Spencer shrugged. “That which doesn’t kill you…”
“So, what now?” Drake asked.
“It would be nice to snatch a few hours of rest,” Allie suggested. “Maybe we go to one of the crap hotels around here?”
“Not a terrible idea. What time do you think the grad student gets in?” Spencer asked.
“Probably around nine. We’ve got time.”
They set off on foot for the nearby hotels after Allie swapped the suitcase for her lighter duffel and slung it over her shoulder. Thirty minutes later, they’d rented two rooms and were fast asleep, Allie’s phone alarm set for three hours later to give them time to clean up and make it to the university.
The next morning, the side of Spencer’s face was turning purple at the temple, and he slouched in the booth at breakfast in a questionable restaurant across the street from the hotel, baseball cap pulled low over his brow, his eyes bleary, his face haggard.
“You look like crap, my friend. Go back to sleep. We’ll roust you when we get back from the university,” Drake advised.
“Thanks. I love you too,” Spencer said, chewing cautiously on a roll of unknown pedigree. “Although I do feel like someone worked me over with a board.”
“Seriously. There’s no point to staying awake until we know what the script says – assuming I can increase the brightness sufficiently without washing out the message,” Allie said, toying with her tablet, where she’d downloaded both Spencer’s mural photos and the image of the Kali icon a few minutes earlier.
“You can do anything. I have faith,” Drake said.
“More than I do. This is about as good as it’s going to get,” Allie announced, pushing to her feet. “Go back to the room, Spencer. We’ve got to hit the road.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Pay the bill,” Drake said to him. “Duty calls.”
The trip to the university was as grueling as expected, Delhi rush hour in full effect. They wound up walking the final quarter mile to the campus when their rickshaw stalled in traffic, an accident ahead blocking all lanes where an intrepid pickup truck had misjudged a light and been T-boned by a delivery van.
Divya was at her desk when Allie entered the office, the professor’s possessions boxed up in cardboard cartons all around the room. Divya was more composed this morning and offered a meek smile when she saw Allie.
“Hello. I hope the information about the mosaic was of some help,” Divya said.
“Thanks for nosing around about it.”
“No problem.”
“I did find a photo of the statue where the sword came from, and I was wondering if you could run the script through your engine and translate it for me?”
“You did? That’s a bit of luck, isn’t it? Of course – let me just finish what I’m doing,” Divya said, and closed several files on her screen before looking at Allie expectantly.
“Here you go. It’s a little hard to read, but maybe you can make it out,” Allie said, handing the Indian woman her tablet with the base of the image enlarged.
Divya typed in the characters, pausing as she neared the end, where they became blurrier as the base curved out of sight. She checked her work and then selected the decryption option, and after a pause, another screen opened. She read it with a frown and translated it, and then sat back with a shake of her head.
“It says, ‘Viewed through the eyes of the goddess of time, her lowest hand holds the holiest of holies, beneath which…’”
“Does that make any sense to you?” Allie asked.
“Let’s look at the prior script to put it into context,” Divya said, tapping a few commands. “Here it is: “Within the blessed cave of the six-headed fair one, the path of the devout can be seen by the righteous. In the temple devoted to the destroyer, the sacred mosaic shows the way. Viewed through the eyes of the goddess of time, her lowest hand holds the holiest of holies, beneath which…”
“The holiest of holies?” Allie asked.
“I don’t know what to tell you. It appears to be referring to the mosaic, but it’s not particularly clear. My hunch is the remainder of the script is required to make sense of it.” She sighed. “Is there any chance of locating a photo of the rear of the base?”
“No. It was like pulling teeth to get this.”
“Do you mind if I ask where you found it?”
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss it. The supplier asked me to keep it confidential.”
Divya’s face clouded and she looked away. “Well, then I’m afraid that’s all I can offer.”
“And it doesn’t mean anything to you? Nothing jumps out?”
