The Mahabharata Secret (9 page)

He looked at them gravely. ‘Swear upon your blood that you will protect this secret with your life; that you will never betray your brotherhood or your cause, that no one will ever know about the true nature of your purpose in life.’

The nine men swore their allegiance to the newly-formed brotherhood and its mission.

‘One more thing.’ Asoka was not done. ‘The
Vimana Parva
—the book of the Mahabharata that mentions the legend,—erase it from every record of the epic that exists. By royal decree, the memorisation of this book of the Mahabharata must also be discontinued. The myth must disappear from the knowledge and memories of men, just like the secret it mentions. The only place where it will continue to exist will be within the brotherhood. Create a book of stone that will record the
Vimana Parva
and hide it within the folds of the brotherhood, concealed from the eyes and ears of men forever. The world will still know the Mahabharata
,
but it will never know the dark secret it carries deep within.’

10

Present Day

Day 5
New Delhi

‘I have an idea,’ Colin suddenly whispered in Vijay’s ear. ‘Hang on.’ He turned to the little group that clustered not far from them. ‘Does anyone here smoke? Do you have a lighter or a box of matches?’

Vijay instantly understood. He glanced up at the ceiling. A network of pipes ran along the roof, with sprinklers protruding at regular intervals. There were smoke detectors fixed on the walls, which would set the sprinklers off.

One of the women in the group had a lighter and she handed it over to Colin, her hand trembling, her face betraying her anxiety. There was no time to lose. The shouts upstairs had subsided into a strange calm. Was it a lull before the storm? Both friends doubted that the door, thick as it was, could withstand another assault.

Vijay sprinted towards a ladder that was used to access the higher levels of the lockers and wheeled it over to one of the smoke detectors. Colin kept pace with him and jumped onto the ladder even before it came to a stop, shinning up the rungs at top speed. He reached the smoke detector and produced a flame from the lighter.

The seconds ticked by, seeming like hours.

Nothing happened.

There was another loud blast, followed by the sound of metal buckling under metal. The steel door was wrenched off its hinges, the bolts of the double lock snapping with a shattering sound as the door flew down the stairs. It skidded along the floor and came to a stop as it smashed with a resounding crash into a row of lockers against the far wall. The little group shrank back, sheltering behind a wall of lockers in an attempt to shield themselves.

Shouts rent the air and men came clattering down the stairs, following the path of the destroyed door.

Colin was grim-faced as he held the lighter to the smoke detector, willing it to work.
Why was it taking so long
?

Suddenly, the sprinklers came to life, dousing the group in the vault, soaking them thoroughly. The men charging into the vault were caught unawares and for a few seconds their downward progress into the vault slowed down.

‘Quick, the ladder!’ Vijay shouted to Colin.

With one accord, both friends lifted the heavy ladder and, holding it horizontal before them like a battering ram, charged towards the group of men racing down the stairs.

The men, though armed, hadn’t expected to meet with resistance. The sight of a 10-foot ladder ploughing its way towards them brought them up short. The stairway was slippery with the water from the sprinklers, and the lower stairs had been damaged by the impact of the steel door earlier. The men leading the charge lost their footing and slipped on the stairs.

Vijay and Colin dodged them and ignored the water cascading down as they charged up the stairs with the ladder, hoping they wouldn’t slip, mowing down men and carving a path for themselves to the room above.

There was only one thought in their minds. They had to get away.

As they emerged from the vault, two things greeted their eyes. The first was the prone body of the clerk who had led them into the vault, lying in a pool of blood, his head blown open at the back. The second was Farooq, Maroosh and three men standing around a peculiar machine that looked like an enormous metallic archer’s bow, seven feet high, fitted on a solid metal pedestal. The entire contraption was made of a dark metal, not unlike the metal slab Vijay was carrying ensconced in the duffel bag.

Farooq’s eyes widened with surprise as he saw the two men emerge with the ladder. Vijay and Colin had the advantage of surprise. Even as realisation dawned on Farooq, they summoned their last reserves of strength and heaved the ladder towards him and the contraption, causing the men to scatter to get out of the way.

