoch heard they were putting you with me, he must have known it was dead. He just didn’t have the guts to tell you how it was going to be.”

  “He gave me a pretty good idea. He offered to let me back out of the whole thing.”

  “But, you didn’t. So, here you are in Mumbai, and this half-assed alias that has you going off on environmental treks is not going to wash. If you want to get anywhere with this mission, if you want to find your brother, then you’ve got to work from inside the Khalil organization, and I’m your ticket to get there because I’m already inside it. I’m assigning your cover. You’ll have to take what I give you and like it.”

  “So you say,” Conor muttered. He didn’t like any of it. As much as he had tried to strip away any sense of naiveté regarding the character of the business he had committed himself to, he still found himself seriously shaken by the plan being suggested.

  The most obvious argument against getting mixed up in Sedgwick’s insider activities was that he would put himself beyond protection or support from his employers if something went wrong. He had been briefed on conditions that would set their “plausible deniability” process in motion, and although playing bodyguard for the bagman of a drug and prostitution ring wasn’t specifically mentioned, he was pretty sure it was somewhere on the list.

  Of more immediate concern was not the question of what might happen if it went badly but how to cope if he were good at it. Infiltrating an Indian mafia organization required a far deeper level of reinvention than passing himself off as an earnest environmental tour guide, but he knew he had the required skills to pull it off, and it made him uncomfortable.