The Brightest Fell Page 10

  There was a needle in his arm, and he was hooked up to a bottle of some suspicious-looking greenish liquid. He wondered if the buzzing in his head was due to the drugs, or if he had a concussion.

  The door swung open, letting a harried-looking Ruqaiya into the bare and sterile hospital room. Her clothes were wrinkled and her hair askew. God, how long had he been out?

  When she saw he was awake, she grinned, shut the door softly behind her, and came to sit on the lone chair beside the narrow bed. “Well, look who’s awake. The hero of Qayit.”

  He grunted impatiently, trying to push himself up into a sitting position. “How long has it been? How long was I out?”

  “A few hours.” Ruqaiya placed a firm hand on his shoulder and another on the small of his back, helping him into a sitting position. She then pressed insistently down on his chest until he had his back against the cushioned headboard.

  “This is ridiculous,” he said irritably. “I’m fine. The worst that happened was I stepped on some goddamn piece of burning furniture. Which reminds me, is Fasih still alive?”

  “Alive and kicking. Or, well, at least breathing. Which is more than he would’ve been if you hadn’t ridden to his rescue when you did.” She chuckled. “I can only imagine the headlines when the press finds out.”

  “So they haven’t yet?” He asked hopefully.

  Ruqaiya shook her head. “The guards have been instructed to keep the media out. For now, all they know is that there was a minor accident at Parliament House. They’re speculating, of course, but for now that’s all it is. We’ll issue a statement once we know more about what exactly happened there.”

  “Well,” Abhijat raised an eyebrow. “Enlighten me. What did happen?”

  There was a knock, and the door opened a few inches to reveal a short, bespectacled man dressed in a button-down and an ill-fitting pair of trousers.

  “Mr. Vyas. Come in, come in.” Ruqaiya rose from her seat and extended her hand to the newcomer.

  He stepped forward, took her hand, shook it briefly and let it go. “I can come back if this is not a good time,” he said, glancing at Abhijat with some curiosity in his eyes.

  “Oh, that won’t be necessary. As you know, this is Abhijat Shian, head of the Prime Minister’s security detail.” She turned to look at him. “And Abhijat, this is Mr. Vyas from the NIA. He’s currently in charge of this investigation.”

  Abhijat nodded, his mind racing. If the National Investigation Agency was involved, then what had happened was most probably not an accident. Or at least Ruqaiya had reason to believe that it wasn’t. He had suspected as much, but the knowledge still sat uneasily in the pit of his stomach.

  Pleasantries were exchanged, and a few more minutes passed before Ruqaiya cut to the chase. “So, do we have any updates?”

  Vyas pressed his thin lips together and crossed his hands behind his back. “Well, we know for a fact that the fire started because of some loose electrical wiring in the office balcony. There was power fluctuation in the building around…uh, 5pm, more or less.

  “That caused some sparks, from what we can tell, which ignited the furniture in the vicinity and started the fire. Our engineers are still trying to figure out what caused the power fluctuation, and how the faulty wiring went unnoticed for so long. You’ll know more as soon as I get some concrete answers.” He sighed. “Still, it was fortunate nobody was in the balcony at the time. ‘Cause from what I understand, if anyone had come into contact with the wires during the power fluctuation, they’d almost certainly have been electrocuted on the spot.”

  Ruqaiya paled. “I see,” she said, her voice tight. “Well, thank you, Mr. Vyas. You’ll let us know as soon as you get any new information?”

  “Of course,” he nodded, and left.

  As soon as the door swung shut behind Vyas, Abhijat leaned forward on the bed. “What was that about?”

  Ruqaiya hesitated, looking almost ready to follow Mr. Vyas out of the room. Abhijat narrowed his eyes, pinning her to the chair with his gaze.

  “Damnit Qia! Spit it out, will you? What’s the matter? What’s gotten you so riled up?”

