by James Becker
Even over the satellite telephone link, there was no mistaking the suppressed excitement in Donovan’s voice.
‘You remember that tiny piece of papyrus I bought at auction ages ago? The one I named the Hyrcania Codex?’
‘Yeah,’ Masters replied, smothering a yawn. ‘You thought it might be a clue to …’ His voice died away as he recalled what Donovan had told him a couple of years earlier. For a few moments he sat there in silence. Suddenly he knew exactly what his old friend was talking about and, despite himself, he felt a sudden chill as he realized the implications.
‘You mean you’ve found something that might lead you to it?’
‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Donovan said. ‘You know that I’ve been looking for it ever since I read the translation of the papyrus text, how I’ve had my people scouring the web, checking museum databases, doing everything I could to track it down. Now I’m real close to finding it — or rather Bronson and Lewis are, because they’ve got more information than I have. And when they do find it, I’m going to take it from them.’
‘But surely it would have turned to dust after all this time?’
‘For a while, I thought so too. But now I reckon that it could still be viable, just because of where it’s hidden. If I’m right, this would be the greatest archaeological discovery in the history of the world, more important than anything that’s ever been found before. And the implications for science are just mind-blowing.’
‘You’re serious about this, JJ, aren’t you?’ Masters said slowly.
‘You’re damn right I’m serious. To recover this object, I’ll risk everything. It’s been a long search but now — right now — the end-game has just begun.’
44
In his hotel in downtown Mumbai, Bronson had just woken up. After he’d had a shower and a shave, he announced that he felt a bit better but Angela didn’t think there was much visible improvement, and told him so.
‘You still look like a jet-lagged zombie,’ she said, putting her arms round him. ‘Just a clean-shaven zombie, which is only marginally better. Come on. Let’s go and find the business centre.’
Downstairs, the receptionist directed them to a small room off to one side of the lobby. Inside were two desktop computers, a fax machine and a laser printer. Angela sat down in front of one of the desktop machines, and plugged a memory stick into one of the USB ports. A few moments later, the printer hummed and began feeding pages into the output tray.
Angela and Bronson knew they had to act as tourists and join the increasing numbers of Westerners drawn to the Leh region of India by its stark and untamed beauty. But they realized that two Westerners wandering about unescorted in some parts of that area, which had a massive military presence because of the sensitivity of the nearby borders with China and Pakistan, might well attract attention — official and otherwise. They also knew they would have to leave the tourist routes to find what they were looking for, so Angela had come up with a cover story that might help.
She had already prepared a mission statement on her laptop, basing it on one of several previous documents she had stored on her back-up disk.
The printer fell silent. Angela retrieved her memory stick, clipped the printed sheets together and tucked them in her handbag. The finished document ran to about a dozen pages and, together with her British Museum identification, it would, she hoped, be enough to satisfy any official who stopped them. According to the statement, the purpose of their journey was to carry out a preliminary survey of the evidence for pre-Indus Valley civilizations in the Jammu and Kashmir regions of India, and to determine whether a full-scale investigation in the area would be justified. The Indus Valley itself ran just to the south of Leh, so it was a plausible explanation.
Such initial explorations occurred on a regular basis all over the world and that would hopefully be enough to keep them out of trouble. Of course, one telephone call back to the British Museum would immediately destroy their cover story, because nobody there had the slightest idea about where Angela was or what she was doing. Neither was there any official approval for any museum investigation in Kashmir, or anywhere else in northern India, for that matter.
The hotel restaurant was closed, so they stepped outside. Bronson was surprised to discover that it was late evening — his biological clock was telling him something completely different. The evening air was pleasantly cool, and they found a decent-looking restaurant that was still serving dinner without having to walk very far.
‘The first thing we have to do is get ourselves up to Leh,’ Angela said, unfolding a map of the Indian sub-continent on the restaurant table between them and pointing at a spot right up in the Jammu and Kashmir territory, at the very northern tip of India. This area was bordered by China to the east and by Pakistan to the north and west. ‘We’ll have to use Leh — or somewhere very near it — as our base, I think.’
