The Mahabharata Secret

by Doyle, Christopher C

  A quick look around the room showed him that there were few places to hide. His best bet seemed to be under a small desk that stood in one corner of the room, next to the doorway.

  Just as he squeezed himself into his hiding place, the lights came on and he heard Bheem Singh say, ‘And this is where we’ll speak to him from.’

  Buckworth whistled. ‘A telepresence room. Great idea! But what about the possibility of someone tapping into the lines?’

  ‘You don’t suppose I own a software company for nothing?’ Bheem Singh’s supercilious voice came to Imran. ‘We’ve developed software that scrambles the signals both ways. Even if someone was to tap into it, they’d never be able to figure out what we were saying.’

  ‘Impressive. So he’s waiting for us to call him?’

  ‘Yes. Everything’s ready, I just need to dial in. Make yourself comfortable.’

  Imran heard the notes of a touchtone phone as a number was dialled. He heard the telephone on the other end of the line ring. It was picked up immediately.

  ‘Good evening, gentlemen.’ A crisp voice said with a decidedly European accent.

  Imran cautiously peered over the rim of the desk. What had seemed to be a wall beyond the semi-circular conference table was actually a bank of screens, arranged to form a composite screen on which a mirror image of the conference room was displayed. In one of the chairs, gazing out from the screen, was a tall, distinguished man with a high forehead, aquiline nose and silver grey hair, his grey eyes framed by rimless spectacles.

  Imran sucked in his breath.

  Christian Van Klueck.

  The Austrian businessman, who had been present at earlier meetings between Buckworth and Bheem Singh.

  Imran quickly ducked back under the table. If Van Klueck could see into this room, chances were he may notice Imran peeping out from behind the desk.

  ‘Hey Christian.’ Only Buckworth responded.

  ‘I’m not happy getting into a conference like this.’ Van Klueck got straight to the point. ‘We are taking a big chance.’

  ‘I don’t like it either,’ Buckworth replied, pugnaciously, ‘but I managed to find a good reason to be here. If you had better control over your partners, we wouldn’t need to meet like this.’

  ‘Calm down, both of you,’ Bheem Singh broke in, seemingly trying to defuse what sounded like a tense situation.

  But Imran’s ears had pricked up at Buckworth’s words. ‘It’s true,’ Buckworth persisted, though his tone was noticeably less aggressive now. ‘They had no business issuing that threat when we are so close to accomplishing the mission. It can screw everything up. Do you know how much work we had to put in for damage control? And your government too. And all the governments that got their blasted message.’

  Imran broke out in a cold sweat. Was he hearing right? Was this even possible?

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Van Klueck still seemed miffed. ‘Our plans are not affected by the announcement. We are on course. Bheem Singh has everything under control.’

  ‘Of course,’ Bheem Singh affirmed immediately. ‘I got a confirmation today that the last clue has been found. They would have returned to Patna by now. Farooq is already in Patna. I’ve given them the word to take Vijay and the woman hostage. Once they solve this final clue, we’ll know exactly where the secret is located. I think we should be through with this phase of the plan in a week from now.’

  ‘That’s great,’ Buckworth’s voice was calmer now. ‘But can you rely on LeT to deliver? We’ve all got a lot riding on this. Haojing, Deaubois and Martin also feel the same way. They’ve been in touch with me since the announcement of the threat. None of them are comfortable anymore with your partners.’

  ‘We can’t do this on our own.’ Van Klueck asserted. ‘Not without the publicity that none of us wants.’

  Bheem Singh agreed. ‘We can’t reveal ourselves. Not yet. They are the perfect camouflage…high credibility as terrorists. A perfect red herring. And don’t forget that the reason they partnered with us was the prospect of being able to issue threats like this one. There’s also a benefit for us, from what they’ve just done, even if it wasn’t planned. While everyone is occupied with the terror threat, we’ll complete our own preparations. There’s a lot of work to be done, Steve, if you want to be the next President of the United States of America without being elected. And once LeT completes their mission, we’ll be in control. Exactly like we planned it.’

