Chapter 1

Old Delhi, India

Day One, August, 1968

 

“He wants to blow himself up!”

“He wants to—what?”

Nawaaz’s chest tightened. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. That was nothing unusual for summer in Old Delhi, but this wasn’t about the heat.

“He wants to be a martyr,” Nawaaz said. “Blow up a building with, um, lot of people inside—like blowing up the whole meat market in Old Delhi and killing hundreds of people.”

“Are you sure you’re talking about our son Akbar?” Shabnam asked. “This heat must be getting to you.”

Nawaaz slumped on the hard wooden seat of the public phone booth, with one foot propping the spring-loaded door open so he could breathe. He clutched the telephone receiver in both hands. “It’s not the heat, bad as it is. I just talked to your brother Harun. He’s on the bus, and he looks scared. I'm every bit as upset as you are. I'll tell you all about it when I get home tonight, but right now I've got to—”

“No, God, no! Where is my son? Oh, Allah, where is my son? Is my son okay?”

“Shabnam, listen honey, please listen—”

“And how does Harun know all this and we don’t?”

“I don’t know yet. Harun needs to visit the CBI office on Agra Road and tell them everything. Then, he said, he’ll come to our house tonight and tell us all about it. So let’s—”

The conductor knocked on the glass panel of the booth, gesturing for him to come out and start the bus.

Nawaaz glanced at the vehicle, an old Leyland, listing slightly to the right, which looked as though it dated back to colonial days. The passengers were sticking their heads out, kids crying, some fanning their faces. With a sigh, he closed the warped glass phone booth and stayed inside. He could tolerate the heat for a few minutes.

“When did Harun talk to him?” Shabnam asked. “Where does he want to do this—in Dubai?”

“No, not Dubai. Harun said Akbar is in America.”

“Oh, no! Allah! America? How did he go to America? And why?”

“Times Square…Wall Street, or something like that. Harun was whispering. He was afraid somebody would hear what he was saying. He said he shouted at Akbar, asking questions. Then there was static on the phone, and they got cut off.”

Her crying grew worse. “It will be like those airplanes they blow up, won’t it?”

“Don't cry, Shabbo. I will talk to him. We will both talk him out of this tonight, before he does anything foolish. I can't believe he wants to do such a thing on his birthday.”

“On his birthday? Oh, my God!” Shabnam cried out. "He’s just a big kid—he’ll be barely eighteen in one week.”

“Honey, listen—”

“No! In seven days all hell is going to break loose. Call the police. Do something. I don't want my son to get killed. Please!”

“Shabbo, listen, listen—I’m in a hurry. Don't tell anybody anything about this until I get home, okay, honey? This is very dangerous. We could all be locked up in jail. This is called terrorism. You pray, honey. Say your Namaaz prayer. Maybe we can talk him out of this plan, whatever it is. Please, Shabbo. Be patient, my love.”

Nawaaz looked out to make sure no one could hear, then whispered into the phone.

“He has told Harun his whole plan. I'll tell you all about it tonight, as soon as I return home, okay?”

The conductor again knocked on the glass.

“Damn it!”

Nawaaz hung up and threw the glass door open so hard it almost came off the hinges. He didn't care if it shattered into pieces. He stalked across the street to the bus and pulled himself behind the huge, almost flat, steering wheel. He breathed a deep sigh.

He could not tell his dear wife everything he’d learned from Harun, who was on the bus now. Harun had begged Nawaaz to take him to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) headquarters, ten miles away, where he would expose the people behind the plot. Nawaaz had tried to persuade Harun to tell the police then and there, but Harun refused. He said the police would never trust him because of his past history, and certain people would kill him for being a snitch. But if he were in CBI office, he could point them to evidence and they would listen. This was a new kind of terrorism, aimed at America instead of Israel.

“Nawaaz Sahb!” the portly conductor shouted from the back of the bus. “The bus is full. Gaadi chalao: move the vehicle!”

And indeed the bus was full, over the limit in fact. So much so that Harun had to stand on the entrance steps, right across from his brother-in-law, with whom he tried to avoid eye contact so no one would suspect anything.

Nawaaz turned the key. When the glow plug indicator came on, he stepped on the starter. The big diesel engine rumbled to life in a cloud of black smoke. He blipped the accelerator, knowing smoke would drift to the back of the bus and annoy the conductor.

