Immortals (15 page)

Jai waited for another hour before he pulled up a chair by the bed and said:

‘Sir, I am sorry but I have to tell you the truth. I am Jai and she is Henna, and we are not from the police.’

The professor sat up on the bed; he had guessed that much. Jai continued:

‘Sir, you have to believe me that I had no part in the attempt on your life. I came to know what was going to happen to you and I had to save you. Not out of the goodness of my heart, but for a very selfish reason. I need you to help me sort out my life.’

The professor still had a shocked look on his face. He glanced from Jai’s face to the door and found the girl standing near the door, ready to leap at him in case he made a run for the door to escape. That brought a smile to his face despite the situation he found himself in.

‘How did you come to know of the attack on me?’

‘It’s a long and crazy story, Sir, the story of my life. I want you to bear with me for a while. Then if you feel you do not want to have anything to do with me, I will let you leave.’

The professor looked into Jai’s eyes and all he saw was the earnestness and pleading of a young boy who had had it rough all his life.

‘What’s the story?’ the professor asked Jai with all the compassion he could muster. The least he could do was to hear him out. After all, the boy had saved his life and he did not intend to wrestle his way out with the feisty-looking teenage girl by the door.

Jai took a deep breath, looked at Henna, started from the earliest memories of his life, his dreams, and then as methodically as he could, narrated everything from the start to the end.

Almost an hour had passed by the time he finished and it was time for the news by then. The professor was speechless. He had not opened his mouth since the beginning of Jai’s story. It was an incredible story, perhaps too incredible to be false. Moreover, the professor was a good listener. He could see the strain on the boy’s face as he struggled to keep the narrative in a straight line. He did not want to befuddle his narrative by asking any questions in between. The patient hearing was worth the tale he got from the boy. How could a slum boy of seventeen weave such a fantastic yarn all by himself? That meant there was a possibility that all of it was an elaborate prank, and that this boy was not what he claimed to be. Or it could all be true. Could that be the case? Wouldn’t that be fantastic? They looked harmless, definitely in some kind of mess. He was in no danger. They would not harm him.

He had to find out more about this story.

Finally, with all these possibilities running around his head, the professor asked:

‘But why should I believe this incredible tale of yours?’

Jai got up from his chair and switched on the TV.

‘I am glad you asked me that. I have been with you this whole time and what I am about to tell you should be proof enough for my story.’

‘What are you going to tell me that can possibly convince me of such a fantastic story?’ the professor wondered aloud, dismissive in his tone, not believing that there was anything that could influence him enough to believe in the story as anything beyond what it was… a great story.

Jai continued, ignoring the disdain in the professor’s tone:

‘When I saw the news about your murder, I also remember seeing three or four other news items. I have been with you now for the past two hours or so and this time round I have had no way of learning of them and getting them right. I hope you understand what I am trying to tell you and hope this satisfies you, Sir. And after my small demonstration, I sincerely hope that you will believe in me, Sir.’

Jai took a pad and a pen and wrote down a list for the professor:

1. From the ‘Aaj Tak’ channel sports news
   
1. India defeats Australia by 120 runs. Dhoni makes 43 runs and hits the winning four runs with three overs to spare.
   
2. South Africa defeats New Zealand by three points in a rugby match.
   
3. Some Vettel guy wins the F-1 race.
   
2. From the ‘India TV’ channel
   
1. Showing rescue attempts of a bus that has fallen into a gorge in Rishikesh
   

The professor read the list and looked up at Jai. Jai looked back into his eyes and said:

‘Well, if it is any consolation, your death got top billing in the news channel, which will, of course, not be shown in the news now.’

The professor laughed a tense laugh.

‘Yeah! Some consolation that is.’

The news had started. There was obviously no news about the shooting and death of Professor Ananthakrishnan and Jai felt happy about his role in averting that. He looked at Henna and she smiled at him.

The sports news started and the professor was busy comparing the news with what was written on the list that Jai had given to him. India’s victory and Vettel’s winning the race had happened within the last fifteen minutes and Jai had no way of knowing about them. The rugby score line had matched too and that had happened within the past hour as well.

Jai then switched channels to India TV and yet again, the bus accident was a breaking news item, having happened just over an hour ago.

The professor was shocked, to say the least. It could all be an elaborate ruse, a big conspiracy. But in all probability, it was possibly just the truth. Plain and very complicated, but the truth.

He fell silent for a long while, considering what had played out in front of him.

Finally he nodded his head and looked up at Jai.

‘Yes, I believe you. But tell me, what if I had not believed your story and the proof you have shown to me?’

Jai smiled and looked at Henna.

‘I probably would have played cards with you but that is a very long and painful process for me and I am glad that I don’t have to.’

Henna smiled back at Jai and somewhere between their smiles, the Professor too understood the importance of a card game as proof for Jai’s incredible adventure.

The Professor was actively involved in research in the field of noetics and had seen amazing things done by some people but nothing could hold a candle to what Jai had accomplished right before him. He had seen and researched mathematical idiot savants and had an inkling as to what was possible with the human brain. But what he had witnessed today was novel, even within the bizarreness of his exotic scientific pursuit.

Jai had just told him an extraordinary story. Could it all be true? Were these just fantastic visions that were coming to his head? Or could he be the real thing? Over the years the professor had come, with a number of other significant scientists, to believe in the concept of a non-linear time, which bent on itself as did the space that it enveloped. Time was just another dimension as were the co-ordinates of space and it was theoretically possible to scale up and down this dimension just as you would on any other coordinate. It was even possible among scientific circles to boldly say that time in all its forms – past, present and future – existed together and all at once. Could Jai’s brain simply have the ability to see into different swathes of this non-linear ever-present time? There have been people who have predicted the future and some have even made claims of having been there. But there was not a single shred of reproducible proof for all the hullaballoo that went on in the paranormal circles. Jai was an opportunity. The gift that Jai possessed was extraordinary and it was serendipity, an act of God or a quirk of fate that had landed him right at his doorstep. Not that the professor believed in either God or fate, or in their ability to influence the cycle of action and reaction that governed everything in this world. Could he work with Jai and the girl and get to make a tangible scientific discovery using what was happening to Jai? He had to make a quick decision.

