A Walk Across the Sun (48 page)

In time, Sita felt the truck slow and come to a halt. The chain smoker lifted the rear door. Outside, the sky was gray and dim. They were in a neighborhood of run-down homes, cracked pavement, and abandoned buildings. Across the street, she saw a sign that read
VINE CITY MARKET—ATLANTA'S BEST
.

The chain smoker gestured for the girls to get out. When Sita started to follow, he put out his hand and shook his head.

Elsie glanced at her. “See you 'round,” she whispered.

They drove for another hour before the truck stopped. Sita heard the muffled sounds of conversation and then the chain smoker opened the door. He stood on a driveway lined with tall pine trees. Beside him was a strange man dressed in black. The man had Asian features and dark eyes. He nodded perfunctorily at Sita.

“Get on out,” the chain smoker said. “Li's got you now.”

He helped her out of the truck and handed her over to the Asian. The man named Li led her up the driveway toward an elegant plantation house. Around the house were wide lawns and flower gardens. Sita heard the sound of traffic in the distance, but the property was rimmed by pines, and she could see nothing beyond the perimeter.

Sita followed Li into the foyer where she was met by a thin blond woman of middle age. She looked Sita up and down.

“Well, well,” she drawled. “Dietrich said he was bringing me a little brown girl. We're always interested in helping the cause of diversity. Tell me, honey, what's your name?”

“Sita Ghai,” she answered, trying to still the trembling of her hands.

The mention of Dietrich frightened her. At once she made a connection that sent shivers up her spine. The blond man at the sex club had commented about the color of her skin.
“She is beautiful,”
he had said.
“She will command a high price.”
Was the blond man Dietrich?

The woman stood in front of her and brushed a fleck of lint off her the shoulder of her coat. “Sita Ghai,” she repeated. “How nice.” Her eyes hardened. “Before we go any further, we need to get one thing straight. Are you listening?”

Sita nodded.

“Good.” The woman looked deep into her eyes. “You are Sita Ghai no longer. There is no room in this house for children with a past.” She glanced at Li. “Take her away.”

Sita stood, paralyzed. Li ordered her to follow, but she didn't respond. He cursed in a language she didn't understand and took her roughly by the arm. He dragged her across a living room full of antiques, through a hallway lined with paintings, and down a flight of stairs to a wine cellar stocked with hundreds of bottles in state-of-the-art storage cabinets.

He led her to the far side of the cellar, opened the door to one of the cabinets, and turned a bottle of burgundy onto its face. A latch clicked, a motor whirred, and the cabinet moved outward from the wall and swung open on hidden hinges. Beyond the cabinet was a hallway of doors equipped with electronic keypads. Li walked to a door at the end of the hall and punched in a five-digit code. He pushed the door open and ushered Sita into what looked like a photography studio.

Li told her to stand in the middle of the room. He removed her coat and threw it onto a couch against the wall. He stepped back and looked at her, debating with himself under his breath. After a minute or so, he seemed to make a decision. He crossed the floor to a huge walk-in closet and rummaged through racks of clothing, emerging after a while with a slinky white leotard dressed up with sequins. He threw it at her feet.

“Put on,” he said and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Sita regarded the leotard as if it were infected. She couldn't bring herself to pick it up. When Li returned, she was still staring at it. He let loose a string of expletives. Then he took out a knife. He brandished the blade in front of her and threatened her in heavily accented English.

“You put on, or I cut off clothing. I back in five minute.”

She bowed her head and knelt to retrieve the leotard. She unwound the sari Aunti-ji had bought her and placed it on the floor. She had worn it for two weeks without a bath, and the fabric smelled of body odor and cigarette smoke. She pulled on the leotard mechanically, ignoring the discomfort of the stretchy fabric.

Li returned with the blond man from the sex club. As before, he was dressed in a blazer and trousers. As before, he smiled at her thinly, his eyes the color of ice. This time, however, she knew his name. In an instant, the voices came back to her. Dmitri:
“My father has made more profitable arrangements with Dietrich.”
Igor:
“Alexi say I not touch you. Dietrich coming.”

She watched as Dietrich went to the couch and sat down. In his presence, the muted fear of anticipation gave way to the consuming deadness of despair. She heard one more voice—Sumeera's:
“Accept the discipline of God and perhaps you will be reborn in a better place.”

Li walked up to her and snapped his fingers, breaking her out of her trance.

“Good,” he said, directing her by the arm. “Come.”

He led her to a bed covered in purple silk and told her to sit on it. He flipped a switch and a light nearly blinded her. He emerged from behind the light holding a digital camera.

“No smile,” he said. “Look here.”

Sita watched Li as he danced around the room taking pictures of her. He told her to pose one way and then another, to sit back against the pillows with her knees in the air, and then to lie flat on her stomach. He gave her a teddy bear to hold and then replaced it with a lollipop. The photo session lasted half an hour.

When Li was satisfied, he turned off the light and placed a cotton T-shirt and sweatpants on the bed.

“Put on,” he said.

He picked up a magazine from the coffee table in front of the couch and pretended to ignore her. Dietrich, however, stood up and walked toward her.

“Put it on, Sita,” he said. “You have no reason to be bashful.”

She was still for another long moment before she obeyed. Li skimmed the magazine, but Dietrich studied her every move. The shame she felt at undressing in front of him was overwhelming. She wanted to disappear, to leave the wretched world behind.

When she had finished, Dietrich reached out and cupped her chin.

“You will do well,” he said.

He traded a glance with Li and then left the room. Sita, however, was rooted in place. She felt as if he had raped her with his eyes.

