by Abhishek Roy
“Hold your horses, Ram. Read the next line,” I tried to cajole him.
“The man of Bor-nu,” his eyes grew a bit larger. “This line gives me the creeps.” He shivered slightly.
“This reference was there in the poem I found in Mrs. Dawson’s notebook and then in the scroll given by the Daruma doll seller. Now, it’s in the main verse itself. That looks like the line is actually trying to make its way into the main poem.” I added.
“I don’t know why a man from Africa is being referred to in all of these verses. ‘Bor-nu’ means land of gold. If this line has been added to the main poem itself, maybe it is directly leading us to the gold and probably a very important man from Africa who had close ties with the Vikings! Maybe a ruler, like Mathias had said earlier. I can’t wait to get the answer to this line!” Ram said aloud and his eyes gazed towards something faraway, deep in thought.
“Okay, okay. Read the next line,” said Vivek.
“Yeah.” said Ram and started reading after regaining his composure. “Consecrated under the church which started it all.“
After a short pause, Ram spoke. “I think we are surely referring to the Roman Empire because the church described over here must be the St, Peter’s Basilica! It was this church which granted Christianity a powerful place in the world of religions!”
“So we are talking about Vatican city over here?” Vivek asked, clearly thrilled but not as much as Ram.
“Yes!” he shouted. “Let’s go!“
“So we are headed to the catacombs in Rome and entering them through the St.Peter’s Basilica?” said Vivek, summing it all up.
“Yes! Or maybe the Necropolis! That is directly under the Basilica and is an entire underground city too!” cried Ram, “That would explain the ‘Invisible City’! We are probably going to find the answer to the most cryptic line in all the verses yet! Maybe even gold! Now I think that your escapade from the Tokyo National Museum was really worth a lot!” His green eyes were gleaming. “Though why someone from Northern Nigeria would be buried along with his gold under the Saint Pet...” he said softly to himself. “But we shall find out soon enough!” he grinned with joy, yet again.
“Alright.” I looked at my wristwatch. “You both go to sleep. I’ll book the tickets by the cheapest and shortest route and wake you guys up if it’s a morning flight.“
“Righto!” exclaimed an exhilarated Ram.
***
“What?” Ram yelled groggily in response to my vigorous knock on his capsule door, his voice audible even through the Plexiglas. He picked himself up and saw me and Vivek crouching next to his cell door. As the fact about our fast incoming adventure hit him, he was out of his bed in seconds with his face shining.
“What time is it?” He asked us after crawling out if his cell.
“Seven in the morning,” answered Vivek. “Our flight is at around 10 AM, so hurry up.“
“Good. I’ll freshen up and get ready as fast as I can.” He was off towards the toilet and lockers.
By 7.30 am, we had finished our breakfast and were on our way to the Narita airport in a taxi. We checked in our luggage and passed the security in no time. However, the three of us were constantly looking over our shoulders. After the chase yesterday evening, we had become extremely anxious about our moves. If we were being tracked, then we were not safe anywhere.
Next, we walked off towards immigration.
“We are out of Japan!” Vivek exclaimed like a clown. “Sayonara.”
“Oh, come on. We will miss our flight,” said Ram who wanted to reach Rome as fast as he could.
Once we were done with the Immigration procedure, we were sitting in the lounge, waiting for boarding at our gate. Our flight was TK 51 Turkish Airlines to Istanbul, after which we had another Turkish Airlines flight TK 1361 booked to Rome, a short distance.
“Japan was good, wasn’t it?” Vivek asked us. We couldn’t agree more. However, as we were drawing closer and closer to unveiling the mystery of the quest, I was wondering what it had to do with the Father of the Gods as mentioned by Mrs. Dawson. I was also feeling a little nervous as to what we would find.
Within a few minutes we were seated in a double-decker plane. It was a 15 hour flight and the airplane had to carry as much fuel.
Finally settled in the aircraft, Ram spoke again. “So we are flying via Istanbul?”
“Yes,” I said. “We have a five and a half hour gap between flights so we can stretch our legs.“
“I still wonder how they were tracking us. They must have been tracking us from the orphanage. What could they have been using to do so?”
I turned to Ram, “Are you still carrying your radio?”
“No. I left it in the orphanage.”
“Then that can’t be the one.” Said Vivek.
“Yeah. What about the diary? But Mrs. Dawson had it all along, not us. I am not sure about that,” I said.
“So it comes down to your amulet,” said Ram.
“Maybe. But I can’t throw it away, Ram.” Ram looked at me with a troubled face. The amulet was the only token given to me by my parents and if that is how Baldr’s men were tracking us, I would be torn apart to throw it away.
“Wait! I was struck by a thought. “Then why didn’t the men chase us into the capsule hotel? I still had my amulet.“
“So?”
“When we were in the hotel, your Maglite’s battery was down, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“So there must be a tracker inside it which runs on the battery. Give me your Maglite!” Vivek exclaimed. Ram took out his flashlight. “Don’t damage this. Just take out the transmitter if there is any.“
Vivek took the flashlight and opened the battery compartment. He pulled out the batteries and along with the second one, out came a tiny disc. It was around the same size as a button but thin as wafer and deep indigo in colour. Its surface was clean with a slight bulge in its centre. Vivek examined the disc while holding it delicately between his fingers.
