First, she went back to the jeeps, where she found a padded jacket that fitted her. It was identical to the jackets worn by the men, and she hoped it would disguise her, along with her short hair.
The moonlight made her passage through the oasis simple, and she soon saw the group of captive women up ahead. Her suspicions were quickly fulfilled when she saw that two men had taken a woman each and were now busy raping them. Howling children and infants were everywhere. She moved swiftly, singling out the man on her left. She sneaked up behind him and, as he reached his orgasm she kicked him hard in the ribs, pushing him off his victim onto the ground. Scrambling to his feet, he reached for his handgun, but it was in a holster attached to his trousers, which were round his ankles. Sarah lifted the sub-machine gun and pointed it at him. She grinned to see him so ridiculous. She could have shot him, his death would not have mattered. The woman screamed, thinking another man had come to rape her. Sarah smiled and put a finger to her lips. The woman’s cries subsided. A second woman crept towards her. She had rescued her goat earlier, and now she removed the palm-fibre cord from round its neck. She gestured to Sarah, who nodded.
While the Tuareg woman tied the man’s hands behind his back, Sarah took the gun from his holster. It was a Glock 19, short and functional, with a ten-round magazine. She’d been trained on a different gun, but it took only a minute or two for her to grow accustomed to its balance. She made sure the safety catch was off and strode to where the other man had slumped across the body of his woman, oblivious of what had just happened to his companion. She forced him up onto his knees, jabbing the barrel of the Glock into his back. Terrified, he put his hands behind his head. Sarah had him at her mercy, but she had no more rope with which to tie him.
The other woman finished tying up the first guard and walked over to join Sarah. Taking in the situation at a glance, she gestured to the sword Sarah had thrust into her waistband. Sarah did nothing to stop her as she took the sword in one hand, weighed it, then thrust it hard into the guard’s chest, above his heart. He died at once. The woman withdrew the sword and returned it to the scabbard.
Sarah reckoned that Aehrenthal must have started out with seven men and the guide, Mohamed. Aehrenthal himself had killed one man, leaving six, and now two were tied up and another was dead, leaving three. The odds against her were still high, but she reckoned they were not insuperable. She put the handgun into the band of her trousers and felt it nestle there.
Suddenly, she heard several bursts of machine gun fire. She guessed they came from the ruined buildings. Not knowing a word of Tamasheq, she wondered if any of the women spoke Arabic. She asked them if they knew how to find Wardabaha, but they showed no recognition. Her knowledge of Arabic was limited, but she knew it was sometimes close to Hebrew, so she tried some words in that language. To her surprise, she got a response from the young woman who had just killed the guard.
‘The proseuchê is near here,’ the woman said, speaking in a curious blend of Greek, Hebrew and what Sarah guessed must be Tamasheq. She knew that proseuchê could mean synagogue in Greek, but what could that possibly mean to these Muslim Tuareg?
The woman pulled her sleeve. ‘The killers are in Wardabaha,’ she said. ‘We can all escape. Come with us. Don’t stay here.’
Sarah shook her head.
‘Show me the proseuchê, then take all these women somewhere safe.’
Even as she spoke, she scarcely knew what she was saying. Aehrenthal and his three remaining men were in there, all heavily armed. It would be suicidal for her to go there in an attempt to fight back, whether for herself or the Tuareg women and children. But she had come this far and suffered this much, to do nothing was unthinkable. This would probably be her only chance.
The woman went into the little crowd and removed the turban from a little boy. Taking the sword in its scabbard, she fastened it to her waist with the long strip of fabric. Suddenly, she smiled at Sarah, then embraced her. Still smiling, she led Sarah through a lacework of shadows and moonlight, beneath a channel formed by palm trees, across sand gouged by the passage of innumerable feet. Sarah wondered what the woman saw. Was the world any less for her, any less precious, because she had been born in this most remote of places, a place with so few possibilities, with so little variety, with such a limited range of companions? When the woman looked back, her face was made clear in the white light of the moon. She was young, Sarah thought, perhaps still in her teens.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Marta,’ said the girl. It was not an Arab name; Sarah recognised it at once as either Hebrew or Aramaic. Yet again, she thought how interesting it would be to do a study of the language spoken here at Ain Suleiman.