The few moments this bought them were enough. The two friends dashed outside the building to where Radha’s car was standing and leapt in. Vijay started the car and honked his way through a gathering crowd of curious onlookers, alerted by the sound from the vault.

As Vijay pressed his foot to the accelerator, he could hear furious shouts behind him as Farooq rallied his men. The sound of gunshots shattered the air. Vijay risked a glance in the rear-view mirror and saw Farooq’s men piling into a mid-size truck that stood outside the vault. To his amazement, he saw three of them carrying a metal pedestal with a heap of metal piled on top of it into the truck. Was it the contraption they had seen? But that had been seven feet tall! It was almost as if they had been able to fold it into something that was not more than two feet tall. And they carried it as though it was not too heavy.

It seemed that Farooq and his men were going to give pursuit, when police sirens split the air and the truck suddenly veered in a different direction, giving up the chase.

Vijay and Colin grinned at each other. They had beaten Farooq once again. And this time, they had something to show for it.

Together They Guard The Secret

The little group sat in Vikram Singh’s study, their eyes glued to the LCD television fixed on the wall.

One of the news channels was reporting the incident at the vault. At the bottom of the screen, the words ‘Breaking News: Terrorist Attack on Vault in New Delhi’ scrolled across repeatedly...’None of the terrorist groups have claimed responsibility.’ A reporter was speaking into the camera.

Vijay sighed and switched off the television.

The incident was on all the channels. Speculation was rife about the purpose of the attack; with the most popular interpretation being that it was an attempt to accumulate funds for a terrorist group.

After leaving the vault, Vijay and Colin had rushed to Homi’s office to find that an ambulance had reported and taken the lawyer to the nearest hospital. At the hospital, they had been assured by the doctors that he would live, though his condition was serious.

Vijay couldn’t help but feel responsible in some way. After all, Homi had nothing to do with either Farooq or the secret of the Nine.

After leaving the hospital, Vijay had tried calling Bheem Singh, but his phone had been busy continuously, so he had called White and told him about the disk they had unearthed in the locker.

White had arrived at Jaungarh almost immediately, and was now seated with the others in Vikram Singh’s study.

The study was a square room with large bay windows that overlooked the hillside below. In a corner by the windows, was a large polished desk. On the opposite wall, flanking the doorway, hung two large paintings. One depicted the scene from the Mahabharata
,
where the grandsire of the dynasty in the epic, Bheeshma Pitamah, lay dying on a bed of arrows. The other was a sketch of the Buddha with the word
Karma
in bold black letters above the sketch. There were also various Buddhist symbols like the Wheel of Law, the Bodhi tree, the lion and the footprints of the Buddha in bold relief below the sketch.

The other walls of the study were lined with bookshelves. Diagonally opposite the desk was a small glass-topped table surrounded by a comfortable seating arrangement, with a television on the wall; the place where the group now sat.

Vijay slowly walked to the desk to pick up his duffel bag. The shocking events of the day had driven away all thoughts of what they had actually found in the locker.

He sat down and pulled out the metal slab in its bubble wrap packaging.

‘The key?’ White enquired, leaning forward with interest.

‘No. But I think this is one of the disks that were part of the puzzle.’ He looked at Shukla. ‘You’d mentioned that there were two metal disks.’

‘Yes. That’s what Beger wrote in his diary; it was a transcript of one of the texts that belonged to the Nine.’

Vijay unwrapped the metal disk and placed it on the table for everyone to see. ‘The disk with the verse that Farooq had alluded to.’ He indicated the inscriptions on the metal slab.

Shukla peered at the disk curiously. He reached out and picked it up, studying it intently.

‘The script is Magadhi,’ he said after a few moments. He looked up at Vijay, his eyes bright with excitement. ‘You could be right. This disk could actually date back to the time of Asoka the Great, or even before him. This may just be the only other surviving artefact of those times.’ He stared at the disk as if he couldn’t believe he was holding it. ‘Two thousand years of history in my hands.’

