THE HUNT FOR KOHINOOR BOOK 2 OF THE THRILLER SERIES FEATURING MEHRUNISA Read Online Free PDF Page A

gardens on Sunday morning when a bomb went off. He was taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences Hospital in Islamabad where he was declared dead.
    Initial reports suggest the attacker was a guard at his house who was also killed in the attack. No exact motive is known but it is believed that he was a suicide bomber. There have been previous attacks on the President’s life and he had been receiving death threats since the attack on Lal Masjid in which 100 suspected militants were killed.
    The night before his death he told a political rally: ‘I don’t mind if my life goes in the service of the nation. If I die today, every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation.’
    Security throughout the country has been stepped up. Roads to the hospital and the home of the President have been sealed off and borders around Islamabad have been closed.
    After going through the news article twice over, Mehrunisa read the headlines aloud to her godfather. The elderly professor sat slumped in his chair, his gaze fixed on the vase of gerbera daisies on the table. He showed no sign of following what was being read out. His hands lay limp on his lap, just the way they had been positioned after he was led out of his bedroom to the dining table.
    Mehrunisa finished reading and scrutinized her godfather. While the news was significant in itself, perhaps the daily reports of violence in the region had lessened the impact. She folded the paper and kept it aside. That the headlines had failed to stir the professor was not unusual. Days passed in which he would show no sign of registering anything, in repose amid the routine of the household, until suddenly he would surprise her with a pertinent question on her ongoing assignment or the political climate of the nation.
    With a smile at the professor, she tried again. Nodding toward the window from which sunlight was filtering in, she said, ‘Looks like a sunny day. Would you like to sit outside in your favourite spot?’
    The professor stayed listless. Mehrunisa continued talking to him, detailing the site she was planning to visit that day. She worked with the Archaeological Survey of India as a consultant, just as her godfather had done before her. After the professor’s illness, the ASI Director-General had offered her the job, suggesting she fill the professor’s shoes. Mehrunisa, of course, entertained no such notions.
    Professor Kaul was an eminent historian, an authority on Mughal India, highly regarded for his extensive study of Indian monuments of the Mughal period. The only scholar permitted by the Government of India to take measurements of the Taj Mahal, Kaul had worked on the world-famous monument for a majority of his fifty-odd years as an art and architectural historian. His book, The Taj , was regarded as a definitive work. In addition, he had served as the architectural advisor to the Taj Mahal Conservation Collaborative, a project set up for the conservation, restoration and beautification of the seventeenth-century mausoleum.
    After her mother’s passing, Mehrunisa had come to India to work on a project researching Indo-Persian linkages. It was a subconscious effort to connect with her binary roots, the legacy of a Persian mother and a Punjabi father. Her godfather, Professor Kaul, in whose Delhi home she had spent most summer vacations as a child, had taken her under his tutelage. That brilliant mind, however, had succumbed to Korsakov’s syndrome. It was a case of a profound and perhaps permanent devastation of memory. Mehrunisa’s constant communication with him was her attempt to jog his mind.
    The housekeeper Mangat Ram walked in with a rack of fresh toast. As he picked up the newspaper to make room, the headline caught his eye. He clucked, ‘This is what happens when you ride a tiger.’
    Mehrunisa shrugged, smiling at the folk wisdom. She bit into a toast and launched into a monologue about the renovation work she was overseeing in the historic Red Fort.