THE MAHABHARATA QUEST:THE ALEXANDER SECRET

by CHRISTOPHER C. DOYLE

  Vijay swallowed. The truth in Patterson’s words rang home. His entire being was fighting against the logic Patterson had presented but deep down he knew that the leader of the task force was right.

  He fought back the tears as he replied. ‘Got it. Loud

  and clear.’

  ‘Now,’ Patterson resumed, ‘if this great secret has anything to do with bioterrorism, we can’t just stand by and allow these people to get away with it. For Christ’s sake, we don’t even know who they are!’

  ‘So what do you propose?’ Vaid realised what Patterson meant.

  ‘You go ahead with your deal,’ Patterson instructed Vijay. ‘We’ll cover your back from here.’

  Vijay looked puzzled. ‘How are you going to do that? You don’t even know where Radha is being held.’

  ‘Listen carefully.’ Patterson lowered his voice and told them. When he had finished, he fixed Vijay with a stern gaze. ‘Be careful out there, boy. We don’t work miracles. I almost lost a member of the task force this last week. I don’t want to lose two more now.’

  47

  Jalalabad, Afghanistan

  Vijay sat with Cooper in the Land Rover as it jolted across the streets of Jalalabad. When he had reached the airport at New Delhi, he had been hustled to a waiting Gulfstream G550 jet. They had flown from Delhi to Kabul, a flight that had taken 90 minutes, accompanied by five members of Cooper’s team — burly, muscled men with scars to prove their mettle — who were all armed.

  As the aircraft landed at Kabul, Vijay noticed another private jet parked on the tarmac. It was a Gulfstream 650ER, a long range jet. He wondered who it belonged to. Cooper had told him that they couldn’t fly direct to Jalalabad as the airport was being used for military purposes and, at times, for United Nations aircraft. There were two wide-bodied aircraft belonging to commercial airlines, but were no other small planes around.

  After clearing immigration, they had boarded a Land Rover for the 90 minute drive to Jalalabad. Vijay had not bargained for the ride he eventually got. The road itself was smooth and well-paved, having been resurfaced in 2006 by a European Union backed project. But the quality of the road only seemed to encourage Afghan drivers to challenge the contours of the landscape that the road passed through.

  While he could not help but admire the bewitching scenery of the Kabul gorge, through which the road passed, more than 2000 feet above the Kabul river, death and danger dogged them the entire journey. The highway itself had only two lanes, barely wide enough to accommodate two cars abreast of each other. On the inner lane, a bleak cliff towered above the road, almost perpendicular in its incline. The outer lane was protected by a ledge barely a foot high, beyond which lay empty space and a steep drop to the valley floor below.

  Ancient Ladas — survivors of the Soviet era — rickety buses and battered Toyota taxis competed for speed and space on the road as if trying to get the most out of the drive while the road lasted; before it disintegrated once again into the potholed chain of craters that it had been after the Soviet invasion. The local cars whizzed past the Land Rover, around hairpin bends and sharp turns, passing within millimetres of each other, weaving through the traffic at top speed. The only vehicles that seemed incongruously slow were the tractor trailers carrying their burden of cargo, lumbering along the road as if time did not matter to them, in sharp contrast to the rest of the traffic.

  Twice on the journey, Vijay saw evidence of the disasters that occurred daily on this highway. The first was the sight of the twisted remains of a car at the bottom of a ravine. The second was a head on crash between a container truck and a sedan. Clearly, the luckless sedan driver had not been able to whip back into his lane in time and had rammed, at high speed, into the truck. The accident caused a bottleneck on the highway and traffic crawled slowly around the mangled remains of the car and the immense bulk of the truck.

  Finally, though, they had made it to Jalalabad and they were now headed to a rendezvous with their local escort who would accompany them to the Kunar valley in the morning.

  The Land Rover drew up at a decrepit building, its plaster peeling and window shutters broken. It was clearly in need of maintenance and repairs. But it seemed that comfort and luxury were not priorities for these people. For the millionth time, Vijay wondered who these people were that Cooper was working for.