Li threw the magazine back on the coffee table and gave a curt wave. She followed him to one of the rooms along the hallway. He opened the door and turned on the light. The room was windowless and utilitarian, its furnishings limited to a bed, a stack of magazines, and a TV/VCR combo on a stand.

“Bathroom down hall,” Li said. “Use when food come. Watch movies and
Seinfeld
.” For some reason he found this comment funny and laughed at himself.

When Li left her, Sita sat on the bed and stared at the wall, replaying the photo shoot in her mind. She remembered every picture he took of her, every angle her body assumed, every shadow cast upon the wall, the feel of the sheets, the plushness of the pillows, the blaze of the lights, the fur of the teddy bear, the taste of the lollipop. Neither Li nor Dietrich had asked her to perform any indecent act, but she knew there was a reason for the pictures. There was a reason Dietrich had paid thirty thousand dollars for her. Everything in this godforsaken place had a purpose.

She lay back against the bed and closed her eyes, thinking of Hanuman in the pocket of her coat, strewn on the floor of the studio down the hall. Like everything else in her life, he was gone, too. Her breathing deepened and she began to drift off. The restive night in the fat woman's crypt and the long drive in the panel truck had left her exhausted.

Neither the anguish of memory nor fear of the future had the power to keep her awake.

Part Four

Chapter 29

The sword of justice has no scabbard.
—A
NTOINE DE
R
IVAROL

Goa, India

Thomas packed his bags and left Agonda Beach in a hurry. He didn't see Priya again, but he didn't expect to—not after what she had said. The proprietor of the resort called him an airport taxi, and he gave the driver a hefty tip to make the transit in record time. The man saw the gratuity as a license to violate every traffic law in the Goan state, but Thomas didn't care. He didn't care about anything anymore.

He arrived at the airport a bare forty minutes before the scheduled departure time for the midday flight to Bombay. He bought a ticket and took a seat in the lounge. He read Tera's e-mail again and fumed. What he would give to deliver her a few choice words. But it wouldn't accomplish anything. The damage was done.

He scrolled through his inbox and found a message from his father. The Judge was a judicious user of electronic technology, and he only wrote personal e-mails when he had something very important to say. He wrote:

Son, I talked to Max Junger yesterday. It seems that the problem with Mark Blake has solved itself. I won't get into details here, but Max has gone to bat for you with the partners. You're welcome back at Clayton anytime. Max admires you, son. He says you're one of the finest young litigators he's seen. That's rare praise from the man we used to call the Buzz Saw. I won't keep you, but I wanted to let you know that you're back in Clayton's good graces. If you continue to make friends like Max Junger, you'll find that the road to the bench is far easier than you imagined.

Thomas sat back in his chair. He knew he should be elated, but his father's news only accentuated his confusion. So the partners had finally figured out that the man responsible for Wharton's malpractice threat had been sitting in their midst all along. But the Judge had said nothing about an apology. Clayton had hung him out to dry and offered him no recompense. Nothing but an invitation back into the fold.

He looked out the window toward the distant runway. Did he really want to be a partner at Clayton|Swift? A judgeship was the goal, of course, but that was years away. Between here and there lay twelve-hour workdays and weekend toiling, cocktail parties and politicking, and ceaseless abuse from clients like Wharton Coal who threw millions of dollars around like petty cash and expected their attorneys to walk on water. He knew because he had watched his father endure it for most of his childhood. His father would say it was worth it. But he wasn't sure his mother agreed, and he knew his younger brother didn't. How many of the important things had his father missed in the quest?

He heard his flight being called and joined the line at the departure gate. He was about to turn off his BlackBerry when it chimed in his hands. He saw that he had a new message from Andrew Porter.

His friend had written:

Thomas, since when did you stop checking your e-mails? We found Sita. She's in hell. We're going to try to get her out. If you want in on it, you need to get on a plane to Atlanta. Now. He stared at the screen and felt a surge of adrenaline. After the miracle of Paris and the heartbreak of Brittany, could it be that Sita was within reach? Why Atlanta? What did Porter mean that she was in hell?

Fingers flying across the tiny keys, he sent two e-mails. To Porter, he wrote,
“I'll be there in the morning. Will e-mail flight info this evening.”
To Jeff Greer, he wrote,
“Had a break. Need another week. Will keep in touch.”
After sending the second message, he boarded the Jet Airways 737 and wished the plane were supersonic.

That evening he took an Emirates flight to Dubai and boarded a midnight Delta connection to Atlanta. The giant aircraft touched down at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the gray light of early dawn. He sailed through customs and collected his single piece of checked luggage from the carousel. Andrew Porter was waiting for him at the curb in a government car.

Thomas threw his suitcase in the trunk and hopped into the passenger seat. Gunning the engine, Porter pulled out into traffic.

“Everything I'm about to tell you is confidential,” Porter began. “I pulled every string in the book to get you included in this. The request had to go all the way up the chain of command to the assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division. As it happens, he and the deputy director of the FBI go way back. He also has great respect for your dad.”

“Did I ever mention that you're my favorite human being?” Thomas said with a grin.

Porter rolled his eyes. “Have you ever heard of something called mIRC?”

“Vaguely.”

“It's a program that allows a person to participate in Internet Relay Chat.”

“It sounds more intimidating as an acronym.”

“Are you going to keep joking, or do you want to hear this?”

“Sorry.”

“mIRC isn't your garden-variety chat service. It's organized into channels that are like chat rooms except they're much harder to access. Some channels are exclusive. The host has control over who's invited to the party. Ever since mIRC was invented, the guys at the FBI's cyber division have been monitoring it for child porn. It's the new Wild West—no rules, absolute privacy, and the Internet at your fingertips. It's networked the underworld. Users of child porn are loners. Before the Web, they flew solo. Now they associate.”