The Sacred Scroll

by Anton Gill

  Was he carrying it now? Leporo eyed his master and, as he did so, saw the right hand tighten under the sleeve of the robe.

  90

  New York City, the Present

  Marlow sat on the sofa, his old tweed jacket thrown across its back, across the coffee table from Graves. They were in her apartment. She sat on one of the low easy-chairs. She was wearing a skirt instead of jeans, and now she crossed her legs and leaned back a little. She looked dressed to go out. The grey skirt was close-fitting fine wool, and the black silk roll-neck she wore with it hugged her figure. The two together had cost a fortnight’s salary.

  ‘The code is the same kind as the one on the key,’ she said, ‘but it’s corrupted somehow, either because whoever wrote it didn’t understand what they were doing as well as they thought they did, or it’s deliberate – as if the person wanted to make it impenetrable. There’s a way in, there always is, but it’s like feeling your way in the dark, through a maze.’

  ‘Then let’s think laterally.’

  ‘There’s another thing. I have to report to INTERSEC. My absence has been noticed.’

  ‘You answer to me.’

  She shook her head. ‘Sir Richard is concerned. You haven’t reported to him yourself.’

  ‘That’s where I’m headed now. I can’t risk him alerting Homeland Security. They’ll blow everything.’

  Graves recognized the warning note in his voice, but said, ‘He wants to know what’s going on, Jack.’

  ‘I wonder how much he knows already.’

  Graves, thinking of the information Lopez had let slip, nodded.

  ‘Damage limitation.’ Marlow continued. ‘All we can do.’

  ‘I’ll give him a progress report. Throw him some candy.’

  ‘Do that.’ He leafed through Graves’s work on the code, frowning. ‘Don’t tell him we’re on to Yale – why they said they couldn’t translate the writing on the tablet.’

  ‘If Yale knows – who might they be working for?’

  ‘The CIA? Homeland? But what would they make of it? Big organizations like that always take time to filter things. And the politicians get underfoot. So we still have time on our side.’

  Graves crossed her legs again. ‘Hudson wants me there now. I’ll keep on working on this as soon as I’ve shaken him off.’ She took her papers back from Marlow, accidentally touching his fingers with hers.

  ‘Good. Keep working on it. I’ll join you again as soon as I can.’ Marlow stood. ‘Let’s go. I’ll give you a lift back to INTERSEC. Need to check with Leon and show my face.’ He paused, though, irritated. ‘Why’s Hudson sticking his oar in now? This is what you should be concentrating on.’ He waved at her dining-table, her laptop an island in a sea of books and papers.

  ‘Girl’s gotta have a break. Anyway, I’ll work on it tonight.’ A hesitation. ‘Nothing else to do,’ she added; but Marlow wasn’t listening.

  She secured the apartment and they left.

  There was something new about him, she thought, watching him. Something had changed, but she couldn’t place what.

  She looked at the tattoo on her finger, and caressed it ruefully.

  Leon Lopez had made progress. ‘If this is what we’re after,’ he said, showing Marlow the webpage. But they’d scarcely entered Room 55 when a call came through from Sir Richard, summoning Graves to his office. Word must have passed immediately from the hotel lobby to his secretary. ‘Do you want to wait for Graves?’

  ‘Tell her after her audience with Hudson.’

  ‘OK. This is it.’

  The page was from the website of Sotheby’s, New York, and it advertised a forthcoming sale of medieval antiquities. Lot 4249 was the iron box Leon had already identified as a possible candidate. It was described as a ‘(?) jewellery casket or coffer’. The description went on to mention that it was locked and that the key was missing; but there was still a hefty reserve price of $100,000. A small photograph of the box appeared, together with a short note of its provenance, which dated from 1946, with its acquisition by Lightoller and Steeples. Since 1948 it had been in the possession of the Ashworth Foundation, and displayed in its small museum in Pittsburgh. It had been sold when the foundation hit difficulties in the mid-1970s, and had since been part of a private collection owned by the industrialist George M. Bamberger. Bamberger had died the previous year and the collection had been broken up for sale by his two sons.