  As they walked into the hall that occupied almost the entire ground floor of the two-storeyed building, Vijay got part of his answer. Seated on a moth-eaten, cloth upholstered sofa, that may have been a light yellow at some point in time, was a tall, distinguished looking man with a high forehead, aquiline nose and silver grey hair. His grey eyes framed by rimless spectacles seemed to size Vijay up as he entered.

  On the table before him was the metal plate that Vijay had seen at the National Museum – the one that had been buried by Alexander at the base of Zeus’ altar near the Beas river.

  ‘Evening, Christian,’ Cooper nodded to the man, who nodded back without smiling.

  Even without speaking, the stranger conveyed a sense of authority and unbridled power. Vijay didn’t know who he was, but this was undoubtedly Cooper’s boss. The man behind this entire project.

  He didn’t know whether the stranger’s presence here was good or bad. But he hoped that he would at least get some answers to the myriad questions that had plagued them so far.

  ‘At last,’ the tall man gazed upon Vijay, his grey eyes appraising him thoughtfully. He gestured to another sofa, equally battered, that stood nearby. Vijay sat down.

  ‘My name is Christian Van Klueck,’ the stranger introduced himself. ‘You have not heard of me, no?’

  Vijay shook his head. The name didn’t ring a bell.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I know who you are,’ Van Klueck continued. He looked at Cooper. ‘Good job, Cooper. Always reliable. Will you organise the men for our expedition tomorrow, while I catch up with this gentleman?’

  Cooper nodded and strode off as Van Klueck turned back to Vijay, who realised that the Gulfstream jet he had seen at Kabul airport must belong to this man. Who was he? The man had a strong European accent. Probably from Germany or Austria. Someone very wealthy no doubt. And how did he know Vijay?

  ‘You have been a thorn in our side,’ Van Klueck told Vijay. Despite the nature of the statement, he didn’t look upset or annoyed. ‘I lost a good friend last year because of you. And the Order lost a dedicated member.’ He shook his head. ‘I would not forget you in a thousand years.’ Again, there was no obvious malice in his tone or expression. Which made his words all the more chilling.

  A cold fear crept up Vijay’s spine as he heard these words. Was Van Klueck referring to their search for the Mahabharata Secret the previous year? It wasn’t difficult to guess whom he was referring to.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Van Klueck continued. ‘That’s all in the past and I don’t believe in living in the past. The future awaits us. And we must focus on what lies ahead. There is so much to be gained. Of course, the past is important, no?’ His gaze pierced Vijay. ‘We must learn from the past and build on it to secure our future.’

  Vijay had no idea what the man was talking about. To him it sounded like a lot of babble. But this man before him didn’t seem to be capable of babbling. He struck Vijay as a man of precision, planning and calculated moves. Nothing impulsive.

  ‘Cooper told me you had deciphered one of the verses,’ Van Klueck continued, oblivious to Vijay’s bewilderment. ‘So what lies in the Kunar valley?’ He leaned forward and looked into Vijay’s eyes. ‘Tell me.’

  For the first time in this conversation, the European had referred to something that was familiar to Vijay. But even now, Vijay did not have a ready answer.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he shrugged in response. ‘The verse only seemed to describe the location of Jalalabad. The location of the Kunar valley was a deduction based on Alexander’s route in this region.’ He explained how they had concluded that there was a strong possibility that the secret
lay in the Kunar valley.

  Van Klueck contemplated Vijay’s words. ‘So you don’t know the exact location. But you do believe that this is where our search ends.’

  Vijay hesitated before answering. This was the opening he had been looking for. ‘It will help if I know exactly what you are looking for. Right now, we’re trying to interpret the verses without knowing what they lead to. Alexander knew. If we knew, we’d probably be able to decipher the verses much faster.’ He held Van Klueck’s gaze with the defiance of a man who had nothing to lose. Patterson had told him that he and Radha were doomed. And if he was going to die anyway, he would get his answers before that.