They came to a half-open door at whose back a dune had formed. They almost took a step too far, but just as they came within several yards of the doorway, a shadow moved and Sarah saw a man standing near the entrance.
‘Go back,’ she said to Marta. ‘Make sure the others get to safety. Wait for me when it gets light.’
She didn’t know at first how much of what she said made sense to the girl. Marta looked thoughtful, but she made no effort to leave. Then she came close and whispered in Sarah’s ear. Sarah listened, discovering that Marta’s language had a lot in common with Aramaic. Nowadays, Aramaic was only spoken by Assyrians, Syriac Christians and some others; but it was a different, more modern Aramaic than Marta’s. And the words Marta spoke had an air of the Bible about them. At first, Sarah made to ask her to say no more, but the young Tuareg would not be denied, and it soon dawned on Sarah that this might be the only hope for them to survive.
She laid down the machine gun and walked slowly up to the guard. She recognised him as one of the Austrians, and remembered that his name was Günther.
‘Guten abend, Günther,’ she said.
He frowned and stepped forward to block her way. He had recognised her.
‘You were put under guard,’ he said. ‘Where is Herzog?’
She took a step forward.
‘Trouble with the women,’ she said. ‘He told me to fetch help.’
She kept him talking. Slowly, she moved sideways so that he turned his back in the direction from which she had just come. He lifted his gun, as if afraid she was about to attack him. But she smiled reassuringly. He opened his mouth to speak again, but as he did so Marta slipped one arm round his head, clamping her hand on his face while she used the short sword to cut through his windpipe. He fell lifeless to the ground, and a rivulet of blood spilt from the wound, where it was briefly made translucent by the moonlight before being absorbed by the thirsty sand.
‘Let’s hurry,’ Marta said, as she wiped the blade of the sword on her robe.
Sarah picked up a torch Günther had placed at his feet and switched it on. She studied the designs on the door, a Jewish menorah on one side, a cross on the other.
They stepped through into the entrance hall. Sarah let the beam of her torch play on the walls and ceiling. She saw the image of a building on a hill, perhaps the first really accurate depiction of the Jewish Temple ever made, and possibly executed by men who had worshipped in the real temple before its destruction. She looked up at angels and wings the colour of bright sunlight, saw the trumpets in their hands and the halos about their heads. She shivered. There were ghosts here. Ghosts that had been waiting for her.
In the next chamber was the synagogue. She and Marta went in together. Sarah’s heart skipped beat after beat, seeing the synagogue build itself in section after section as she swung the torch about, revealing now banks of seats, now the bimah, now a golden cross. And whether it was fancy or physical, she thought she could smell a scent of incense; myrrh, perhaps, or sandalwood, amber or opopanax of Solomon.
A voice came out of the darkness, freezing her.
‘Günther? Was machen Sie da?’
Her hands were cold, and her fingers shook out of fear, knowing she could be shot at any second. When she looked round, she saw that Marta had
vanished into the shadows. She hoped the young woman would stick to her side of their agreement. The guard was a shadow, but he played his torch beam on her. She heard him swear. Quickly, she unzipped her jacket and shuffled it off. In a smooth motion, she pulled off her heavy jumper, dropped it, unfastened her bra, and tossed it to one side.
Her naked torso produced exactly the effect she’d known it would.
‘Why don’t you come over here?’ she asked, hoping he understood enough English.
Whether or not the man understood her, he chose to interpret her striptease in the fashion that suited him best.
She lowered herself to the ground, and as she did so, he stepped towards her, letting the torch play over her naked flesh. The guard was riveted by her breasts and all that he thought they promised. When he came up close, he squatted down beside her and reached out a hand to grope her.
