Kalkoot- The Lost Himalayan Secret

by S Venkatesh

  What they wanted was for Bavdekar to crack the verses which would lead them to the Gupt-Kandara and to the antidote. The objective was to provide him with a conducive atmosphere to work on what they wanted, not to physically inconvenience him.

  The first thought that had struck Ananya was rather grim. She realised she was completely dispensable to the abductors.

  ***

  Bavdekar had saved her, for the time being, by telling the abductors that she was indispensable to his research for cracking the verses.

  Ananya, not one to give up easily, had spent the first few hours of their captivity trying to look for ways to escape. She had tried loosening the tiles in the bathroom ceiling, climbing up to the air-conditioning vents, and attempted to worm out information from the persons who delivered food to them. But with CCTVs and listening devices all over, and no loose objects, there was little she could do.

  Their best bet was to try and help the abductors crack the verses.

  Although Ananya had introduced Professor Hudson to Bavdekar, she was not aware of the entire background of what Bavdekar was after. So Bavdekar had to surreptitiously bring Ananya up to speed on everything—the Imperial Guard, the Gupt-Kandara, KaalKoot and the verses. He had to slip in details into casual conversations, supplemented with scribbled notes. With the CCTVs and listening devices, they could not afford to alert the abductors that Ananya was not actually in the know of things.

  Ananya’s heart sank as Bavdekar came to the bit about Project Darkworm and the bio bomb. The bunch they were dealing with did not seem like people who would let them out alive even if they succeeded in cracking the verses.

  ***

  Ananya’s mind went back to Sunday evening, and to the argument with Sam.

  She missed him now. She longed to be back with him, maybe at his apartment, cozying up on the couch, drinking coffee, looking into his eyes.

  And then her mind came back to the present, to the stark interiors of the study, and to Professor Bavdekar’s forlorn expression, and she found herself despairing that she might never see him again.

  ***

  Meanwhile, Bavdekar was having no luck with the verses. His background was in botany and zoology, not in history. The only crutches he had to help him were the smatterings of information that Bani had shared with him.

  And now, time was running out. The masked man who had come in last had ordered their bedroom doors to be locked. They were now confined to the central study.

  They had to come up with results. Soon. Otherwise the comfortable surroundings would disappear very rapidly. The masked man had been clear on that.

  He had also mentioned that they were working on alternative ways of cracking the verses, including tailing Bavdekar’s collaborator, Bani. If Bavdekar and Ananya did not deliver soon, they might just end up making themselves redundant.

  And now their time was almost up.

  CHAPTER 39

  En route to Lachung, Wednesday, 2.15 p.m.

  ‘Lachung should be around four kilometres away,’ Bikash said. ‘But there is a village maybe a couple of kilometres from here. We have no option but to hike up to it. And avoid losing our fingers to frostbite.’

  The constant urge to throw up made Sam feel out of balance.

  He held his head in despair.

  Four kilometers did not seem like a lot, but with icy winds, near-zero visibility and his nausea, it was pretty dicey.

  Tens of thousands dead in the nation’s capital. Chaos in the civilised world. Looked like there was no way to prevent it.

  He longed to be back with Ananya, maybe at his apartment, cozying up on the couch, drinking coffee, looking into her eyes. He wondered if she was thinking the same thing, wherever she was.

  Sam sighed as the cold winds bit into his face. He was stranded in the middle of an icy hell, on the verge of coming down with altitude sickness. This was no time for rumination.

  ***

  Delhi, Wednesday, 3.30 p.m.

  Sylvan switched on the television set in his hotel room as he got up to change.

  The global stock markets were in free fall. The Asian stock markets had closed sharply down. China had arrested four American journalists and charged them with spying, just as three British businessmen in Shanghai were gunned down by ‘unidentified assailants’.

  The US responded by seizing assets of a few Chinese companies in the US. Meanwhile, in London, the Chinese ambassador’s residence had to be cordoned off by police as angry protesters ended up hurling bricks and bottles into the compound.

