“Jaz, wait.”

Had I written the scene, he’d have run and hurled himself at the door before I could reach it. But I suppose that would be out of character—his words are enough of a departure as it is. I stride over and kiss him. He holds back only for a second or two before allowing himself to fully join in. We close our eyes and the next instant, are young and brash once more. Racing through parks, playing with toy trains, lying in each other’s arms on balconies and barsatis again.

The threat of danger recedes to the sidelines as we fall into bed, still kissing. I realize how much I have craved his body, how much I have missed it. The way my mouth fits the hollow of his throat, the press of my belly against his waist—a scent, a taste, returning from the mists of nostalgia, my very own madeleine. I take off my shirt and rub my chest against his in that familiar long-ago way, smile to myself when curls of our hair snag again. We divest ourselves of the rest of our clothes and lie there, savoring the contact between even our mundane parts—toes, knees, clavicles, shins. Already, I look greedily beyond his body—I want another shot at an entire lifetime with him.

And then Sarita’s shadow wafts in. I see it first in his eyes—her memory flickers across his face. She’s not so assertive a presence that I couldn’t divert attention with a good roll in the hay. But I hesitate, handicapped by a sudden affliction of guilt. Wouldn’t Karun want to know about her waiting just a few buildings away? Am I taking advantage not only of Sarita, but also of him? Is withholding information (lying, some might label it) the best way to rekindle a relationship? The nape of my neck tingles—Sarita might as well be peering down at us like a mural from the ceiling. “Perhaps this isn’t such a good idea,” I say, hardly believing the words as they emerge from my mouth. “We need to get going, figure out our escape.”

Karun seems relieved to agree. “There may be a way out through the basement.” He starts looking for his clothes and covering up his body with distressing alacrity—socks, undershirt, shirt. “The bomb shelters there are the one area they keep off-limits, stupidly enough—we’re free to roam the building everywhere else.” He’s rummaging for his briefs, describing Bhim’s crazy utopia project, when I pull him back into bed—despite the advancing danger, the Jazter needs to fortify himself with at least another nip of physical contact. I love you, I want to declare, but only if I can be sure of hearing him say it as well. Instead, I squeeze my thighs around him and kiss the back of his head.

He reciprocates with a quick half-kiss before spotting his pants and slipping off the bed. I gather my own clothes—it’s time to cover the ol’ Jazter as well. “So tell me, how did you get into the hotel?” Karun asks, still searching for his underwear, as he holds his trousers by the belt.

“I rode in on an elephant.”

He laughs. “The ones collecting money from the crowds, that Bhim funds his operations with? And how much did you have to pay the elephant to find what room I was in?”

“Actually, the elephant only told me how to get to the dining room. It was lunchtime, he said, so you’d surely be there.”

Karun shakes his head. “I’ve stopped going. It’s safest that way. You never know who might be spying on you—too many of Bhim’s men. That’s the mistake Moorthy made—spouting off against everything, never could stop being a firebrand. After he vanished, I just started getting the food delivered to my room—thankfully, they’re willing to do that. I hope you left once you couldn’t find me, didn’t stick around to chat.”

“Well, I had to chat a little, to find you. But only with science and engineering types, all of them. Let’s see—there was Sethi and Jayant and Deepender and Das. He’s the one who gave me your room number—seemed to know you quite well.”

Karun stares at me. “Das? The stubby one with the mustache? He’s the most snake-like of them all—has his fingers in everything, from top to bottom. I wouldn’t be surprised if he personally engineered Moorthy’s disappearance.” He frantically throws off the pillows from the bed, finally uncovering his underwear. “We should have left right away as you said—quick, get dressed.”

I’m fishing my own underwear out from the pile of clothes I’ve assembled when the door lock makes its familiar whirring sound. It opens, and two guards burst in, followed by Das. All three stop and gawk at us, flustered by our state of undress. Finally, Das speaks. “Really, Dr. Anand. I never would have guessed.” His eyes focus directly on what I’m trying to hide. “With a Muslim, no less.”


