To Jennifer’s relief, the traffic light changed to green and the swarm of auto rickshaws, scooters, motorcycles, buses, trucks, and cars surged ahead, mindless of the children, who had to dodge the vehicles to save themselves.

As promised, the ride from the Amal Palace to the Imperial was short, but after Jennifer paid her fare and started to walk up the Imperial hotel’s drive, since she’d been informed by the auto-rickshaw driver that he was not allowed on the Imperial’s property, she felt as though she’d been through a marathon both physically and mentally. On top of everything else, she had a slight headache from all the diesel fumes she’d been forced to breathe.

As she approached the hotel, she found herself appreciating the building’s appearance, which had a colonial aura, but not the site. In that sense it reminded her of the Queen Victoria Hospital, as it, too, was wedged in among rather unattractive commercial establishments.

Dhaval Narang felt he had the best job in the world because most of the time he just sat around and played cards with several other people who worked for Shashank Malhotra. And when he was called on to do something, it was always interesting and often a challenge, and the current assignment was no different. He was supposed to get rid of a young American woman by the name of Jennifer Hernandez. The challenging part was that he had no idea what she looked like. All he knew was that she was staying at the Amal Palace Hotel. How long she would be staying was also unknown, so he did not have the luxury of spending a lot of time looking for the woman, observing her, and learning her habits. Shashank’s orders had been to get it done and get it done fast.

With the radio playing contemporary Bollywood-inspired music, Dhaval, dressed in a black open-necked shirt with a number of gold chains, steered his beloved black Mercedes E-Class sedan into the Amal Palace’s driveway and drove up under the porte cochere. In the locked glove compartment was a Beretta automatic fitted with a three-inch suppressor. It was one of his many disposable guns. It was Dhaval’s rule that when he made a hit, the gun disappeared or was left at the scene. Back when he’d just been hired, Shashank had complained that such a habit was too expensive, but Dhaval had insisted, and even threatened to quit if he was not allowed to follow it. Shashank had eventually relented. In India it was a lot easier to buy guns than to find people with Dhaval’s résumé.