16
Keith Tyree and Vanessa Juliusson landed at the Chennai International Airport just seven kilometers south of the city.
Though they’d been planning to get there earlier in the day, a canceled connection out of Frankfurt had set them back, and now they were already behind schedule.
Ever since watching Corey Wellington bleed to death in his living room in Atlanta the other day, they’d been on the move, and they still had one more leg of their journey to complete. This wasn’t their first assignment together and it was no coincidence that their employer had chosen Corey, just like it was no coincidence that he’d chosen that specific woman in Montana two weeks earlier.
And now, although Keith was weary of traveling, he said nothing to Vanessa, who never seemed to sleep, thinking that it might appear to her as a sign of weakness.
He needed to focus, to stay alert. It might end up being a long night.
Especially if he had to use the handheld pruning shears he’d brought along.
Admittedly, that part of his job was unpleasant, but he wasn’t about to take chances; he would do what he needed to do to see this project through to the end.
After all, the man whom he and Vanessa worked for did not like loose ends, did not like it when people disappointed him, did not make allowances for even the smallest degree of incompetence. More than once they’d seen what he did to the people who let him down, and to say the least, it would not be an enjoyable way to go.
Keith was not about to let that happen to him.
He knew that running or trying to hide would be useless, would only make things worse in the end. So he’d decided long ago that he would rather eat a bullet — or take the drug himself — than fall into the man’s hands.
Now he directed his attention to the reason they were here.
First order of business: get to the facility in Kadapa and do a little quality control.
Then make sure the shipment and paperwork were all in order. Finally, get back to Boston by the end of the week to visit the inspector.
Whenever he and Vanessa were in India, they didn’t rent a car but rather hired a driver. Today the man was supposed to meet them in Chennai, so they would need to take a taxi that far.
Normally, beggars were not allowed on the premises of India’s international airports, but for some reason today they were congregated outside the terminal, and Keith and Vanessa had to push their way past them.
As they passed an elderly woman with an outstretched, leprous hand, Keith reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin, but Vanessa stopped him before he could hand it over, clutched his arm, and led him to the street corner. “If you give money to one of them, they’ll all gather around you expecting handouts. I’ve told you this before.”
“Yes.”
“So don’t do it.”
A pause. “Okay.”
Even though the caste system was officially banned, it wasn’t culturally banned — and millions of people still treated cows with more respect than they treated human beings from the lowest caste. Streets all throughout India’s major cities were cluttered with invalids and outcasts.
On an earlier trip to India, Keith had realized that this was a natural result of the country’s prevailing belief in reincarnation. After all, if these people were being punished for deeds done in a previous life, why would you want to get in the way of the natural order of things and relieve their afflictions? It would serve both your best interests and theirs if you let them suffer now so they could be purified and appear in a better form, or as a member of a higher caste, in a future life on their journey toward nirvana.
Love of outcasts and a belief in reincarnation simply do not go hand in hand.
Keith did not believe in reincarnation; he believed that one time around was all you got, but despite what he did for a living, he felt a twinge of guilt whenever he passed these suffering, dying people who were so categorically ignored and scorned by their culture.
Once they were in Chennai, buses, trucks, oxen, cars, taxis, and the ever-present motorcycles whipped past and jockeyed for position on the frenetically busy street, in some cases leaving only inches between the vehicles. In India, people flip their car’s side-view mirrors back so they don’t stick out because otherwise they’d almost certainly be ripped off or end up taking out a pedestrian.
Five people were killed every day in traffic accidents in Chennai, mostly from being struck by the three-wheeled taxis. Taking into account the number of motorcycles with a husband driving, his wife behind him, their baby on her lap, Keith found it astounding that there weren’t more fatalities.
Their taxi driver dropped them off, and Keith and Vanessa found their man, Baahir, waiting for them across the street, parked at an angle in front of a small storefront. Indian music and the smell of musky incense drifted out the front door. Two men sat outside the shop smoking languidly, eyeing the two Caucasians as they climbed into the vehicle.
Baahir was a rotund man full of energy who was always talking about how he needed to “reduce,” which was the Indian way of saying “lose weight.” But despite his outgoing personality, he knew how to keep secrets, and they knew he would never admit to anyone where he had driven his two American passengers. They paid him well for this confidentiality and had also made it clear to him what would happen to his two children if he ever failed them at all in this regard.
Fear can be just as effective a motivator as money. In Baahir’s case, they decided to go for both approaches.
In many places in India it’s considered an insult to the driver to wear a seat belt: a way of telling him, “I don’t think you’re a good enough driver to keep me safe. I don’t trust you with my life.” Keith and Vanessa saw no need today to insult Baahir, so they didn’t buckle up.
After a cordial greeting, Baahir asked them in his clipped English, “To the facility?”
“Yes,” Vanessa replied. “As quickly as possible.”
“Two hundred seventy-five kilometers…” Both Keith and Vanessa had been there numerous times before and knew the distance already, but clearly Baahir was calculating in his head. “On these roads, with this traffic, that may take four hours. Perhaps longer.”
“Let’s just get going,” Vanessa said.
Baahir edged the car into the stream of traffic, nearly taking out a helmetless couple whipping past on a motorcycle, and then he directed the car north, toward Kadapa.
17
There is terror, sometimes, in dreams.
Though you know they aren’t real, couldn’t possibly be real, they seem real. And while there’s an ontological difference between what seems real and what is real, what, at its core, is the experiential difference?
People with hallucinations, or those playing virtual reality video games, or even people dreaming, all experience thought, emotion, exert will, and create memories. The same parts of the brain light up in “virtual” experiences as they do in “real-life” ones.
Although dreams and hallucinations might not happen per se, to your mind it’s as if they did. And so, if your mind experiences something, who’s to say it’s not an actual experience?
Because of all that, in my dream my terror is real.
I’m in my car again at the park just after our picnic. Lien-hua is climbing into her coupe.
But this time, rather than drive away from her, I glance at my rearview mirror and see her slip into the driver’s seat. It strikes me that I haven’t told her I love her. I’m on my way to her car to do so when I see Basque attack her.