The Lost Testament

19

Minutes later, Abdul was standing in a doorway across the road from Mahmoud’s house, carrying out a final reconnoitre. No lights were burning, and he could hear no sound emanating from the building.

He checked carefully up and down the street, then crossed the road and walked silently down the alley that ran along one side of the property, continuing his surveillance. Again he noted nothing to alarm him, and so with one swift movement he vaulted over the low wall at the back of the house, to land in Mahmoud’s tiny rear courtyard.

As he had expected, both the back door and the two windows that looked onto the courtyard were closed and locked. Using his torch, he examined the lock on the door, and then the catches on the windows. Immediately, he ruled out the windows. There were no external keyholes, and the only way in using that route would be to break the glass, which would be fairly noisy.

The lock on the door was far less of a problem. Abdul didn’t bother with a lock pick this time, just took an object shaped rather like a small pistol from his pocket, stuck the end of it in the keyhole, applied a gentle turning force to the tool and then pulled the trigger half a dozen times. The professional-quality gun pick did its job efficiently. After a second or two he was able to turn the tool in a complete circle, and was rewarded by a click as the deadlock retracted.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a pair of latex surgical gloves and carefully slid them onto his hands. They were longer than normal, the cuffs extending about halfway up his forearms, and were another essential tool of his often messy trade. Then, cautiously, he opened the door just wide enough to allow him to slide his body through the gap, and pushed the door closed behind him.

There were, Abdul knew, two possible approaches to locating the missing relic. First, he could wander about the house, looking in every room and hoping to see it lying on a table or a desk somewhere, or perhaps spot whatever box or protective sleeve Mahmoud had placed it inside. But that could take all night and there was absolutely no guarantee that the search would be successful. If Mahmoud knew that the parchment was valuable, he might well have locked it away in a safe or strongbox somewhere.

The second approach was what might be termed the direct option. Instead of trying to find the parchment, Abdul would find Mahmoud himself and make him hand over the relic. And that option appealed to him far more.

His footsteps barely audible, he moved from room to room on the ground floor, thoroughly checking each one in turn to ensure that nobody was in them. Then he found his way to the wooden staircase which ran through the centre of the house and made his way up it as quietly as he could, keeping close to the wall on the right-hand side, where he hoped the treads would creak as little as possible. Every two or three steps he paused and just listened, but heard nothing.

On the landing, he saw four doors. Two were closed and the other two were standing open. He inspected the open ones first, finding that one was just a small storeroom, and the other a bathroom. Then he stepped across to the first of the two closed doors and pressed his ear against the wood, listening intently. There was no sound from inside the room that he could detect, so he grasped the handle and turned it cautiously, easing the door open as soundlessly as he could.

The room was apparently a spare bedroom, equipped with two single beds, neither of them made, just two wooden frames and mattresses visible in the pale moonlight filtering through the thin curtain at the window.

That was good news. Abdul was a professional and always tried to avoid causing collateral damage. If there had been a couple of children sleeping there, he would probably have had to kill them as well. As it was, he assumed that Mahmoud either lived alone or at worst had a wife sleeping beside him.

Abdul eased his way out of the empty bedroom and stepped across the landing to the other closed door. Again he listened, and this time he could detect a faint sound, a rhythmic gentle snoring that was clearly audible even through the thickness of the closed bedroom door. That was all he needed to know.

There was a small automatic pistol tucked away in Abdul’s pocket, but he really didn’t want to have to use that weapon because of the noise that it would make. His knives would be just as effective and completely silent. And, in reality, he much preferred the personal contact a knife offered.

He seized the door handle and began to turn it very gently. It was possible that Mahmoud had bolted or locked the door on the inside, and it would not have surprised him if the door hadn’t budged. But in fact, it swung open easily on its hinges, and he immediately stepped into the bedroom.

This was by far the biggest room on the upper floor of the house, large enough to accommodate a substantial double bed, a couple of freestanding wardrobes and three chests of drawers. On one side of the room was another door standing ajar, and through the opening Abdul could see the white gleam of sanitary fittings. Clearly the room possessed an en suite. Abdul smiled slightly to himself. When he’d met Kassim briefly in the souk, the trader hadn’t struck him as a man used to such comparatively luxurious surroundings.

His heart rate increased just slightly. It was now time to get the information, and the relic, which he had been paid to do. The time for stealth was over.