  Ruqaiya fixed her gaze on a gray spot on the otherwise pristine bedcover. For a few seconds, she said nothing, her fingers tapping the armrest of her chair. “Rajat used to love that balcony.” She looked up to meet Abhijat’s eyes for a brief second, before returning her gaze to the bedcover. “Unless it was raining, he had his tea there every afternoon, watching the sunset. Oh, around four-thirty or five o’ clock, depending on the weather.”

  Perhaps it was the painkillers fogging his brain, but it took a moment for the implications of her words to sink in. When it did, his stomach clenched and he sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re saying this was deliberate. An-an assassination attempt?”

  “I’m saying I don’t remember the number of times I’ve had tea with Rajat in that balcony at five in the afternoon. We’d discuss policy, or take a little break from work and just chat about random things. It was almost a ritual with your father. Everybody knew he’d be in the balcony, watching the sunset in the late afternoon. Well, everybody in his inner circle, anyway. He even held meetings there every now and then, if the group was small enough to fit.”

  “So if my father had been in the office today…”

  “It’s very likely he would’ve been in that balcony when the fire started.”

  Abhijat rubbed a hand over his eyes. To his surprise, he realized his fingers were shaking. “And you don’t think that’s a coincidence, do you?”

  Ruqaiya shook her head, rose to her feet, and started pacing. Abhijat envied her the freedom. “It’s all too perfect, the time and the place. I mean, what’re the odds? And like Mr. Vyas said, how did the loose wiring in the Prime Minister’s office go unnoticed for so long?”

  Abhijat frowned. “The wiring is checked every two weeks. There was nothing wrong with them during the last inspection.”

  Ruqaiya leaned forward and pressed two fingers to her temple, her eyes closed. “You mightn’t know about this, but about a month before your father resigned, he’d had a...I suppose you could call it a minor accident.

  “We’d just left his office. We were taking the stairs to the ground floor, for a meeting with some union leaders in the Southside conference hall. I was a couple of steps behind him when his walking-stick broke. Just snapped in two in the blink of an eye, that heavy ironwood cane he’d been using for more than two years. And for no apparent reason.

  “He tripped, of course, and sprained his ankle. Would’ve taken a dive down the stairs, if one of his guards hadn’t caught him in the nick of time. I didn’t think much of it then. We were too busy making sure he was alright, and we all thought it was an accident. But now that I think about it, it could have ended very badly if not for a bout of sheer good luck.

  “And the same can be said of the fire this afternoon. How did a sturdy ironwood cane break in half out of the blue? How did faulty wiring in the Prime Minister’s chamber go unnoticed for long enough to cause a fire?

  “Besides, both these incidents were just...too specific, you know? The cane. The fire in the balcony, at the exact time when your father used to have his tea there. Somebody had to be very familiar with Rajat’s habits and routines to pull these off.”

  “But that’s the point, isn’t it?” Abhijat said, frowning. “My father doesn’t drink tea in that balcony anymore. He hasn’t done so in weeks. Whoever was targeting him, if they were in fact targeting him, must have known about that.

  “I mean, you just said only those in his inner circle knew that he spent the afternoons in the balcony. But if any of them had in fact betrayed him, why didn’t they simply call the whole thing off after he resigned? They must’ve known he’d resigned. Everybody in the country with a cable connection knows that by now.”

  “You’re right, they should’ve called it off. Unless they couldn’t.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Ruqaiya shrugg
ed. “It means that to shoot someone, you don’t always need to pull the trigger yourself. Say they hired someone to mess with the wiring in the Prime Minister’s office on a particular day, expecting that Rajat would be there. And then the whole mess with Fasih started unexpectedly. Well, maybe they just couldn’t contact the hired guns in time to call it off. Or maybe they didn’t want to call it off.”

  “You’re saying they wanted to off Fasih as well? So you think it’s not personal. Somebody just wants to kill the Prime Minister of Naijan, whoever that happens to be?”

  “I’m not saying anything, Abhijat.” Ruqaiya dropped back into her chair with a sigh. “Hell, for all I know, I might just be overthinking it. The fire might’ve been an accident after all.”

  “But you don’t think it was.”

  She shook her head slowly, looking up to meet his eyes. “No, I don’t think it was.”