  Van Klueck looked thoughtful. He hadn’t expected this kind of spunk from Vijay. Finally, he nodded and smiled; a cold smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Perhaps you are right. Maybe if you know a little bit more, you could be of more use.’

  Vijay waited as the European seemed to weigh in his mind what he should reveal and what should remain secret.

  48

  The truth about Alexander

  ‘I think you have already figured out part of the truth about Alexander the Great,’ Van Klueck said finally. ‘In reality much of what we know about his life is based on facts that have been distorted, on many occasions, to reflect the inclination, philosophy or the motives of the person writing the record. As a result, it has become very difficult for us to work out exactly what is historically accurate about the man and what is glorified fiction.’

  He waited for Vijay to acknowledge his remarks. After Vijay had nodded, he continued. ‘And that is where artefacts like the cube are useful. They help us validate parts of the story that could be passed off as just another fantastical rendering of Alexander’s exploits by an ardent admirer or sycophant.’

  Vijay nodded again, remembering Alice’s objections to their analysis. There was so much fluff in the records about Alexander that it was difficult to believe everything written about him.

  Van Klueck held out his hand. ‘The cube please.’

  Vijay handed the cube to him and watched as he fitted it into the metal plate. It was a perfect fit.

  ‘So how do you know which parts of the Alexander story are correct and which ones are fantasy?’ Vijay was curious. What was the source of this man’s knowledge and power?

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ Van Klueck smirked. ‘But I’ll tell you something. Olympias was a member of our Order. And she knew about this cube because it was created by one of the first members of our Order. Thousands of years ago.’

  Vijay was stunned. When Imran Kidwai had briefed the task force on all that he had learned last year about their invisible anatagonists Vijay had realised that they were immensely powerful. But he had no idea that they were ancient as well. If what Van Klueck was saying was true, then the Order, whatever it was, was far more ancient than the brotherhood formed by Asoka the Great, which they had discovered last year.

  Van Klueck appeared pleased to see the shock on Vijay’s face. ‘That’s how we know that Alexander’s quest in the land of the Indus was not some yarn spun by his spin doctors. We were the ones who provided him with the means of finding what he wanted.’

  Vijay found a weak link in this suggestion. ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ he shot back. ‘Today, you’re looking for the secret that he found. But if you had the means to find it two thousand four hundred years ago or more, as you claim, why didn’t you find the secret then? Why hand it to Alexander on a platter, allow him to hide the metal plate, and then go looking for it more than two thousand years later?’

  Van Klueck’s face darkened. ‘That’s because Olympias tricked us. This secret has been protected for thousands of years before Alexander. Remember, this is the secret of the gods. The gods of the land of the Indus. The cube and the metal plate were created for the express purpose of ensuring that the secret would remain protected. And a small brotherhood of Vedic priests was created to guard over the secret. They were the only ones who had access to it. Olympias invited one of the priests to her court on the pretext of understanding more about the origins of the Order. And, somehow, she persuaded the priest to part with the location of the secret. For that transgression, the Order withdrew all protection to her after Alexander’s death. She would never have suffered such a humiliating death if the Order had continued to protect her.’

  ‘What is this Order that you belong to?’ Vijay opened another line of questioning.

  Van Klueck shook his head. ‘I have told you enough already. Know only that we are as old as mankind itself. There was a time when we were known and feared throughout the world. But we decided that our influence and power was better obtained by staying out of sight and out of the minds of humanity.’

  He paused before continuing. ‘Anyway, Alexander found the secret but things went horribly wrong and he died. You know the history. His funeral cortege was hijacked by Ptolemy and his mummy was buried in Alexandria, where it lay until the fourth century.’

  ‘Which is when it mysteriously disappeared,’ Vijay murmured, remembering his research.

