Foreign Body

Chapter 32

October 19, 2007

Friday, 11:05 a.m.

New Delhi, India

The oversized key made an oversized sound in the lock when Cal turned it. “We’re never going to be able to sneak up on her.” He laughed back at Durell, who was behind him. He pulled open the door and supported it until he felt Durell could take it from him. “Lock it behind you with the bolt just in case,” he added, as he descended the stairs. At the bottom, he turned and waited for Durell to join him.

“She’s a tigress,” Cal said. “So we have to be careful. She was also stark naked when they brought her, which blew me away.”

“You have my attention,” Durell admitted. “Open the door!”

Cal put the key in, turned it, and pushed open the door. Jennifer was nowhere in sight.

Cal and Durell exchanged glances. “Where is she?” Durell whispered.

“How the hell do I know,” Cal responded. Cal pushed the door fully open until the doorknob hit the wall. “Miss Hernandez!” Cal called out. “This is not going to help.”

The two men listened. There wasn’t a sound.

“Shit,” Cal said. “We don’t need complications.” He stepped into the room. Durell followed.

“Let’s lock this door, too,” Cal said. He got Durell to move so there was room to close the door behind them. He threw the bolt. “She’s got to be in one of the bedrooms or the bathroom,” Cal said. At least he hoped she’d be in one place or the other. What had him particularly confused was seeing both bathrobes on the couch.

“We can see most of the bathroom,” Durell remarked.

“Okay, so one of the bedrooms. Come on!”

Cal walked across the room and approached the doorway. He pushed the door open all the way. The only furniture was the cot, a small night table and an old-fashioned lamp, and a straight-backed chair. There was also a tiny closet, the door of which was ajar. No Jennifer. Turning around, he stepped across the hallway and passed in front of the bathroom in the process. He then checked out the second bedroom. This room was a mirror image of the other except that there was no chair.

Durell, who had come up behind Cal and was looking over his shoulder, noticed the missing chair, and the words had barely come out of his mouth when there was an earsplitting, banshee-like scream that momentarily froze both men. Jennifer had launched herself out of the shadow of the small, shallow closet with one of the legs of the missing chair raised over her head.

Cal was able to react rapidly enough to move his head so that he took the blow on the shoulder. Durell was not quite so lucky. He took a direct hit on the top of the head and staggered backward.

With yet another yell, Jennifer turned back to Cal, but Cal had recovered sufficiently to lunge forward and drive into Jennifer’s naked body as if he were an NFL lineman intent on tackling her. And tackle her he did, while she tried desperately to hit him with her chair leg. They ended up on the floor between the wall and the cot, with Jennifer flailing at Cal but without enough arc to hurt him. By then Durell had recovered adequately to step forward and grab the chair leg. He tore it from her grasp. As suddenly as the battle had started, it was over, with both Cal and Durell forcibly restraining Jennifer.

“Holy shit,” Cal said. He let go of Jennifer. Durell did the same. All three scrambled to their feet and glared at each other. Durell was holding the chair leg, entertaining the idea of using it on Jennifer the way she’d used it on him. Blood was oozing from his hairline.

“That was not necessary,” Cal snarled.

“You are the ones that are keeping me in this Black Hole of Calcutta,” Jennifer lashed back.

Durell lowered his weapon, rationality gaining supremacy. But he still glared at Jennifer. Cal returned to the other room, wincing as his fingers found the highly tender spot where Jennifer had hit him on the shoulder, aiming for his head. He grabbed one of the bathrobes he’d seen on the couch and brought it back into the bedroom. He handed it to Jennifer and told her to put it on.

Cal returned to the other room and sat gingerly on the couch, trying to find a comfortable position for his shoulder. Durell broke off from literally challenging Jennifer to give him an excuse to hit her with the chair leg. He followed Cal and sat on the couch as well. Jennifer stalked out after him. She had put on the bathrobe and tied it. She defiantly stood with her arms folded. “Don’t expect any Stockholm syndrome from me.”

“I left the lights on in here to be nice,” Cal said, ignoring her comment. “Next time you resort to violence, the circuit is going to be thrown.”

Jennifer didn’t respond.

“We came back to hear if you’d given any thought to what I said when I left earlier,” Cal said in a tired voice. “We would like to know what made you suspicious about your grandmother’s heart attack. That’s all. You tell us that and you’ll be on your way back to the hotel.”

“I’m not telling you bastards shit,” Jennifer said. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let me go now.”

Cal looked at Durell. “I think she’s just going to have to think about her situation before she’s going to be cooperative. And I need to get some ice on my shoulder.”

“I think you’re right,” Durell said, regaining his feet. “And I’m getting an egg on my head, so ice would be mighty helpful.”

“We’ll be back,” Cal said to Jennifer. With his right hand trying to immobilize his left shoulder, he, too, got to his feet. He winced.

Jennifer didn’t speak as they limped to the door. Nor did she try anything with Durell still clutching the chair leg.

After Cal locked the upstairs outside door, Durell questioned if being nice to her was the right tactic.

“You’re right,” Cal said. Going inside the garage’s first bay, he opened the circuit-breaker box. It took a bit of a search to find the circuits for the basement, but once he found them, he unscrewed the fuses.

“A little darkness should help,” Cal said.

Later, as the two wounded men were crossing the lawn to the bungalow, Cal spoke up: “I told you she was a tigress.”

“You did!” Durell agreed. “She took me totally by surprise. I thought she’d be shitting in her pants. By the way, what the hell is the Stockholm syndrome?”

“No idea whatsoever,” Cal said. “What do you think the chances are that she’s going to talk to us? I’m not as confident as I was initially.”

“If I had to guess, I suppose I’d have to say I’m not confident at all.”

“We might have to talk Veena into coming to the rescue again,” Cal said. “She’s already spoken with her.”

“That’s an idea. She could be the good cop while you and I are the bad cops, you know what I’m saying?”

“I know exactly what you are saying,” Cal responded. “And I think it’s a terrific idea.”