THE MAHABHARATA QUEST:THE ALEXANDER SECRET (5 page)

9

Thessaloniki, Greece

Alice sank onto her bed, exhausted and glad to be alive. The police escort had met her as promised and accompanied her to a hotel where she had been checked in under an assumed name. She didn’t know what they had been told about her situation, but it was obvious that they had instructions to ensure that her true identity was not revealed to anyone.

The police would open a case file and investigations would commence immediately with a manhunt to apprehend Stavros and Peter. Though, somehow, she had a feeling they wouldn’t be caught.

The consulate had called to say that the documents that would help her leave the country would be ready before noon the next day. They had reassured her that she was under their protection and would be completely safe now. Wallace had certainly pulled a whole lot of strings and she was grateful for his help.

Only one thing remained now. She needed to book her ticket out of here. She would do that tomorrow. But she wouldn’t go back home to the US. It wasn’t a good idea anymore. Stavros and Peter knew where she was from and probably had her home address as well. While she felt safe and protected here, who would protect her in the US? She couldn’t possibly keep going back to Wallace for help. He had done his bit and more in getting her out of this mess.

Where could she go? She had pondered over this question as she showered. Now, even as she relaxed with a glass of Chardonnay, she didn’t have any answers.

She switched on the television. It was a local channel, in Greek, but she didn’t have to know the language to understand the images accompanying the headlines which announced that two freak accidents had occurred on both carriageways of the highway to Thessaloniki, blocking off traffic. The accidents had been reported by anonymous callers and no one was on the scene when the police had arrived in both cases. The people involved had, apparently, deserted the accident scenes.

A cold fear gripped her as she heard the news.

What had she got herself into?

This was no ordinary conspiracy. Whatever was going on, it was big. If they could plan on something as crazy as blocking off the highway for a few hours just to ensure that no one from the excavation site made it out alive, there was something really big at stake here.

But what was it?
She racked her brains but could come up with no explanation that made sense.

Her phone rang, interrupting her thoughts.

‘Alice?’ Wallace’s polished accent came over the line.

‘Mr Wallace, I don’t know how to thank you.’ Alice was overcome with gratitude. ‘I’m in a hotel in Thessaloniki.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Wallace replied. ‘I was told. And, by the way, I do think that I have asked you before to call me Kurt. Anyway, I’m just glad you’re safe.’

‘I’m glad to be safe,’ Alice responded. ‘But I’m still scared.’ She told him about the accidents on the highway being reported on television. ‘I’m going to book my ticket first thing in the morning. I think I need to get out of here really fast.’

‘Ah, that’s why I called. I didn’t want to promise anything until I was sure. I don’t think you will be able to get a seat on any commercial airline out of Greece for at least a week. But I’ve managed to speak to a few people I know and you will have a private jet ready by noon tomorrow to bring you back to the US.’

Alice’s mouth fell open. A private jet? Kurt Wallace definitely had friends in high places. She pulled herself together as she realised that he was planning to ship her back home.

‘I’ve been thinking about that, Kurt.’ Alice suddenly knew exactly where she wanted to go. She explained to Wallace her apprehensions about returning to the US, gently and politely but firmly brushing aside his offer to help her find a safe place to stay there.

‘Are you sure about this?’ Wallace finally asked, after hearing her out and learning about her desired destination.

‘Absolutely.’ Alice had no doubts in her mind that this was what she wanted. ‘And I have a request, if that’s possible.’ She told him what she needed him to do for her.

‘Fine, then. It will be organised. Expect a call around 10 am. Have a safe flight and do let me know if there’s anything else you need.’

‘I will.’

As she disconnected, a pang of doubt suddenly surfaced in her mind. Was she doing the right thing?

Alice firmly pushed the thought away. She had to confront her demons. She had run from them for too long.

10

Aryan Laboratories, New Delhi

Imran stood with the firemen and the commandos, his shoulders hunched, weighed down with grief.

They had arrived three hours ago at the medical centre, only to find the firemen battling a fierce blaze that had consumed most of the top three floors of the facility, a four storeyed building.

