Jungle Justice

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“This is all to do with the Americans, I take it? Those Naraka kidnapped?”

“Those he killed. That’s right.”

“If he had not involved your people—”

“Then I likely wouldn’t be here. But he did, I am and we’re together in this thing for better or worse, if you think you can handle it.”

Takeri knew he should resist the challenge, not rise to the bait, but at the moment it seemed irresistible. “I can. I will.”

“Good man. Now, what say you go on and bring me up to speed about Vyasa. I’d like to drop in for a visit tonight, and before we do that I need chapter and verse.”

Takeri had a sense that everything was happening too rapidly, that he was being swept away, but what choice did he have? His working contract with the CIA demanded full cooperation, and he’d gone so far already in the matter that his life was placed in jeopardy. Those who had tried to kill him would already have his home staked out. At least, with the American, he had a better fighting chance.

But the Sundarbans!

“All right,” Takeri said at last.

5

As they discussed their short-range plans, the Executioner took stock of Abhaya Takeri, comparing his reticence to the forceful response he’d witnessed from Takeri in the street a short time earlier.

The change was only natural, of course. When Bolan met the Indian, Takeri had been fighting for his life, with no time to reflect on the advisability of any certain move. A kill-or-be-killed situation always tested humans to the limit. Those who passed the test survived, while those who failed were meat for the machine.

During the street assault, Takeri’s military training and survival instincts had emerged to save him, with some timely help from Bolan. Whether he would have survived alone was something else, a question left unanswered for all time, but it was clear to Bolan that Takeri had the courage, strength and will to fight if motivated properly.

Sitting in the relative security of Bolan’s hotel room, Takeri had a chance to think about what he was getting into, weigh the odds against him, letting worms of doubt nibble at his resolve. He wasn’t balking yet, but Bolan knew it could happen.

Strong men could defeat themselves before a contest started by exaggerating the prospective difficulties in their minds. Some heroes, Bolan realized, were simply men who had no time to stop and think.

What soldier started his day with plans to fall on top of a grenade? Or charge the muzzle-blast of an emplaced machine gun, armed with nothing but a satchel charge? Who got up in the morning, thinking, Man, I’d love to die today?

Bolan recognized Takeri’s hesitancy and sympathized with it, but he couldn’t afford an ally who balked when the going got tough. A guide was no use if he brought up the rear.

Bolan went briskly through the plan, watching Takeri sketch a floor plan of Girish Vyasa’s large apartment house. The layout of his living space would be a mystery until they crossed the threshold, but Takeri had spotted exits, elevators, where the doorman stood, which entrances were normally unwatched.

“You’ve thought this through,” Bolan observed.

“I guessed it might be necessary to approach him,” Takeri said, “but I had no plans to go inside myself.”

“Plans change. Go with the flow.”

The smile was thin. “I’ll do my best.”

“He doesn’t have security? No bodyguards?”

Takeri shook his head. “Nothing like that. Vyasa is—or claims to be—simply a public servant. Who would wish to harm him?”

“Good,” Bolan replied. “That makes it easier.”

He spread a large map of Calcutta on the bed, smoothing its creases with his hand, and said, “Let’s plot the route and find at least one alternative in case we have to bail.”

Takeri bent over the map, peering closely at it, finally bringing an index finger to rest on the glossy paper. “We are here,” he told Bolan, “and Vyasa lives…here.”

A maze of streets some two miles wide separated Bolan’s hotel from his target. One major street cut through the heart of it, a virtual straight-line approach with minor jogs at either end. Bolan memorized the street names, thankful most of them were printed on the map in English. Then, having accomplished that, he set about selecting paths of possible retreat.

He didn’t plan to fail but knew it was always possible. They might be intercepted prior to reaching Vyasa’s apartment—by police, an unexpected bodyguard, more of the thugs who’d tried to kill Takeri earlier—and so have to abort the mission. Even at the threshold or beyond, security devices might compel a hasty exit from Vyasa’s eighth-floor flat. In that case, they’d be glad to have escape routes plotted, memorized, ready to use.