Outside the hazy bus window flowed the normal, everyday life of the Jama Masjid, the great mosque. Inside, hundreds of faithful joined together for Friday’s Jummah prayers. Outside, various hawkers—the onion-beef samosa peddler, the biryani-maker, and the rose water-instilled faluda-maker—awaited the massive crowds that would soon emerge.

The aroma of Mughlai food wafted through the bus windows. Nawaaz’s hungry stomach gurgled. But at the same time, he felt nauseated. How could Akbar, his own son, contemplate something so horrendous? If Harun had not had an attack of conscience, what might have happened?

Under his breath, he joined the faithful in prayer. “Allah raham pharma—God have mercy on me.”

The conductor slammed the back door shut and pulled the bell rope three times. The engine had warmed enough to move without stalling. Nawaaz shifted into gear, swung the bus ponderously around, and uttered the Islamic words for a blessed beginning. “Bismillah hirrahman nirahim—In the name of Allah, the most beneficent, the most merciful (I begin this task)!”

In seven days, his teenage son would act. Seven days.

Chapter 2

Aroostook County, Maine

 

Technically, it was still summer in Aroostook County. Yet Dr. Jonathan Kingsley could feel hints of autumn in the shadows of the pine forest. He and Gauri had just hiked a short distance inland from the public parking area so he could show her the splendor of his birthplace.

One hundred-year-old pines towered above an open park-like area covered with fallen pine needles, soft and springy as carpet. While they walked hand in hand, Jonathan regaled her with stories of his father, a forester and local legend.

He took a deep breath. “I didn’t realize how much I missed this place.”

“Yes, I can see that. You seem different here.”

Jonathan put his arm over her shoulder and pulled her close. “Different how?”

Gauri stopped and looked up at him. “When we first met at the ashram, you were a man in pain. You had compassion, as you always do, caring for the local villagers. But you could be abrupt. I still remember the time you yelled at the cook for serving nothing but naan and butter three meals in a row.”

“It was good naan, too. Those were hard times.” Jonathan inhaled again, savoring the tang in the air. “So how do you find me now?”

“You seem comfortable and at peace here. Do you think this is where you need to be?”

“Maybe, my darling, but I don’t know yet.”

“But if…”

“You’d be okay with that?”

Gauri nodded. A cool breeze swept strands of her long black hair across her face. She pulled at her shawl, wrapping it closely around delicate shoulders and the layers of colorful, traditional Indian dress that hid the secret of her lovely body.

“This isn’t India, but I could get used to it.”

Jonathan wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “That’s very generous,” he whispered, “but I won’t hold you to it until you’ve lived here for a winter. In January it’s often below zero for a week or more at a time.”

She leaned into his embrace, gently stroking the back of his neck. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Fahrenheit. That would be about eighteen below, Celsius.”

“Oh.” She stopped stroking.

Suddenly, he wanted to be intimate with her, right there on the carpet of pines. Out of respect he tempered his urges, as he often had in the months since their wedding at the ashram. He feared pure carnality would feel like aggression, instead of the protective love Gauri needed most. He pulled his bride into a patch of direct light and let the summer sun warm their bodies.

“I want to kiss you,” he whispered.

She smiled through happy, spontaneous tears and tilted her open mouth to receive his lips. He couldn’t stop his hands from exploring her breasts and the slope of her back. As wind rushed through the tree tops, birds called, and the vast wilderness of Aroostook County collapsed around the lovers and embraced them in everything that was natural and good.

Gauri freed her lips and stared into his eyes. “Do you want more?”

“Yes,” he said.

But when Jonathan began to remove her outer garments, Gauri froze. Her eyes widened, and she backed away.

“What?” he said. “Darling, I’m sorry. We don’t have to—”

“No, no, Jonathan, look!” She spun him around.

A figure burst through the brush and stumbled toward them with outstretched arms, uttering a piercing cry. The assault happened so fast, Jonathan could do little more than raise his arms and grab at the gnarled claws that reached for his face.

Jonathan realized the creature he held at bay was a woman. She was filthy from head to foot, her face darkened by layers of grit, soil, and sweat. Her once-blonde hair was caked with mud and a tangle of twigs and leaves. Her pink sweater was in rags, and she was delirious, alternately weeping and babbling.

Gauri stepped forward. “Jonathan, what’s happening?”

“I’ve no idea.”

The woman collapsed to the ground, her fury spent. Jonathan and Gauri knelt beside her.

“Who are you?” he asked gently. “What’s happened to you?”

