Kalkoot- The Lost Himalayan Secret

by S Venkatesh

  There was pandemonium as a cacophony of wails and shrieks accompanied the sound of the department’s windows smashing into a thousand pieces.

  ***

  Damini exhaled sharply. Her gambit had backfired. The guy was shooting at civilians now. She had no option but to capitulate.

  She had just finished deciding on this when luck—and Kunal—lent her a helping hand.

  The ACG backups that Kunal had promised—Malcolm and Nisha—arrived on the scene just then. Damini sprang into action, barking orders on her microphone.

  ‘Nisha, flank them from the left side of the parking lot. I have the right side covered.’

  ‘Copy that,’ Nisha’s voice sounded clearly on Damini’s earpiece.

  ‘Malcolm, take the two guys on the stretcher to safety. I will provide cover fire for you.’

  ***

  Rider knew when he was outnumbered. With Damini and Nisha firing at him alternately, he took the only option he had—he jumped into the Land Rover, followed quickly by Nicole, and they drove off as fast as they could, flat tyre notwithstanding.

  Damini tried following on her bike, but with patients, nurses, doctors and helpers all streaming into the corridors and parking lot, and running helter-skelter, she lost the trail even before it began.

  ***

  Damini went back to the lift. The guy she had overpowered was gone.

  She sighed. At least she had Bhabani and Sameer in her custody.

  And now she knew that Kunal was not deliberately trying to sabotage her effort. Maybe he was not partnering with the bad guys after all.

  She called Kunal on her smartphone. ‘Thanks,’ she said tersely.

  Kunal used the opportunity to rub it in. ‘You’re welcome, boss,’ he said, with an emphasis on ‘boss’, and then, inexplicably, burst out laughing.

  The lightness was infectious, and Damini, too, laughed, the tension between them infinitely reduced.

  She said to Mini: ‘I took a picture of the bloke I clobbered in the lift. I’m forwarding it to you.’

  Mini replied, ‘Ok, Damini. Do you have a picture of the guy driving the Land Rover?’

  ‘No,’ Damini said. ‘He’s been consistently on the move. But check the hospital CCTV records for the guy. And run a search on the Land Rover license plates, too.’

  ‘On it, Damini. And I’m sending you more info on Sameer and Bhabani.’

  ***

  Damini gave a low whistle as she read Sameer and Bhabani’s file on her smartphone.

  Sameer did not exactly fit the profile of a terrorist. His father, Colonel Rajan, had served in the Indian Army with distinction, winning many medals for meritorious service. He was on the verge of being promoted to Brigadier when he had retired.

  The dossier also mentioned Sameer’s mother, and how Colonel Rajan had never really come to terms with things; how he had turned progressively aloof and brooding, and how the relationship between father and son had turned frosty over the years.

  She turned to Bhabani’s file. A once-brilliant professor, whose mind had apparently given itself to senility. He now spent most of his days obsessing about a conspiracy theory regarding some hidden secrets dating back to the Quit India Movement.

  Damini paused, frowning, somewhat irritated. She ought to warn Mini not to jump to conclusions too fast. One of the first things she had learnt from the Chief was that no conspiracy theory was too ridiculous to be dismissed without proper investigation.

  ***

  Damini bit her lower lip in irritation.

  The profile search on the guy in the lift turned up a blank. He did not figure in any crime database.

  The hospital CCTV records also drew a blank on him. The fastand-furious guy seemed to have clobbered the control room security staff and deactivated the CCTV feed before he got away.

  The license plate numbers of the Land Rover revealed that it had been hired by somebody who had given a fake set of name, address and identity papers. No luck there either.

  Damini would have to get whatever information she could directly from Sameer and Bhabani.

  She chuckled. This one would be interesting.

  ***

  Solaris Hospital, Goa, 11.50 p.m.

  To the police inspector and the two sub-inspectors who arrived at the scene at Solaris Hospital, it was pretty clear who the culprits were. The resident doctor told them that two men—a young man named Sam and an old, professorial-type guy whose name he did not catch—had been asking a lot of questions about Steve. And now they were nowhere to be seen.

