THE MAHABHARATA QUEST:THE ALEXANDER SECRET (3 page)

3

Out of the frying pan…

‘They killed Damon,’ Marco blubbered, collapsing into a heap on the floor. ‘Peter shot him. Just like that.’

Alice couldn’t comprehend what Marco was saying for a few moments. What was he babbling about? He wasn’t making any sense. Why would Peter shoot Damon?

She knelt down beside the weeping boy and put her hand on his shoulder reassuringly. ‘Tell me what happened,’ she said gently. ‘I’m sure it is all a misunderstanding.’

‘I saw it with my own eyes!’ Marco wailed. ‘Stavros was shouting at Damon. He was angry with Damon for leaving you alone in the tomb and for letting you photograph the artefacts. He said that Damon should have brought the cube to show them.’ A fresh flood of tears welled up in his eyes and he choked on his words.

Alice waited patiently, offering him a box of tissues. Suddenly she felt she was in a dream. A very unpleasant dream. She wished to be woken up right now.

Marco blew his nose loudly and continued. ‘Then Peter took out a gun. He told Damon that he was a liability since he didn’t follow instructions.’ He paused as he recollected the scene he had witnessed through the open windows of Damon’s villa. ‘Damon was terrified. He pleaded, begged for Peter to give him another chance. He was crying. But Peter wouldn’t listen. He just shot him.’ Marco’s sobbing renewed.

Alice stood up as she heard the sound of people racing down the corridor leading to her villa. Was it Stavros and Peter? The reality of her situation suddenly hit her like a cold shower on a snowy winter’s day, shocking her into action.

She sprinted for the door and double bolted it. That would buy them some time. If Damon had been killed, there was no doubt about what would happen to Marco and her.

‘We have to get out of here,’ she voiced her thoughts to Marco. ‘Come on.’

She hefted her backpack and slid out through the window just as someone tried the door.

‘It’s locked!’ That was Peter.

‘Break it open!’ That was Stavros.

The sound of an assault on the door came to them. The latch shook with the impact but stayed fast.

Alice looked at the door and then glanced at Marco, who was frozen where he sat, staring at the door like a deer caught in the headlights of a car on a forest path. She knew it wouldn’t be long before they broke through.

‘Marco!’ she hissed, not daring to shout. If Peter knew that she was aware of what had happened, they would guess that she was trying to flee and would take action to pre-empt her. ‘Get the hell out of there!’

Her voice seemed to jolt Marco back to reality. He stood up shakily and tottered to the window, sliding out and onto the grassy lawn just as the latch gave way and Peter burst into the room.

‘On the lawn!’ Peter yelled, as he dashed to the window.

Alice didn’t wait to see what was happening behind her but grabbed Marco’s hand and sprinted away from the villa. She didn’t know if the two co-directors were accompanied by anyone but she was guessing they weren’t by themselves.

Two soft coughs sounded and bullets whistled past
their ears.

Alice realised that someone was shooting at them and the gun was fitted with a sound suppressor.

She raced across the lawn, dragging Marco behind her, to where the Land Cruiser, which was their official transport, stood.

As she ran, Marco suddenly seemed to grow heavier. One moment she was pulling him forward, the next he was an immovable object, as if set in stone.

Alice glanced back at Marco as he slumped to the ground. His face was a mask of red and his hair was drenched in blood. The bullets had found their mark.

For a precious moment, she hesitated, tears welling in her eyes. She was torn between her own safety and the tragedy she was witnessing now. A young boy, his life brutally cut short. And for what?

More coughs rang out and her instinct took over. Reluctantly, she let go of Marco’s hand and slid swiftly into the driver’s seat.

The key was in the ignition. Marco must have left it there, in anticipation of driving the co-directors to the tomb site. The engine complained and then revved up as she accelerated, heading out onto the dirt road that led to the tomb.

As she raced down the dirt track, she heard shouts behind her. The coughs rang out once again, and bullets thudded into the Land Cruiser as she pressed the accelerator to the floor.
She had to get to the tomb.
There were two armed guards at the tomb site and they would protect her from the madness that suddenly seemed to have broken loose here.

It didn’t take long for her to arrive at the excavation site. To Alice’s surprise, it was dark and silent. The floodlights which had been fitted to light up the excavation were off and so were the generators powering them.

Where were the guards?

She jumped out of the vehicle and stumbled across the uneven ground. Though she knew her way around, she had never been here after dark, aided only by the light of the stars.

Abruptly, she tripped over something heavy on the ground and just about managed to regain her balance.

Shocked, she realised that it was Geordi, one of the guards. She bent down to check on him but there was no pulse. He
was dead.

She stood up warily, confused; caught between the need to understand what was happening here, and her instinct, which was telling her to flee.

Even as she struggled with her thoughts, a dark shadow clambered out of the shaft that led to the underground tomb.

Alice froze. Only now did she see the helicopter, an immense shadow off to one side.

Her mind was a whirl of confused thoughts of which one stood out clearly.
She was trapped.