He took hold of the woman’s face and forced her to look at him. She was still delirious, gone to the world. She kept repeating the same nonsense syllable. He placed one hand on her forehead and felt heat radiating from her. Her tongue was swollen, her lips dry and cracked. He checked for the carotid pulse in her neck and found it was faint, rapid, and irregular.

“Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba!” she cried.

“What’s she saying?” Gauri said. “She wants to tell us something.”

“I don’t know, but we need to get her to a hospital. She’s dehydrated. She could die.”

Gauri shivered. “Death is going to follow us even here, isn’t it?”

“I hope not.” Jonathan looked wildly around, hoping for someone to show up and deal with this situation. The woman in front of him had obviously been brutalized, and he’d seen enough of that in India to last several lifetimes.

“Jonathan?” Gauri said. “Let’s get her to the car.”

She was right. Regardless of what happened, he had a duty as a doctor and a human being. Jonathan turned the woman so her back lay against his chest. Gauri knelt and took hold of the lower legs. On the count of three, they lifted and stood.

The woman flew into a rage. She pulled her feet loose and kicked Gauri in the chest, knocking her backward onto the ground. Jonathan almost went down as well, barely holding on to her shoulders.

“No!” he shouted. “We’re friends. We need to get you to a hospital. Let us carry you to our car. Listen to me!”

The woman turned, spat at him, and lunged at his face with fingers made dangerous by broken nails. Fending off the attack without further harming the woman put Jonathan back on his heels. He wasn’t sure he could hold her off for long.

Trembling from exertion, he lowered her to the ground and felt for a pulse. Gauri moved close and gently brushed filth and stringy hair from the woman’s face.

 

 

 

“We have to find help! We—”

“She’s so weak,” Jonathan said. “We have to carry her to the—”

“Jonathan?”

“We have to do this now, Gauri.”

“But Jonathan, is there an ashram in this area?”

He was astonished by the question. “Here, in northern-most forest of Maine?”

Gauri carefully brushed more filth from the woman’s forehead and pointed to the round red dot between her eyebrows. A bindi, like the one Gauri wore on the very same spot; the sixth chakra, the point of concealed wisdom.

“Do you remember where we parked?” he shouted to Gauri. “Can you find the car?”

She spun in a circle, scanning the pines.

“No. I don’t remember how we got here.”

“Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba!”

Chapter 3

Old Delhi, India, Day One

 

On the outskirts of Old Delhi, the roads were so rutted and uneven that Nawaaz had difficulty maneuvering his bus, especially when crowds of pedestrians pressed in from both sides. In the rear-view mirror he could see passengers thrown left and right, sometimes lifted off their seats, as he swerved or braked suddenly to avoid a hole or cavernous crack in the dry, unpaved surface. Aside from the steady stream of abuse they heaped on his head, the constantly shifting weight of the passengers added to the challenge of keeping the bus on track.

This was typical bus travel. Nawaaz gripped the wheel tightly as he did every day. He was so familiar with his long routes that he’d memorized bad stretches and learned how to navigate them. Even so, he never knew how the roads beneath his wheels might be reshaped by heavy rain or drought. Also, this museum piece drove quite differently from his usual slab-sided Mercedes, which was in the shop today. Even before he called Shabnam, he had been running late while the mechanics found him a bus to drive. Now he had to make up time on bad roads in an unfamiliar machine.

But his real problem was that he couldn’t concentrate on anything but Akbar. He must call his son, talk some sense into him, and make him see the folly, the wickedness, of what he was planning.

“Watch the road, you idiot!”

The voice of a large woman sitting directly behind Nawaaz was like cannon fire—explosive and damaging to the ear. She had complained at nearly every turn of the road since they had left the city, as if every bump were a personal insult. The only competing sounds were the honking and braying of other vehicles on the road. Yet this time Nawaaz was actually grateful for the annoying woman. His distracted mind was genuinely dangerous.

“Yes, thank you,” he said.

Nawaaz put his full attention on the road ahead. He had learned not to quarrel with his passengers. He had learned the virtue of courtesy.

But that did not help him decide what to do about Akbar.

Since Akbar had begun working for the Sheikh in Dubai, he’d grown more distant. He called less often, and when he did phone home, he seemed in a hurry to get off. Once he had burst into a rant about the plight of the Palestinians, only to grow silent when Nawaaz asked him what in the name of the good God he was talking about. And now, to call his uncle and say goodbye, to talk about his plans as if he were proud—

“Hey! Watch out, idiot!”

