She decides she will wait until the door opens, then charge out right away, try to break through them, disappear into the brush. They will be expecting it. It won't work. But she has to try.

The Jeep pulls to a stop. A door opens. And Danielle hears an unexpected voice: male, with an accent she can't place but definitely Western, growling "Get your fucking hands off me."

Then the voice of the man who hit Danielle: "You require education."

A thunking sound, followed by two lighter thuds, and then cries in an Indian language. Someone sprints around the hut. Danielle turns and looks out the barred window. A white man, heavily muscled and military-fit, tattooed, barefoot, wearing khaki slacks and no shirt, with a black eye and bruises on his chest, his wrists handcuffed behind his back, runs to the lip of the bluff. When he realizes there is no way down, he turns to face the five Indian men who pursue him wielding lathis. The man who hit her, and four others in uniform.

At first it seems too unfair and one-sided to be called a confrontation. But then the handcuffed man pirouettes on one foot, moving with a dancer's grace, and his other leg whips out, the heel catches one of the uniformed men on the jaw and knocks him sprawling with an audible clunk, bone on bone with only a little skin between, and the handcuffed man continues the movement, spins towards his pursuers, kicks with his other leg into the crotch of another uniformed man, ducks under one lathi and sidesteps another, moving with extraordinary speed and fluidity, every motion flowing seamlessly into the next. His next step takes him halfway past his three remaining attackers, and Danielle is beginning to dare to dream that he might escape or even defeat them, so cinematic are his motions, when a lathi cracks into the side of his head and all the fight drains out of him. He sags to one knee like a boxer hit by a knockout punch. Then they are all on him, beating and kicking him, and by the time they drag him to the hut and force him inside with Danielle, his face and body are torn and bloody.

The man lies groaning in the corner, wrists still cuffed behind him, as the Jeep pulls away, leaving three guards to watch them. Danielle stares at her unexpected visitor.

"Are you okay?" The question sounds idiotic even as it leaves her lips.

"Water," he rasps. "Is there any water?"

She brings him the water bucket, helps him sit up, which he does wincingly. She cups water in her hands and lets him drink from them.

"Thank you," he says.

"How are you? Do you think you'll be okay?"

He tries to shrug. "Define okay. I don't think there's anything permanent. No broken bones. Who are you?"

"My name's Danielle. I'm American."

"Who are you with?"

"With? I'm not with anyone."

He looks at her and, amazingly, manages to quirk a half-smile. "No shit," he says. "Then you really are in trouble." His accent is strange but his English is fluent.

"Who are you with?"

He wriggles a little, adjusting his position to the least uncomfortable alternative, before answering. "Justice International. We're a small NGO. We organize oppressed peoples to prevent human rights violations. And, you can see, if we're very lucky, we get to become human rights violations."

He pauses to spit blood into the corner. She cannot believe he is being flip after the beating she just saw him receive. His lips are swollen and distended, she thinks at least one of his eyes will swell shut, the tattoos on his muscled arms and torso are half-obscured by ragged cuts and bruises, his dark crew-cut hair stained with blood. She takes her shirt off, dips it in the water bucket, and stoops next to him, intending to clean him up a little.

"Let it clot first," he says. "You'll waste your time. And shirt."

She asks, "This sort of thing happen to you a lot?" His sardonic tone is infectious, and makes the situation a little easier to bear. As does his presence. He is both a distraction and an welcome indication that the situation is more complex than she had previously realized.

"More than I'd like."

"What's your name?"

"Laurent."

She interprets it as a woman's name at first, then realizes. "Are you French?"

"French Canadian. Originally."

"Was that some martial art out there?"

"Several of them."

"Did they teach you that at Justice International?"

"No. The French Foreign Legion."

She looks at him. "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"So is Laurent your old name or your new name?"

"New."

"What's your old name?"

He half-smiles. "Ask when you know me better."

"You think we'll have time for that?"

"They haven't killed us yet."

She sits back. "Who are they?"

"You don't know?"

She shakes her head.

He says, "Local thugs. Literally. Thug is an Indian word. They're Kishkinda's unofficial muscle. Dirty deeds done dirt cheap, and fully deniable. Disappearances, torture, murder. This district's been at war for years. Small, cold, but vicious. The mine and the money made it worse, but it's much older. Caste, politics, last century's blood feuds. Why don't you know this already? Are you really a lost tourist?"

Danielle explains.

"Christ on a tabernacle," Laurent says. "Bad case of wrong place wrong time, eh?"

"I guess."

"Who's this Keiran? What's his interest?"

"I don't know. I used to date him. He's a computer expert. He's doing some work for these antiglobalization protestors who want to shut down the mine. They wanted to bring Jayalitha over to England. I guess to help them."

"Jayalitha is dead."

Danielle sucks in breath sharply at this confirmation. "Did they kill her?"

"Yes. I knew her. She was collecting evidence about the damage the tailings are doing. Slow poison. Cancer. Birth defects. It's like Chernobyl squared. Ten thousand people live where they dump the tailings. Most not even connected by road. Jayalitha went to every village, documented everything, taped interviews, photographs, evidence. She could go where we couldn't. So they killed her."

"Jesus," Danielle says inadequately. "What do you think they'll do with us?"

Laurent shrugs. "One hand, you'd think if they want to kill us, we'd be too busy being dead to be chatting. So, jail or deportation. Bothering to plant drugs on you, that's a good sign. Other hand, maybe it's just delay, for our execution the decision must come from higher up, they're waiting on that."

"They don't have any reason to kill us."

"They have lots of reasons. One, it's easier. Two, we won't bother them again. Three, deterrent for other do-gooders. Unless we become martyrs. Ever wanted your face on a protest poster?"

"No," Danielle says. "I'll fucking kill him."

He looks at her. "Who?"

"Keiran. If I get out of this I'll..." She stops, unable to think of a revenge suitable to the immensity of his mistake.

"Don't be hard on him," Laurent says. "He just fucked up. Easy to do from far away."

"I don't want to die here."

"It's amazing. We have so much in common."

"How can you joke?" she asks.

"How can you not?"

She nods, slowly.