The Goddess Legacy

Chapter 49

Nayan Mehta felt for his cell phone in the pocket of his hand-tailored pajamas, the little device’s warble shattering the silence of his bedroom, where he was reading a report on his construction company’s profit and losses for the quarter as light bedtime fare. He was in no mood to take a call, but his annoyance receded when he saw the caller ID.

“My brother, it has been too long,” Mehta answered.

“How is the lifestyle of the rich and famous treating you?”

“No complaints. Although you’re more famous than I,” Mehta teased.

“But nowhere near as rich,” Swami Baba Raja fired back.

“The universe works in mysterious ways. What’s going on?”

“I had a troubling incident at the ashram last night, and I wanted to see if you knew anything about it.”

Mehta sat up straighter. “What? What happened?”

“Someone broke in and tried to steal the statue of Kali you gave me.”

“The hell you say.”

“It is true. First the sword, and now the idol…”

“I’m working on retrieving the sword, but it has proven more elusive than I’d hoped.”

Swami Baba Raja didn’t say anything for a long moment. When he did, his voice was soft. “Does the… cult know I have the statue?”

“Of course not. Are you mad?” Mehta had obtained the relic when a team of his miners had inadvertently broken through a cave wall, violating the sanctity of its resting place. He’d left the rest of the artifacts in the cave, but had been taken by the beauty of the dancing Kali and had secretly removed the idol before sealing the cavern back up and shutting down exploration in that area. But he knew that if those who held the relic to be sacred ever discovered his duplicity, they would exact a terrible revenge.

“It is a possible explanation,” Baba Raja reasoned, his tone glum.

“You say someone tried to steal it. Which means they were unsuccessful?”

“Correct. They were interrupted mid-process. The bastards were in my bedroom while I was sleeping. I naturally thought…”

“The cult has no idea. That you are still alive should be all the proof you require. If it had been them, you’d have never heard or seen anything.”

“We think it was a pair of mercenaries. American.”

“Are you sure?”

“There are several devotees missing. Among them two new arrivals.”

“Who are they?”

“We only have what they wrote on their admission documents, which appears to be pure invention. Allie and Drake O’Keefe. From Kansas City. Brother and sister.”

“Allie and Drake?” Mehta repeated.

“Yes. Why? Does it mean something to you?” Baba Raja demanded.

Mehta’s tone was flat. “No. Just unusual names.”

“Is there something you aren’t telling me?”

“Why would I keep anything from you?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“You know everything I do. But if you’re unhurt, and they weren’t successful, no real harm done to anything but your dignity, right? Just add more guards. Things will be fine.”

“I didn’t know if this relates to… your thing.”

“Not as far as I can see. They are unconnected.”

The swami sounded unconvinced, but let it go. “You should come to the ashram more often. It has been too long.”

“My days are filled with other matters. But I will make time to see you. Soon.”

“It would delight me if you would.”

“There is nothing I live for more than your delight.”

After a few more minutes of banter Mehta hung up and stared at his balcony, lost in thought. Of course he recognized the names of the pair that Helms had reported had tried to buy him off, but that they had been so bold as to enter the ashram and attempt to steal the idol… that raised the stakes considerably.

He tried Helms’s cell a final time, with the same result — no answer. Mehta was reluctant to leave a message, his cautious nature erring on the side of the conservative, and he comforted himself with the observation that Helms was a seasoned operative who was tracking rank amateurs.

But still, it was worrisome that he had been out of contact since the prior evening.

Mehta rubbed his eyes and returned to the report, part of his mind still on the call from his brother, another on tomorrow. The first part would be devoted to travel — a dawn flight on his private jet to the Jammu airport, and then several hours by car, and then a cross-country ride on an ATV before arrival at the camp to meet his guests.

The camp.

Such an innocuous description for the hidden mine and the dark recesses of the mountain, where his slave laborers lived out their short, harsh lives before wasting away.

He forced the image of the mine’s horror out of his mind — it served no useful purpose to ruminate about such things, and he needed his sleep. Better to look forward to the celebratory debauchery that would follow the transaction than to focus on that which couldn’t be changed.

Mehta sighed and flipped a page of the report, and turned to the next column of numbers, any thoughts of the camp replaced by margin breakdowns and profit and loss projections.