  The inspector asked the sub-inspectors to flash the descriptions of the two men to all police check posts, train stations and the airport in Goa.

  CHAPTER 20

  ACG safe house near Dabolim, Goa, Monday night / Tuesday morning, 12.45 a.m.

  Sam and Bani had no idea where they were being taken. They were being transported in a van that did not have rear windows.

  As the vehicle came to a halt, the rear door was opened by a burly man.

  They were in a small farmhouse of sorts. The burly man ushered them into a sparsely furnished room. A tall, athletic woman was seated on a couch.

  The woman looked up as they trooped into the room. ‘I’m Damini. This is a safe house. Only a few people know of its existence. You’ll be out of harm’s way here.’

  ‘…for now,’ she added, somewhat ominously.

  Sam and Bani presented quite a sight. Their clothes were covered with layers of mud, thanks to the bike ride behind Jeff through slushy roads. Being unceremoniously dragged through the hospital housekeeping room floor had not helped matters. They looked like they had just been put through the wringer.

  ‘I need to shower,’ Bani said, somewhat defiantly. ‘Now.’

  ‘No such luck,’ Damini said. ‘You guys need to start talking, and fast.’

  She turned to Sam. ‘You first. Why is the Mumbai police looking for you?’

  ***

  After thirty minutes of hearing Sameer narrate his story, Damini took a break to freshen up.

  Bathrooms in ACG safe houses were not exactly epitomes of luxury, but they were practical and functional. Safe houses were places where ACG agents could lie low, or where various people, often of dubious antecedents, could be brought to ‘cool their heels’ for a while. Nobody outside the ACG knew the locations of these safe houses.

  Sameer Rajan’s story added up, Damini had to admit. Right down to the smallest detail.

  Through her years of being involved in undercover operations and constantly looking over her shoulder, Damini had developed a sharp instinct for figuring out whom she could trust. And Sam figured on that list.

  But the professor made her feel uncomfortable. Damini was sure he was not a crook, but he seemed to be a harder nut to crack— somebody who lived inside his own head; somebody who would not take kindly to being questioned by her.

  ***

  Damini went back into the room, and found Sam and Bani arguing.

  She wasn’t surprised. Right at the outset, she knew that Sam and Bani wouldn’t quite get along.

  Sam was talking animatedly. ‘Enough of stone-walling, buddy.’

  ‘It’s professor,’ Bani said coldly. ‘Not buddy. You’re less than half my age.’

  ‘Whatever. One of your friends is dead, the other has been kidnapped, and we almost got killed ourselves. Time to start spilling the beans. What the hell was it that you and Bavdekar were researching?’

  ‘Innocuous stuff,’ Bani said with disdain. ‘About some historical artefacts.’

  ‘Innocuous stuff, my arse!’ Sam’s face turned red as blood rushed to his head. He was desperate for clues on Ananya’s disappearance, and the lack of sleep was not helping his mood. ‘Why the hell would people kidnap and kill for some historical mumbo-jumbo?’

  Bani snorted and looked away.

  That was it. It was war now. Sam brought his face really close to Bani’s, and breathed into his face.

  ‘Why did I see that nod of
recognition in your voice when Steve mumbled something in the hospital?’

  Bani pushed Sam away gruffly.

  Sam caught Bani’s hand as he was being pushed, and twisted it behind his back.

  ‘I’ll ask you one last time. What’re you hiding?’

  Bani swung his free hand and was about to bring it down on Sam’s face when he found it being stopped by Damini’s taut, muscular arms.

  Damini freed Bani’s other arm from Sam’s grip. ‘That’s enough. I’m going to knock you both unconscious if you even think of starting a street fight here,’ she said.

  Bani and Sam retreated. Both of them had had enough of being knocked out for one night.

  Damini then turned to Bani. ‘But Sameer is right. You do have some explaining to do. And you’d better cut out the attitude.’

  ***

  Bani knew he couldn’t be completely uncooperative. With Steve dead and Shrikant kidnapped, he, too, needed some answers. Besides, he could tell them whatever he had told Mukhshuddi. That was all in the public domain anyway.

