Page 19 of Into the Gray Zone

Kamal trained his binoculars on the cut, seeing a wrought-iron structure threaded with a chain and a simple padlock. He said, “The only thing that will stop us is if it’s rusted shut. We should be good.”

He lowered the binos and said, “Let’s take it back to Baga. I’ve seen enough.”

Varsha said, “About time. I’m getting hungry.”

Kamal gave Manjit the side-eye at the comment, and Manjit hit the throttle, bringing the bow out of the water and causing Varsha to grab for the gunwales. Kamal smiled but said nothing.

The rest of the trip was spent in silence, as the outboard and wind made it impossible to talk without shouting. They went around a rocky point, the top crowned by Fort Aguada, the bottom housing the jail where Sidak had died, and Kamal was happy for the silence, not wanting to talk.

They reached a section of flatland, the sand stretching for kilometers, and cruised past multiple beaches, the surf shacks of each shuttered, waiting on the tourists yet to come. In another month, each of the beaches would be jammed with sunbathers and swimmers, but withmonsoon season fading but still threatening, just a few beachcombers could be seen. Another plus for the mission.

Manjit cut the throttle and they motored into the section of shore known as Baga Beach, the small hamlet of Baga just beyond. Kamal could see Tito’s Lane standing out as the beating heart of the town, the lane of bars and nightclubs dead-ending right at the beach.

Manjit cruised into the shore, lifting the outboard as the surf grew shallow, the bow crunching into the sand a good four feet from shore.

Kamal said, “Varsha, we’ll get this.”

Varsha leapt out of the bow, splashing into the ankle-deep water and trudging to shore without a word.

Manjit said, “Why’d you do that? This damn thing is heavy, and we could use his muscles. It’s not like he does much of anything else.”

Kamal hopped out and steadied the bow, letting Manjit lash down the outboard. He said, “Because I wanted to talk to you alone, before we get back to the room with the rest of the team.”

He waited until Manjit had finished and leapt into the water, then they both heaved the heavy wooden boat farther up to shore, resting the bow in damp sand.

Manjit let go and said, “What’s up?”

“We’re going to have to do something about the Thugees.” Kamal used the nickname Manjit had given the two men Mr.Chin had provided.

“What do you mean? You don’t think they’ll be with us?”

“No, I don’t. They’re only in this for the money. They’re not going to be too happy when we kill Mr.Chin and they lose their paycheck.”

Kamal could see that Manjit wasn’t comfortable with the idea. He continued, “We can’t take the chance that they try to prevent us from removing Mr.Chin and stealing his boat.”

“So you want to kill them too? I already told you I wasn’t good withkilling any civilians on this mission, and this is pretty close. I know they’re not innocent, but it doesn’t mean I want to start slaughtering anyone who might stop us. We need to maintain our honor. For the cause.”

“I understand that. I don’t want to kill them either, but I don’t see a choice here.”

Manjit nodded, thinking, then said, “Mr.Chin has threatened us. He’s basically said we do this or we get tortured as terrorists by RAW, so he has become an enemy. We don’t know if these two men are the enemy. Maybe we should broach what we’re trying to do. Maybe they’ll join us. We could use the help.”

Kamal shook his head, saying, “If they don’t agree, they’ll immediately tell Mr.Chin. We’ll be done. We can’t take that risk. They aren’t Sikhs and don’t care about our cause. In fact, they may want to harm usbecausewe’re Sikhs. We’ve both seen that before.”

They walked in silence for a moment, entering Tito’s Lane, the nightclubs and bars closed and looking shabby in the sharp light of day, each of them waiting for the sun to set before starting life again, when the neon lights would hide their scars.

Kamal said, “How about this? We don’t kill them. We just push them overboard within sight of the shore. Let them swim out.”

“They’ll be caught by the police looking for us.”

“So? That’ll help the mission, and we aren’t harming them. All they can do is lead the police to Mr.Chin, and after we reach his boat, he’ll be dead.”

Mr.Chin had dictated that once they had successfully captured the billionaire, Thakkar, they were to rendezvous with him just like they had on the Sidak rescue failure, but this is where Mr.Chin’s plan would end. Kamal intended to kill him, throw him overboard, and then take Thakkar for exploitation in support of the Sikh cause.

Exactly what that exploitation would be was an open question. Kamal honestly hadn’t thought the endstate all the way through yet.

Manjit thought about it for a moment, then nodded, saying, “That would work. I can live with them swimming to shore.”

Kamal smiled and patted him on the back, saying, “Good, because I need your mind right for this. I’m sure Mr.Chin will call tonight.”

---