It was the fat woman again. This time her words were accompanied by a thick hand swatting the back of Nawaaz’s head. Instinctively, he raised his right hand from the steering wheel to fend off another blow.

That was a mistake.

The bus crossed over into the lane of oncoming traffic, into the path of a speeding truck. He had a brief glimpse of the other driver’s horror-stricken face.

Nawaaz yanked hard on the steering wheel. But the wheel didn’t respond.

The trucker had better luck. He managed to swerve off the road and miss the bus. Then the bus dropped off the pavement onto the grassy shoulder.

Nawaaz tugged on the wheel again. Suddenly it almost came loose in his hands, spinning wildly. The bus, now heading down a hill, picked up speed. Below him lay a rusted bridge over a muddy river. He stomped on the brake pedal, but it sank to the floor so hard it wrenched his ankle.

He was vaguely aware of a fury of honking horns and his passengers’ screams. He grabbed the parking brake handle and pulled back with all his might. The rear brakes squealed, but the bus barely slowed. With a snap, the handle jerked loose.

The bus’s front wheel clipped the railing, throwing the front corner of the bus into the air. When it came down, it was headed back onto the road.

Nawaaz pulled hard on the steering wheel, screaming.

The bus cut back across traffic, but this time Nawaaz wasn’t so lucky. A sedan hit the rear wheel, spinning the bus sideways toward the bridge. Nawaaz hit his head against the windshield, shattering it. He began to lose consciousness but was vaguely aware of the bus hitting the bridge sideways, rolling, and breaking through the railing.

At the point of contact, the bus’s door blew open and Harun was ejected into the river.

Amid deafening screams of thirty-one souls, Nawaaz’s fading senses felt the teetering bus, progressively leaning forward with halting creaks and the salty taste of blood dripping from his forehead.

Motorists and pedestrians on the bridge saw only a rusty, old death-wish of a bus that had traveled its last mile.

Chapter 4

Aroostook County, Maine

 

Kerri Reynolds was strolling across the gravel parking lot of the Allagash Volunteer Fire Department, heading to Pop’s Cafe for a takeout order, when she heard screeching tires and a siren. As she turned, a black Ford Fairlane swerved from the main road, an Allagash police cruiser on its tail, red lights spinning and siren screaming.

The car skidded sideways, spraying gravel against the firehouse wall before halting across the main bay. The driver leapt out, followed by a young Indian woman wearing an orange and yellow dress that wrapped around one shoulder.

Before Kerri could open her mouth to speak, the man shouted, “We have a medical emergency here. I need a saline drip, stat.”

The police cruiser skidded to a stop near the tail of the first vehicle. Carl Taylor, the county sheriff, leapt out and charged toward the man.

“What the hell’s going on? I’ve been chasing you for a mile.” Taylor’s bulldog face was bright red.

“My name’s Jonathan Kingsley, and I’m a doctor. We’ve got a dying woman in the back seat. We need an ambulance.” He turned back to Kerri. “And a saline drip. Now!”

“I’m just the dispatcher.” Kerri trotted over to the car and opened the back door, revealing a filthy limp woman passed out in the back seat. The smell of vomit and urine hit her in the face.

“Holy…” Carl peered over her shoulder. “You did the right thing, Doc. Kerri, get your guys out here. We need the ambulance.”

Kerri rushed back to the firehouse, into the tiny dispatcher’s office. “Where we going, Carl?” she called over her shoulder.

“Call for Medevac in Presque Isle. Tell them we’ll meet the chopper halfway…um, the main parking lot at St. Froid Lake.”

Kerri hit the scramble button. The siren in the tower began blowing the medical emergency code, and she heard shouts from the firefighters’ quarters above the garage. By the time she got back out, Carl and Jonathan were rushing toward the fire truck and ambulance. Mike Henley, a young, muscular EMT slid down the brass pole and hit the floor running.

“What’s going on?”

The doctor stood in the doorway looking around. “We need the stretcher and blankets,” he said. “And an IV setup.”

Mike opened the back hatch of the vehicle and pulled out the stretcher in one clean motion. Then he grabbed for blankets.

Jimmy Carr, a round bald man, slid down the pole.

“Carl, what’s up?”

“Take the stretcher out to that car and load the woman on it, then bring her here,” Mike said.

“Be careful. She was agitated earlier,” the doctor shouted after them.

