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“Are you going to tell me where we’re going or is this a kidnapping? Oh my God! You’re going to kill me and bury me in the desert, aren’t you? Just because I spiked your drink.”
I turned to him with a crooked grin.
“Don’t flatter yourself. I wouldn’t waste so much effort on you. Like I said earlier, I can just throw you to the hyenas.”
Veer let out a strangled cry and motioned to the road frantically.
“Eyes on the road! This isn’t a suicide mission, Princess!”
“Such a chicken,” I said, rolling my eyes.
We had left the palace far behind and were cutting straight through the desert, all the way to Gulab Mahal. We could have gone through the inner city because that was a shorter route, but I loved driving through the seemingly endless desert that appeared to join the horizon at some point. All that nothingness and silence soothed the anxiety roiling inside me. We were the only creatures racing through the desert in the dark, except the hyenas and jackals who could be heard in the distance.
“We’re going to a very special place,” I said finally.
“And does this place have a name?”
I opened my mouth to reply but a sudden movement in the distance caught my eye and I slowed down a bit.
Veer looked around in surprise when I killed the engine and we slid down the dune before us silently in the dark using nothing but our momentum. I pulled up the handbrake as soon as we reached the bottom.
“Are you mad? This isn’t the time for dune bashing,” he hissed.
“Hush. There’s someone around,” I whispered because sound carried easily in the silence.
“So? The desert is public property,” he retorted.
“Actually, no. Do you see that metal fence on the far side? The land on the other side of the fence belongs to the army. We’re ten kilometres from the Indo-Pak border. The land on this side of the fence belongs to us. There’s no thoroughfare here, so anyone lurking around here is trespassing on our property,” I said grimly.
“I can’t see anyone,” he replied, craning his neck to look out of the vehicle.
“There! Did you see that flash of light? Sit still and don’t make a sound,” I ordered.
We sat there in the dark, waiting for the intruders to show themselves. But we saw nothing apart from the occasional flash of light. I hopped out of the vehicle to root around in the storage area under my seat, and let out a relieved breath as my hand found the night vision binoculars in the emergency kit Bhai Sa insisted on keeping in every vehicle in his garage.
I trained the binoculars on to where I last saw the flash of light and in the dim moonlight, I finally saw them. I caught my breath at the sight of around six men commando-crawling through the desert towards the fence.
Veer grabbed the glasses from me and whistled softly as he counted the men.
“Who the hell are these men?”
“Mules,” I said bleakly. “They are going to pick up a consignment of drugs from the border.”
Veer turned to me in surprise.
“Why doesn’t Dheer stop them?”
“He’s spent the past nine years doing exactly that,” I replied angrily. “When my father was alive, hordes of these men would drive up to the border in big trucks with his blessing. Bhai Sa put a stop to all that after a very bloody battle against the local mafia. And now it looks as if they have started up all over again.”
I jumped out of the vehicle and began walking in their direction.
“Are you mad? Isha! You can’t follow them,” said Veer, grabbing my arm and pulling me back.
I shrugged out of his hold and glared up at him.
“I need to take a closer look at them, Veer. If Bhai Sa has to confront the bosses about violating the truce, he needs evidence. And I’m going to find it for him. I need to get close enough to take pictures of their activities.”
“No! You need to drive home and inform your brother. I’ll keep an eye on them,” he argued.
