Apart from the main room, there was just a kitchenette with a greasy stove and a cockroach on the wall. Off that was a door to a tiny cubicle with a stinking toilet. On a chipped sideboard in the kitchen he found a knife. A very big knife. It had a tarnished brass hand-guard, like a sabre, and the broad blade in the leather sheath was twelve or thirteen inches long. It made him think about the brutal wounds on Morgan Paxton’s body. The kind of wounds that a heavy hacking blade like this would inflict.
He left it lying there. Stepping away, he felt a loose floorboard under his foot. It lifted up at one end when he stamped on it. He kicked it away, revealing a hollow space under the floor about eight inches high. There was a crumpled plastic bag stuffed inside.
He kneeled down next to the hole and used the gun to fish the bag out by its handle, then scattered the contents out on the floor and sifted them about with the pistol muzzle. There was a bundle of banknotes held together with an elastic band and a few other papers. Those didn’t interest him. What did interest him were the debit and credit cards in Morgan Paxton’s name, and his British Library membership card. Then among the papers he found a UK passport. He flipped it open with the gun and Morgan’s face stared up at him from inside.
He left the evidence where it lay. If there’d been a doubt in his mind, it was gone now.
As an afterthought he crouched down lower to the floor and stuck his whole arm inside the hollow space. It was a long shot, but these guys were such amateurs that anything was possible.
His fingers made contact with something that wasn’t wood or masonry. It felt rounded and smooth and plasticky He grasped it and felt it move. A few inches, and he could see it. The manufacturer’s logo in silver letters on black plastic. It was a small laptop computer.
He pulled the machine up out of the hole and set it down on the floor in front of him, resisting the temptation to flip open the lid and turn it on. No time for that now. He just stared at it instead. Was this Morgan Paxton’s laptop? The chances were that it was. Either the thieves hadn’t got around to selling it yet, or they’d fancied keeping it for themselves.
Ben grabbed the machine and carried it back into the main room. The two guys were still lying there, slumped against the wall. One of them was trying to say something. Ben laid the laptop carefully down on the glass-topped table. He stepped towards his prisoners, took the gun from his belt and pointed it at them.
‘Why did you have to kill him?’ he asked in Arabic. ‘Don’t you know what you’ve brought on yourselves, doing that? All for a line of coke. Is it worth it?’
‘I didn’t do it,’ the younger one blurted out, suddenly finding his voice. His face was twitching as he watched the gun. He pointed a finger at his friend. ‘He stabbed the guy. I told him not to. But he just kept sticking the knife in.’
‘You think I care which one of you put the knife in?’ Ben said.
The younger one was crying now. The other just stared in dumb terror.
‘What happened to the case and the papers?’ Ben asked. ‘I know they were there. You took them. Don’t lie to me.’
No reply. Just the quiet sobbing from the younger one. Then the older of the two guys spoke for the first time. ‘We burned the papers. Sold the case.’
Ben nodded. So be it. Now it was time to finish his job.
He stepped back from them. Two steps. Three. He raised the pistol and let the sights hover on their bodies. He moved his thumb up to the safety lever and nudged it until he felt it click to the fire position.
The two were squirming. The younger one put his hands out, as though he thought he could shield himself from the strike of a 9mm jacketed bullet moving at close to the speed of sound. A dark stain was spreading over the crotch of his jeans.
Ben felt the cool, smooth face of the trigger against his finger. All he had to do was shoot these two scumbags, pick up what was left of Morgan’s things and get out of here. Nobody would even know they were dead, until the rotting-corpse stink found its way under the door and out into the hallway. In the Cairo heat, maybe less than two days. But that was plenty of time. There was no way the two women were going to run to the police, either. He was home free. All he had to do was pull the trigger.
You owe this to Harry Paxton, he thought.
He let the sights settle on the older of the two. His friend was probably telling the truth-this one was the killer. He had a harder look about him, even facing death.
Shoot him first, then the other. The debt to Paxton would be paid. Ben could go home and forget the whole thing.
