Page 86 of Into the Gray Zone

Kamal dropped his weapon on its sling, keeping one hand on the daughter’s arm while his other hand reached for a grenade.

***

Knuckles pulled Troy out of the line of fire and said, “Where are you hit?”

“It creased my chest. I’m okay, I’m okay.”

Knuckles rotated back to the entranceway and Troy rolled upright, aiming low underneath Knuckles’ firing arm, both of their barrels sticking into the room.

They were met by a fusillade of automatic fire driving them back, the bullets chipping the stone around the door. The firing ceased, Knuckles waited for a second, then whipped his weapon back into the room, Troy following his lead. Outside of dead bodies, it was empty.

Troy said, “Shit. They took my principal.”

He stood up, running to the open French doors. Knuckles shouted, “Wait! Not straight behind them!” but it was too late. He muttered, “Shit,” then launched himself through the room and dove out the door, expecting to feel a bullet as soon as he exited.

He rolled upright, his pistol at the ready, and saw Troy running down the path ten feet away. He leapt up, trying to catch Troy and get him to pause a moment instead of running willy-nilly after a group of terrorists wearing body armor with AK-47s and a propensity to kill.

Knuckles shouted, “Troy! Stop!”

Troy said, “I see them! I see them!” and Knuckles heard a faint springlike twang, then a small thud in front of him, like a rock had been thrown. Remembering the patio, he hit the earth, screaming, “Grenade!”

It went off, launching Troy in the air and hammering Knuckles with overpressure. His ears ringing, he crawled forward, finding Troy’s body split almost in half, his innards splayed on the ground, his eyes open, lifeless. Knuckles stood up, took two faltering steps forward, then took a knee, shaking his head to clear the fog.

He heard a vehicle start, then the squealing of tires, with a final flash of brake lights disappearing in the night.

Chapter50

The sun began cresting the horizon, and Kamal felt like he was becoming a danger while driving. He simply couldn’t keep his eyes open and had caught himself swerving to the side of the road twice. Manjit was asleep in the passenger seat next to him, Jaiden in the back, his head nodding down while he was supposed to be watching the hostages.

They’d made it out of Jaipur by the skin of their teeth, literally a miracle that Kamal attributed to Agam’s attack at the Taj Mahal. If the authorities hadn’t been occupied six hours away, they would have descended with a blanket of steel, locking down the entire city.

Because they were otherwise committed, the response was haphazard. The local police had tried to implement road closures with little success, none of them being fully informed of what they were attempting to accomplish. One checkpoint they’d passed through was using the checkpoint order to fleece everyone who was unlucky enough to be on that road. Kamal and his follow car were that unlucky, but they made it through for a few rupees, and then they were free, racing away from the city limits.

From there it was a comedy of errors to find a safe route to Mumbai. Randeep had mapped the original path after three hours of research,but he was dead, and Kamal found out quickly that smartphone mapping applications didn’t have an option for “back roads to avoid the police.”

Randeep’s planned route off major thoroughfares was supposed to take just over twenty-four hours. Now, after eight hours of driving down one wrong highway after another, they were way behind, and Kamal was starting to fall asleep at the wheel.

He saw Jaiden shift in his seat and said, “I’m going to pull over. I need to swap out with Manjit.” Jaiden said, “I have to use the bathroom anyway. Find a spot to stop.”

Kamal said, “Yeah, I’m with you. The follow car probably needs a change-out as well.”

Jaiden said, “We need food too.”

Kamal looked at Manjit sleeping next to him and said, “I’ll pull over at the next place.”

Four minutes later, Kamal saw a roadside stop with signs begging drivers to come in for food and tourist trinkets. He put on his turn signal and drove into the parking lot, the sedan behind matching his exit. He parked, waiting for the follow car to come next to him. When it did, Jaiden exited, said something to the two in the car, then went inside. Kamal looked at the hostages in the back of the van.

They were lined in a row, blindfolded and flex-tied on both their wrists and ankles. The two women were trembling, even after eight hours of driving, their fear evident. The man appeared to be passed out.

He crawled through the front seats to the back of the van and checked the man, not sure Jaiden even cared if they were alive or dead. He touched his neck and the man jerked awake, batting Kamal’s hands away with his own flex-cuffed ones and shouting in English.

Kamal trapped his arms and, in English, said, “Shut the fuck up,right now, or you’re dead. I don’t need you. I have Thakkar’s daughter. You’re just extra baggage at this point.”

He saw fear on the man’s face, even behind the blindfold. The man said, “I’m famous in the United States. You don’t want to kill me. I’m worth something.”

Kamal said, “We’ll see about that.”

One of the men driving the follow car came up, and Kamal exited the back of the van. He closed the doors, saying, “Just watch them from out here. Let them roast in the heat for a little bit. If we aren’t back in thirty minutes, open the door and give them some water, but don’t let them move otherwise.”

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