to reascend, then exited through the open portal.
Keshu returned to the study of the morning's readouts, the subor dinate's printout looming ominously on his desk. The Mayapur riot was winding down as a pair of rapid-response tactical squads squeezed it from two sides. Another disturbance threatened to flare up farther to the east. Near the zoo, of all places. He allowed himself a slight smile. Perhaps the city monkeys were trying to liberate their caged cousins. Or one of a number of international and/or local animal rights groups might be involved.
Six rape reports had come in since his arrival. Two arson attempts, one successful, the other quenched in the bud by automatic snuffers built into the infrastructure of the attacked building. One attempted bank holdup, unsuccessful, with both would-be robbers stunned by automated security and their getaway vehicle successfully immobi lized. Violent confrontation at a private college campus between sit-in demonstrators and campus security guards. Assorted muggings, purse-snatchings, and pickpocketings. Child-beatings, wife-beatings, hus band- beatings, beatings of household pets. Vandalism and car break-ins. Arrests for graffiti, extortion, theft of utilities, public defecation.
A normal morning.
Except for the efficient Mr. Subrata's report.
With a sigh, the chief inspector rested his elbows on his desk and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of both hands. On top of everything, his wife had been nagging him mercilessly for the past week about the vacation they were supposed to have taken last month that he continued to put off. She would wave the reservation forms for the Maldives resort in his face at every opportunity.
Smiling encouragingly, touching him affectionately while doing so, but it still counted as nagging.
What a job, he told himself. What a life. He wouldn't have traded it for anything.
Better to have a wife ragging on you than a serial killer, he told him self. Using a curt voice command to halt the heads-up readout from the box, he slipped the fingers of his right hand into the controller glove and dove physically as well as mentally into the morning's work.
*4*
Chalcedony Schneemann hated Sagramanda. For that matter, he hated India, even though he was half Indian. His mother had been born in Belgaum, in the southwest, and had grown up working in the tourist hotspot of Goa. That was where she had met his father, a German-American executive on holiday. They had fallen in love, she had become instantly pregnant, and he had taken her back with him to New York. But his mother had never for gotten her heritage. Growing up, he had been compelled to learn Hindi and Marathi as well as English and German.
For a corporate fixer whose job category supposedly did not exist, and who was paid in cash and under the table, Chal Schneemann was very well spoken.
Everyone who knew him called him Chal. He preferred it, and it worked out well, since nobody could pronounce his full first name properly anyway (he had been named after his mother's favorite semi precious gemstone). He had been in Sagramanda for six months now and was no closer to finding his quarry than he was to developing a fondness for the gigantic, seething, steaming metropolis. He missed New York badly; its comparative cleanliness, its museums and concerts, its cultured women who could converse intelligently even when they were being screwed into the floor. Even the Indian food was better there, he grumbled to himself, and you didn't have to conduct a minute inspection of the restaurant's toilet before voiding your bowels.
An impartial observer might have commented gently that Chal was not permitting himself to be open to the experience, was not allowing the charms of the great city to infuse and inform him with its multifarious delights. By way of response, Chal most likely would have beat the crap out of said impartial observer, if not for the fact that it was critical to his work that he pass everywhere unnoticed. Officially, he was in Sagramanda to advise one executive at one branch of the well-known multinational company that paid him handsomely (and under the table) to travel around the world (though most often to the subcontinent) to solve otherwise intractable corporate problems.
Less officially, he was there to find another man. A renegade employee who had disappeared in the possession of valuable company property but who was believed to still be hiding somewhere in the city. A researcher who had stumbled across a discovery potentially worth billions, if not trillions. Of dollars, not rupees. An imprudent local employee who needed to be brought back into the corporate fold before he might misguidedly pass the sensitive information he had absconded with on to another competing multinational.
How Chal went about his business was not of particular concern to his corporate masters. Were he to be caught or challenged while per forming his duty, any knowledge of him would be disowned by the same people who saw to it that he was so well compensated. They were interested only in results, not in methodology. Chal had complete freedom to do what was necessary. The cutthroat world of global com petition demanded it, even encouraged it.
Personally, Chal had nothing against the researcher who had gone astray. He would prefer not to have to kill him, or torture him to reveal the whereabouts of what he had taken. Chal was perfectly prepared to do either, or both, as the occasion demanded. What he
really wanted was to get back to New York. As always, he would do anything that would expedite his departure from the homeland of his mother. His life would have been easier had he simply based himself in Delhi or Mumbai. He categorically refused, preferring to endure the occasional monumental commute. New York was his home, America and Europe his playground. Not India.
Thus far he had been reduced to little more than following blind leads and asking endless questions. No, that was not quite true. One coworker of the missing researcher had been obstinate and had refused to answer any questions at all. Chal, who was of more than average height and weight and physically intimidating, had been forced to administer encouragement. Informing the pigheaded one that he was only doing his job, he had proceeded accordingly. Then he had been compelled to wait until the dazed, chastised coworker, remorselessly hammered down to the corridor floor, finished spitting out blood and teeth and struggled to talk again.
Yes, the bloodied, sobbing, and now fully compliant worker knew Taneer Buthlahee. No, she hadn't seen, heard from, or had any contact with the absent researcher in something like five months. No, she had no idea where he had gone, what he was doing, or what his immediate plans were.
Chal had thanked her calmly, turned to depart down the office corridor that was empty save for the two of them, then by way of farewell and a final object lesson kicked her in her already ruined mouth one last time, breaking her lower jaw. It ensured she would keep quiet until he was out of the building. In the course of his work he had been forced to beat on many people. He had never discriminated between subjects. He knew he had a bad habit of giving in to impatience, but when he required answers, he wanted answers. His life was not a movie, and he had neither the time nor the inclination to coddle the recalcitrant among those with whom he dealt.
Certainly he liked his job, though not every aspect of it. Take the travel, for example. When the company sent him to fix problems in places like London or Frankfurt, he delighted in the opportunity. Because of his background and his specialized knowledge of his mother's homeland, however, the majority of overseas assignments tended to see him working the streets and byways of Bangalore and Mangalore more often than Berlin or Milan.
He was very good at his work and prided himself on never having failed to successfully complete an assignment. The company paid him well, albeit surreptitiously. He stayed in the best hotels, always under a fictitious name that matched one of the several fictitious passports he always carried with him. Multinational corporations were even more skillful at obtaining such useful documents than were international terrorists.
Another employee might have spent as much time as possible at the five-star hotel he had chosen for his base of operations, availing himself of its programmable air-conditioning, fine restaurants, box connections, swimming pool, bakery, and direct-dial call girl service. Chal was far too conscientious for that. He would enjoy himself on his free time. There would be no idle idylls until he had completed his assignment.
His employers preferably wanted Mr. Taneer Buthlahee returned to the fold alive, or at the very least in sufficient condition to converse. At least for a few days. After that… If matters grew strained, Chal had been instructed to secure only the information that had been illegally appropriated by the wayward Mr. Buthlahee, and his employers would manage without questioning him. It was important this be accom plished as swiftly as possible,