Fifteen fire tenders had battled the fire for four hours before it was brought under control. Imran, the IB team and the commandos had stood by helplessly, watching, unable to contribute to the operation, as the firemen went about their job.

As soon as he received permission to enter the building, Imran had rushed in, shouting instructions to the commandos, the firemen and his team. While the upper storeys were ravaged, the ground floor seemed to be intact.

‘What’s this place supposed to be?’ Imran asked his deputy, Arjun, as they entered the building.

‘It’s a clinical laboratory. They conduct research into pathological diseases for Titan Pharmaceuticals Inc., based in Seattle, Washington.’

Imran frowned. ‘A US multinational pharma company?’

‘Yes. We’re contacting them as we speak to get further information. But it seems that this was a centre where they conducted clinical trials for their research programs. Apparently, they are working on developing a few molecules which are touted to be the next big thing in medicine.’

Imran’s walkie talkie came to life. ‘Sir, you need to come up here. Fourth floor.’ It was one of his agents.

A cold dread took hold of Imran as he sprinted up the stairs. Though he was in his mid-forties, he was still very fit, working out regularly, and he took the stairs two at a time.

As he entered the fourth floor from the stairwell, he recoiled in shock. The entire floor was charred. What was not destroyed by the fire had been devastated by the water from the fire tenders.

He sloshed through the puddles on the floor and entered what looked like it had been an IT lab, now lit up by torches and the head lamps of the firemen. Charred furniture and blackened computer terminals greeted his eyes.

And his worst fears seemed to come true. On one of the chairs, seated before a computer terminal, was a charred body.

‘Anwar?’ Imran could barely get the name out of his mouth.

‘I’m sorry, sir. No positive identification is possible right now. The body is charred beyond recognition.’

Imran was silent for a moment. Then he pulled himself together. ‘Arjun,’ he addressed an agent. ‘I want a complete investigation. Who owns this place? What were they doing here? What caused the fire?’ He looked at the charred body. ‘And I want this body identified.’

His walkie talkie crackled again. ‘Sir, you’d better come to the ground floor. We’ve found something.’

Imran rushed downstairs, followed by Arjun. One of his men had been checking out the elevator shaft and discovered that it didn’t end at the ground level. It seemed to extend downwards for quite a distance, as if accessing the basement levels of the building.

Sensing something odd, Varun Jha, the agent had forced the elevator open. The panel for choosing floors was an electronic touch panel rather than the more commonplace buttons. Nothing seemed to be out of place except for the fact that there were no basements mentioned on the panel.

Jha noticed that there was a second, smaller panel almost hidden below the main one. It was blank, but he had a suspicion that if someone were to swipe a card with the correct authentication, the panel would show up more floors. Going down.

The resourceful agent had then spoken to the firefighters, on the assumption that, if there were hidden basements below the building, there should also be a staircase to access them as a backup to the lift.

The firefighters had stormed into the stairwell and discovered that the stairs led to a small square room which was bare. A dead end. Jha had instructed the firefighters to demolish sections of the three walls surrounding the stairwell. It had paid off. The wall directly in front of the stairs had an empty space beyond it.

It was then that Jha had called Imran, who now hurried into the chamber at the foot of the stairs and watched the firemen break the wall down. As the wall was being flattened, cables and ducting broke free and flapped around aimlessly. Clearly there was some sort of electronic rigging that probably operated a hidden doorway in the wall.

When they had finished, a landing was revealed which led to stairs going down to the lower levels of the building.

Imran was afraid of what they might find. If someone had gone to such lengths to keep the basement hidden, there must have been something important to conceal. He remembered his brush with a disappearing wall the previous year. It had concealed a secret from the Mahabharata and he had almost lost his life looking for it.

Torches were organised and the IB agents, with the firemen, cautiously made their way down the stairs. It was obvious that the people in charge had fled, but there could be people trapped down there who needed to be rescued.

But the rescuers were not prepared for what they found. The basement had three levels. The two lowest levels seemed to have been some kind of accommodation, with small cubicles lining long, narrow corridors. Only this was no hotel or dormitory. The cells were all locked from the outside, using electronic locks.