Divya handed the tablet back to Allie, her face stony. “No. I’m afraid not.”
Allie had no choice but to take the hint. Divya obviously felt that she had been snubbed after providing so much assistance, and nothing Allie said would change it. She hoped that they wouldn’t need the Indian woman’s help again, because it was clear to Allie that none could be expected.
“Divya, thank you for everything. I’d gladly tell you about the image, but it’s part of a private collection, and I was sworn to secrecy…”
“I understand,” Divya said, in a tone that made it abundantly clear she didn’t.
Allie said her goodbyes and traversed the hall to the stairway, wary of any suspicious characters loitering about after the Helms incident, but saw nothing to cause alarm. Drake was waiting for her in the usual spot, and she filled him in as they retraced their steps to the main campus entrance.
“That’s less than good news,” Drake said when she was finished.
“I know. Maybe we can learn something from studying the mosaic further?”
“Sounds like our only option, doesn’t it?”
Allie’s expression turned pensive. “I would have been surprised if this had been easy, the way everything else has gone.”
Drake nodded. “Maybe our luck’s about to change.”
They exchanged a glance that said neither of them believed a word of it.
Chapter 46
Back at the hotel, Drake unlocked the room and led Allie inside. Spencer was sprawled on the bed, the overhead fan’s listless orbit doing little but stirring the tepid air.
“Rise and shine, big guy,” Drake called out, and Spencer started awake and sat up. Allie eyed him and shook her head.
“Thank God you have makeup to cover the bruising. You look like you were hit by a car.”
“Nice to see you both, too,” Spencer growled as he wiped sleep from his eyes. “You crack the code?”
“Yes and no,” Drake said.
“What does that mean?” Spencer asked.
“It means we know what the script says, but it makes no sense.” Allie gave him a short rundown.
Spencer considered the message. “Viewed through the eyes of the goddess of time, her lowest hand holds the holiest of holies, beneath which…who the hell knows. That’s priceless. And about as useful as pockets in a coffin.”
Allie shrugged. “It’s describing the mosaic. We’ve already figured out that the first bit refers to Shiva’s cave in Kashmir.”
“The Shiv Khori,” Drake said.
“Right. And the second part clearly refers to the mosaic,” Allie continued.
“Which would all be impressive if the third part wasn’t incomplete nonsense,” Spencer said.
Drake shook his head. “Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
Spencer grunted. “Somebody sees a future in an Indian prison, playing house with twenty of my new BFFs if we don’t figure this out, and fast.”
“Let’s think about this,” Allie suggested. “The first part of the Kali statue script says ‘viewed through the eyes of the goddess of time.’ We know it’s referring to the mosaic.”
“No, we think it is, because your student friend believes she got the translation right,” Spencer fired back. “We don’t know anything fo
r sure.”
“There’s no reason to think that part is garbled, Spencer. Don’t be negative,” Drake said. “‘Through the eyes of the goddess of time.’ Maybe…maybe it’s saying that the image of Kali contains something in the area of her eyes?”
Allie powered on her tablet and brought up the mosaic image. She zoomed in on the eyes and took a seat by the small table. Drake joined her, and Spencer reluctantly threw the sheets off and eyed the tablet over their shoulders as he donned his shirt.
“I don’t see squat,” Spencer said.
“Neither do I,” Allie agreed.
Drake nodded. “It was just a theory.”
“Here’s another one that’s not so fun to consider,” Allie said. “What if, in the original temple, there was some kind of solar guide, where when the sun shined through an aperture at a certain time of day, it then traced to other elements in the design that acted as a map? I’ve read about that sort of thing, but never seen it in person.”
“Wasn’t that one of the Indiana Jones movies – the one with the snake pit?” Drake asked. “That always gave me the creeps as a kid.”
She gave him a dirty look. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t used in real life.”
They sat in silence, considering the ramifications of Allie’s speculation. Drake cleared his throat. “Problem being that temple was destroyed. So if you’re right, we’re beyond screwed.”
