The Hunt for Shambhala

26

Selena Moore and Charlie Valentine watched in horror as Kaleka dragged two young men into the room by their necks, one in each of his powerful hands. He threw them to the floor where they crashed a few yards in front of Madan, who now smiled and nodded his head with appreciation. “The runaways have returned,” he said.

“Please… sir!”

Madan looked terrifying — stripped naked to the waist he was now smeared in the cremation ashes of his last victims. This was an old Aghori tradition he had imported into his new cult, and now his eyes were bulging with excitement at the horrors to come. He moved a forefinger and Kaleka powered a hefty kick into the pleading man’s stomach. A sharp cracking sound was followed by a howl of pain as the man doubled over, winded, and began to nurse his broken ribs.

“No begging,” Madan said quietly. “I will not allow begging.”

“This guy’s a psycho, Lena,” Charlie whispered. “And something tells me these two poor bastards are just for starters.”

“Making us the main course, you mean?”

Madan rose from his chair and began to strut up and down in front of the kneeling men. He gently stroked his moustache for a moment and then turned to the small audience of guards and lackeys in the room. “Now, friends, we must take these men to Ashoka’s Hell.”

Selena and Charlie exchanged a worried glance as Kaleka and his goons pulled the two men to their feet and then turned their guns on the English prisoners. “This way,” Kaleka said. “Now.”

They followed Madan and Kaleka through a door and then down a flight of stone steps until they reached what Selena thought looked like a dungeon.

“What the hell is this place?” Selena said taking a step back. Her reluctance to enter was met by Kaleka, who slammed her forward hard with his hand. She stumbled into the chamber and Charlie reached out a hand to stop her falling over.

“This is my homage to King Ashoka,” Madan said with pride. “Not far from here, in Patna, but a very long time ago, the king created a torture chamber so elaborate and dreadful that even to this day, thousands of years later, it is known to the enlightened as Ashoka’s Hell.”

“I’m not happy about those furnaces, Lena.”

Selena glanced at him, but said nothing.

“The delights of Ashoka’s Hell are as varied as they are imaginative, but two of them in particular stand out to me — boiling people alive in human blood, and drowning them in molten metal.”

“The furnaces, Lena,” Charlie repeated. “There are fucking furnaces and now he’s talking about molten metal.”

“Of course,” Madan continued, “these are not exactly methods of torture, but methods of execution — but you would be surprised how quickly someone tells you what you need to know when faced with a wrought-iron crucible full of molten copper an inch above their stomachs.”

“Yes, funny that,” Selena said.

“Molten copper eats through human flesh like a starved tiger on a baby deer, Professor Moore. There’s nothing remotely funny about it.”

“I think you missed the sarcasm,” Charlie said.

Madan walked over to him until their faces were no more than a few inches apart. “When that metal leaves the crucible, Mr Valentine, I’ve heard men scream for the mercy of death. I say that without any sarcasm.”

“You can’t murder these men, Madan,” Selena said, breaking the silence that followed his last sentence. “They’re guilty of nothing except wanting to escape your barbarity.”

“But guilty all the same,” Madan said, and turned to Kaleka. “Take them over to the furnaces and strap them down to the bench.”

She watched with confusion as Madan’s friends and lackeys gathered on a viewing platform above the furnaces.

Madan noticed her disgust and turned to her. “Not much happens on the estate. You must forgive them. The last time we gathered was to watch a thief boiled to death in human blood but the truth is several of my workers died this season and I can’t afford the extra wastage. Copper is much easier to source.”

“You kill your workers to get the blood?” Charlie said.

“Naturally.”

“You son of a bitch,” Selena said.

“Kaleka — prepare the crucible.”

Then everything changed. She saw Decker first, and he looked different now. His face was harder, a steely determination in place of his usual relaxed nonchalance. It was another reminder that Mitch Decker wasn’t just the pilot of a questionable cargo plane, but a former US Marine officer with all the training and experience that went with it.

Kaleka leaped for cover behind the furnace, kicking the crucible over with his steel toecap boot as he went. The runaways were still strapped to the benches, and now a large puddle of molten copper was spilling out below them, slowly eating into the wooden legs of the benches holding them up. They screamed for help, and in the chaos Selena and Charlie rushed over and untied them as Decker’s assault unfolded in Madan’s personal torture chamber.

