Dead Spy Running

32

‘Can we assume that Marchant was at the club?’ Fielding asked, off the floor and back sitting upright at the dining-room table.

‘It’s a Wednesday night,’ Denton said, glancing at the flat screen mounted on the wall. It was now relaying Sky images of a burning Gymkhana Club. ‘We’ve spoken to Warsaw. Bridge night was all he had to go on.’

‘Are you saying you knew where Marchant was?’ Alan Carter asked. He had joined them again after stepping outside the Chief’s office to make a couple of calls to Langley. At Fielding’s request, Anne Norman had reluctantly connected him on a secure line.

‘I thought you knew too,’ Fielding replied.

‘We knew he was in India.’

‘He was to make contact with a colonel who used to work in Indian intelligence. Kailash Malhotra, former number two at RAW. He played in a bridge drive at the Gymkhana on Wednesday nights.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Carter said. ‘The DCIA wants Marchant brought in. I’ve just spoken to his office. He’ll be patched through shortly on the secure video link.’

‘I thought you were more interested in Dhar.’

‘We are. But we’ve also got our new President flying into Delhi Saturday.’

‘We must let Marchant find Dhar.’

‘The timing of this bomb couldn’t be worse, Marcus. I’m not going to be able to hold the hawks back if Marchant was at the club. Spiro isn’t completely out of the picture. The Director and him go way back. It’s a Marines thing. After this, Spiro will be telling him to go after Dhar with everything we’ve got. And it’s hard not to agree with him.’

‘Except that you don’t know where Dhar is.’

‘But the colonel did. He could have told us, told you, saved a lot of time, a lot of lives.’ Carter glanced again at the TV screen. Burnt and blistered bodies were being lined up beneath the club’s Lutyens porch.

‘He would never have told us,’ Fielding said. ‘Our relationship with Delhi is better than yours, but Dhar’s an embarrassment to them. RAW tried to recruit him once.’

‘But he was happy to tell Marchant of Dhar’s whereabouts.’

‘We hoped he might be. He was once very close to his father. But we don’t know what he said. Right now, we don’t even know if Marchant and Malhotra are alive.’

Carter paused. ‘It doesn’t look great, does it? Daniel Marchant, suspected of trying to kill the US Ambassador in London, now at the scene of a bomb blast in Delhi, three days before the President arrives there.’

‘Except that you and I both know that Daniel Marchant wasn’t behind either of those incidents.’

‘He just happened to be present at both. I’m losing my nerve here, Marcus. Remind me why Marchant’s on our side?’

‘Because he’s being set up. And if it’s not by you, then someone’s got us both by the balls.’

‘What makes you so certain?’

‘I knew Stephen Marchant. And I know Daniel. If he’s still alive, he’ll make contact with Dhar.’

‘Who’s walking around Delhi blowing up clubs.’

‘This wasn’t Dhar, Alan. Trust me on this one. Whoever planted this bomb was after Marchant.’

There was a knock on the door, and Anne Norman’s head appeared. She looked straight at Fielding, ignoring Carter. ‘Sir, I’ve got Langley on the line. The DCIA’s ready to join you.’

‘Screen two,’ Fielding said. ‘Thank you, Anne.’

‘Mind if I take the lead on this one?’ Carter said as she closed the door.

‘He’s all yours,’ Fielding said. William Straker, Director of the CIA, flickered into life on a screen next to the one that showed a smouldering Gymkhana Club.

Daniel remembered the red-shirted porters from his last visit to India, when he had travelled the length and breadth of the subcontinent by rail. But he had never seen so many of them before, bobbing through the crowded concourse of Nizamuddin station with suitcases on their scarved heads, sweating, sometimes smiling, always shouting, followed by anxious tourists trying to keep up. For once, nobody pestered him. Porters approached and then melted away, clocking that the farangi had no bags. Or was it the blood and soot on his clothes? They probably thought he was a drug addict, one of the many Westerners who end up begging on the streets of India for enough money to fly home.

He had washed as best he could when the rickshaw dropped him off at the entrance to the station, buying some bottled water at a food stand on the main concourse. It had been the right decision to come straight there, rather than try to pick up his rucksack from the guesthouse. His room would have been searched and ransacked by now. Marlowe’s passport and money were strapped safely to his leg. He would buy new clothes when he was safely out of Delhi. His ticket, third-class, to Karwar, near Gokarna, was in his pocket. All he had to do now was find platform 18, where the Mangala Express to Ernakulam would be leaving in half an hour, twelve hours behind schedule, which wasn’t so bad for a seventy-seven-hour journey.