But staring down at the two pathetic forms through the sights of the Browning, Ben knew he’d never forget. He’d sworn that he was never going to do this again, and it would be a broken promise to himself that he’d never be able to forgive.
The gun wavered in his hands. He let out a long breath. Voices argued in his head.
They’re shits. They deserve it. Look what they did. You saw the photos.
But your days of killing to order are behind you. You’re not SAS any more.
Two bullets. Then it’s done. It’s not like it would be the first time for you.
No. You can’t.
I’m sorry, Harry.
He lowered the gun. The two men were staring at him, wide-eyed, following his every move.
He clicked the safety back on, let the pistol dangle at his side.
‘OK,’ he said to them. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do.’
Chapter Eighteen
Three minutes later, the two junkies were lying bound and gagged on the rug. Just two parcels waiting to be delivered, as Ben made his preparations. He carefully wrapped Morgan Paxton’s striped cotton blazer around the laptop for protection, and slipped it into his bag. Then he fetched a rag from the kitchen, sat on the stool at the glass-topped table and stripped down Abdou’s CZ75 into its component parts. He used the rag to wipe everything down and reassembled the pistol, careful not to leave any prints.
The two prisoners craned their necks to eye him nervously as he worked. He ignored them. When the gun was back together he stood up and walked over to the older one. Holding the weapon butt-first with the rag, he grabbed the junkie’s right hand and smeared his prints all over the frame, slide and trigger guard. He walked back into the kitchen and stuffed the gun into the hole under the floor along with the rest of the evidence.
Locking the door behind him, he left the flat and made his way silently down the stairs to ground level. The taxi was still there, dusty under the faint streetlights. The driver was lounging smoking in his seat, clearly enjoying what was turning out to be a lucrative and easy job for him. Ben smiled. The guy was about to get a shock.
He climbed the stairs back to the junkies’ flat, unlocked the door and went inside. Nothing had changed. The two strained to peer up at him as he walked up to them. Their eyes were bulging, faces red, veins standing out on their foreheads. He grabbed the older one by the shirt collar and hauled him across the floor. The guy struggled and mumbled behind the gag. Ben dragged him along the passageway to the door, out into the hallway. He let the guy’s head crack down on the floor as he let him go to lock the door, then grabbed him again. ‘If you think I’m carrying you down,’ he said, ‘you’re much mistaken.’
The descent was fairly brutal, and after bumping down three flights of urine-smelling concrete stairs the guy’s protests had dwindled to a sobbing whimper. Ben heaved him up over his shoulder, glanced up and down the dark street to check nobody was around, and carried him across to the car.
The taxi driver was already out of his seat. His laid-back composure slipped a little when he saw the bound, gagged prisoner. ‘What are you doing?’ he gasped.
‘I’m making a citizen’s arrest.’ Ben opened the boot of the car and dumped the writhing body inside. ‘Leave it open. There’s another one to come.’
A couple of minutes later, both prisoners were stuffed in the boot. Ben slammed the lid. There was a muted squawk of pain and fear from inside. He
checked his watch. It was after three in the morning. He turned to the taxi driver. ‘Last call,’ he said. ‘These guys are going to jail.’
The taxi driver grinned and shook his head. ‘You are one crazy motherfucker,’ he said as he slipped back in behind the wheel.
‘Tell me about it,’ Ben answered. He climbed in the back, slammed the door and the car took off again, riding a little low at the back.
Down at the police headquarters, Ben went up to the main desk and asked for Ramoud, the officer in charge of Morgan’s case. He refused to talk to anyone else. After some consternation and a lot of whispering, someone went to fetch him. When he finally came breezing out of a doorway, Ramoud looked cartoonlike, small, fat and bald in a double-breasted grey suit.
Ben didn’t say much. He led the policeman out to the car, opened the boot and let him see what was inside. Then he told him what it was all about, what these people had done and where the evidence was that could prove it hands down. A cast-iron, slam-dunk guaranteed conviction.
