THE MAHABHARATA QUEST:THE ALEXANDER SECRET (17 page)

40

A proposal for barter

Cooper sat back and appraised the situation. Things had gone according to plan so far, with the exception of the fiasco at the museum. Riley had reported in a while back and updated Cooper. The young man had sounded angry at having lost his quarry.

‘Don’t worry yourself about it,’ Cooper had told him. ‘Shit happens. We’ve got the woman now. They’ll come to us. And, we have a bonus. We have the metal plate. Without it the cube would have been useless anyway.
,
Cooper picked up the phone. It was time to move ahead. Time to make a call.

He dialled Vijay’s number. It was picked up almost immediately.

‘Vijay Singh?’ Cooper enquired. He didn’t want to play his hand without being sure he was speaking to the right person.

‘Yes. Who is this?’

‘My name is Peter Cooper. You may have heard of me from your friend Alice.’

There was silence at the other end. Cooper could only imagine Vijay’s shock at being called by him at this time of night. He could also visualise Vijay’s hopes rising, for news of Radha. This was exactly what he wanted. The success of his plan depended on how badly Vijay wanted to acquiesce to his demands.

Cooper waited, letting the silence grow heavier.

‘Where’s Radha?’ Vijay demanded finally, unable to take the suspense any more. ‘If you have harmed her…’ he left his sentence incomplete, unable to think of a suitable ending. What could he do to an unseen, unknown enemy when he didn’t even know where they were hiding?

‘Don’t make foolish threats that you can’t carry out,’ Cooper advised him. ‘Your fiancée is with us. She is safe. For now. And her future safety and well-being depends on how well you cooperate with us.’

There was silence again. This time Cooper didn’t wait but pressed on.

‘I have a proposal,’ he said. ‘A barter. You have something we want. And we have something you want. Why don’t we exchange? Everyone’s happy and all’s well that ends well.’

‘You want the cube?’

‘Yes. And Alice Turner. Give me both and you can have your fiancée back.’

Silence again. Cooper could picture Vijay struggling with his emotions. It was a tough choice. A former girlfriend for a fiancée. The fate of both hung in Vijay’s hands.

‘I’m not an unreasonable man,’ Cooper continued. ‘I will give you until 12 noon tomorrow to think about it and let me know. Until then, you have my assurance that not one hair on your fiancée’s head will be harmed. But I will expect a decision from you by then.’

He disconnected the call and stretched. It was time to hit the sack. It had been a long day. Age was catching up with him. There was a time when he had enjoyed a field job. The thrill of stalking a target, sometimes losing it, then catching up with it again was a powerful allurement. Now, the physical effort sometimes tired him out. But he had a job to do. And he was nothing if not meticulous.

Tomorrow he would call Vijay Singh again. And the fate of two women would be decided.

41

DAY FOUR

A glimmer of hope

Colin entered the study to find Vijay fast asleep, his head on the desk, resting on his arms. The desk was littered with printouts and Vijay’s notebook was open, his pen resting on it. Clearly, Vijay had been busy through the night. Colin wondered what his friend had been doing and whether he had learned anything that could help them.

He walked over to Vijay and shook him gently. ‘Hey, buddy, wake up.’

Vijay lifted his head off the desk and looked at Colin, bleary eyed. ‘I fell asleep,’ he mumbled.

‘No shit. You look a mess. You better go downstairs and freshen up.’

Vijay nodded, still disoriented. Then, a thought seemed to strike him and he brightened up.

‘I found something,’ he informed Colin. ‘Let’s have breakfast and I’ll tell you guys.’

Leaving Colin wondering what he had discovered during the night, Vijay hurried out of the study.

An hour later, they assembled in the study. Vijay sat at the desk, sorting out the papers and stacking them on the desk.

Three pairs of eyes gazed at Vijay expectantly, filled with curiosity.

‘I did a lot of research on Alexander the Great,’ he began. ‘I downloaded a BBC documentary by Michael Wood and watched it – all four hours of it. I read sections of various books written about the man. You won’t believe how many people have written about him. I read about the route he followed from Macedonia to India. The people he fought along the way, the stories around what he did in different cities that he passed through. And I learned a lot about the man. He was stubborn. He refused to give up in the face of all odds. And he was determined.’

‘Sounds a bit like you,’ Colin grinned. ‘You could be describing yourself, you know.’

