The Mahabharata Secret (6 page)

Vijay hoped their luck would hold out. He glanced at Colin and with one accord they ascended the stairs, Vijay still clutching the Uzi he had taken off Maroosh.

Two flights of staircase. Still not a soul in sight. There was silence in the building. The stairway opened up into a large room, which was obviously the living room, as was apparent from the furniture.

There was still no sign of life. The first rays of the rising sun seeped through the windows lining the walls of the room.

Through one of the windows, Colin spotted the battered BMW parked outside and signalled to Vijay. The latter nodded; if the car had been driven here, it could be driven away.

Silently, they stole through the room and opened the front door. The hinges creaked loudly and immediately there was a shout from inside the house.

They froze.

The shout came again.

Then, all hell broke loose. The sound of running feet came to them from a level above.

Vijay and Colin didn’t wait to discover who was now clattering down the staircase. They sprinted for the car. To their delight, the key had been left in the ignition.

Vijay risked a look around. Behind them was the building where they had been held through the night, a three-storey brick structure in the middle of nowhere. There was barren land all around and in the distance he could see the silhouette of the Aravali hills. He had no idea where they were.

Hurling the Uzi away, Vijay swiftly ducked inside the car. Colin was already in the passenger seat in front, strapping himself in. The engine roared to life as Vijay turned the ignition key. He stepped on the accelerator, raising a cloud of dust, as the wheels spun on the soft dirt path that led away from the house.

Colin turned in his seat and glanced behind, at the house. Two men had appeared in the open doorway, one brandishing an Uzi, which he now lowered and aimed at the BMW.

‘Watch out!’ Colin yelled. ‘They’re shooting at us!’

Bullets whizzed past them as Vijay swung the wheel wildly, zigzagging to avoid being hit. Despite his manoeuvres, bullets shattered the rear windshield and tore into the mangled rear fenders. Both men hunched down in their seats, hoping the bullets wouldn’t find a target.

Vijay accelerated again in a final attempt to evade the shots and the car lurched forward. It was a blessing that the bullets had missed the fuel tank.

After a while, houses appeared on both sides of the road and Vijay realised they were in Gurgaon. He heaved a sigh of relief. They were safe.

For now.

7

Day 5

Jaungarh Fort

Bheem Singh stared thoughtfully at the battered BMW, the rear windshield glass shattered and the boot and rear fenders smashed in and pock-marked with bullet holes. His companion joined him in his inspection of the car.

Vijay had left the car on the road, in front of the massive entrance of the fort, when they had finally arrived at Jaungarh. Both Colin and he were exhausted from their ordeal. They had staggered into the fort where an anxious Shukla and his daughter were overjoyed to see them.

Radha had already called the local police station in the morning and filed a missing persons report when she couldn’t get through to Vijay’s cellphone.

The butler ushered the new arrivals into the sitting room, where Vijay and Colin were seated. Both men still looked a bit dazed, as if they couldn’t quite believe they were back home safely. The cut on Vijay’s cheek would require stitches. Radha had tried to convince him to let her drive them in the BMW to Gurgaon for proper medical attention, but he had brushed her away. While they had somehow made it back to Jaungarh, the car was in no shape for the long drive all the way to Gurgaon and back.

Moreover, Vijay’s mind was still occupied with the mysterious emails from his uncle and what he had been trying to tell him in the last moments of his life.

‘Please don’t bother getting up,’ Bheem Singh said, as Vijay began rising from the sofa with a visible effort. He walked over to Vijay and introduced himself and his companion. ‘Bheem Singh from Rajvirgarh and this is Greg White, professor of archaeology and history at Boston Unversity.’

Vijay’s jaw dropped as he introduced his companion and White walked over to shake his hand. In his last email, his uncle had instructed him to speak to Greg White! He had spent a long time trying to find out who, among his uncle’s acquaintances, bore that name, but had drawn a blank. He had never imagined that the answer to the riddle would walk through his front door, in person.

Recovering his composure, he extended his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Professor.’

‘Greg, please,’ White responded. ‘Good to meet you, too, Vijay. Your uncle was a good friend. I was shattered to hear the news.’

‘Yes,’ Bheem Singh joined in, as White sat down next to him. ‘Very unfortunate, indeed. I can’t claim to have known Vikram so well, but we were...well, we moved in the same circles, you see, and I had met him several times. He was a good man.’