4

A call for help

Anwar!

Imran stared at the email he had just received, unable to believe his eyes.

Anwar and Imran had grown up together in Meerut before Anwar moved to Lucknow to stay with his uncle, after losing both his parents. That was years ago, but the two boys had kept in touch as they grew up. While Imran had joined the IPS, Anwar had started a small business in Lucknow that hadn’t done too well over the years. But the two had remained good friends.

Until five years ago when Anwar had suddenly vanished without a trace.

And now, he had turned up out of nowhere. A ghost from the past.

A surge of anticipation coursed through Imran’s being as he felt the exuberance of connecting once more with his old friend. He opened the email. And felt like someone had punched him in the face.

It contained two words.

Help Anwar

… and into the fire

Alice stood, immobilised, as the shadow emerged from the shaft and advanced towards her. She saw it move one hand to its hip and realised it was reaching for a weapon.

Abandoning all thoughts of trying to find out what was happening, she turned and sprinted back towards the car, opening the driver’s door and sliding into the seat in one motion, as shots rang out, shattering the silence of the night. This gun had no silencer. There was no need for stealth here.

Bullets smacked into the windows, shattering them, as she struggled to start the car.

A bullet whizzed past her face and embedded itself in the passenger seat next to her.

The Land Cruiser’s powerful engine roared to life and the tyres skidded on the gravel as she reversed at top speed. Alice threw the vehicle into forward gear and raced away from the tomb. Another bullet thudded into the stereo system and she bent low over the wheel, hysterical with fear, trying to control her panic, one thought racing through her head.

She had to get away.

Behind her, she heard the helicopter start up and she knew that the intruders were going to hunt her down and kill her.

Who were these people and what did they want?

Sobbing and shaking with fear, she sped towards the E75, the toll road that led to Thessaloniki. It was the only thing she could think of at the moment.

The sound of the helicopter pursuing her followed in her wake. She pressed hard on the steering wheel of the Land Cruiser as if that would make the vehicle go faster.

But she knew that the helicopter would overtake her. It was just a matter of time.

Searching for Anwar

‘Back to the office,’ Imran barked to his driver. ‘Use the beacon!’

The driver obediently turned back, switching on the beacon, and speeded up. Imran knew he was stretching his official privileges. It was something he never did, but right now he didn’t care. He knew one thing for sure from the message he had received. His friend was in trouble.

And Imran was going to do everything he could to help.

As they raced back towards IB headquarters Imran barked orders into his phone. The red beacon ensured that traffic made way for them. It was as if the traffic jams miraculously melted away, like snow under a deluge of salt.

Back in his office, Imran summoned his team.

‘Okay, so what do we have?’ His voice was surprisingly calm. His anger was on a tight leash, his apparent calmness a thin veneer disguising his worry that he might be too late to help his friend. He was sure that Anwar had been interrupted while typing the message which had prevented him from providing more details.

‘We have a trace on the IP address,’ one of his men reported. ‘It’s a server in Delhi. We have an approximate location,’ he showed Imran a printout of a map with a dot in red marking the location, ‘but it could be anywhere within 50 kilometres of this spot.’

Imran looked at him. ‘I want an exact location. I want the physical address.’

‘Sir, you know that needs a court order. I can call
the ISP…’

‘We can’t wait for a court order,’ Imran interrupted him. Every second was valuable. They didn’t have the luxury of affording discussions. ‘We don’t have time to explain to the ISP. This is an emergency.’

His agent stared back at him. ‘You want us to hack into the ISP’s database?’

‘Do it. I’m authorising it.’ Imran was conscious that this was a gross misuse of his authority. But he was convinced his friend was in dire trouble. Tonight was the night he would break rules if necessary, even though he had never done it in his long career with the IPS.

The men scurried out, looking at each other in bewilderment. Imran leaned back in his chair and exhaled.He could only hope they figured it out in time.
 

5

Hunted

The roar of the explosion came to Alice seconds after the blast of the shockwave that rocked the Land Cruiser as it sped towards the asphalt road that would take her off the dirt road and onto the highway. She screamed involuntarily.

In the rear view mirror, through her tears, she saw the ball of fire rise above the excavation site. She couldn’t believe it.
They had destroyed the tomb!
Fortunately, she had photographed the find. She still had the memory stick from the camera with her. She consoled herself with the thought that, though the destruction of the tomb was an irretrievable loss to history and archaeology, she still had something that could be salvaged.

Then it struck her. If these people, whoever they were, could blow up the tomb, then they clearly didn’t want to leave any trace of what had been found within it.

And she was a living testimonial to the discovery within the tomb. They would not rest until she was dead.

There was a sudden bump on the roof of the Land Cruiser. The pilot was battering the roof of the vehicle using the struts of the helicopter. Alice jumped in her seat and screamed again, her nerves on edge with the trauma of the evening and the realisation that she would be relentlessly hunted down.

She shifted gears and accelerated again. Whatever happened tonight, she was not going to give up so easily. They may get her in the end, but she would not meekly surrender.