  As the GSS concluded, the governments of the US, UK, Germany, France, Australia and India had issued a joint press release stating that the GSS was a success and that the ‘largest democracies of the world’ had decided to pass stricter sanctions against China. There were also reprimands against Russia for its activities in Ukraine, but no sanctions.

  Russia, meanwhile, turned the tap off on gas supply to Ukraine, and consequently, to Europe. Europe would be headed for a serious energy crisis soon. Meanwhile, a Russian reporter was found dead in Washington, a possible victim of a hate crime.

  Sylvan looked at his watch. The chaos right now was nothing compared to what was going to happen later that evening.

  In exactly three hours, the mayhem would begin.

  ***

  En route to Lachung, Wednesday, 3 p.m.

  Sam was perched uncomfortably on a yak.

  The villagers had been kind, offering them hot soup and warm clothing, along with a homegrown herbal medicine for Sam’s altitude sickness. Sam and Bikash were now headed to Lachung on yaks provided by the villagers.

  The ledge they were passing through was so narrow that if the yak were to take one wrong step, they would plummet thousands of feet down into the ravine.

  Sam’s yak swayed to and fro as it trudged along, lurching precariously close to the edge.

  ‘My yak seems to be a bit restless,’ Sam said to Bikash. ‘I’m hoping it doesn’t have a death wish.’

  ***

  Sikkim, Wednesday, 3.45 p.m.

  The handheld device came to life as the Maestro tapped his finger on the touchscreen.

  He was on his way from Gangtok to Chungthang, around three hours behind Sam. The GPS micro-transmitter planted in Sam’s rucksack by the craggy, bearded guy from the rocket bus was continuing to send signals, albeit intermittently because of the rough weather.

  The announcer on Fox News was talking in rapid-fire sentences as he gasped: ‘The international situation is on a knife’s edge. The arrests and shootings in China have tipped the already volatile global geopolitical potpourri to boiling point. Meanwhile, Chinese business confidence numbers were weak and equities tanked further today, with investors losing a cumulative four trillion dollars in value over the last two weeks.’

  The announcer, as usual, said all this in one single breath, causing a flurry of words. He swallowed at the end of it, exhausted from the effort.

  Americans, the Maestro snorted as he shook his head. Always high on speed and action; always low on discernment and thought.

  But he could not suppress a smile. Things were going according to plan.

  ***

  Lachung, Wednesday, 3.30 p.m.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Sam and Bikash reached Lachung, roughly a hundred twenty kilometres from Gangtok, at an altitude of 9,600 feet, thanks to the yaks who did not have a death wish after all!

  Sam’s brow was knit with anxiety as they got off at what looked like a small inn.

  With the dense fog, high-speed winds and icy cold weather, there was no possibility of them getting any transport to Yumthang. And while they had come this far and ascended to almost 10,000 feet in a span of just a few hours, Yumthang was a further 2,000 feet higher.

  And then Sam needed to follow the clues in the verses and find the Gupt-Kandara amidst the snowy mountains and biting winds in fading light. It was, quite literally, an uphill task.

  The saving grace was that the homegrow
n herbal medicine the villagers had given Sam had worked wonders. His nausea was gone, and he had actually begun to feel energised.

  The Himalayas held many secrets, Sam ruminated. Would he be able to find the one he was looking for?

  ***

  Lachung, Wednesday, 4 p.m.

  Sam had managed to hire a battered old Sumo from the innkeeper, the transaction being helped by a hefty down-payment which more than covered the salvage value of the sorry vehicle. This meant that Sam had used up most of the cash that Damini had given him in Goa, but he had no other choice. Getting to the Gupt-Kandara was priority right now.

  He could, obviously, find no driver willing to risk his life. He would have to fend for himself.

  ‘Driving through this storm is suicide, dada,’ Bikash said. ‘The road to Yumthang has a steep drop to the ravine on one side and hills on the other.’

  With good intentions, the innkeeper put in his two cents worth. ‘There were a couple of guys last month who were as foolhardy as you. Their bodies were found at the bottom of the ravine two weeks later.’