Calcutta’s teeming streets could be a help, then, if they had to fight or run. A help…or just a maze, where all roads led to death.

Bolan spent time tracing the streets, burning that section of the map into his memory. Takeri indicated certain one-way streets, others where foot traffic made passage slow or even dangerous in darkness. The nearest police substation was fifteen minutes from Vyasa’s apartment under normal nighttime driving conditions.

Bolan listened and absorbed the information, hoping it would serve him well. He needed information from Girish Vyasa, but there was a limit to his need. He wouldn’t jeopardize the innocent, and he wouldn’t fire on police officers doing their duty.

Bolan had bruised his share of lawmen, frightened some, and even helped to put a few in prison—but he wouldn’t kill an honest cop to save his own life, or Takeri’s.

A crooked customs agent, though, was a different story.

When he was finished charting streets, Bolan turned to Takeri once again and said, “Give me the rundown on Vyasa.”

“Rundown?”

“What’s he like? Describe him physically, his habits, anything you have. Fill in the blanks.”

“Of course.” Takeri closed his eyes briefly, as if reviewing data tattooed on the inside of his eyelids, then began. “He has a birthday in October, at which time he will be forty-two years old. He is five feet and seven inches tall, weighing 150 pounds. He has a small tattoo—”

“I’ll recognize him,” Bolan interrupted. “What about the rest?”

“His customs personnel file will not have the information you require,” Takeri said, “but Captain Gupta and my private observations may, as you say, fill the blanks.”

“I’m listening.”

“Vyasa is a lifelong bachelor. Women apparently hold no attraction for him. He prefers…young men.”

“I take it that’s still frowned upon in India?” Bolan asked.

“Most assuredly. It is a fact of life, perhaps, but still repressed. There is no movement here, as in America, to bring homosexuals out of the cupboard.”

“Closet,” Bolan corrected him.

“Sorry?”

“It’s not important. Go ahead.”

“Vyasa’s lifestyle has not been exposed. He would be driven from his public office if that were the case.”

“But Captain Gupta knows?”

“Of course.”

“So, why not play that card and flush him out if he’s regarded as corrupt?”

“Again, there is the matter of protection. Captain Gupta might succeed in ruining Vyasa’s reputation, but his own would also suffer.”

“From the backlash?” When Takeri only stared and frowned, Bolan revised his choice of terms. “Reprisals.”

“Ah. Exactly so. He might not be dismissed, you understand, but there are other ways to force him out. Transfers, official reprimands, demotions based on petty incidents.”

“Bureaucracy,” Bolan replied.

“The very thing.”

It was the same in every nation, Bolan supposed. Benedict Arnold had been driven to betray America, at least in part, by petty bureaucratic slights that kept him from promotion in the Continental Army. Every government employee had at least one tale of persecution to relate.

“You think Naraka may have used Vyasa’s sex life to control him?”

“With the money, which Vyasa obviously craves,” Takeri said, “it is a possibility.”

“Okay,” Bolan replied. “Let’s go and see the man.”

BOLAN’S RENTAL CAR was a four-door Skoda Octavia, a midsize Indian model in silver that looked more like battleship gray. Before leaving the hotel room, he took the Steyr AUG from its hiding place, assembled it and stowed it in a nylon tote.

Takeri watched Bolan sling the bag over his shoulder, then inquired, “Are we going to war?”

“You never know,” Bolan said. “Better safe than sorry.”

Takeri’s expression suggested that he was sorry already, but he made no comment as they rode the elevator down and crossed the lobby, turning left and passing through a narrow alley to the hotel’s small, fenced parking lot. A middle-aged attendant dressed in what appeared to be a Boy Scout uniform examined Bolan’s key, then wheeled the gate open and waved them out into the sultry night.

