The Babylon Idol

Chapter 54

Ben craned his neck to peer upwards in the direction of the pointing finger. The cliff loomed over them. Maybe a hundred feet, maybe three times that. Hard to tell. The angle of the rock face was past vertical, so he couldn’t see the top.

He normally enjoyed climbing. Now and then, on a Sunday morning when the schedule at Le Val allowed, he would take the old Land Rover to a Normandy beach near a place called Étretat, with a sea kayak strapped to the roof, paddle out to the base of the famous chalk cliffs of the so-called Alabaster Coast and relish pitting himself against the challenge.

This was a whole other proposition. Ben didn’t like to use the word ‘impossible’. But if there were an enemy position up there on top, and orders dictated that it were imperative to capture that position, the SAS would have looked for another way.

‘Now you see my purpose in keeping you alive,’ Usberti said. ‘Why should I risk the lives of my own men, when I have you? Aldo, you may uncuff him. No tricks, Major, I beseech you.’

‘You can’t make him do this,’ Anna said.

‘Of course not. He will make the climb by his own will. Because he can all too well imagine the harm that may come to you, my dear, if he refuses.’

‘You need me just as much as you need him,’ she said. ‘More, even. Unless you suddenly became an expert translator of ancient cuneiform languages.’

‘The human body is remarkably adaptive to even the most atrocious mutilation,’ Usberti said. ‘I have seen double, even triple amputees capable of some amazing feats of dexterity. Consider for a moment, Professor, the minimum physiological requirements necessary for translating a piece of writing from one language to another. All that is really needed is a brain to think with, one eye to read with, one hand to write with, a heart and a pair of lungs to keep the abbreviated organism functioning. A marvel of economy, thanks to the genius of God’s design. But what a pity it would be to reduce so beautiful a feminine form to such a pitiful state. And how upsetting for Major Hope, knowing such an outcome could have been avoided.’

‘I’ll make the climb,’ Ben said. ‘But I can’t do it with my bare hands. Though I’m sure you already thought of that.’

‘Naturally.’ Usberti turned to Starace. ‘Maurizio, fetch the equipment from the vehicle.’ Starace walked to the rear of the RV and opened up a compartment big enough to accommodate a Smart Car. A light came on inside. The compartment was empty except for a black holdall. Starace knelt down to unzip it, and pulled out a large coil of thin rope, climbing gloves, body harness, pick, hammer, pitons, a lightweight flashlight, and a belt pouch with the legend NIKON. A small digital camera, Ben guessed, for taking pictures of the inscriptions.

‘These items were obtained at the last minute before we departed from Ankara,’ Usberti said. ‘I trust they meet your requirements?’

Ben inspected the pile of equipment. The rope was the kind of super-strong cord that could lift a tank but would stretch to soften the jerk on a falling climber. The karabiner clips, pitons and belay device were all decent stuff, light and robust. Then he looked up again at the cliff. It was little wonder that two of the Von Grüber expedition hadn’t survived it, back in 1923 when rock climbing gear was a lot more primitive.

‘No climbing shoes?’ he said.

Usberti spread his hands. ‘Forgive me. I did not know your size.’

‘Goggles?’

‘I am sure you can manage without them. Whenever you are ready, Major Hope. I suggest you do not tarry too long, the light is failing rapidly. The rest of us will shelter in the cave and await your safe return.’

‘You don’t have to do this,’ Anna said.

‘You know I do,’ Ben told her.

‘Please be careful.’

‘This is a walk in the park,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back before you know it.’

Usberti was right about one thing. He didn’t have a lot of time before nightfall made climbing ten times harder, and weather conditions were worsening every minute. The freezing rain was turning to snow, driving down harder on a stiffening wind that was making his hands and face numb. He quickly put on the harness, strapping up the Velcro and buckles good and tight. Made sure the various loops and connectors were properly fitted, clipped the camera pouch to his waist, slipped the hammer and pitons into their respective pouches, pulled on the gloves and fastened their wrist straps, and he was as ready as he’d ever be.

All he had to do now was scale the damn rock and get back down again alive.

He spent a few moments with his neck craned upwards to scan the sheer cliff face for handholds and footholds, and cracks into which to hammer his pitons. Once he had a rough route figured out, he reached up and hammered in his first piton, then hooked up his rope. Took a deep breath, and began his ascent.

It started out bad, and it got quickly worse. Without proper climbing shoes his toes were slipping all over the smooth, damp cliff face. And having to keep his face constantly tilted upwards with no goggles on left his eyes unprotected from the steadily thickening snow. It was the frozen wastes of Ankara all over again, except then he hadn’t been clinging to a past-vertical incline with a lethal drop and a bunch of gangsters holding Anna hostage below him. Sometimes, you just don’t realise how lucky you are.

He climbed. One hand over the other, feet scrabbling for grip, fingers numb and raw even inside his gloves, unable to feel his toes inside his boots. Pausing to grope for cracks above him, reach for his hammer, tap in another piton. Clipping and unclipping ropes as he went, so that there was always a safety line to anchor him to the wall and another to haul himself up another few feet before the process had to be repeated over. Ten minutes of solid, constant, muscle-ripping effort. Then twenty minutes. Night was falling fast. His mind emptied of all the anger he felt against Usberti, Bozza and the rest. Gravity was the enemy now, the deadly presence that wanted to reach up and grab him by the ankles and yank him to his death. He was shivering and sweating both at once. His eyes were burning and watering from the bite of the cold wind.

And all through it, he could hear the sound of war growing louder. It was coming from the north, the unmistakable crash and sonic boom of heavy artillery carried on the wind like rolling thunder, interspersed with ragged volleys of crackling small arms fire. Pausing to catch a breath, he let the rope hold his weight and dangled freely, used his feet to rotate himself around to look to the north and saw the strobe-flashes and arcs of light on the dark horizon.

It was heading their way. A running battle: tanks and mobile rockets and light armour, moving fast. Another twenty minutes, half an hour, and they would be much closer, perhaps too close for comfort. A full-scale military engagement was no thing to be a spectator to. He was worried about Anna’s safety down there. For a few seconds he thought about abandoning his climb — but returning back down the cliff empty-handed wasn’t going to do either of them much good.

In which case, there wasn’t a moment to lose. He kept on climbing, but now it was getting too dark to see, so he took the lightweight torch from his harness pouch, switched it on and clamped it between his teeth so that it pointed wherever he looked. There was a ledge right above him. With a huge effort he managed to drag himself over its lip. He hauled his rope up and recoiled it, then knelt on the craggy rock and shone the flashlight around him. The ledge was maybe twenty feet deep, and part of it had been cut away in edges and angles much too straight and regular to be the work of nature. He swept the torch beam left, right, up and down over the cliff wall, hoping to find what he’d come here for.

No inscriptions anywhere to be seen. Nothing but craggy rock and broken sections of weathered, time-smoothed block wall that he quickly realised were the remains of a millennia-old fortification of some kind.

The last holdout of Ashar the Babylonian. It had probably been ancient even when the band of outlaws had taken up residence there, originally built by an even older civilisation back when this ledge had been part of a much bigger overhang on the cliff face. Sometime in the last couple of thousand years both it and, presumably, the narrow cliff path that allowed the renegades access to their base must have been carried away in a major rock slide, perhaps as a result of an earthquake.

But as interesting as that might be to an archaeologist, all it meant to Ben was that he was unlikely to find the inscriptions here. A bandit leader wily enough to elude the might of the Persian army for as long as Ashar had wouldn’t have been foolish enough to carve the vital clues as to the whereabouts of his treasure right where his enemies could find them.

Which meant Ben had to keep searching, and keep climbing.

Leaning back as far as he could over the edge of the lip, he pointed his torch beam vertically through the swirling snowflakes and saw a second, smaller overhang another fifty feet or so higher up. A long, long way above the ground. Whichever one of the Von Grüber party had first spotted the inscriptions from down below must have been packing a hell of a pair of binoculars. Assuming the inscriptions were even there, and not eroded away to nothing or destroyed in another rock slide.

Only one way to find out.

A Gauloise would have been nice about now. Better still, a slug of scotch. Ben hugged his sides, then clapped and rubbed his hands and kicked his feet to try to get some sensation back into his extremities. He checked his harness pouch and saw he was running short on pitons: just enough left, or so he hoped, to make the final leg of the climb. The wind was blowing harder. The snow was gusting strongly, clinging to his hair and eyelashes, and creeping icily down his neck. His body was racked with shivering. He looked towards the north. The flashes on the horizon had advanced a considerable distance. Usberti and the others might not be able to see the faraway explosions as well as he could from so high up, but they’d be deaf if they couldn’t hear the battle inching ever closer.

Time was running short.

Ben climbed on. He was getting very tired, and very cold. He was beginning to make mistakes as the creeping chill got to him. A couple of times, he failed to hammer a piton deeply enough into its crevice, only to see to his horror that it was working its way out when he had the full strain of his weight on the rope. Only luck and speed saved him. When he misjudged a foothold and his numb toes slipped and he felt himself going, it was the strong, stretchy rope that kept him from falling to his death.

Maybe there was a God, after all. Ben thanked him, just in case.

And at last, the second ledge was right above him. He was down to his last piton as he dragged himself up onto the narrow crawl-space. His hands no longer seemed to belong to him, but he managed to anchor himself with a loop of rope around a spike of rock, then take out the torch.

And that was when he saw the inscriptions carved on the cliff wall right in front of him.