She felt panic start to grow in her. His hands were on her breasts, then on her stomach, heading for her groin. And then they fell away. He uttered a gasp that grew into a moan. She picked up the torch she’d let fall and pointed it at him. Marta was standing behind him and her sword was protruding from his stomach. He was still alive, but only just; he no longer posed a threat to them.
Her heart racing, Sarah struggled for several minutes to catch her breath and to fight down the panic. Marta helped her to her feet and held her in her arms, the sword dangling from one hand. Sarah’s mind was whirling, her thoughts raw and confused. She knew she had to hold it all together. If she was right, Aehrenthal was down below with the last of his men.
She looked round once more, to make sure there were no other guards lurking in the shadows. As her torch beam played past the doors and up towards the bimah and the Tables of the Law, she had to bite back a cry of horror. Beside her, Marta cried out. Heaped in the central space where the first builders of the synagogue had once prayed, lay piled the bodies of the women who had been inside the building celebrating the coming wedding. Sarah remembered the chattering of a sub-machine gun, and realised that must have been when this small massacre had taken place.
The two women made their way across to where the bodies lay piled on top of one another, their blood seeping through their clothing from one to another. They worked their way through them, feeling for a pulse here, a hint of breath there, pressing their fingers against wrists and necks until they identified three women who were still alive, though they could not say how near or far from death.
With great difficulty, they dragged them to a sitting position against a wall. Sarah could not be sure it was the right thing to do, but it would make it easier to identify them. She still hoped against hope that Ethan and the others would finally find their way to the oasis. Whispering, she told Marta this, that help was on its way. Marta nodded, but asked nothing. Sarah guessed that out here in the middle of the desert it was best not to rest one’s hopes on outsiders. If the tribe could not help you, you could only rely on yourself.
She grew aware that Marta was sobbing quietly, crying her heart out yet fighting to suppress all sound of it. The bodies they had found were not strangers to her, but friends and relatives. Sarah took her hand and held it tightly. Five minutes passed, then Marta took her hand away. Her tears had dried. When Sarah looked at her face again, the woman’s eyes held nothing but a firm resolve, a resolve that was mixed with something Sarah could not grasp. Not hatred. Not quite revenge. Not exactly contempt.
Together, they headed for the steps that would take them to the crypt below.
32
The Angel of Death
The angels seemed at once alien and as homely as the winged creatures on Christmas cards. Seeing them brought back the Christmas at Woodmancote, with that brief carol service at the parish church, vivid now against all the ugliness and unquietness that had followed. What had brought her to this? she wondered. And the answer came at once. For most of her journey from Woodmancote to this place, she had gone passively, crying out against her fate but unable to lift a finger to stop it. Now, with Marta’s help, she had become her own mistress again. Even if she died, it would be on account of her own actions, of risks she had chosen to take. She let her fingers run over the precious stones on the angels’ crowns.
She pushed open the door and was assailed by light. Aehrenthal had brought almost all the torches here, along with a little generator from which to run a series of small floodlights.
She saw them at once, Aehrenthal and another man. They were piling bones into boxes. She saw their carelessness, smelt Aehrenthal’s arrogance as she watched him snap orders and strut about, pointing now at this ossuary, now at that, as though everything belonged to him and had always been his to treat as he pleased. As each box was filled, he bent down to write on it.
Aehrenthal remained oblivious to them, but his companion looked up from his work and caught sight of the two women, held in the harsh glare of the floodlights. As they stepped forward, he whimpered with fright, seeing what had just entered the chamber. Marta’s hair was long and hung loose about her shoulders, there was blood on her clothes and hands, and she held a bloody sword by her side. Next to her stood a white woman, naked to the waist, with bloodied breasts and hands. The room the man was in, and the chambers he had passed through to get there, had already scared him stiff, and if he thought two demons had appeared in the form of two stony-eyed women with blood-smeared hands, it did not surprise him. A sub-machine gun lay on the floor next to him. He bent to pick it up. As he straightened, Marta came from behind Sarah, sword in hand, running to strike him down. He held the gun at his hip and opened fire. She went on running, but the sword flew from her fingers. Her hands reached for him. He fired again and she pitched forwards onto her face.