Vijay stared hard at Greg White. There was something familiar about him. But they had never met before. Then it struck him.

‘You were on my flight from O’Hare to Delhi, three days ago. I was in 2B. American Airlines.’

White frowned, trying to remember. ‘Three days back. Yes, I was on that flight. 3H. Courtesy Bheem’s generosity. He’s funded my trip here. But I’m sorry I really don’t recall seeing you.’

Bheem Singh cleared his throat, visibly uninterested in whether Vijay and White had noticed each other during the flight to India. ‘I saw the car outside. What happened’? He glanced from Vijay to Colin, and back, taking in the tense, harrowed look on their faces, the cut on Vijay’s cheek and the gouges on the wrists of both the men.

Vijay shook his head. ‘Somebody rammed our car when I was bringing Colin home from the airport and then kidnapped us.’

The Maharaja’s face registered shock. He glanced at White, who looked horrified as well.

Vijay launched into a narrative of the events of the previous night, culminating in their escape, but left out the part about the key.

‘You were very, very lucky,’ the Maharaja mused. ‘These people sound like dangerous criminals. But, why kidnap you? What did they want from you?’

Before Vijay could answer his question, the butler appeared at the door of the sitting room, followed by a policeman.

‘Myself inspector Raunaq Singh,’ the policeman announced as he entered the room. He was a middle-aged man, with a thick moustache and teeth blackened by years of chewing tobacco and betel leaves. ‘I’ve come about the missing persons report. Who’s missing?’

Radha rose. ‘I had called the police station. They were missing all night.’ She indicated Vijay and Colin.

‘But they are back now. You should have informed us instead of wasting my time.’ The inspector frowned and made to leave.

‘Wait a minute.’ Bheem Singh rose and drew himself up to his full height. ‘I am Maharaja Bheem Singh of Rajvirgarh. These two men were kidnapped last night. Are you not going to do anything about that? They escaped with great difficulty and a lot of luck.’

Raunaq Singh stopped in his tracks. He had heard of Bheem Singh. He knew the Maharaja was a prominent politician and rumours of his power and influence had reached even the little police station in Jaungarh. He decided it was better not to rub the Maharaja the wrong way.

‘You were kidnapped?’ He addressed Vijay as he sat down on a vacant chair. ‘Give me some more details.’

Vijay repeated the account of their kidnapping. ‘Farooq and Imtiaz,’ Raunaq Singh said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, repeating the names that Vijay had given him. ‘And you were imprisoned in a house in Gurgaon?’

Vijay nodded.

‘Well, then, it is beyond my jurisdiction. This case belongs to the Gurgaon police.’ He rose to leave.

‘Aren’t you going to register an FIR?’ Bheem Singh enquired.

Raunaq Singh paused to choose his words carefully. ‘They were kidnapped and held captive in Gurgaon. It is a matter for the Gurgaon police to investigate and check out the building they have described. And even if I was to register an FIR, how are we going to look for two men with only their first names as a basis for a search? Do you know how many Farooqs and Imtiazs there are in India?’

Bheem Singh considered this. ‘I think you should still help out. Register an FIR so that the Gurgaon police take this case seriously. For God’s sake, they could have been killed. I will make sure that the Gurgaon police follow up.’ He nodded at Vijay. ‘Leave that bit to me.’

The inspector finally nodded. ‘Very well, sir. I will do as you say. But please don’t expect anything more from me.’

Bheem Singh waited until the policeman had left and then turned to Vijay. ‘You know, he’s right. I don’t think they have any chance of finding the two men purely on the basis of their first names. But it wouldn’t have done to agree with him. They’d never take the matter seriously then.’

‘That’s why I didn’t tell him what Farooq wanted,’ Vijay said sourly. Ever since White had walked in, he had been torn between disclosing what Farooq had said about the key, and keeping that information to himself. He had concluded that, if his uncle had wanted him to speak to White, he should tell the archaeologist about the key. Perhaps White might be able to give him some insight that would help him understand his uncle’s emails.

Bheem Singh raised an enquiring eyebrow.

‘Yes. He was going on about a key and a a disk with a verse. He said that uncle had given the key to me.’

Bheem Singh gave a visible start and exchanged a glance with White. ‘I think we should tell them,’ he said to the archaeologist.

