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accelerated up the road, the old man broke into a run, gesturing threateningly
with the gun in his hand. He might have fired once; neither Taneer nor Depahli
could be sure. But the determined merchant was still dizzy from the blow to
his head and could not take proper aim.
Standing behind counters and sitting at a desk had not prepared him for trying
to run down a public vehicle. He slowed, staggering, and stopped. Bending
forward at the waist, hands resting on his knees, he gasped for air as the
silent rickshaw sped on out of sight.
"There's nowhere you can go, you and your slut!" he wheezed loudly. "Wherever
you go, wherever you run to, I will find you! On my honor, I will find you!"
Scientist and dacoit did not hear him. The unpretentious, unadorned interior
of the electric rickshaw enveloped them, shutting out the outside world,
blocking out the last, ineffective threats of Taneer's hidebound father. Once
again there were only the two of them. Soon it would be that way forever.
Then the scientist started laughing. The rickshaw's owner glanced back
briefly, eyeing him through the window of the passenger compartment before
returning to his driving.
Alternately smiling and confused, one hand on her beloved's shoulder, Depahli
looked at him with some concern. "Taneer Taneer, my darling, my sweet man are
you all right?"
Choking back tears, he took her other hand in his and looked into her
beautiful face, perfect down to the single red jewel that glistened on her
forehead. "I was just thinking, Depahli. Though I have great respect for all
the traditions of my family as well as those of my ancestors, I'm not really
what you would call a religious person. But after all the prayers of my
childhood, and all that were never answered, I have to admit that Lord Ganesh
finally came through with some help."
"Very substantial help, I should say." Her smile grew suddenly uncertain. "Do
you think that your father will ever be able to find us and make trouble for
us again?"
He shook his head. He was confident now, sure of himself and his future. Of
their future. "My father is a smart and clever man, but only within the world
he knows. That is the world of eastern India, from Sagramanda south to Puri
and onward as far as Visakhapatnam. He knows nothing of the world beyond
except what he has seen in movies and on the vit, and that will not be enough
to enable him to find us even if he can find the will and the money." He
smiled at her. "Besides, he knows nothing about skiing."
She cocked her head sideways at him, one golden earring dangling. "Skiing? You
know nothing about skiing either, Taneer."
"I know. But I will, and soon. You will, too."
Turning, pressing her back into the single bench seat of the rickshaw, she
snuggled close, his hand still holding hers. "I have never seen snow, my love,
except on the tops of the Himalayas, from a distance. In the movies, everyone
is always talking about how cold it is."
"They're right." He let his cheek rest gently against the top of her head. "It
is cold. But we won't be."
Forensics had largely finished their work, and the morgue detail was cleaning
up. Even for those who dealt daily with the violent consequences of the
seemingly endless conflicts that characterized Sagramanda's merciless
underbelly, the remains of the bodies of Jena Chalmette and the tall assassin
were sufficiently grisly to make a strong man blanch. It was what they were
paid to do, however, and the crew went about its gruesome work enveloped in a
respectful professional silence.
Keshu and his people were able to readily identify the foreign woman not only
by matching her image to that of the carefully crafted computer composite, but
through the false identification papers she carried in her large shoulder bag.
The assassin proved more problematical. He had no individual ident on his
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person, and they could not attempt a visual match because, due to the tiger's
brief but ferocious intercession, the dead man's face had largely gone
missing. The chief inspector was not concerned. Subrata and his resourceful
colleagues would work their magic with research and reconstruction to produce
an identification.
He knew that not only had they found the mystifying, secretive serial killer
they had sought, but that the government of India and the municipality of
Greater Sagramanda were to be spared the expense of incarcerating and trying
her. It was not the resolution he had sought, but it was one he was content to
live with. Of course, there remained the mystery of what the three, and
subsequently five, people she had been stalking had been doing in the middle
of the night in a restricted area of the Sundarbans Preserve, but that was not
a problem for him to puzzle out. Others should, and would, attempt to follow
up on that.
Then what was he still doing here? he suddenly asked himself. The sun was up,
the temperature was doing likewise, he had been awake all night, and he ought
not only to be on his way home he should be home by now, snug and asleep in
bed beside his wife. If she was awake, she would be concerned at his absence,
but not frantic. Time and experience had taught her years ago that her
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