‘Kill her, kill her!’ Vanita screeched. The mercs rushed to the ramp and unleashed more bullets down the narrow passage, but Nina was clear, sprinting into the depths of the Vault of Shiva.
27
‘Get her!’ Zec ordered. Two of his men ran after the fleeing American.
Vanita turned to Khoil. ‘Bring the helicopter back, now.’
‘The chest isn’t ready,’ he said. Mahajan and Tandon had broken off from their preparations to protect their master and mistress when the shooting started.
‘I’m not talking about the chest. I want to get out of here!’
‘She won’t get away,’ said Zec.
‘I don’t care. Once I’m aboard, then we’ll collect the chest.’ She strode towards the doors, imperiously waving for her bodyguards to follow.
They looked at Khoil for instructions, caught between conflicting commands. ‘Chapal, go with her,’ he said, exasperation creeping into his voice. ‘Dhiren, go after Dr Wilde. Zec, finish securing the Vedas and take them to the ledge.’ Mahajan grunted and lumbered after Nina’s pursuers. Tandon followed Vanita, while Zec gestured for two of his men to continue preparing the chest.
The remaining mercenaries surrounded the prisoners. Girilal clutched weakly at the bullet wounds. Blood soaked his torn robes. Shankarpa, groggy from the blow to his head, pushed himself up - and saw him. He cried out in Hindi, trying to reach the dying man, but two of the mercenaries kicked him back down.
‘He’s his dad!’ Eddie protested. Khoil’s face remained dispassionate, but Zec relented, a silent nod prompting the mercs to back away. He released Eddie from under his foot, keeping his gun trained on him.
Shankarpa crawled to the yogi, horrified. ‘Father!’ he gasped, putting a hand on Girilal’s chest in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding.
Girilal moaned softly at the touch. ‘Janardan?’ he whispered. Blood bubbled in his mouth.
Shankarpa gripped his hand. ‘I am here, Father. I’m here!’ ‘Oh, Janardan . . . what have I done? I have taken a life. How . . . how will I explain myself to Shiva?’
‘Lord Shiva is a warrior,’ said Shankarpa, in desperate insistence. ‘He has fought many battles, he has killed demons and evil men. It is not a sin to fight to protect—’ His voice caught. ‘To protect those you love.’
Girilal’s eyes closed, a tear running down one cheek. ‘You must . . . find your mother. Tell her . . . I am sorry, I am so sorry. Ask her if she can . . . forgive me. Please. Please, my son . . . say you will do this for me.’
Shankarpa’s eyes welled with tears of his own. ‘I will, Father. I will. I promise.’
‘Thank . . .’ He convulsed, a soft cough speckling his chin with blood. ‘Janardan, oh . . . my son . . .’ A strangled moan escaped him, his whole body shuddering . . .
Then he was still.
Eddie felt a tightness in his throat as he watched the devastated Shankarpa slowly release his hold on his father’s hand. Anger spiking through sorrow, he looked at Khoil and Zec. The Indian was still unmoved by the sight, but Zec appeared troubled, almost guilty.
Beyond them, Vanita had been fastened into the harness, ready to be winched to the helicopter. The chest was secure in its own straps, the two mercenaries carrying it to the ledge. ‘Pramesh!’ she shouted over the rotor noise. ‘What are you waiting for? Kill them!’
Khoil nodded to Zec. ‘Do as she says.’
‘Ready weapons!’ Zec barked. The mercenaries snapped into action, MP5Ks locking on to Eddie, Shankarpa and Kit. ‘Aim—’
Another shout - from the depths of the Vault. ‘Bob Dylan!’
The strange war cry was followed by a loud bang, then a series of thudding clanks, getting faster and faster—
Eddie realised what it meant. He grabbed Shankarpa’s arm. ‘Down!’
They dropped, Eddie covering Kit with his body and pressing against the side of the ramp - as a fusillade of stones rained around them.
Nina had used the Vault’s contents as cover to block her pursuers’ aim as she ran. But she knew she couldn’t evade them for ever - she had to take offensive action.
At the moment the thought formed, she found herself beside the great wheel of a sarvato-bhadra - a stone-thrower.
Like the other ancient war machines, it was still primed for action.
She yanked the lever to release the mechanism, yelling ‘Bob Dylan!’ as a warning to Eddie. The large weight descended, its chain rattling and screeching. The wheel picked up speed startlingly quickly, the leather slings attached to its rim whipped outwards by centrifugal force.
Something else also moved outwards as the machine spun faster, a metal block protruding from a slot running from the wheel’s centre to its rim. A trigger: another block was mounted on the support frame. As the wheel reached its full speed, they clanged together—
Releasing the slings.
The wheel was mounted on the axle a few degrees off vertical. As it turned, it swayed from side to side - hurling the stones across the cavern in a deadly bombardment. They flew over the ramp, barely missing the vimana at its summit . . . and smashed down at the entrance.
Zec threw Khoil aside as a head-sized chunk of rock arced down and shattered where he had been standing.
Others were less lucky. One mercenary was hit in the face with a sharp crack of splintering bone. Another took a blow to the chest, his bulletproof body armour no defence against the force of the rock that punched razor-sharp fragments of broken ribs into his heart. The other men scrambled for cover.
Vanita screamed for the winch operator to raise her as more stones bounced off the floor and flew out on to the ledge. Tandon flung himself out of the way as pieces hurtled past them. One of the mercenaries who had brought out the chest was struck on his knee, the joint bending backwards with a horrible snap and pitching him over the edge. The helicopter, an Indian-built Dhruv, ascended, yanking Vanita off the ledge.
The chest sat near the edge, stones skimming past it.
Shankarpa pointed back into the Vault. ‘Go!’ he shouted to Eddie as he leapt up and sprinted for the doors.
Eddie pulled Kit upright, vaulting into the gap between the ramp’s sides and dragging the Interpol agent after him. ‘We’ve got to find Nina!’ he said as he hauled him down the narrow channel. Ahead, he saw the stack of black rockets, the first burning brazier beyond. Nobody was chasing them - yet. But the confusion wouldn’t last long. With nobody to reload it, the sarvato-bhadra was limited to a single salvo.
Nina abandoned the war machine - the stones had passed harmlessly over the three men pursuing her. She fled deeper into the Vault.
Shankarpa raced for the open doors. A mercenary fired at him, but he was already through. He saw the chest at the top of the broken steps, but could do nothing about it. Instead, he ran past it as fast as he could.
Jumping—
Cold air whistled in his ears as he sailed over the gap, seventy feet of nothingness beneath him . . .
His foot reached the very edge of the topmost tier. He was moving too fast to stop, slamming against the wall and tumbling to the snow-covered floor. He forced himself back up and ran again, heading for one of the arched openings.
A roar of engines echoed through the valley - the MD 500, swooping down—