And the occupants of the cells were dead. Not from asphyxiation. It didn’t need a forensic expert to reach that conclusion. The bodies were riddled with bullets. While the fire had left these levels untouched, not one soul was alive.

Imran turned to Arjun. ‘An American multinational, huh? Well, let’s find out what they know about over one hundred corpses of people shot dead in their facility. I’ll handle this personally. In the meantime, I want a meeting set up with their CEO as well as their Chief Medical Officer. And get me all the data you can about their operations in India, their history, the trials they are conducting. I want to know everything about them before I meet these guys.’

Arjun nodded. ‘You’ll have a report by tomorrow evening.’

Imran beckoned to Arjun and the two men moved away from the others. ‘Two more things,’ Imran whispered. Arjun waited.

When Imran had finished, Arjun looked surprised. But he didn’t object. ‘I’ll get it organized right away,’ he promised, and left to carry out Imran’s instructions.

Imran gazed around at the bodies and the cells. Hidden basements. Bullet ridden corpses. What was happening here? Someone had gone to great lengths to destroy this building. Were they trying to destroy evidence? In which case, what would that evidence point to? What had happened to Anwar? And what was he doing in a facility that conducted clinical trials?

There were too many questions. An unsettling feeling nagged at him. He knew the feeling well. He had a hunch. Something told him that this was a massive cover-up for a deeper, darker purpose.

He set his jaw as he contemplated his next steps. Whatever it took, he would get to the bottom of this mystery.

Jaungarh Fort

Vijay stroked his chin thoughtfully as he stood at the centre of the room which he had discovered just last week. The fort was fairly large, built in five levels with over fifty rooms, and Vijay had not had either the time or the inclination to immediately explore all the rooms after he had inherited the fort a year ago. He had stayed largely confined to the study on the first floor and his own room on the second floor.

While he was familiar with some of the rooms in the fort, there were many which he had never set eyes on. Over the last six months, he had finally started on the task of getting to know the fort better. It was during this exploration that he had discovered several interesting rooms. None of them were as interesting as the one he had discovered last year while hunting for the secret buried in the Mahabharata; but they had all told him something about his uncle’s tastes and predilections.

Two weeks ago, however, he discovered something totally unexpected. He had come upon a room on the fifth level of the fort, just below the terrace. The room itself was unremarkable and seemed to have been used as a storeroom, judging from the cartons stacked in there along with large, bulky packages wrapped in brown packing paper.

Curiosity had driven Vijay to check the contents of some of the cartons and he had not been prepared for what he found.

Apparently, at least some of the contents of the room belonged to his parents, who had both died in a car accident when Vijay was just fifteen years old. He had heard from his uncle about the truck that had driven, head on at high speed, into the car his parents were in. Both of them had died on the spot. Vijay had not been with them in the car only because, at the last minute, he had to stay behind for some reason that he had now forgotten. But it had saved his life.

He had realised, after examining some of the cartons, that his uncle had arranged for his parents’ personal possessions to be packed and transported to the fort, where they had been stored in this room for all these years.

Suddenly, on seeing his father’s papers and his mother’s journals, he realised just how much he missed them. His uncle had taken good care of him, sending him to MIT for his higher studies, and never allowing him to feel like an orphan. And Vijay had immersed himself first in his studies and later in work, keeping all thoughts of that tragedy out of his mind.

It was only when he came face to face with the physical memories of his parents that the loss really hit home, especially since his uncle, too, was no more.

Vijay had, in that moment, determined that he would sift through the cartons and cherish every memory of his parents that would be churned up. He had barely known his parents, having lost them just as he was growing up and getting to understand them better. He knew that both his parents had been academic historians and researchers, working with the Archaeological Survey of India, but he didn’t remember much more than that. He had missed out on that precious relationship that grows through love and conflict during adolescence and he now thought that, perhaps, something in that room would help him get closer to his parents, even after their death.

Every night since then, he would spend an hour or two in the room, sorting the contents of the cartons, reading through papers and journals, seeking insights about his parents that he had never bothered about during his teenage years.

He switched on the desk lamp perched on the desk that he had stationed in the room for this purpose, and began working his way through the papers stacked on the desk.

Would tonight bring some revelations that the previous nights had failed to provide?