Chapter XXV: Arangetram
0750hrs, 9 November 2013, Shanti Nagar, Bangalore, India
"Men, money and materials cannot by themselves bring victory or freedom. We must have the motive-power that will inspire us to brave deeds and heroic exploits." Subhas Chandra Bose.
This was not a good day for Colonel Shanthi Krishnan of the 108th South Indian Defence Force. They had been called up for some stupid training exercise, when they should have been resting, getting ready for the series of drills they would be conducting next week with the military.
"Can you explain to me why we're being called up?" she asked the Joint Commissioner for Police for Bangalore. "We are going to be doing drills all next week and unless this had something to do with it, we don't need to be out here, doing more exercises."
"Look, it's not an exercise," the JCP told her.
"What do you mean?" Krishnan eyed the short, balding man in front of her.
"I got a phone call from an American. I don't know how they got my phone number, but they explained that they were in trouble at the housing complex near Manyan Tech Park and that they were in real danger from terrorists."
"No offense," Krishnan said, "But I don't see why we should be called out to protect a couple of Americans. Shouldn't that be left up to the local police? This unit was formed to protect Indian interests."
She put extra emphasis on "Indian".
"I understand Colonel, but how is that going to look to the overseas businesses that conduct operations here? If foreigners start being killed off, our economy tanks within a couple of months because MNCs don't want to deal with their own personnel being attacked."
Colonel Krishnan sighed and put her hand on her hip. So much for Indian interests and safety; they might as well be working for the British all over again. Gandhiji could straight to hell for all that they cared.
"Fine, I'll get a platoon of soldiers over there right away," she said in capitulation.
"Thank you Colonel," the JCP said. She saluted, American style with the hand facing in and down, and then left the JCP's temporary office. They were in the Military Police Academy, and so they technically weren't supposed to be there due to them being civilians and…yeah, it was a mess.
"Dammit," she said, walking out of that irritable man's office.
The one thing that made the 108th SIDF special from the other paramilitary units in India is that they were almost exclusively an American trained unit. Several government and PMCs had come in and set up the training facility in Bangalore and another one in Vellore, in Tamil Nadu. They were also one of the best equipped…sometimes. There was a mix of cold-war era battle rifles and high tech assault rifles with rail mounts and everything.
There was one other thing as well.
It was a completely female unit. Every single one of its personnel was a female, either a graduate of college, transferred in from the police or military, or simply saw the advert on a side of a wall and walked into the recruiting station. The reason for this was that mixed gender units had a significant amount of sexual assaults and harassment toward the females, which was very bad for morale and unit cohesion. In the future, that would change but for now this was the only way to prevent that type of unit disorder.
The minimum requirements were simple: Tenth-standard grade education, must have lived in one of the four South Indian states for five years, the ability to read and write in your native tongue, and no (debilitating) physical defects. That was it. For officers, it would be "any" three year college degree from an accredited university/college.
The size of the 108th SIDF was about five-hundred enlisted, with about thirty officers for the entire group. There was also a reserve component, like the American National Guard, which numbered about 1000 enlisted and 50 officers. They only drilled a weekend a month, two weeks a year, while the rest were active duty, ready to respond to a crisis at a moment's notice.
At first, it had gotten a lot of snickers and mockery; women couldn't do this or that, let alone fire a weapon or prevent a terrorist attack. And even to this very day, they still hadn't been called out for anything serious.
That was about to change. Not only because of this, but events yet to come.
"Lieutenant Iyer!" Col. Krishnan was outside the office now and heading toward a jeep.
"Yes, Colonel?" Lieutenant Kavitha Iyer snapped to attention and saluted.
"Get your platoon together and loaded up into transport, we've got a mission."
"This isn't a training exercise?"
Krishnan shook her head. "Not today it isn't. This is the real deal."
"It's about time," Iyer said back to her. "What's the mission?"
"You're going to the Manyata Tech Park Housing, about thirty minutes away. There's some foreigners that called the JCP and said that there were terrorists all over the place."
"That's…that's it?" Iyer looked really annoyed at that. "We're sticking our necks out for some white people?"
"Hey, I just do what the JCP tells me to. And the CP. And the Chief Minister."
"You mean, the Chief Ministers of every state in South India?" Iyer pointed out.
"Yes, thank you Lieutenant, for pointing that fact out," Krishnan replied sarcastically. "Just get your platoon together and we'll get this over with."
"Yes Ma'am." She saluted and went to collect her unit.
"So, did you hear about Savitha?"
Sergeant Neela Prasad and Corporal Shruthi Shetty were gossiping about one of the command sergeants in the unit as they waited by the barracks. It was a humid day, like many days in Bangalore.
