The Mahabharata Secret (8 page)

Vijay’s eyes widened. ‘So you’re saying that uncle was murdered because Farooq and his cronies are searching for the secret of the Nine’?

‘That’s the second reason why I’ve shared this with you because you told us what Farooq was looking for. Apparently he has somehow come into possession of one of the two metal disks, though how he came by it I can’t imagine. It seems reasonable to conclude that your uncle was murdered and you were kidnapped because of your uncle’s knowledge of the Nine. You need to know that you may be in grave danger. Especially if Farooq, whoever he is, believes that your uncle knew the location of the key and handed this knowledge to you. Did Vikram do that?’

‘No, uncle never told me about any key.’ Vijay toyed with the idea of telling them about the emails. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to share the emails with anyone yet. If his uncle had intended the message behind the emails to be common knowledge he wouldn’t have gone to such great lengths to disguise it.

Bheem Singh nodded. ‘Anything you discover that might help in protecting the secret will be useful for us.’

‘Sure, though I can’t imagine how we can help.’ Vijay couldn’t help but feel that the Maharaja knew he was holding something back.

‘In any case, please be careful,’ Bheem Singh cautioned. He shared with them the details about the massacre at the Temple of the Tooth and the disappearance of the ancient texts that Beger had so painstakingly copied into his diary. ‘And that’s not all,’ he added. ‘Greg here was attacked last night.’

White nodded ruefully and his hand went to the back of his neck. ‘I’ve got a bump here,’ he said, ‘from being mugged last night in my hotel room. I woke up to realise that the room had been searched.’

‘There’s nothing that Greg could have had with him that could help anyone on the trail of the secret. He had only just arrived in India and didn’t even know the details. But his association with the project was, by itself, enough to draw attention to him.’ Bheem Singh added and then addressed Vijay, ‘We haven’t lodged a police report because we don’t want undue attention. I have asked Greg to move into my farmhouse. He will be safer there, as the farmhouse is well-guarded. I think you should also be very careful and watch your back. If this Farooq guy is really after the secret of the Nine, then he will stop at nothing.’

The butler entered the room to announce the arrival of the lawyer, Homi Mehta.

‘Vijay, my boy, are you alright?’ Homi’s usually genial face was creased with worry as he rushed to Vijay and clasped his hand, looking at his injuries from his earlier escapade.

‘I’m fine, just a bit shaken,’ Vijay assured Homi and then introduced him to Bheem Singh, Greg White and Colin.

Vijay once again narrated the details of their kidnapping and escape. He had intended telling Homi about the key since he considered Homi to be a part of the family, and had begun explaining what Farooq wanted, when he noticed Bheem Singh frowning at him. Realising that the Maharaja was averse to telling anyone else about the Nine, he quickly skipped over that part of the story.

‘Radha called me this morning when you didn’t return during the night,’ Homi said, ‘She called me again when you did turn up, so I decided to rush here as soon as I could.’

Bheem Singh and White exchanged looks and the former cleared his throat. ‘Well, Vijay, I think we’ll be going,’ he said. ‘I’d have been happy to take you to Delhi in my car and have you dropped back but, since Mr. Mehta is here, I guess that’s taken care of. Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.’ He handed over his business card to Vijay.

‘And me too,’ White joined in, scribbling his phone number on the reverse of Bheem Singh’s business card.

Vijay rose and shook hands with the two men and they moved towards the door.

‘I’ve brought all the papers relating to Vikram Singh’s will and estates,’ Homi handed over a plastic folder to Vijay as he sat down. ‘Apart from all his assets, there is…’ He hesitated and glanced at Radha, Shukla and the two men walking out of the room.

Vijay understood. Homi was not comfortable discussing the details of Vikram Singh’s will in the presence of others. He smiled reassuringly at the lawyer. ‘It’s okay, Homi. Everyone here is a friend.’

Homi nodded, still looking uncomfortable, but resumed. ‘Your uncle had leased a locker, two years ago, in Delhi. Here’s the key. I don’t know what’s in there, since Vikram was very secretive about it. There’s nothing in the will about its contents either.’

