THE MAHABHARATA QUEST:THE ALEXANDER SECRET (19 page)

46

The gamble

Vijay disconnected the call and slowly made his way back to the study. He had excused himself and rushed out to take Cooper’s call in the sitting room below. He had not wanted the others, especially Alice, to hear the conversation. Vijay mulled over how he would break the news to the others. And he also wondered if, in his desperation to save Radha, he had only succeeded in getting them deeper into the clutches of Cooper and company. The only saving grace was that he would go by himself with Cooper. The others would be safe, here, in Jaungarh.

As he entered the study, he saw curiosity on the faces of the others. He knew they were wondering why he had dashed out of the study to take the call.

‘It was Cooper,’ Vijay was thinking every word through as he spoke. ‘He had said he would call at 12 noon. We’ve struck a deal.’ He explained his offer to Cooper, leaving out the part about Cooper’s follow up on Vijay’s decision regarding Alice and Radha.

There was consternation on their faces when he finished. Colin was the first to speak, almost before Vijay finished. ‘Are you nuts? Going by yourself with this bunch of…of…I don’t know who they are but they are dangerous! Haven’t we seen enough to know that by now?’

Alice nodded. ‘I don’t know what you were thinking, Vijay. After what they did in Greece and their attack on us at the museum, how could you?’

Vijay was silent. How could he tell them that this was the only way out of his dilemma? How could he disclose the agonising decision he had faced, trying to balance the fates of Radha and Alice?‘This was the only way to save Radha,’ he said instead. ‘You guys will stay out of this. Especially you, Alice. I want you all to keep working on the verses while I am with them. Any breakthroughs, let me know immediately. The faster we can solve this riddle the faster we can get Radha back.’

‘You’re not going alone,’ Colin stood up and walked to Vijay, looking him in the eye. ‘We’re buddies. We do stuff together. Remember last year? I’m coming with you.’

Vijay knew better than to argue. And, if he was honest with himself, he knew he would be glad for Colin’s company. But he had made up his mind about this. He didn’t want a repeat of what had happened last year. He sighed. ‘I’m sorry buddy,’ he said. ‘Not this time. I remember last year. Which is why you’re going to sit out this game with the others. And I’m not open to discussion.’

Colin opened his mouth to reply but Vijay’s phone rang again. It was Vaid.

‘I’m sorry but we have no fresh leads on Radha,’ Vaid updated him. ‘We’re still looking. These guys seem to be professionals. They’ve been operating under our radar all this time and they are experts at covering their tracks. But we’ll pick up their scent sooner or later.’

‘I hope so,’ Vijay replied. ‘I have some news for you.’ He told Vaid about his deal with Cooper.

There was a guarded pause before Vaid responded. ‘You’re taking a big risk,’ he told Vijay. ‘A very big risk. You know that they won’t release Radha that easily. And you are all at risk anyway. They know that all of you, including Radha, are linked to the IB. If, as we suspect, there is a bioterrorism angle to this then you pose a threat to them.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Vijay replied. ‘I think they believe that only Radha is connected to the IB. They probably attribute Imran’s presence at the fort to the fact that he’s connected to her and that she is my fiancée. Otherwise they would surely have made us targets as well. Even at the museum, Alice was their real target. If we hadn’t been there with her, they would have left us alone.’

‘I think you had better come to the office,’ Vaid replied. ‘We should brief Patterson. He’s the head of the task force. He needs to know what’s happening. And I don’t think he’s going to be happy that you’ve taken this decision without consulting him first.’

‘I’ll come over right away,’ Vijay promised. ‘I can go to the airport from there.’

‘You may wish to detour to the hospital before that.’ There was a note of cheer in Vaid’s voice. ‘Imran’s out of danger. He’s conscious and wants to meet you.’

Vijay put his phone away and looked at Colin, whose annoyance was writ large on his face. ‘Cheer up, son,’ he said. ‘You’re needed here.’ He grinned, trying to lighten the situation. ‘You claim to have more brains than I do. Well prove it, then. Help Alice and Dr Shukla work out this riddle. That’s the best way you can support me.’

Colin didn’t respond immediately. He was trying to come to terms with Vijay’s decision. He knew his friend. Having made up his mind, there was no force on earth that could shake him. He knew he had to accept Vijay’s departure without him. Finally, he nodded. ‘I can’t say I’m happy about this. But if this is what you want…’ He paused and then embraced his friend. ‘Watch your back, buddy. I won’t be there to do it for you.’

Vijay nodded to the others and left the study. He knew this was a gamble. Would it pay off?

Intelligence Bureau Headquarters, New Delhi

Vijay and Vaid gazed at the image of Patterson on the monitor in the conference room. The African American’s usually grim countenance was even more deeply lined today with traces of annoyance at having been woken up in the middle of the night.

‘This had better be important,’ he warned the two men sitting in the conference room. ‘I have a meeting with the President tomorrow and I don’t have too many hours of sleep left. I had just hit the sack when you guys called.’