Prasad (that wasn't even her real last name…it was something different, but she changed it to avoid being outcaste) had been born in an obscure part of Karnataka, in a town named Raichur. Her mother, a devadasi trapped by the oppressive caste system, barely managed to save her daughter from the same fate that she had suffered; at around six, she was dedicated to the god Yellamma (or Renuka). At sixteen or eighteen, a "deflowering" ceremony took place, usually with a male relative (an uncle, most commonly). She would spend the next twenty years being passed around as a mistress, a prostitute, a dirty whore. After her prime days were behind her, she would be discarded like a toy, and forced to take up working in the fields or some other meaningless labor. More than likely, she would have a child out of the many men she would have slept with, and if it was a daughter, the same process would start all over again. But instead, Neela Prasad was rescued by an NGO in Bangalore that specialized in helping such girls, and given a new lease on life. After graduating 10th standard, she joined up and had been promoted rapidly, leading a squad of troops.
"I heard she had sex with like, ten guys last week." Shetty continued on with her gossip. Sex was something that was rarely talked about in contemporary Indian culture, but as with everything, Western values were slowly trickling in. Prasad endured Shetty's inane gossip, but tried not to think about what would have become of her if she had stayed in Raichur. Most of the people in the unit did not know of Prasad's Devadasi heritage. To say it would cause problems would be an understatement if they found out.
"At the same time? That's...how would that work again?" Prasad took a sip of chai that she was drinking from. The hot, brown beverage was brewed from black tea leaves while at the same time, spices like cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and anise, and milk were added while the tea was boiling.
Oh, and lots of sugar. Lots and Lots of sugar. The further down you went in India, the more sweet the tea got.
"That's just wrong," Shetty said. "I mean, how is she ever going to get a husband if she keeps acting like that? My akka got someone right away after amma got that really good astrologer from Mangalore. I'm thinking about using him as well for my marriage. I hope that we get a match and that we can raise lots and lots of kids and we can have a scooter and a refrigerator and maybe even a UV filter for the water tap."
"Yeah, uh-huh. That's the point though," Prasad replied, taking another sip from the stainless steel cup. She tried to steer Shetty back onto topic…or what passed for one at least. "All those western ideas she gets from television and the internet and stuff like that." Not that there was anything wrong with the internet...
"And she has a college education," Shetty pointed out, going along with Prasad. "And she lords it over all of us normal grunts, just like Lt. Iyer, except we don't have to put up with Lt. Iyer every day." Shetty's idea of lording though, was just a quick mention that you went to college, in passing. Shetty and Prasad had just talked to Chowdary yesterday, and it had come up that she had attended university in America. Some obscure Norwegian college in the middle of the Midwest…what was the name of it again? Whatever.
"Yeah, that too," Prasad sarcastically said. "Me? I was lucky enough to get to 10th standard." She remembered the fond memories of the NGO in Bangalore that provided her with an actual childhood…
"That's true. Did you go to puja today?" Shetty asked. She was always going to puja at one of the local temples. "I went to the Big Bull one yesterday, but it was really crowded. And since the Muslim New Year started, traffic has been really bad as of late."
Prasad shook her head no.
"No, I didn't. I'm going to go next month to Tirupathi and do that stuff with my family. You've been to Tirupathi, right?"
Shetty took another sip of chai. "It was pretty crowded. There was a couple lakhs worth of people there, and I think four crore people visit there every year."
"That a lot of fucking people," Prasad commented. It had been quite a shock coming to Bangalore; with "only" nine million people, it was quite larger than Raichur.
"That's a lot of fucking, period," Shetty said back.
Just then they heard a sound of a jeep pulling up near their barracks.
Prasad and Shetty turned around to see Lt. Iyer pulling up in a jeep with Col. Krishnan.
"Oh yay, here comes everyone's favorite Tamilian. Just what I wanted to see today," Prasad bitched. She set her stainless steel chai cup on the group and stood up to salute Krishnan and Iyer, who got out of the jeep and started walking toward them.
"Good Morning, Sergeant, Corporal," Col. Krishnan said in Kannada, saluting back. Iyer did the same.
"Jai Hind," they replied. That was the appropriate response that they were supposed to give; Jai Hind means "Hail to the Motherland (India)".
"Very good. We've got a mission today," Krishnan said stoically. "Lt. Iyer?"
"I am going to lead a platoon of 108th SIDF troops to the Manyata Tech Park Housing area, which is located about thirty minutes from here." Despite being a Tamil, she understood all the South Indian languages, plus English, plus Hindi (much to her irritation). Knowing lots of languages wasn't too terribly uncommon down here.
"What's the situation?" Prasad asked.
"There's some foreigners who say that there's a large group of terrorists there, and that there's going to be trouble there soon."
"Why are we sticking our neck…" Shetty started, but Iyer cut her off.
"I know, I know, let's just get this over with."
Sgt. Prasad crossed her arms in disagreement, but there really wasn't much they could do about it.