  ‘What do you think?’ Lopez asked Marlow. ‘These things are pretty rare. I haven’t been able to locate a closer match.’

  ‘When’s the sale?’

  ‘Friday.’

  ‘Gives us about a week. We’ll need a budget for this. If the reserve’s $100,000 –’ Marlow thought. ‘Put in for $250,000.’

  ‘That much?’

  ‘We can’t let this go.’

  ‘Can we justify it?’

  ‘I’ll think of something. In any case,’ Marlow added drily, ‘Sir Richard has found us a new benefactor.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Rolf Adler. MAXTEL wants to be as closely involved as possible in getting to the bottom of this. MAXPHIL bankrolled the Dandolo Project.’

  ‘I hope Hudson’s not trading off somehow.’

  ‘Adler thinks we’re INTERPOL. And don’t forget, he wouldn’t have been able to do this without government approval.’

  ‘International government approval.’

  Marlow shrugged. ‘I don’t like it either, but MAXTEL’s a multinational – and you know what governments are like about money these days. Any source is OK. Everything’s for sale. Not that it’ll do any good. We all know that we’ve already passed the tipping-point. Clearing debts in the West is just a pipedream, now.’

  Lopez nodded.

  ‘Though maybe all that’s about to change,’ said Marlow thoughtfully.

  ‘The tablet?’

  ‘Control.’

  ‘Name of the game.’

  ‘So who is after this tablet?’ asked Lopez.

  ‘Someone who believes it can be used to put the world to rights? Who knows? Someone with a vision of how to sort things out, if they’re allowed to have their own way.’

  ‘Order through dictatorship?’

  ‘Brave New World. It wouldn’t be the first time. Every civilization there’s ever been is based on something similar.’

  ‘But they’ve always crumbled, and people have survived.’

  ‘There’s a first time for everything,’ said Marlow.

  ‘We’ve got to find that tablet!’ Lopez’s mind flashed on Annika, sitting in the coffee-house. Anything to make amends, he thought.

  ‘Find the box, and we’re home. Maybe … You should just catch Accounts today. Spin them whatever line you like. We should be OK with this. We haven’t had to call in the cavalry, and compared with the cost of one Tomahawk, we’re a cheap date.’

  ‘I’m on to it.’

  Auctions are very public affairs, but Marlow intended to bid in person. He wouldn’t use a front. He needed his people to see this through on their own, but he could hardly keep it under wraps, and he wanted Graves to be there with him. ‘Tell Laura. Get her to contact me.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Tell you later.’

  ‘What about Hudson?’

  ‘He can wait.’

  ‘Where can she get you?’

  ‘Secure cell. But later. There’s something I have to do first.’

  Marlow left the building soon afterwards. There was still the other, unfinished business.

  He dived into the crowded streets, and made his way to the nearest subway. He took a train to 49th and 7th, and walked the rest of the way from there.

  91

  Berlin, the Present

  It was the best news.

  He was sitting at his desk. Night had fallen, and Berlin glowed beneath him, bathed in thousands of lights. The office, illuminated only by the desk-lamp, was wrapped in deep shadows. The red glow from the MAXTEL neon on the roof found its wa
y into the room, and stained his face and hands.

  He reread the translation he held in his hands. It had taken twenty-four hours longer than he’d hoped, but it brought him a step nearer his goal. The box had been traced. Meanwhile, his assistants in Venice and at Yale were working on the code in the Frid document, which they had, so far, been unable to break.

  The code held the secret, Adler was certain. But if all went well he could manage without it. Once he had the box. No one had been able to open it, as far as he knew, since it was last locked, nine hundred years before. And he had the key.

  He had gone to so much trouble and expense over those damned archaeologists. But he knew from their special qualifications that he wasn’t the only one, apart from INTERSEC, interested in the box. He wasn’t the only one who knew Dandolo’s secret, careful as he’d been to cover the tracks of his own investigation. But the manner of their deaths would have sent a warning to his competitors. They’d know someone was wise to them.

