Immortals (22 page)

When the dust settled after about an hour of fighting, Dan had lost two of his men, while the mafia had lost close to thirty. The leaders of the gang were identified and Dan entered into negotiations with his gun pointed at the temple of the boss, a puny old man by the name of Dmitry. Dan had a simple proposition: custody of Sonya in exchange of all of their lives. The mafia boss dithered but chickened out when he found himself out of his depth in this battle. Dan looked straight into Dmitry’s eyes and put his gun down on the table.

‘There are two ways we can do this. You do not give me what I want and I wipe out every last one of you and take it, or you give me what I want and I leave the rest of you alive to live out the rest of your sorry lives thinking about me. My advice is you take the latter offer and let this go. I am ready to pay blood money for the men you have lost. You name your price.’

Dmitry nodded and replied, dismissive in his gruff voice:

‘Okay. I’ll be in touch with a figure.’

The deal was struck and Sonya was delivered. Dan asked her if she had been treated right and she nodded. Dan took her away from there, before ordering his forces to retreat.

Dan called up Ludvig, who was in Moscow. Ludvig’s voice was impassive. He was ready with his next set of orders.

‘Send her to the headquarters in Oslo. Meet me in Moscow, as soon as you can. Let your tactical unit stay put here in Moscow. I have something very important that I want you to do.’

Dan did not find any trace of emotion in the old man’s voice. He could not understand him. Probably he never would. What was he up to now? Dan had no idea. He gathered his team, asked them to assemble in Moscow, and boarded the jet to get there.

***

Sheremetyevo International Airport

Moscow, Russia

29 May, 2012

It was a strange place for Jai and Heena. It was the first time they had set foot on a plane and the first time anywhere outside home and Mumbai, and their recent jaunts to Chennai and Bangalore. The first thing that Jai felt was the biting cold, in spite of wearing a sweater and an oversized tweed jacket on loan from the professor. Henna clung to his arm as they meekly followed Professor Ananthakrishnan through the crowds at the Moscow airport terminal.

The professor had been here before, having made many trips to Russia during the years leading to India’s nuclear independence. Those were official trips and he was a state guest. What he was doing now was personal, perhaps even illegal. There was nothing illegal in his coming here but he had sneaked in Jai and Henna under false passports and visas. He was very apprehensive till he cleared Russian customs. However, he had no real reason to worry. The customs already knew about him and his co-passengers and they had been instructed to cooperate.

They were met by Ivan outside the arrivals lounge and they slipped inside an Audi Q7 which was to take them to the Ritz. They were informed that Mr Hanssen had already reached the hotel and was waiting for them there.

Professor Ananthakrishnan had expected a difficult time explaining and convincing Ludvig. What had happened till then had been just the opposite. He had been flown in a chartered jet to Moscow to meet the man without having said a word to him. No explanation, no nothing till now.

However, he was not at a complete loss here. He had the sneaking suspicion that maybe for Ludvig all this was an encore, perhaps a rewind. How was he to know?

***

Hotel Ritz

Tverskaya Street

Moscow

Ludvig went through the contents of the message again. They had exchanged stories and Professor Ananthakrishnan had his suspicions confirmed when he asked Ludvig how he knew that he would be calling. Ludvig had answered

‘You told me you were coming.’

That felt awkward, surreal, and foolish. Not being able to remember what he had done in another time, in another world; a world revealed only to Ludvig – his world, his time.

But according to Ludvig, his first call said that they had five days whereas the message he had now in his hand said they had only four days. But the professor only remembered having always seen the four days’ deadline message. That meant that the professor who had called Ludvig earlier was from a different time-line reality and in his message, there was a five-day deadline, whereas they had the four-day deadline message in their hands now.