"Fine, I'll get the troopers rounded up, and then we can get moving. Let me get Sgt. Pillai and then we'll have everyone together." She saluted, along with Cpl. Shetty and they ran off to get the entire platoon organized.
"That was easier than expected," Krishnan said, watching them run off and start yelling at everyone in the barracks to get out for a mission.
"They can be so lazy sometimes," Iyer added. "But today I guess, something's different."
Ten minutes later, the entire (understrength) platoon of two squads numbering nine soldiers each was organized into five Toyota Qualises and they were moving along toward the Manyata Tech Park.
Col. Krishnan and Lt. Iyer, along with SSgt. Savitha Chowdary were in the lead vehicle when they got a report over their radio from the local police.
"Hey, this is Unit 6-5 is reporting heavy gunfire coming from the Tech Park Housing complex," an officer on the radio said. "We need additional backup."
"Say again 6-5," the dispatcher said.
"Gunfire, at Manyata Tech Park Housing Complex, requesting backup."
"Standby. 108th SIDF, how do you read, over."
"We are receiving, over," Col. Krishnan said. They were on friendly relations with most of the police departments, and they had notified of the 108th's deployment into the area.
"Roger. Standby for additional orders from the JCP."
"What's going on now?" Iyer asked her .
"I don't know."
"Colonel, stand by for traffic," the dispatcher said. "JCP wants you to eliminate threat at Housing Complex by any means, break. Do so without incurring civilian casualties. Over."
"Received, break. How many civilians in area, and how many hostiles, over." Krishnan wanted to know what they were up against.
"Approximate 100 civilians in multistory houses, hostiles are unknown, over." Unfortunately, that wasn't much help.
"Roger. Out."
"Looks like things are heating up," SSgt. Chowdary noted. "Haven't seen this stuff heat up since I was in the Sudan."
"Which one?" Iyer asked.
"I think it was South Sudan, but I can never remember these things," she replied.
"We're coming up on the Housing complex," the driver said to Krishnan.
"Thanks, pull up to those police cars over there." She reached for her radio and transmitted to the entire team. "All units, this is Devi actual, standby for deployment."
The convoy pulled up next to some police SUVs that were blocking the entrance to the housing complex. A gaggle of civilians was running away from their homes toward the police, egged on by the shooting in the background. The police were pathetically armed, with bolt action Lee-Enfield SMLE Mark III used during WWII, only chambered for the 7.62mm x 51mm round instead of .303 British.
"That's a lot of gunfire," Krishnan said as they got out of the vehicle. "Whatever is going on in there, it's not good. Iyer, you have the map?"
"Right here."
Iyer spread out the map of the housing complex and the group of soldiers gathered around it. Krishnan had to only look at it for a second to consider the tactical options. There was as park at the north end, with several houses and streets to boot. The south end was the same, minus the park. The development was not yet complete and therefore, there were open lots and empty houses.
"Alright, this housing complex is only about a kilometer or so square. Iyer, have the police cordoned off the area?"
"Affirmative," Iyer said.
"So, this is what we're going to do." Krishnan got out a pen and started circling on the map. "Sergeant Pillai? Take your squad up to the North end of the housing development, where the park is." Pillai was another of the platoon sergeants, from Karnataka.
Krishnan continued on. "Sergeant Prasad will take the South end, and you'll do a full sweep of the area. SSgt. Chowdery?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Take a fire team from Prasad's squad and do a sweep of the perimeter."
"Ma'am, that' a bad idea," Prasad started to protest, but Krishnan cut her off.
"Sorry, but your squad has better weapons than Pillai's squad, and you have more experience as well. I don't want anything getting out of here. Clear the houses and yards, and make sure that park is clear. Pillai, I don't want somebody hiding in there who then gives us more trouble."
"Understood," Prasad said, trying to conceal her nervousness. There was some more gunfire, single shots from an AK47, then another long burst.
"We have to get in there," Krishnan said intently. "Alright, any questions?"
Everyone shook their heads.
"Stay safe everyone. Move out."
Prasad checked her M16A4, complete with red dot sight, foregrip, and a flashlight.
"That's a fancy weapon you've got there," one of the police officers said to her as she organized her squad (now a fire team) to go in.
"Yeah, thanks," she replied busily. There were four soldiers in her group, Corporal Shetty, armed with a MG4 (with Prasad, that made 'Alpha'), and two soldiers armed with MP5A5s (they made 'Bravo').
"Chandra, Jyothi, take the right side of the street, and we'll take the left, bounding overwatch," she said to the team as they ran down the road toward where the fighting was happening.
"Got it," Chandra replied. She and Jyothi ducked behind a car and watched the road in front of them; there were two houses on the right . There was still no activity, but the gunfire was getting close.
