SHE CAME INTO the studio, weapon raised, two-handed, taking short steps inside. There stood Guha. At his feet lay Thakkar, terrified and wracked by snotty sobs, his bound hands held almost as if in prayer. Guha stood with one foot on top of him, stooping slightly to hold the Glock to his head. When he looked up to see Nisha, the studio lights reflected off his glasses so that his eyes seemed to shine white.
“I’m sure I remember giving instructions that if the next person to walk through that door wasn’t Maya Gandhe then I shoot Thakkar,” he said. “Yes, I’m certain I can recollect giving those exact instructions. And yet, and yet, I am greeted by the sight of her mother.” He addressed the camera. “Ladies and gentlemen, you probably can’t see her, but I have been joined by Nisha Gandhe, the mother of Maya, our guide to a better future.”
“How’d you know my name?” Nisha’s voice sounded flat and muffled in the empty studio.
“Why, it’s in the essay…You have read the essay, haven’t you?” he said.
A guilty shockwave passed through Nisha as she stood with her gun trained on Guha. The truth was, she hadn’t read it. She’d fallen asleep reading it and had never gotten around to finishing it. She hadn’t been there to see Maya pick up her prize. Hadn’t been there for Maya at all.
“How is she?” asked Guha. “How is Maya, the little girl I saved from the pedophile Amit Roy? How is that little girl?”
“She’s very well, thank you. Now drop the gun and step away from Thakkar.”
The light flashed on his glasses again. His Glock pressed harder into Thakkar, who whimpered in return. “Are you my assassin?” Guha taunted. “Have they sent you to kill me?”
“Nobody needs to die,” said Nisha. She took a step forward.
“Oh, you know very well that’s not true.” His body language warned her to stay back. “I think we both know that Mr. Thakkar here needs to die. The last of the old guard, the final bloodsucker to extinguish before we can begin again.”
“And you know very well I can’t let you do that,” replied Nisha evenly.
“You won’t shoot. To stop me you’d have to kill me and you don’t want to kill me.”
“I don’t want to kill you but I will if I have to.”
He chuckled. “You had your chance to kill me the other night, and you didn’t.”
“I didn’t have a clean shot. You were a shrinking target.”
“Oh, and there was also the small matter of your little girl urging you not to shoot. Because she knows, doesn’t she? Little Maya knows that the Deliverer is a force for good in this world, and that it’s the likes of Roy, Thakkar, Kumar, and Patel who deserve to die. Essays are a start. They’re a good start, but in order to effect true change—real, profound change—we need to show those who exploit us that we are not prepared to take it any more. And to do that we have to take up arms. The Deliverer has done more to root out corruption in Delhi in weeks than Ajoy Guha managed in years. You can’t deny that.”
“Perhaps,” said Nisha. “And you’re right, Maya thinks you’re a good man.”
“She does?” Guha seemed genuinely touched. “She really does?”
“Yes, she does. But what if she were to see you kill a man in cold blood on television. Would she still think so then?”
“She would understand in time that I did what had to be done.”
“The fact remains that I can’t let you do it, Guha.”
The tension in the room rose. Nisha controlled her breathing, feeling her heart rate settle. Her hands were steady, her head inclined as she stared down the sight of her .38. Thakkar’s whimpering increased in response to the increased pressure of the Glock pushed at his head, and Guha locked eyes with Nisha, a smile playing at his lips. He turned his head to address the camera. “We’ve reached that point in the show, ladies and gentlemen, where we have to say good-bye to one of our guests.”
With no warning, Guha’s Glock swung upward to point at Nisha.
She squeezed the trigger.
The two shots rang out simultaneously, like every other noise strangely deadened by the sound stage of the studio. Nisha felt a blow, staggered backward from the force of something that punched into her left shoulder, and knew right away she’d been shot. She looked down to see the hole in her jacket, warm blood already beginning to flow down her upper arm. She was struck by a dizzy feeling, knowing the pain would hit her any second now.
And then it did—with a rush of white-hot agony that sent her to her knees on the studio carpet. Her gun arm went limp and the .38 hung uselessly from her fingertips, but at least Guha was also wounded, his shirt bloodied and tattered along one side. Stooping, he bared his teeth in pain as he placed the Glock back to Thakkar’s head.
“Don’t,” she called to him weakly, still unable to raise the .38, her vision clouding.
Guha’s shoulders rose and fell. He shuddered and then pulled the trigger. Thakkar’s head disintegrated, bits of blood, brains, and skull splattering Guha’s face. Grinning. Triumphant. Behind Nisha the door opened and the armed response team burst into the studio.
All she heard as she lost consciousness was the sound of cops shouting. All she saw was Guha grinning.