The Goddess Legacy

Chapter 57

Mehta’s face blanched as he listened to the frenzied reports on the communications channel. When Suri warned that helicopters were over the camp, he sprang into action, snatching the dagger from his desk and taking off through the passage that led to the processing area, where the uranium ore was milled and chemically synthesized into yellowcake before being shipped off for refinement.

He slid the dagger into his belt as he ran past the milling cave and made a left turn into an unlit recession. He stopped at an iron door mounted into the stone and fumbled for a key that hung from the gold chain around his neck. The lock opened with a pop, and he stepped into the darkness and felt for a flashlight in a holder mounted on the wall. His fingers found the cylinder, and he spun a small crank on the end, creating sufficient charge to power the LED bulb. Once he could see, he locked the bolt in place and knelt by a green canvas sack with a timer on top.

Mehta set the device for three minutes, and the blinking red clock began a reverse countdown. He nodded to himself and then ran to the end of the tunnel, where rungs leading up into gloom were sunk into the stone. Holding the light in one hand, he used the other to pull himself up, two stories, where the shaft intersected with another passage. He heaved himself onto the passageway floor and leaned over to close a steel hatch. Mehta latched it into place and got to his feet, cranked the flashlight again, and crept cautiously along the tunnel.

He was well away from the hatch when the charge by the door below blew. Part of the floor behind him collapsed, sending a cloud of dust billowing toward him. He held his breath and pushed himself to greater speed as he was enveloped by grit, and pulled his shirt over his nose and mouth as he felt his way along the stone walls.

Five minutes later he was in clear air, in a large cavern with a shimmering pool in its center. His light played along the walls, and he made for a gap at chest level on the far side — a natural chute through which water entered from the mountain above during cloudbursts. When he reached the opening, he dragged his ample frame into the narrow space and crawled thirty yards, where he could feel a slight draft of cool air from beyond the vegetation that covered the opening of his emergency escape outlet.

Once in the night air, he made his way down a steep ravine to a creek and hurried away from the camp on the other side of the mountain, toward one of the nearby hill villages, where he could arrange for transportation to a main road. He had no doubt that he’d been double-crossed, but there was little he could do about it at this point, other than to make it known to his supporters in the Indian government.

That the camp was finished didn’t trouble him greatly — its usefulness had long since faded as his fortune from other ventures had swelled. The revenues from providing the government with undocumented yellowcake paled in comparison to his legitimate income since the country had undergone a construction boom, and maintaining the camp was now more a nuisance than anything, one which he’d toyed with shutting down of his own accord.

He would send a trusted team to recover the euros that were hidden under the floor of the mobile building he used as his quarters when at the camp, assuming the attackers had missed the stash in the excitement of battle, and then move on to other things, his career as a slaver at an end.

Far below, on the approach to the dam, he saw lights twinkling in a tiny hamlet inhabited by dirt-poor farmers who would be overjoyed to have a prosperous stranger appear in their midst and bestow riches upon them in exchange for a ride. Even at the late hour, his pocket money would be a month’s earnings for the farmers, and he had no doubt that by daybreak he would be on his way to Delhi, no worse for wear, the entire unpleasant mess behind him except necessary cleanup he could count on both governments to assist him with — everyone had much to lose in creating an international incident, and their self-interests would bind them together with the strongest glue.