  So, for the next thirty minutes, Bani spoke. About the Imperial Guard and their invisible hand in imperial policy during the British Raj; about the Bengal Famine of 1943-44 and how the Imperial Guard might have had a hand in it; about Manohar Rai and his suspicions about the Imperial Guard’s plot to destroy the iconic treasures of Indian civilisation. He also spoke about the mysterious Yogyaveer—the Worthy, Brave One—who was to preserve the ancient treasures of Indian civilisation in the Gupt-Kandara, the Hidden Cave.

  Sam was the first to speak, much to Bani’s irritation.

  ‘So basically, twelve years ago, you discovered this kickass Imperial Guard thing, and then you got sucked into some fantasy story.’

  Bani just snorted.

  ‘And you believe that this Yogyaveer guy might still be around somewhere in a cave? If he was twenty in 1944, he must be in his nineties now.’

  ‘I didn’t say I expect him to be alive,’ Bani grunted.

  Sam was continuing to talk. ‘What were you collaborating with Steve on?’

  ‘I had asked him to help find further clues about the Gupt-Kandara.’

  Sam butted in again. ‘What did he tell you in the hospital?’

  ‘He was incoherent. It wasn’t making any sense. He said something about a Demo.’

  Damini kept quiet. She didn’t want to reveal that the connection to the ‘Demo’ was what had brought her to Goa in the first place.

  ‘He said something about KaalKoot,’ Sam persisted. ‘That’s the name of the mythical plague in the Samudra Manthan story, isn’t it? The poison that had the power to destroy the entire universe? What was that about?’

  Bani nodded. ‘Steve was probably hallucinating.’

  Sam did not relent. ‘Why then did Bavdekar’s notepad have KaalKoot scribbled on it?’

  Bani looked at Damini. ‘Does this guy really think I can get into other people’s heads and know what they were thinking?’

  Sam ignored the barb. ‘Steve said something about a “different master” and about torture and something being “hot” and then about him being “sick”. What the hell was the connection?’

  ‘I told you. It didn’t make any sense to me,’ Bani replied. ‘Seemed like incoherent rambling.’

  Damini could sense when a person was lying, but she knew when not to push.

  She changed the topic. ‘What were you collaborating with Bavdekar on?’

  ‘He is a friend and collaborator. I thought I’d get him along to see what Steve had to say.’

  Bani almost heaved a sigh of relief as the questioning ended. He had blurted out about the second leg of the Imperial Guard plot when talking to Mukhshuddi. He did not want to slip up again.

  ***

  ACG safe house, Goa, 1.40 a.m.

  Within a short span of time, Sam had developed an informal working equation with Damini.

  He looked at her as they were alone in the adjoining room. She had all the panache of a secret agent, yet did not have the detached, deadpan demeanour of the quintessential spy. Her enthusiasm and passion were childlike and somewhat infectious. It was almost as if she were born for this line of work.

  ‘You have only one life; you might as well do what you love,’ Damini laughed when Sam asked her about it. ‘We become what we repeatedly do.’

  Sam could not help feeling a dash of envy. He wondered where his destiny lay. Was it in the education venture that he had given up on? Or maybe in rediscovering his love for the hills? Possibly setting up a trekking school?

  One thing was certain: his destiny did not lie in a stuffy job with Bancroft Cohen.

  He suddenly felt guilty. Here he was, ruminating on his career, while Ananya was missing and Vivaan, Riyaa and Bouncer were dead.

  He was suddenly struck with dread. Was Ananya, too, dead?

  Meanwhile, sitting opposite Sam, Damini was experiencing a rather unfamiliar emotion. Something about what she had said to Sam had disturbed her.

  ‘We become what we repeatedly do.’

  Damini was somewhat surprised at herself. She was not prone to feeling disturbed easily.

  She tried to shake off the feeling, but it did not leave her.

  We become what we repeatedly do.

  ***

  ACG safe house, Goa, 1.45 a.m.

  ‘That’s a lot of stuff to digest,’ Sam said, referring to Bani’s story.

  ‘I’m not impressed,’ Damini said, pointing to the smartphone dossier on Bani that Mini had sent. ‘He didn’t reveal anything that is outside the public domain.’