Vaid swiftly outlined the events of the day as told to him by Vijay. As he spoke, Patterson’s visage grew darker and his eyes glinted with anger. He was a man given to hard discipline as a Navy Seal and despised people who did not follow rules.

Patterson glowered at Vijay as Vaid concluded his report but didn’t speak immediately. He seemed to be contemplating the information he had just been offered.

‘First things first,’ Patterson said after a few moments. ‘I owe Kidwai an apology. He was right. There is a connection of some sort between Titan Pharmaceuticals and the events in Greece. We need to dig deeper and I’ll get cracking on that in the morning. But we need to be discreet. Either Wallace himself is involved. And if he is not involved we need to be careful whom we speak to and what we disclose. This is a sensitive matter. Wallace is close to Congressmen, Senators and even the President. We can’t go assuming anything.’

Vijay and Vaid nodded. They waited for Patterson to continue.

‘Next,’ Patterson fixed Vijay with a piercing gaze. ‘Much as I admire your ability to solve riddles and puzzles, you don’t have the authority to go negotiating with terrorists. Or the experience. You seem to have forgotten that you are a member of the task force. And I decide who does what in this task force. Not you. You can’t go running around taking decisions like this on your own.’

He paused, as if weighing his next words. ‘But now that you have,’ he continued, ‘we don’t have much choice in the matter. But I want you to understand this. If you’ve done this for your woman, then you’re a fool. A hopeless, optimistic fool. Your woman’s dead. Sure, she may be alive now, but if you think they are going to release her once you hand over this secret to them on a silver platter, then you need to think again. You’re dead and she’s dead. Both of you. So, if you’re doing this, it isn’t for her. It is for the task force. You’re doing this to ensure that whatever lies in the cavern in Afghanistan or wherever it is located, doesn’t pose a threat to the world. That’s what this task force was set up for. And that is your responsibility. Is that clear?’

Vijay swallowed. The truth in Patterson’s words rang home. His entire being was fighting against the logic Patterson had presented but deep down he knew that the leader of the task force was right.

He fought back the tears as he replied. ‘Got it. Loud
and clear.’

‘Now,’ Patterson resumed, ‘if this great secret has anything to do with bioterrorism, we can’t just stand by and allow these people to get away with it. For Christ’s sake, we don’t even know who they are!’

‘So what do you propose?’ Vaid realised what Patterson meant.

‘You go ahead with your deal,’ Patterson instructed Vijay. ‘We’ll cover your back from here.’

Vijay looked puzzled. ‘How are you going to do that? You don’t even know where Radha is being held.’

‘Listen carefully.’ Patterson lowered his voice and told them. When he had finished, he fixed Vijay with a stern gaze. ‘Be careful out there, boy. We don’t work miracles. I almost lost a member of the task force this last week. I don’t want to lose two more now.’

47

Jalalabad, Afghanistan

Vijay sat with Cooper in the Land Rover as it jolted across the streets of Jalalabad. When he had reached the airport at New Delhi, he had been hustled to a waiting Gulfstream G550 jet. They had flown from Delhi to Kabul, a flight that had taken 90 minutes, accompanied by five members of Cooper’s team — burly, muscled men with scars to prove their mettle — who were all armed.

As the aircraft landed at Kabul, Vijay noticed another private jet parked on the tarmac. It was a Gulfstream 650ER, a long range jet. He wondered who it belonged to. Cooper had told him that they couldn’t fly direct to Jalalabad as the airport was being used for military purposes and, at times, for United Nations aircraft. There were two wide-bodied aircraft belonging to commercial airlines, but were no other small planes around.

After clearing immigration, they had boarded a Land Rover for the 90 minute drive to Jalalabad. Vijay had not bargained for the ride he eventually got. The road itself was smooth and well-paved, having been resurfaced in 2006 by a European Union backed project. But the quality of the road only seemed to encourage Afghan drivers to challenge the contours of the landscape that the road passed through.

While he could not help but admire the bewitching scenery of the Kabul gorge, through which the road passed, more than 2000 feet above the Kabul river, death and danger dogged them the entire journey. The highway itself had only two lanes, barely wide enough to accommodate two cars abreast of each other. On the inner lane, a bleak cliff towered above the road, almost perpendicular in its incline. The outer lane was protected by a ledge barely a foot high, beyond which lay empty space and a steep drop to the valley floor below.

Ancient Ladas — survivors of the Soviet era — rickety buses and battered Toyota taxis competed for speed and space on the road as if trying to get the most out of the drive while the road lasted; before it disintegrated once again into the potholed chain of craters that it had been after the Soviet invasion. The local cars whizzed past the Land Rover, around hairpin bends and sharp turns, passing within millimetres of each other, weaving through the traffic at top speed. The only vehicles that seemed incongruously slow were the tractor trailers carrying their burden of cargo, lumbering along the road as if time did not matter to them, in sharp contrast to the rest of the traffic.

