Shiva

by Simon Sloane

  The sound of splashing water made him look over his shoulder. “Fancy a midnight swim?” Maya asked, her naked body caressed by the pool’s crystal-blue waters.

  She turned around to paddle on her back, offering Hugo a perfect view of her cantaloupe-shaped breasts, which seemed to defy gravity. The water on her skin glittered in the moonlight.

  Hugo laughed. “What would your brother say if he spotted us frolicking around on CCTV?” He pointed at the cameras mounted on the roof of the poolside gazebo.

  Just beneath Hugo’s feet, Maya placed her elbows on the marble tiles at edge of the pool. She cast him a sensual glance. “Don’t worry. Jyran needs you. And he knows it.”

  Hugo wondered how much Maya knew about Shiva. A woman’s opinion didn’t seem to be valued in the House of Singh. According to Yogi, the heiress hadn’t even seen the glowing scarlet cylinder on the thirty-sixth floor.

  Tempted to join her to find out more, Hugo dropped his jacket on the lounger in front of him and unbuttoned his shirt.

  When he turned around, Maya swam to the other end of the pool. But even from a few yards away, her glance mystified him. Time stopped as his gaze locked with hers. For an eternal moment, he felt her grief, her strength, her desire ….

  Hugo closed his eyes and saw a storm gathering on the horizon. Blood-drenched clouds rushed above his head. Morning was about to break, turning the sky red. But no … it couldn’t be. It was still the middle of the night.

  His vision of scarlet clouds faded away when someone touched his shoulder. A blond giant stood next to him, clearing his throat.

  “Alexander?” Hugo asked. “What’s going on?”

  The Russian pointed at the ebony arch between the Singh residence and the pool area. Instinctively, Hugo stepped back. He hurried to put on his shirt again when a brown-skinned man approached.

  Yogi undressed slowly. He dropped his suit and shirt on a lounger but stopped short of removing his boxer shorts. Then he let gravity pull his twenty-stone body into the pool. He swam toward Maya, ogling her nude body. Subtlety was not his strength when dealing with young women.

  Hugo spotted a golden gleam from the lounger where Yogi had left his jacket—the access card to Shiva! Maybe Maya could divert Yogi’s attention for a few minutes. It might give Hugo another go at the artificial intelligence.

  The voluptuous teenager, however, kept her distance from the executive.

  “What a balmy night!” a female voice boomed from underneath the ebony arch.

  Diana laid her satin gown on one of the loungers underneath the gazebo. Her two-piece revealed her athletic body and the long toned legs that had impressed Hugo in Dubai.

  Alexander seemed to understand what was going on. “Looking at this,” he pointed at the ruffians gathering in the streets, “we’d better double our guards.”

  Hugo gave Alexander a nod when he disappeared. Then he glanced at Yogi’s access card again, waiting for his opportunity to seize it without attracting attention.

  “Join us, Diana!” Maya waved joyously at her from the other side of the pool, jerking her head almost imperceptibly toward Yogi.

  Diana seemed to understand. “Good to see both of you!” She glided elegantly into the water, swimming toward Yogi with a few breaststrokes. “How was your day?”

  “Intense but interesting,” Yogi said. “At last I can unwind.” He turned around to paddle on his back while looking at the star-studded sky. “And I’m blessed with such charming company.”

  “Likewise!” Diana responded with a flirtatious smile that Hugo, for one foolish moment, had mistaken to be for him.

  Hugo gave her a wink before Yogi seemed to notice. The Indian’s tiny eyes darted between Diana and Maya. To Hugo, the two women seemed like polar opposites—daylight and twilight, the mind and the senses, iron willpower and effortless grace. Diana embodied the Apollonian and Maya the Dionysian. And yet no metaphor managed to capture the complexity of either one’s personality.

  It was obvious that Yogi welcomed Diana’s advances to arouse Maya’s jealousy. See? I can get the hottest blondes from all over the world! Yogi’s crooked smile reflected his contentment when Diana began massaging his feet.

  Hugo forced himself not to laugh. The fool didn’t realise this was exactly what Maya wanted. This time she gave Hugo an inviting glance as she swam back to the stairs at the edge of the pool. Follow me, she seemed to tell him.

