The Heretics Treasure

Chapter Twenty-Five

Claudel was flicking through a book in his study when he heard the van skid up on the gravel outside. A few seconds later, Kamal came bursting into the villa. Rapid footsteps across the marble floor of the hall. The study door flew open. Kamal stormed into the room, clutching a laptop to his chest. He strode over to the desk and thumped it down, sending papers fluttering.

‘What’s that?’ Claudel asked nervously. He could almost feel the heat of the aggression that was pouring off the man.

Kamal’s eyes flashed with fury. ‘That is your whole life, until you can figure out what’s inside.’

Claudel flipped the lid open and switched on the machine. As he sat poring over the screen, Kamal was pacing up and down, almost manic with rage. He tore a valuable second edition of Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire from a bookshelf and hurled it across the room. It smacked against the wall. The binding burst apart and it fluttered to the floor like a dead bird. ‘I’ll have that bastard’s head on a plate!’ he screamed.

‘What happened?’

‘Three of my men are dead, is what happened.’ Kamal roared the last word. He grabbed a delicate eighteenth-century upholstered chair, threw it down and stamped it into pieces. ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ Pieces of wood spun across the study floor.

Claudel looked away. He knew better than to ask too many questions of Kamal when he was in this mood. He returned to the computer, and quickly found the Akhenaten file. His eyes brightened. Then he tried clicking into it.

‘This file is encrypted,’ he said, looking up.

‘I know that,’ Kamal raged. ‘You take me for a fucking idiot?’

Claudel looked back down at the screen and felt a trickle of sweat run down his neck. ‘I’m not a computer person,’ he protested weakly. ‘How am I supposed to crack an encrypted file?’

Kamal stormed over to him with his teeth bared in anger. ‘I don’t care how you do it. You figure this out. Understood?’

Claudel was already running through his options, thinking of all the people he knew who could help. Hisham, he thought. Hisham was good with computers.

But no sooner had the thought occurred to him, than his heart sank again. He couldn’t call Hisham. If he failed, Kamal would just shoot the guy, or worse. Anyone Claudel brought in on this situation was condemned to death. He thought of what had happened to Aziz. He thought about him all the time, couldn’t get the image out of his mind. He’d been having nightmares about it.

No. He was on his own.

He looked desperately up at Kamal. ‘The password could be anything.’

‘Then try everything,’ Kamal said. ‘Starting now.’