Page 31 of Into the Gray Zone (Pike Logan #19)

I went down the street with Jennifer feeling as if we stood out like circus clowns attending a funeral, everyone in the afternoon

sun gawking at us because we were the only gringos within five miles. Under my breath, I said, “Tourist area my ass. This

is absolutely stupid.”

Jennifer said, “It’s a tourist spice market. We’re fine. We belong here.”

I chuckled and said, “Where are the tourists?”

“It’s the end of the monsoon season. They aren’t here yet.”

“Well, that’ll be something we can say when we’re arrested. ‘We’re blending in. It’s not our fault we did it two months early.’”

We’d flown the Rock Star bird to New Delhi late last night, getting a room in an incredible establishment called the Imperial

Hotel. I suppose I should have put some price constraints on the team, but had not, and now we were getting five-star amenities.

Veep and Brett, of course, had done this just to poke me in the eye about giving them the work. I only hoped the Taskforce

would cover the bill.

Right after breakfast, Brett, Jennifer, and I had traveled to Old Delhi, finding the suspected address after a little bit of searching down the alleys, finding a nondescript space with a roll-up metal door, nothing else. We continued on, locating Nadia’s spice market friend about seventy meters farther down. The bazaar was pretty much deserted at this time of day, with most of the proprietors just now opening up, but we were already drawing stares as the only Westerners around.

I’d called Nadia, she’d phoned her “family friend,” and a man had come out, looking furtive. He’d waved us into his little

shop and said, “I don’t know what this is about, and I don’t want to know.”

I said, “Don’t worry, we’re not here to cause trouble. Nadia is just doing us a favor.”

“What is this favor? Is it about that shop down the street? Because a lot of strange stuff has happened there.”

“Like what?”

“Like they never sell anything, but there’s always someone coming and going. Four men went in there yesterday afternoon, but

not before wandering around as if they didn’t know the address. But they had a key to open the door.”

Which was an indicator. I said, “That’s what we want to check out. Nadia said you had a second story where we could see the

front?”

He nodded and said, “I do, but I don’t want any trouble. Why are Americans doing this? Why isn’t Nadia? I know where she works.”

Jennifer smiled at him, disarming his angst. She said, “Your country wants to be completely silent on this. We asked her for

a favor, and she is facilitating. Trust me, we won’t be giving you any trouble. This isn’t something that concerns you or

the neighborhood.”

He nodded, his wife at his side, and said, “If it’s Muslim terrorists, I’ll do whatever I can. Just don’t let it lead back

to me.”

I said, “You have my word. All we want to do is observe.”

He’d given us a little perch in his apartment on the second floor, and we’d started a rotation, keeping eyes on the roll-up door across the way. We saw two people leave later in the morning, getting photos of both, and waited. Eventually, the final two exited, both of them carrying backpacks. They left the market and we continued watching, just to make sure.

Nobody else appeared, and I decided that it was time for the break-in. I left Brett upstairs to give us an early heads-up

if anything suspicious happened while we were inside, then exited to the street, walking down it like I owned it, Jennifer

by my side.

As it was almost noon, the market had picked up considerably with shoppers, but every stall owner seemed to ignore the locals

and zero in on us, encouraging us to come inside. Even the beggars began to follow us, like we were the Pied Piper of the

homeless. Jennifer was stopped twice by random locals, asking if they could get a selfie with her.

Brett came on the net, saying, “Man alive, you guys look like Taylor Swift just showed up. Why is everyone crowding around

you?”

I said, “I have no idea. Probably because they know any Westerner that comes in here didn’t do so for daily shopping, and

if we have enough cash to fly to India just to be looky-loos, we must have some spare money to give to them.”

The alley we were in was small enough that the only motorized conveyances were mopeds, and they came zipping by with all manner

of things strapped to them, the swirl of people almost claustrophobic. Every five feet some beggar would grab Jennifer’s hand,

pleading for money. It was almost as if word had spread that a rich pair of Westerners were walking around, and everyone wanted

a piece of us.

After another few feet, I made the call. “Blood, I have a mission for you. This isn’t going to work.”

“What’s that?”

“We’re going to stop at the stall, and I’m going to start flipping money in the air while Jennifer picks the lock. Then we’re going to lead the caravan away, and you’re going to roll up the door after we’re gone. We’ll circle the block in a rickshaw, breaking free from them, and come back to your stall.”

“What makes you think I’m not going to have the same problem?”

“Uhhh... you’re black?”

“Seriously? I stand out here just like you do.”

“Yeah, well, I honestly think it’s Jennifer who’s standing out. If I gave them the side-eye with a little Pike behind it,

they’d probably leave me alone, but they all want a picture with her.”

Jennifer glared at me and came on the net, saying, “That’s bullshit.”

Off the net I said, “Is it? Really? You think we’d have this caravan of deadbeats asking us for money if it was me alone?

All I’d have to do is raise a fist and they’d all flee.”

Brett came back, saying, “Yeah, you probably have a point. Let me know when you want me to execute.”

Jennifer pursed her lips because she knew we were right. She said, “So how am I going to pick a lock in front of everyone?”

“Just bend down to tie your shoe. I’ll be raining dollars like a gangster at a strip club and they’ll be focused on that.”