Bolan had left the city map behind, trusting his memory and good sense of direction to convey him through the streets. Calcutta was a crowded, often wretched city, but it was a city nonetheless. Bolan was not intimidated by its architecture, slums or residents. His focus on the mission didn’t leave him any time to dwell on the affluence or poverty surrounding him.

The drive, some two miles and a quarter, took the better part of twenty minutes, with repeated stops for traffic lights, pedestrians, rickshaws and beggars in the street. Police were not in evidence along the route, and Bolan guessed they were spread thin across the city, drawn away from traffic duty for the most part by incessant small emergencies.

Calcutta had a reputation, dating from colonial times—the infamous “Black Hole” incident that claimed British lives in 1756—to modern acts of terrorism by the United Liberation Front of Assam. Religious, caste and tribal conflicts had inflated the local death toll over time, while random murders during rapes and robberies were downplayed by the local press. Rumors of human sacrifice to Kali still persisted from Calcutta and environs, though the case had not been proved in court. Bolan had had his own experience with Kali, and it was something he’d never forget. It was impossible to calculate the missing-person statistics, when no one really knew how many people occupied the city on a given day.

How many would be dead or missing in the morning, thanks to Bolan? He could not predict a tally, hoped that he would not be forced to kill that night, but at a certain point the choice would be taken from his hands. Girish Vyasa would decide whether to balk or to cooperate. If there were watchers at his flat, unnoticed by Takeri, yet another element of risk came into play.

No matter where he went within the city, or in India at large, Bolan would stand out in the crowd. He couldn’t pass for native, and while U.S.-European types were not entirely strangers to the region, those encountered by the natives on a daily basis were predominately businessmen or tourists, with a smattering of diplomats thrown in. Bolan might pass for a tourist at first glance, but closer examination quickly gave the lie to that facade.

This night, the darkness was his friend and Abhaya Takeri was his guide. His target was a man he’d never met, who might not live to see another sunrise. Come what may, Bolan had work to do, and he would not allow himself to be diverted from the job at hand.

An ambulance came up behind them, weaving awkwardly through traffic with its siren warbling. Bolan didn’t know if it was racing to an accident or toward a hospital, already bearing victims of some private tragedy, but he slowed to let it pass. Most of the other drivers, whether on four wheels or two, clung stubbornly to their appointed lanes.

Beside him, in the shotgun seat, Bolan noticed Takeri’s sharp attention to the ambulance. No mind reader, he still had an idea of what was happening inside his contact’s head. Takeri was unsettled, naturally, by the effort to assassinate him, that anxiety exacerbated by their mission to accost Vyasa at his home. Given a choice, Takeri might have bought a ticket on the next train out of town for parts unknown, but he was sticking to the job.

So far.

Trust was a rare commodity in Bolan’s world, bestowed on those who earned it under fire. Takeri hadn’t reached that level yet, though Bolan read him as a decent man whose sense of duty kept him for the most part on the straight and narrow path.

What would he do the next time they were challenged, threatened, placed in danger?

Only time would tell.

Bolan spotted the number of Vyasa’s drab apartment house just as Takeri said, “This is the place.” He drove past and boxed the block at a crawl, scanning sidewalks for any lookouts who might be stationed among the passersby or street corner beggars. None was obvious, and so he started looking for a parking place.

In such a crowded city, space was at a premium. Curbside parking was out of the question, and the underground garage beneath Vyasa’s place required a card for passage through the roll-down gate. Reluctantly, Bolan settled for a public garage a half block farther east, taking a ticket from a stern attendant dressed in olive drab.

Using the park-and-pay garage would slow them, coming and going, but he didn’t feel like handing Takeri the keys and having him circle aimlessly while Bolan went upstairs alone. He didn’t think Takeri would bug out on him, but he was already a hunted man, and with the Steyr in the rental car it was a recipe for potential disaster.

Bolan found a spot on the garage’s third level, nosed into it and killed the engine. Unhappy with the choice, he left the Steyr in its bag, locked in the trunk.

Takeri frowned as they stepped out, and asked him, “What about the other item?”