THE HUNT FOR KOHINOOR BOOK 2 OF THE THRILLER SERIES FEATURING MEHRUNISA by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar Read Free Book Online Page A

animal. However, the animal’s ability to hide is its greatest advantage. He lured the poaching duo in, waiting for the right place and time to strike. When he revealed himself, barely a paw away, he passed over the first man and went for the second whose gunshot had wounded him. A wounded leopard was vindictive and sought precise revenge.
    ‘You lied to me.’
    Strapped in bandages, his skin visible in patches, Harry stared at him from the bed. His wounds were not very deep, the surgeon had assured Mishra. However, since Harry had taken several shrapnel pieces, he needed to be rested. That, though, was not the only reason the operative was lying down in bed. His ankles and wrists were in restraints.
    In an even tone Jag Mishra said, ‘I had no option.’
    ‘No option.’ Harry spat the words out. ‘Bachelor buddies, isn’t that what you said. When you gave me an entirely new life.’ He tugged at the thick bands encircling his wrists. ‘If I wasn’t restrained, I’d kill you.’
    ‘The thought did cross my mind.’
    Harry had spent the last several hours hurtling through a 3D video album, the pictures in random order, each a piece of shrapnel, searing him with its intensity, tearing his insides. In a hospital room holding a newborn in his arms. Strolling down Via Veneto with a woman with eyes the colour of emeralds. Hide and seek in the gardens of Villa Borghese. A gallery off Teheran’s Laleh Park. A girl’s squealing laugh. The Astaire fold. Aperi-tea-f. Husband. Father. Dubai. Rome. Spy… The life that he’d blocked out for so many years had come back to claim him with all the ferocity of a dormant minefield blowing up.
    ‘You let me believe that a part of my life never existed.’
    From the foot of the bed where he stood Mishra held both palms up, a position of appeal. ‘What would you have done, Harry? Gone into therapy? Spent hours sitting on a hospital bed trying to remember?’ He shrugged. ‘Work was your therapy, Harry. It was what you always came back to. Remember when you married. The only thing you made your wife promise was that she’d never ask you to leave your job.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps you need to remind yourself why you got into the intelligence business in the first place.’
    Quietly Mishra watched his friend and colleague of thirty-odd years. In many ways, Mishra was the opposite of Harry. Mishra was a committed bachelor, a teetotaller whose wardrobe comprised greys, whites, occasional blues, and whose demeanour ranged from placid to calm. Mishra was the behind-the-scenes man, while Harry was the go-to guy. Mishra had yet to see a spy whose combination of cunning, stealth and superb athleticism could be matched by anyone in the force. Admittedly, Harry had moved up the ladder to more strategic work like Operation Karakoram, which involved a painstaking secret dialogue on Kashmir between the two leaders of Pakistan and India. Yet Mishra knew that on any given day the master spy was still numero uno. Other agents were in the spying business; for Harry, his work was jihad. The lack of distractions had only lasered the zeal.
    ‘The time for niceties is up Jag.’ Harry broke the rumination. ‘The reason you have me restrained is not because I’ll kill you. It is because you don’t want to lose me. But,’ Harry’s mouth curved in a sneer, ‘I’m not in much shape to go AWOL.’
    ‘You recall what happened in Dras yesterday?’
    ‘The General got blown up.’
    Jag Mishra pulled a chair from where it was lined against the rear wall, placed it by Harry’s side and sat down. Then, in a low voice, he proceeded to disclose Aziz Mirza’s revelation of Kohinoor, his critical documents that the President had stored in a secret safe place.
    ‘How many hours do you have?’
    Mishra noted Harry’s use of ‘you’ and not his trademark ‘we’. ‘The estimate continues to be for an attack this Thursday, the seventh. A high alert has been issued and security has been beefed up at