Money to Burn

62

BURN WAS MOTIONLESS, CROUCHED BEHIND THE SECOND ROW OF passenger seats inside the helicopter. Ivy was belted into the seat in front of him, her hands still cuffed, afraid to move or make a sound. Burn’s gun was pressed against the base of her skull.

Ivy’s phone lay in the seat beside Burn, and Cantella’s cell was still transmitting to it. The speaker was switched off, however, with Burn listening through earbuds. The attack on Ivy in the emergency room had filled Burn’s risk-taking quota for the evening, and it was important to eavesdrop now more than ever. Ivy’s mother seemed to be losing her nerve.

“I’m getting a bad feeling,” she said, her voice playing into Burn’s earbud.

“He’s only five minutes late,” said Volke. “I’m sure he’ll be here.”

Burn glanced toward the aisle to where the pilot lay on the floor-a dead heap, his neck broken.

Don’t bet on it, folks.

Burn peered out the window. The glass was tinted so dark that no one outside the helicopter could have possibly seen him. Still, he was cautious, raising his head up just enough to see out, not an inch more. The five-gallon fuel cans he’d filled were still in the corner, ready for use. The Sikorsky’s turbine engines used Jet A fuel, and Burn had filled two portable cans-more than enough to torch the entire building, let alone the helicopter and its passengers. His gaze drifted back toward the triangle of conversation near the maintenance office, and as he watched, a strange feeling came over him. Before tonight, he’d never set foot in this hangar, yet there was something eerily familiar about the situation, if not the setting. The cold concrete floor. The bright garage lights shining down. Two men. One woman. The situation growing increasingly tense, the woman on edge. And the smell of kerosene. It was on his hands-Jet A fuel was a derivative of kerosene-and the odor triggered memories. Kerosene was cheap and plentiful in Mumbai.

It was the preferred fuel for bride burning.

His sister’s screams were suddenly in his head, along with the indelible image of her husband and brother-in-law dousing her with kerosene and setting her afire in the garage. He hadn’t actually seen it happen, but her wounds had told the story. For five horrendous days in the hospital, Charu-her name meant “beautiful”-had managed to survive with burns covering 95 percent of her body. He never left her side, knowing what they had done to her. By the time she expired, he could see the men in that garage unleashing their unspeakable cruelty on a twenty-year-old woman from the Dhravi slum whose family was too poor to pay the expected dowry.

And all these years later, he could still see it.

“Wait a second,” said Volke, his voice transmitting through Burn’s earbud and drawing him back to his mission. “I dialed his office number. Let me try his cell.”

The words struck panic: The pilot’s cell!

Burn dived toward the body and snatched the phone from the pilot’s pocket. It made a slight chirp-the ring was just beginning-before he managed to remove the battery and kill the noise. He quickly went to the window and checked to see if Cantella and the others had heard the ring from inside the helicopter. He wasn’t sure. But it was time to make a move.

He removed the earbuds and switched off Ivy’s cell. Then he pressed the gun firmly to the side of Ivy’s head and, with the other hand, unfastened her seat belt.

“Stand up slowly,” he said, “and if you do exactly as you’re told, maybe the others will live.”