  Hugo was careful not to interrupt Diana’s giggling by Yogi’s side. He tried to remain unnoticed when walking behind the middle-aged man’s back, extending his hand to the chain that dangled from his jacket pocket.

  Enjoying Diana’s foot massage, Yogi probably didn’t remember when he had given Hugo a clue about how Shiva might be stopped.

  Chapter 60

  Buddha Bar

  Saturday, 1:15am CET

  “What’s the noise?” Khaled asked Sarah through his smart glasses the moment he stepped out of Maxim’s restaurant in a dark grey suit. He had taken it off a patron whom he had knocked out and locked up in the toilet. It pained him to take possession of the young man’s clothes, but it was the only way for Khaled to unveil the puppeteer behind Saint-Clair. The dark shirt and the cobalt tie added a touch of elegance to his appearance.

  Khaled’s change of attire had been in order after he had swum a few hundred yards downstream and climbed up the quay at Pont de la Concorde.

  “I’m in a helicopter,” Sarah responded through the encrypted calling app, “crossing the Thames near the Tower Bridge.”

  “How come?” Khaled asked. He entered a convenience store to buy a razor and some shaving gel with cash from the stolen wallet. “Where did you steal a helicopter?”

  “It’s from Jamie’s bank,” Sarah explained. “They’ve got it parked on their rooftop for urgent meetings across town. She’s a big shot there.”

  “Where are you going?” Khaled asked, feeling guilty for Sarah’s trouble with the authorities. He walked down Rue de Rivoli toward the torched carcass of Hôtel de Crillon. Just like in the afternoon, he was walking down Rue Boissy D’Anglas.

  “We’ll fly to Jersey,” Sarah said. “I’m afraid Britain will be a no-go area for me for a while. In any case, I have what you want.”

  Khaled received a file through his interactive spectacles just before he passed through the gates of the night club. Just one glance told him it was a royal flush.

  “I love you, Sarah!” he cried, overjoyed. “I’m at Buddha Bar now,” he said, only to realise the connection had been cut. Sarah must have lost her signal.

  Khaled nodded at the waitresses. They were dressed in black Japanese costumes. He went straight to the restroom and locked himself in one of the lavatories to shave his head. When he emerged from the tiny cabin, he glanced disdainfully at his bald image in the men’s room mirror. Hopefully, his dark locks would grow back soon.

  The Asian-themed restaurant was his ultimate refuge after dozens of tourists had seen him on the riverboat. At last he looked a bit like the policeman whose service ID he had stolen. Waiting for Sarah’s message on the smart display in front of his eyes, he occupied his favourite spot in Buddha Bar: upstairs in the back, close to the whiskey bar. His placement allowed him to survey the entire restaurant. One might consider him easily cornered there, but Khaled knew how to escape when things got tight.

  Target on the way, Sarah wrote to him when her connection was restored. Will order a Gibson.

  Khaled felt his stomach clench. He would strike from the darkness as soon as someone ordered the cocktail that had gone out of fashion in the 1990s. He couldn’t wait to unmask the traitor who had conspired with Saint-Clair from inside the Elysée Palace. Finally, he would avenge one of the few Frenchmen who had treated him with dignity, giving Khaled the impression that he was welcome in Paris.

  His gaze glided across the dining hall. People sat behind tightly packed dinner tables. They were overlooked by a Buddha statue that was at least twenty feet tall. Ambient trance sounds off
ered a calming backdrop for late-night culinary bliss. Incense mixed with the scent of Khaled’s whiskey, but even the décolletages and the waitresses’ short skirts couldn’t distract him.

  He had come so far. Soon he would unmask the mastermind who had Christian Casimir-Perier on his conscience along with dozens of innocent victims, including young schoolchildren. But what then?

  Khaled thought about teaming up with other expropriated victims of the Egyptian government. But he didn’t know whether he really wanted his adopted brother’s bloodstained legacy. His pride had always compelled him to build his own future, unblemished by the crimes of Nassor’s past.

