The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(66)
“Zoya called. I need your help. Come to Nandini’s once you’re done?” She sounded upset.
“Are you fine? I’ll—” but he was cut off by raised voices, and bursts of sound like the backfiring of a car. He recognized them for what they were.
Gunfire. A deafening fusillade from two directions near the road.
He’d pivoted and half sprinted as best he could toward the gate, his 9 mm out and firing back, instinct and muscle memory taking hold, making time both speed up and slow down. It was only when the recoil made his arm flinch and the pistol fly up that he noticed his right hand was so bruised it hurt to grip the gun. Unable to raise his left hand, he was shooting one-handed. He adjusted his stance for one-armed shooting—hunched forward on his right leg instead of the left, angling his elbow inward, bracing, keeping the Glock upright. A hoarse shout floated up when one of his shots found its mark amid his rallying cry for reinforcements. Adrenaline coursed through him amid the noise and flash of each shot he returned, his clear sight of the shooter from the open truck turning to a blur of vapor and dust from the wall to his left as bullets tore into brick and plaster.
He paced his shots, listening for the answering cries from his colleagues inside the station, until his gun clicked empty. Any moment now, a bullet would find him.
In his peripheral vision, others rushed up to provide covering fire as a shot plowed into the wall beside his ear, deafening him. With a harsh cry of “Avi!” a body barreled into him from behind, sending arrows of pain shooting through his shoulders, arms, and chest, rolling and twisting with the impact, making him land on his broken shoulder. Through the blinding haze of pain, he pushed off the weight. He’d recognized that cry. On his clothes a wet warmth. Blood. He hauled himself up as fast as he could, and turned to find Shinde, whose normally bright eyes looked glassy. Blood frothed at his mouth and from his uniformed chest. Arnav used all his remaining strength to press his hand to Shinde’s wound, using the fabric from his own sling that had come off in the melee. Shinde coughed like a stuck carburetor, splattering Arnav’s face with warm liquid.
“. . . dojo . . .” the rest of it lost in the choke and rattle of him trying to draw a breath, his eyelids fluttering closed.
“Stay with me, abbay narangi pandu saley, keep your eyes open.” It sounded like someone else.
Blood gushed through Arnav’s fingers, sticky-warm and dark in the half-light of the descending evening. He pressed harder, ignoring the nauseating copper smell from the spatter on his face. He straddled Shinde in an attempt to hold him still, and use his own body weight to keep the wound staunched.
Seconds later, many footfalls and voices, familiar and not. Hands strove to draw him away. He refused to release his grip on the wound. First aid basics came back to him: Apply pressure; don’t release until help arrives. Besides, if he moved, he’d have to let go of Shinde. He couldn’t do that.
Sirens. Shrieking phones. Barked orders. Curses. Tukaram’s reedy voice, Are you hurt . . . the ambulance is five minutes away. Fodder for his nightmares for years to come—the uneven rattle as Shinde struggled to breathe, punctuated by Arnav’s own curses, flinging back all the swear words he’d taken from Shinde over decades, during those brief moments that felt like years, lifetimes, alternately threatening and begging him to please open his fucking eyes. Shinde didn’t oblige, stubborn and contrary to the end.
As medics claimed Shinde, the drunk freshly released from the lockup burst into his pent-up song on loop, “Phir kya pata, kal ho na ho.” Someone shushed him, and he halted in the middle of the next phrase, “Har ghadi badal rahi hai roop zindagi.”
Firm hands drew Arnav away and into another waiting ambulance. On the blank canvas of Arnav’s mind, the words registered: From moment to moment life changes its face.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
ARNAV
Arnav floated on the cloud of tranquilizers the doctor had dosed him with while resetting his shoulder and bandaging it all over again. Even at 4:00 a.m., the government hospital sounded like a marketplace, with policemen scrambling about near the mortuary.
He’d wanted to ask the doctors if they’d made a mistake about Shinde. It was quite possible that bastard was faking it, his whole life a huge pretend, his fakery only pausing for a second when he’d flung himself in the path of a bullet intended for Arnav, and gushed blood. So much of it. The doctors had fought a losing battle. Arnav had rushed into the room, the floor splashed with red, the debris of their battle scattered everywhere. Been rooted at the sight of Shinde’s ashen face still uncovered on the operating table, lips pulled back in a grimace. Arnav’s knees threatened to give way—but he held himself like he would at a parade. A man and a Mumbai police officer couldn’t afford a public display of grief. He must deal with that when he was alone.
The entire Malwani station had gone on high alert. Naik and other officers grilled the injured gunman who’d been captured. In the years before Arnav joined the force, shoot-outs with the police were common. Terrorist attacks had occurred in the last two decades, but not many gun battles like this one. Someone had paid a lot of money to silence him, and they wouldn’t be happy.
Others might conclude Shinde was the target, given his reputation as an encounter specialist and his assignment to arrest Rasool, but Arnav knew better. His head carried a price tag. A few weeks ago, this would have pleased him, brought him a rush of adrenaline. Now, he merely aimed to find the threat and eliminate it.