“Done.”
Singh’s phone beeped three minutes later, and he stopped abruptly in front of a street market. A cart piled impossibly high with boxes, easily the size of a pickup truck bed, creaked by on the rutted road, drawn by a man on a bicycle, followed by an oxcart that could have been out of the Middle Ages. Singh stepped closer to them, his voice barely audible.
“The dagger came to me from a man who was part of the inner circle at an ashram in Bhiwani — a spiritual center of great fame there, operated by a guru called Swami Baba Raja. He didn’t come out and say it, but it appears that he might have liberated it from the ashram as his last act before leaving it for good.”
“Bhiwani?” Drake asked. “Where is that?”
“Look it up,” Singh said. “Anyway, this man left the ashram under a cloud. He’d had a disagreement with the swami, and in that world, it would be akin to disagreeing with the Pope. The next day his body was found floating in the river, and I narrowly escaped the same fate at my shop that morning. It was strictly luck that my assistant told me two men had come looking for me, and she’d gotten a bad feeling about them. Then, when I saw the news about the swami’s acolyte… I called her and told her to close up the shop at lunchtime and to leave.” He looked away. “I… I never heard back from her after that.”
“You think those men were sent by the swami?”
“Either him or one of his many powerful devotees. Half the Indian government has made pilgrimages to Baba Raja’s ashram over the years, so it could have been someone he told about the loss of the dagger, whose help he enlisted. I don’t know, and I don’t care. All I know is that it’s too hot for me anymore in Delhi, so I’m retiring and getting out of town for good.”
“With a quarter mil, you should be able to live pretty well,” Allie said.
“A little more than that, but your point is taken. Yes, there are myriad places I can live like a maharaja for the rest of my life, leaving no trace to follow.” He looked hard at Allie. “As I’ve said, you would be well advised to forget the dagger and go back to your country before they find you. Believe me, they will do the same to you both as they did to your friend, and no amount of wealth and fame will help you.”
“You think the relic is in the ashram?”
“Swami Baba Raja is rumored to have quite a collection, so anything’s possible. But the truth is I have no way of knowing. Only the trusted few have ever seen his hoard, my contact one of them — and he’s not talking.” Singh paused.
“Why did he sell it to you?”
“He didn’t sell it to me. He entrusted it to my care, for me to broker a deal. He knew that I have a decent clientele of foreigners, and wanted to sell it to someone who wasn’t Indian.”
“Why would he trust you with it?” Drake asked.
Singh swallowed hard and looked away. “The man who brought me the dagger was my older brother.”
Chapter 34
Singh began walking through the market, his stride slow, his head down. Allie moved to his side.
“I’m so sorry, Indiana,” she said. “I know what it’s like to lose.”
When Singh spoke again, his voice was tight. “He practically raised me from the time I was ten. He was seven years older and stepped in when my parents were killed in a bus accident. He made sure I went to school, and did whatever he had to in order to see to it that we were provided for.” Singh stopped at a stand selling incense and religious icons and inspected the wares without interest. “Some of his activities were illegal, but he didn’t care — at seventeen, with two mouths to feed and no parents, he did what he could, and we got by. But I know that once I received a scholarship to university, he had a change of heart and decided to follow the swami to atone for his misdeeds.”
“You got a scholarship?” Allie repeated, trying unsuccessfully to quell the surprise in her voice.
“Yes, hard as that is to believe,” he said, his tone bitter. “Anyway, I rarely saw him once he became one of the devout, and then a week ago he appeared out of the blue, agitated, wearing street clothes instead of his usual robes, with the dagger. He cautioned me that it could be dangerous to handle it, but I ignored his warning — I owed him everything, and I think I’d read too many of my own advertising brochures. It sounded like an adventure, and who better to embark on one than Indiana Singh?” He laughed bitterly, the sound dry. “Little did I know that was the last time I’d ever see him alive.”
“And Carson? How did you meet him?” Drake asked.
“He answered an ad I placed the afternoon my brother gave me the dagger. It was dumb luck.”
“You advertised the dagger?”
“Not in so many words. I said I was a dealer in antiquities, specializing in relics. Carson probably was scouring every source he could find for information. I got that impression, anyway. We corresponded, and I sent him a photo of the dagger. He agreed to purchase it after stalling a few days, and the rest you know. He was dead within forty-eight hours.”
“Nobody else expressed interest?”
“Nobody I trusted, let me put it that way. One, I believe, was genuine, but the price stopped the discussion cold. The others I now believe were trying to track me down.”
“Sounds like we need to get into this ashram,” Drake said. “Can you help?”
“Absolutely not. My involvement ends here. I want no further part of this. I’ve already lost my brother. The risk is far too high.”
“If it’s a matter of money…” Allie began.
“No. A wise man knows his limitations, as well as when he has enough. I’m alive, and I plan to stay that way. More money won’t help me do so. You’re on your own.”
With that, Singh spun and hurried away, and was quickly enveloped by the swarm of shoppers, and his turban disappeared into a sea of ebony hair.
“Indiana Singh turns down money. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” Drake said.
“He lost his brother, you heartless beast.”
“Ninety percent chance that was all BS.”
Allie shook her head. “I believe him.”
They returned to the street, and Allie called Spencer to fill him in. “We’re headed back your way. Nothing more we can do here,” she explained. “Add this Swami Baba Raja to your research list. And anything you can learn about his ashram. That’s where this trail is leading.”
They caught a taxi, and Allie’s next call was to the professor’s office. An older woman answered the phone, and Allie asked for Divya.
“One moment, please.” The line clicked and buzzed, and Allie had the mental image of an old-fashioned switchboard with an operator making connections using cords and plugs, like in a film she’d seen from the forties.
“Professor Sharma’s office. This is Divya Kapoor.”
“Divya, it’s Allie, from this morning?”
“Oh, yes, Allie, I’m glad you called. I tried your number earlier, but it didn’t connect.”
“Yes, I had an accident with my phone. I have a new one.” Allie hesitated. “Why did you call?”
“I remembered where I’ve seen a mosaic like that, and a few things clicked into place. There’s a temple in Jaipur that I believe houses it. But that’s nowhere near Kashmir.”
“Maybe Kashmir is a red herring?”
“I don’t think so. The professor was so sure the script was from that region, and he was very learned about such things.”
“We all make mistakes.”