  For a moment, Khaled let his eyes wander up the legs of a young blonde as she entered the lounge. He couldn’t discern her features in the dim light, but her tight-fitting black business suit looked classy while giving off a sensual vibe.

  Khaled appreciated it when she reciprocated his smile. These days none of the premium escorts looked like prostitutes anymore. He wondered whom she was about join at this time of the night—a politician or a banker maybe?

  But her client seemed delayed, and she took the seat next to Khaled at the bar.

  His heart beat faster when she nodded at the bartender. “A Gibson, please!”

  Chapter 61

  Galaxy

  Saturday, 1:30am CET (5:00am Indian time)

  “Come, Hugo!” Never had Hugo Hyde heard his name spoken with such sensuality. Maya’s voice reverberated from the ceiling of the Shiva temple, where a wrought-iron chandelier swung slightly in the gentle breeze.

  He heard a longing in her words that he couldn’t explain.

  Why him?

  Why now?

  “Are you sure it’s what you—” Hugo’s question was drowned in Maya’s kiss. If things went wrong, those might be the final words he’d say to her.

  Maya’s sari lay on the floor. A few apt movements of her hands relieved Hugo of his suit and shirt. Soon his underwear followed.

  Dizziness overpowered him when their lips locked again. His knees gave in, and he fell into the sea of pillows at the centre of the elliptic hall.

  Maya placed herself on top of Hugo. His torso was squeezed by cappuccino-coloured thighs that were even smoother than Diana’s. Hugo tried not to contrast the Englishwoman’s sleek athleticism with Maya’s voluptuous femininity, but he couldn’t remember anyone with more breath-taking curves.

  Hugo felt the Shiva statue’s gaze boring through him. The swastika above its head shone like an emblem of a cruel yet unstoppable empire. He couldn’t imagine anyone approving of what he did. Maybe Maya desired to rebel against her family’s ultraconservative values. She would remind Jyran of the limits of his authority.

  Maya flinched for a moment when Hugo melted into her. Despite a few drops of blood on his groin, he felt as blissful as descending into a tropical lagoon. Slowly, her loins began moving to the sitar sounds. She closed her eyes during her first thrusts, but then she gazed at Hugo as she varied her movement, rhythm and posture. Sometimes she lowered her breasts for him to suck them in. Then she sat straight again to offer him a statuesque view of her body. Her earrings dangled as she moved, two spiral galaxies of diamonds hanging by a thread from a flower-shaped arrangement of gemstones that covered her earlobes. It felt as if the universe coalesced around her like the diamonds that surrounded the sapphire at the centre of her jewellery.

  To Hugo, it seemed as if Maya had prepared for this moment. She must have been enjoying her first time exactly as she had imagined it to be.

  A drop of hot wax landed on his torso, having fallen at least ten yards from the wrought-iron chandelier beneath the cupola. Despite the quick flash of pain, he felt like he was in paradise, looking deep into the dark windows of Maya’s mysterious soul.

  Deep down he knew the bliss he felt was too delicious. Soon their frivolous act would shake the world out of its balance.

  Chapter 62

  Intruder

  Saturday, 1:45am CET (5:15am Indian time)

  Yogi clenched his fists as the two bodies on his monitor intertwined in a horizontal dance. He zoomed in to get a closer look at Maya’s flawless physique.

  Although Yogi boiled with anger from what he saw, he knew that Alexander had done well to attach a small camera to the chandelier that hung from the ceiling of the Shiva temple. The device had already recorded highly interesting material on Jyran that Yogi would make public if Sorokan’s heir rejected his requests.

  But now it was Hugo Hyde’s face that twitched in ecstasy.

  The bastard!

  Clearly, Maya had been up to something when she had sent Diana to flirt with Yogi in the pool. And Hugo hadn’t hesitated to claim his prize. He wouldn’t have guessed that Jyran would receive evidence of how his sister had been soiled.

  Yogi remembered Diana’s reluctance when he had sent her away from his suite, so he could keep tabs on Hugo. But most of all, Yogi felt foolish to have pined after Maya for so long. She was so immature, throwing it all away for an hour of passion with a handsome but superficial Westerner. Their encounter in front of Shiva had proven that Hugo’s scientific knowledge was overrated. But the glib Englishman made up for his lack of technological competence with his slick exterior.