Sarah put two shots in his chest, a double-tap that sent him staggering into a white marble tomb, where he collapsed and died. Going to Marta, she pushed her onto her back and saw at once that she was entirely lifeless. She got down on both knees and kissed her.
When she looked up, Aehrenthal was standing behind Marta’s body, a look on his face that seemed somewhere between amusement and scorn. Before she could react, he swung his foot forward hard, hitting her hand and sending the gun flying across the stony floor.
‘How nice to see you again, Miss Usherwood. You’re looking a little rough. I hope none of my boys has been mishandling you. They’re good men, you know, proud and upright. I find it regrettable that you’ve seen fit to kill Emilian here. Emilian had once thought of becoming a priest, you know. He was a pious man, and now here he lies with the bones of Christ, and all because you could not accept that you and your friends have been defeated. I hope you’ve not killed any other of my men. For each one, you deserve to be punished. Or perhaps I should hurt you by killing ten of these Tuareg women for every one of my men you have killed. What do you think of that? Does it please you? Does it not seem perfectly equitable?’
She remained silent. What would be the point of arguing with a man like this? What excuses for violence might he not take from her protests?
‘You’ve been very foolish,’ he said. ‘If you’d cooperated, I would have made you director of the greatest museum in the world. Think of it. All the relics of Christ, the bones of his family, his own bones in their ossuaries. This little city of Wardabaha rebuilt, pilgrims pouring in from all round the world.’
Stung, she could not help making a riposte.
‘You did all this, killed all these people just to turn this place into a tourist destination? With a luxury hotel and a golf course, no doubt. Drink a few cocktails and visit Jesus to while away a few minutes. Is that all this comes to?’ She spat.
Irritated, he took a couple of steps in her direction. She pulled herself to her feet and retreated towards the wall. Her hand still stung from the kick he’d delivered earlier. As she steadied herself, she glanced to one side and noticed that Aehrenthal had indeed brought the relics with him, as they’d expected. They were all there, the long Lance of Longinus most visible where it sto
od upright against the wall.
‘Do you think I have no respect?’ he asked. ‘What would you have done with all this? Packed it up and taken it off to the vaults at Oxford University and allowed privileged scholars to write learned disquisitions on Wardabaha and its contents? Kept the true believers at arm’s length? Told everyone Jesus was a Jew? My Saviour a filthy Jew? Made him a mockery on account of it? Who gives you that right, you or any of your professors? I will do far more than you and your archivists could ever achieve. I will bring him back to life. And his mother and father, brothers and sisters. The Holy Family walking the earth again, Jesus Christ with us in the flesh in a new Reich led by myself as God’s new führer.’
He paused and took a long knife from a sheath he carried on his hip.
‘I don’t need you any longer,’ he said. ‘I can find other scholars, men with greater experience than you. You threw away your chance. Stand still. I don’t want a struggle.’
He stepped forwards, one hand reaching out for her, a smile playing on his lips.
Later, she could not remember the actions that followed. Her right hand reached along the wall and found the pilum, the Spear of Destiny, and she grasped it tightly, bringing it to her front, swinging it forwards and buttressing it with her left hand; she braced her feet, the right ahead of the left, and thrust, throwing her body after the lance and taking him hard just beneath the heart, stopping him. The knife clattered to the floor, and he gave out a long sound, wordless and without echo. He remained standing and put his hand on the lance that had last pierced the side of Christ. He pulled it from himself with great effort, but Sarah kept her grip on it and pushed it back. He stood facing her, disappointed and angry to know he had been bested by a woman. He would have moved for his handgun, but she raised the spear again, and this time it penetrated higher up, piercing his heart with great force. For a moment she kept him suspended there, then she pulled the pilum from his chest, so that his legs gave way and his body fell to the ground and was still.
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