by James Becker
‘I wouldn’t want to meet him again,’ Angela said, ‘but it would be different if you were with me. But it’s academic, isn’t it? We don’t have the paintings, so we can’t find the text of the parchment.’
‘So you’d carry on with the search?’
‘Definitely; the prize is too big to ignore.’
Bronson smiled. ‘I knew you’d say that,’ he said. ‘I’ve got another question for you. What does Persian script look like? I mean, is it a plain and simple font – or something more elaborate?’
‘It’s quite elaborate. You could call it flowery, I suppose. It’s got lots of curves and twists. Why?’
‘That’s what I hoped you’d say,’ Bronson replied. ‘If I’m right, Oliver Wendell-Carfax was wasting his time tearing panels off the walls looking for the hiding place where Bartholomew had hidden the papyrus text. I think the papyrus itself probably fell to pieces quite soon after he pulled it out of the sealed pottery vessel – it is quite fragile, isn’t it?’
‘If it’s not stored under the right conditions, yes. And Bartholomew wouldn’t have had the knowledge or the experience to know that. Or the equipment, obviously. If he didn’t keep it in a sealed envelope, and especially if he handled it a lot, it wouldn’t last very long.’
‘Right. So my guess is that he carefully copied out the Persian inscription as soon as he saw that the papyrus was starting to deteriorate. Then, later on in his life, he decided to create a more permanent record, and that was why he had the two pictures painted.’
‘We know that. Presumably there’s a secret compartment in the frame of one or other of them. Bartholomew seemed to like things like that, if that drawer under the stuffed fox is anything to go by.’
Bronson shook his head. ‘I don’t think he did anything so complicated. I think he decided to hide it in plain sight. Look at the picture. You’ll see a young man wearing a highly embroidered Indian-style tunic. But look closely at the collar and the lapels. It might look like a random pattern, but I don’t think it is, because it’s not symmetrical. I think that’s a form of writing, a form that most people simply wouldn’t recognize as being writing.’
For a few moments, Angela stared at the image displayed on the screen of her computer.
‘My God, Chris, I think you might be right,’ she said slowly. ‘Now that I know what I’m looking for, it doesn’t seem to be a random pattern. In fact, I think I can make out several individual letters here.’ She looked across at her ex-husband. ‘You are brilliant – do you know that?’
Bronson smiled. It had been an educated guess, but a good one.
‘And the painting of Bartholomew wearing a Red Indian outfit,’ she said, finding the appropriate picture. ‘I suppose it’s in the band of this headdress that goes around his forehead?’
Bronson looked at the screen and nodded. ‘And perhaps running down the front of the tunic as well. Can you read the script?’
‘I hope so. The photographs Bartholomew had taken were done professionally, as far as I can see, and my guess is that he would have insisted that the lettering be readable on them. Otherwise, what would be the point in having the pictures taken at all? Then he sent the paintings to Cairo for safe keeping. If you’re right, and I think you are, these two photographs would have been his personal record of the Persian text, there for all to see, but only if you knew exactly what you were looking for.’
‘What about your scans? Did you lose any of the details of the photographs when you did them?’
‘Maybe a tiny bit, but nothing significant. These scans are probably just as good as having the original photographs, and we also have an advantage – using the computer, I can enlarge the areas we’re interested in and keep them displayed on the screen, which is a lot easier than trying do the same thing with a magnifying glass standing in front of a canvas hanging on a wall.’
Angela leaned over and gave Bronson a kiss.
‘Let’s get back to the hotel as quickly as possible. I’ll have to transcribe the letters and then find an on-line Persian translation program to sort out what the text says. With any luck, I might be able to do all that today.’
She looked at Bronson, her eyes shining with excitement.
‘We’re getting closer, Chris. I can feel it. By this evening, we might have a very good idea where the Ark of the Covenant is buried.’
