“Who’s that Kamir bloke, anyway?” Danny asked Meena, their earlier argument forgotten. “The mechanic you keep insisting is sick.”
“A senior Agra mechanic. He once told me I had no business with the ghadi wallahs and that I should find myself a husband to wait upon. I knew he was going to be asked to assist you and Daphne, so I may have put something in his chutney that had him running for the outhouse for a few days.”
Danny grinned and they passed into companionable silence, though it didn’t last long.
“As long as we’re asking questions … What did you mean, when you told the captain that you understood him?” Meena asked.
Danny tried not to let surprise show on his face. “Only that it would be unfortunate if people knew. I was helping him.”
“Daphne said she wasn’t your type.”
“So?”
“You didn’t seem very shocked about the captain.”
“What the hell do you want me to say?” Danny snapped. Meena’s lips thinned, but she said nothing more. Danny sat back, focusing on taking deep breaths. Harris’s fear had somehow infected him, and it still crouched in his chest, waiting for the smallest trigger. When he looked back up at Meena, she only gave him a level stare.
“All right, fine,” Danny said. “I’m just like him, so I sympathized. You can be disgusted with me now, the way you were disgusted by him.”
She looked down at her lap. Danny crossed his arms and glared out the window. After a long, uncomfortable moment, she finally spoke.
“Tell me about him.”
Danny glanced at her. “What?”
“Daphne told me you have someone back home. I want to know about him.”
Danny slumped down farther in his seat, somehow more uncomfortable now than he was a minute ago. “He’s just … He … Why do you want to know?”
Meena sighed and tugged her braid forward, as if by pulling on it she could summon someone to come and make the situation less awkward. “I’ll warn you, Danny: what you are is not accepted here. I don’t know what goes on in your England, but here, it is not allowed. Please be careful.”
He could have asked, Why are you saying this? Aren’t you offended? but her words gave him all the answer he needed. “I will.”
“So? Who is he?”
“Someone I met on assignment.” Danny reached into his pocket, brushing his fingers against the cog. “We … talked. A lot. It was nice, just having someone listen. Someone who cared.” He blinked a few times, then returned to the window. “I miss him.” Meena had nothing to say to that, so they slipped back into silence.
Danny dozed on and off, Captain Harris appearing once to check on them. Amala came to visit for a few minutes during her break, and though Meena was polite, she shot Danny a look reminding him not to divulge any details of their work.
They were halfway to Meerut when Danny sensed something was wrong. The train was quieter; the loud chug chug had dwindled to a less-grating chuh chuh. He wasn’t the only one to notice the change, either. Meena was in the middle of a sentence when Amala frowned and moved toward the rear carriage door.
When she opened it, she screamed.
Danny vaulted out of his seat and caught her before she could tumble out the door. They both gaped at the long stretch of empty train tracks before them.
“They’re gone!” Amala shouted in his ear. “Someone disconnected the carriages!”
She ran back to the operations room. Meena stared openmouthed at the tracks rushing by, unspooling beneath the carriage like a strand pulled from a skein of yarn.
“Captain Harris and the others were on those carriages,” Danny said leadenly as a weight sank to the bottom of his stomach.
It could have been an engineering defect, a weak coupling between the carriages. But Danny knew better.
This had been deliberate.
Meena swayed on her feet. “Close the door and get away from there, Danny.” He didn’t need to be told twice.
The door to the operations room was locked, and Amala grunted as she threw her weight against it. “It won’t open!” She pounded her fist against the door. “Oy, what’s going on? Let me in!”
Danny opened one of the windows and stuck his head outside. The train was pumping along at the same speed, but it looked comically small without the rest of its carriages. The tracks stretched endlessly onward.
If they had no way to brake at the Meerut station …
“Maybe I can climb through the window in the driver’s carriage,” he called behind him. It didn’t seem plausible, but he had read enough books where the main character ran about on the tops of trains like it was an everyday occurrence.
As he was turning to ask Amala, someone grabbed him around the neck and sent him crashing to the floor.
He tried to shout a warning to Meena, but he was breathless under the sudden weight on top of him, crushing him against the vibrating train floor. Danny managed to free his arm and elbowed his attacker in the chest, half-turning with the movement.
In that brief moment, he saw the man’s dark-tinted goggles and the black kerchief tied around the lower half of his face.
“No,” Danny gasped, but that was all he had time for before the man wrenched his arms up behind his back. Danny cried out in pain.
Meena launched herself at the attacker, distracting him just long enough for Danny to roll out of the way. The man backhanded her across the face with a sound like a thunderclap and she went down. He also smacked Danny for good measure, stunning him. Grabbing Danny’s wrists and straddling him so that he couldn’t get away, the man began to tie him up, the rope’s rough fibers biting at his skin.
“Stop!” Meena shouted, but the man ignored her. Danny heard a click before a shot rang through the carriage. The man grunted in surprise as a bullet grazed his arm, just above Danny’s head.
Meena stood clenching a small gun in her hands. A trickle of blood fell from her split lower lip.
“Get away from him, and I won’t shoot you again!” Meena yelled.
Danny could see where the bullet had torn through the man’s jacket, but there was no blood. In fact, there was no flesh. Underneath the fabric was a glint of metal.
He opened his mouth to warn Meena, but the man grabbed him around the throat. She wasted no time, firing again and hitting the man’s other side, near his collarbone. This time there was a yelp and a spurt of blood.
Danny used the distraction to kick the man off of him. Though his head swam and the world tilted dangerously, Danny got on top of his attacker and used his bound hands to get under the man’s chin and hold him in a headlock, just as Matthias had taught him to do in what felt like another life.
“Don’t move,” Danny panted. The sweat on the man’s neck was warm and slippery against his wrists. “Tell me who you are, and what you want with me.” The man remained silent. “Tell me!”
Meena pulled back the hammer of her gun a third time. Before she could release another bullet, the man produced a knife from the inside of his sleeve and cut the bindings on Danny’s wrists. He knocked Danny back and rushed for the open window.