That confirmed something that many theoretical physicists had long been suspecting: a reality where there were an infinite number of parallel universes, each possibly existing close to the other, perhaps existing in separate dimensions, separated from us by less than a whisker. We humans living in a three-dimensional world would never truly fathom the real contours and form of a higher-dimension world. We would perhaps also never be able to physically peer through into another universe, however close it may be to us. Nevertheless, here was possible proof of the ‘brane theory’, an outcome of the convincing but weird string theory of physics. String theory, till now, was the most successful attempt by physicists trying to reconcile with the differences between the relativistic universe of Einstein and the quantum world of sub-atomic particles. The core of it suggested that at the heart of all matter are very tiny strings that vibrated at a fixed frequency, which gave every particle its nature and properties. An offshoot of this intriguing theory suggested that these strings vibrated in at least eleven dimensions, eight more than the three perceived all around by us. One of the many deductions of string theory also suggested that the Universe we lived in was not alone and that it was one of a large number of universes in a grand Multiverse scenario. It can be likened to bubbles in a well-fermented cheese, each bubble representing a Universe in this Multiverse. It was also suggested that these multiple Universes need not be separated by great distances. The ‘brane theory’ suggests that these multiple, possibly infinite number of Universes, could be like large undulating membranes swaying right next to each other, separated by less than a fraction of a human hair-width but we are unaware of it because it exists in the extra dimensions predicted by the string theory.

Professor Ananthakrishnan surmised that now was a different reality from the one where Ludvig had talked on the phone to the professor, and the message in this reality had changed because Ludvig had used a day to rescue Sonya. It could very well be that they were flitting between Universes in a Multiverse scenario.

Theories apart, now it was only four days before the plug was to be pulled on Ludvig and Jai; and to make it to the other side, they had to do just what the message asked them to.

Henna and Dan were a silent audience to Ludvig and Jai exchanging stories about the white room. Ludvig had called Dan because what was required could be accomplished only by utilising Dan’s resourcefulness, and would be the greatest test of his loyalty to him.

The message required them to die together, within five seconds of having woken up, surrounded by a nuclear haze to mitigate the reset signals from kicking in.

Moreover, to accomplish all of that, they only had a three-minute window barely four days away.

If they failed to satisfy the above conditions, they might, in a best-case scenario, be reborn into different identities and possibly different timelines and then it would be impossible to rescue their true selves back on the home planet. In the worst-case scenario, someone somewhere was going to pull the plug on them and they would both die – here, there, and anywhere else they might exist.

Home, wherever it was – they had to reach it in four days.

Ludvig was deep in thought. If they failed to do exactly what was in the message, they would die a permanent death here, soon after the four days were over, because they would be summarily executed back home. Stupid, shit, fucked home, wherever it was and whatever they were mixed up with.

Ludvig had to make a decision.

He looked at Dan, who was maintaining his composure in the face of what must have been an astounding revelation to him. Actually, a lot of it must make sense to Dan now, thought Ludvig. There was that glow of understanding on his generally expressionless face.

Ludvig turned to Dan.

‘Can it be done?’

Dan was waiting for that question.

‘How important is this to you?’

Ludvig replied:

‘You have heard everything. I believe each and every word of what has been said here. Suffice it to say that it is more important to me than anything else.’

‘It might cost us a lot of money. In addition, I will be as careful as I can, but there remains a chance that the trail may end up at our doorstep. I don’t have much time in my hands either.’

‘Money is no object. You get as much as you want. Keep countermeasures ready in the eventuality of a trail. You may have to bash your way out of the mob later.’

The scant need for words to convey ideas between Dan and his boss was amazing. He was sure that no one else had understood a word of what had been spoken between them. Dan knew that to fulfil the instructions in the message, only a nuclear incident of some kind would fit the bill. There were only two ways to get that – a nuclear meltdown at a power plant or by a nuclear fission bomb detonation. The former was too messy and too difficult to contain.

That left a nuclear device. It would be difficult to procure, and would create a mess afterwards, but one which could possibly be contained and managed. To create a nuclear haze alone would not require a huge explosion. A sub-kiloton device was what he was looking for. A small device would perhaps not register on seismographs either, the sort used by governments worldwide to look for clandestine subterranean nuclear explosions. Again, it might be easier to procure the fissile material, then hire and cajole an expert to build an improvised explosive device using it.

