39.

Day 10 The Patna-Ranchi highway Colin rubbed his eyes wearily. He had driven without a break for four hours, since leaving Patna. Darkness enveloped them like a shroud.

They were alone on the highway.

They had passed the town of Nawada two hours ago and several villages after that, as the highway snaked through open fields, which had now given way to dense forests.

'Where are we supposed to meet Farooq?' White suddenly spoke up. He and Shukla were sitting quietly in the backseat of the X Trail.

'He didn't say.' Colin responded before slowing down and stopping at the side of the road. He turned to White and held out his hand.

'It's about time you switched your phone on.'

White did as directed.

As if on cue, his phone rang.

'I'm glad to see that you followed my instructions.' Farooq's smooth voice came over the phone's speaker. 'Where have you reached?'

'I don't know where we are.' Colin fought back his anger and frustration, trying to keep calm.

'Have you passed an ancient ruin in the forests along the highway?'

'No. We are in a heavily forested area, though.'

'Then you must be very near Hazaribagh. Look out for the ruin to the left of the highway. You can't miss it. Stop there and wait for us.'

The phone went dead.

Colin drove on slowly, clinging to the left side of the highway. They all peered out, trying to catch a glimpse of the ruin that Farooq had described. It was dark in the forest and they had to strain to make out even the outline of the trees.

'There. In that copse of trees.' White saw it.

Colin jerked the car to a halt as White indicated a section of the forest they had just passed. He reversed slowly to the spot and switched off the headlights.

Darkness immediately descended upon them, welcoming them into its folds. Colin alighted and the others joined him, staring at the forest until they could discern the faint outline of a structure, barely visible among the trees.

They stood there in silence, waiting. The moments seemed to pass at a snail's pace. Where was Farooq? Colin thought.

Suddenly they noticed two points of light that pierced the veil of darkness that hung over them. The lights moved slowly towards them, growing larger and brighter as they drew near. More lights appeared behind the first set. A convoy approached them.

'Farooq' Colin breathed. Did the man have Vijay and Radha with him?

As the convoy drew near, they discerned six black Ford Endeavours which drew to a halt in front of the X Trail. Men jumped off the SUVs and ran towards them, carrying UZIs.

Behind them, carrying a revolver, was Farooq.

Colin perked up suddenly as he saw that Vijay was with them. His hands were bound, his face was bruised and he looked weary, but he was alive.

The moment of elation was short-lived. Nothing had prepared him for what happened next.

Farooq tossed an UZI to White while Vijay and his friends stared, open-mouthed.

'You sure took your time in coming,' the archaeologist said heatedly.

Farooq shrugged, his demeanour clearly showing that he did not like being questioned.

Vijay stared at the two men, his head spinning. What was happening?

'Okay, let's get this show on the road,' White said dismissively. 'We've lost enough time.'

Farooq turned to his men. 'Get these three into their car and let's get moving.'

40.

Day 11 The Patna-Ranchi highway 'Where are we?' Radha had fallen asleep almost immediately after leaving Patna, tired and stressed after the events of the last few hours. The revelation that Bheem Singh was one of the bad guys and that a trained assassin was impersonating Greg White had come as a rude shock to her. It didn't help that her father and her friends were in the hands of men for whom killing was just another day's work.

'We're close to Hazaribagh,' Imran offered helpfully.

'They must have reached Sitagarha by now,' Radha mumbled.

'We're going as fast as possible. These trucks weren't built for speed.' Imran looked at her. 'Tell me, did Farooq reveal any of his plans while you were in his captivity?'

Radha told him everything that Farooq had shared with Vijay and her. 'It's a great plan,' Imran conceded. 'The consortium uses LeT as a front. No one will ever know. LeT gets to fulfil their ambition of becoming a great terrorist organisation, bigger and more effective than Al Qaeda. And the consortium can build an arsenal with the kinds of weapons they've already developed. As producers, they control the inventory. They issue a few to LeT, who target the G20 summit and allows the consortium to install their own men as state heads. Everyone is happy. LeT gets its 15 minutes of fame. The politicians realise their political dreams. And the consortium controls the world. Power and profit is theirs for the taking. The perfect plan.'

Radha mulled over his words. 'And there's nothing anyone can do to stop LeT from carrying out their threat,' she said finally. 'They've hit upon the one weapon that no armed force in the world possesses a defence against.'

Imran agreed with her. 'I saw it with my own eyes. The prototype they've developed. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. Van Klueck is still alive, even if Bheem Singh is dead. And their political backers will ensure that LeT is able to develop and deploy their weapon. There's only one thing that can stop them now.'

They both knew what that was. The commandos had to reach Sitagarha hill in time.

41.

Day 11 Somewhere beyond Hazaribagh town As they drove along the highway, Vijay mulled over what had just transpired. Greg White was in league with Farooq. And Bheem Singh. And it explained a lot. How Farooq had known about their movements, for one. He chided himself for not suspecting White. Then, again, his uncle had asked him to speak to White. But what was the archaeologist's interest in allying with Farooq?

