“Coconut water has electrolytes,” is her sales pitch.
“I don’t want it, thanks,” I say.
“Did I ask?” is Hala’s charm-filled reply. “Drink it.”
I drink. The freshness of the cool liquid on my tongue feels like relief. Hala watches me while she sips too. If nothing else, it’s calmed my breathing, just by making me swallow a lot. And the truth is, I was getting thirsty.
“Better?” she asks.
I nod my thanks. The sun is slowly sinking behind houses and the last, crimson rays glitter on windows and sparkle on the windshields of cars in driveways. It’s coming up to seven thirty; about the time that Jingo should be leaving for his 8 p.m. extramarital rendezvous. Sure enough, within a few moments, his front door opens and he gets into his car. During the day he has a driver hanging around, but I have no doubt that he prefers to do this kind of excursion on his own. Hala watches him pull out, then waits for several other vehicles to pass and fill the space between us before she follows.
As we drive, Caitlin’s voice comes in over the comms:
“Blood tests are still in progress, but so far they’re showing nothing.”
I’m relieved but also doubtful. “Are you sure?”
“I mean, they do have the diphtheria and tetanus antibodies,” she says. “But nothing else. So, it looks like they were clean vaccines.”
“Did they check for everything?”
“All the basics,” Caitlin confirms. “A couple of the girls are low on iron; normal stuff like that. But there’s nothing sinister that cuts across all of them. This is just first-round, basic testing and they still have more detailed tests to do. Stuff that takes longer. But it’s a good result to start with, Jessie.”
Hala looks at me with a brief smile of relief.
“Feel better?” she asks.
“A little,” I say, trying not to scowl. But the truth is I don’t feel completely relieved about the girls. I’m still wary. The men who had access to them just shot at me in the lab this morning, so something is up. We just don’t know what it is yet, what clue or information is hanging there, just outside our reach. I look out of the window, keeping my thoughts to myself while Hala negotiates the traffic. It is great the blood tests were clean, and yet . . .
“What’s the matter?” Hala says.
I don’t have an answer for her, but out of the blue, I come up with the word that sums up how I feel right now. Dread. But what I’m dreading and why, I really have no idea.
Up ahead of us, Jingo turns into a side street and parks his car. We stay on the main road, hidden by the constant flow of pedestrians and traffic. This is not the address we tracked on the cell phone. But it seems that Jingo’s just taking precautions. When he exits the car, he’s wearing a cap and glasses, which create an effective disguise. He walks back in our direction, onto the main road, making sure to look around him discreetly. But he can’t see us. Hala has tucked our car behind a busy street stall selling hot fried samosas. Jingo hails an auto-rickshaw and we watch him get in and instruct the driver.
We continue to trail Jingo for another ten minutes or so, through streets that twist and turn, finishing up on a residential street that feels quiet and wide; expansive and expensive. The rickshaw stops about a hundred yards ahead of us. We park and watch. Jingo pays the driver and waits for him to leave before crossing the road and heading into the driveway of a detached house, enveloped by overgrown bushes and trees.
“Let’s go,” says Hala.
As we exit the car, I put in my night-vision contact lenses. They have the added benefit of turning my own green eyes a murky shade of brown. It’s not a full disguise, but it’s something. Immediately, I can see Jingo’s outline, small in the distance, going to the back door of the house, which opens and shuts briefly to let him in. We circle around toward the house, trying to decide the best way in.
Once whitewashed, the exterior of the place is now faded, coated with layers of peeling paint. But the structure itself is beautiful—a wooden, two-story home with plantation shutters at the window frames and a porch that winds around the sides.
“I can’t see any cameras,” Hala says, glancing at me for my opinion.
“Me neither,” I reply. Maybe Jingo realizes that the smart way to cheat on his wife while upholding family values is to not leave any digital evidence that he was ever here.
We pad quietly up to the house. The rooms are dark except for one on the ground level, and one on the floor above. We check out the downstairs room first, through the window. It’s empty and a subtle glow of lamplight illuminates an expansive living room filled with beautiful paintings and antiques. A fireplace, set ready with kindling and logs, completes the country club look.
“He must be upstairs,” I whisper. Hala nods, pointing up to a very low light issuing from a room on the top floor. It’s to the rear of our position in the grounds below. We walk around to the back door that Jingo used to come into the house. It’s not a hard lock to pick, and it leads us directly into a clean, tidy kitchen.
Moving stealthily past, we both pull up neck scarves to cover our mouths and noses, then climb up wooden stairs that are worn with age, and also creaky, even at the edges. I signal Hala