“When I had gone to the secret Weapons Development Laboratories back home during my Government job stint, I remember seeing a similar tracking chip. It was a new generation elite military grade R3 tracking device. However, this seems to have been scaled down at least three times more than that.” Vivek looked at us. “Baldr’s dimension is surely far ahead of our time.“
“This tracking chip is dead, isn’t it?” Ram asked him.
“Has to be. Otherwise,” Vivek looked over his shoulder, “we should have met our pale friends. Someone in your orphanage must have been loyal to these people and put it in your Maglite.“
Vivek wrapped the chip in a tissue paper and walked over to the lavatory and flushed it away. There was a huge gap in between the two flights and the three of us kept mulling over what we could do during that time and slowly fell asleep.
Elsewhere
TOKYO / KYOTO
March 13, 2017, Monday
1030 hours JPT
It was a customary pleasant March morning in Tokyo. Katsuro Hamasaki parked his Toyota in his private parking. A short walk later he was inside the museum, headed for his office. Hamasaki walked briskly through the corridors of the main building until he stopped at the mirrors section. His aged and experienced eyes scanned for something unusual.
Why were the kids so interested in the mirrors? There must be something wrong.
He searched the mirrors of the Muromachi period. Everything was perfect. Hamasaki went over to the Edo period showcase and found nothing different. Finally, he walked to the Kofun period showcase. He turned away but something seemed odd. Hamasaki turned back to the showcase. He knew there were supposed to be five mirrors here but there were only four. He spotted the dust pattern and discovered that they were misaligned. The curator smiled inwardly. Everything became clear to him as the only mirror with a handle was missing.
Hamasaki quickly walked into his office and called his secretary.
“I don’t want any visitors today. Ca
ncel all visitors for me,” He said in Japanese.
After he hung up, Hamasaki pressed down on his cube shaped crystal paperweight and a small part of the table collapsed down and clicked. He waited for a second before the small part of the table came back up and looked like nothing had happened. At the same time, the wall behind him swivelled and opened up another secret anteroom. Hamasaki walked into the anteroom and the wall swivelled back into place.
Inside, there were many documents and papers lying neatly in piles with ‘TOP SECRET’ stamps over them. There was a computer, a radio and a satellite phone. The dark room was specially designed so that no device could tap into any signal sent in and out of the room and the devices were also designed that way.
Hamasaki-san transferred three pictures from his mobile into the satellite device and made a call.
“I am sending you three pictures. I want to know everything about them. Name, age, place they live in. Everything.”
“Sure,” another voice replied in fluent Japanese. “Send them.“
Hamasaki sent them through. He made another short call, kept the satellite device in his satchel bag and quickly booked a first class ticket in the Shinkansen bullet train going from Tokyo to Kyoto and promptly moved out of his office to catch the train.
While in the N-109 train, his satellite phone pinged at around half an hour past noon. All the possible intel he had wanted on the three boys were sent to him and he familiarised himself with them.
“Interesting.” He muttered under his breath and reclined in his comfortable seat, gazing at the beautiful countryside of Japan whizzing past at a phenomenal speed.
As soon as he reached Kyoto just after lunch hour, he got into the totally black Nissan stretch Limo waiting for him. The blackened windows offered perfect privacy from the outside world while the chauffer drove him away from the city. For nearly an hour, the car drove noiselessly on the Tango highway. Finally, they passed a small town and from then on, Hamasaki always got a feeling of travelling to the end of the world, every time he came around this way.
The road continued into an extended piece of land. The Limo clung to the border between the rolling green hills and the sea shore until the road came to an end. Hamasaki got out of the car and boarded a chopper in a remote helipad. As the chopper gained altitude, Hamasaki saw the entire peninsula from a bird’s eye view.
The rocky peninsula’s surface was covered in bumpy hills. There was no settlement or house in this strip of land. Only wilderness.
The chopper tilted forward and thundered towards the tip of the peninsula. Far ahead, the shimmering surface of the Sea of Japan came into view. From such a height, it looked like a gigantic crinkled metal foil covering the earth’s surface.
Hamasaki-san had a faraway look in his eyes whilst he looked at the scenery. When he looked through the front windshield a large structure became visible right at the tip of the peninsula. Even from this far, it was clear that the structure overlooking the sea was a palace with Japanese pagoda roofs. In fact, the palace was enormous, roughly covering the entire tip. Behind it was another complex which looked like a factory and in front of it was a jetty with yachts bobbing up and down. There was a logo of a popular beer brewing company on the top.
The chopper landed on the helipad on top of one of the roofs. Hamasaki ducked under the wind and entered the palace from the top. A formidable looking army official guided him to the general’s office.
Hamasaki and the official walked through many corridors and glass encased rooms which were bustling with life or scientific experiments.
Finally, they arrived at a huge set of oak doors. The official bowed and went away. Hamasaki adjusted his coat and his hair before knocking on the door.
“Come in,” said an old voice over the intercom. Hamasaki swung open the doors and bowed before the aged general before taking a seat in front of his large table which looked small inside the three storied office.