'What does an archaeologist have to do with LeT?' He asked White as they clambered into the X Trail.

'I'm not an archaeologist. My name is Murphy. I took out White the day he arrived from the States.' With that terse response and a lopsided grin, Murphy had steered the car towards their destination.

Vijay realised that he should have seen it earlier. Time and again when Murphy, as White, had been asked to contribute with his knowledge as an archaeologist and historian, he had failed to tell them anything meaningful. That, alone, should have rung alarm bells. But he had been so intent on following the trail of clues that nothing else had seemed to register for him. And now, they were in a fine soup.

As soon as they had been bundled into the SUV, Shukla asked the question that Vijay had been dreading.

'Where's Radha?'

Vijay averted his eyes. How was he to tell Shukla that Farooq had left his daughter to be burned alive in the safehouse? 'I don't know,' he mumbled finally, settling on the truth, however tenuous it was. Even though he knew that Radha had virtually no chance of escaping from the fire, he hoped with all his heart that she had somehow made it out alive. But the odds had been heavily stacked against her. But there was no time to think about this. Right now, two other lives depended on him-on his ability to lead Farooq to the secret of the Nine. He had to find a way out of their predicament.

Shukla lapsed into silence, brooding over Radha. He, too, nurtured the hope that she was alive, somewhere in Patna.

They drove past Hazaribagh town. After a while, they turned off the highway and onto a narrow road that was almost as bad as the road from Bela to Barabar.

Vijay brought Colin and Shukla up to date on his kidnapping, his captivity, the attempt to get Radha to escape, Bheem Singh's relationship with LeT, the terror threat to the G20 and the great secret that Farooq had revealed to them on the first day of their kidnapping.

'The secret of the Nine is the blueprint for a sophisticated technology,' Farooq had told them. 'A technology the world has dreamed of for long. Perhaps these dreams were influenced by the fact that the technology did exist thousands of years ago. It's the stuff of fantasy and only now have scientists begun taking the first steps to make it possible again. And this technology lies in the cavern within that hill.'

As he spoke, Vijay recalled the conversation he and Radha had had with Farooq on the first day of their captivity.

'What are you talking about?' Vijay demanded.

Farooq grinned at their incomprehension. 'The Vimana Parva gave a detailed description of the nature and impact of the weapon. According to this text, the vimanas being built by the King of Magadha would swoop down on the battlefield from the air, unseen. They would launch arrows that would decimate the Pandava armies and win the war for the Kauravas.' He paused for effect.

'They had discovered how to make their vimanas invisible.'

Vijay struggled to put his thoughts into words. The man was either crazy or was stringing them along.

'You're joking,' he said. 'Invisibility! It's found only in fantasy stories. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, that's where you'll find your technology.'

For a moment, Farooq seemed to be on the brink of exploding. Then, he drew a deep breath and composed himself. 'This is no joke. The concept of total invisibility has moved from the realm of the fantastic to the realm of the possible. You probably aren't aware of this, but science has begun taking its first steps towards making things invisible. And I am not talking about camouflage technology. This is real invisibility- the ability to bend light so that it goes right around an object, instead of reflecting off it, resulting in the object becoming invisible to the human eye.'

Vijay shook his head. 'I don't believe this is possible. I've studied physics, too.'

'I'll explain.' The scientist in Farooq came to the fore, and he settled himself comfortably in his chair as if preparing to deliver a lecture.

'You know how visibility works. Light reflects off something and renders it visible to the eye.'

Both Vijay and Radha nodded. This was basic science.

'All naturally occurring matter displays properties that are determined by its atomic make-up,' Farooq continued. 'The amount of light that is reflected or refracted depends on the interaction of the electromagnetic waves of light with the atomic particles of matter.

'There is a group of matter called anisotropic metamaterials. This group comprises materials that are not naturally occurring, but are artificially synthesised. Being artificial composites, their properties are not dependent on their atomic particles, but on the properties of the materials that make them up and the shape or pattern in which these materials are put together to make the metamaterial. There is a lot of research going on into this nowadays.

'Theoretically, anisotropic metamaterials have a variable refractive index and can actually bend light, so that if an object is sheathed in metamaterials, light isn't reflected or refracted but is simply guided around it. All natural materials bend electromagnetic radiation in one direction; away from a line perpendicular to their surface, or away from normal. Metamaterials, on the other hand, can be arranged so that their index of refraction forces waves to travel a path that bends towards normal. By diverting the waves upwards, around the object and then down again, the object, from a visual point of view, doesn't even exist. Moreover, if the light waves can be guided around the object in such a way that it returns to its original course, not only is the object rendered invisible, but it doesn't cast a shadow either. So an aircraft, for example, sheathed in metamaterials will be invisible to the naked eye.'

'And that is your plan? To steal this technology and use it for terror?' Vijay's scepticism seeped into his voice.

