Chapter 24

Alang, India

Kurt and Joe had a problem. In fact, they had multiple problems. The biggest issue came from the Indian National Police, who were looking for them in conjunction with the events at Alang. Sharma and several of his people were dead. Faked security video showed them storming into the office with guns. The fact that they’d been there earlier in the day and had been turned away and escorted off the property only added to the suspicions.

They were driving a small rental car that would be linked to them before long. Kurt had already driven through several mud puddles and areas of standing water to drench the car in a dirty coat, but it wasn’t much of a disguise, even if half the license plate was smeared.

Sitting in the back, as nervous as a frightened cat, Five stared out the window. Everything he saw astounded him. Cars, trucks, buses. The noises they made. Buildings that rose up and blocked the sun. Posts with colored lights on them. Wires running everywhere like jungle vines. Billboards and decorations and streamers. The bright colors were like a kaleidoscope to him. Most of all, he could hardly believe the crowds.

“So many people,” he whispered over and over. “How are there so many people?”

Navigating the crowds of India had left plenty of people with similar thoughts, but for a young man who’d lived his short life on a desert island in captivity, the question was not rhetorical.

“There are a lot of people here,” Kurt said. “But this is a city. Think of it like an anthill or a beehive. Did they have bees on your island? Anyway, lots of people flock to the cities, but there are places out in the countryside that are less crowded.”

“Ahh,” he said, “like bees. I understand.”

They came to a halt near an open area that might have been a park. While they were stopped at the light, two free-roaming cows moved toward the car. One of them looked into the back seat and mooed deeply.

Five scrambled across the seat to the other side, as if they were being attacked by an angry bear. The animal licked the window, mooed again, and then went back to the grass it had been chewing.

“What is that?” Five asked in shock.

“Where I come from, it’s lunch,” Joe said. “But we’re not going to find it on the menu around here.”

Kurt laughed. “Don’t worry,” he told Five. “It’s a cow. It won’t hurt you.”

Five gazed at the mangy animal as if it were a unicorn with golden wings.

As they waited for the traffic to move, the sound of high-pitched sirens became audible. Kurt saw flashing lights approaching in the rearview mirror. He kept calm, but plotted a possible escape route in case the vehicles were police cars filled with detectives looking for the two Americans.

An ambulance and a paramedic’s truck came up behind them. They swept by on the shoulder, sirens wailing as they passed. Five covered his ears while Kurt and Joe breathed a sigh of relief.

“We really need to get out of India,” Joe said. “Otherwise we’re going to end up framed for everything that went down at the breakers’ yard.”

So far they’d been on the move, putting some space between themselves and the harbor and making their way toward more touristy areas where there would be plenty of Americans and Europeans to help them blend in.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Kurt replied. “The question is: How?”

He was alluding to their second problem. Five had no ID of any kind. No driver’s license, no passport. He didn’t even have a real name.

He couldn’t be coached into lying about his lack of a passport because he had no idea what one was or why you’d need it. He didn’t even understand the concept of a sovereign country. Or what it meant to be arrested.

There was no way to get him through even the most rudimentary checkpoint or security screening, which ruled out airports or crossing the border by car. And hiking through the mountains to get to Pakistan or China wasn’t going to improve the situation.

“We could have Rudi send a jet to an out-of-the-way location,” Joe suggested. “There are no customs checks out in the hills. But there are plenty of small airfields.”

“Considering that we’re wanted men now, a NUMA jet landing in the middle of nowhere would probably raise some alarm bells,” Kurt said. “Besides, every time we let Rudi know what we’re doing, it seems to tip off the guys we’ve been fighting with.”

Joe nodded. “You really think NUMA has been hacked?”

They’d discussed it earlier and refrained from contacting Washington. Kurt was convinced. “Someone got into my phone. And the ‘great white hunter’ and the ‘cruel brothers’ seem to be only a half a step behind us wherever we go.”

He hadn’t just shown up on Reunion or at the breakers’ yard, but they’d spied him and his goons hanging around the hotel when they’d made their way back from the harbor.

Joe sighed at the dilemma and brought out the back scratcher, extending it a bit and scratching a spot on the back of his neck.

“So we can’t get out the normal way,” Joe said. “And we can’t ask Rudi for help. I’d say we go by ship, but after what our guest has already been through, I don’t think we’ll be able to keep him calm enough to get on board.”

That was the third problem. Five was overwhelmed by the real world. The machines they moved about in seemed like monsters to him: loud, noisy, and belching smoke.

Every time a bus got near them, Kurt had to fight through traffic to get away from it because Five saw it swaying to and fro, and was convinced it would fall over on him.

An attempt to catch a train had been derailed as well. Even though they’d managed to explain what a ticket was and how they would all sit in the car together and it would move by itself, one look at a train rumbling into the station with brakes squealing and steam venting from pneumatic lines had put Five into shock.

“Whatever we do it has to be quick and simple,” Kurt said.

Both men fell into silent thought, Kurt driving, Joe tapping the back scratcher against the dashboard in a subconscious, repetitive fashion. A few minutes later, he looked up. An idea had obviously sprung to mind.

“Got something?” Kurt asked.

“Maybe,” he said. He picked up the paper map they’d been given. A city named Porbandar lay on the coast up ahead. “All we need is an internet café. And the right kind of airport. I think there’s someone nearby who could help.”

Kurt had no idea what Joe was thinking, but they were already heading for Porbandar, so he figured he’d let Joe work on his plan in silence.