The prisoners were bundled out of the car and dragged inside the station to be processed and thrown in the cells. Ben watched them being marched away. Stepped back outside, handed his driver a clutch of notes, thanked him and let him go.
Ramoud reappeared, eyeing Ben curiously. He gestured to follow him, and they made their way through labyrinthine neon-lit corridors until they came to a small office. Ramoud showed Ben to a chair and offered him coffee in a foam cup. It was tepid and tasteless but he welcomed it. Fatigue was wearing him down. It was four in the morning and he’d been on the move for a long time.
He had no objection to giving his name and letting Ramoud see his passport. As far as anyone was concerned, he’d done nothing wrong, broken no laws. He filled in a couple of forms, signed and dated them and slid them back across the desk.
‘I have a few more questions,’ Ramoud said with a smile.
‘Fire away,’ Ben replied. He knew they wouldn’t be too tough. The arrest wasn’t exactly standard procedure, but he got the feeling that the police chief had no problem with someone else doing his work for him. Ben guessed he wasn’t in for much of a grilling-and he was right. Ramoud skirted none too subtly around the whole issue of exactly how Ben had come across his information. He didn’t even ask what was in the bag, and Ben didn’t volunteer any information about it. The laptop and the blazer were strictly for Harry and, besides, he didn’t want to bring heat down on his informants. Barada was what he was, but Ben didn’t have any personal issue with the man. Plus, the nightclub owner might be inclined to go after Abdou, and the old crook didn’t deserve to lose any more fingers. At least, not over this.
Ramoud scrawled careless notes as Ben gave his statement. Now and then he would stop, chew the end of his pen and look up to ask another question. The answers Ben gave were ludicrously vague and would have attracted the deepest suspicion in any European police procedure, but Ramoud seemed perfectly satisfied and kept scribbling.
Ben smiled to himself. Corruption had its place, sometimes.
By 4.30 a.m., the detective had the paperwork wrapped up and seemed happy. He gave Ben his solemn assurance that he had men already dealing with the evidence and that, if it were half as incriminating as it sounded, the two guys were in the deepest shit imaginable.
Ben didn’t reply. From what he’d heard about the brutality and torture record of the Egyptian police, he had the impression that Morgan’s killers weren’t in for a pleasant time. That was fine by him, and it was the best payback he could offer on behalf of Harry Paxton.
‘Then we’re done?’ he said.
‘You are free to go. You have done the city a service. I thank you once again.’
‘I need to call a cab.’
‘No need. I will have one of my men drive you home.’
‘Thanks.’ Ben checked his watch. It was 4.35 a.m. and he was looking forward to getting some sleep.
‘You wear two watches,’ Ramoud observed.
‘I travel a lot. Different time zones.’
‘You can get one watch that will do all that.’
Ben smiled. ‘I’m old-fashioned.’
Chapter Nineteen
The Claudel Residence,
Hyde Park, Cairo
4.45 a.m.
Pierre Claudel couldn’t sleep. He climbed out of bed, wandered out onto his balcony and watched the night creep towards dawn.
He was so weary. His senses felt bombed to numbness with stress. Ever since that day in the desert when Kamal had told him about his discovery, Claudel’s mind had been in turmoil. Two things had been constantly in the foreground of his thoughts, and he was thinking about them now as he reflected back over the events of the last few months. The worst time of his life.
The first preoccupation burning a hole in his brain was the frustration of knowing that the treasure was out there somewhere, but having no idea where to find it. Kamal had offered him ten per cent. Maybe not overly generous, but ten per cent of a gigantic fortune could still set him up for life. His hustling days would be over.
He couldn’t wait for it to happen. Up until that day in the desert, he’d felt pretty rich and successful. Now, in comparison to what he could get, might get, desperately longed to get out of this, he felt poor and miserable and shabby. The feeling was as though something had crawled under his skin, making his flesh creep.
The second major preoccupation was Kamal himself. Kamal terrified him. While Claudel couldn’t stop thinking about the treasure, another part of him bitterly regretted that he’d ever joined forces with this man.