  ‘I see your point,’ Buckworth grunted. ‘But I don’t have to like it.’

  There was silence for a moment. Then, Buckworth spoke again. ‘Assuming they find the location in a week’s time, are we in a position to deliver on the timelines?’

  ‘Perhaps you should show him the prototype,’ Van Klueck suggested.

  Bheem Singh seemed to hesitate before replying. ‘It’s not fully operational,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’ll show it to you anyway. It will give you an idea of how ready we are. Once we have the secret in our grasp, it won’t take long to make the prototype fully functional and test it. And then, it’s just a matter of replicating the technology. We’ll be ready to go well before the summit. Okay, Christian, we’re signing off.’

  ‘Let’s connect in a week’s time.’ After Van Klueck’s final words, there was silence and Imran guessed the conference was over.

  ‘Come, I’ll show you the prototype,’ he heard Bheem Singh say, and the lights in the room went off.

  For a few moments, Imran sat huddled, frozen. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard. His hunch had paid off, big time, but in a most unexpected way. He extricated himself from his hiding place and stole to the door. He could hear voices coming from outside and peered into the corridor, which was now lit up.

  There was no one there. The two men must have gone into one of the locked rooms. He knew he had to get close enough to hear what they were saying.

  He ventured into the corridor. The door to his left, next to the staircase, was ajar. He sidled up to the door, and risked a glance inside the room. To his astonishment, there was no one there.

  The voices had also fallen silent.

  Imran slipped into the room and looked around. It was as if the men had vanished into thin air.

  ‘Quite a collection you’ve got here.’ Buckworth’s voice suddenly broke the silence. It seemed to come from beneath the floor.

  Imran realised that there must be a hidden level below the basement. Though, how the men had reached it, he couldn’t fathom. There didn’t seem to be any way out of the room, other than the door through which he had just entered. ‘Yes,’ Bheem Singh replied. ‘The initial hoard that we found was very useful; helped us to make all this stuff.’

  ‘What’s this one? How does it work?’ Buckworth had apparently found something interesting.

  ‘Let me show you. I’ll need to take my watch off for this. These are wrist bands which need to be worn together. They serve as armour and a weapon. I’ll turn the intensity down and show you.’

  Imran heard a crackle and a loud “pop” and guessed that Bheem Singh was demonstrating the weapon, whatever it was.

  ‘That’s cool. I haven’t seen anything like this before, ever. Even DARPA doesn’t have stuff like this.’

  ‘They wouldn’t. This technology doesn’t exist. Outside the Order, that is.’

  ‘So where’s the prototype?’ There was a trace of excitement in Buckworth’s voice.

  ‘Right here.’

  ‘Where? I can’t see it.’

  ‘Step this way...that’s right...a bit forward and to your left.’ Bheem Singh seemed to be guiding Buckworth. ‘Now wait while I…’ There were a few moments of silence. Then, Bheem Singh spoke again. ‘That’s it.’

  There was an exclamation from Buckworth. ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’

  ‘Impressive isn’t it? Even though it isn’t complete yet. But once Farooq has found the secret, we’ll be able to make it work perfectly. None of the G20 leaders have a chance.’

 
Buckworth’s voice grew stern. ‘Just make sure these guys don’t screw up again. I haven’t spent nine years waiting just to have a bunch of idiots flush my plans down the toilet.’

  Imran heard footsteps, and realised they must be returning to this room. There was no place to hide here. He had to get out. The only place he could think of was the conference room. It wasn’t likely they would go back there, and he could always hide under the desk again.

  He hesitated, torn between the need to leave and the desire to know how the men had disappeared from the room. He also knew that he needed evidence if he was to nail Bheem Singh. No one was going to believe him if he returned to headquarters and related what he had just overheard. Bheem Singh had enough political influence to discredit his testimony. And the evidence he sought was in the hidden room.