Bronson studied the map, measuring distances by eye and using the scale that ran across the bottom of the sheet.
‘How do we do that? Fly up to Delhi and then take a train?’ he asked.
‘No — we can fly straight there. Leh’s been open to visitors — by which I mean tourists — since the seventies, and it’s actually a fairly big town. The whole area has become really popular with what you might call “adventure tourists” — the kind of people who don’t expect hot water or comfortable beds at the places they stay. There’s an airport, for domestic flights only, a few miles south of the town.’
‘Let’s see if we can take a direct flight tomorrow morning. Once we’re in Leh, we’ll have to hire a four-wheel-drive jeep because I think we’ll find there are very few roads or even tracks once you start climbing.
‘Now,’ Bronson continued, ‘you spent ages on the internet but you still haven’t told me what you’ve found out.’ He looked at her meaningfully.
Angela sighed. ‘I now know who “Yus of the purified” was, and how he acquired that name. In fact, he was called Yus Asaph, or sometimes Yuz Asaf. Yus or Yuz simply meant “leader”, so his name translated as “the leader of the healed” or “leader of the purified” — and that specifically meant lepers who’d been healed.’
‘I didn’t know you could cure leprosy.’
‘I’m just telling you what I found out, or at least what the records told me.’
‘And what about Mohalla? Did you find out where it was?’
‘Yes, and you won your bet. The only “Mohalla” that makes sense in this context is Mohalla Anzimarah, which was located in an area called Khanyar or Khanjar, which is near Srinigar, in Kashmir.’ She pointed at the map. ‘It’s some distance from Leh, maybe a couple of hundred miles, so that ties in quite well with your estimate of how far a small band of travellers could cover in about a week.’
‘And the man they called Yus Asaph was definitely there?’ Bronson asked.
‘According to two completely different sources — and one of them is pretty unimpeachable — yes, he was. And there’s a slightly spooky element I read about which might be related. According to another source, round about the time that the treasure was hidden away a story started to circulate about the so-called “Ghosts of the Silk Road”. That name was tagged on to the story a lot later, of course, because it wasn’t actually called the Silk Road until the nineteenth century. But this source claimed that a small caravan was attacked by a gang of bandits as it made its way up a valley. The leaders of the caravan were hit several times by arrows, but the missiles had no effect on them, and the bandits ran away in terror.’
‘I guess it could be a legend that was embellished over the years,’ Bronson suggested. ‘Maybe they only suffered flesh wounds, or were wearing some kind of armour. Or possibly it never happened at all?’
Angela frowned. ‘But for the story to have survived this long, there had to be a grain of truth in it. What I found interesting wasn’t actually the story about the leaders being bullet-proof, but the fact that the caravan was heading up into the hills w
ell to the north-east of what later became known as Leh, because that area wasn’t part of the normal trade route. I think it’s possible that the story might even have been an eye-witness sighting of the caravan hauling the treasure itself.’
‘And you’re still convinced it’s worth following this up?’
‘Absolutely. If there’s even the slightest chance of finding it, we simply have to take it.’
45
The next morning Bronson and Angela stepped out of their hotel to look for a cab to take them to the airport.
Their senses were assaulted in every possible manner and from every possible direction. Above them, the sun blazed down, baking the still air to the point that it almost hurt to breathe. Dust clouds surrounded them, kicked up by the feet of what looked like hundreds of people milling around and the tyres of the dozens of vehicles — everything from trucks and buses down to cars and motorcycles — and literally hundreds of bicycles. And above all was the cacophony of yells and shouts from beggars, hawkers, taxi drivers and numerous other professions, interspersed with the roaring and grumbling of car and truck and bus engines, which virtually deafened them.