What scared him even more, and kept him awake at night staring up at the dark canopy of his four-poster bed, was the knowledge that Kamal was fast running out of patience. Not even the million dollars that the first haul of treasure had generated, now sitting pretty in a numbered Swiss bank account minus Claudel’s ten per cent fence fee, could placate the Egyptian. He was getting jumpier by the day. Weeks were ticking by like seconds, merging into months, and still Claudel wasn’t coming up with anything.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. He’d driven out across the Western Desert with Kamal and his men. A long, hot, dusty and exhausting trek that almost killed him. They’d found the Bedouin fort, and Kamal had shown him the well. Claudel had nervously clambered down there on a rope, examined the shattered empty chamber where the cache of gold had been. He’d frantically pored over every inch of the stone carvings, searching for more hieroglyphs that hadn’t been in the photos and might yield a clue. But there was nothing. The trip to the fort turned out to be a complete waste of time.
Back in Cairo, Claudel had considered his options. They were disturbingly limited. There were few people in the world whom he trusted, and he was especially cagey about letting anyone else in on the treasure hunt. But in his desperation he’d been forced to put out feelers in the shadowy world of illicit antiquities dealing. He’d sat back, chewed his manicured nails down to the quick and hoped his enquiries would offer up some kind of lead.
The silence of the phone seemed to taunt him.
Meanwhile, Kamal had invaded his life like a disease. He’d taken a liking to the luxury Hyde Park villa, started spending more and more time there and generally treated it as his home. He’d sprawl in the armchair that had once belonged to the inventory at Fontainebleau Palace, a glass of red wine precariously perched on Claudel’s irreplaceable period satin upholstery, stretch his boots out on the white cashmere silk carpet and flick ash from his Davidoff cigar all over the place. It made Claudel cringe, but he knew better than to complain.
If he hadn’t been so damn scared all the time, he might have chuckled at the irony that one of the city’s most exclusive gated communities, designed to keep undesirable elements away from the homes of the rich, had become Kamal’s luxury refuge. It was a perfect hideout for him-the guards at the gate were used to seeing Claudel’s van come and go. As long as the drivers showed their private pass, vehicles were just waved through without a second glanc
e, without any clue that heavily armed men were riding in the back.
It had quickly descended into a nightmare. Claudel couldn’t go anywhere in his own home without some hostile-looking hard guy eyeballing him. Couldn’t bring anyone back to the house. No women. He was like a prisoner. He stopped going to parties. Friends were calling him to ask if he was ill, and he’d been fobbing them off with all kinds of lame excuses. He’d started drinking more, too, to calm the palpitations he’d started getting. One day he’d gone down to his wine cellar to fetch a bottle for himself, and he’d found a stack of weapons and ammunition down there. He’d nearly had a heart attack. But he could say nothing.
Then suddenly, eight weeks ago, after five months of anxious torment, the phone had rung. Claudel picked up. It was Aziz, one of the contacts he’d called in months before. They’d worked together on a few jobs in the past. When he wasn’t stealing antiquities, Aziz freelanced as a tourist guide. As far as anyone in the business could be trusted, Claudel was reasonably sure of him.
‘That thing you told me about. You still interested? I might have information.’
Claudel gripped the phone tightly. ‘I’m definitely still interested.’
At that moment, Kamal appeared in the doorway. He watched and listened, head cocked curiously to one side. His eyes narrowed.
Aziz chuckled on the line. ‘Let’s talk about my cut first. Pierre Claudel doesn’t get this jumpy if there isn’t a pile of money involved.’
Claudel darted an impatient glance at Kamal. ‘Five per cent of whatever I get. The usual.’
‘Fuck you. Make it ten per cent and I’ll tell you what I just heard.’
Claudel gritted his teeth. ‘Six.’
‘Eight.’
Claudel sighed. ‘OK. Eight.’
Aziz sounded satisfied. ‘I imagine you don’t want to discuss this on the phone. Meet me at Café Riche. I think you’ll find it worthwhile.’
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