"Road is clear," Prasad said. "Move up."
"This is Kali-53 to Devi Actual." Pillai was on the radio. "We have contact, several individuals armed with AK-47s and grenades. Engaging."
"Looks like Pillai is getting her combat cherry popped," Shetty said to Prasad, watching section Bravo move up.
"That's…one way of putting it," Prasad replied. "This is Durga 52 to Devi Actual. Negative contact, proceeding with mission."
"Affirmative," was the reply from Iyer. Krishnan was busy with the maps and calling in an extra platoon; they might need it.
"Alright, Bravo, clear out those houses on the right there, I'm taking Alpha to the left to see…"
An AK-47 interrupted their conversation from a window on the top of the one of the houses.
"Contact at one o'clock!" Shetty brought her MG4 to bear and fired off a burst, spitting out several 5.56mm bullets and sending the expended brass clanging on the ground. The firing stopped.
"Bravo, check that house!" Prasad yelled. Bravo team moved quickly and kicked in a door to clear the house.
"Come on, we have to see if there's more baddies on the left," Shetty said to Prasad.
"Fine, move out."
Prasad and Shetty ran over to the next street over and right into another firefight.
"Goddammit, this was not a great idea," Amy said, cowering down next to the SUV that they had shot up a minute earlier. Unfortunately, the SUV was armored, and it had firing ports out of the window so the occupants could fire with relative safety behind bullet-resistant glass. The only way they had gotten into the SUV is when an idiot in the car opened up his door to see if they had killed the pair, and was promptly shot down by Mina.
"You're telling me," Mina griped, ducking as an errant bullet snapped by. She popped up, fired a couple of shots, then ducked down again. "Artemis, what's the ETA on the paramilitaries?"
"They're right on your position!"
Mina checked around the SUV again and saw two soldiers running down the road, one armed with a machine gun and another an M16A4.
"I see them," Mina replied. "Amy, put away your weapons, quick!"
Both Mina and Amy stuffed their weapons in their purses and pretended to be cowering in fear.
Suddenly, several more AK-47s opened up from a group of houses on their right, and the two soldiers flopped down on the ground, trying to get to cover.
"Oh shit, they're in trouble!" Amy said. "We have to do something."
"Um…" Mina made a snap decision. She pulled out her Glock again and started firing at one of the houses.
"Mina what are doing?!" Amy yelled.
"Cover me!" she said. Mina dashed forward, avoiding bullets fired from the houses. Amy pulled out her weapon and started firing at an AK-47 pointing out of a second-story window, and the person firing it fell back.
Mina continued to run forward, to where the two soldiers were hiding near a destroyed car. They didn't see her, as they were too busy trying not to get killed by the hail of gunfire.
"Okay, gotta stay fly…" Mina looked at the house where all the gunfire was coming from; there were two shooters with AKs on the bottom floor, with two more on the top.
"I see you…" She lifted her Glock 26 and fired a couple of shots. The ching! Ching! Of the slide retracting and ejecting the cartridge rang out, but was overshadowed by the chatter of the AK47s that the terrorists were firing.
Luckily for her, that was all she needed to cover her fire from her suppressed weapon, and two of the terrorists on the bottom floor fell down, shot in the head.
"Hey, two of them went down!" Shetty yelled out, in Telugu.
"Where did that shot come from?" Prasad asked. She looked around, but didn't see anyone other than a civilian cowering behind a large SUV down the road. Taking advantage of the lack of fire from the bottom floor, Prasad whipped around the car she was hiding behind and snapped off five shots at the top floor of the house. Shetty did the same, except she depressed the trigger longer, letting fifteen or so rounds rip into a windowsill and riddling a terrorist with bullets.
Mina had slipped into a drainage ditch near the road and disassembled her Glock there, tossing it into a puddle of muddy water.
"Goddammit," she muttered to herself. The drainage ditch smelled of rotting food, piss, shit, and everything else that humans managed to throw in there. Even in a well-developed neighborhood like this, the amount of trash that accumulated would have had any neighborhood association in the US flipping out beyond belief. "Amy, Amy, come in, over." She hit the transmit button on her glasses that she wore.
"Yeah, I saw you fall into that drainage ditch there," she replied. "You've got two tangos headed your way." She raised her pistol and took aim.
"Hold your fire," Mina hissed into the radio. "They're the paramilitaries."
"Shit, what do we do now?" Amy kept training her weapon down range, watching the soldiers approach Mina.
"You're the smart one! I've destroyed my weapon and now I'm going to get rid of my radio and eyepiece HUD."
"I'll have to do that as well. Here goes nothing."
Amy hit the transmit button talk to Artemis. "Artemis, we're going dark for a little bit, we're fine, don't worry."
