The Heretics Treasure

Chapter Forty-Four

Tripoli, Libya

At that moment, Kamal was in the middle of a business meeting. He knew little about the three men sitting facing him across the table in the stark white room. Just that they were Europeans, that they spoke English with an accent he’d never heard before, and that they were extremely dangerous people to deal with.

The senior member of the group was a large, broad-shouldered man in a boxy suit-unquestionably the Boss. He looked about seventy, thick white hair and a complexion that had seen too many hard winters. His eyes were small and beady, so penetrating that even Kamal found himself breaking eye contact first, looking down at the closed folder that lay on the table in front of him.

He hated himself for doing it. On any other day, in any other situation, with anyone but these people, he would never have tolerated that kind of humiliation. But he knew he couldn’t afford aggression here. He’d been waiting for this meeting for a long, long time, and he was going to get only one chance. It was a desperately important moment in his career. One that was going to make his name forever. It was going to change everything.

So Kamal bit his lip and paid the appropriate respect to these men who had come a long way to meet him. These kind of people didn’t make themselves available to just anybody. Just meeting with them face to face was a privilege.

And a gigantic risk. He was committed now.

‘The money,’ said the Boss. He was a man of very few words, and when he spoke his voice was low and rumbling.

‘I can make a downpayment of one million US dollars,’ Kamal said. ‘Cash or wire, whichever way you prefer.’

‘The price is twenty million dollars,’ the man on the right said, arching an eyebrow. He was thinner and younger than the leader. His hair was oiled and combed back slickly across his scalp. His left eye was surrounded by a mass of scars, as though someone had once tried to remove it with barbed wire. ‘Cash only. I thought we had already made all of this clear to you.’

‘I am concerned that you might be wasting our time here, Mr Kamal,’ said the man on the left, fingering a briefcase on his knee.

The Boss kept his penetrating gaze locked on Kamal, saying nothing. His big, gnarled hands rested on the table.

Kamal glanced away. ‘I will have the money.’

‘When?’

That was the question that worried Kamal the most. After all these months, he was still no closer to the treasure. That dog Claudel was going to answer for it one day.

‘Soon,’ he said. ‘I will have it very soon.’

‘You realise this is highly irregular,’ said the one on the right. ‘There will be a penalty to pay for the delay. An extra five million. As well as a time limit for completion of payment. You understand these terms?’

Kamal understood them very well. No cash, and the men would show their lack of appreciation in their own particular way. But he was willing to take that risk for what was inside the folder in front of him.

He opened it and spread the documents out again to look at them. The photographs were black and white prints. The A4 sheets were the technical specifications of the five ex-Soviet warheads that had never made it back after the post-glasnost Russian recall of the nuclear stockpiles in Kazakhstan.

He ran his eye down the printouts and his heart quickened. Just looking at them brought it all so much closer. Now, at last, reality was dawning. All that he’d dreamed of looked possible. He, Kamal, was going to be the one.

‘We would like to know your plans,’ the Boss rumbled. ‘You understand.’ He gave a mirthless smile. ‘We also live somewhere.’

‘I understand,’ Kamal replied. ‘Please rest assured that my plans will not pose any risk to you personally.’

‘Your proposed targets?’

Kamal couldn’t hold back the grin that crept over his face as he reached into his jacket and took out a single sheet of paper. He unfolded it and laid it flat on the table. Spun it around with his fingers, and slid it across to show the three men. The Boss drew a pair of thick glasses from his breast pocket and craned forwards to read what Kamal had written in bold black ink.

It was a simple list. Five names. Five cities.

‘My targets in Western Europe and the USA,’ Kamal said quietly. ‘I will wipe them off the face of the planet.’