“Two years ago, imperialists—women imperialists—came here to my village, to interfere in my culture. Sending girls to a school. Girls who should marry, look after families. Women have a sacred place in the family. . . .”
For crying out loud, will this guy just get to the point, already?
“That’s a great story,” I interrupt through gritted teeth. “Now, what’s the target?”
“Those imperialist women still educate girls,” he says, managing to smirk through the pain of his arm.
I hesitate. I’m assuming the “imperialist women” he’s talking about are Athena’s founders. As for education, all three of them run foundations involved with schools, universities, and career training for women, dotted all around the world, including some in India. They own some of them, fund others, or are on boards of governors.
“Let’s get specific, shall we?” I press my knee harder, lower, into Imran’s solar plexus, and it makes him gasp.
“I will tell you,” he says. “Because you are too late to stop it.”
I clench my jaw as I watch the countdown dip toward nine minutes.
“The most disgusting of these women is a whore,” he spits. “A singer, entertaining men on a stage.”
He means my mother.
“What’s her name?” I say, just to be sure.
“Kit Love,” he says. “She has two schools in Mumbai. In a few minutes, she will only have one.”
Even having to look at him makes my stomach turn.
“Did you get that?” I yell at my team, but my question is drowned in a sudden cacophony of voices and instructions in London. They got it, all right. The audio drops out suddenly, but there’s nothing wrong. It’s just that the London team won’t want us distracted with whatever they are doing.
I scramble up, grasping Hala’s handgun, and turn it onto Imran. I’d rather control him without having to be on top of him. For one thing, I can’t stand to be near him, and for another, it gives me a chance to check on Hala. She’s unconscious but breathing fine. With my free hand I slip her own kit bag under her head and arrange her limbs more comfortably. At the back of the chopper, Imran pulls himself to his feet.
“You can’t stop this,” Imran says. “This is bigger than one attack. It is bigger than me. It is a movement, and it will only end when family values are restored to the whole world.”
With a sudden movement from his good hand, Imran flips open a control panel attached to the rear door right beside him.
“Don’t touch that,” I command, moving closer, threatening him with my gun.
But his hand is out, feeling for the red lever that opens the rear hatch of the helicopter.
“Or what?” he sneers. “You won’t shoot me. You want me alive, so you can torture me for more information. . . .”
“No,” I begin. But he slams down the lever. Behind him, the rear door cranks open, letting in a windstorm of icy air.
“What the hell is he doing?” says Caitlin from the pilot’s seat, her voice rising with stress.
The sheer volume of air rushing in at this altitude makes it hard to see. Water fills my eyes suddenly, a reaction to the cold, the wind . . . I grasp hold of the seat behind me and cling on, because my first thought is that Imran wants to throw me out of the speeding chopper. But that’s not what he has in mind. As my eyes blink and clear, I watch Imran watching me. His gaze does not leave mine, and it carries an air of triumph as, cradling his wounded arm, he takes three steps back and falls out of the helicopter and into thin air.
5
THE CHOPPER FEELS STRANGELY SILENT as we fly south toward the airfield where we picked it up, not even two hours ago. I’m in the copilot seat, next to Caitlin. Behind us, I’ve settled Hala as best I can to sleep off the drugged dart that Imran hit her with. And now, on my wrist, I watch the timer count down the last few seconds toward 4:30 a.m. in India—the scheduled time of the attacks.
Our communications devices, phones, earpieces, everything, are eerily quiet. The rest of our team will be frantically trying to evacuate the schools in Mumbai that Imran referred to. There are two boarding schools funded from the charity that Kit set up back when she made a ton of money as a recording artist. Both are focused on educating girls aged eleven to eighteen, and between them they give places to around a hundred and twenty students—girls from small villages where they would usually be married off as they hit puberty, if not before. The schools are not only places to live and study, a safe haven where the students learn reading, math, and science skills; they also keep girls out of arranged marriages while they’re still children. Instead, the curriculum sets them up to go to university or get a job and, either way, get equipped for some independence.
I reach into my backpack for wipes and use them to clean my face and hands. I can feel sweat, and congealed fluid, probably Imran’s blood, seeping into my clothes, pooling under my nails. It also gives me something to do while we wait—and the waiting is painful as we stand by to find out what has happened. At the moment that Imran finally spoke up, there were only eight minutes to go; it’s hard to imagine that any kind of attack could have been averted. And that’s assuming that Imran even bothered to tell us the truth. Leaning my head tiredly against the back of my seat, I watch Caitlin fly. Her calm demeanor, her methodical movements, are soothing. Her kind blue eyes glancing encouragingly at me remind me of all the good things in the world. But then, Peggy’s voice crackles into our ears. I sit bolt upright. We both do.
“How’s Hala?” Peggy asks. Her voice is heavy.
“Vitals are fine. It’ll take another hour till she’s conscious,” I say. “Peggy? Tell us.”
“There was a bombing at one of Kit’s schools.” She sighs. There’s a crack in her voice when she continues and the sound of it makes me feel ill. “There just wasn’t enough time. By the time the message reached them, they had only started to evacuate. . . .”
Caitlin looks at me, her eyes full. She swallows down tears.
“How many casualties?” Caitlin asks.
“Still waiting to find out. I’m afraid the number will be high,” Peggy says.
I put my head in my hands. “Peggy, I’m sorry,” I say.
“You did everything you could, you all did. We got so close.”
“How’s Kit?” I ask.
Peggy hesitates. “She’s taking it hard. She’s off comms right now, getting ready to head to Mumbai on the next flight out, to meet the families of the victims, attend funerals. . . . I’ll travel out too. Separately.”
There’s a moment of quiet, of respect and reflection, before Caitlin gently breaks the silence with a question.
“So, what’s our plan now?”
Li chimes in, focusing us all with a set of efficient orders:
“Amber will get you to Mumbai this morning,” she says. “You have three things to do. Find the bombers. Investigate this Family First outfit. And protect the remaining girls.”
We are all tired, but in the early-morning traffic of Mumbai, the possibility of sleep fades pretty fast. I’ve never tried drugs but negotiating the city’s dense traffic from the back seat of a taxi, with windows open to the damp, surging heat outside, feels like some kind of bizarre rush. Even Hala, who claims that roads in the Middle East provide the true test of driving ability, hangs on to the passenger strap as we career past acres of land covered in tented slums and into town.