  But who were they? And was INTERSEC working for them?

  But why worry? Once he had the box, and had opened it, any competition would be neutralized.

  He looked at his watch, waiting impatiently for the call from New York. At last, at 8 p.m., 2 p.m. EST, it came.

  The telephone barely had a chance to complete one ring.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, tonelessly.

  The voice at the other end was measured. No panic, no urgent need to propitiate him before getting to the point. He liked that.

  ‘I mentioned they had a lead,’ said the voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They’ve narrowed the field down.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘The targeted item is selling at Sotheby’s on York Avenue here. Lot 4249.’

  ‘Guaranteed what we want?’

  ‘Worth the gamble.’

  ‘Reserve?’

  ‘$100,000.’

  Adler came close to laughing. The box was as good as his. ‘When?’

  ‘Friday.’

  ‘Time?’

  ‘Ten a.m. 4249 is fifth up. Morning session.’

  ‘We’ll cover it. Who’s bidding for them?’

  ‘My guess is Marlow.’

  ‘In person?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Seems risky.’

  ‘We know what he’s like. He’ll want to view the room. Look for us. No one knows him, he thinks. No photographs, no public ID anywhere.’

  Adler saw that. A man like Marlow would have no traceable public documents; not a tax record, not a bank or any other account, not a driving licence, no birth certificate, no property deeds, nothing. But he had left clues about his life, despite himself. And exploiting those was Adler’s main strength now. He congratulated himself on his success in that direction so far.

  ‘Other bidders of interest to us?’ he went on.

  ‘Three big museums. Two important private collectors.’

  ‘Check their limits.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Are you coming over?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Adler.

  ‘How will you bid?’

  ‘Phone.’

  ‘Won’t you do that ex-Berlin?’

  Adler smiled to himself. ‘I need to be there.’

  Adler hung up without saying more. The tension left his shoulders. He felt the elation he always felt when battle was about to be joined. But battles should never have unknown outcomes. He picked up the yellow phone, and tapped in a number.

  He had to be sure this was a battle he would win.

  92

  New York City, the Present

  The auction room was two-thirds full, but it was still early. Marlow and Graves sat five rows back, aisle seats with a view of the auctioneer and the lots. Graves had been to the viewing and examined the box. The lid had a raised relief of an eagle, its wings outstretched, its talons ready to clutch, and its head down, beak poised. Around the sides of the box, people and animals cowered in various attitudes of terror and prayer. Only one man, in the centre at the front, was bold enough to stand tall, his arms held up, his hands holding a small, irregularly shaped object. The box stood on simple ball feet. It gleamed under the halogen spot which lit it. It looked brand-new, not a trace of wear or damage. But for the artistic style of the moulding, you would not have guessed its true age.

  Five INTERSEC agents, three female, two male, were seated elsewhere in the room, three discreetly scanning the bidders in the saleroom, two ready to watch the telephone bidders ranged along one wall near the auctioneer’s lectern. Lopez sat towards the rear, away from them.

  When Lot 4249 came up, the room had filled to 80 per cent capacity. Lopez recognized two department heads of big American museums, one of them the Met. He picked up German and French voices. The smell of money was palpable.

  No sealed bids, and no online interest, or from the House. That was unusual, but Marlow let it go, for there was interest – strong interest – from seven or eight people right from the start, including three on the telephones, and within a minute the box had passed its reserve.

  An elegant woman with dark-red, curly hair dressed in Vivienne Westwood raised a gloved hand a fraction, to bid $150,000. Marlow noticed she wore a hearing-aid.

  ‘Do I see $160,000?’ The crisp, English voice of the auctioneer, Marlborough or Wellington to his fingertips, rang out.

  A bear of a German in a charcoal suit nodded discreetly.

  ‘170?’

  A nod from a smart girl on the first phone.

  ‘180?’

  A bearded man in tinted glasses shook his head and looked down at his catalogue, making a note with his pen. The redhead raised a fingertip once more.

  ‘190?’