And he made that decision in a few seconds. At least the boy and his story, and the evidence that he had placed before him, merited an investigation.

‘Okay! I want to help you. Not because I am entirely convinced, but because I just want to help two lovely people who just saved my life. Is it okay with you two?’ He looked at Jai and the girl who he now knew as Henna. Henna smiled at him. Jai looked at Henna and she nodded to him.

‘Yeah, it is okay with us,’ Jai replied.

‘So, what do we do now?’ the professor asked Jai.

‘Whatever you want to do. You can leave now. We will stay here for some more time and then leave this place. We can take your number, get in touch with you, and give you my new phone number as soon as I have one. You can let us know when to come in. To be very frank, I don’t know where to go. I guess I will have to just keep running with her,’ he pointed towards Henna, ‘and if anything harms her, I will just reset my life and save her. Nothing means more to me than her.’

‘And will you be running from the police all this while?’ the professor asked of Jai.

‘Well, it’s not only the police that we are running away from. I mean, the police is easy but it is the gangs I am worried about.’

There was a moment of silence and then Jai laughed.

‘But hey! I get to reboot my life, isn’t it? So, I guess we will get by.’

Professor Ananthakrishnan thought hard. It was not safe leaving them there. Moreover, he did not want to risk losing them.

‘No, that will not do. You are leaving with me. I have a friend who has a farmhouse some twenty kilometres down this road. I can hide you there until I see what I can do about this interesting situation that you find yourself in. Is that okay?’

Jai nodded.

‘Okay with us.’ He looked up at Henna and she nodded again.

Within ten minutes, Jai, Henna, and the professor headed for the farmhouse on a public bus, abandoning the van at the hotel. Jai knew that with the police and the scum of Mumbai’s underworld after them, the closest thing to help was this elderly, retired professor. He was possibly the only one who could possibly explain to Jai what he had been going through and help him understand the nightmare that had dogged him his whole life.

***

Superintendent of Police, Mumbai West, Ajith Swaminathan was flabbergasted. He had just heard about the re-appearance of Jai and Juliet on a video grab from an attempted assassination of a renowned scientist in Kalpakkam near Chennai.

‘What the fuck is happening?’ he cursed loudly. He did not use cuss-words easily but this was definitely not an easy situation.

The CD had landed at his desk an hour ago and he had played the one-and-a-half-minute clip back and forth thirty times until now.

It was a grainy video grab from a boutique’s surveillance video from across the scientist’s house and it showed the attempted assassination in fairly good detail.

The bikers had been identified from their bodies – they were Ajmal Ahmed and Nur Mohammed, two suspected
Lashkar-e-Toiba
(LeT) operatives who had sneaked into the country a couple of weeks ago and against whom a massive manhunt had been launched with little success. Nur had pulled out his gun and had been about to shoot the said scientist, when their plans were thwarted by a man in a Maruti Ertiga van, who rammed into the terrorists’ motorcycle head on, got down from the van, and pumped bullets into the assassins, killing them on the spot before whisking away the scientist in his van. The man in the van was Jai.

Ajith cursed yet again on seeing Jai’s face.

The video grab had very clearly shown Jai’s face as he had turned for a brief moment after taking the shots at the terrorists. There was a brief glimpse of another pair of hands, probably feminine, which had helped the old scientist get inside the van before it sped away.

The video was analysed and some geek at NIA, sitting behind a computer screen, had identified the face from the alert that Mumbai police had issued ten days ago. Ajith, as the officer in charge of Jai’s case, had been summoned to Chennai immediately to join a task force that was being formed to find the retired scientist who was still missing.

Ajith was at his wit’s end, trying to piece together the puzzle. He could not for the life of him understand how Jai and Juliet had ended up in this mess with the LeT. That was simply not the boy’s game. The situation was becoming murkier by the minute.

He had a feeling that he was missing something big here.

***

Ajith reached Chennai late at night and the police jeep immediately took him from the airport to the scene of the crime in Kalpakkam.

The place was a circus, with at least a hundred vehicles with different coloured beacon-lights parked on the street outside the house. Ajith went inside and there was a brief round of introductions. The who’s who of Chennai police and the Secretariat were present. The Chief Minister had just left, having spent close to half an hour with the distraught family members. She had assured the waiting media that all efforts were underway to bring home the retired professor safe. She did not let go of an opportunity to take a dig at the Central Government, under whom the security of the nuclear installation of Kalpakkam fell.

‘Professor Ananthakrishnan is an asset and this brazen act of his kidnapping is a serious blemish on the Indian security agencies,’ she stated to the reporters.

Chennai police and the NIA were not just paying lip service to the importance of the case; they really were running up and down the state trying to turn up leads to the missing professor’s whereabouts. Everyone present greeted Ajith cordially and he reported to the Commissioner of Police, Chennai. He then sat down with the investigating officers of the case, two NIA Detectives, Durai Murugan and Jos Fernandes. They went through a rough sketch of what had happened during that day and then, Ajith was brought up to date with what progress had been achieved until then. The investigating team had traced the Ertiga van to a beachside hotel not far from Kalpakkam. The hotel manager had no idea when his guests had slipped out, as the vehicle was still parked on the hotel premises.