Colin scowled at him with mock indignation. 'I find something and you try and dig a hole under it. Can't you just accept and get used to my intellectual superiority?'

'Okay, Mr. Wow,' Vijay retorted. 'Let's see your superior intellect come up with a few more locations.'

Despite their light-hearted banter, there was excitement in the air. The group pored over the papers, occasionally glancing at the map, trying to find the links between the sites marked on the map and the clues in the verse.

Radha found the next one. 'The first one is Girnar. The edict that looks different from the others, as the inscriptions are all separately engraved and separated by horizontal lines. The first, in appearance, is different from the rest.'

'I've got two,' Shukla announced after a while. 'The seventh one is Sarnath. And the fifth is Shahbazgarhi.'

'I don't get the connection,' Colin confessed. Vijay shrugged in agreement.

'The seventh pays homage to the Wheel of Truth,' Shukla quoted. 'The Buddha gave his first sermon at the Deer Park in Sarnath; he preached the concept of the Wheel of Dharma or the Wheel of Truth, also known as the Wheel of Law, to his five disciples. He glanced at the paper he held. 'According to this, the seventh edict stands at Sarnath, carved into a highly polished sandstone pillar.'

Colin and Vijay nodded, impressed by Shukla's knowledge.

'The edicts at Shahbazgarhi,' Shukla continued, 'are inscribed on two rocks, one on the slope of the hill and the other in the valley. Shahbazgarhi is in present-day Pakistan. The verse says...The fifth writes with a hand that is different from the rest...this particular edict is the only one that is written in the Kharosthi script which is read from right to left. Earlier, this script was known as Indo-Bactrian and Ariano-Pali and is derived from Aramaic. All the other edicts are written in the Brahmi script. So, the hand that is different from the rest is the script.'

He saw the expression on Colin's and Vijay's faces and smiled, shrugging self-deprecatingly. 'You shouldn't be surprised. I studied ancient Indian languages.'

'I've got another one, I think,' Colin spoke up after a while. 'The eighth line says...The eighth does not have all that the others do but is special for he also has that which the others do not...' He looked up, beaming, delighted. 'It's the one at...,' he peered at the sheet of paper, 'Dhauli, is that how you pronounce it?'

Vijay nodded, but looked like he didn't understand. Colin couldn't resist a barb. 'Okay, I'll explain. Make way for my grey cells, my friend.'

Radha smiled. The good-humoured exchange between the two friends and the insults that they traded frequently only revealed the depth of the friendship. 'The carving at Dhauli,' Colin resumed, 'doesn't contain edicts 11 to 13, so doesn't have all that the others do; but it also has two other edicts that the others do not have.'

'Lucky guess,' Vijay muttered. 'And now he'll go on about it for the next 10 years.'

'I think I know what the second one is,' Shukla offered. 'I should have got it much sooner, since I've read about it before. The second one is supposed to gaze over the sea, waiting for a ship to come in.'

'It's a port,' Colin interjected.

'Yes,' Shukla smiled at his excitement. 'In Ptolemy's time there was an ancient sea port called Soupara, which was a commercial centre. Its ancient name was Supparaka. Today, according to this map and your research, it is known as Sopara.'

Vijay beamed with delight. 'We've got seven now. Just two more to go.'

'I've got another one,' Colin grinned. 'The sixth one...The sixth is greater by one than the other upright ones...the upright ones are the pillar edicts. All the pillars have six edicts, except one. Topra has seven edicts. It is greater by one than the other pillar edicts.'

Vijay looked at him. 'Seems logical.'

'Grey cells again,' Colin beamed. 'I'm awesome. What would you do without me? What...'

'There's one left,' Vijay interrupted him, smiling. 'The fourth is seventeen...what could that refer to?'

Radha frowned. Something in the printed notes had struck her but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Silence descended on the group. What could this line of the verse mean? It certainly couldn't refer to the age of the edict.

Suddenly, Radha looked around, flushed with excitement.

'Yerragudi.'

Questioning looks were directed at her.