"What do you mean, don't worry?" Artemis started to ask more questions, but he was cut off, not by a jamming program, but by Amy breaking her eyepiece and accessories. She looked around the corner of the SUV and saw that the two soldiers were still searching the road, and were about a couple meters from Mina's position. Seeing that they were a safe amount of distance away, she grabbed the mysterious metal box, quickly crawled to the drainage ditch and slid down, tossing her gear into a stagnant puddle of brackish water.
"Glad I don't have to drink that," she said to herself, watching her equipment sink beneath the muddy water and silt. She put the box in her purse, and hoped that the Indians wouldn't get too suspicious over it.
Over by Mina's position, Prasad and Shetty had found her.
"Put your hands where I can see them!" Prasad yelled, in Telugu. Predictably, Mina couldn't understand them, and she didn't have the equipment to help her translate. Not that it would have helped much anyway, since the stupid HUD was still in beta.
"Hands, up!" Shetty said, in very broken English. She had learned that from some Hindi movie actually…maybe it was My Name is Khan or something like that.
"Okay, I'm putting my hands up," Mina complied. She raised her hands in the air and stood up from where she was squatting near the puddle that had all of her disposed equipment. Please don't look there, please don't look there…
"Shetty, search her," Prasad ordered. Shetty approached Mina and patted her down, making sure to check everywhere and not miss everything.
"Hey, that tickles," Mina protested.
"Nothing here," Shetty said. "She does have a nice figure."
"Didn't think you swung that way," Prasad replied.
"Very funny."
Mina was still trying to get used to the smells in India, and Shetty was not helping. It seemed like she smelled like BO and had a bad case of gingivitis at the same time, coupled with the sewage in the drainage canal and it was not a pretty sight.
"Are…any…you?" Prasad asked in her limited English.
"Are there more people like me?" Mina said, filling in the massive gaps in Shetty's sentence.
"Ah." Prasad did that head-bobbing thing that most Indians are known for.
Mina didn't really get it, but figured that Prasad was asking for Amy. "Yeah…she's over there." She pointed to where D.D's house was.
"Shetty, check it out," Prasad ordered.
"What is this? Why do I have to check everything out?" Shetty protested.
"Because I'm higher ranking, now do it."
"Fine."
Shetty jogged over to D.D's house and found Amy in the ditch, (pretending) to look very confused and scared.
"Is your hair naturally like that?" Shetty asked Amy, waddling down to where Amy was lying in the ditch. She was clutching her purse, with the box inside of it. "I've never seen anyone with blue hair."
"Uh…"
"Oh, that's right, you can't understand me." Shetty sighed. "Foreigners. Hands…up."
Amy complied, putting her hands in the hair and letting Shetty do a search. After that, she and Amy walked over to where Prasad and Mina were standing, by the wrecked car they had been hiding behind during the firefight.
"This is Durga 52, we have two civilians here. They appear to be our foreigners, over."
"That's good news, 52," Devi actual replied. "Bring them to our OP and we'll take over from there, out."
"Roger, out. Let's move you two." Prasad and Shetty prodded the two girls to move along to the front of the housing complex, blissfully unaware of their real identities.
"Who the hell authorized that strike?!" Jadeite had been on the phone for the last five hours, trying to get the mess cleaned up. "Do we own any of news outlets? Good, prevent any story from going out on this…I don't know, make something up? Diwali? Wasn't that six days ago? Just say that it was a bunch of surplus firecrackers going off and that it was nothing. Fine, yes, thank you Chief Minister."
Jadeite turned off his mobile and slammed it into his bed. This is what had gone down: the Chief Minister had gotten some of his goons to take out D.D. after they had figured out that someone was talking to foreign agents about…something. He panicked, thinking that he would be found out due to the bribes that Nakanishi paid him each year to keep quiet about certain indiscretions, mainly involving the suppression of labour unions, activists and anti-globalization groups. It was going to cost a significant amount of money to keep everyone quiet about this event, to make the police "forget" that there was a massive gunfight, then make witnesses suddenly "unremember" what had happened to their houses and to prevent anything else from leaking to the press. It was going to be a massive operation and Nakanishi could afford it, but this was just ridiculous.
Jadeite sighed and looked around his sparse apartment in Tokyo. There was basically a bed, a laptop computer, almost no furniture and no food in the fridge.
He was tapped into the SAILOR transmissions, but they kept fading out sometimes, and even with Nakanishi's technological resources it would be impossible to keep tabs on the SAILOR team if they kept finding ways to circumvent their tracking devices on their HUD eyepieces. Amy didn't know it, but when she cut Artemis out of the loop, she also cut Jadeite out of the loop as well.
He couldn't confirm if the two people in custody were part of the SAILOR team, but he did know that they had a mission there. D.D was now in hiding, under government protection and was staying put. But they were slated to leave soon and there was no reason for them to be at the firefight at the Manyata Tech Park. Jadeite didn't want to alert Beryl; this would put a complete damper on her plans and anyway, it wasn't that bad of a situation…was it?
