Lin's fugitive life under a false identity in Mumbai

Lin's fugitive life under a false identity in Mumbai makes identity both a shield and a liability: he can move through the city under an assumed self, but fears that a routine check will uncover who he really is. His arrest turns that fear into immediate danger, separating him from those who might help and leaving him to rely on Abdel Khader Khan's reach in the city.

A Wanted Man Taking Stock

The precariousness of Lin's position comes into focus at the Colaba Back Bay, where the rocky coast runs from mangrove swamp toward Nariman Point. During the full force of the monsoon, a pause in the rain opens a quiet interval: fishing boats work the bay, children swim along the bouldered shore, and wealthy residents move through the courtyards of apartment towers across the water. From the slum, the residents' white shirts and bright saris appear like beads on the dark lines of the roads. Lin sits alone on a broad boulder and smokes. The place gives a wanted man room for the spiritual and physical stocktaking that bad omens demand, while his own bleak reflection—that he wants to die at least as much as he wants to live—makes clear how little security his fugitive existence offers.

The Risk of Recognition

Lin's assumed identity is vulnerable to the machinery of identification. After his arrest, he wonders whether the police know who he really is; even if the arrest began for another reason, he expects questions, identification procedures, and perhaps fingerprint checks. His prints, he fears, are on file around the world through Interpol, making discovery a matter of time rather than a remote possibility. The threat is not only that his cover may fail, but that an ordinary process could expose him before anyone able to protect him knows where he is.

Arrest and Disappearance

The arrest comes on a deserted street, unseen by anyone who might tell his friends what happened. Lin believes that Ulla may not know he has been taken, while Karla could read his sudden absence as abandonment after they have made love. The detention therefore cuts him off at once from information and from the relationships on which he might depend. He imagines prison systems as black holes from which neither light nor news escapes, and his disappearance from the city feels as complete as leaving the country.

Dependence on Abdel Khader Khan

In the lock-up, Lin's immediate objective is to get a message to Abdel Khader Khan. He reasons that Khan's many contacts, especially around Colaba, should eventually bring his arrest to light, but until then he must wait and find a way to communicate. As guards drag him up the metal stairs, Lin fixes on that need as a repeated inward refrain. The fugitive's customary uncertainty has narrowed to a practical question: whether a powerful ally will learn that he has vanished before his identity is exposed and his isolation becomes irreversible.