'Yerragudi is a small town in Andhra Pradesh,' she explained. 'There doesn't seem to be much significance attached to it since there isn't too much in the notes but it has both the major and minor rock edicts.'

Blank faces gazed at her.

'Don't you get it? There were 14 major rock edicts and three minor ones; 17 in all. Yerragudi had all 17.'

Vijay shook his head. 'Unbelievable. The locations of all the edicts were cleverly disguised.' He turned to his notes. 'So the locations, in the order they are mentioned in the verse, are: Girnar, Sopara, Maski, Yerragudi, Shahbazgarhi, Topra, Sarnath, Dhauli and Kandahar.'

'What are we supposed to do with them?' Radha wondered. 'This still doesn't lead us anywhere.'

'In all the books I've read,' Colin said thoughtfully, 'when people decipher clues like these, they normally visit each location and find additional clues. Perhaps if we visit all nine locations we will find nine more clues that will lead us to something else and so on, until we find the secret of the Nine?'

'You read a lot of rubbish,' Vijay grinned at him, then his face grew serious. 'But you may be right.'

'Me and my big mouth,' Colin groaned. 'Now we'll go traipsing round the countryside looking for clues under every rock we find. Look, I'd love to see more of India but if we have to go to the edges of Asoka's empire, that's not quite my idea of a tour itinerary. And Kandahar is in Afghanistan. Wild horses wouldn't drag me there. Haven't you guys heard? The Taliban shoot Americans on sight. Sorry guys, but I don't want to end up as target practice for some trigger happy militants.'

Shukla shook his head. 'I don't think so. It's very unlikely that there are clues at every location. The Nine went to great lengths to conceal the location of their secret. They would have ensured that the trail of clues was indestructible, like this metal disk. Any clues left on rocks or pillars in the locations where the edicts are located may have been erased by the ravages of time. Somehow, it doesn't seem like the Nine would have made such an effort and then leave clues that could be obliterated by time and the elements.'

'What then?' Vijay frowned at the map of Asoka's empire. He had marked out, with red ink, the nine locations identified in the verse.

'It's strange, isn't it?' Radha remarked. 'Girnar, Sopara, Maski and Yerragudi are in a straight line. And Shahbazgarhi, Topra, Sarnath and Dhauli form another straight line that is almost parallel to the first line of edicts.'

Vijay stared at the map. Why hadn't he seen it before?

A broad smile creased his face. 'You're right, Radha. All we have to do is follow the edicts of Ashoka. That's what uncle said in his mail. Look at this.'

Vijay took a ruler and red pen and connected Girnar to Sopara, then extended the line to connect Maski and Yerragudi. As Radha had observed, all four locations were in a straight line. He then placed the ruler along the dots that represented Shahbazgarhi, Topra, Sarnath and Dhauli and drew a second line connecting these four locations. This line was parallel to the first.

'Let's follow the edicts of Asoka in the order they are mentioned in the verse on the disk,' he grinned at them, enjoying himself, now that the puzzle was clear to him. 'We go from Girnar to Sopara, then to Maski and Yerragudi. Next, the trail goes from Yerragudi to Shahbazgarhi in the north.' He connected Yerragudi and Shahbazgarhi with another straight line. 'From Shahbazgarhi, we follow the line through Topra, Sarnath and on to Dhauli. Now, look at this. The last stop is Kandahar.'

He took the ruler and once more drew a straight line, this time between Dhauli and Kandahar. Then, he sat back and watched as the others took in the pattern that had emerged on the map.

The line connecting Yerragudi to Shahbazgarhi and the second line from Dhauli to Kandahar intersected. At the point of their intersection lay another site with Asoka's edicts.

Bairat.

'Together they guard the way to the truth that is protected by the Nine!' Vijay declared with a flourish.

'This is incredible.' Colin shook his head. 'When you put it this way, it jumps out at you.'

Vijay grinned wickedly at him. 'I thought you were the brains between the two of us?'

'Yes, but you couldn't have done it without the help of your uncle's email,' Colin retorted immediately.

Vijay simply grinned back at him, delighted with what they had achieved.