The American had the Avalon’s Glock in his hand and was firing on Kaleka. The Indian scrambled up the steps to join Madan who was trying to flee through a door behind the viewing platform.

His bullet hit one of the goons behind Kaleka and struck his shoulder. A burst of shattered bone and bloody tissue exploded into the air and the man spun around with the force of the impact. Selena wondered what would happen next, but then Decker fired again and dropped the man with a clear shot to the forehead, and her wondering was over.

But the battle wasn’t. With new cover behind the viewing platform, Madan ordered Kaleka and the other men to return fire on the invaders. Fire poured from a vast array of destruction in the hands of Madan’s forces, including machine pistols, automatic rifles and even a couple of grenades.

Selena and Charlie were taking cover behind the furnaces now, and Diana ran over to them as Decker fired on the platform to cover her.

“Are you okay?” she asked,

“Yes,” Selena said, glancing at the smouldering copper. “But very nearly not.”

Another grenade skidded and spun to a stop beside them, and Riley surprised even Selena by snatching it up and throwing it back where it came from. He had cut it too fine and it detonated in the air between them and the intended targets on the platform. The explosion was hefty, and blasted pieces of twisted shrapnel all over the chamber at hundreds of miles per hour. They lodged into the wall above the Australian’s head and tore a large chunk out of the calf muscle of one of Madan’s fleeing men.

The man crashed into the floor of the platform a few feet away from the exit door and pleaded with Madan to pull him up, but the Indian billionaire ordered Kaleka to deal with him and his response was to kick him away. The kick was so powerful he propelled him clean off the platform and he landed on the floor in the molten copper. As the liquid metal splashed all over his back the man’s hoarse screams of terror rose above even the sound of the gunfire.

He rolled over in panic, but only succeeded in covering even more of himself in the molten metal, and now he scrambled away out of the chamber with chunks of his cooked flesh falling away under the weight of the sizzling, cooling copper.

Decker was almost out of ammo and he knew it. He always counted a magazine down — old habits die hard — and the situation in Madan’s torture chamber was going from bad to worse. With his final rounds expended in an attempt to hit Kaleka as he disappeared through the viewing platform exit, the American searched the room for another weapon.

He was answered by Riley, who had snatched up the burning man’s MP5 and his rampuri — an Indian gravity knife rightly feared by any who knew of its reputation. Used for centuries by the Indian Thuggee cult, one of them was now in the hands of Riley Carr, and Decker wasn’t sure which would turn out to be the most dangerous proposition.

Bhandari reloaded his Herstal P90 and charged the viewing platform. Firing short bursts as he advanced, he took out the last of the men Madan had ordered to guard the door. Behind him Johar was providing cover, and now Riley and Decker moved forward to join them.

“Glad you could make it, Mr Decker,” Selena said as he passed the furnaces.

“You and Charlie head back to the accommodation block and start releasing the tea pickers,” Decker said, ignoring her comment. “Looks like Madan and his men are heading out the back, so we’ll go after him while you free the slaves… and get Diana away from this nightmare.”

Selena, Charlie and Diana ran for the chamber’s main entrance and disappeared from sight, but Decker’s attention was already focussed on the sound of submachine gunfire coming from the other side of the door.

“Where are Bhandari and Johar?” he yelled at Riley.

“They went through the jaws of hell a few seconds ago,” Riley said, pointing the rampuri at the viewing platform door.

They ran to the door and were met by a terrible sight — Bhandari was dead. His skull had been shattered and he was lying in a pool of his own blood. Johar had been trying to revive him but now he pushed away from the corpse with a look of rage on his face. “This is Kaleka’s work. Killing Bhandari has pushed this way over the line,” he said.

It was then Riley heard the sound of helicopter rotors booming above compound. “Where’s Madan?” he asked.

“He’s gone,” Johar said. “He and the others have fled with their army. They’re already on their way to Shambhala.”

“And Madan’s still got the buggering journal!” Riley said.

“Sure,” said Decker. “But we’ve got Selena and Diana and they know more than any damned journal.”

Johar looked at his dead friend. “I must avenge him, Captain Decker.”

Decker nodded and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get back to the Avalon.”