Davarius rubbed his hands together for a moment, keeping his eyes on hers; then he got up and casually walked past her, across the room to the window, where his body — sturdy and athletic, Nina noted — blocked the view of the Taj Mahal. The sun threw his shadow behind him and Nina had the impression that it looked like the black king on the chessboard back on the yacht — narrow and pointy-headed, with just the hint of a crown.
"As I told your employer-"
"Mr. Waxman."
"Yes, as I told him, we have an objective particularly suited to the talents of your team." He turned his head, and his eyes were wet from the sun's intensity glinting off the Taj and the winding Yamuna River. "I believe only those with… exceptional abilities such as your own might be able to truly discover the whereabouts of a certain artifact that may have been under our very noses for centuries."
Nina considered him for a moment. Have to be careful here. Remember Waxman's instructions. He had told her in no way to trust him. That Davarius Malmud was obviously lying, hiding the real reason he wanted them there. She was to play it slow.
Screw that. She was already tired of this city, the heat and the congestion, and she didn't like being jerked around. "Why don't you start by giving me the truth? If you wanted a psychic, we know you’ve already had one here, in your employ, for seven years."
Davarius paled slightly, took a step back.
Nina pressed on. "Mohammad Chaudhry. We tried on several occasions to recruit him, but he passed. Apparently, your benefit plan beat ours."
Davarius took a long breath, but still seemed relaxed.
Have I misjudged him? He should be sweating right now.
"Yes, it's true. We had a psychic. A Remote-Viewer like you and those on your team."
"But?"
"But he went… missing." He said the word slowly, and Nina had the sense he was drawing it out to gauge Nina's reaction. She remained cool.
"Ah. Should have asked us. Finding missing persons is a bit of specialty."
"Yes," Davarius said quietly. "That and locating lost artifacts and treasure." He turned back to the window. "I've heard, however, that your abilities… they have limitations and are greatly dependant on the psychic's focus."
Nina sighed. "Yes, we're not all-seeing and even when we get valid visions, they're often hard to interpret." She thought back on countless sessions in smoke-filled conference rooms. All of her colleagues drawing pictures, sketching out what their visions — wrong or right — were showing them. Some had impressive hits; some could see and even hear things in faraway locations, and even in the past. Sometimes the future. But Davarius was right. There were certainly limitations — like why she and Waxman couldn't see exactly what was going on here.
"Right," he said. "Well, Chaudhry paved the way. Showed us the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. But then he disappeared, just as we were getting close."
"To what?"
Davarius placed a hand, fingertips first, against the glass over the distant façade of the Taj Mahal. "Inside our country's greatest tourist attraction, this mausoleum that has been the site of pilgrimages and adoration for four centuries, rests something besides the crypts of the fourth Mogul emperor and his favored wife."
Nina nodded, and leaned back stretching her legs. "Yes, Shah Jahan and his lovely princess, Mumtaz Mahal. Ah, what a wonderfully tragic love story."
"You know it well, then?"
"Of course." A lie. She had only read up on it last Tuesday. And then, when she and another member of the group tried to take a 'look'… they discovered much more.
"But of course," she said, "history and history are not always the same."
"So true," Davarius said, smiling broadly. "What we call history today has been written by the victors. They changed the past to suit their needs and let the ensuing centuries finish the job of covering the truth."
"No one's the wiser," Nina said. "Unless they can see into the past."
Davarius's eyes shined with excitement. "So I don't need to convince you…"
"That your national emblem and this four-hundred year-old love story is a sham?" She shook her head slightly. "No, you don't. Your Shah Jahan may indeed have loved his eighteenth wife slightly more than the other seventeen, but he didn't have the power, the clout, the time or the ability to create such a magnificent palace. And most importantly — he didn't need to."
"And why not?" Davarius asked, leading her on.
"Because it was already there." Nina talked quickly, sensing that this was foreplay that had already gone past being constructive. They were ready for the main event. "Look, let's dispense with the alternative history lessons. I know the Mogul lords, as well as many Muslims throughout history, had a practice of co-opting the local shrines to use as their own mausoleums. I didn't need to Remote-View this to know the story was shaky to begin with. No construction records exist, no bills of sale. No architect formally came forward to even claim such a glorious notch on his resume. And there are references to such a palace cropping up in stories long before Shah Jahan was even born."
She took a breath. "So no, you don't have to convince me that the Taj Mahal was something else before its current purpose as a crypt."
"Very good," Davarius said. "I don't even have to mention then, all the other evidence, like the statues of ancient Vedic gods that were found when restoration teams inspected the walls or the doorways in the basement sealed by cave-ins. Or the nuances of architectural designs that no Muslim would have ever incorporated, or the rumors of vast catacombs below the foundation."
"No," Nina said through clenched teeth. "So get to the point."
"Very well. But just one more thing." He gazed back out the window at the somber and silent palace. "Do you know what the name ‘Taj Mahal’ means?"
Nina shrugged. "Guessing it was named after Mumtaz Mahal. So what — Taj means crown or something, right?"
"That's one theory, yes. But her true name was Mumtaz-ul-Zamani, not Mahal at all. However, there is a valid explanation."
"Okay, let's hear it." She was mildly interested, but at the same time, the stone-faces of the five goons in the room were getting on her nerves.
"The old Sanskrit language has a name, Tej-o-Mahalaya, which means the Temple of Shiva."
"Ah," said Nina. "Good old Shiva. Destroyer of gods, head-honcho of the Hindu pantheon. So, the Taj Mahal may have really been an ancient temple to Shiva and you think these latter-day squatters converted it, and in the process, walled up access to the places below where there might be something… of value?"
"In a nutshell." He clapped his hands and turned toward her.
"And you want us to find it," Nina said.
"Well, since only you came…"
"Sorry about that. They had other priorities."
Davarius's face darkened. "Well, you'll have to do."
Something's so not right here, she thought. Time to push this over the edge. "So, before I start. Let's go back to Mohammad Chaudhry."
"Ah, yes. I was afraid you'd ask."
Nina tensed, but kept going. "You must have known we'd look. We'd ask questions, we'd probe."
"Of course. But I also knew… hoped really, that you wouldn't ask the right questions." He folded his arms, leaning back against the window. "So what did you see?"
Casually dropping her left hand, Nina let her fingers touch the edge of her purse, while the other hand in her lap moved closer to the hem of her skirt. "Not everything, obviously. But enough for my employer to realize that sending anyone but me would be foolhardy."
"A pity. But we'll make do." Davarius kept smiling. "You see, when I heard he was sending you, I did some more research into your background. And I have to say, if I could only have one, I'm very pleased with the outcome."