Shiva

by Simon Sloane

  The executive wiped his sweaty forehead as his gaze slid down her sari. “We had such a good time in the pool,” he said, rubbing his chin. “Yeah, let’s chat a bit more!”

  Diana tried to console herself with the conclusion that Hugo had reaped what he had sown. “Maybe you can help me,” she said with a solicitous smile, knowing that Yogi was the power behind the Singh throne. “I need to talk to Jyran again. It’s important.”

  “Let him sleep,” Yogi said, “or whatever he’s doing in his private rooms. He’s got his fits of temper, but then he calms down again. It’s all about seizing the right moment.”

  They took the elevator to the rooftop pool. A shiver ran up Diana’s spine when they passed the thirty-sixth floor.

  Upstairs they found the sun deck deserted. Candles flickered in the breeze. Diana took her time before she slipped out of her sari and dipped her toe in the cool water.

  Yogi grinned. “One day I’ll own an even bigger compound than this one. It won’t be in Mumbai though.”

  “And I thought you had sworn an oath of lifelong devotion!” Diana joked.

  “Indeed, that’s what my name stands for. Yogi means ‘the devotee.’ But in every man’s life comes a day where he has to think about his future.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said while descending into the pool. Yogi’s gaze remained glued to her curves.

  The businessman dropped his clothes as well. Thankfully, his Disney-themed boxer shorts remained in place. Diana appreciated that he didn’t seem to expect her to go all the way. He laughed heartily as he followed her into the water, descending the pool stairs step by step. “After so many years in India,” he said after his body had adjusted to the early morning temperature, “I’m longing for something a bit more cosmopolitan.”

  “Of course,” Diana said, confirming his self-perception as a citizen of the world. Maybe Yogi could lead her to the man in the embroidered thobe who ran the clique that seemed to play a role in Shiva’s designs. She even considered asking Yogi about his membership in the secretive circle, but she decided against it. Probably he would have pretended not to know what she was talking about.

  “Maybe I’ll move to Paris,” Yogi said, leaning back at the edge of the pool while enjoying Diana’s foot massage. “I’ll launch my own venture—just like Hugo!”

  “Artificial intelligence?” Diana asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Well, quantum technology moves so quickly that it’s hard to keep up,” he said modestly. “But working under Sorokan for two decades really honed my diplomatic skills. Now I can see myself at the intersection of business and politics. There I will no longer be obliged to sweat out the details like under Sorokan.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Diana said, although she wasn’t entirely sure what Yogi had in mind. “Do you have contacts in France already?”

  “I do, actually,” Yogi said, his voice rising with intrigue. “I only deal with the highest levels. Surely, the French will appreciate what I have to offer, unlike others ….” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

  “Of course they will,” Diana whispered in his ear. Her pulse was racing. Had Yogi just confessed to having played a role in Casimir-Perier’s assassination? Carefully, she let her hands glide up his hairy legs beneath the surface.

  She only stopped when she took hold of his hardening flesh.

  Chapter 69

  Life Insurance

  Saturday, 3:30am CET (7:00am Indian time)

  “Okay, Miss Pulitzer,” Hugo said into the handset he had robbed. Having dumped the auto-rickshaw, he had found a quiet corner in a deserted marketplace. However, the merchants were likely to return in an hour or so to set up their stalls for the day.

  “Promise not to speak to any journalist before geek-o-matixx has published?” Sarah asked in a quavering voice. “It’s my life insurance.”

  “Of course.” Hugo sighed, clutching the stolen phone tightly to his ear. It was unlike Sarah to frame her stint at the disclosure platform as a matter of life and death. “You’ll have a great story to tell. How did you help Khaled find the president’s murderer?”

  “We still haven’t got the name of the conspirator at the top, but we identified someone inside of the Elysée Palace. Obviously, I can’t do much here from Jersey. It’s all in Khaled’s hands now.”

  Hugo remembered his offshore account on the Channel Islands during Sibylon’s heyday. Jean-Marc Tanguy had confiscated the funds last year in his role as prime minister of France, and Hugo still fumed at the memory.