40
Nearing the centre of Cairo, Bronson indicated left and pulled the hire car over towards the middle of the road, looking for a gap in the oncoming traffic. Nobody seemed particularly inclined to give way, so he eased over further, forcing his way into the traffic stream until a couple of vehicles finally and reluctantly slowed enough to let him swing across in front of them.
‘I’ll never get used to the way they drive over here,’ Angela muttered as Bronson straightened up and headed down the street towards their hotel.
Fifty yards ahead of Bronson’s car, Killian tossed the binoculars aside, reached down and twisted the key in the ignition. The engine sprang to life immediately. As the Peugeot approached him, Killian engaged first gear and accelerated hard, powering it out of the vacant lot and aiming for the side of Bronson’s vehicle.
* * *
‘Look out!’ Angela yelled, as she saw another car lurch into motion just beside them, the driver apparently not having seen them.
Bronson registered the other car at the same instant and reacted the way he’d been trained, turning the wheel away from the impending collision and accelerating hard to get clear of the path of the other vehicle.
Angela looked more closely at the driver and registered the bandaged ear, pale skin and dark, almost black, eyes of the man behind the wheel.
‘It’s that priest!’ she shouted. ‘He’s trying to kill us.’
Bronson glanced to his right, but his concentration was on the traffic, not on the driver of the other vehicle.
His options were limited. There was a line of vehicles – cars and light vans – heading towards them, but only a couple of cars in their lane ahead of them. No side streets, or not for about a hundred yards, and all the side turnings Bronson could see were dead ends. The last thing he wanted to do was get trapped somewhere that the priest could attack them. He didn’t know if the priest was armed, and had no desire to find out.
But a car is a weapon. A ton or so of metal able to travel at high speed, and in skilled hands – perhaps even more so in unskilled hands – can be lethal. He had to keep moving, keep them ahead of the other car.
He accelerated hard down the road. The single ace he held was that his car had already been in motion, and this gave him a tiny speed advantage.
He checked the mirror on the passenger side. The priest’s car was now perhaps ten feet behind him, and dropping back slightly. Fifty yards ahead was a lumbering grey van, the rear doors wedged open to reveal a motley collection of carpets and other unidentifiable materials inside it. To the left, an almost unbroken stream of cars was heading towards them.
Angela looked behind them, then tensed, pushing back in her seat, her arms pressing against the dashboard, as Bronson changed up and mashed the accelerator pedal again.
The priest was still close behind, maybe fifteen feet back, clearly visible in Bronson’s mirror and now matching speed with him.
Ahead, the back of the van loomed ever closer. At the last second, Bronson swung the wheel to the left, heading straight towards the oncoming traffic, gambling that the drivers on the other side of the road would give way.
But they showed no signs of moving over, and at the last second before a collision was inevitable, he slammed on the brakes and swung back on to the right-hand side of the road.
There was a bang and a scream of tortured metal as the front of the priest’s car crashed into the boot of his. The priest had braked as well, but too late.
‘There goes my no-claims bonus,’ Bronson muttered.
Angela spun round to look behind them.
‘He’s still coming after us,�
�� she said, her voice choked with fear.
Bronson had been hoping that the air bags in the priest’s car might have deployed as a result of the collision, but there was no sign of that having happened. Behind the wheel he could see the man’s black eyes staring right at him as he wrestled with the steering wheel.
Bronson swung his car to the right, back on to the correct side of the road, then moved even further over. He took a quick glance down the right-hand side of the slow-moving van, trying to see what was in front of it, then hit the accelerator again.
‘Hang on,’ he muttered, as the right-hand wheels of his car mounted the pavement. He sounded a long blast on the horn. With the left wheels of the car on the road and the right ones bouncing over the uneven paving slabs, Bronson powered past the van, scattering pedestrians, chickens and dogs as he did so.
Just as he reached the front of the van, a pile of boxes stacked four high on the pavement loomed in front of the car.