Vijay scowled at him but didn’t respond.

Alice said nothing but in her head she was thinking the same thing. Vijay’s determination, perseverance and refusal to conform to popular belief had helped him succeed in many ways. It was what had attracted her to him in the first place. A man who knew his mind. And was not afraid to follow it. But it had also been the cause of their break up.

‘It seems that Alexander was driven by something at every step of the way. When he left Macedonia, it was the
pothos
– the desire, the longing – to avenge the defeat of the Greeks at the hands of the Persians. So he marched to Persia, defeated Darius and when Darius was murdered at the hands of his own nobles, he pursued them across the mountains until he caught up with them and killed them. Now, he was ruler of Persia but he didn’t stop there. There was another
pothos
that drove him further eastward. All the writers I read explained this desire as an ambition to conquer the known world and march to the ends of the earth. Apparently, Alexander had been taught by Aristotle that beyond the Indus lay the great ocean and the ends of the earth.’

He paused and looked at Alice, who nodded her approval. ‘Go on,’ she said, ‘you’re doing a great job.’

‘This is where it gets all mysterious,’ Vijay continued, having validated his research. ‘First, it appears that Alexander never told his troops when they left Greece that they were marching to the ends of the earth. It was only after they conquered Persia that he told them that they would be marching on eastwards. Once again, there seems to be a logical explanation for this. If he had told his soldiers how far from home they would be marching, they may not have followed him in the first place. But that doesn’t make sense to me. Alexander was a leader par excellence. He led his men on a twenty-thousand mile journey from Macedonia to India and then back to Babylon. They marched across freezing mountain passes, baking deserts, sometimes without water or food. They followed him everywhere, without protest. The only exception was when they reached the Beas river in Punjab and they persuaded Alexander to return home saying they would march no more. These men would have followed him into the depths of the earth if he had demanded it of them.’

He looked around to see if everyone was following him. Satisfied that they were, he resumed. ‘But we have a different theory from that of these writers. They didn’t have access to the cube or the secret journal of Eumenes. They couldn’t know that there may have been a secret quest Alexander had embarked on; a quest known only to him and his mother. But our theory provides a logical explanation of what happened.’

‘I see where you are going with this,’ Alice said. ‘If Olympias had the cube and the parchment which she gave Alexander, she would most likely have told him to keep the quest a secret. Alexander would have disguised the quest in the garb of conquering the known world and marching to the ends of the world. But when he left Macedonia, he told his troops only about the invasion of the Persian empire and not about his plans to march to the Indus. Not because he was afraid his men wouldn’t follow him but because he didn’t want them to know about the “secret of the gods”. And, if I’m guessing right, you also think that the rebellion at the Beas was engineered or recorded as such to disguise the fact that Alexander had accomplished his mission and wanted to go back home himself.’

‘Exactly,’ Vijay beamed. ‘He buried the metal plate at the base of the altar near the Beas because he had achieved his quest. Remember, Eumenes says that Alexander had become a god after entering the cave guarded by a five-headed snake? And we know that Alexander had begun proclaiming himself a god right from the time he defeated the tribes in Bactria – that was why Callisthenes was put to death.’

‘So what you’re saying,’ Colin said slowly, ‘is that the parchment that Olympias gave Alexander should somehow correspond with the route that Alexander took on his way from Persia to India. That’s why you were studying the route he took.’

‘Bingo!’ Vijay’s face shone with excitement. He had reasoned this out by himself and it felt good to see that the others could follow his line of thinking. It seemed to validate his reasoning. He had already decided on his course of action and it all depended on what conclusion this discussion reached.

‘So, what did you find?’ Colin asked.

42

Prisoner

Radha awoke with a start. For a few moments she was disoriented. The pristine white surroundings in which she found herself were unfamiliar.

Then it all came back to her. The Airport Express. The man with the gun. Her losing consciousness. The hospital gown. The straps binding her. The uneasy, creeping realisation that her rage was about to explode. But try as she might, she couldn’t remember anything after that. What had happened? And she realised she had been moved to a much smaller room than the one in which she had woken up earlier.

She looked down. She still wore the gown. But she was no longer strapped down. How long had she been unconscious?

Gingerly, she raised herself on the bed and sat up, her legs dangling over the side. She felt weak; drained, as if she had expended a lot of energy in some great physical effort.