THROUGH HIS YEARS of forays across beaches and parks, through his entire illustrious career as a shikari, one unsung achievement sets the Jazter apart. Except for that single time with Harjeet, he’s never been caught with his pants down. Which is why Das and company’s appearance is such a shock. I scramble to enrobe myself, even though the secret, so to speak, is already out. Perhaps I should have flaunted things, stared the villains down. Surely Bond would have acted nonchalant, proud.

Despite his attempt at wryness, Das is visibly relieved once we are dressed. He glares at the guards to arrest their smirking comments, then gets very chatty, trying to smooth over the situation, perhaps. “We’d been expecting your friend,” he tells Karun, as if talking about an extra dinner guest. “The guards at the front entrance alerted us, and we saw him looking around through the garden cameras as well.” He turns to me and inquires whether the journey to the dining room went smoothly enough. “We had to figure out your intentions, find out whom you came to see, where you went. Sorry to barge in like that, but the microphone in the room wasn’t working very well.”

He leads us to Bhim’s suite on the third floor with a profusion of “This way’s” and “Mind your step’s,” his manner so collegial that he might be accompanying us to a university colloquium. “You’re lucky Bhim’s here today—he has so many other centers to tend.” The outer room is set up as an office, complete with computers and file cabinets—a secretary informs us we’ll have to wait awhile, Bhim is busy with someone else. “Always a problem when you come to see him,” Das laments.

So we sit there, like in a doctor’s waiting room—one sorely lacking in magazines, but with guards at the ready to ensure we keep our appointment. Das gabs on, about the weather, the city, even the physics Karun researches—interspersed with his babble, I notice crafty attempts to tease out information of more consequence. He’s very interested in our relationship—whether we know each other in a professional, or only the biblical sense. He tries to ferret out who the maiden accompanying me to the annex was, where she might be now, how I got into the hotel. He asks such keen questions about my purported geological expertise that I’m forced to confess my true field is finance. “Why didn’t you say so?” he exclaims. “I could have introduced you to our economists sitting at the very next table. We have other fields here too—Bhim’s been collecting the brightest and best in all of them.”

We wait almost forty minutes. I keep glancing at Karun, wanting to sit closer, to hold him in my arms for comfort, for reassurance. The Jazter has paid no heed to danger all this time, but now that he’s found his love, fear has also found him. With it, an emerging wistfulness about the future, a seeping dread that we may not make it. Karun’s face displays neither the anxiety nor the yearning I feel—I can tell he is meditating to quiet himself.

The door to the inner chamber bursts open, and a pair of Khakis emerge, propping up a man between them. Blood trickles down his brow and around both sides of his nose from a cut on his forehead. “That’s Sarahan, Bhim’s chief commander,” Das whispers. “He looks after practically everything, so much so that I’ve been lending him a hand. I wonder if—” He calls out as the guards go past. “What happened, Sarahan kaka? Are you all right?”

The inquiry revives the bleeding man, who pulls himself free and lunges for the door. But the guards tackle him almost at once. They punch him till he’s quiet, then drag him across the doorstep into the corridor outside.

A buzzer goes off on the secretary’s table. She presses a red button and the sound stops. “Bhim kaka will see you now,” she announces.


BHIM STANDS AT A DESK with his back towards us—the great leader himself, absorbed in the contemplation of his own greatness. Despite myself, I feel a slight frisson—a bit like catching a glimpse of a film star or president. Except one who looks less imposing in person, shorter than expected. Could this be worthy enough a villain for a Jaz Bond script? The room around him is disappointingly bereft of props—no tigers a-growling or skinned on the floor, no map on the wall charting world control. A few more guards, yes, but where are the thumbscrews, the torture rack, the electrodes? “Come in,” he says, and turns around. I look into his eyes: They seem to reveal only affability as windows to his soul.

Then I notice the red on his cuff, the blood on the floor, the baton on the table splintered in two. Das takes it all in as well, and his curiosity spills out. “We saw Sarahan leaving. Did something happen with him?”

Bhim ignores the question. “So you’re the gentlemen they spied snooping around. I suppose I should be honored—people normally try to leave, not get in. Were you hoping to assassinate me? Is that how I can be of assistance?” He turns to Das. “Have you found who sent them? I thought there was only one, not two of them.”

“There is only one, the one on the left. Apparently, he came by himself. Not for you but Dr. Anand, next to him.”