The Babylon Idol

Chapter 64

All three of them gazed down at the huge, ancient object that Usberti had excavated from the sand: a wizened, blackened stump of desiccated wood, like the remains of a prehistoric oak tree that had become hardened like iron with extreme age and preserved by the dryness of the desert climate.

Nobody spoke for a long time. ‘Well, so much for that,’ Janssens said at last.

Anna shook her head. ‘And so, my theory was correct. The idol was created on a modular system, out of gold plates that could be dismantled and packed away for transport. That’s how the Muranus were able to smuggle it away from Babylon.’

‘There’s not much left, is there?’ Ben said.

‘Only the wooden core of the structure,’ she replied sadly. ‘We’ll never know what became of the gold plates. Pillaged by robbers, or taken by the surviving members of Ashar’s rebel group after his death, either for their personal gain or to help fight a lost cause that nobody would ever remember. Maybe the plates were discovered by Persian soldiers and taken away as spoils of war. Or, perhaps the family treasure was reclaimed by the Muranu descendants and minted back into coins to support themselves in their exile from their homeland.’ She sighed, clutching her hand to her chest. ‘Who knows? Whatever happened to it, the gold is long gone. All that remains is worthless, except to an archaeologist. If they could prove what it was.’

‘What it is, is a big lump of firewood,’ Ben said.

‘Not a bad idea. We should chop it up and burn it,’ Janssens said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Get some warmth happening around here.’ Then he glanced over at Usberti. ‘What about him?’

‘He looks dead,’ Anna said.

Ben left her side and limped over to where Usberti lay. After a moment he called back, ‘He’s not dead.’

Usberti wasn’t unconscious, either. But something was wrong with him. His open eyes were glazed and strangely unfocused. His lips were moving as he muttered inaudibly to himself. In one curled hand he was clutching a small pill bottle, from whose unscrewed top what remained of its contents had spilled on the ground.

It was only when Ben reached down to take the pill bottle from his limp fingers that the old man seemed to register his presence. The glazed eyes rolled dolefully up at him, but nothing else moved. Ben read the medical brand name printed on the label to see what the yellow pills on the ground were, and then tossed it away. The patient wouldn’t be needing them any more anyhow.

‘What’s happened to him?’ Anna said.

‘He’s had a heart attack,’ Ben told her. ‘Or a massive stroke. Either way, it’s all over for him.’

‘I’ve seen him popping more and more of those pills lately,’ Janssens said. ‘He didn’t think anyone noticed. Seen him clutching his heart once or twice, too. All this digging must’ve brought on the attack. He’s got to have shifted three tons of sand here, at least.’

‘Or maybe it was the shock of finding what was under it,’ Ben said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s a shame.’

Janssens looked surprised to hear Ben say such a thing. ‘A shame that there was no gold after all, or a shame that this poor, dear, once-great leader of men is now reduced to a drooling vegetable? I can’t believe either would bother you that much.’

‘Neither does,’ Ben said. ‘I mean, I’m sorry that I didn’t get to see the look on his face when all his sick little dreams fell apart. The moment he realised that hurting my friends, murder and torture, all of it, was for nothing, and that he was never going to live to find his precious gold, and that he was going to die alone and miserable.’ He bent closer to Usberti, saw the eyes roll up at him again. ‘Isn’t that right, Archbishop? You can hear everything I’m saying, can’t you?’

Usberti’s lips moved and he whispered something. Ben leaned closer still, so he could hear.

‘Shoot me… Don’t… don’t leave me like this… Please.’

‘I’d shoot a dog,’ Ben said, ‘if I thought it was suffering. I’d put any innocent creature out of its misery. But I’d make an exception for you. You don’t merit it.’

‘I… beg… you… Finish it.’

‘You should shoot him,’ Anna said.

‘He’s already in hell,’ Ben said. ‘Why waste the bullet?’

‘Because it’s the humane thing to do.’

‘Does he deserve humanity?’

‘Doesn’t everyone?’ she said. ‘Give me the gun. I’ll do it, if you won’t.’

‘Will it make you feel better?’ Ben asked her.