  ‘Yeah. He clearly gleaned something from Steve’s ramblings in the hospital that he’s not telling us.’

  ‘Maybe some clues about the location of this cave, the Gupt-Kandara…’ Damini said.

  Sam shook his head. ‘This whole cave thing just seems like the imagination of a couple of professors running wild. I can’t see why anybody in their right mind would want to kidnap or kill for this information.’

  Damini’s smartphone beeped. It was an encrypted message from Mini on the ACG app.

  Mini had sent Damini a dossier with Bavdekar’s itinerary of the preceding few weeks. As always with Mini, the file was very detailed. It even included CCTV footage from a café he had frequented while in the US, and nuggets such as ‘Bavdekar checked out a waitress named Ruth at the café a couple of times.’

  Damini smiled. Sometimes the ACG’s work did infringe on people’s privacy. But then they had lives to save. And the end always justified the means.

  Mini’s dossier corroborated Sam’s story that Bavdekar had met Professor Hudson in the US.

  The mention of Professor Hudson suddenly brought a memory to Sam’s mind. ‘Oh shit,’ he blurted out. ‘The USB drive! I completely forgot about it.’

  ‘What USB drive? And where?’ Damini asked, leaning forward.

  ‘A USB drive I found in Bavdekar’s room. That’s what the crooks were probably after,’ Sam said. ‘I had hidden it in the hospital housekeeping room just as we were being abducted.’

  Damini had already picked up the phone to call her agents. ‘Tell me exactly where you hid it.’

  ***

  ACG safe house, Goa, 2.10 a.m.

  Damini’s smartphone beeped as she received an email from Mini. It was the decrypted file from the USB drive which the ACG team had retrieved from the hospital.

  Sam leaned over as Damini opened the email.

  The USB drive contained two files.

  Damini clicked on the first file. It was an MS Word file which went by the uninteresting title of ‘Notes’, but as soon as she opened it, the first sub-heading itself had her riveted.

  It was titled: What are Biological Weapons?

  CHAPTER 21

  ACG safe house, Goa, 2.10 a.m.

  Why the hell was a boring expert on Himalayan plant and animal life taking notes on biological weapons?

  Sam and Damini looked at each other incredulously for a moment and then cont
inued reading.

  The notes were written almost like a primer. It was all new for Sam, though not for Damini who had dealt with this subject at the ACG.

  Biological warfare. Germ warfare. Bio weapons. Bio agents. Apparently, this stuff went by different names. What was common was the use of living organisms or biological agents such as bacteria or viruses, known as pathogens, in order to harm humans, plants or animals, known as hosts.

  The world powers were well aware that biological weapons were a two-edged sword—any weapons that were lethal for their enemies were likely to be lethal for them as well. So various international treaties had attempted to ban their production and stockpiling.

  The professor had underlined a sentence that highlighted the chilling menace of bio weapons.

  Biological weapons can potentially cause mass destruction at a level well in excess of that caused by conventional weapons and, when seen in the context of cost and ease of development, maybe even in excess of that caused by nuclear weapons.

  Sam’s eyes widened. Bavdekar’s and Ananya’s disappearance did not seem like a random event anymore.

  ***

  The notes also detailed various countries’ weapons programmes. One section mentioned about alleged stockpiling of biological weapons by the US after World War II, and also an alleged secret Soviet bio weapons programme called ‘Biopreparat’, though nothing much was known about what happened to this programme after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  As if to add to the dubiousness surrounding Professor Bavdekar’s interest in bio weapons, he had underlined the question: What are the attributes of an effective bio weapon?

  He had listed four attributes. Bavdekar likened these attributes to the ‘Four Horsemen’, after the biblical legend about four horsemen who are to be harbingers of the apocalypse, the end of the world.

  The first two attributes—or Horsemen—are infectivity and virulence. Virulence is a measure of the severity of the disease caused by the pathogen, while infectivity is the proportion of exposed persons who become infected, and denotes the ease with which the disease agent can spread. Another related concept is pathogenicity, the proportion of infected individuals who develop the disease.