Colin looked sharply at him. ‘That’s exactly what Vijay’s uncle said in one of his emails.
Two thousand years of history which I have safely guarded for the last 25 years, is yours to unlock.
Do you think he was referring to this disk?’

It was Shukla’s turn to look enquiringly at Vijay. ‘Vikram sent you an email referring to this disk?’

‘You’d mentioned that Vikram had sent you an email talking about the Nine,’ White interjected.

‘I’m sorry,’ Vijay confessed. ‘I’ve been holding back something. I wasn’t sure I wanted to share this with everyone yet. Only Colin knew. But I think the time is right to let you all into the secret.’ He quickly told them about the emails, reading out the exact words of each one from a printout he had kept in the study.

‘I believe uncle somehow knew that he was in danger. That is why he installed such an advanced security system in the fort. And hid the metal disk away in a locker without telling any one. How he obtained the disk, I can’t guess. But he knew about the Nine and their secret.’ He nodded to White. ‘He told you about it. He may have told someone else and somehow the information filtered through to Farooq or whoever he is working for. I think that, on the night he was murdered, his security system alerted him about the intruders. Rather than protecting himself, his first thought was to ensure that the secret was safe. He sent me the emails, hoping that I would decipher them. That is why, I guess, he wanted me to speak to Greg, as instructed in his final email. He knew that Greg would tell me about uncle’s belief in the existence of the Nine. I am not yet certain what he wanted me to do with this information. But I am sure he knew that someone ruthless, someone unscrupulous, was after it; someone who would stop at nothing.’

There was silence when he had finished. It was Colin who broke it.

‘If I know you,’ he raised one eyebrow at Vijay, ‘You now want to try and decipher the hidden message in the emails and try and find the secret of the Nine?’

‘Why not?’ Vijay grinned at him. ‘Are you afraid of a little secret that could destroy the world?’

‘Who, me? Of course not. I’m game.’ Colin grinned back. ‘Maybe it will make us all rich! These ancient secrets have a way of attracting money. All I’m worried about is the
someone ruthless, someone unscrupulous
, who will stop at nothing. These ancient secrets have a way of attracting those kinds of folk as well.’

Vijay smiled to himself. He knew that Colin would be the first in line to jump into any activity that involved danger.

He looked at Shukla, who was still holding the disk. ‘You said you could read Magadhi. Can you tell us what the inscriptions say?’

‘I studied Magadhi,’ Shukla agreed, ‘but it has been a while since I last translated anything written in Magadhi. Let’s see.’ He bent his head over the disk.

After a few moments of studying the symbols around the grooves, he looked up, his face radiating excitement. ‘This is a device that will provide directions to find something. Look at this.’

All eyes were on the disk in his hands as they bent over it. Shukla pointed to the concentric grooves. ‘There are two sets of inscriptions,’ he explained. ‘One surrounding the gear wheel, and the other around the outer circle.’

He placed his index finger on the cogwheel and slowly moved it in a clockwise direction. To their surprise, it moved. The disk wasn’t really one solid slab; the gearwheel was a separate disk, fixed to the slab, that moved independently of the outer circle.

As they watched, Shukla moved the toothed wheel until the inscriptions on its perimeter aligned perfectly with the characters on the outer disk to form nine distinct lines of symbols.

‘Each row of inscriptions is a complete sentence now,’ he explained, ‘and together, the nine lines form a verse.’

He pointed to two lines of inscriptions, at two opposite ends of the disk. ‘Those lines are the beginning and end of the verse. I will read it out to you.’

He adjusted his spectacles for a better view of the inscriptions and began reading aloud.

The Nine have gone forth to the edges of the empire

The first speaks in two tongues

The second, in appearance, is different from the rest

The third gazes over the sea, waiting for the ships to come in

The fourth speaks the name of the Emperor

The fifth is seventeen

The sixth doesn’t have all that the others do; but is special for he also has that which the others do not

The seventh pays homage to the Wheel of Truth

The eighth is greater by one than the other upright ones

The ninth writes with a hand that is different from the rest.

Together, they guard the way to the truth that is protected by the Nine.