The Goddess Legacy

Chapter 38

Nayan Mehta stood in front of the French doors that led out to the expansive gardens of his four-acre estate, one of the larger residential properties in New Delhi, with a value in the tens of millions of dollars. He was on the phone with Pradesh Suri, his second-in-command at the Kashmir mining camp he operated, who was waiting patiently on the line for instructions.

Mehta’s voice was agitated — always a dangerous situation, his temper as infamous as his vast fortune. Mehta was the third generation of industrialists who’d accumulated a substantial slice of the region’s riches, and had never known a day without entitlement.

“What is the delay?” Mehta demanded again. “I do not understand.”

“There was a problem transporting the material from the facility. Some sort of unannounced spot check.”

“I thought we bought everyone off. Was that not so?”

“This is a different branch of the regulatory agency. Nobody could have foreseen they would stage an inspection. As it was, no harm came of it, but it set our schedule back a day.”

“The customers are on their way with money. They are expected the day after tomorrow. They will panic if the material is not here for their inspection, and I wouldn’t blame them.”

“We could always just kill them,” Suri suggested. “What would their people really be able to do if we did?”

“That is not an option. I would be a marked man. These people are as dangerous as cobras, even if they are crazy. Don’t even suggest such a thing.”

“I was merely thinking out loud.”

“Then refrain from doing so.”

Suri quieted, chastened by Mehta’s warning. The powerful magnate was scheduled to travel from his headquarters in Delhi to meet the customers in person, and he was obviously in no mood for Suri’s suggestion. Mehta was on edge, and that put everyone around him in jeopardy, Suri knew from harsh experience.

“When is the shipment expected now?”

“Forty-eight hours, in the early evening.”

“That’s too late.”

“It is the best our people can do.”

“Why don’t they deliver it via helicopter?” Mehta asked.

“It would be picked up by the air defense force that monitors Kashmir. That, and it’s already in transit, somewhere on the road — we don’t know exactly where.”

“Then we will need a diversion to keep the customers occupied while we wait.”

“We can give them a tour of the camp.”

“One has already been there, at the start of our transaction, do you not recall? We can try, but they might not be interested in anything but the exchange.”

“Women?”

“They’re zealots. Their religion prevents them from partaking in the pleasures of the flesh.”

“We can drug them.”

Mehta was silent for several moments. “No. I have the perfect solution. We will simply count the currency by hand. That will take many hours if we don’t use the machines,” Mehta said. “Five million euros. We will count slowly.”

Suri exhaled with relief. “Perfect. I shall make the necessary arrangements.” He paused. “Do you think they will buy it?”

“It doesn’t matter what they think while we’re counting. Only that we don’t finish until the material arrives.”

Mehta ambled outside onto the veranda and sniffed the air, the blooms of his perfectly manicured grounds scenting the surroundings with floral perfection. He could hear a generator thrumming in the background on Suri’s end of the line, reminding him of the rural conditions at the camp.

The mine was now over fifty years old, invisible from the air, located in a hidden valley far from any roads, and his security was foolproof — the penalty for attempting to escape was death. It had been so for as long as he’d been alive, put in place by his grandfather after the war and continued by his father, until the mantle had been handed over to Mehta. The government left him alone, turning a blind eye to his methods as it had for eons, the appropriate parties were well paid to ignore the goings-on that directly benefited them, the camp’s production gladly taken by them since the mine had begun operating.

This transaction had been one he’d been reluctant to do, though, and he had only agreed to entertain it at the behest of his newest benefactors — the Americans, who had arranged through a cutout for an introduction to the customers’ group after swearing him to secrecy. The proposal from the Americans hadn’t surprised him in the least, even though the customer was supposedly their sworn enemy, and Mehta had been told to keep their involvement silent. It was well understood in certain circles that the Americans’ clandestine agendas were as Machiavellian and unknowable as those of a court mistress, and if their wishes made him richer, so much the better. Because there was no such thing as wealthy enough, he knew.

And in only two more days, it would all come to fruition.

He turned from the window and resumed his call. “I will arrive there in the late morning the day after tomorrow and will require entertainment that evening. Select suitable candidates for my approval after dinner.”

“The usual age?” Suri asked.

“Of course. And nobody sick.”

“Absolutely not. I shall put out the word.”

“Very well. Call me if there are any changes. If not, I will be at the camp by dusk.”

Suri hung up and looked around at the barren terrain. He checked the charge on his satellite phone and then marched toward the rent in the mountain that was the entry to the camp, the actual mine many stories below it. As he made his way to the caverns, he smiled to himself — he’d already chosen four young blossoms for Mehta’s pleasure, barely into their budding womanhood. His master would be pleased by his selections, he was sure.

He signaled to one of the guards standing just inside the cave, and the man whistled. A boy came running carrying an LED lantern, his bare chest pale as a ghost, his feet clad in sandals made from discarded tires pilfered from a distant dump. The boy and his kind had never seen the sun for more than a few hours at a time; the lion’s share of the population were confined below ground, with only a fortunate few allowed above to tend to the gardens that fed the rest.

Suri didn’t question the arrangement, nor his part in it. He was simply following his master’s orders and was well rewarded for his obedience.

As his father had done before him.

And as would his oldest son, eventually, he was sure, when Suri became too old for his responsibilities.

Exploiting his fellow human beings and dooming them to short lives of misery was just the way things worked, and he didn’t judge the morality of it any more than a crocodile hesitated before snapping its jaws tight on a fish. It had always been that way — the strong conquered the weak, and to hope for a different world was foolishness he didn’t engage in. Suri was a pragmatist and understood that if he wasn’t directing operations at the camp, someone else would be.

The boy waited motionless as Suri entered the cave, and then turned and led him along a path polished smooth by generations of feet, deep into the earth, into a hell that was the only reality the child would ever know.