  As he backed up to the door, taking a last look around the room, the entire wall in front of him sank into the floor and disappeared. Beyond, where the wall had stood, was an opening in the floor and he could see the first few stairs of a stone stairway descending to a lower level which was dark, save for a dark blue, almost purplish glow emanating from it.

  So that was the secret entrance to the lower level.

  Tearing himself away from this discovery, he turned and slipped out of the door and back into the conference room, taking up his previous position under the desk. He heard Bheem Singh and Buckworth talking as they left the other room and shut the door behind them.

  Their voices faded away and he realised that they were going back upstairs. He waited a while longer to ensure that they had gone, then ventured into the corridor again. The lights had been switched off and the basement was once more in darkness.

  He tried the door of the room with the disappearing wall. To his surprise and relief, it was unlocked. As he entered the room and shut the door behind him, darkness enveloped him. For the second time, he wished he had brought a torch. Remembering that he had seen a light switch to the right of the door, he brought out his mobile phone and used the dim light from the screen and keypad to search for the light switch.

  He finally found it after a minute or so and hoped the light wouldn’t be detected from the corridor outside. There was no way he would find the mechanism to move the wall without illumination.

  Advancing to the opposite wall, he began studying it closely, looking for anything that might indicate a switch or a lever to activate the mechanism.

  But the wall was bare.

  How had Bheem Singh lowered the wall to enter the hidden chamber?

  He examined the other walls of the room, but drew a blank again. Apart from the light switch there was nothing else on the walls. Sighing in frustration, he realised that there was nothing more he could do here. He dialled Vaid’s number and waited as the call was diverted to his assistant, who informed him that Vaid had been summoned by the Home Minister but was due back any time.

  ‘Please ask him to call me back as soon as he returns. This is urgent.’ He pulled out a small round Bluetooth earpiece and inserted it in his ear. Then, he fixed an even smaller Bluetooth microphone to his collar. The microphone was powerful enough to pick up the slightest whisper and had a noise reduction feature which would cut off external disturbances whenever he spoke. Setting his phone to auto answer to Vaid’s number, he slipped it back into his pocket.

  He stepped up once more to the disappearing wall and checked it in case he had missed something on his first inspection. Nothing. Shaking his head in disappointment and frustration, he turned to go.

  And stopped short.

  He wasn’t alone in the room anymore. Bheem Singh had entered silently and stood before him now, regarding him with an expression in which curiosity mingled with anger.

  27

  Day 8

  The Hotel Ashoka Palace, Patna

  The X Trail drew up at the main porch of the hotel in downtown Patna.

  ‘You guys carry on, I’ll park and join you in a bit,’ Vijay offered.

  There were only two other cars in the parking lot. Vijay found a good spot where the X Trail would be seen from one of their rooms. As he emerged from the car, shouldering the bag, he realised that a man was staring directly at him. Vijay had noticed the man as he drove into the parking lot but hadn’t paid him any attention.

  Wondering why the man was staring at him, Vijay locked the car and turned to face the man.

  Their eyes met.

  It was Farooq.

  After the initial shock, a cold fear gripped Vijay. How had Farooq known where to find him? He was no ordinary treasure hunter. If he had the resources to track him down in a location so far from Delhi, he was someone far more dangerous.

  Vijay stroked the bag subconsciously. The rock ball was safely ensconced within.

  Farooq began walking towards him. Two men emerged from a side doorway of the hotel and joined Farooq, who wore a sneer on his face now.

  Vijay looked around and began walking quickly towards the entrance of the car park.

  But that exit was blocked. Two men stood there. One of them drew a gun.

  The two men with Farooq were also armed, their guns in their hands.

  Vijay looked around wildly. The car park was enclosed by a four-foot-high brick wall, behind which ran a service lane. Thinking swiftly, Vijay ran towards the wall, hoping that Farooq’s men would not resort to a shootout in a place as conspicuous as this.

  He was wrong.

  As he reached the wall, he heard a series of muffled claps, rather like the sound of a car door being shut, and bullets whizzed past his ears. With a shock, he realised that the guns were fitted with sound suppressors. He vaulted over the wall, just as bullets smacked into the brickwork of the wall.