  The price passed $200,000, and it was down to three in the room against two on the phones.

  When it hit $250,000, one of the phone bidders hung up.

  ‘We’re done, too,’ said Graves. But Marlow raised his hand again. The enormous German across the room hesitated, then raised his.

  ‘We’re done, Jack,’ insisted Graves.

  ‘No we’re not,’ he replied. He grinned. ‘You know how it is – everything goes over budget.’

  Graves looked over her shoulder towards the back of the room, hoping to catch Lopez’s eye, but she couldn’t see him. The room was now full, and the atmosphere was beginning to show heat.

  By $300,000, only one of the phone bidders remained.

  ‘310?’

  A nod from the German.

  ‘320?’

  A fingertip from the redhead.

  At $370,000, the German pursed his lips. At $400,000, he signalled that he was out.

  Now the room was humming; the item had passed five times its reserve. It was between Marlow, the redhead and the phone bidder.

  ‘They’ll kill you for this,’ said Graves, sotto voce.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Stop.’

  ‘It’ll go on Adler’s bill. And how can we stop?’

  Graves sat back, her face set.

  At $750,000, the redhead, looking as if she’d just lost her mother, closed her catalogue and crossed her legs, sitting back.

  ‘Are we sure?’ asked the auctioneer.

  The woman hesitated, momentarily putting a hand to her deaf-aid. Then she changed her mind, smiled, and the fingertip went up.

  Still a three-horse race.

  Adler, in the Grand Suite at the Pierre, followed the progress of the auction on the television link to his laptop, and scowled. Decision made, he reached for the yellow cell-phone, one of three on the table next to him. He spoke into it briefly. The Cottbus-boy in him wasn’t going to part with that much money for something he could get for nothing. And there was another consideration. That Scheißkästchen Marlow was well past his limit, and he mustn’t get the box at any cost.

  The price had hit $900,000 when the telephone bidder hung up. The redhead had just raised her finger to up it another fifty against Marlow when the auctioneer falter
ed, his attention caught by a disturbance at the back of the room. Seconds later, a stutter of automatic fire shattered the plasterwork of the ceiling. It tumbled in chips and flakes on to the yelling people below, who parted like the Red Sea, stumbling over chairs and each other in a scramble to get out of range.

  A broad aisle was created in the space vacated by bidders and spectators, an aisle which led straight down the centre of the room from the main doorway to the auctioneer’s lectern and the podium on which it stood. The auctioneer grasped its sides, frozen. The attendant standing by the box where it lay on a small table covered with a plum-coloured velvet cloth, crouched down.

  At the far end of the aisle five hooded figures in combat gear fanned out, two on each side, while the fifth made his way fast down the length of the room to the podium. Each had a nylon belt at his waist, attached to which were a Kevlar commando-knife and a holster from which projected the butt of a Walther P99. In the hands of the four covering the room were new Magpul PDRs, and it was from one of these that the rapid fire had come.

  Marlow, bent low with an arm protectively round Graves’s back, took in the weapons at a glance. These were no ordinary criminals. He risked a look round the room, but couldn’t see Lopez or any of the other INTERSEC operatives. He hoped they’d see sense. This was no place to start a gun battle, let alone against such formidable arms.

  Two more salvoes followed, low over the heads of the cowering crowd, as the leader of the group reached the podium and snatched the box from the table, placing it in a soft black pouch slung across his shoulders. The attendant collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, while the auctioneer, chalk-white, found time to thank God that the lectern he stood at hid from view the wet stain which had flowered at his groin.

  A minute later, the attack force had gone, leaving a silence in the room as profound as the seabed. The redhead was nowhere to be seen; nor was the attendant who’d taken the telephone bid.

  93

  For two days the media had screamed about it. But there had been no deaths, not even any casualties, so the news wasn’t hot. Who cared about an antique fought over by a handful of privileged people? A spokesman for Sotheby’s appeared on Sky News, and the big German was interviewed by NDR and the Frankfurter Allgemeine. He’d been bidding for the Bodemuseum in Berlin.