  “So, what’s happening now?” he asked. Slowly, he moved away from the poor souls who trawled the square, searching the bins for leftovers. One of them had the bulging eyes and emaciated face of a man who had prematurely aged from hunger. The beggar walked toward the rising sun, reaching out as if its orange rays could feed him.

  “Khaled texted the crook,” Sarah responded. “Let’s see if he shows up at—”

  The connection dropped, forcing Hugo to redial. He remembered the images of the shattered Louvre Pyramid surrounded by sprawling policemen, and it reminded him of what struck him most about downtown Mumbai: the absence of security forces. The city had abandoned entire areas to thugs and outcasts. The only way to maintain some sort of order were private guards, such as Jyran’s. The state, by contrast, had nothing to show for when the time came to counter Shiva’s next move. And somehow Hugo expected the AI to outmanoeuvre his attempt to slow it down.

  “Watch out for what’s happening at four in the morning CET,” he told Sarah when the video call resumed. The sea breeze swept her copper hair. Back in the day, she had been purple blond. Her style intrigued Hugo when they met in a bar near Oberkampf station in Paris. “If there’s nothing—problem solved! If the calamities continue, you must get in touch with Diana at once. Tell her that I failed. She’ll know what to do.”

  “Why aren’t you contacting her yourself? Is she still mad at you for what happened with Maya?”

  “How do you know that?” Hugo asked, sitting on a filthy wooden bench, so his superior height and light skin colour wouldn’t attract the youths loitering at the corner of the square. “But you’re right. It’s better if I don’t talk to Diana for a while. If Jyran or Yogi find out that I did, she also might get kicked out of the—”

  “It was so stupid of you!” Sarah said. “I couldn’t believe when Diana told me what you did. Couldn’t you have kept your pants zipped up just once—”

  A heavy blow landed on the back of Hugo’s head. The last thing he saw was his phone dropping to the ground.

  Then everything turned black.

  Chapter 70

  Jilted

  Saturday, 3:45am CET

  Khaled had been waiting for this moment since the president’s murder. The worst day of his life was ending in triumph.

  “What’s this?” Charenton barked when he saw Zoë in handcuffs on the Opera Suite’s king-sized bed. “An S and M party?” His jowly farmer’s face looked even rounder than on television, his gruff voice sounding like an uncle from the countryside.

  “You’ve been hoodwinked,” Khaled replied, having established his authority by flashing the stolen police badge. “The bomb attack,” he said as he gave Zoë’s phone to Charenton, “was orchestrated by … her!”

  The veins in Charenton’s neck looked like they might explode. Maybe it wasn’t what he had expected when Zoë had called him in the middle of the night from the suite of a luxury hotel. Khaled wasn’t surprised that Charenton’s security staff hadn’t accompanied the politician to the rendezvous.

  “He’s lying,” Zoë said feebly, gazing at her superior with teary doe eyes. “The police only want to distract from their inability to catch the terrorist.”

  “This must be a misunderstanding,” Charenton said in a grandfatherly tone. Neither did he attempt to remove Khaled from the investigation nor did he threaten to use the power of his office to bury the scandal. “I’m convinced that Miss de Valenciennes innocent,” he j
ust said.

  “I have proof,” Khaled insisted, holding up Zoë’s phone almost like a sports champion presenting his trophy. The year before, he had run away from the authorities, but now he had struck back like a honey badger, the small Mellivora species that was famous for going after much larger animals such as lions and snakes. Khaled was proud of his tenacity, and he looked forward to seeing Charenton’s face once he learned the full extent of the conspiracy.

  Charenton took a deep breath. “I’m glad you’ve brought this to me first, Inspector. Imagine the disgrace if you arrested my assistant in public! So, what’s your evidence? You better not waste my time at this late hour.”

  Perusing Zoë’s phone, Khaled opened a message from someone named Steven. “They write in English as a disguise. ‘Steven’ is the English version of ‘Etienne.’”

  “Etienne Saint-Clair?” Charenton’s fists clenched as he pronounced the name of the man who traded votes for money.