‘Dear God,’ Bronson muttered, pulling their two suitcases to one side of the uneven pavement. He stood there for a few moments with Angela, just looking at the scene in front of them.
‘It all looks like total chaos to me,’ Angela agreed.
‘Well, the sooner we’re in a taxi the better,’ Bronson said, ‘so keep your eyes open.’
He made sure Angela was clutching her handbag and laptop bag, then grabbed the handles on their two suitcases and stepped closer to the edge of the pavement, scanning the road in both directions. Pedestrians thronged the pavements and the edge of the road itself, many of them flapping handkerchiefs ineffectually in front of their faces or fanning themselves with their hats. Some even sported umbrellas against the sunlight.
‘It’s not just us,’ Angela murmured. ‘Even the locals are feeling the heat.’
‘We mustn’t get in any cab unless it’s air conditioned,’ Bronson instructed. ‘I’m not sweltering in a tin box in this heat.’
‘How will I tell?’
‘Simple. If all the windows are closed, it’s got air-con. If they’re open, it hasn’t.’
A couple of minutes later, they saw an elderly Mercedes draw up beside them, all the windows wide open.
‘Ignore it,’ Bronson said, looking down the street, watching out for another cab.
The next cab also had its windows open, but then he saw a fairly new taxi going the other way, all its windows closed. He whistled and waved, and was rewarded by the brake lights flaring red as the driver hauled the vehicle round in a tight — and probably illegal — U-turn.
‘Here’s our ride,’ Bronson said. He seized the handles of their suitcases and walked forwards as the car drew to a stop. The driver stepped out, opened the boot and helped Bronson lift their suitcases inside. Angela climbed into the back seat and Bronson sat beside the driver, revelling in the blast of cold air coming out of the dashboard vents.
‘Where to, sir?’ the driver asked, pulling out into the traffic, his English accented but clearly understandable.
‘The airport,’ Bronson said. ‘We need to fly up to Delhi.’
‘Very good. Domestic terminal. I very well know which way. You enjoy ride.’
The drive wasn’t perhaps the most enjoyable experience of their lives. Rush hour in Mumbai made the chaos of Cairo seem almost tame by comparison. Several times Bronson was absolutely certain a collision was imminent, and he’d close his eyes, only to hear a squeal of brakes and simultaneous bellowing of horns, and realize they’d somehow managed to scrape through without hitting anything. But the air conditioning in the taxi worked well and, despite the terrifying driving all around them, they were both almost sorry when their journey ended and they had to face the heat and humidity once again.
Bronson paid the driver, retrieved their bags from the boot and together they walked into the terminal building in front of them.
The flight to Delhi left on time, which slightly surprised them both, and they then had a two-hour wait in the domestic terminal in the capital before their onward flight to Leh.
When their flight was finally called, they picked up their bags again and walked towards the departure gate, and the last leg of their journey.
As they stood up, two middle-aged men of European appearance who’d been sitting about twenty feet away stood up as well. One of them looked down again at the picture displayed on the screen of his mobile phone, comparing that tiny image — showing a man lying apparently unconscious on the flag-stoned floor of a room — with the face of the man in front of him. Then he nodded to his companion. The identification was certain.
As Bronson and Angela walked away, the two men followed about fifty feet behind them, joining the back of the queue for the flight out to Leh, a flight for which they’d already bought tickets. As they waited to pass through the departure gate, the man holding the Nokia flipped it open and then made a twenty-second call to a US mobile number.
46
Nick Masters, his eyes red with exhaustion after a series of long-haul flights, took another sip of thick black coffee and stared across the table at the tall, slim man wearing an immaculate light grey suit. Despite his Western-style dress, his companion’s brown skin, black hair and dark eyes marked him as a local. In fact, Rodini was a lieutenant-colonel in the Pakistani military.
They were meeting in a small cafe close to the centre of Islamabad. Masters had explained what assistance he needed, though not why he needed it. And Rodini knew better than to ask for specifics.