‘Brace yourself,’ he said, and hit them squarely, his eyes closing at the moment of impact. Cardboard and debris flew in every direction but, as he drove over their remains, he could see that the boxes had contained nothing more solid than a few dozen packets of crisps.
Bronson steered his car back on to the road. It bounced hard as it left the pavement, the suspension banging in protest. Behind them rose a clamour of angry shouts as crowds of people surged on to the streets. The van driver gave a long blast on his horn and gesticulated angrily. But Bronson had got past him, and that was all that mattered.
Then, as he straightened up, he saw the Renault drive around the outside of the grey van behind them – the priest had found a way through the opposite-direction traffic.
Angela saw the vehicle at the same moment and shouted a warning.
‘I know,’ Bronson said, desperately looking for a way out.
He slammed on the brakes and slewed his car over to the right-hand side of the road, on to a small open area. Behind him, the driver of the grey van also braked, but Bronson was gambling that he’d take longer to stop.
He swung the wheel hard round, spinning the car until it faced back the way it had come, then accelerated across to the other side of the road behind the grey van. The priest’s car was now the wrong side of the van, and Bronson hoped it would take him at least a minute or two to get back in pursuit.
The traffic was still heavy, but he forced his way into the line of vehicles, keeping on the outside and overtaking every time a gap appeared.
‘Where is he?’ Angela demanded, turning in her seat to stare back down the road. Her face was white, her eyes panicked.
‘Hopefully he’s still trying to turn round,’ Bronson said.
He checked his mirrors again, but there was still no sign of the other car. The traffic started slowing for some unseen obstacle ahead, and Bronson began to relax. Now his car was just another in a line of white cars, effectively invisible.
And then, just seconds later, the priest reappeared from a side street over to their right, and forced his way back into the traffic stream perhaps half a dozen vehicles behind them.
‘Shit,’ Bronson said. He dropped down a gear and accelerated past a couple of cars.
‘How on earth—’
‘He must have used a parallel street,’ Bronson snapped. ‘Either he knows the area well or he just got lucky. We’ve got to lose him.’
He pulled out, tyres screaming, and dived in front of a Mercedes saloon and down a street to the right, praying that it wasn’t a dead end.
It wasn’t, and it took several seconds before the other car appeared behind them. But Bronson knew he couldn’t keep running. Somehow he had to finish the chase and stop the priest. And he had the glimmerings of an idea.
Ninety yards back, Killian smiled grimly. Bronson’s car was in front of him, and despite the earlier impact, his own was apparently undamaged. And on these quieter streets, he should easily be able to finish the job.
He accelerated, starting to close the gap, and looked well ahead, searching for a spot where he could drive Bronson off the road. Once he’d forced his car to stop, he could kill Bronson – the switchblade was still in his pocket – and then Angela would be easy meat. It was just a shame he wouldn’t be able to take his time over the killings, and make them truly appreciate the exquisite beauty of the divine agony he could offer them before death ended their rapture.
Bronson saw the priest getting closer and accelerated to maintain the distance between them. He needed to make a couple of rapid turns, but not so quickly that the priest would lose sight of him.
He picked a wide street on the left and turned down it, his car’s tyres howling in protest. Fifty yards further on, he swung right, just as the other car appeared around the previous corner. There were narrow streets on both sides of them. It would have to do.
Bronson slammed on the brakes, pulled the gear lever into reverse and backed his car down one of the streets on the right, stopping just a few yards from the junction.
‘Get down,’ he snapped, grabbing Angela by the shoulder. They ducked down below the level of the windscreen and just waited, listening for the sound of the engine of the pursuing car.
The priest raced past. Bronson immediately slipped the gear lever into first and drove out of the side street.
‘Thank God. Let’s get out of here,’ Angela breathed, then stared at Bronson as he turned right to follow the priest, not left, as she’d expected. ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.
‘Ending this,’ Bronson said simply.
