13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
Kabir removed his pilot’s headset and began flipping switches on the Bell Ranger’s instrument panels to shut down the rotors. He turned to grin broadly at Sai in the co-pilot seat, then at Manish sitting behind.
‘Ready to make history, guys?’ he said over the falling pitch of the turbine.
Kabir’s two associates beamed back at him. Manish said, ‘Let’s rock and roll.’
As the helicopter’s rotors slowed to a whistling whip-whip-whip, the three companions clambered out and jumped down to the rocky ground. It had taken less than an hour from the urban hubbub of their base in New Delhi to reach the remoteness of Hisar District, Haryana, out in the middle of nowhere twenty miles north-west of a once barely-heard-of village called Rakhigarhi.
Kabir stood for a moment and gazed around him at the arid, semi-desert terrain that stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions. Far away beyond the barren escarpment of rocky hills behind him to the north-east lay Punjab, the Land of the Five Rivers; in front of him lay the wide-open semi-desertified plains, arid and rocky with just a few desiccated shrubs and wizened trees scattered here and there and offering no shade. It was mid-September, and the merciless heat of summer was past its worst, but the sun still beat fiercely down, baking the landscape.
Kabir was hardened to the heat, because of the outdoor demands of a job that often took him to difficult and inhospitable places all across the ancient Near East. Unlike his elder brothers, one of whom spent all his time in air-conditioned big-city boardrooms, and the other who, for reasons best known to him, had chosen to live in chilly, rain-sodden Britain. Very strange. Though if it was the life he shared with his beautiful new wife that kept him tied to London, Kabir couldn’t entirely blame the guy. She was something, all right. Maybe one day he, too, might be lucky enough to find a woman like her.
For now, though, Kabir’s sole devotion was to his work.
Kabir stepped back to the chopper, reached into a cool box behind the passenger seat and pulled out three cans of Coke, one for him and one each for Manish and Sai. His two bright, trusty graduate students were both in their early twenties, only a few years younger than Kabir, who happened to be the youngest professor ever to teach at the Institute of Archaeology in Delhi. With his warm personality and winning smile, he was widely held to be the most popular, too – though he was far too modest to admit it.
Sai rolled the cold can over his brow, then cracked the ring and took a long drink. ‘That hit the spot. Thanks, boss.’ Sai never called him ‘Professor’.
‘No littering, please,’ Kabir said. ‘This is a site of special archaeological interest, remember. Or soon to be.’
‘Doesn’t bloody look like it right now,’ Manish said.
Sai finished the can, crumpled it between his fingers and surveyed