White and Bheem Singh stopped at the door to the sitting room as they heard this, and turned. Their eyes met Vijay’s. All three men were thinking the same thing.

Was the mysterious key that Farooq sought hidden in this locker?

However, without putting this thought into words, Bheem Singh and Greg White left.

‘Why don’t we check out the locker while we are in Delhi? Vijay suggested.

He was excited about the revelation that his uncle had, indeed, hidden something away and he wanted to find out what it was; especially if it had something to do with a 2,000-year-old secret brotherhood.

Homi looked at his watch. ‘I have a lunch appointment at one-thirty,’ he said, ‘so I’m sorry but I won’t be able to drive you to the locker today.’

‘Why don’t you pick up my car on the way?’ Radha suggested, as Vijay’s face fell. She realised what he was thinking and understood his need for immediate action. ‘We should anyway have a car at the fort, just in case, now that the BMW is out of action.’

‘Good idea,’ Vijay looked at her gratefully. ‘We’ll pick up your car once we finish at the hospital.’

Homi scribbled the address of the locker on a slip of paper, ‘You’ll need to carry an identification proof which has your photograph on it. The other papers that will give you access to the locker are in the folder I just gave you.’

Trapped!

Vijay and Colin accompanied the clerk down the stairs to the basement of the vault.

The lockers were in an underground vault accessed by a narrow staircase that was barred at the top by a solid steel door with two levels of security: an electronic password to open the first lock and a manual key to open the second.

The clerk stopped at a row of lockers, unlocked one of them and left. Vijay could now use his keys to open it completely. Vijay’s hands trembled with excitement as he opened the steel box kept within the locker. Inside was a package wrapped in brown paper. He ripped off the paper to reveal a layer of bubble wrap. Carefully placing the package on the felt-topped table the clerk had left for them, he removed the bubble wrap, wondering what lay within that had to be preserved so carefully.

As the last layer of wrapping came off, Vijay and Colin stared at the object that lay on the table.

It was a solid slab, circular in shape, made from a strange dark metal, ancient in appearance but with no traces of rust. One side was smooth and polished. The other side had a circular hollow at the centre, circumscribed by what looked like a gear wheel with inscriptions around it. Forming a circular boundary to the hollow and the gear wheel was a final circle, also surrounded by inscriptions. It didn’t seem like a key of any kind. As they stared at the disk a thought dawned on Vijay.

His eyes sparkled with excitement as he looked at Colin, who immediately understood what Vijay was thinking.

Just then, Vijay’s mobile phone rang. He looked at the number. It was Homi. He put the phone to his ear, but could only hear someone breathing heavily.

‘Homi...Homi...’ he barked into the phone anxiously. ‘Vijay,’ a scratchy voice gasped, as if choking; Vijay could barely recognise the voice as Homi’s. The words seemed to be coming between gasps. Or was it just a bad signal in this underground area? ‘Vijay...please...they...address...locker...please...leave...’ The voice faltered and fell silent, and Vijay heard a clattering sound as if something had fallen on the ground.

A cold fear gripped Vijay. He looked at Colin, who had replaced the metal slab in its bubble wrap packing and slipped it into a duffel bag.

‘That was Homi. I think he was trying to warn us to get out of here. Now.’

He quickly dialled the ambulance number that was saved on his phone for emergencies, and asked them to report to Homi’s office.

‘Farooq?’ Colin had caught onto Vijay’s thought.

Vijay nodded grimly. ‘Let’s go!’ He slung the strap of the bag across his shoulder and bounded up the stairs.

Suddenly, cries and screams filtered through the heavy steel door at the top of the staircase, which was open just a crack. Abruptly, the door slammed shut and the two friends, who had by now been joined by a few more people accessing their lockers, heard the sound of the bolts slamming home. Someone had locked the steel door!

The small knot of people looked at each other in surprise. There was, however, no cause for concern. If the steel door was locked, anyone wanting to leave the locker had simply to use the intercom and the door would be opened for them from the outside.

Vijay picked up the receiver of the intercom. There was silence; no tone. He waited for a while, hoping someone would come on the line, but nothing happened.

What was happening outside?

Abruptly, there were two sharp bangs and sudden silence. The screaming and shouting had stopped.