"Firecrackers?" Krishnan said. "Who the hell is reporting this?"
"Ma'am, it's on all the networks," the JCP said. "The Chief Minister of Karnataka wants this incident kept under wraps."
"But we did great out there, I want the public to know of our success and of the danger that we face every day!"
"I'm sorry Colonel," the JCP replied. "Let the Americans go. We cannot afford to lose any more business, especially the Nakanishi Group here in Bangalore. The effect on the economy would be…"
"I know, I know!" Krishnan snapped back. "It would be fucking devastating right? Keep telling yourself that."
She stormed out of the office and slammed the door behind her.
"Goddammit," she hissed.
"What was that all about?" Lt. Iyer asked her.
"Nothing, nothing, politics as usual."
"What are we going to do about the Americans?"
"Let them go. It was just the wrong place and the wrong time for them." Krishnan didn't believe that for a second, but there was no evidence proving that those two girls had done anything wrong. They didn't have any passports on them, but from what they were telling them at least, they were American tourists staying in a friend's flat near Kanaka Nagar for a couple of weeks or so, and that they were scheduled to leave the following day on a flight to Tokyo.
"Are you sure about that?" Iyer protested. "We did find ammunition that did not match the terrorists weapons on site and…"
"Whoever they were fighting, they're long gone by now. Is that Dilip Desai character in protective custody?"
"Yes, he's here at the military police barracks until we can move him to our training facility in Vellore."
"And the men who attacked him?"
Iyer flipped through her notes, written on a memo pad stained with chai and some random blood from when she had cut herself climbing over a barbed wire fence. "They were local goons. They aren't saying anything and the most that we can get out is that somebody hired them, wearing a mask and paid them upfront 5000Rs each to go to this task."
Krishnan rolled her eyes and groaned, putting her hand over her face in frustration. "This is a complete mess. We do great, can't report it. We have to let the Americans go because the Chief Minister said so, and the surviving criminals won't talk. Wonderful." She walked out of the building, with Lt. Iyer in tow to go see where Amy and Mina were being kept.
"So…where are you from?" Prasad asked in Kannada to Amy.
Amy shrugged. She had no idea what Prasad or any of the other soldiers there were trying to say. All that she knew was that they had no idea who she or Mina were. They had disassembled their weapons and had thrown them in a small gulley, ensuring that they would not be found out. The local police were pathetically inept at doing their job; besides finger printing and some mug shots, they hadn't looked for GSR, or checked their purses, or done anything besides process them and then turn them over to the 108th SIDF. Amy prayed that they didn't look inside their purses because the metal box was there, and if they found it, there was going to be some explaining to do.
The room they were in was a sparse holding cell that smelled like piss and body odor, with one window to keep the light coming in…and the bugs as well.
"These girls are pretty dumb," Prasad said (in Kannada) to Shetty. "I mean, they get invited over to that Desai's how, and then claim they don't know what happened afterward. Got drunk or something like that."
Shetty couldn't speak Kannada, having been born in Andhra Pradesh and having been raised in the small town of Zahirabad all of her life, she spoke Telugu. But like most people in India, she understood what Prasad was saying, and although Prasad couldn't respond in Telugu, she could understand was Shetty was saying and form the appropriate response.
"Hey, I would have done the same in my younger years," Shetty retorted.
"You're only twenty one!" Prasad said.
"Still! I would have done something completely stupid like that." Shetty picked at her ear, wondering why it itched so much.
"Thanks for your vote of confidence."
Amy and Mina were still sitting there, watching the two banter on like two old ladies.
"Are Indians always like this?" Mina asked Amy. "I mean, I knew some in the UK when I was studying there, but they weren't like this."
Amy again, shrugged. "I'm as just as confused as you are on what's going on."
Mina eyed the two soldiers. One was about twenty one, long-ish hair tied neatly in a long French braid that came down to her back, midway. The other looked to be about twenty three, shorter hair (with some gray ones!) and a little bit plump in the waist area. Both wore khaki petticoats and blouses, complemented by nametags (in Kannada and Telugu, respectively, and rendering them unreadable to Mina), some medals and ribbons, and a holstered pistol on their waist.
Prasad let out a massive belch and seemed to be rather pleased with herself on that one.
"I'm glad that they switched out the caterers and stuff," she continued on with Shetty. "Their paper masala dosa was too wet."
"Glad it wasn't just me who noticed that," Shetty said to Prasad, rocking back in forth in her chair, staring back at Mina. "She's got nice blonde hair. Wish I could have hair like that. Maybe I could get a real nice husband someday if I had hair like that."
There wasn't really a word for blonde in Telugu (and the one that did exist was extremely complicated), so she used the English word "blonde" mixed in with her Telugu.