  ‘It didn’t disappear,’ Van Klueck assured him smugly. ‘Christianity was spreading through the world. We saw the signs. Anything that was related to the pagan gods was being destroyed. And Alexander was worshipped as a god. Before long, his mausoleum would have been desecrated and his mummy destroyed. So we took matters into our own hands. We spirited the mummy away from its burial place in Alexandria and buried it in another, secret, location. No one was supposed to know about the burial place. However, unknown to the Order at that time, a map had been created. A map that was hidden away for all these centuries. Until we rediscovered it, quite by accident, a few decades ago. We excavated the mummy. Which turned out to be quite a boon for us. Over the centuries, the story behind the secret he discovered had turned into a myth. We scarcely believed it was possible. So, we tested the mummy. And we discovered that the myth was true. The secret of the gods was no myth after all. And Alexander had, indeed, discovered it. That is when we decided that we needed to find the secret. But we were missing the cube and the metal plate. We knew that the last time they had been seen was with the priest who met with Olympias. But he disappeared after his meeting with her and no one ever knew what happened to him. When we heard about the possibility of the tomb of Olympias being discovered, we realised that there was a chance that the cube and metal plate would be found within it, buried with her.’

  ‘So you got Cooper to join the excavation and got Stavros on your side to recover the artefacts.’

  ‘Exactly. So now you know.’

  Vijay frowned. ‘This certainly plugs gaps in the information we had and explains what’s been happening. I can even begin to guess at the links between the excavation and the clinical trials you have been conducting. The tests you ran on Alexander’s mummy… they threw up results that needed the clinical trials to validate them, right?’

  Van Klueck smiled again. ‘Close. But only partially correct. The trials were necessary because the tests we ran on Alexander’s mummy threw up a discovery that we were unprepared for. You see, the cube was created based on a myth from your great epic, the Mahabharata. There is a story in that epic that vividly describes what Alexander found and also explains the tests that we ran on him. In order to understand the results of those tests, we needed to run the clinical trials on living people. ’

  Vijay racked his brains, trying to think of a myth from the Mahabharata that would have led to clinical trials and a discovery based on medical tests conducted on the corpse of a man dead for over two thousand years. But he couldn’t think of anything.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re referring to,’ he said finally.

  ‘It is the myth called, “The Churning of the Ocean”, in English. Or, more accurately, Samudramanthan.’ Van Klueck’s pronunciation of the Sanskrit word was perfect but Vijay barely noticed. His entire attention was taken up by the mention of one of the most famous myths from the epic.

  �
�But... how?’ he was confused. ‘That myth is pure fantasy — the churning of the ocean using a mountain and Vasuki as the rope to obtain amrita. There’s no science behind it.’

  Van Klueck smiled sympathetically. ‘Everyone is so accustomed to treating the Mahabharata as an epic poem or as a fantasy story, that they find it difficult to believe that there could be great science embedded in it.’

  Vijay couldn’t agree more. Their discoveries the previous year had convinced him of the science and technology at the heart of the Mahabharata. And he now knew that he was on the cusp of learning about another secret that the Mahabharata had held deep within for over two thousand years.

  ‘Let me explain it to you.’ Van Klueck leaned forward and began.

  49

  DAY FIVE

  A glimpse into a mystery

  Radha blinked in surprise at the unexpected sight of Saxena smiling at her. He had walked into her cell unannounced and told her that he would take her for a walk around the medical centre.

  ‘I’ve been asked to take good care of you,’ he explained to her, amiably. ‘Apparently, Cooper’s move in bringing you here has paid off big time. It looks like we’ll be able to advance our deadlines for his part of the project. Which means that my part gets done faster as well.’

  Radha ruminated over his words as he led her out of the cell and through a maze of corridors which she had never been through before. But all thoughts were banished from her mind as they emerged on a long balcony surrounding a rectangular atrium. The roof bore powerful lights that combined with the lamps on the balconies to light up the immense space. The balcony continued without a break on all four sides of the atrium. She counted eight storeys to the building.

  Radha considered the immensity of the building with awe. Her movements had been restricted within a corridor leading from her cell to the toilet block. While she had seen other inmates in this prison in the communal toilets and bathrooms, she had never imagined that the building could be of this size.