“How are the operations going?” Hamasaki asked him in Japanese.
“They are going very good. But did you come all the way to ask me this question?” asked the old man.
“No, not at all. It’s because a Bodhidharma artefact has been stolen.”
The old man looked at Hamasaki with a stolid face devoid of expression.
“We have intel on the three boys who have stolen it.” Hamasaki gave his satellite device to the old man. He accepted it with his frail hands and read through the descriptions.
“The loss isn’t very grave for now but our sources have also spotted three pale otherworldly men chasing them around the Ginza district in Tokyo. If they get to know about them, there is a chance of the information getting leaked. So the construction has to be speeded up.” Hamasaki advised. The old man did not look up but simply nodded while he read the report about the three boys.
“Besides, how is the extraction going on?” Hamasaki asked him.
“Pretty good. Our stockpiles are increasing at a tremendous rate.”
“That sounds nice. How is the Technician?”
The old man looked up at Hamasaki, “He had fainted yesterday. Low sodium level. He is still finding it difficult to adjust in our world. Our medical teams assure me that soon he will be fine.”
“Our proud nation is now sitting on a time bomb, Kiyoshi- san. It is only you and the research with the Technician that can help put us up again as the Land of the Rising Sun, a position which was compromised during the Second World War. We do not even have the constitutional right to raise an army except for self-defence now.”
The old General nodded. He also was acutely aware of how important this project was and how secret it had to be kept. The news of the theft brought by the curator was not a disaster, but an alarm nevertheless.
“Alright then. I shall take your leave.” Hamasaki rose and bowed. He walked out of the room and shut the large oak doors.
” Who are these kids? They have a modest background but surely, a lot of things are hidden.” The old man whispered to himself. He kept the satellite phone and punched a key into the intercom with a worried look.
Kapittel 37
Mathias’s story
ISTANBUL ATATURK AIRPORT, ISTANBUL, TURKEY
March 13, 2017, Monday, 1700 hours EEST
The Istanbul Ataturk airport was wonderful and voluminous. It was, like all glamorous airports, a mixture of glass and metal and shielded us from the afternoon heat of Asia Minor.
We walked past many duty free shops and grabbed a burger. It was around five o’clock and we had started to feel a little hungry due to jet lag.
The announcement came up that the incoming aircraft to Istanbul had not started yet from Ankara, and a delay of about an hour was expected. As we kept sauntering about, we stopped at a book shop. While Vivek and I were roaming about in the science section, Ram started reading a small brochure about Turkey. Suddenly, he came running towards us, weaving around the bookshelves in between.
“Guys!” he cried, breathing rapidly.
“What happened?” I asked Ram who looked as if he had seen his death.
“The verse. We have got it all wrong!” he cried, waving the brochure at our face.
“I don’t get you.” Vivek said
“I remember clearly that the mirror on which we found the verse was from the 5th century AD,” Ram replied.
“Yes. So?”
“Our interpretation of the second line was partially correct because Rome was the centre of the Romans, Greeks and Persians. Lots of mixed cultures lived there too. But our destination is not Rome.”
“Then what was it?”
“The mirror was from the 5th century. If we suppose that the verse was written at that time too, then the capital of the Roman empire was Byzantium or Istanbul!”
“Really?” I asked him, incredulous.
“Yeah! We got it all wrong. So the New city, the church... all of them have to be somewhere in Turkey. Even the Invisible City! In fact, if we see the map, then Turkey or Asia
Minor is in the centre of the Greek, Roman and Persian empire.”
“How do we get into Turkey? We don’t have the eVisas.” I said.
“Can’t you do something?”
“I could hack into the airport’s mainframe like I hacked into the security system back in Tokyo National Museum, and command them to access us entry without visas but it would take some time,” I said, worried.
“Then what do we do?”
“Wait. What if we dress up as janitors and get out from the service entry?” asked Vivek.
“Not bad. We could try. But. we might find them in a toilet.” I suggested.
“Alright then. Let’s head to a washroom.” Vivek ordered and we followed him. We entered a washroom surreptitiously. Fortunately, there wasn’t anybody else in the washroom, giving us freedom to think and talk.
“So...where do we find the uniforms?” Ram asked.
“Look into the cupboard,” Vivek suggested.
Ram checked the cupboard beside the wash basin. “It’s locked.”
“Not a problem.” Vivek said and picked the lock with his iPhone simcard pin in a few minutes. I opened the cupboard and sighed in relief to see a couple of dark blue uniforms stuffed at the bottom. However, there were only two sets.
“Only two?” asked Ram, worried.
“Let me think.” said Vivek and closed his eyes as he searched for a way. Finally, he said, “Guys!” with a smile, “We don’t need all this. Since the next flight is delayed, it is more than six hours away and we are entitled to get out! We will just request for a day-visa and get out!”
“Awesome!” shouted Ram and patted Vivek on his back. “Very nice!“
“But we will take more than six hours to come back.” I said, posing another problem.
“Mathias, we have to risk something, no?” Vivek asked me. He was right. The path we had chosen required some sacrifices, even if it meant getting nationally wanted by the Turkish police.