The money and resources were for procurement of such a device and for setting it up in some remote God-forsaken area. Bashing a way out meant gathering enough bargain material on everyone important, who could create a mess later. Material, which could be used to barter for their silence. He would have to execute a mammoth cover-up operation, the likes of which had not been attempted before.

This might be the last piece of work he would do for the company. Dan had no wish to continue once Ludvig was gone. He loved challenges. This last act was going to cap his largely unsung career. The scale and magnitude of the task at hand gave him a thrill nothing he did in the future could match.

The Rescue

In the Remote Greenland Wilderness

1 June, 2012

Dan had managed the impossible.

He had had only three days to achieve it. He knew that no one in his considerable network could manage the task within such a short period. However, there was one man who could do it – for a price. An obscene price.

Dan activated his contacts to seek an audience with Mikhail Gorshky, a renowned arms dealer based in Russia, who moved arms to governments, private armies, terrorists, rebels, gangs, drug cartels, traffickers, dictators, and despots; in fact, to anyone and anywhere, if the price was right.

The man was puny, standing just over five feet in height and was a tad heavy for his height. Dan was seeing him in person for the first time. His stature did not do justice to the evil that this man was capable of causing. Dan placed his requirement as calmly as he could

‘I have an urgent requirement for a sub-kiloton nuclear device and I am ready to pay whatever it takes to acquire one.’

Gorshky studied Dan very carefully. Why would this man’s boss, the biggest telecommunications magnate in this world, need a sub-kiloton nuclear device? He was measured in his reply.

‘What would the fallout be?’

‘There would be no fallout. It would be a very private affair, away from all eyes and all sensors and would involve at most only a couple of quiet casualties.’

Gorshky looked back into Dan’s eyes for a minute.

‘A hundred million.’

Dan stood up.

‘Thanks. I will expect the consignment in three days from now.’

Gorshky shook Dan’s hands, still staring hard into his cold eyes.

***

Gorshky delivered on his promise.

How he went about it created an international incident, which was all over the news. Within a day of Dan’s meeting with Gorshky, CNN reported a minor incident of leakage of heavy water from the CHASNUPP-II nuclear power plant in Pakistan. It was only a footnote that detailed the leak, the measures that were being taken for its containment, the fact that Pakistan, along with India, Israel, North Korea was not yet a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that the deteriorating internal security in Pakistan posed a threat to its nascent civilian and military nuclear programmes.

Within six hours, the footnote snowballed into a major headline, when it was discovered that a kilogram of reactor-grade Plutonium-239 or RG Pu-239 was missing from the storage at the plant. All the news channels were agog with possibilities and wild theories implicated every possible terrorist organisation for the theft.

Dan realised that this had something to do with the sub-kiloton device that Gorshky had promised him. It was a massive storm headed his way and if it blew up in his face, he would have no other choice but to disappear from the face of the Earth, something that, thankfully, he had planned long before, as a contingency measure. In his line of work, you had to be ready to be able to disappear; and fortunately, he had made his preparations.

The material was smuggled out of Pakistan through Iran, Russia, and thereafter into Greenland, by sea. Gorshky had been supplying Iran with weapons on behalf of the Russian government and it was easy for him to get his hands on the Pu-239 once it reached Iran.

The next task was to set up the bomb on a remote island off the western coast of Greenland, across Baffin Bay. The bomb was a limited-yield device capable of generating an explosive force of around twenty kilotons of TNT. The fissionable material had been tweaked by a renegade nuclear arms scientist for hire, whom Dan had managed to fish out of his self-imposed retirement in an idyllic resort outside Pyongyang. The tweaks on the bomb included a ‘salted’ cobalt capsulation to increase the yield of nuclear contamination, as was mandated by the instructions in the message from the future.

The bomb now also had a remote detonation system so it could be safely detonated from a distance of about five kilometres.