As he made his way across the concourse, stepping over sleeping bodies and broken clay chai cups, he became aware of a commotion ahead of him, alongside a train that seemed to stretch forever in both directions. Two Western backpackers, both of them young women, were being harangued by an Indian businessman. Marchant slipped into the large crowd that had gathered to watch.

‘How dare you come to our country wearing your next-to-nothings and skimpy whatnots, and complain that our men are Eve-teasers,’ the businessman was saying shrilly. The argument appeared to have been running for several minutes.

‘The guy pinched my bloody arse,’ the younger of the two women said. Marchant detected a faint Australian accent, adopted rather than native, as he glanced at her figure. What little clothing she was wearing wouldn’t have looked out of place on a caged go-go dancer. The elder woman was dressed more modestly. Marchant pushed through the crowd, sensing an opportunity. The cover of travelling in a group would be useful. The women were trapped. When the elder of them told the other one that they should go, the crowd pressed together, preventing them from moving. ‘Out of my way, will you?’ the woman said, panic rising in her voice. ‘I need to get on this train. Hey, stop it! Get off me!’

‘Kareeb khade raho,’ the businessman barked as the crowd pressed against the women. ‘Close in, close in. We keep them here until the police arrive. These Western harlots must be taught a lesson.’

‘Kya problem, hai?’ Marchant said as he reached the businessman. ‘Is there a problem?’ He could smell alcohol on his breath.

‘And who are you?’

‘They’re travelling with me,’ Marchant said, glancing at the two women, who were now visibly frightened. Something in his eyes must have told them that he was on their side.

‘So you must be their pimp.’

‘Kind of,’ Marchant said, resisting the temptation to punch him. ‘We’ve just come from filming the new Shah Rukh Khan movie,’ he said, his voice loud enough to be heard by the crowd. Marchant was thinking quickly. While waiting for Uncle K to meet him at the reception of the Gymkhana Club, he had read in the Hindustan Times how the US President had hoped to visit a Bollywood film set while he was in India, but his itinerary was preventing it. Shah Rukh Khan was making a film at the Red Fort in Delhi, a joint production with a Western company. The star had extended a personal invitation to the President to watch the filming while he was in town.

‘Shah Rukh?’ one of the crowd asked excitedly.

‘Sure. We were only extras, though,’ Marchant said.

‘Did you meet him? My God, you met him, didn’t you?’ said another member of crowd. ‘He met Shah Rukh!’

‘Only to say hello to,’ Marchant continued, looking at the businessman, who clearly didn’t believe a word of what he was hearing. But the less educated crowd, as Marchant had hoped, was already beginning to turn.

‘What was he like?’ someone else called out. ‘Did you hear him sing?’

‘No, we didn’t hear him sing. They add the soundtracks later, you know. But we did see him dance.’

‘With Aishwarya? Did you see her dance, too?’

‘Of course. We were in a large fight scene, playing dirty, filthy Westerners of low moral standing. And I apologise for our appearance now. We had no time to change. The sooner we can board this train the better, then we can dispose of these offensive garments.’ Marchant turned towards the two women. ‘Follow me towards the train as soon as the crowd starts to back off,’ he told them quietly.

‘How can you prove this fanciful story?’ the businessman asked, as Marchant put his head down and made for a carriage door. The crowd, as he had calculated, started to part for the Westerners, ignoring the businessman, who found himself being carried away in the tide of people. ‘And why didn’t these two women mention any of this before?’ he called out after them.

Marchant let the two women climb up into the carriage first, then followed them, before turning to wave to the crowd.

‘You’re not fooling anyone,’ the businessman persisted, pushing his way to the edge of the platform. Marchant was aware that the public scene he had created needed to end quickly. The police would arrive soon, questions would be asked, statements taken. Up until now he had avoided using force, hoping to defuse rather than exacerbate the situation. But the businessman had a doggedness about him that troubled Marchant.

‘Drugs only deceive yourself, my friend,’ the businessman said. ‘You don’t fool me.’

‘I know I don’t,’ Marchant said, leaning down towards him, his mouth close to the man’s ear. ‘But what I do know is that if you try to come after us, or talk to the police, or identify us to anyone, I’ll personally break your neck, just like Shah Rukh does in the film.’