  ***

  Bagdogra, Wednesday, 4 p.m.

  Damini was boarding a helicopter which would take her from Bagdogra airport to Gangtok. Visibility beyond Gangtok, however, was low, so she would have to cover the journey from Gangtok to Lachung by road, and that, too, after an indeterminate wait in Gangtok for the weather to improve.

  She bit her lips impatiently. She would prefer to be as near the scene of action as possible when Sam hopefully discovered the Prativisha. But here she was, at least six hours behind.

  Her satellite phone rang. It was the officer in-charge at the Indian Army’s post in Lachung.

  ‘This young man that you wanted followed—Sameer Rajan— appears to be embarking on a suicide mission of sorts. Visibility is almost zero . . . not the kind of weather in which you would drive an old Sumo on a slippery mountain road. I refuse to let any of my surveillance men follow him towards certain death.’

  ‘But officer…’ Damini started, but was interrupted mid-sentence by the agitated officer.

  ‘We can’t let the young man proceed either. We have the right to detain by force any person who is trying to commit suicide.’

  Damini sighed. She was in a bind.

  If the Army detained Sam now, any prospect of finding the Prativisha before the Delhi Demo would evaporate into nothingness.

  But if she allowed Sam to proceed, he would be hurtling towards certain death.

  ***

  The niggling sense of guilt and self-doubt that Damini had been experiencing, ever since she had realised that she needed to use Sam as a bait, had been building up slowly but surely. Waves of self-doubt had now grown into a full-blown torrent.

  Sam was more than just an asset. He was a living, breathing person, someone she had gelled well with just thirty hours ago. How could she so casually send him to his death?

  A thousand innocent lives in Delhi need to be saved, screamed a desperate voice within her. Even if it means sacrificing Sam.

  The greatest good of the greatest number. She had lived out her entire tenure at the ACG based on that simple premise.

  But was it really that simple? Did the ends always justify the means?

  Damini brought herself back to reality. She could not afford to go soft now. There was a maniac—the Maestro—on the loose, and she had to get him. There was no ambiguity about that.

  Yet, somewhere from within her, a memory revealed itself to her conscious mind.

  It was a quote from Nietzsche that her English teacher in school had read out. ‘Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster . . . for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.’

  We become what we repeatedly do.

  Had she, too, become a monster?

  ***

  Damini’s voice was quivering as she spoke to the officer. ‘You can drop the surveillance on him. But I need a favour. Just let him proceed. Detaining him will mess with the ACG’s plans.’

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ the officer replied. ‘There’s no way he’s going to survive a drive through this weather.’

  ***

  Lachung, Wednesday, 4.05 p.m.

  Sam walked up to the fireplace, where a few logs had been put together to make a cozy fire, and warmed his hands.

  He turned to Bikash, and handed him a tip from the cash that he had remaining. ‘Thanks for everything, dada.’

  Bikash was looking pensive. ‘Dev babu will kill me for letting you go.’

  ‘Relax, dada,’ Sam said. ‘Look outside. The skies have begun to clear up a bit.’

  A couple of locals who were sitting by the fireplace retreated in horror as soon as Sam mentioned that he intended heading up the westerly direction from Yumthang along the Lachung Chu river. One of them got up and left.

  Clearly, human fear was indeed the ‘greatest moat of them all’.

  According to legend, an ancient king had supposedly once established a chamber of torture there, where men were subjected to the vilest of suffering. These tormented souls were rumoured to still wander the hills, waiting for any passers-by that they could prey on.

  Then there were strange occurrences. The innkeeper joined in the conversation as he brought Sam’s chai. He talked about stories of men who had gotten lost forever in the treacherous hills, never to return. Others returned deranged and disoriented, blabbering about strange creatures in an underground cave, and of ghosts who preyed on men.

  Sam shook his head. He had had enough of naysayers. He got up to pay for his chai.

  ‘No need,’ the innkeeper waved his hand. ‘It’s bad karma to take money from someone who is doomed anyway.’