  Khaled nodded. The phone displayed a map of Paris with a red line criss-crossing the city, the coordinates of which Khaled had received from Sarah. “Saint-Clair’s phone tracked his movements until his death,” he said. “And this is where he met your assistant.” The red line was overlaid by a green line, intersecting at three points near River Seine. “Three times Saint-Clair and Zoë were in the same place at the same time. Note the absence of CCTV surveillance here at the riverbank.” He tapped the meeting points that Sarah had derived from the movement profile she had extracted from Zoë’s phone after Khaled had arrested the treacherous young woman.

  “Zoë, why would you entertain this scum?” Charenton confronted her with the outrage of a jilted husband who had found his wife in bed with a rather unattractive lover.

  “Etienne…” Zoë stammered as if she realised only now that her boss disapproved of the lobbyist. Nervously, she fiddled with her oversized wristwatch. “He wanted to arrange a meeting with you, Henri. I declined, but he persisted.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not what the messages say,” Khaled said, handing the incriminating phone to Charenton.

  The acting head of state scrolled through the conversation. “It sounds rather cryptic to me. But no assassination plans are mentioned, or anything of that kind.” His eyes lit up with a glimmer of hope.

  “They’re not stupid,” Khaled said. “But look at this one: ‘Gift handover two thirty pm.’ Guess when the bomb blew up near the Louvre Pyramid? And guess whom CCTV records show having rushed away from the scene just in time?”

  Horrified, Charenton stared at his young assistant.

  Chapter 71

  Fork

  Saturday, 4:00am CET (7:30am Indian time)

  Random images flashed in Hugo’s mind. Gone were the cascades of mathematical formulae describing the laws of quantum physics.

  In his dream he found himself on the rooftop of Singh Tower. The pool was surrounded by a vast crowd dressed in colourful gowns and saris. Some of them were dancing to sitar-infused electro pop. Smiling faces welcomed Hugo among the party guests. Waiters offered him colourful curry dishes along with imported red wine.

  “Congratulations, Maya!” one of the girls cried, placing a peck on her cheek while she hugged the heiress. “Happy eighteen!”

  Maya’s parents sat in one of the cabanas, raising their glasses to their daughter. Yogi clumsily tried to dance his way toward the birthday girl, but he kept getting deflected by Maya’s male admirers and female friends. Turning around, he briefly locked eyes with a handsome man in his late thirties, who stood at the edge of the dance floor. They exchanged a meaningful glance before Yogi went away.

  Jyran stood at the infinity pool, gazing at the star-studded sky.

  “Aren’t you happy your sister is of age now?” Hugo asked him without knowing why he had chosen that particular conversation starter.

  But Sorokan Singh’s son didn’t respond. All he did was point to the north, where chaos reigned in the city centre.

  Suddenly, Hugo found himself amidst the rioters. They crashed the windows of shops and cars, setting the vehicles ablaze. The revolution had begun, and the failed old order would be swept away.

  Hugo saw a palace at the end of the road. Rioters bypassed its passive security forces, breaking into the edifice with knives and machetes. Hugo couldn’t feel his limbs, but panic spread inside him. Just when an axe was about to split his head, he was teleported away again.

  Now he stood in the jungle. Dipterocarp trees reached as high as he could see. Their branches barred him from walking ahead. They reminded him of the slithering braids that ran through Shiva’s artificial mind. Behind him, Bengal tigers prowled the tropical forest. Chimpanzees cackled above his head.

  Suddenly, Maya stood in front of him. She still wore her crimson sari from her birthday party. “Which path will you choose, Hugo?” she asked.

  Hugo tried to reach out for her hand, but he couldn’t move. When he withdrew from her hypnotic gaze, he stood at a fork in the rocky road that had been carved out of the jungle. Two wooden street signs lay in front of him.

  The pathway to his left was labelled “Human.”

  The other one was “Divine.”

  “Think about it.” Maya tilted her head while stroking her hair seductively. “Your choice will determine everything.”