Killian stared down the street in front of him and lifted his foot from the accelerator pedal. For the moment, he’d lost sight of Bronson, though he knew he had to be somewhere nearby.
He slowed still further, checking every opening on both sides of the street, his head snapping from side to side as he searched for his prey.
‘Can’t we just get back to the hotel?’ Angela pleaded.
‘He must have found out where we were staying,’ Bronson pointed out. ‘That was why he was waiting on the street nearby. It’s the one place we can’t go back to.’
‘But if we just drive to the airport?’
‘That’s where we’re going, eventually. But first I’m going to make sure that priest is stuck here in Cairo long enough to let us get out of Egypt without seeing him again.’
Bronson turned the next corner and saw, just as he’d expected, the priest driving fairly slowly down the street in front of them.
‘Get down,’ Bronson said. ‘He’ll be checking his mirrors, looking for two people in a white Peugeot.’
Angela ducked down as low as she could.
Bronson looked ahead, weighing up the situation. He was closing up on the priest quickly, and knew it was only a matter of time before he realized who was behind him.
He’d closed to about ten yards when the priest suddenly accelerated hard. He knew he’d been recognized.
Bronson floored the accelerator pedal to increase speed, then eased out until the front wing of his car was level with the rear wing of the other. Then he swung the steering wheel hard over to the right, still keeping the speed up. In America, it’s known as the ‘PIT manoeuvre’. Bronson had no idea what it was called in Egypt, but it worked just the same.
As he kept up the pressure on the steering wheel, the rear wheels of the priest’s car suddenly lost adhesion and it started to spin anti-clockwise. Bronson quickly turned the wheel left again, so that the front of his car hit the rear of the other, finishing the manoeuvre.
The priest’s car spun sideways across the road, tyres howling as shreds of rubber were torn away from the tread, and slammed hard into the jagged edge of the pavement on the left-hand side of the road. As the car hit, Bronson distinctly heard the bang as at least one of the tyres blew. He smiled in satisfaction.
‘Now you can sit up again,’ he said to Angela. ‘He won’t be bothering us any more.’
In the rear-view mirror he saw a figure climb out of the wrecke
d Renault. Then he swept round a corner and out of sight.
‘Now where do we go?’ Angela asked.
Bronson shook his head. ‘We’ll drive to the airport and climb on to the first flight out of this country, ideally one heading back to Britain.’
To his surprise, Angela shook her head. ‘I haven’t finished with this yet,’ she said firmly. ‘Going to the airport’s a good idea – there’ll be armed guards and police there, because of the terrorist situation. As soon as we arrive I’m going to start translating that text. Then we’ll decide where we go next, but I can pretty much guarantee it won’t be Britain.’
Half a mile away, Killian picked up his bags and walked away from his crashed car, ignoring the shouts and protestations from the crowds of people who’d gathered at the scene.
Though he realized a British police officer would be a competent driver, Bronson’s move had taken him completely by surprise. His car was undriveable – not only had one of the tyres blown, but the sideways impact with the kerb had snapped one of the front suspension components, and that wheel leaned drunkenly to one side as well.
He’d have to find a taxi and get away from the area as quickly as he could, before a car-load of cops turned up and started asking awkward questions. Then he’d have to decide what to do next. He tried to put himself in Bronson’s place. He guessed that Bronson and Angela would either return to their hotel or, perhaps more likely, head straight for the airport to follow whatever clues they’d found in the Montgomery paintings. And if they were following the clues, he would be able to follow them.
A taxi squealed to a halt in response to his raised arm.
‘The airport,’ he snapped. ‘And make it quick.’
41
‘I’ll be as fast as I can with this,’ Angela said, sitting down at a table in one of the cafés and switching on her laptop.
Bronson bought some food and drinks at the counter, then sat beside Angela as she downloaded a Persian–English dictionary from the web and fed the letters and words she could see in the photographs into it, jotting down the results on a piece of paper.