  As he lay on the ground, he could hear Farooq shouting orders to his men in Urdu.

  ‘Fools!’ Farooq roared. ‘Get him! ’

  Vijay scrambled to his feet. He could hear the men running towards the wall. He had to get out of here.

  The service lane opened up into a road that was perpendicular to the one on which the hotel stood. He dashed down the road, recalling that it led to one of the main roads of the city. There would be more people there and Farooq would not attempt anything with so many people around.

  At least, Vijay hoped he wouldn’t.

  As he ran, he turned and looked over his shoulder. Farooq was nowhere to be seen, but three of his men rounded the corner, emerging from the service lane, in hot pursuit.

  Vijay reached the main road and quickened his pace, glancing around. There was a hawkers’ market to his right. He instinctively sprinted towards the market, hoping to lose himself in the crowd.

  The bag was heavy and Vijay adjusted it as he dove headlong into the crowd, trying to lose himself in it.

  He looked back. The three men had just reached the intersection where he had stood moments ago.

  They looked around, searching. Across the crowd, one of the men looked straight at him and looked away.

  Then, his head snapped back. He had recognised Vijay.

  Quick words were exchanged between the men, and they broke up.

  One of them made his way through the crowd towards him. The other two disappeared.

  Where were they going? But there was no time to wonder. The man following him through the crowd was getting closer.

  Vijay pushed through the crowd, trying to put as many people as possible between his pursuer and him.

  He suddenly noticed a side alley. Looking back at his pursuer, who was busy jostling his way through the throng, Vijay quietly slipped down the alley. He had no idea where it led, but he had to get back to the hotel and warn the others.

  Trees lined the alley, which had small brick and plaster houses on either side. This was a residential part of the city.

  Suddenly, he saw a man move into sight directly ahead of him, raising his gun arm.

  It was one of Farooq’s men.

  He must have circled around hoping to use this alley to access the hawkers’ marke
t. It was sheer chance that Vijay had chosen this very alley to escape.

  Vijay cursed and ducked behind a tree. Bullets thudded into the tree and whined past him; the silencer muffling the sounds.

  He thought fast. Slipping out from behind the tree, he wove his way down the alley, using each tree as a protective shield. The gunman kept firing whenever Vijay emerged from behind a tree, but Vijay kept him guessing.

  How long would it be before his luck ran out and the gunman found his mark?

  A plan began to form in his mind. The gunman had walked forward towards Vijay while shooting at him and was now just about 20 or 30 feet away.

  It was now or never. Vijay unzipped the bag and took out the rock ball. He hoped he still had some of the athletic strength that had served him so well at MIT.

  He emerged from behind the tree, hefting the ball in one hand. He would have only one chance to hit the gunman. If he missed...

  Bullets thudded into the tree from behind him, zipping past his ears. Vijay whirled around and, to his horror, saw the man who had followed him through the market now entering the alley.

  There was nowhere to hide. The two gunmen advanced towards him.

  He was trapped.

  Kidnapped!

  Radha left the others waiting for Vijay in the hotel lobby and headed up to her room. The excursion to Barabar had been tiring and she wanted to relax for a while before they regrouped to discuss their latest discovery.

  There was also something else that was troubling her. Of late, she had become conscious of a strong attraction towards Vijay. She couldn’t explain it.

  They had been childhood friends and when they met as adults two years ago, she had warmed up to him. Somewhere along the journey to find the secret, she had found herself thinking of Vijay more often. She could recall times when she wanted to share all his problems as well as his happiness.

  Did Vijay feel the same way? She thought that she had sensed something in the way he had tried to protect her at Bairat when Farooq’s men were manhandling her. But she couldn’t be sure. And, she reminded herself, he lived in the US, he was an American citizen. Even if she was to believe, for a moment, that Vijay reciprocated her feelings, would this relationship even work? Radha sighed. An idea came into her head. Maybe she should speak to Colin. She got along well with him and she knew how close he was to Vijay. Perhaps he could help her?