The airliner stopped just short of its gate at Indira Gandhi International, where the captain announced that due to a security issue, passengers should remain seated until given the all-clear. Mac looked back at Eddie in concern, getting a resigned nod in return. The plane then advanced to the jetway. A trio of armed police officers boarded, their leader speaking to one of the stewardesses before they marched down the aisle. ‘Edward Chase?’ the officer in charge asked.
Eddie smiled politely. ‘My mates call me Eddie.’
‘Come with us, please.’
He concealed his worry beneath a mock-casual shrug as he stood and was handcuffed before being led from the aircraft. Never mind finding a location to make the exchange; there might not even
He had to convince his interrogators of his reasons for stealing the Codex. If he could persuade them that letting him carry out the exchange would not only save Nina’s life but could also both recover the Codex and lead to the arrest of the man who had ordered its theft, maybe he had a chance of release . . .
That chance vanished as he was brought through a keypad-locked door into the terminal’s security area. Waiting outside one of the rooms was a man he had seen on Khoil’s plane - the one with the filed teeth.
The leading officer glanced round to make sure nobody was watching, then accepted a wad of banknotes that was quickly spirited into a pocket. ‘Oi, what’s this?’ Eddie said loudly, knowing full well what it was: Khoil had cops on his payroll. If he made enough of a scene, he might attract attention from someone honest - but the corridor was lined with interrogation rooms, not busy offices. Noisy protests would be expected, and ignored.
‘Take him with Mr Singh,’ said the officer, nodding towards a side passage that led to an exit. The two other cops grabbed Eddie’s arms as Singh gave him another unpleasantly pointed smile.
‘Get the fuck off me!’ Eddie shouted. He tried to break away, but with his wrists cuffed his actions were limited - and the two cops were prepared for trouble, one driving a fierce jab into his kidneys. They started to hustle him down the passage—
‘Stop!’ someone shouted, voice commanding. ‘What’s going on here?’
Eddie looked round - and to his surprise saw Ankit Jindal striding towards him, a senior uniformed officer right behind. The cops froze, unsure what to do - and Singh immediately took off at a run, barging through the exit.
‘These twats were about to hand me over for some private questioning,’ Eddie growled.
Kit reached him and looked down the corridor, but Singh was gone. ‘Who was that?’
‘One of Khoil’s lot.’
The senior officer glowered at his subordinates, giving them a tongue-lashing in Hindi before holding out his hand to the leader. Reluctantly, the man gave him the banknotes. The officer made a disgusted sound as the three cops filed away. ‘I will deal with them,’ he told Kit. ‘What about this man?’
‘He’s an Interpol matter,’ said Kit. ‘I’ll handle him. Do you have a room available?’
The officer indicated a nearby door, then followed the shamed men down the corridor. Eddie watched them go. ‘What’ll happen to them?’
Kit sighed. ‘A slap on the wrist, probably. Bribery is very common in India - everyone from clerks to politicians has their hand out. We’re starting to make progress, but when you have a billion people who have lived with that system all their lives, it takes time for things to change.’ He opened the door and ushered Eddie into an interview room.
‘So what’re you doing here?’ Eddie asked. He sat, Kit facing him across a small table.
‘Interpol put a red notice - an arrest order - on you. It was too late to stop you flying from New York, so I decided to meet you when you arrived. And it seems I was just in time. What on earth is going on, Eddie?’
Eddie recounted what had happened since he left the Interpol officer in France. ‘So I’m bloody glad you turned up when you did,’ he concluded. ‘Khoil - or his wife, just as likely - probably thought they could torture the Codex’s location out of me. I’d have made it really fucking hard for them, but I’m still happy I didn’t need to.’
Kit leaned back thoughtfully. ‘I’ve been looking into the Khoils. Some very interesting things have turned up.’
‘What kinds of things?’
‘A lot of financial activity. They’ve been buying up land and properties in odd locations and putting enormous amounts of money into the aid organisation they run. It’s all legal, but there seems to be an organised plan behind it all. What that plan is, though, I don’t know.’
‘But it’s made you suspicious.’
Kit smiled slightly. ‘My radar is beeping. There’s nothing connecting the Khoils directly to the thefts carried out by Fernandez’s gang, but we obtained Fernandez’s bank records, and over the past several months various sums of money went in soon after equally large sums went out of the Khoils’ businesses. Minus the percentage you would expect a money launderer to take, of course.’
‘Isn’t that enough to act on?’
‘No, it’s only circumstantial. There’s no paper trail. But I think you were right about their involvement. The difficulty will be proving it. We still haven’t got anything useful from the dead woman in Lyon, only your word that she was working for the Khoils.’
‘Have you questioned them yet?’
‘I didn’t want to tip my hand. Eddie, you have to understand that the Khoils are extremely powerful. I may be a member of Interpol, but we work in conjunction with local law enforcement. No Indian cop would be willing to risk his career by taking action against them unless he’s absolutely certain of his case - and even then, it wouldn’t take much to buy him off, as you just saw.’
‘So,’ said Eddie, ‘where does that leave us? You going to have me shipped back to New York?’
‘Perhaps.’ Kit regarded him silently for a moment . . . then produced a key and unlocked the handcuffs. ‘But not just yet. I really do think that there’s a case against the Khoils - and that if I help you, we’ll not only be able to rescue Nina, but catch them in the act. Kidnapping across international borders is Interpol’s responsibility, and since Nina was taken from the United States the trial would take place there. Pramesh and Vanita would find it a lot harder to buy their way out of trouble in New York.’
Eddie pulled off the cuffs. ‘You’ll help me, then?’
‘Yes. It will be a risk professionally - but I think the chance is worth taking.’ He smiled. ‘So what do you have in mind?’
Even on this December day, it was still over seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Eddie wound down the window of Kit’s non-air-conditioned car, but the pollution from the congested highway immediately encouraged him to put it back up. ‘Is traffic always this bad?’
‘Almost,’ said Kit as they crawled towards central Delhi. ‘But it’s worse than usual right now because of the preparations for the G20 summit. Several main roads have been closed.’
‘Politicians always have to inconvenience everybody else, don’t they?’
It took close to forty minutes to traverse the last mile of their journey, accompanied the entire way by a chorus of blaring horns and screeching brakes. As Kit had warned, closed streets forced them into a lengthy diversion before they reached the Orchard hotel, a mile from the central government district of Vijay Chowk. Someone was waiting for them in the lobby - but not, to Eddie’s relief, another of Khoil’s henchmen. ‘What kept you?’ asked Mac.
Eddie grinned and shook his hand. ‘Little problem at customs. How’d you get here so fast?’
‘I took the Metro. Less than a pound to get from the airport right into the centre of Delhi. I wish the Tube in London was that cheap.’ He regarded Kit. ‘And I thought you didn’t have any friends in India.’
Eddie made the introductions. ‘Kit’s been checking out the Khoils,’ he went on. ‘And he thinks he’s got something.’
‘Nothing definite,’ Kit said apologetically. ‘But enough to catch my interest regarding the art thefts. All I need is proof.’
‘We’ll get some for you,’ said Eddie. ‘Proof of kidnapping, too. And we’ve got the perfect bait. At least, I hope we have. Mac?’
‘Let’s find out.’ He went to the reception desk. ‘Do you have a package for me? The name’s McCrimmon, Jim McCrimmon.’
The receptionist tapped at her computer. ‘Yes, we do. I’ll bring it for you.’ She went into a back room,