'Colin is right,' Radha agreed. 'If someone was trying to decipher the verse and didn't know that they had to follow the edicts, they wouldn't get too far. And they'd also need to know a lot about Asoka and his edicts.'

'So, we go to Bairat?' Colin enquired, looking at Vijay.

'That's logical, isn't it?'

Radha pulled out a sheet, from the printouts, and read from it. 'Bairat is a small town in Rajasthan, forty two miles northeast of Jaipur. This little town has the distinction of having the oldest freestanding Buddhist structure in India the ruins of a third century bc chaitya.'

'What's a chaitya?' Colin wanted to know.

'Broadly speaking, a Buddhist chapel,' Shukla informed him.

'There are also brick and timber shrines of the same period,' Radha continued. 'A fragment of the rock edict of Asoka is now housed in the building of the Asiatic Society in Kolkata.'

'It's gotta be Bairat,' Colin said. 'It can't be coincidence that there was a rock edict of Asoka and remains of structures from his time at this location, especially when it lies at the intersection of these two lines on this map.'

'It can't be too far from here,' Radha remarked. 'It's on the Alwar-Jaipur highway, so it shouldn't be more than an hour's drive.'

'Let's go then,' Colin's eyes shone with anticipation. The others nodded, sharing in his excitement at the thought of finding a 2,000-year old secret.

'What do we do if we find the secret?' Shukla asked quietly, bringing an element of sobriety into the atmosphere.

'We'll inform the Maharaja,' Vijay replied, promptly. 'He'll know what needs to be done to keep the secret safe.'

'So why don't we tell him now?' Shukla pressed.

Vijay frowned. 'I don't know. Suppose we are wrong and there's nothing there? What if we've read the clues all wrong and got the wrong location? I'm not sure we should tell anyone until we find out for ourselves. But I'll call Greg and ask him if he'd like to join us. I'm sure he'd love to be a part of the discovery of a 2,000-year old secret.' He looked at his watch. 'I'm going to pack a few things. See you down in the hall in half an hour.'

15.

Day 6 Intelligence Bureau Headquarters, New Delhi Michael Blake sat in Imran Kidwai's office. Imran had called him, with no explanation other than a statement that they had come across some information that Blake might find interesting.

'It was a stroke of luck,' Imran began. 'A hunch that paid off. Nothing more.'

'Regarding Farooq?'

Imran nodded. 'When I saw the report on Murphy, I got an idea. Murphy had checked into a hotel in Gurgaon. Why Gurgaon? Why not Delhi? It was quite possible that there was no particular reason and it was a random choice. But what if it wasn't?'

Blake frowned. 'I see what you mean. Murphy could have chosen Gurgaon simply because the LeT team was also based there.'

'Exactly. Which includes Farooq and, perhaps, the member of the "Order" who was mentioned in the call you guys tapped into. So I got this crazy idea. While the Gurgaon police was engaged in trying to locate Murphy, I also put out a call to locate anyone whose name began with Farooq or ended with Siddiqui.'

'And something came up.'

Imran nodded, beaming. 'Yes. You're not going to believe this. The Gurgaon police actually had a case registered with them against a person named Farooq; a kidnapping case. Apparently this Farooq and an accomplice, named Imtiaz, had been involved in the kidnapping of two men and holding them captive in Gurgaon. But here's the interesting part. The case was referred to the Gurgaon police by the SHO of Jaungarh, which is a small village en route to Jaipur from Delhi. It seems that the two men, who were kidnapped, live there.'

Blake looked thoughtful. 'And you think this might be Farooq? But why would he kidnap two men from an obscure village? It doesn't make sense.'

Imran picked up a folded newspaper from his desk and handed it over to Blake, who unfolded it and gazed at the headlines.

'Read the leading byline.'

'Mysterious murder of nuclear scientist,' Blake read aloud and scanned the contents of the news article. 'So, this prominent retired nuclear scientist was murdered under mysterious circumstances. No clues were left at the murder scene. A Pakistani hand is suspected.' He shrugged and grinned. 'That's normal isn't it? Police are investigating but have little to go on.' He folded the newspaper and placed it back on the desk and waited. He knew there was more to come.