"She looks like Rani Mukerji," Prasad noted. "If she had blonde hair."
"No, no, more like Kajol, with blonde hair."
"I still say Rani," Prasad insisted. "And why are you using Bollywood people anyways? Shouldn't you be using Tollywood actors instead?"
While those two were arguing, the only word that Mina or Amy could understand was the word "blonde", which was spoken several times in Prasad and Shetty's animated conversation.
"Okay, now it's getting weird," Mina said to Amy. "All I can understand is 'blonde' and that's only one person in this room who has blonde hair."
"They might ask for your autograph soon enough," Amy joked. Mina glared at her and continued to stare at the two soldiers talking to each other.
Suddenly, the door opened to the room, and they stopped talking, coming to attention. It was Col. Krishnan and Lt. Iyer.
"Ma'am," Prasad said to Col. Krishnan.
"At ease," she said to those two. "We're supposed to let these two foreigners go."
"About time," Shetty said, drawing a glare from Prasad.
"Are you sure that's wise?" Prasad said to Krishnan. "I don't think who they say they are."
"Look, that may be true, but we don't have anything to back that up now, do we?" Krishnan replied. "And besides, we got the real bad guys in this case, so we'd better let it go before it gets out of hand."
"Of course," Prasad said smarmily to Col. Krishnan.
"I'm sorry about that," Krishnan said to Amy and Mina in English. "You're free to go. I know you told us earlier that you had a flight to catch in twenty four hours, so we obviously won't keep you waiting."
"Thank you so much," Amy said, trying to keep some sort of American English accent going. She had been doing pretty good so far, and the Indians' English skill varied considerably, so she could get away with some of the "l/r" sounds that Japanese people were usually made fun of. "I hope that we haven't been an inconvenience."
"You haven't. However, before you go, I would like to send my adjunct, Lt. Iyer here, to your flat with you and make sure that you have your passports, and that who you say you are, is the actual truth."
Amy and Mina thought "Oh shit," at the same time. Not only had they compromised one intelligence source, they might compromise the other one with police and paramilitaries crawling all over the place. Plus, they had left cameras and computers, and even some weapons out in the open when they had left to talk to D.D earlier that day. Mina knew where the passports were, by the entrance to their flat but…
"Of course, we'd be happy to show who we are," Amy said to Krishnan, concealing her fear that she felt down.
One hour later, they were back at their flat in Kanaka Nagar, nervously waiting outside as Lt. Iyer communicated back with HQ.
"This is Lt. Iyer, we've reached the location, Major," she said into her mobile phone, one of those cheap Nokia or Samsung ones that you could buy for less than 500Rs or something like that.
"Uh-huh, thanks." Amy barely hear the response on the other end of the phone, but it was another woman.
"Where is Colonel Krishnan?" Iyer asked the other person on the line.
"She's out right now, I'm in charge for the moment."
"Okay, thanks Major John." She hung up the phone.
"Who the hell has a last name of John?" Mina asked Amy.
"Stop asking me questions I don't know," Amy snapped back. "I am not an expert on Indian culture."
"Sorry," Mina replied sarcastically, looking at her nails. They were damaged from the recent firefight, with the middle one on the right hand being chipped off and several others having been cracked.
"I apologize for that," Lt. Iyer said, putting the mobile phone away in her front pocket. "Please, show me to your flat." The P226 pistol in her holster, clearly visible on her hip, was a more telling reminder if they refused.
"Of course," Mina said.
They walked up a couple flights of steps to their room on the third floor. Amy still hadn't thought of anything, and was looking at Mina for anything to get them out of this mess.
"Uh, what was your name again?" Mina suddenly asked Lt. Iyer as they exited the stairwell and approached their room.
"Iyer."
"Ire?" Mina had not heard of that name before.
"No, Ai-yur."
"I see. Look, Iyer, do you have to come into the room with us?" she asked her. "It's a really mess in there."
"I'm sorry Miss Mina, but my orders are to just take a look around. You must understand, it is my job." Iyer smiled reassuringly on that one, showing the somewhat stained set of her upper row of teeth. The bottom row was decent at least.
"No really," Mina objected. She stopped in front of her and turned around. Amy, seeing her chance, moved ahead and unlocked the door. "It's a goddamn mess in there and you don't want to go in there. I mean, ah…"
"What do you mean?" Iyer said suspiciously, peering over Mina's shoulders to see what Amy was up to. She had just unlocked the door and headed into the room, grabbing the passports near a desk at the front of the room.
"It's just that…well, we had some company yesterday." Mina pretended to be embarrassed, trying to send a hint to Iyer. "Going over to D.D's place was…an afterparty. A time-pass, if you think of it that way."