‘Tell me exactly which part of Kashmir you need to get to,’ Rodini asked, sliding cutlery and plates to one side and opening a military map on the table.
‘Northern Ladakh,’ Masters said, pointing at the area near Panamik.
Rodini nodded. ‘That helps,’ he said. ‘We still control Baltistan and the Northern Areas, so getting you and your men as far as Skardu or Hushe — they’re just here, in central Baltistan — wouldn’t be a problem. Crossing the border into the area controlled by India will be more difficult, of course, because there’s a very large military presence along the border — on both sides of it, in fact. We’ll have to work out the best method of achieving that, but it will have to be a covert insertion, because all the roads between the Nubra Valley and Baltistan have been closed since nineteen forty-seven.’
Rodini tapped the map with his forefinger for emphasis. ‘Insertion is one thing, but extraction could be quite another. Depending on what you’re planning on doing in Indian territory, your best route out might be to simply drive down to Leh and buy an airline ticket to Delhi or Mumbai. Otherwise we could try to arrange for a chopper to pick you up, but we’d have to select the location very carefully. How many men in your team?’
‘Eight in all,’ Masters replied. ‘That’s seven plus me, but two of them are in Leh already, or at least on their way there, so I guess they can leave the same way they came in. That means the infiltration team will be six men.’
In fact, he had only recruited a six-man team, but Donovan would be flying into Islamabad that morning, and was intending to cross the border into India with them. Masters had also sent two men to Delhi. They had spotted Bronson and Angela at the airport, and had managed to get on the same flight.
‘We’ll need some ordnance as well,’ Masters continued, ‘but nothing too heavy. A few nine-millimetre pistols, some Kalashnikovs and if possible a sniper rifle with a suppressor, plus ammunition. Will that be a problem? Can we still just go out and buy them here in Islamabad?’
Rodini made a note on a piece of paper and shook his head. ‘The sniper rifle might prove difficult to source because it’s somewhat specialized, and if you find one it’ll be expensive, but otherwise there’s no problem, especially for the Kalashnikovs. You can buy them in one of the markets. I can suggest traders who supply good quality ordnance and
are honest — or at least as honest as anyone else involved in that business. Anything else?’
Masters paused for a few seconds, wondering how best to phrase his final request.
‘Yes,’ he said, and leaned forward. ‘We intend to recover an object from that area, and we will need transport to assist us in the retrieval.’
‘What kind of an object?’
‘That I can’t tell you, but I can assure you that it has no military significance or intrinsic value. It’s simply a relic that my principal has located, and wishes to take possession of. He collects such things.’
‘Does he always need a team of crack mercenaries armed to the teeth to recover objects that he covets?’ Rodini asked, a slight smile on his face.
‘Not always, no.’
Rodini grunted his disbelief. ‘And may I ask whether it belongs to the Indian government?’
Masters shook his head. ‘No. It belongs to nobody. It’s been lost for millennia.’
‘Very well. How big is it, and how heavy?’
‘I don’t know for certain at the moment, but I estimate a weight of no more than four hundred pounds, and a box that would fit in the back of a jeep or small truck.’
Rodini still looked unconvinced, but Masters decided this was just too bad. The last thing he was going to do was tell him exactly what he was trying to recover — all his credibility would vanish the moment he did so. Even the men he’d recruited had no idea of their actual objective, only that it was a relic that had been lost for a couple of thousand years.
Rodini looked down again at his few notes. ‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘The only major problem is getting you across the border. Give me a call when all your men have arrived.’
47
After the noise and dirt of Mumbai, the relative peace and tranquillity of Leh provided a stark but welcome contrast to Bronson and Angela. The airport was crowded, groups of white-clad Indians bustling around or standing in groups, and there were several clusters of Westerners, mostly wearing utility clothing, heavy walking boots and carrying backpacks. A babel of voices speaking a wide variety of languages and accents greeted them, but it sounded as if English was one of the dominant tongues.