Twice on the journey, Vijay saw evidence of the disasters that occurred daily on this highway. The first was the sight of the twisted remains of a car at the bottom of a ravine. The second was a head on crash between a container truck and a sedan. Clearly, the luckless sedan driver had not been able to whip back into his lane in time and had rammed, at high speed, into the truck. The accident caused a bottleneck on the highway and traffic crawled slowly around the mangled remains of the car and the immense bulk of the truck.

Finally, though, they had made it to Jalalabad and they were now headed to a rendezvous with their local escort who would accompany them to the Kunar valley in the morning.

The Land Rover drew up at a decrepit building, its plaster peeling and window shutters broken. It was clearly in need of maintenance and repairs. But it seemed that comfort and luxury were not priorities for these people. For the millionth time, Vijay wondered who these people were that Cooper was working for.

As they walked into the hall that occupied almost the entire ground floor of the two-storeyed building, Vijay got part of his answer. Seated on a moth-eaten, cloth upholstered sofa, that may have been a light yellow at some point in time, was a tall, distinguished looking man with a high forehead, aquiline nose and silver grey hair. His grey eyes framed by rimless spectacles seemed to size Vijay up as he entered.

On the table before him was the metal plate that Vijay had seen at the National Museum – the one that had been buried by Alexander at the base of Zeus’ altar near the Beas river.

‘Evening, Christian,’ Cooper nodded to the man, who nodded back without smiling.

Even without speaking, the stranger conveyed a sense of authority and unbridled power. Vijay didn’t know who he was, but this was undoubtedly Cooper’s boss. The man behind this entire project.

He didn’t know whether the stranger’s presence here was good or bad. But he hoped that he would at least get some answers to the myriad questions that had plagued them so far.

‘At last,’ the tall man gazed upon Vijay, his grey eyes appraising him thoughtfully. He gestured to another sofa, equally battered, that stood nearby. Vijay sat down.

‘My name is Christian Van Klueck,’ the stranger introduced himself. ‘You have not heard of me, no?’

Vijay shook his head. The name didn’t ring a bell.

‘It doesn’t matter. I know who you are,’ Van Klueck continued. He looked at Cooper. ‘Good job, Cooper. Always reliable. Will you organise the men for our expedition tomorrow, while I catch up with this gentleman?’

Cooper nodded and strode off as Van Klueck turned back to Vijay, who realised that the Gulfstream jet he had seen at Kabul airport must belong to this man. Who was he? The man had a strong European accent. Probably from Germany or Austria. Someone very wealthy no doubt. And how did he know Vijay?

‘You have been a thorn in our side,’ Van Klueck told Vijay. Despite the nature of the statement, he didn’t look upset or annoyed. ‘I lost a good friend last year because of you. And the Order lost a dedicated member.’ He shook his head. ‘I would not forget you in a thousand years.’ Again, there was no obvious malice in his tone or expression. Which made his words all the more chilling.

A cold fear crept up Vijay’s spine as he heard these words. Was Van Klueck referring to their search for the Mahabharata Secret the previous year? It wasn’t difficult to guess whom he was referring to.

‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Van Klueck continued. ‘That’s all in the past and I don’t believe in living in the past. The future awaits us. And we must focus on what lies ahead. There is so much to be gained. Of course, the past is important, no?’ His gaze pierced Vijay. ‘We must learn from the past and build on it to secure our future.’

Vijay had no idea what the man was talking about. To him it sounded like a lot of babble. But this man before him didn’t seem to be capable of babbling. He struck Vijay as a man of precision, planning and calculated moves. Nothing impulsive.

‘Cooper told me you had deciphered one of the verses,’ Van Klueck continued, oblivious to Vijay’s bewilderment. ‘So what lies in the Kunar valley?’ He leaned forward and looked into Vijay’s eyes. ‘Tell me.’

For the first time in this conversation, the European had referred to something that was familiar to Vijay. But even now, Vijay did not have a ready answer.

‘I don’t know,’ he shrugged in response. ‘The verse only seemed to describe the location of Jalalabad. The location of the Kunar valley was a deduction based on Alexander’s route in this region.’ He explained how they had concluded that there was a strong possibility that the secret lay in the Kunar valley.

Van Klueck contemplated Vijay’s words. ‘So you don’t know the exact location. But you do believe that this is where our search ends.’

Vijay hesitated before answering. This was the opening he had been looking for. ‘It will help if I know exactly what you are looking for. Right now, we’re trying to interpret the verses without knowing what they lead to. Alexander knew. If we knew, we’d probably be able to decipher the verses much faster.’ He held Van Klueck’s gaze with the defiance of a man who had nothing to lose. Patterson had told him that he and Radha were doomed. And if he was going to die anyway, he would get his answers before that.

Van Klueck looked thoughtful. He hadn’t expected this kind of spunk from Vijay. Finally, he nodded and smiled; a cold smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Perhaps you are right. Maybe if you know a little bit more, you could be of more use.’

Vijay waited as the European seemed to weigh in his mind what he should reveal and what should remain secret.