  Abhijat nodded. “Well, whatever it was, we’ll find out. We’ll start our own investigation once I’m out of here. If only we can get our hands on whoever tampered with the wiring, this whole mess will untangle itself quickly enough.”

  “The NIA wouldn’t be happy about you interfering with their case.”

  Abhijat smirked. “Then they’re welcome to be unhappy. I’m the Prime Minister’s head of security, aren’t I? I have every right to take an interest in a possible assassination attempt. Hell, that’s literally my job description.”

  Before Ruqaiya could reply, the door clicked open and a nurse stuck her head into the room. “The Prime Minister is awake, in case you wanted to see him.”

  The nurse hadn’t been happy about taking him off the IV drip. But Abhijat would be damned if he missed this opportunity to interview a drug-addled and possibly-concussed Fasih. If there was ever a time when they might get some truth out of him, this was it.

  Ruqaiya rapped her knuckles respectfully against the door, but didn’t wait for a response before stepping through into the room. Abhijat followed her in, letting the door swing shut behind him.

  Fasih, sitting with his back against the headboard, smiled brightly at them as they came to stand beside his bed. “Please, sit down. Make yourselves comfortable,” he said, setting aside the magazine he had been reading. Cutting off Ruqaiya’s perfunctory protest, he quipped, “Besides, you’re both very tall. Staring up at you is singularly uncomfortable.”

  Despite herself, Ruqaiya snickered and perched near the foot of the bed, signaling for Abhijat to take the bedside chair.

  With some difficulty, he settled himself into the chair under Fasih’s curious gaze, trying not to put too much weight on his injured foot. Once he was as comfortable as it was possible to be on a narrow plastic chair, he looked up to see Fasih watching him with wide, guileless eyes. It was unnerving.

  “I understand I have you to thank for the fact that I’m not a charred splotch in that stuffy old office. Really, my friend, thank you. I’d have hated for my last moments on earth to be spent on paperwork,” he shuddered.

  “I…uh,” Abhijat spared a glance at Ruqaiya, unsure how to respond to that sentiment. Fasih looked genuinely thankful, not to mention a tad awestruck. For some reason, that made him uncomfortable. “I’m glad I could be of service, sir.”

  “I am very grateful to you for saving my life, Mr. Shian. But no amount of gratitude will compel me to let that pass. You’ve got to stop calling me that. And do stop being so horribly polite. It makes me feel thirty years older.”

  Before Abhijat could respond with anything more than a baffled grunt, Fasih turned his blinding smile towards Ruqaiya. “And I owe you a huge thank you, Madam Dehran, for recommending Mr. Shian for the position of my chief security officer. Not that I ever doubted your judgment, of course, but even I couldn’t have foreseen how perfect a choice he’d turn out to be.

  “Really, I’m glad he’s heading the investigation into what happened today. I’m sure it was nothing, of course, but you can never be too careful, can you? Gosh! I feel like I’ve smoked every last cigarette on the planet. Anyway, I’d never feel safer than if I knew Mr. Shian was watching my back.”

  “Wait. Back up a second.” Ruqaiya gaped at Fasih. “Abhijat’s heading the investigation into the office fire?”

  “Of course he is.” He looked equally baffled. “Who else should be heading it?”

  “Well, I mean, the NIA–”

  “Ah yes, the NIA. That reminds me. I was just on the phone with Mr. Vyas. He’ll share all the details of their investigation with you. Not that there’s much to share as of yet, of course. Still, I hope you won’t have a problem collaborating with them on the case.” He sighed. “I know from experience the NIA can be a pain in all the wrong places, when they want to be.”

  “I – of course,” said Abhijat, swallowing his surprise. “It won’t be a problem at all.”

  He looked over at Ruqaiya, and could see that she was wondering the same thing he was. How hard had Fasih hit his head when Abhijat threw him out of the burning office?

  “Ah well, in that case, I’ll call the NIA headquarters and set up a meeting immediately,” she interjected, just in case Fasih changed his mind once he was feeling better. “Take care, Jehan. I’ll come visit you again tomorrow. Don’t talk to reporters until we know more about what happened.”