Apparently the helicopter pilot realised that, and, with a sudden burst of speed, the chopper veered off to the right, racing ahead of her and then arcing back towards her, descending as it approached the SUV.

Alice stared in horror at the sight of the helicopter heading straight at her. She instinctively realised what the pilot was trying to do. While it was evident that he planned to land on the motorway and block her path, he was also trying to add to her terror by playing with her mind, making her believe that he was going to ram the SUV head on.

Alice struggled to get a hold of herself. The thought of someone thinking that she was so helpless that she would allow herself to be toyed with helped her centre herself.

‘Okay, pal,’ she said grimly. ‘Two can play at this game. You want a game of roulette, you got it.’ She shifted gears and slowed down for a brief instant before speeding up again, heading directly at the helicopter which was now just a few metres above ground level. ‘Let’s see who blinks first.’

For a few moments, the helicopter and the SUV roared towards each other, both apparently bent on a collision.

Then, the pilot seemed to think the better of it and settled the helicopter down on the motorway, straight in the path of the oncoming Land Cruiser. He had given up the psychological tactics and was now banking on a physical rather than a mental obstacle.

A lone figure emerged from the helicopter as its rotors died down and Alice realised that there was no one accompanying the pilot in the helicopter. The man stood to one side, waiting like a spider in its web watching the approach of a fly, secure in the knowledge that the fly would be trapped in its
silken snare.

Alice looked wildly around, desperately searching for a way out. She struggled to fight the wave of panic flooding her mind as the helicopter’s bulk filled her vision, blocking out the highway beyond it. If there was a way out of her predicament, she knew she would never find it if she allowed herself to succumb to the terror that was threatening to overcome her.

Blinking back her tears, she forced herself to focus on the scene ahead of her, even as her instincts goaded her against it.

Then she saw it. A chance, however slim, but it offered her hope. She knew the odds were stacked against her but she wouldn’t give up without trying.

Alice slowed down again and did some quick mental calculations. It might just work.

The pilot, interpreting her slowing down as an indication that she was going to stop, began advancing towards her.

Jaungarh Fort, 130 km from New Delhi, India

‘I can’t say that I’m happy about this development,’ Colin grumbled.

He and Vijay were sitting on a balcony of Vijay’s ancestral fort, enjoying the pleasant weather. Winter hadn’t set in yet and the nights were cool, especially at the fort which was built upon a hill that towered over the farmland around, with its own little village nestled at the base. The fort had belonged to Vijay’s uncle, a retired nuclear scientist, who was brutally murdered a year ago. The murder had led to the uncovering of a shocking secret that involved Asoka the Great and
the Mahabharata.

Vijay grinned at Colin. ‘You don’t like the guy? I thought he was all charm.’

Colin frowned at Vijay. ‘You’re damned right I don’t like the guy. You know, when our friend Kidwai first told us that the US and Indian governments planned to set up this joint task force, I thought it was a great idea.’

‘It certainly is,’ Vijay agreed. ‘Putting together a team of scientists and engineers, specialists in their fields, to anticipate and investigate technology based terrorism, supported by both governments – it is an idea whose time has come.’

‘Yeah. But now I know how Red Riding Hood felt when she went walking in the woods. It was a great walk until the wolf jumped out at her.’

Vijay chuckled. Just this morning they had both been summoned to the headquarters of the Intelligence Bureau to meet with Michael Blake, the CIA operative who had worked with the IB on their adventure last year. Blake was accompanied by the American who had been appointed by the US President to head the joint task force. It was for this meeting that Colin had flown down from the US a few days earlier.

Bill Patterson was 6 feet 3 inches, all muscle, and evidently all brain too, given his credentials as a PhD in molecular biology as well as chemical biology. A former US Navy Seal, the African American had a brusque manner, leaving no one in doubt that he was in command.

Colin, a natural rebel, had disliked him from the moment he laid eyes on Patterson. His instinctive feeling of repulsion had led to an acrimonious debate over how much devolution of decision making would take place, with Colin ending up at the losing end of the argument. He was still smarting at the encounter.

‘Listen, if the President of the US thinks he’s good enough, I’m fine with that. And you should be, too.’

‘I just don’t like having to go back to him every time we need to do something,’ Colin glared at Vijay.

‘Hey, don’t bite my head off! And we don’t need to ask him for permission for everything we do. Only if there is military action or anything that requires specialist training. Let’s face it. You and I had nothing to do with preventing Farooq from getting away with the secret of the Nine.’ Vijay was referring to their adventure the previous year. ‘It was the commandos who took over the situation in the end. Our job as part of this task force is to investigate and test hypotheses. If there is any action, it should be left to the guys who are trained for the job.’

Colin grunted. He knew Vijay was correct but didn’t want to admit it. He looked at his watch instead. ‘Time to turn in,’ he said, still scowling. ‘I just hope I don’t have nightmares with Patterson playing a ghoul. That’s all I need at this moment.’