The Nigerian assassins’ attack on Lin transforms a warning of imminent violence into the discovery of a larger deception: three hired men have come to Bombay believing Lin is responsible for a lost drug deal, when the man who named him is Maurizio Belcane. The episode brings together the city’s street-level information networks, Lin’s obligation to allies who have helped him, and the dangerous momentum of his own response. What begins as a threat to his life ends with a clear target for retaliation—and a gun in his pocket as he sets out to find him.

Warning and investigation

The threat reaches Lin during a rare moment of public ease at Leopold’s. Vikram Patel has returned after a week away with Lettie, whose acceptance of his proposal has put the bar’s regulars in an unusually buoyant mood. Lin, Abdullah Taheri, and Vikram have just finished training and are teasing Vikram when a street boy who works around black marketeers draws Lin aside. The boy warns that three large African men are looking for him and intend to kill him, urging him to leave Bombay. The interruption abruptly cuts across the celebration: the danger is immediate, but its cause is still unknown.

Didier Levy treats the warning as a problem requiring action rather than flight. He insists that the men cannot remain in Bombay, and, as the group prepares to leave the bar, discreetly passes Lin a pistol concealed in a napkin. The concealed weapon establishes how seriously the threat is taken, even before anyone knows who sent the attackers. Lin’s search then occupies the rest of the day and most of the night. Hassaan Obikwa supplies the decisive clue: the three men are newcomers to the city, and although Hassaan does not know their motive, his contacts have confirmed that they mean Lin harm.

Raheem, Hassaan’s driver, locates the men at a small hotel in the Fort area. Still recovering from injuries sustained in Arthur Road Prison, he offers to kill them slowly as repayment for Lin having bought him out of prison. Lin refuses the offer. He wants to learn what the attack is about and stop its cause, rather than simply have the men killed. Raheem accepts the refusal and guides the group to the hotel, where he waits outside with two cars. Salman Mustaan and Sanjay stay with him, ready to delay the police if they arrive and give the others time to leave.

The ambush in the hotel

An ally of Abdullah smuggles Lin, Vikram, and Abdullah into the room next to the one occupied by the three Nigerians. Through the connecting wall, they hear ordinary conversation before one detail fixes their attention: one attacker wants Lin’s gold medal, and another covets his boots. The men then discuss their plan. They intend to follow Lin from Leopold’s to the quiet car park beneath his apartment, beat him to death, and take his belongings. The practical greed of the plan makes the threat no less serious; its intended victim is being discussed as both a body to be killed and a source of valuables.

Lin and Abdullah listen on opposite sides of the partition, close enough for their eyes to meet through the narrow space between them. When the group moves, Vikram joins them at the hotel-room door. They use a passkey, count down, and find the door unlocked from within; Lin kicks it open. The attackers are caught off guard in a cramped room, and the three visitors close the door behind them. The confrontation is brief and disorderly. Lin grapples with the largest man, while Vikram and Abdullah engage the other two; the limited space leaves no easy way for anyone to avoid the fight. Abdullah and Vikram bring their opponents down, and Vikram intervenes when the largest man gains the upper hand against Lin. The violence leaves all three attackers subdued, but alive to be questioned.

The motive and the name

After the fight, Lin’s group spends half an hour pressing the men for information. Raheem helps communicate with them in English and their Nigerian dialect. Their passports identify them as Nigerian citizens travelling on tourist visas, and details in their wallets and luggage connect them to Lagos. The account that emerges is that they are hired muscle, sent by a gangster in Lagos to punish Lin for a heroin and Mandrax deal worth about sixty thousand dollars. The money had been lost in a Bombay hustle, and someone had named Lin as the mastermind responsible for taking it.

The attackers initially refuse to identify the person who pointed them toward Lin. They say they will not betray him without permission from their Nigerian boss, making the name the final piece they are reluctant to surrender. Eventually, they disclose it: Maurizio Belcane. The revelation reverses the apparent shape of the episode. The men who arrived as Lin’s intended killers are not acting on verified knowledge of his part in the lost money; they have been directed toward him by someone else. The name supplies Lin with the explanation he sought and redirects his anger toward the person who has falsely implicated him.

Aftermath and narrative significance

Lin orders that the men be taken to the airport and sent back to Lagos the following morning, with their own money used to buy the tickets. He tells them that he had no part in the deal, places responsibility for the false accusation on Maurizio, and warns them not to return to Bombay. Vikram reinforces the expulsion with his own angry warning. The outcome is not reconciliation or trust: Lin lets the attackers leave, but makes clear that the city is closed to them if they come back.

The episode’s immediate suspense—who wants Lin dead, and why—gives way to a more personal and consequential question of what he will do with the answer. Lin leaves the attackers and takes a cab to Ulla’s new apartment, reasoning that she may know where Maurizio is. His throat aches after the struggle, and the pistol Didier gave him occupies his thoughts. He imagines using its eight rounds against Maurizio, then hears an inner warning to get rid of the gun before meeting him. The attack therefore does more than expose a frame-up: it places Lin at the threshold between investigating a wrong and answering it with lethal force. The discovery of Maurizio’s name closes the mystery of the hired men’s immediate motive while opening the next conflict.