The swami nodded and held out a hand, palm up. “I will return for the ceremony in a moment. In the meantime, meditate upon the divine bliss that is ours to enjoy as holy treasure — the universe’s reminder of our collective divinity, celebrated in joyous union. It is love energy we are imbued with, the highest form there is, and I will show you how to harness it to speed your enlightenment.” He raised his goblet and toasted them, and all but Allie and Baba Raja drained their cups. The swami carried his goblet with him and slipped through the doorway to his private chambers, leaving them alone.
Patty swayed sleepily to the polyrhythmic beat of the music, and one of the locals ran her fingers through her hair with a spellbound stare. Allie scanned the room for anything that looked like a statue of Kali, but didn’t see anything. Sensing the ceremony would be something she’d rather avoid, she stood and tiptoed to the swami’s doorway and peered past the half-open door into the room. There was a massive bed in an adjoining chamber, its headboard the size of a car, and she eyed the wood-paneled walls of the outer room before her gaze settled on a towering display case in the sleeping chamber, opposite the bed. She gasped when she saw the glowing statue of the dancing goddess, and took a step toward it when she was startled by a sound in the antechamber. A door on the far side of the room opened and the swami stepped out.
He was surprised to see Allie at the door and frowned before composing his face in the familiar, peaceful expression that adorned the countless images of him that filled the ashram. “What is it, my child?” he asked.
“I… I’m sorry. I need to use the bathroom. I… I don’t feel well.”
“Of course. There is one off the ceremony room. Come, I will show you,” he said, and strode toward her.
“Thank you, Swami Baba Raja,” she intoned, doing her best to slur slightly, convinced that he’d drugged the juice to make the women more pliable.
He took her arm and led her out of the antechamber, taking care to close the door before showing Allie to a bathroom around the corner from where the women were sitting in a drugged fog.
Allie entered and noted that, unlike the dorms, this bathroom had the latest high-priced Japanese toilet, as well as gold faucets that poured into an onyx bowl sink. She used the facilities and inspected herself in the mirror, shuddering at the thought that it might be two-way glass, which would be perfectly in keeping with the swami’s tactics. When she returned to the ceremony area, Patti was shedding her top and the Portuguese girl was rubbing oil on her hands in preparation to anoint her, Allie presumed.
“I… I’m sorry, Swami, something’s wrong,” Allie said. “I think I might be having an allergic reaction to the juice. It can happen.”
Baba Raja looked more annoyed than concerned, but nodded in understanding. “Do you have medicine for this… affliction?”
“I carry it in my purse, but the front desk has everything…”
“Tell them it is an emergency,” the swami said, his stare now on Patty’s naked form, her smooth bronze skin shining with oil as the Portuguese girl went to work. “Do not tarry.”
Allie hurried to the main residence entrance, where Jadhav sat in a chair, reading. He looked up in surprise at Allie, who explained that she was having an adverse reaction and needed her medicine.
“I shall accompany you,” he said, his tone alarmed, no doubt afraid of the ramifications of a dead, drugged American at the ashram.
“No need. It’s not fatal, just makes it hard to breathe. I’ll be fine once I get my meds.”
Jadhav looked unconvinced, but nodded. “As you think best.”
Allie ducked out the main doors and rushed to the admission area, where a new woman was humming to herself behind the counter. “Yes?”
Allie explained she needed her bag, and the woman went in search of it. When she returned, she handed the sack to Allie and watched without expression as she rooted around in it for her backpack. Allie dropped her Indian cell phone on the floor with a curse, and the woman leaned to pick it up. Allie palmed her U.S. phone case and slipped it into her waistband at her back as the woman was distracted, and then pretended to extract a small pill before handing the bag back to the woman, who replaced the cell phone in its recesses. “Thank you,” Allie said. “That was my last tablet.”
“Will you be okay?”
“I hope so.” Allie pretended to place the imaginary pill in her mouth and dry swallow it. “Are you open all night, just in case?”
“Yes. Those seeking bliss come when they come. Let us know if you need anything.”
“I will. Thank you.”
The woman watched as Allie walked away, a troubled expression on her face, and then shuffled to the rear of the building with Allie’s sack.
Allie made her way to Drake’s room and rapped softly on the door. After a handful of seconds he cracked it open and she shouldered her way in.
“Guess I don’t need to ask how it went,” he said, eyeing her with a frown.
“He tried to drug me. The other girls went for it hook, line, and sinker. It was getting sexy-time when I bowed out.”
Drake brightened. “You did?”
“I pretended I was having a bad reaction to the dope. He bought it. Besides, he had his hands full with the other four. But the most important part is that I saw the idol.”
“Where?”
“That’s the tough part. It’s in his bedroom, in a case about ten feet off the ground.”
“Can we get in there?”
“I saw some windows. We’ll have to check them out from outside, but they looked wide enough.”
Drake nodded. “So what do you want to do?”
She held her phone aloft with a grin. “Have camera, will travel. I say we wait until everyone’s asleep, and make our move.”
They were interrupted by a pounding on the door. Allie tossed Drake the phone and he slid it beneath his pillow as Allie went to unlock it. When she opened the door, Jadhav stood in the opening, a guard by his side, the little man’s eyes burning like embers in the dark of the walkway.
Chapter 40
Indiana Singh watched three go-go dancers bump and grind to the pounding techno beat of an internationally heralded DJ spinning tunes from his station on the raised stage. Singh took another swig of champagne and closed his eyes, letting the rhythm shake him to his roots, the alcohol a welcome relief after days of sleepless tension.
Kitty Kat, an upscale club that catered to the city’s elite, was jumping. The crush of bodies undulating on the dance floor was a nightly mating ritual for the privileged, and the cost of admission to the exclusive venue exorbitant — but not tonight, on Singh’s last outing in New Delhi on his victory lap.
He was now a rich man; only a tiny fraction of the planet possessed more than he, and he had decided to spend some of it living large for a night on the town before leaving forever, his ticket to Sri Lanka already purchased, a new life calling to him beneath a palm tree on a secluded white sand beach.
The DJ yelled into his microphone and the crowd went wild, hands waving in the air as the computerized lights overhead strobed and spun and changed color. Singh opened his eyes and rubbed them with a trembling hand, suddenly light-headed from the unaccustomed alcohol. A young woman at the bar next to him batted her eyes flirtatiously and he smiled, his teeth glowing white in the black lights shining from the ceiling. She toasted him with a champagne flute and turned to whisper something to her friend, another woman wearing expensive designer jeans and a top that cost as much as his motorbike.