White nodded. ‘I was thinking the same thing, but I wasn’t sure if you’d agree.’

Vijay looked at them quizzically, and was totally unprepared for White’s question.

‘Have you heard of the Nine Unknown Men?’

An Ambiguous Agenda of Terror

Imran Kidwai, Additional Director, Intelligence Bureau, strode down the corridor that led to the office of the Director. He had been urgently summoned by his boss. Imran was in his early 40s with a thick black moustache and piercing black eyes. He had kept himself fit despite the sedentary nature of his job at the Bureau.

He wondered what the urgency was about as he knocked on the door to the Director’s office and then peered inside. Arjun Vaid, the Director, impatiently gestured to him to enter. Seated opposite Vaid was a foreigner with a mop of red hair, a laptop in front of him.

Imran took the chair next to the stranger and studied him curiously. ‘This is Michael Blake,’ Vaid said, introducing the foreigner. ‘CIA. I think it’s best he briefs you.’

Blake fixed Imran with a serious gaze. ‘We’ve been alerted to a possible terror threat. We had a tap on the phone of a man who’s a prime suspect in a recent high-level assassination in the Middle East. His name is Terence Murphy. We don’t know who he works for and we hoped he’d lead us to them if we kept him under electronic surveillance. And this is what we got.’

He clicked on an audio file on his laptop. The playback of a recording began.

‘
Murphy,’ a sharp voice instructed. ‘I have a job for you. It’s urgent.’ The voice paused.

‘We have a situation in India. Our partners operating there need help.’

‘India’! Murphy exclaimed.

‘Yes. I need you to fly to Delhi immediately. . You leave on tonight’s flight from O’Hare to New Delhi. American Airlines. And the usual terms.

‘The objective?’

The recording ended with:

‘All details will be given to you before you board your flight. Our partners operate under the leadership of a man named Farooq Siddiqui. That’s all you need to know for now. ‘

‘And I report back to you?’

‘Negative. You’ll report directly to a member of the Order. He is in India, personally supervising operations. You’ll work with him and follow his directions.’

And one last thing. Read up on archaeology and ancient Indian history. You’ll need it.’

The phone clicked as the caller hung up. Imran looked at Blake questioningly. ‘There’s more, isn’t there? This is pretty inconclusive; hardly what I would call a lead.’

Blake grinned. ‘I agree. We didn’t think much of it either when we first reviewed it. But you must have heard of Farooq Siddiqui?’

Imran shrugged. ‘Plenty of men with that name in India.’

Blake turned the laptop screen towards Imran. ‘Watch this. We came across this video clip on a CD recovered from Bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan.’ He clicked on an mp4 file and the video clip began.

The image was grainy, an amateur recording, but there was no mistaking the face of Al Zawahiri, the new leader of Al Qaeda. He was speaking in Arabic but there was a voiceover translating his words into English.

‘The West will pay for the destruction of Islamic lives in Iraq and Afghanistan,’ Al Zawahiri shrieked, brandishing an AK47 assault rifle. ‘The infidels will die. They think they are superior, but now the Islamic world will have powerful weapons of a kind that mankind has never seen before; weapons that will help us achieve a victory for Islam!’

He turned and looked at another man, who stood by with a look of aloofness on his face, as if he had been compelled to be a part of the show.

‘Brothers,’ Al Zawahiri continued, ‘this is Farooq Siddiqui. He is one of the nuclear scientists who helped Pakistan develop its nuclear bomb. He will vouch for what I have just said.’

Farooq coughed awkwardly and looked into the camera. ‘We have a plan and funding from powerful sources. We have access to designs of weapons that people have never dreamt of. Our factories are being built to manufacture these weapons. We have the prototypes ready. And once the factories are ready, no one can stop Islam from asserting its rightful place in the world!’

The clip ended abruptly just as a group of hooded and armed men raised their automatic weapons to the sky and let loose a barrage of rounds.

Imran sat back, contemplating the last frame of the video which had zeroed onto Siddiqui’s face. He would never have connected the name Farooq Siddiqui with the Pakistani scientist who had worked on the Pakistani nuclear bomb and then disappeared suddenly in 2003. It had been widely presumed that Farooq had been kidnapped or murdered by Islamic terrorists during an attempt to steal Pakistan’s nuclear secrets. His body had never been found. Yet, here he was in an Al Qaeda video, with Al Zawahiri, no less.