Within a few minutes the men had extracted the limp woman from the rear seat and strapped her onto a gurney. Kerri trotted alongside the stretcher and tried to get a look at the woman’s face, as if something looked familiar. She was such a mess it was hard to tell. Good chance she was local.

“Mary Bragdon called last week to say her daughter Anna’d gone missing,” the sheriff said. “Nineteen years old, I figured her for a runaway. This doesn’t look like any nineteen-year-old, though.”

“Someone really did a number on her,” Mike said, stating the obvious. “Look at those bruises on her arms. She’s a train wreck.”

“You think?” Kerri moved closer and brushed long hair from the woman’s face, noting more bruises on her neck. She looked closer. “I can’t believe it.”

The doctor followed them from the car, carrying a medical bag. “You know her?”

Mike swept more damp hair from the woman’s face as he pressed his fingers against her neck to check for a pulse. “Holy shit! It’s Reba Garr, Darren’s wife.”

“What?” Carl said. “It can’t be.”

“She’s lost a lot of weight,” Mike said.

“Reba, can you hear me?” Carl shouted. “Who did this to you? Where’s Darren?”

Reba’s only response was a loud groan. Her eyes rolled back in her head.

“Come on, guys,” Jimmy said. “Get her on board. We’ve got to move.” He helped Mike load the gurney into the ambulance, followed by the doctor, who rummaged through the shelves for an IV kit, grabbed her left arm, and applied a tourniquet.

Kerri watched in awe from the ambulance doorway. They’d never had an actual doctor on the ambulance. He made everything look easy.

Mike stood behind the doctor, passing him supplies. An IV bag hung on a pole beside them. “How’s it going, Doc? Want us to start moving?”

Doctor Kingsley rested one hand on the woman’s cheek and stared at the cardiac monitor for a few moments. Then he sighed and climbed out of the ambulance.

“You’re good to go. I’ve got the IV running wide open, if the vein holds. Keep a close eye on it. And watch the monitor—her heart’s starting to fail.”

“Roger, Doc.” Mike closed the back doors and ran around to the side. “Hey, do you want to come with us?”

The doctor met his wife’s eyes. Something unspoken passed between them.

“Yes, you bet,” he said. “You stay here, honey. I’ll be back.” Jonathan kissed Gauri on her cheek and got on board.

The sheriff’s cruiser bolted from the parking lot, followed by the ambulance with lights and sirens blazing.

*****

He’d done everything possible under these conditions, but the woman remained listless and unresponsive. She had to make it, though. She was young, her body strong. Surely her heart would keep pumping until she had enough IV fluid on board to sustain life.

The young EMT seemed to read his mind. “I bet she’ll be okay. She’ll be back home in no time.”

Jonathan looked at Reba’s pale body. Why had the woman run almost directly to him and Gauri when she needed help the most? Was he there to stop her unnecessary death?

He sighed and stared at the rolling hills of Maine, blanketed in summer leaves, just showing hints of their fall shades. Coming home was supposed to erase the trauma and pain that he and Gauri had suffered over the past six months. Yet it seemed that everywhere he went, death followed him.

The screeching sirens of the ambulance echoed in his mind. He flashed back to the radio announcement he’d heard six months earlier, as he travelled by car to the ashram in the Himalayas.

“A young woman vows to burn to death voluntarily,” the announcer for All India Radio reported. Jonathan had leaned forward from the back seat, straining to hear the evening news over the pounding rain and whistling wind of an Indian storm.

“Speaking from the vigil at her husband’s deathbed,” the announcer continued, “Seeta, a 22-year-old schoolteacher from the village of Baramedi, has announced that, upon his death, she will join him atop a blazing pyre, hold his head in her lap, and travel together with her beloved to heaven. She is to become the first suttee India has seen in a half decade. More on this in a moment.”

“Did you hear that?” Jonathan said. “It can’t be true. A suttee in 1967?”

The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “Sir, what can I say? Baramedi is the same village in which the last suttee happened many years ago. Anything can happen there. Bride-burning, dowry-death, suttee—you name it, sir.”

The trip to India, responding to an advertisement for a volunteer physician to serve a poor mountain community in Himpal, had been meant as a respite from the maelstrom of professional and personal tragedies back home. He’d looked forward to his arrival at the ashram, a spiritual hermitage whose mission was to educate and rehabilitate young women abused by incest, rape, prostitution and the threat of death. It was chance to use his medical skills to help people in an exotic location—a welcome change from the drudgery of his bleak, aimless life in Portland, Maine.

