asked.
That startled Vandana, though she was expecting it sooner or later. She lowered her eyes. “I don’t know. To protect David, I suppose, or rather myself. When I found out he’d lied, I was afraid.” Her eyes were moist as she looked up at Juliette. “I shouldn’t have done that, I know.”
Juliette took her hand for reassurance. No one dear to her heart should feel responsible for David’s death. “It wouldn’t have changed anything, Vandana, not a thing.” Then she said, “I’m pregnant. ‘A new universe created out of the ruins of the old,’ is how to see it, according to the Mahabharata.”
Vandana seemed happy, and she grabbed Juliette’s hand and squeezed it. Then, not able to bear it, she turned away. “They’ve arrested Max O’Brien. Bernatchez told me just after I landed.”
Yet again, the world collapsed around Juliette’s head.
26
The pain in his face, especially his nose, was excruciating. The cops had really done a number on him. He still had on the same clothes, and his shirt was stained brown with dried blood. Any glimpse of daylight blinded him. Max O’Brien turned his head just a few centimetres, and the effort it required was colossal. He could make out a white wall and a solid door. He thought he was in hospital, but the hammering of boots on the metal floor brought back to him a reality he knew only too well. He was in prison, not a hospital.
An Indian prison.
Here in these cells they piled up foreigners and fed them disgusting slop they had to pay for out of their own pockets. Corrupt guards and bureaucrats — he felt abandoned by all. Soon he’d find out if all those clichés in movies were actually true. He was probably in Tihar, the same place they’d imprisoned Genghis Khan. At once, he stopped struggling. What was the point? When he woke again a few hours later, it was night. It had to be the next day, and the cell was lit by a naked, yellowish bulb, which made everything seem like a funeral wake. He could hear boots in the corridor once more, but muffled this time. Near the bed was a tray of food that had become a playground for cockroaches, overpopulated like the whole country.
His head still hurt, but the pain had become more diffuse and came in waves like the sea when the tide ran out. At least now he could breathe, and he could smell curry. He retched for a good long time, hoping he could drown all the parasites. He knew he wasn’t alone, even before his eyes were fully open. He raised the lids, which, surprisingly, didn’t hurt anymore. A familiar silhouette sketched itself against the white of the wall. An unseen guard announced that he was awake, and the silhouette turned round. He made out William Sandmill of the High Commission, not knowing if that was a good thing or bad. What did it matter, anyway? Another man appeared behind him, sweaty and wiping his brow. Sandmill bent over Max, smelling of cologne and wearing a Bulova with a metal bracelet, striped tie, and wrinkled suit. Little splashes of colour and light here and there showed that reality was imposing its presence. Max tried to get up, but his head throbbed. Sandmill put a hand on his shoulder as a signal to stop moving.
He smiled. “Mr. O’Brien. Have they been treating you well, not caused any trouble?”
Treated well? How would he know? He’d been unconscious since … um … when, exactly?
“Two days.”
Sandmill pointed to another man putting away his handkerchief. “Josh Walkins, RCMP.” So this was the Canadian government’s token presence kept on the sidelines by the Indian police. “I’ve got some good news,” Sandmill went on, “You’re being shipped home. The High Commission’s reminded the Ministry of Home Affairs that our two countries have an extradition treaty, so it got fast-tracked.”
This was Walkins’s cue. “You’re lucky, O’Brien. Here in India, counterfeiting and fraud are serious crimes, especially in a country on the verge of war and all that …”
Max still didn’t get it. “So why am I being sent home?”
“Because you belong to us,” said a third man from behind the other two, “and you won’t be going anywhere after that.” Max would have known that voice anywhere, as Sandmill and Walkins stepped aside to let the third party look him over with a triumphant grin. Max closed his eyes and his headache returned, worse than ever. There was something more repulsive than an Indian prison, after all: Luc Roberge.
The detective pointed across the cell to his suitcases. “I picked them up for you at the Hotel Oberoi. You can’t say I don’t look after you.”
The traffic was sheer hell. The road to the airport was jammed with taxis, trucks, government cars, and all sorts of vehicles — destination “some place peaceful.” The word was out since morning from every embassy. Washington, London, Berlin, and Auckland had all ordered their diplomats and expats to leave; the same with Ottawa.
“Visa-hunting season is open,” declared Sandmill, who was at the wheel. “People will do anything to get out of here.”
This explained the choked roads, cars filled with anxious families, kids jammed into backseats, suitcases hastily crammed inside and pushing up against the roof of every car in a fanfare of horns from impatient drivers.
Walkins was sitting in the front, and he swivelled round to address Roberge. “Can’t really blame these poor buggers. In Almaty, Vajpayee and Musharraf never even spoke to each other, no matter what Beijing or Moscow say.”
“China’s kicking itself for helping Pakistan build the bomb in 1998,” explained Sandmill, “and now the place is so unstable that no one’s in charge, least of all President Musharraf.”
“And that’s before you add in Kashmir as well.”
More dead, tens of dead, hundreds of dead, even thousands or millions if the two countries carried out their nuclear threats.
The day before, Minister Advani adopted a harsher tone. If Pakistan wished to avoid being bombed, it would immediately hand over twenty terrorists they were holding — extremists whom Musharraf and Inter-Services Intelligence were protecting.
Roberge shrugged. He couldn’t care less. He finally had Max O’Brien sitting right next to him. So what if the world went up in a mushroom cloud? He had his man and nothing else mattered.
“The Americans can’t do a thing,” Sandmill shot back. “There’s no point in trying to cool the situation down. It won’t happen. It never does.”
Walkins frowned. “Strategically, they need to get involved because of Afghanistan. The Pakistanis mustn’t abandon their western frontier to go fight India on the other side of the country.”
“Still, there’s no way their mediation can work. On the one hand, India wants Pakistan to stop jihadis from crossing into Kashmir …”
“As if Islamabad could control anything in the country anyway, especially in Azad Kashmir!”
“… and on the other hand, they deny even having any terrorists in their country in the first place.”
“So it’s a war of wasted words.”
“Still doesn’t stop the Americans from begging India and Pakistan to settle things without going nuclear.”
“I get why the Indians are antsy,” Walkins went on. “On the ground, they’ve got every advantage, but missiles,