  Diana, by contrast, seemed to appreciate a gentleman—a man of substance like Yogi. Soon he would invite her back to his suite to experience the pleasures she had alluded to while massaging him.

  But what was this?

  Yogi zoomed out from Maya’s shapely rear to check where Hugo had gone. His sudden exit reinforced Yogi’s opinion of Hugo as a selfish narcissist who took what he wanted, only to run away when others were no longer of use to him.

  This time the disgraced inventor was going to pay for what he had done.

  Yogi rushed to put on his shirt, suit and tie. He nearly stumbled when sliding into his shiny black shoes on his way to the elevator.

  Luckily, Yogi was able to follow Hugo’s moves through the CCTV app on his phone. Tying his shoelaces in the lift, Yogi saw with horror how Hugo glided up Singh Tower. Yogi slapped his forehead when he realised he had forgotten to take his access card with him. Panting, he hurried back to his suite. He searched his desk, his chair and every corner of the lounge. He even browsed the ensuite bathroom.

  But there was nothing.

  Yogi retraced his steps, trying to focus his mind despite his hatred of the impostor to whom Shiva had responded, breaking almost five months of silence. What was so special about Hugo that Shiva talked to him just like that, revealing its secrets?

  Even if he tried, Yogi couldn’t imagine something more vexing than having been beaten twice by the same man within one night.

  First with Shiva.

  Then with Maya.

  Contemplating his double defeat, Yogi’s hatred of Hugo knew no boundaries. And yet the final victory would be Yogi’s.

  He remembered what had happened to his access card. The damn thing must have slipped out of his jacket pocket while he was enjoying himself with Diana at the pool. His chest tightened. Short of breath, he faced the inexorable conclusion.

  Hugo now held the key to Shiva.

  Why else would the crook aim for the thirty-sixth floor? Hugo knew he wouldn’t be able to speak to Shiva without the golden card.

  Frantically, Yogi ran back to the elevator. His phone nearly fell out of his hand when he called security, instructing the guards to join him upstairs.

  Hugo’s grasp of quantum physics was disappointing, but the Englishman could still be dangerous in other ways. During Hugo’s encounter with Shiva, Yogi had stopped him only seconds before the secret was exposed.

  Gliding up the building, Yogi remembered how Sorokan had tasked him to explore every avenue of quantum computing. Yogi’s computer engineers had rebuilt Hugo’s Sibyl diamond, to no avail. They had experimented with trapped ions and spent a fortune on superconducting niobium. With their budget running out, Yogi had been forced to restrict himself to the cheapest solutio
n on the market: silicon.

  Cooled to ultra-low temperatures, the semi conductive material conjured up the particles whose existence many quantum physicists still debated. Hugo’s jaw had dropped when he learned how Sorokan and Yogi had designed Shiva as the world’s first topological quantum computer.

  If only Yogi could see what Hugo was doing now! He regretted having deactivated the cameras on the upper floors lest Jyran find out that even Yogi had lost control of the AI. Still, Yogi doubted whether Hugo would be able to reprogramme Shiva to do his bidding. But who could say for sure?

  In any case, Yogi’s triumph was at hand. He crouched behind a corner until the guards arrived. Putting his index finger on his lips, he gestured at them to follow him.

  Hugo appeared at the end of the corridor with a delirious smile that Yogi would soon wipe off his face. He had almost failed to recognise the intruder in traditional Hindu clothing. Hugo must have stolen it from the Shiva temple in an attempt to camouflage himself while roaming the forbidden zones of Singh Tower.

  “Arrest him!” Yogi ordered the guards, pointing at the Englishman.

  Chapter 63

  Ruined

  Saturday, 2:00am CET (5:30am Indian time)

  Hugo was shocked when they held him at gunpoint. “But Yogi—no! We must work together!” Desperately, he jerked his head at the leaden gates that protected the data centre. He hid his hands behind his back, knowing he must look like a jewellery thief who had been caught during a heist.

  “Let Jyran decide about that.” Yogi waved at the guards to grab Hugo’s arms, forcing him to unclench his fist.