'One of the kidnapped men from Jaungarh was the nephew of the murdered scientist.'

Light dawned on Blake. 'I get it. So you think that Farooq Siddiqui may have been involved in the murder of the scientist and the kidnapping of the nephew. But why would he murder this scientist?'

'I haven't been able to figure out what LeT is doing in India. We are making a lot of assumptions, but if our conclusions based on the video and the phone tap are correct, then LeT and Murphy's employers are working together on some project in India. Farooq is leading that project. He is also a nuclear scientist. Both he and Vikram Singh, the murdered Indian scientist, were involved in the production of their respective country's nuclear bomb. Too many coincidences! What if Farooq was after something that Vikram Singh had? Information, plans, designs...I don't know. And the nephew may know something too, which is why he was kidnapped. But he managed to escape and filed a police report giving the names of two of his captors.'

'What's the plan, then?'

Imran grinned at him. 'We go pay Vijay Singh, the nephew, a visit at Jaungarh. Let's find out if our deductions amount to anything.'

Bijak-ki-Pahari Radha drove slowly along the highway connecting Delhi and Jaipur. Trucks, cars and jeeps whizzed past them at high speed. Vijay sat in the passenger seat next to Radha and Colin and Shukla were seated at the back. White had expressed his inability to make the trip as he was accompanying the Maharaja to a meeting. He had sounded quite miserable at being left out of what would definitely be a momentous discovery. But since Vijay was quite insistent that the Maharaja shouldn't know about Bairat until they had returned, there was no excuse White could think of that would be strong enough to excuse himself from the meeting with Bheem Singh.

According to the map of Rajasthan they carried with them, they realised, there should be a left turn that led to Bairat but they had seen no road leading off the highway, except for a few dirt paths that snaked though the fields. Nor were there signs along the highway marking the road to Bairat.

Vijay gazed at the map. 'We passed Pragpura just now. The turn on the map lies between Pragpura and Shahpura. Those are the only landmarks on the map.'

'It should be somewhere here, then.' Colin had been gazing out of the window, studying the milestones they passed. 'We're just fifteen kilometres from Shahpura.'

'Let's ask someone.' Radha spotted a cluster of trucks parked next to a row of rustic wood and thatch buildings.

Vijay and Colin alighted and walked towards the nearest hut. Inside, they saw truckers lounging about on rough charpoys.

'How do we get to Bairat?' Vijay asked the nearest trucker in Hindi.

'Keep going straight along the highway for around six kilometres and you'll come to a left turn which will take you to Bairat,' the man replied, studying them curiously. 'The left turn's just before the market.'

After getting the directions, they resumed the drive until they came across signs of habitation, probably the outskirts of Shahpura. As instructed, Radha turned into a road to the left.

A rickshaw driver confirmed they were on the right track and they sped down the road, which was smooth to begin with, but soon degenerated into a patchwork of potholes . On either side of the road was scrubland-expanses of sandy soil with thorny bushes.

Beyond the expanses of sand rose the Aravali hills; low, rocky hills upon which little vegetation grew. Boulders were stacked in clumps upon each hill and there was no sign of habitation around them.

Colin wondered aloud why Asoka had thought of choosing such a desolate region for one of his edicts.

'It was different in those days,' Shukla answered 'Two thousand years ago, Bairat was probably an important confluence of trade routes. Asoka had wanted his edicts to be read by as many people as possible. He had them set up at ports, important towns and places where travellers would have stopped to rest on their journey. Bairat must have been one such place.'

There was little traffic on the road. Twenty minutes later, fields on either side of the road replaced the sand and bushes. As the fields gave way to clusters of mud houses, they realised they had reached the village of Bairat. At this time of day, few people could be seen.

'Where do we find this hill?' Colin wondered.

'Bijak-ki-pahari,' Shukla murmured, recalling the name of the hill where the Asokan edict and the ruins of the chaitya and the monastery were located, according to the information they had downloaded from the internet.