She shook her head and muttered under her breath, but snaked a hand into her purse, pulling out a neat little device called

a Lishi padlock pick. It was a self-contained unit that gave Jennifer the ability to provide tension while she set the pins,

all in a single device, allowing her to crack a padlock in seconds, if it had the right keyway. If it was some weird Indian

lock, we were out of luck.

We kept walking, stopping occasionally to check out a stall, until we were finally at the spice shop right next door to the

target. I sampled the goods, with the crowd around me looking on expectantly. Jennifer stood next to me, acting interested,

but really focused on the padlock about six feet away.

She leaned in and said, “I can pick it.”

I said, “Showtime.”

I thanked the proprietor and we continued on, reaching the front of the roll-up door. I purposely stepped on the heel of Jennifer’s

Solomon shoe, pulling it off her foot. She stutter-stepped forward, then turned, bending down to put it back on her foot.

A woman holding a baby tugged my sleeve and I said, “Okay, okay, I give up.”

I pulled a wad of rupees out of my pocket and began handing them out, shooing away each person after I’d doled out their cash.

I ended with a guy who was literally pushing himself along on a wooden trolley.

Jennifer stood back up, nodded at me, and we continued on, reaching an intersection with a major road. The beggar crowd kept

following us, and I flagged down a rickshaw, getting in back and saying, “Just go around the block. Show us the bazaar.”

The driver nodded, and we were off, racing through the narrow alleys so fast that I had to duck my head from the pipes and

electrical cables dangling about, Jennifer gasping every time someone jumped out of our way. We left the beggars behind, and

I gripped the metal pole holding the awning over our head like it was a ripcord, grimacing with every pothole the driver powered

through.

The guy weighed about a hundred and five, but he was pedaling like he was Lance Armstrong. We went through a linen section

of the market, something that looked like a wedding dress area, then some sort of industrial space with sparks flying and

blacksmiths banging away, the images appearing and disappearing so fast I wasn’t sure I’d seen them. Brett finally came on,

saying, “This is Blood. I’m in.”

I leaned forward, tapped the driver, and said, “Back to the start.”

He nodded, and we continued through one claustrophobic alley after another, and I began to wonder if he was lost—because I most assuredly was at this point. Before I knew it, he’d re-entered the spice area above the location of Nadia’s family friend. I had no idea how, because we’d left much lower, but apparently he knew what he was doing.

I tapped him again and he stopped. I gave him a wad of rupees, much more than necessary, and dismounted quickly, before the

beggars could home in on us like mosquitoes in a swamp.

We hurried the hundred meters to the target and entered without getting accosted anew. I turned and closed the roll-up door,

then said, “Brett? You in here?”

“Yeah. Upstairs. Not a lot here.”

I flicked on an overhead light and threaded back to the rear of the narrow space, the walls lined with shelves, all empty,

the air swirling with dust. At the very back, next to an abandoned crate full of empty soda bottles, I spied a bunch of new

boxes on the ground. I picked one up and saw it was a box for a DJI Mavic 3 commercial drone, something that had been used

in Ukraine to deliver death to the Russians with great effect.

Not good.

Jennifer had gone up the ladder to the top floor and said, “Pike, we have a computer up here.”

I went up and saw an Apple MacBook Pro on a simple table in an otherwise empty room. The only other items were four small

mattresses and some blankets, with water bottles and soda cans scattered about.

No backpacks or other luggage. No personal items.

They aren’t coming back.

I turned to Brett and Jennifer around the computer, their faces lit up from the screen. “What do you have?”

Brett said, “Nothing yet. It’s password protected.”

“What’s on the back?”

Brett leaned over and said, “A MiFi internet connection.”

“We need that number.”

“You want to just pack it all up and go? It looks like they’re not coming back.”

“No. Someone’s coming for the computer. There will be a cleanup crew. Get an octopus on it. Drain it.”

Jennifer said, “That’ll take some time to crack the passwords. We could be here for hours.”

I said, “I know. Don’t worry about breaking it open right here. Just mirror the hard drive and clone the SIM card for the

MiFi. We’ll crack the passwords later, when we have time.”

Brett reached into his backpack and pulled out a device with multiple cables coming out of it, looking like a small octopus.

He plugged a USB C cable into the port on the side of the computer and hit a button. A light went green, then another, with

five more to go.

Jennifer removed the MiFi from the Velcro on the back of the computer and accessed the SIM card, pulling it out and inserting

it into another device that looked like a small flip phone. She hit a button, and in thirty seconds, it went green. She replaced

the SIM card, reattached it to the back of the computer, and said, “What’s the octopus status?”

Brett said, “Maybe another minute, but I can’t say we’re getting it all. I’d prefer to crack it here, then we know it’s all

open and we’re not missing some hidden drives or something else.”

I said, “Can’t be helped. Cracking it with the octopus might take two hours on a good day. We get what we get, because I don’t

want to be here when the cleanup crew shows.”

The octopus lights went to five and then began flashing. Brett unplugged it and we went back down the ladder. I said, “Brett, you exit last. Jennifer and I are going to the right. You lock up and go left. We’ll meet you back at the vehicle.”

He nodded, looked around the space one last time, and said, “Man, I’d really like to know what these assholes are up to.”