Jai and Henna had spent the last three days inseparable from each other. This time had been hectic, with them rushing from Moscow to Oslo and then on to Copenhagen, en route to Greenland. They had talked about the threat to Henna’s life back home and Ludvig had promised her resettlement in Oslo with an education and a job in Hantel.

That was a big burden off Jai’s mind, which was constantly plagued with the thought of what would happen to Henna after his departure. Henna understood the inevitability of Jai’s journey and accepted it. They both hardly talked about it. There was nothing to plan for, no one to inform, and no on to console after Jai’s departure. They spent both nights in hotel rooms, the first at the Ritz, Moscow, and the second in Oslo. They made passionate love on both the nights but on the second night, Henna sobbed into a climax, her body rocking with pleasure and tears flowing from her eyes. Jai held her naked body close to his and cried freely along with her. The morning after, they were off to Copenhagen, and from there to Greenland.

The professor spent as much time as he could with Jai in these last few days. He patiently and tirelessly answered all Jai’s questions to the best of his abilities. He told him that it was going to be the greatest journey ever for human kind, the likes of which had only been dreamt of, and fantasised about, for centuries. It had been an eternity since humans had first asked the question – were they alone in the Universe? There had never been facts to corroborate fantastical tales about beings from out there, until now. People had imagined others out there in various forms from the very beginning of human civilisation. They had imagined, feared, worshipped, humanised, animalised, and demonised alien life. They had called them by various names. Their gods had always descended from above and their souls had always ascended to the skies. They had imagined heaven and hell in outer space and everything else in between. Jai was perhaps the first person who would know the truth of it all. He was going where no one had ever been before.

He told Jai that he was taking a giant leap – of distance, of time, and of faith, and he should be proud of that. And yes, he thought he would do alright out there.

The professor had told Jai a hundred times, how he wished it was he who was making this journey and not Jai. But alas, the ticket was in Jai’s name and there was nothing that he could do about it.

Jai had been filled with wonder and trepidation about what lay ahead and his uncertain heart had accepted the inevitable, mostly because of the lack of choice in the matter. Do what the message says or risk dying. Besides, Jai had the strongest belief in the contents of the message, because the dreams and the nightmares that he had endured were truly his and his alone.

Dan had set up the blast on a giant frozen inland lake, on which a tiny air-conditioned igloo hut had been set up. Ludvig and Jai were strapped on to two chairs and sedated with a heavy dose of Valium. They had drifted off into a deep sleep. A couple of high-decibel alarms were set up next to their ears, to awaken them at the right time. The nuclear device was planted in the centre of the hut.

Dan flicked on the switch and exited the hut. Henna had insisted that she would accompany them to Greenland and it was time to say her final goodbyes. She took a last look at the sleeping form of Jai and then slipped out of the hut, keeping pace with Dan to the white Q7 parked outside the hut.

Their final goodbye was as cold as that. There were no tears, just as they had promised each other. They had a lifetime’s worth of love squeezed into a few days, to remember each other with, and that was enough for them. Henna was heading for a new life in a foreign land and Jai was heading for a new life on a distant, alien planet. What they held on to from their old lives was their love for each other. That would suffice for a long time to come.

Dan and Henna drove out five kilometres from the hut, where Dan had set up a small operations centre to facilitate the remote detonation of the bomb. He had a couple of his operatives with him in the hut. They waited for an hour there, waiting for the time that was stipulated in the message.

Henna sat on a chair, silent, lost in her thoughts. Dan saw her trance-like state and knew better than to disturb her. He had had no one who was close to him in the last three decades of his life, and had forgotten what it felt like to lose someone beloved. Henna had lived that loss over and over again. She had been living with that fear for some time now. Still, she treasured the moments of togetherness with Jai through these few days.

She had come round to believe in Jai’s freakish immortality and then suddenly this had been sprung on them. She had accepted her fate and Jai’s destiny. She had also come to accept the parting of their ways. It hurt like hell though. Tears ran down her cheeks.