Vijay and Colin exchanged glances. Now they looked worried. They didn’t know how many of the others had realised it, but the bangs had sounded a lot like gunshots.

‘Let’s step away from the door,’ Vijay said as he and Colin tried to herd the others down the stairway. If those had been shots from a weapon, it was likely that there would be an attempt to break into the locker. There were only two ways the locker could now be opened: either someone from the vault would help unlock the steel door or it would be blown open. And if the latter happened, it would be best if there was no one near it.

A worried group crowded into the space between the rows of lockers.

Colin frowned. ‘Do you think we’ve been tailed all the way here?’

Vijay shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But I think we are safe here. I don’t think their Uzis can penetrate that door of steel. It must be two feet thick.’

Just then, as if to prove him wrong, there was a loud explosion accompanied by an ear-shattering crunching of metal and the ground beneath their feet shook as if an earthquake had struck. Vijay and Colin looked at each other in dismay as the steel door bulged inwards from the centre, as if it had been struck by a powerful projectile. The thick hinges were bent and the door itself was twisted in places along the frame. Wispy trails of smoke drifted in through the cracks that had appeared between the steel door and its frame.

Voices could now be heard through these cracks. Men shouting at each other in harsh, guttural tones; sounds identical to what they had heard the previous evening.

Vijay and Colin exchanged glances.

Then, without a word, they split up and began searching along the walls for an opening, any orifice that might lead out of the vault. But there was nothing. The vault had been built to keep things in.

9

244
BC

Surasen stood silently and watched his Emperor pace the length of the chamber. Rarely, in his long association with him, had Surasen seen Asoka this distressed; this restlessness was uncharacteristic.

‘Where are they?’ Asoka stopped in mid-stride and turned to Surasen. ‘Did you not command them to come here immediately?’

‘My liege, I did,’ Surasen bowed his head. ‘It is midnight and they would have had to be roused from their sleep.’

Asoka turned away and resumed his restless pacing of the chamber. Silence descended on the two men, leaving Surasen to his thoughts.

He remembered the change in the Emperor’s demeanour at the discovery in the forest. His mood had persisted since. So deeply had Asoka been affected that he had not spoken a word since then, except for a brief command, instructing him to immediately summon a few courtiers.

Surasen noticed that his emperor did not hesitate while naming the men who were to be summoned; clearly the emperor had, during the journey home, been dwelling on what he intended to do about their discovery.

There was a sound at the door, and a guard entered to announce the arrival of the courtiers.

Surasen noticed that the furrows had disappeared from Asoka’s face. The mask of serenity was back. The Emperor was in control of himself once more.

The courtiers filed in, eight of them, and stood before Asoka in a semi-circle, each wondering what was so important for their Emperor to wake them up in the middle of the night. But they said nothing, waiting for his orders.

‘Surasen, tell them what we found.’ Asoka folded his arms across his chest as Surasen narrated the story of the forest dweller, his journey to the cavern and the discovery he had made, his subsequent journey back with Asoka and the second discovery they had made—the one that was deeply troubling the Emperor.

As he spoke, the faces of the other courtiers registered surprise, amazement, shock and wonder, in turn. When he finished, he knew they understood as well as he did the reason for them being here at this hour.

‘So, you see,’ Asoka took up the narrative, ‘the myths of the ancients were not just stories. And I know that you, my wise courtiers, are aware of the danger posed to the world by what lies in this cavern. If it were to fall into the hands of the enemy, they could use it for untold gain. We cannot allow this to happen. This cavern and its contents have been buried for centuries. We will seal up the opening on the hillside. They must remain a secret. Forever.’

He drew a short dagger from the scabbard at his waist and beckoned the men .

‘Hold out your left hand,’ he said. Each courtier extended his left hand, palm upwards. Asoka made a small cut on the palm of each courtier, letting out blood that spilled across their palms. ‘You are today joined in brotherhood,’ he said as the men placed their hands together, their blood mixing and dripping to the floor. ‘The Brotherhood of the Nine Unknown Men. And you will protect this secret forever, never letting the rest of mankind know that it ever existed.’