“Feeling okay?” Caitlin asks Hala.
“No. We failed in our mission,” Hala replies, ignoring the fact that she was clearly being asked about her recovery from the sleep dart. But her churlish reply is only self-blame, directed outward. Caitlin looks at me, pained, but says nothing more to Hala, who turns away, sullen, and goes back to watching the road beside us.
The truth is that we’ve all spent the past few hours replaying the whole Pakistan mission in our heads, trying to think of ways we could have done better, ways we might have coaxed Imran to speak earlier. Our only consolation is that since Imran’s cronies were drugged, Asif was able to mobilize the village to drag them into jail. There were more than enough angry fathers and mothers to take on the extra men who turned up with missiles too. Now that the power balance has shifted, and especially in light of Imran’s death, it looks as if the village will at last be back under the control of the farmers who live there.
Ahead of us, a truck crammed with chickens bursting out of wooden crates wavers as it turns a sharp corner. To our right, three goats are driven along by a young boy. To our left, a family of four cruise by, all of them riding on one moped and with one helmet between them. I pay attention to how our driver negotiates the whole mess. He’s certainly skilled in a way they don’t teach you at any driving school. He spots gaps where the rest of us would see only bumper-to-bumper gridlock and wheedles the taxi in and out of different traffic lanes with minimal fuss but plenty of horn tooting.
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.