  As Sam walked towards the door, one of the patrons of the inn whispered to the person sitting next to him: ‘Another one hurries to his grave.’

  CHAPTER 40

  Sikkim, Wednesday, 4.30 p.m.

  The Maestro looked at his crew as they passed a village on the way to Chungthang. They were all fired up with the impending Demo in Delhi. A few tactical maneouvres, such as splitting the crew up into many different vehicles and concealing weapons beneath other cargo on light trucks, had ensured that they had escaped the glare of the Army checkpoints in Gangtok.

  The Maestro, however, was not complacent. Thanks to the weather, and Sam’s desperate gambit getting his driver to speed on the slippery roads en route to Lachung, Sam had more than a three-and-a-half hours headstart over them. The Maestro reckoned they would reach Lachung by 7.30 p.m.

  He looked at the forwarded news feed sent on his satellite phone.

  China and the US were trading aggressive rhetoric, engaging in a war of nerves. The Middle-Eastern nations, their geopolitical standing rising in direct proportion to the escalation of international tensions, had begun to flex their muscles. Syria and Iran, not exactly US allies in the best of times, ‘advised’ the US to act with caution and not repeat ‘earlier mistakes’. Russia had also stationed nuclear missiles on its borders with European countries.

  The Maestro chuckled to himself again. Unleashing KaalKoot today would be, to put it mildly, more interesting than letting a cat among the pigeons.

  He was all primed-up, like a hawk, ready to swoop in when the pigeons scattered.

  ***

  Sikkim, Wednesday, 4.30 p.m.

  An Army helicopter ferried an uncharacteristically subdued Damini to Gangtok from Bagdogra.

  Not one to let her moods get in the way of her work, she had nevertheless radioed Kunal and requested him to keep the ACG agents in Kolkata on stand-by. She knew she would need their help, but Kunal, bound by the ACG protocol, would be unable to formally give clearance for the agents to go from Kolkata to Sikkim until Damini had concrete proof that her hunch was right.

  Damini hoped Sam would get to the Prativisha before the Maestro did. If not, she would have to risk a bad firefight.

  She also hoped that once Sam got the Prativisha, he
would not do anything stupid like handing it to the Maestro in exchange for Ananya.

  If he insisted, she would have to stop him. By whatever means.

  The mere thought of that made her stomach churn.

  ***

  International Cricket Stadium, Delhi, Wednesday, 4.30 p.m.

  There was a two-kilometre long queue outside the International Cricket Stadium as the momentum was building up leading to the wildly-hyped match of the century.

  As the security guards frisked the forty-five thousand spectators entering the stadium, they did not realise that they should have been focusing their attention elsewhere.

  ***

  En route from Lachung to Yumthang, Wednesday, 4.50 p.m.

  Sam was a man possessed. He drove the Tata Sumo with a maniacal frenzy through the hilly road from Lachung to Yumthang.

  He needed to move fast. The clock was ticking for the folks in Delhi, and possibly also for Ananya.

  The drive over the last hour had been helped by the skies having cleared up, but over the last few minutes, it had begun to rain.

  He reckoned that he was now very close to Yumthang. If he moved fast enough, he might reach before the rains reduced visibility to zero.

  Sam strained his eyes, trying to battle sleep, fatigue and mental fogginess as he focused all his energy on ensuring that the Sumo raced through the remaining distance.

  The rainstorm, however, was moving fast, too, like the proverbial snowball, with high-speed winds venting their fury and visibility reducing quickly to near zero.

  Sam braked sharply as he realised, too late, that he was nearing a precarious hairpin bend. On one side was the surface of the hill, while on the other side there was a steep drop to the ravine.

  The Sumo skid sharply under the impact of the sudden brakes, but was not able to stop fully in time.

  Sam let out a yelp as the Sumo slipped and plummeted down towards the ravine.

  CHAPTER 41

  Sikkim, Wednesday, 4.55 p.m.

  Sam let out a loud yowl as a sharp pain rushed through his left shoulder.