world. Determined to help bring the perpetrators of those offenses to justice, he’d left the service and started a nonprofit group called War Criminal Watch, devoted to tracking down human rights violators wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague and by other tribunals around the world.
Since they were not affiliated with any law enforcement agency or non-governmental organization and made virtually no money for their work, they were known as the Volunteers. They gained a reputation throughout the free world for their brilliant detective work in tracking down elusive criminals.
For various reasons, the group had disbanded some years ago, and Middleton went on to his beloved music, Leonora Tesla to do relief work in Africa and the other Volunteers to their own lives.
But recently a vicious, wanted war criminal who’d eluded them for years surfaced with plans for terrible carnage. The Volunteers were forced out of retirement. They managed to apprehend the killer-though only after Middleton’s ex-wife was murdered and his daughter was nearly killed by her own husband, who turned out to be connected with the criminal.
Realizing that he could no longer remain in academia while such evil continued to thrive, Middleton decided to start up the Volunteers once again. The group included three of the original members: himself, Leonora Tesla and Jean-Marc Lespasse. New to the group were Connie Carson and Jimmy Chang, who now was back at headquarters outside of Washington, D.C. The slightly built Taiwanese-American had a miraculous grasp of languages, advanced degrees in computers and science and a love of research-Lespasse called him “Wiki” Chang after the on-line encyclopedia. Middleton’s daughter also helped them out.
Glancing now at Balan, who struggled to sit up straight after the Taser jolt, Middleton sure hoped the interrogation was successful. They desperately wanted to capture the man’s boss. Devras Sikari was a curious character. Born into a poor family in Kashmir, the disputed territory in the north of India, Sikari had somehow managed the impossible: He’d attended an elite school in England. A brilliant student, his mind sharper than many of his professors, he’d studied engineering and computer science.
There were rumors that he was being bankrolled for his entire education and living expenses, but no one knew who it might be; the source of his underwriting was anonymous. As soon as he left university, he’d shunned dozens of offers from large British firms and returned home to India, where somehow-no one quite knew how-he amassed some significant start-up capital. He began setting up engineering and computer companies and making millions in India’s burgeoning high-tech world.
Then, having made his fortune, he disappeared from Mumbai and New Delhi, where his companies were based. “Not long after that he surfaced in Kashmir,” Jimmy Chang had explained, “and became a combination warlord, insurgent and cult figure.”
Chang had briefed Middleton and the other Volunteers about the Kashmir conflict. Formerly known as a “princely state,” Kashmir has been the object of a deadly game of tug-of-war for more than half a century. India and Pakistan each control separate portions of the region, while China exercises authority over a smaller section of the northeast. But the partition is merely tolerated; both India and Pakistan claim that the entire state is theirs and have fought frequently to assert ownership. The massive, fertile area has been the basis for perhaps the closest nuclear confrontation between nations since the Cuban missile crisis in the 1960s.
Devras Sikari settled in Jammu, in the Indian-controlled and largely Hindu portion of Kashmir, and now lived largely underground, surrounded by hundreds of followers, though he was known to travel outside of the country frequently using false documents, diplomatic papers and disguises.
He’d spent the past several years orchestrating the slaughter, kidnapping and torture of Muslims, Pakistanis, Buddhists and Christians in Kashmir-anyone who wasn’t Indian or Hindu and anyone he felt had no right to be in the region of his birth or a threat to Kashmir independence. He was suspected of massacres of entire refugee camps and villages, and he even made incursions into the Pakistani-controlled portion of Kashmir.
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court had wanted to bring him to justice for some time but were stymied because India isn’t a member of the Court, so Sikari’s crimes, though horrific, couldn’t be prosecuted at the ICC. But Middleton managed to find a loophole: The Volunteers discovered that Sikari had been responsible for committing murders in nations that
The only problem was finding the elusive man. But finally they turned up a lead: a source at Interpol reported that Sikari was spotted in Paris making inquiries about buying sophisticated hardware and software used to find sources for underground water. This was odd, though. Kashmir was one of the few places in the world where water was plentiful. The name of the state, in fact, comes from the words
Middleton seized this chance-as he joked to the other Volunteers-“to flush” Sikari. He’d flown to Paris posing as an American geologist and tried to arrange a meeting with Sikari or his representatives.
But no one took the bait. So Middleton left a clear trail to the south of France, pretending to be vacationing with his wife and friends, in hopes that Sikari or an associate would try to find them. They’d been here only one day when NATO and French army surveillance units reported that they were being followed-by a dark- complexioned man who might be Indian.
Perfect, Middleton had thought. And he and Leonora Tesla set up the sting.
Now, the former colonel walked to Balan and crouched down. He said, “Water? Food?” Middleton believed in respectful, measured interrogation.
There was no point in psychologically-let alone physically-abusing prisoners. That was, he’d learned, counterproductive.
“I want nothing from you people.” He gave a faint sneer.
Middleton glanced up once more into the hills above the beach. He saw the white van again. Or perhaps it was another one. It was about a half-mile away, parked. There was glare on the windshield. He didn’t know if anybody was inside or not. Perhaps it had no connection to Balan. But Middleton was suspicious. He called to one of the French troops. “Please, could you go check that van out?”
The man squinted. “It’s just one van of many I’ve seen. They’re very common here.”
“If you don’t mind.”
“It is wise to separate our forces?”
“Please,” Middleton said patiently.
The French officer shrugged and climbed onto his motorcycle and roared up the beach road.
Tesla’s phone rang. She answered, then announced, “It’s Interpol. They’re going to brief me about Balan.”
She turned away and jotted notes as she listened.
Middleton said to his prisoner. “Kavi, we know you were sent here to kidnap or kill me. And we know it was Devras Sikari who ordered it. Those are the facts and they’re not in dispute. Now, you’re going to jail for a long time. There’s nothing that’s going to change that. But I can make sure that the prison you go to is tolerable or is hell on earth.”
“You can do to me what you want. You are all-”
“Shhh,” Middleton said amiably. “I’m not interested in speeches. It’s a waste of your time and it annoys me. Now, what I want to know is how can we find him? Sikari?”
“I don’t know where he is.” The man laughed. “And if I did, you’d never get the information out of me.” He glanced down at his hands, cuffed in front of him and chained to a waist shackle that Wetherby had carefully locked around him. Middleton thought at first that he was going to complain about the handcuffs but, no, he was simply staring fondly at a wide copper bracelet on his wrist.
Balan’s eyes shown fiercely as he continued. “You don’t have any idea who you’re dealing with. You’re not worthy to even stand in his shadow. You’ll see, though. You’ll see.”
Middleton wondered about this. Did he mean something specific? Or were the words just empty posturing?
He asked more questions, but the prisoner proved no more cooperative.
Middleton’s radio cracked. The French soldier was calling to report that he’d found no one in the van. He was checking the registration. He signed off.
Maybe it was nothing. He thought of the officer’s comment about dividing the forces. He looked around and