Dan looked at her and said:

‘It is time.’

Henna nodded her head and stood up, looking at Dan, and then the switch-board in front of him.

Dan kept his eyes on the clock on the switch-board and his finger on the switch. The countdown counted down to zero and Dan pressed the button. The loud jarring noise of the alarm pouring through Dan’s earpiece startled him.

‘Hello, Mr. Ludvig. This is Dan. Are you awake?’ Dan shouted into his mouthpiece.

‘Yes, I am. But Jai is still asleep.’

Dan pressed the alarm yet again. Ludvig said:

‘No. Still asleep.’

‘Bugger! Sleeping like a log,’ thought Dan. He hoped Jai had not been overdosed with sedatives. He pressed the alarm switch yet again.

‘Now?’

Ludvig laughed at the other end.

‘Now he stirs.’

Dan laughed nervously.

‘Some sound sleeper your boy is. It took three alarms to wake him up.’ Dan looked at Henna.

‘It is his last one. His last nap here,’ Henna replied with a smile.

Dan nodded. He looked up gravely at Henna and adjusted his mouthpiece.

‘Now?’

Ludvig replied:

‘Yes.’

Dan lifted the red cover on the switch and pressed it, his facial muscles flinching in anticipation of the exploding nuke. Nothing happened. He looked in the direction of the hut. Nothing.

He pressed the button again. Nothing happened.

‘Dan. Press the damn button!’ Ludvig shouted into his ears.

‘But I have.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! Nothing is happening!’ Ludvig shouted back, his voice seething with anger.

Dan panicked and froze where he stood. For the first time, he did not what to do. They had only three minutes at most, to detonate the bomb and they were five kilometres away.

‘What happened?’ Henna asked.

Dan turned towards her

‘The bomb did not go off.’

‘What? How can that happen?’

‘I don’t know.’

What do you mean by you don’t know?’

Henna was furious, shouting at the top of her voice now. She was aghast at the thought of Jai waiting for the bomb to go off, waiting for it to shred him to pieces. The thought made her shiver. She came closer to Dan and gripped his arms.

‘I don’t know why the bomb did not go off. Maybe the remote mechanism failed,’ he repeated.‘What do we do now?’

‘We have to detonate the bomb physically.’

‘Let’s do that.’

‘We don’t have enough time.’

‘We have three minutes. We can make it.’

Dan was ashen. He looked at her and replied:

‘We can. But we can’t make it back here in three minutes.’

Henna saw his face, pale with fear. She grabbed the keys off the table and rushed out. She knew the rudiments of driving a car. Jai had taught her the basics during their stay in the Kalpakkam farm house. It seemed very distant, almost like another life, from where she was now. She opened the door of the Q7 and slid inside. There was no keyhole, just a button that said ignition. She pressed that and the engine purred into life. She looked down and saw the accelerator pedal, There were no gears anywhere. She pressed her foot down and the car raced forwards, swerving wildly. She took hold of the steering wheel and steadied the car, not letting up on the accelerator.

Their previous journey to the hut had made tire tracks in the snow and she followed them. She had two and a half minutes. She stepped harder on the accelerator, pinning it to the floor. The speedometer jumped to a hundred in five seconds and kept on rising, reaching two hundred and fifty in fifteen seconds. She raced through the blanket of snow covering the ice and after a minute or so, the hut came into view, a tiny speck in the distance. Her eyes were focussed on the hut, as it slowly zoomed in towards her car, the featureless icy white surroundings seeming strangely still as the hut loomed closer and closer.

She jammed on the brakes as she reached the hut with barely thirty seconds remaining. The car jolted and the engine died abruptly, the wheels spinning and skidding wildly before stopping metres from the hut. She was out in a second and ran inside the hut. The bomb was placed right in the centre of the room, with both Ludvig and Jai looking agape at her. Both of them were tied down to their reclined beds and they both hollered something at her which she did not give heed to. She ran up to Ludvig, snatched his earpiece and shouted into its microphone: