by D C Macey
Hoisted over the big man’s shoulders, he could not see where they were going, other than it was along a sandy track that sloped downwards. He could see that the big black 4x4 they had travelled in had simply been abandoned at the point where the track had narrowed to block its progress.
One man ran behind them, constantly turning to check they were not followed; the other two ran ahead. Whoever his abductors were, they were not part of the Leptis Magna security team. Yet, their anxious behaviour told Sam they were not of the militia who would have moved with more confidence within their own areas.
The sound of the men’s running feet changed. The sand-cushioned thuds were replaced by the thundering of boots on wood; they were running out along a little pier. The man’s voice behind called out a warning, and Sam lifted his head to see two gunmen had appeared beside the abandoned black 4x4, pointing and shouting an alarm.
The man trailing behind Sam and his carrier paused, raised his weapon and fired. One of their distant pursuers dropped, hit, the second raised his weapon and fired. His uncontrolled firing was ineffectual. Sam’s tail man fired again, and the second pursuer was dead.
The running stopped; urgent orders were exchanged. Sam was bumped down onto the pier’s wooden boards then rolled to the edge where other hands took him and dragged him down. He banged onto the deck of a motor launch, and the black-clad men jumped down after him. Engines roared, powering the launch away from the pier. Then the thunderous clatter of a deck-mounted heavy machine gun obliterated every other sound as it laid down suppressing fire along the route they had just run. Once the launch pulled out of range, the gunfire ceased, and Sam could get his bearings at last.
He looked about the launch; it had a crew of four: the machine-gunner, the coxswain and two hands. There were four other men, all clothed completely in black. One of them, the big man who had carried Sam from the vehicle to the launch, now approached him, combat knife in hand.
‘No!’ Sam braced himself for the blow; it didn’t come. Instead, the big man rolled Sam over onto his stomach and sliced the ties from his wrists and ankles. Then Sam was sat up, propped against the launch’s gunwale, and one of the others came forwards and offered him bottled water. Sam had no idea who his rescuers were, was just happy that there was a chance they were what they appeared to be. He took the water and emptied the bottle in one go, before rubbing the cable-tie burns on his wrists. The big man laughed, slumped down beside him and offered Sam a biscuit.
Sam took it, ate. ‘Thank you. Now, who are you?’ he said.
The man smiled at him. ‘My name is not so important. You may not remember me, but my team and I saw you once before.’
Sam looked at the man and shook his head. ‘Sorry, I really don’t recall. Where?’
‘In Nairobi. We escorted Bishop Ignatius and whatever the treasure was that he gave to your lady friend. We had left the Thorn Tree Café and were entering our vehicle at the entrance to the Stanley Hotel when you went in to meet her.’
‘Yes, of course; the bishop was leaving as I arrived. I’m sorry I didn’t recognise you.’
‘No matter, we were only background then, and today, you have had other things to think of.’
‘I’ll second that,’ said Sam. ‘So you work for Bishop Ignatius and his Church?’
‘No. We, all four, are believers, but we don’t work for the Church. We are part of the Ethiopian Army. You know, I trained at Sandhurst, an exchange training programme.’
‘I know Sandhurst. That’s where I did my officer training.’
‘So, we are brothers in arms, my friend.’
Yes, so it seems, and thank you. I really thought my time was up.’
‘It is our pleasure. Perhaps we will all have a drink together when we get ashore?’
‘Great, I’m up for that.’ Sam slapped his hand on the launch. ‘But look, Ethiopia doesn’t have a coastline, much less a navy. What exactly is happening?’
Sam’s rescuer laughed again and produced another bottle of water which he shared with Sam. ‘Our Church wanted to ensure you got out of Libya alive, so Bishop Ignatius does what he does, and my government supplied us and arranged with the Egyptian government for logistical support. This launch is from an Egyptian patrol ship lying offshore. It will ferry us back into Egypt where an Ethiopian military plane is waiting to take us to Addis Ababa.’
‘Really? The Egyptian government will help like that?’
‘I know - we are mostly Christian, they are mostly Muslim’—he shrugged and pursed his lips—‘but Ethiopia can be a good and strong friend. Behind the scenes, we help them, and they help us.’
Sam leant his head back against the gunwale, closed his eyes. ‘Well, thank God. Thank everyone’s God.’
• • •
A message from Sam had reached Helen mid-morning and lifted a weight of worry that had been building in his absence. Shortly after she had learnt of Sam’s departure from Libya, Elaine and Grace had arrived, quickly followed by Francis, then Xavier and Angelo.
‘I see Sam’s vehicle is back in the drive. They’ve done a good repair job; there’s no sign of damage,’ said Francis.
‘Yes, the garage returned it this morning. I haven’t been out to inspect it yet, but Sam will be pleased to have it back.’
Julie and Davy had been invited for lunch too. As people took their seats around the big kitchen table, Davy, his arm in a sling to support his broken collarbone, attempted to supervise proceedings. Meanwhile, Julie assisted Grace in bustling around the kitchen and disregarding him, while putting the final touches to the meal.
At the table, Helen shared what details she had of Sam’s escape from Libya. It was a comfort that Sam was being evacuated to Addis Ababa. Helen knew their friends there would ensure his safety. On the other hand, it took him further away from where he needed to be.
With just a shrug and a pursing of his lips, Xavier addressed the problem. Before lunch was served, his private aircraft was readying for take-off, destination Addis Ababa. It would collect Sam and return him directly to Edinburgh sometime on Sunday.
Over lunch, it was agreed that Davy, Julie and Grace would return to the trench that afternoon to take advantage of the afternoon daylight in a search for clues as to exactly what the night-time intruders had been seeking. Helen phoned the security company to ensure the site guards were expecting the visitors.
They all agreed, any further progress would depend on Sam’s return.
• • •
Eugene Jr looked at the two men. The lawyer’s advice had been that there would be little prospect of a prosecution. Once the police had the facts, they would let the issue slip away. To accelerate the process, on Friday morning, Eugene Jr had given the lawyer instructions to pass to his men. They obeyed them to the letter. Just before Friday lunchtime, a commotion had arisen in the hospital corridor, and by the time it was over, the two men were in a car and heading away into the city.
‘My father is not happy with either of you. How you could allow yourselves to be overpowered by a girl? It is unbelievable. He intends to discuss it with you personally.’ Pausing for theatrical effect, he felt a little tingle inside when he saw the two men visibly blanche at the news that they had attracted Eugene Parsol’s attention. The power his father wielded was immense, and one day it would be his.
‘I suggest you pick up your game and don’t do anything else to cause upset before he arrives.’ He waved them away, and the men left his hotel suite as quickly as possible. He crossed to the window and looked out. It faced west and, between the snow showers, afforded him a view along the length of Princes Street. A full mile away, at the far end of the street, was another imposing stone-built hotel; together, they bookended the thoroughfare.
Directly beneath his window, he could see the canopy that covered Waverley Station, the city’s main rail hub. To his right, he traced the line of buildings that fringed the full north side of Princes Street; somewhere among them was a top-floor suite that had been Cassite
r’s base before things had gone so badly wrong for him in the city. The street itself was quiet amid the intermittent snow showers. Buses and trams rolled back and forth, and a few pedestrians dotted between shops or hoisted umbrellas before hurrying across the road for the temporary sanctuary of the bus shelters that punctuated its length.
His father and Cassiter were already on their way. Apparently, Cassiter had made a breakthrough in Libya. Imperfect, but enough to draw the big guns to Edinburgh.
He turned and glowered at the closed door of his suite. He could not afford to be embarrassed by any more schoolboy errors and would need to up his own game too. Knowing his father, the two men would be punished for their failing. Parsol Jr determined to watch the process carefully. One day, he would take over. If the punishments meted out now were not what he judged to be sufficient, when his time came, they would be punished again.
• • •
Davy stood at the edge of the trench where he divided his time between chatting to two security guards about the merits of a football winter shutdown and directing Julie and Grace who had clambered down into the trench and were blissfully disregarding him.
‘Watch your step down there, Grace; the stones can be slippery.’
‘And what about me? They’re slippery for me too,’ said Julie, throwing a stone up towards Davy, aiming to miss.
He reached out his good hand and caught the passing stone. ‘You be careful too, Julie.’ He laughed and inspected the stone. ‘Hey, well done, this has a piece of pattern on it.’
‘Really? What’s it like?’ said Julie.
‘Not sure, it’s only a fragment. Here, take a look,’ he said, tossing the stone back into the trench.
Julie caught the stone and inspected it. ‘You’re right. We’ll see if we can find any more.’
16
Monday, January 20th
In the manse’s study, Xavier and Elaine were settled comfortably to either end of a settee. Opposite them, in another two-seater, Helen had positioned herself close to Sam. Grace had put the afternoon tea tray on the study desk and sat there to pour cups of tea for Angelo to distribute.
‘Well, we’re all happy you got out alive, thank God,’ said Helen to a round of nods and murmured agreement.
‘Yes, I’m pleased myself, but that doesn’t deflect from the big problem. Cassiter took my camera with the pictures of the steps at the Temple of Jupiter. My whole trip was a waste of time.’
‘Not a complete waste of time,’ said Xavier. ‘We now know for certain that it’s the same organisation from last year that is involved. And like before, we know they are unable to proceed without our contribution. They always seem to need us to solve the problem.’
‘So they can sneak in and snatch whatever it is at the last minute? I don’t think so,’ said Grace.
‘I think you’re right. Try as they might to steal a march on us, it seems they cannot proceed far without us,’ said Helen.
‘That certainly was the case last time; it may still be. But for sure, once Cassiter had the photographs, which he must have assumed were the key, he did not seem to worry about my living any longer. That we are searching for the key to open our boxes is known. They now have the photographs, which might help them, but it definitely seems to block us off again. Yet, we have the boxes, so they cannot make any progress in opening them. Short of my going back to Leptis Magna for a second round of photograph taking, it’s an impasse.’
‘Well, you can forget Libya,’ said Helen.
‘Don’t worry; I have no intention of going back. There were several bodies left on the ground over there; I’m thinking everyone is going to be on high alert now. There’s no chance of getting in and out in one piece again.’
‘So, my friend, where are we?’ Xavier’s eyebrows furrowed slightly, and his palms opened out in a tandem display with a hunching of shoulders.
‘Tell you the truth, Xavier; I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on it for us. Are you sure there is nothing you can add?’ said Sam.
Xavier’s eyebrows arched yet higher, and his next shrug was more pronounced. ‘I have no idea how to open your boxes. Yes, they are part of our heritage. But they are not a part of the daggers’ story that I know of. This is something different. My people have never had a knowledge of this.’
‘So, we’re stuck,’ said Grace.
‘What do you think we should do, Sam?’ said Helen.
‘I don’t know. I really don’t. But we have to come up with something, fast. Cassiter and his people are on the move; they certainly won’t wait. I expect they may just come for the boxes now and that means more deaths.’ Sam stood and crossed to the desk to get more tea. Grace leant across the desk, taking his cup from him.
‘What are these?’ said Sam, an ingrained professional interest kicking in as he ran his fingers over the shards of splintered stone on the desk.
‘Oh, don’t worry about them. They’re the bits I found with Julie and Davy out at the trench over the weekend. I was going to show them to you when you had a quiet moment.’ Grace handed him his refilled teacup with a smile. ‘You can see them another time.’
‘Thanks,’ said Sam, taking the teacup and nodding an agreement that he would look another day. He returned to his place, putting the teacup on the occasional table between the settees. Then he walked back to the desk. Grace raised the biscuit plate, but Sam waved it away. He began sifting through Grace’s little pile of splintered stones.
‘Is this everything you found?’
‘Yes,’ said Grace.
‘Are you sure? Was there more that you didn’t bring back?’
‘Maybe … I don’t know. It gets dark early; we were only there for an hour. It seemed to me most of the smaller bits of stone had been crushed under the remains of the roof - there wasn’t a lot left. Is it important?’
‘Perhaps. I’ll need to speak with Davy or Julie. I’m sure they will be able to give me a formal site appraisal.’
‘What is it Sam? What’s going on?’ said Helen.
‘I don’t know. See this?’ Sam lifted a piece of stone the size of a matchbox. ‘It’s a splinter off something larger. I’d guess the whole was originally cricket-ball-sized.’
‘How big is that?’ said Helen.
‘Think baseball.’ Sam held the stone up to the natural light of the window. ‘The worked surface has a pattern that seems just a little familiar. I feel I know it.’
Helen joined him at the window, took the stone from Sam and looked at it. ‘Oh yes, I know this,’ she said.
‘You do?’
‘Yes, I found one at the site, the day I was run off the road. You’re right; it’s about baseball size but actually a cuboid not a sphere. It had a pattern on it too, I think like on this little piece.’
‘Where is it?’
‘I don’t know, Sam. I was run off the road and ended up in hospital, remember?’
Sam leant in and kissed Helen’s cheek. ‘Sorry, professional interest, I can’t help it.’
Helen pushed Sam’s shoulder before handing him back the shard. ‘Help it! Remember, girlfriends always come first.’
‘Sorry,’ said Sam, with a grin.
Helen thought for a moment as Sam showed Xavier and Elaine the ornate shard of stone. He traced out the engraved patch on one surface.
‘I thought it would be of interest to you, so I put it in my shoulder bag. I guess it’s still in your car.’
‘I’ll go out and have a look for you,’ said Grace.
‘Thanks.’ Helen dipped her hand into Sam’s sports jacket pocket and pulled out the fob. ‘It should be on the floor somewhere. Maybe look under the driver’s seat too, in case it got shoved under there during the crash.’
Grace was quickly back with the shoulder bag.
Helen rummaged inside. The stone was still there. In the comfort of the study, the stone suddenly seemed more elaborately worked than she had thought in the trench. With a smile of triumph, she passed it to Sam.
‘Whoa, what is this?’ said Sam. Taking the stone, he turned it in his hand. As Helen had said, the stone was cuboid. Five faces intricately worked, one rough. He held it out for them all to see. ‘Look, this is a cusp, very complex stone working. You take a larger stone, which is one of a series that combine to form an archway. One end of each bigger stone is whittled away to eventually leave a regular-sized section as part of the arch, with this much smaller appendage or cusp sprouting out beneath it like a fruit from a tree.’
‘Amazing,’ said Helen, inspecting the stone properly.
Elaine took it, inspected it carefully and gave a curt nod before passing it to Xavier.
‘There is much work in this stone. I do not recognise the images, but they feel familiar, they seem … they seem attractive yet not … uh … how do you say, not normal?’ Xavier held the stone out to Helen again and looked to her for a response. She reached out to take the stone from Xavier.
‘I’ll take that if you don’t mind,’ said Sam, reaching over to nudge Helen’s hand aside, lifting the stone from Xavier’s palm himself.
‘Sam!’ said Helen.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Sam and hurried off to the kitchen where he rinsed away the roof-fall dirt. He looked at the rinsed stone then rubbed it against his sports jacket sleeve. Looking again, he returned to the study to present it back to Helen.
‘There, just look at that. Beautiful, perfect.’
He dropped into Helen’s hand a perfectly worked stone, its crisp edges and flowing patterned surfaces revealed. Everyone gasped.
‘What is it, Sam?’
‘Like I said, it’s a cusp. A carefully patterned cusp.’
‘It looks new,’ said Grace.
‘I don’t know how old it is. It could be ten years old, a hundred years old; it could be a thousand years old. As old as the chamber it was part of. Inside the chamber, the stone’s never been exposed to any weather. It might as well have been stored in your cupboard.’
‘Wow.’
‘Yes, wow. But here’s the real wow. I know the pattern. As Xavier said, it’s familiar. Look at it - you’ll all know it too. It’s the same as on our boxes.’ He looked around the group as they tried to understand the implications. ‘It’s the same as on our boxes!’