 

A radio crackled. Jonathan’s mind returned to Maine and his new bride, left behind with the dispatcher.

Death is just a passage between two incarnations, he reminded himself. That was what Swamiji said. Death was not something to be feared. But when Jonathan looked at the evil that would torture and break a woman like Reba, it was hard not to recoil. He wished Swamiji were here to gently talk him back into the light, to show him the way.

Jonathan and Mike started CPR. Reba remained listless, her skin turning cold. Jonathan listened to her heart. Looking at Mike, he shook his head.

Mike grabbed the microphone and messaged the patrol car.

“Carl, good buddy, you can slow down and turn off the siren and –”

“What’s going on?” Carl shouted.

“She’s dead!”

Chapter 5

Old Delhi, India

 

Shabnam huddled in a chair beside the hospital bed, her face covered with a faded old sari that hid the tears rolling down her cheeks. Nawaaz didn’t seem to know she was there, but she held his hand and watched a machine pump air into his lungs, over and over, through a tube down his throat.

“Allah, forgive me. It is all my fault. I shouldn’t have asked you to drive that bus, but just to come home. What am I going to do? God, please save my husband’s life. I’ve nobody—nobody—”

Someone touched her shoulder. “Shabnam, please don’t cry,” a gentle voice said.

The voice was familiar. She wiped her tears and looked to her side. “Mohanji!”

“Yes, Shabnam, I just came from the temple. I said a prayer for your husband. Lord Krishna will save his life. You will see.”

“Oh, Mohanji! I am so glad to see you. May Allah bless you and your family. I’ve nobody of my own. I think my brother was on the bus with Nawaaz, but no one can find him. And my son Akbar—he, he is…I don’t know.” She wept again.

“Don’t worry, Shabnam. I’m here. Please, sit down. Let me get you a glass of water.”

Shabnam wiped her face again and struggled to compose herself. Mohan mustn’t think her ungrateful. He’d obviously taken time from his busy job as private duty driver for Jaya Prakash Joshi, an influential superior court judge in New Delhi. The judge, who was trained at Oxford University, had many British and American friends. Over the years, Mohan had become the judge’s right-hand man, which carried a lot of weight in their middle class neighborhood. Everybody knew and respected Mohan—and everyone sought his help and guidance in difficult situations.

He offered a plastic cup filled with water. “Here, Shabnam. Please stop crying. I’ve already shared the news of the bus accident with Judge Sahb, and he plans to visit the hospital to see Nawaaz.”

“Oh, my God! The Judge here in the hospital? I’m so ashamed. Look at my shabby clothes, my—”

“Shabnam, don’t worry about your dress. The whole of Delhi is up in arms. They had to carry out one injured passenger at a time. The bus is hanging over the bridge, ready to plummet into the Yamuna River at any time. The accident has the entire Agra Road blocked. You have no idea. Judge Sahb will be here as soon as he is free from the court.”

“But—but Mohanji, I can’t speak to such a great man. I am a poor and uneducated Muslim woman, and—”

“Shabnam, you are worried over nothing. I am here with you. I’m not moving from here until Judge Sahb has arrived. No worries.”

Shabnam grabbed Mohan’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you, my brother. Allah has sent you to me as an angel. Shukriya, Allah.”

As she released Mohan’s hand, Shabnam met the eyes of a uniformed man who peered into the room for a few moments, then backed away to join three other armed men who stood with him, in the lobby outside Nawaaz’s room.

Mohan whispered under his breath, “Damn. Army commandos. What the hell are they doing here?”

Mohan pulled up a chair and settled beside her. They sat together in silence for a few minutes, listening to the noisy machine keeping Nawaaz alive. The room adjoined the hospital lobby, where a constant throng of humanity passed to and fro. The uniformed men stood by themselves.

“Have you eaten, Shabnamji?” Mohan asked. “You must take extra care with your blood sugar under such stress.”

“Thank you, Mohanji,” Shabnam said. “I have brought some food with me, but it is easy to forget.”

Keeping an eye on the guards, Shabnam gulped down the glass of water Mohan gave her. Who were they guarding? They seemed to stay very close to Nawaaz’s room.

“Why are Army guards here?” Mohan asked, as if reading her thoughts. “Do you know what caused the accident?”

Shabnam shrugged. “No one has told me anything.”

“Hmm. I wonder. Was this just another accident, or a deliberate act?”