‘No. It won’t. It will make me feel sick for the rest of my life. I’ll never be able to close my eyes again without remembering what it felt like to take a life. Even one like his.’

‘Then I’ll do it,’ Ben said. ‘I’m not like you, Anna. When I go to bed every night, this bastard’s brains all over the ground will be the last thing I picture before I drop off to sleep with a big cheesy smile on my face.’

He put the Glock to Usberti’s head.

‘This is for Father Pascal,’ he said. ‘For Luc Simon, for Jeff Dekker. For every life you ever reached out and destroyed. And for all the rest of the people in the world who’ll be that little bit safer once you’re gone, even if they’ll never know it. Say hello to the Devil for me, Usberti, because you’ll be with him in about one second from now.’

The shot rang out across the desert. Its echo rolled and boomed for miles. Ben stood up. A jolt of pain ran through him. He felt dizzy and weak, and infinitely sad. Not for what he’d just done. But for the fact that he hadn’t done it years sooner.

‘And that’s that,’ Janssens said. ‘May the best man win, just like he said.’

Ben was about to reply when a triple stitch of red holes blew out of Janssens’ chest and he went straight down on his back, dead before he even started toppling.

Ben seized Anna’s good arm and sent her spinning over the edge of the trench, then dived in after her as Ugo Bozza loosed off another burst from the submachine gun that Janssens had left in the truck. For a man with a bullet in him, he’d sneaked up on them with incredible stealth.

Ben poked the Glock over the edge of the trench and snapped back two double-taps in quick succession. He saw the snow skip at Bozza’s feet, heard the clank of a copper-jacketed 9mm bullet perforating the truck. Bozza jumped over its side and disappeared behind it. From Ben’s low angle he could see the man’s feet under the truck’s wheelbase. He took aim and fired again, and this time he heard a sharp yell as his bullet punched into the heel of Bozza’s boot.

Bozza went down on one knee, but before Ben could fire again he rattled off another stream from under the truck that made the fresh sand at the edge of the trench dance and sent Ben slithering down for cover. Anna had managed to crawl over to the wooden statue and was cowering behind it. ‘Stay there and don’t move!’ he yelled at her.

‘I won’t,’ she yelled in reply.

Ben fired. Bozza fired back. Ben fired back again. The gunshots boomed and rattled and echoed over the desert. They could go on like this all day, except for one crucial issue. Trench warfare, with both belligerents hunkered down under cover either side of no-man’s land, was a war of attrition whose outcome basically came down to whichever side’s ammunition supply could outlast the other’s. Ben had started with a near-full Glock, and a Glock was a high-capacity weapon with a thrifty one-at-a-time appetite for bullets. You could load it on a Sunday and shoot all week long. Whereas Bozza’s submachine gun was to ammo what a supercharged V12 Chevrolet engine was to fuel, and with no spare magazine the odds were long against him.

Bozza knew that.

And so, he shortened them.

When Ben heard the truck engine starting up, he thought for a second that Bozza was beating an escape. When he saw it racing straight towards him, he knew he couldn’t have been more wrong.

The truck came roaring over the edge in a storm of dirt and snow. Its nose tipped forwards and its spinning front wheels slammed into the loose sand and it bounced and careered down the sloping bank of the trench to slam hard into the wooden hulk at the bottom, making Anna crawl frantically out of the way to avoid being crushed to death.

Bozza came piling out of the driver’s side, teeth clenched in a look of manic hatred.

Ben was there to meet him.

The close-quarter battle was virtually toe to toe. Ben shot Bozza in the chest. Bozza flinched. Ben shot him again. Bozza twisted. The submachine gun snorted out a three-round burst. Two of them missed Ben.

The third one did not miss.

Ben felt its impact rock him on his feet, but he didn’t take his eyes off the pistol’s sights or the target behind them. He fired again. A third eye opened up at the exact centre of Bozza’s forehead. He seemed to hang in mid-air for a split second, and then dropped soundlessly into the sand and was dead.

Ben stood there looking over Bozza’s corpse. Then he sensed the ground falling out from under him, and suddenly he was looking up at the pale sky with Anna’s anguished cry echoing in his ears from somewhere far away.