The Shiva Objective

NINE

After wiping it clean of prints, Nina set down the sniper rifle, then stood and straightened out her sleek red dress. She slipped back into her expensive sandals, stretched her toes, and then turned and nodded her thanks to the large man behind her, back near the stairwell. Rakesh smiled, hugging the children wrapped around his tree-trunk sized legs. Moments later they were gone, through the door and out of sight.

She closed her eyes, and for just a moment, relived the cathartic moment in that basement a few hours ago, when she had burst in on the captors, the two men guarding Rakesh's children. She had taken great delight in ending their lives before going to the locked room, rescuing the boy and girl and getting to know them a little before using her new phone to send a JPEG of their smiling faces to the phone she had given Rakesh.

Now she used her phone to dial a different number. She turned her face east, to feel the warmth of the sun rising over the sprawling jumble of rooftops. On the second ring, a man's voice answered.

"Yes?"

"Waxman. It's me. My business here is done."

"Was it… as we foresaw?"

Nina turned her attention to the Taj Mahal, basking in a transcendent reddish-purple glow. "More or less."

"I see."

"Oh, I also learned what happened to the one you hoped to recruit."

"And-?"

"And I avenged him."

"Ah. Well then, come back as soon as you can. We have a new objective."

Nina hung up. She closed her eyes and the image of the Taj Mahal remained behind, mysterious and elusive — as if it had many secrets left to reveal, ones it had successfully kept from even the best of seers. She sighed and opened her eyes to gaze at the distant mausoleum. The palace. The temple.

And she bowed her head.

Perhaps another time.