'Correct. We will use this technology to attack the G20 summit in Washington three months from now. In one stroke, 20 governments will be wiped out.'

'You'll be discovered before you can try anything.' Vijay attempted bravely, trying to strike at Farooq's confidence. 'Discovered?' Farooq smirked. 'We've already told them. And they're in a flap, trying to figure out why we've announced our plan three months before executing it. But the world can't defend itself from what it can't see! An invisible plane, carrying a deadly payload-how can any security agency in the world detect and stop it?'

'Radar.' Even as he spoke, Vijay realised the futility of his argument. 'You'll never get close enough to do any damage.'

'You aren't thinking straight,' Farooq replied scornfully. 'As you know, microwaves are the electromagnetic waves used in radar and their wavelengths are measured in anything from millimetres to metres. The wavelengths of visible light are measured in nanometres. If the technology is able to manipulate waves of visible light, manipulating microwaves is hardly a challenge. Perhaps you haven't heard of contemporary experiments being conducted using metamaterials that can manipulate microwaves. Using a sheath of metamaterials, an aircraft can be invisible to radar. And, though DARPA is only now working on trying to create metamaterials minute enough to manipulate light waves, this technology existed thousands of years ago. So our aircraft will have two sheaths. The first one will make them invisible to radar. And once we are close to our target, we will activate the nanoshield, which will render them invisible to the naked eye. Mission accomplished.'

'There's a flaw,' Vijay persisted, unwilling to give up. The thought that LeT could spring a shock on the world and they had unwittingly aided them was hard for him to accept.

'And that is?'

'Granted, a sheath of metamaterials will bend light around the aircraft, as you have explained. But, since the light that would normally enter the aircraft is now diverted around it anyone sitting inside will have a problem seeing out of the aircraft.'

'You haven't been reading the latest developments in this field,' Farooq shook his head. 'Recently, Chinese researchers have claimed to have developed an anticloak that, theoretically at least, takes care of this problem. The technology can be made assymetrical. The anticloaking material is an anisotropic metamaterial that is impedance-matched to the refractive index of the invisibility cloak. By pressing the anticloak against the invisibility cloak, some light could be guided inside to allow a person inside to peep out. That will enable the occupant of the aircraft to see outside while remaining invisible to an external observer. Research is ongoing into this aspect of the technology. It would seem, though, that the ancients had solved this problem.'

'What about the visible spectrum?' Vijay demanded, as another potential problem presented itself to him. 'The different colours of the spectrum exist on different wavelengths. How is it possible to simultaneously divert the different wavelengths in the visible spectrum?'

'I don't know how the ancient scientists who developed the invisibility shield overcame this problem,' Farooq admitted. 'And that's where the location of the secret comes in. Our prototype is not completely invisible. We've missed something vital in putting it together; which is why we need the original shield or the blueprints of the technology to put it together again.'

'If it wasn't you telling us all this, I would never have believed it,' Colin remarked when Vijay had finished. 'No wonder the IB guy was all worked up about Farooq.'

Abruptly, the X Trail lurched to a halt. They looked around at the thick forest that surrounded them. The six Endeavours stood a short distance ahead, their headlights illuminating the trees around.

As they alighted, they saw something being tossed out of one of the Fords. It landed on the forest floor with a heavy, dull thud.

'Our guide,' Farooq explained, 'who brought us this far. But it seems he didn't want to go further, so Maroosh took care of him. We don't need him from here.'

Vijay, Colin and Shukla stood frozen, shocked by the brutal murder of the guide. Murphy beckoned to the Pakistani scientist and both men walked off to one side, conversing in low tones. Farooq issued instructions to a couple of men who nodded and took up positions around the vehicles.

'The hill lies straight ahead,' Farooq informed them as he returned. 'If we follow this path, we should be fine.' He looked at the three captives. 'Any funny tricks and you'll follow the guide, not us.' He chuckled at his own pun.

Five men broke away from the group and brought up the rear, ensuring that the prisoners were surrounded.

Farooq stalked away to join Murphy and the two men led the group as they pushed through the forest, their powerful flashlights lighting up the path through the trees.

The path ran more or less in a straight line and the gradient slowly increased as they progressed deeper into the forest. Shukla's breathing became heavier and Vijay supported him. They had followed the path for half an hour when Murphy called a halt. As they clustered together, he pointed ahead.

'There.'

Before them, barely discernible, was the silhouette of a rocky wall.

Vijay's heart raced with anticipation, despite their predicament. Was this it?

On reaching the rock wall, they discovered that it fronted the hill, winding around the base for a considerable distance. The hill loomed above them as they halted in its shadow, the darkness deeper here than in the rest of the forest.

'Now what?' Murphy looked at Vijay.

Vijay thought fast, his mind flashing back to Surasen's account of his discovery which Shukla had read out to them from Beger's diary. If this was the hill Surasen had come upon, there should be an opening hidden by the rock face.