  “Which one would you choose?” Hugo retorted, but all she gave him was a smile that sparkled with intrigue. Was it a test of their compatibility beyond the hour of passion they had enjoyed together?

  When Maya didn’t respond, the voice of the narrator of Jyran’s audiobook stirred in Hugo’s mind. “After more than a thousand years of transcendental focus, humanity banished the divine. God was replaced as the ultimate arbiter by human feelings. Humanistic principles were developed by the likes of Locke, Voltaire and Nietzsche. Gott is tot, the German philosopher had written in eighteen eighty-two. God is dead. Science superseded scripture in its understanding of creation. Parliaments replaced priests as rule makers. The more mankind shaped its environment through technology, the more confident it became. The gods faded as the machines rose. And now, some of those human artifacts stand on the verge of ascending to divinity.”

  Hugo wondered if this was what Maya meant. Did she want to turn the tide? Had she realised that the quest for progress had led to the doom of homo sapiens?

  It was like a natural law that tragedy ensued when humans tried to play god.

  Hugo’s choice was clear. “Human,” he whispered silently. “Human ….”

  “Are you sure?” Maya asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Hugo felt like giving the wrong answer but instead, he nodded.

  “Have it your way then,” Maya said before she vanished.

  The noise of the jungle grew louder. Three of the Bengal tigers closed in on Hugo. The alpha male bared his teeth, ready to jump at his throat.

  Desperately, Hugo held up his arms in defence.

  Chapter 72

  Juan

  Saturday, 4:15am CET

  Khaled tried to read Charenton’s grave expression when the politician put down his phone.

  “New Delhi has fallen,” Charenton said with a frown. “The palace guards abandoned Prime Minister Rao. Hungry rioters barged in. They murdered the entire family.”

  “That’s horrible!” Zoë cried, but Charenton didn’t comfort her.

  Khaled shook his head. It was interesting how quickly the politician put up an invisible wall between himself and his ambitious assistant. “I understand that the two of you have a lot to talk about,” Khaled said, his voice bursting with irony. “But I’m afraid Miss de Valenciennes will remain in custody.”

  “I’m sorry,” Charenton said, glancing at the young woman with sadness. “If this leaks out, Tanguy will win tomorrow. We’ll all be out of politics by Monday.”

  “Exactly!” Zoë said. “I admit my message to Saint-Clair sounds strange. In fact, I confess that he offered me the Cartier watch that I always had an eye on.” She caressed the chronome
ter on her left wrist. “He gave it to me at the Louvre just before the attack, on the condition that I would schedule a meeting with you, Henri. That’s the gift handover he wrote about.”

  “Don’t embarrass yourself!” Khaled said. “There’s another thread.” With a flourish, he unveiled Zoë’s conversation with a man named Juan. It spanned several screen lengths of her mobile’s messenger app.

  Te extraño, mi guapo, she had written. No puedo esperarte. Eres mi vida, mi amor … para siempre.

  “So, I didn’t tell anyone about my boyfriend from Barcelona,” Zoë said, her voice brimming with resentment. “Big deal! Am I not allowed to have a life?”

  Charenton squinted at her. His suspicion seemed to grow by the minute. He kept checking his own phone as if anxiously awaiting a message.

  Khaled called up another set of encrypted data he had received from Sarah on Zoë’s hacked phone. “Again, the language is meant to disguise the man’s identity,” he said. Clearly, Charenton wasn’t the brightest bulb under the sun if he still failed to grasp what was going on.

  “Who is it?” The politician gripped the bedpost, bracing for the worst.

  “Someone you know,” Khaled said, relishing the reveal on Zoë’s device. Again, a pair of parallel lines crossed the River Seine, connecting Hôtel Matignon with the Elysée Palace. “You’re running against him in the presidential elections.”

  Charenton’s lips quivered in dismay. “No! Not him!”

  Khaled smiled. His victory was complete. He had found the man who pulled the strings, using Zoë and Saint-Clair as his pawns. “‘Juan’ is the Spanish equivalent of the French name ‘Jean’,” Khaled declared. “Zoë’s lover is none other than your nemesis—Jean-Marc Tanguy.”