“I’m just thinking out loud,” Allie said. “But absent anything obvious about the mosaic, we’re still back at square one. Or one and a half.”
“It has a lot of detail,” Drake said. “Maybe we’re missing something. Zoom out. Could be that the eyes are looking at something? See how the pupils look a little down and to the right?”
Allie manipulated the image until the entire mosaic was displayed. “Do you see anything?”
“Not really,” Drake admitted.
“Neither do I,” Spencer said. “I’m going to the bathroom. Maybe I’ll have a breakthrough of some sort.”
Spencer left them to their inspection. Allie let her eyes rove over every inch of the image, trying to discern a pattern to any of the elements. Drake ran his fingers through his hair and then felt his two days of growth – a reminder of the inexorable passage of time since they’d been issued the ultimatum by Reynolds.
“Maybe we should go to this Shiv Khori and see if we can spot anything? We seem to have exhausted our leads here,” he suggested.
“It’s unlikely we’re going to stumble across a clue in the cave. Half a million people go every year, remember? Don’t you think one of them would have seen something by now if it was obvious?”
Drake stared at the fan circling overhead, an idea fighting its way to the surface of his consciousness, and then snapped his fingers and stared at Allie with a slightly manic look. “What if it’s not talking about the mosaic at all?”
“Of course it is, Drake. ‘In the temple devoted to the destroyer, the sacred mosaic shows the way.’ What else could it be referring to?”
Spencer emerged from the bathroom and caught the last of Allie’s question. He looked to Drake, who grinned. “The idol. It’s Kali too, isn’t it? Think about the script, taken as a whole. What if there was a bit before the area you photographed that identified a switch from the mosaic to the idol? Then it would mean something completely different. It would mean that, viewed through the eyes of the idol, the mosaic shows the way.”
Realization spread across Allie’s face. “That’s not bad. Not bad at all, Ramsey,” she said softly.
“But the idol’s back at your swami’s place, under heavy guard,” Spencer reminded them. “You mentioned that they had guns – if you’re right, how do we get the statue and look at the mosaic through its eyes, assuming it’s possible to do, which seems unlikely since you said it was made out of gold…?”
“Bring up the picture of the statue, Allie,” Drake said, his voice quiet. She switched to the dark image of the dancing goddess and zoomed in on Kali’s head.
“See anything?” she asked.
“What kind of jewels are those?” Drake asked.
Allie zoomed in closer and increased the brightness. “They look like…rubies.”
Drake sat back, thinking. Neither Allie nor Spencer spoke, allowing him to cogitate in silence. He tried to imagine the statue being used as some sort of beacon, per Allie’s theory, and then opened them and shook his head.
“What if the idol was in the temple that was destroyed? Positioned in some way so the sun shined through its jeweled eyes and hit the mosaic in strategic spots?”
Allie gasped and tapped the tablet to open her imaging software. She waited as it cycled, and her gaze drifted to Drake’s.
“No. That’s not it at all, or at least I don’t think so. It’s much easier. The rubies would make anyone looking through them see the world through a red filter.” She hesitated and tapped the photo of the idol. “What if there are tiles in the mosaic that are only distinctive when viewed through a red lens? Red glass, jewels, it wouldn’t matter.”
“Can you simulate that?” Spencer asked. “With your computer?”
“Give me a second and we’ll find out.”
Chapter 47
After half an hour of fiddling with her imaging software, Allie had created a semi-opaque ruby red overlay and positioned it upon the image of the mosaic. The dancing goddess instantly morphed into what looked suspiciously like a tree of lightning streaking up from the prone figure of Shiva to her lowest arm, which was clutching a severed head.
Drake edged closer to her and traced his finger along the main body of the bolt. “This looks like a map, doesn’t it? It starts at Shiva’s forehead and finishes there.”