Amy was rushing around, trying to hide two pistols that had been left in the open, concealing the cameras and binoculars, putting folders and other intelligence information away.
"I won't tell anyone, if that'll help," Iyer reassured, sensing Mina's (fake) embarrassment.
"Okay then," Mina said, turning around and walking toward the door, Lt. Iyer in tow. She just hoped that she had bought Amy enough time to get rid of whatever evidence there was left out in the open.
She walked through the door, and was greeted by Amy holding the passports.
"Here's the passports," she said, handing the blue documents over to Lt. Iyer.
Iyer took a brief look at them, then nodded her approval of their authenticity. The tourist visas were there, along with the signature from a consulate official in Houston, Texas. "I'm just going to take a look around."
Amy and Mina looked at each other. "That would be fine," Amy said, concealing her nervousness.
Lt. Iyer took a look around the flat. It was large one, compared to Indian standards, with two bedrooms, a shower and WC, a kitchen and a common area with a balcony.
"This is a nice place that your friend has lent you," Iyer asked suspiciously.
"Yeah, she's loaded," Mina replied, trying to parry Iyer's questions. Amy reached in her purse, ostensibly to check her phone but to reach for one of the pistols that she had concealed in her cleanup of the room.
"What does this 'friend' do?" Iyer pried, taking a quick look at one of the bedrooms. It was kind of messy in there, like Mina had alluded to in her previous conversation.
"She's uh…she's an accountant."
"For which company?"
"The…uh…"
"The Nakanishi Group," Amy butted in, trying to deflect Iyer's train of thought. "Look, we don't know what she does, we just asked if we could crash here for a couple of weeks while we take a break from school."
"And what school do you attend in the United States?"
Mina was sweating now; Iyer was asking a lot of questions that she didn't know the answers to and she didn't know how long she could take her questioning much longer…
"Oh god, I have to hurl." Mina went running toward the bathroom, regretting that she had brushed her teeth that morning with the polluted Indian water. She ran past Iyer, almost knocking her over in the process and barely making it to the western style toilet to throw up into it.
"Blehhhgggggg."
"Ah…I think I've seen all there needs to be seen," Iyer said, trying not to laugh at Mina's misfortune. It was a common sight in India to see foreigners (especially Westerners), get sick and suffer some sort of discomfort during their stay in India. "Thank you for your cooperation."
"You're welcome," Amy replied, also trying not to laugh. "I'm sorry about my friend over there."
"Don't mention it." Iyer left, dialing her boss back at HQ to tell here that everything was fine on her end and that she would be back shortly.
"Blehhhggggg."
"Are you okay in there Mina?" Amy yelled to her.
"I'm just fucking peachy!" Mina yelled back, then went back to throwing up in the toilet.
"Alright then," Amy said. "I'd better contact Artemis, make sure to tell him that everything is alright."
She went over to the balcony and pulled out a laptop computer that she had been hiding from Iyer and turned it on.
"Let's see if I can piggyback off of that KH-13 satellite he keeps going on about."
Within a minute, she had established a secure connection between her and Artemis, who had been panicking for the last couple of hours or so.
"Where the fuck were you!" he hissed to Amy. He was still sitting by his desk, looking around for Luna or Col. Iwasaki for help. "I was about to get Iwasaki to send a rescue team for you!"
"That would have gone down well," Amy replied, imagining a heavily armed and dangerous special operations team blazing a path of destruction through Bangalore. Oh wait…
"Yeah, but you called just in time. What the hell happened out there?"
"We just had some technical difficulties," Amy blatantly lied.
"I haven't heard that one before," Artemis said. He looked around again, for anybody in the hanger he was stationed in. Luna was at her work station and Col. Iwasaki had stepped out for a moment.
"Look, just tell me what's going on and I won't tell anyone," he pleaded.
Amy sighed. "It's really complicated," she said.
Mina continued to throw up in the background.
"What was that?"
"Mina is having some stomach problems right now," Amy said.
"Fuck you Amy!" she yelled, before blowing more chunks.
"Oh…that's not good."
"Look, I'll tell you when we get back what's going on. Bring Luna as well," Amy said, tapping her fingers on the keyboard.
"What about the others in the SAILOR team?" Artemis asked.
Amy had to think on that one for a second before she made her decision. "Not now…we'll have to tell this later to them."
"Okay. Have a good flight home. We'll have the debriefing in the usual place."
"Understood."
Amy disconnected the connection to Artemis, and continued to listen to Mina throw up in the bathroom. She listened to the sounds of the city, the auto rickshaws purring in the streets, cars and SUVs honking their horns at each other, and the general hustle and bustle of eight million people go about their usual business.
How simple life felt at the moment to Amy. There was no international conspiracies, large corporations to deal with, snipers at every turn, shadowy operatives waiting to pounce, just life as usual. How she wished for her old life back at the moment.