  “Of course not.” Fasih smiled sleepily, pulling the blanket up to his chin. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  After a few more seconds of polite conversation, Abhijat left the room with Ruqaiya. Shutting the door behind her, she frowned at him, looking nonplussed. “You know, it’s the strangest thing. He just gave us exactly what we wanted, probably ‘cause he’s too drugged to know better. And yet...”

  “It still feels like somehow he played us?” Abhijat finished the thought for her.

  “It really does, doesn’t it? And the worst part is, I don’t understand how.”

  Chapter 7

  The office smelt of mildew and stale coffee.

  Walking up to the lanky, green-haired receptionist, Abhijat asked to see the manager. The boy grunted irritably, glanced up from his phone, took one look at Abhijat, and visibly swallowed whatever cheeky riposte had been bubbling in his throat. He pointed Abhijat to a tiny waiting room and ran off to look for his boss.

  Abhijat took a seat at the larger of the two tables in the waiting room and began flipping through an old magazine lying in a corner. For an electrical company, the place wasn’t particularly well lit.

  A few minutes later, a short, balding man with beady eyes and a protruding belly entered the room. With a friendly nod, he sat down across from Abhijat. He guessed he was in the presence of the manager.

  “So, Mr. Dixit, I gather your company won the last tender for electrical maintenance work at the Parliament House,” Abhijat said, once the initial greetings had been exchanged.

  The man nodded, looking nervously around the room. Abhijat surmised he had heard about the fire, but said nothing. Dixit looked harmless enough, but Abhijat didn’t want to part with more information than he had to.

  He cleared his throat and continued, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand that your firm did much of the electrical rewiring work during the last renovation of the Prime Minister’s office?”

  Mr. Dixit blinked. “Yes, yes. But that was over six months ago.”

  This was news to Abhijat, but he tried not to let his surprise show. “And can you give me a list of the people who had access to the PM’s office during that time? I suppose you have records of the team that worked on that project?”

  “Of course we do,” Dixit frowned. “In fact, most of them are here in the office right now. We vet all our employees most thoroughly, I can assure you.”

  “Most of them?” Abhijat raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, some of them were contract workers, of course.” He coughed, stalling. “It was a very big project, the biggest we’d ever handled. We didn’t have the manpower to handle everything ourselves. Most of the people who worked on the minist
ers’ offices were our own employees, though. Only four or five were independent contractors.”

  “Four? Or five?”

  “Five, to be exact.”

  “Can you give me their details? Addresses and phone numbers, to begin with.”

  Dixit nodded vigorously, looking relived. “Of course. Right away. I’ll be right back.” He sprang to his feet and left the room hurriedly.

  Minutes passed before the green-haired boy stepped through the door, carrying a handful of damp manila folders. “Dixit sir said we can send you the digital records if you’ll leave your email at the reception,” he said, handing Abhijat the folders.

  “That’ll be very helpful,” he smiled up at the boy, accepting the files. “Tell me, how long have you been working here?”

  “A little over a year,” he frowned. “Why?”

  “So, you were here about six months ago, when this company did some work over at the Parliament House?”

  The boy nodded. “Of course. It got quite crazy around here. Busiest we’ve ever been.” He chuckled. “The bonuses were worth it, though.”

  “I’m sure they were. I hear Mr. Dixit hired independent contractors to handle some of the work back then. Do you remember any of them? Anyone who seemed...suspicious, maybe?”

  The boy frowned and scratched his head. “Nothing like that. There were the Vardhan brothers, of course, who kept sneaking into the kitchen. And well...”

  “What?”

  “Uh...nothing.” He bit his lip. “Nothing important, anyway.”

  “Would it feel more important if there was a hundred bucks to be had at the end of it?”

  The boy grinned. “For two hundred it’d feel positively indispensable.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  Abhijat limped the few yards to his car, slid into the vehicle, and locked himself in. His injured foot throbbed from all the walking. “Fuck,” he told his steering wheel, and fished his phone out of his pocket.