“Yes,” Allie agreed. “If the part that begins at Shiva is the Shiv Khori, it’s probably a guide through the various passages of the underground maze. If we assume that each of these branches here, here, and here, represent caverns that dead end, then that leaves only two – the one that finishes at her mouth, and the one that ends at the arm with the severed head.”
“Which is the holiest of holies?” Spencer asked.
“Actually, it signifies evil. The depiction represents Kali’s triumph over evil,” Allie said.
“How is evil holy?” Drake asked.
“Could be confusion in the translation,” Allie ventured. “Or it could be that whoever crafted this map was one of the occult offshoots that worshiped Kali as the goddess of death rather than the goddess of destruction.”
“Death, destruction…what’s the difference?” Spencer said with a snort.
“To these cults, which used their worship of her as an excuse to murder, considerable,” Allie said. “They all believe they were created by her, but their purpose is the sticking point. Anyhow, that doesn’t matter to us. What does is that this seems to be a map through the cave system.”
“Where do you think this other branch, which leads all the way up to her head, goes?”
“There’s a legend the Shiv Khori has a passage that terminates at another sacred cave in Kashmir: the Amarnath cave. Could be that’s what this is mapping out,” Spencer said. Allie looked at him strangely, and he shrugged. “You told me to research all this, remember? I had a lot of time on my hands.”
“For our purposes, we only care about the branch leading to the severed head,” Drake said, and using a pen from Allie’s purse, began making a drawing of the map on the back of a hotel brochure.
“I don’t get it,” Spencer said. “What does a missing DOD agent and Carson’s murder have to do with some legendary treasure? I mean, this is all fine, but does anyone have any ideas?”
“Could be that Carson had competition, and they’ll kill anyone who gets in their way,” Allie said quietly. “Look around – tell me you can’t see that as a viable possibility.”
“I don’t know. That doesn’t feel right,” Spencer said. “We’re missing something here.”
Drake finished the drawing and folded the paper before pocketing it. “So now the question is how we get to the Shiv Khori.”
“With enough firepower to stop a tank,” Spencer added. “No frigging way do I go anywhere with more than this peashooter,” he said, patting Helms’s Beretta beside him on the tabletop. “And we have the issue of crossing into Kashmir. It says there are checkpoints at the border.”
Drake looked at Allie. “I think we need to call Reynolds. Maybe he can get us into Kashmir and set us up with weapons and supplies. The guy’s an intelligence officer. That sounds like the sort of thing he’d be able to arrange.”
“I don’t like that option,” Spencer said. “Think of another one.”
Allie frowned at him. “Spencer, there’s a limit to how much we can accomplish on our own. He got the cops off your back. Maybe he can pull this off, too.”
“I’ve said before I don’t trust him. If I’m right, calling him would be disastrous.”
Drake stood. “Neither do I. We don’t have to tell him exactly where we’re going. Just that we’re pursuing the trail, and it leads to Kashmir. Remember it was his bright idea for us to continue with Carson’s little quest – so now we need his help. No long explanations required, just guns and gear.”
Allie eyed Spencer. “We good on this?”
He looked away. “I suppose if there’s no better alternative.” He rattled off the types of weapons he wanted – AKM assault rifles, Beretta 9mm pistols.
Allie nodded and held out her hand. “Let me see your phone, Spencer.”
“What’s wrong with yours?”
“I don’t want to call him on my American cell – I’ve got it off so we can’t be tracked. We can jettison this one after I make the call, and buy a couple more before we hit the road.”
Spencer gave her his cell, and she dialed Reynolds’s number. He answered on the second ring.
“Yes?”
“It’s Allie. We have a lead, but it’s going to require some heavy lifting on your end.”
“You do?”
“Yes. Here’s what we need.” She gave him a rundown of Spencer’s weapon request and a description of the other gear – flashlights, first aid kit, rope, a GPS.
The Goddess Legacy Page 22