She was suddenly aware of the pain in her wrists and ankles. She examined them one by one, wondering at the deep cuts where the nylon straps had dug into her flesh.

She got off the bed, the white marble floor cold against her bare feet. There were no slippers in the room. The walls were solid. There was a frosted glass door to the room but it was locked. She grabbed the handle, pulling and pushing, trying to open the door but to no avail. There was only one way to open the door and that was from the outside. People could enter but she couldn’t leave. Not without an access card to activate the sensor fitted at the side of the door. She was well and truly a prisoner.

As her hands left the door handle, it slipped away abruptly and the door swung outwards. She stumbled backwards, alarmed, as Saxena and Freeman entered the room.

‘How is our patient today?’ Saxena greeted her affably.

‘I am not a patient!’ Radha’s eyes flashed angrily. ‘Why am I here?’

‘I’m the one who will be asking the questions today.’ Saxena indicated the bed. ‘Sit.’

A feeling of nausea accompanied by a sudden weakness washed over Radha. She backed up to the bed and sat down, glad to be off her feet. For some reason her legs were feeling wobbly.

‘After-effects of the psychotropic enhancer,’ Freeman remarked to Saxena, observing her perceptible discomfort and correctly guessing the cause. ‘Nausea and weakness.’

‘Who is he?’ Radha remained defiant.

‘Ah, I didn’t introduce you.’ Saxena gestured towards Freeman. ‘Dr Gary Freeman. Expert in genetics and the head of genetics at Titan Pharmaceuticals. He’s been working on a top secret project for us for many years now. And he’s close to a breakthrough. Now, let’s get some answers. First question: what does the IB know about our mission?’

Radha looked blank. She had no idea what mission he was talking about. All she knew now was that Imran’s suspicions had been confirmed. Titan Pharmaceuticals was involved in some way with the clinical trials at the destroyed medical centre. But what did a genetics expert have to do with the clinical trials?

An annoyed expression crossed Saxena’s face. ‘I want an answer,’ he said firmly. ‘Silence is not an option. We have ways, painful ways, to make you speak. I’m being gentle with you right now. Don’t try my patience.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’ Radha had no desire to find out what means Saxena had at his disposal to elicit answers from her.

‘I find that hard to believe. You came to my office, snooping around, posing as a journalist. You are affiliated with the Intelligence Bureau. In what capacity, I don’t yet know. You had all the details about the fire at the medical facility in East Delhi. Including the cells for the patients. You clearly know a lot about us.’

Radha’s face registered surprise. How did they know about her association with the IB? ‘I really have no idea what you are going on about,’ she protested feebly, taken aback by their level of knowledge. ‘I have nothing to do with the Intelligence Bureau.’

Saxena smirked. ‘Don’t underestimate us,’ he warned her. ‘We have a second team keeping tabs on the lot of you. We know that all of you, including the IB agent, were together at Jaungarh fort. Which, of course, is owned by your fiancé.’

‘Okay, I admit that I know Imran Kidwai. But I’m telling you the truth,’ Radha insisted. ‘We had our suspicions. We thought that Titan was mixed up in whatever was happening at the centre that got gutted. But we didn’t know what it was.’

Saxena looked at Freeman then fixed Radha with a stern look. ‘I really don’t know whether or not to believe you. Why were you investigating us if you didn’t know what we were working on?’

Radha hesitated. She felt terrible that she was telling this man everything. But she was scared. Of the pain. Of the cuts in her hands and legs. Of the terrifying feeling she had had earlier of not being in control of herself. She knew that these people were capable of anything. And they wouldn’t hesitate to do anything to get what they wanted.

‘We thought Titan was involved in bioterrorism. That you were creating a new type of pathogen that could be used by terrorists and dictatorial regimes,’ she blurted out.

For a moment, Saxena simply stared at her. Then he burst out laughing. ‘Bioterrorism!’ he nudged Freeman, who chuckled back. ‘A new type of pathogen!’ He shook his head. ‘You really don’t know what our project is about, do you?’ He looked at Freeman. ‘I guess we really don’t need her anymore. Let’s ask Cooper what he wants to do with her. I’d like to use her for a few more trials before he disposes of her.’

They swept out of the room, leaving Radha alone, confused and terrified. She had no doubt about her fate. If she wasn’t going to be used as a guinea pig, she was definitely going to die.