The Lost Testament

63

Anum Husani had actually arrived at the rendezvous about ten minutes earlier, and had been waiting in a small park down the street, some distance away, watching the activity at the café through a pair of compact but powerful binoculars he had purchased that morning. He’d seen a couple — an attractive blonde woman and a powerfully built, tall man with dark hair — arrive and spend a little time inside the building. Then they’d come out and the woman had sat down at a table. The man had then left her and gone to sit in a car nearby.

He had assumed from the start that there would be at least one other person with Angela Lewis, somebody to give a second opinion on the authenticity of the parchment. But then again, maybe the man was her husband: they certainly seemed to be on very friendly terms.

But whoever he was, he didn’t worry Husani. What bothered him was the possibility that the killer from Cairo, or some other hired assassin, might also know about the rendezvous he had arranged. He wasn’t well versed in the workings of modern technology. He used a computer as a tool to do certain things, but had little or no idea what went on in the background. He had no idea if it was possible for somebody else to intercept his email messages and read them, but he vaguely knew that that method of communication was more secure than using a mobile telephone.

These thoughts ran through his head as he sat on the grass, his back against the trunk of a tree, watching what little activity there was at the café.

The time he had specified for the rendezvous arrived, and still Husani didn’t move, just kept watching. About five minutes later, he saw the woman sitting at the table by herself look across the road towards the parked cars and give a slight shrug. If he needed it, that was confirmation enough. It was time.

Husani glanced round cautiously, but nobody appeared to be paying him — or the blonde woman in the café — any attention. He slid the binoculars into his pocket, picked up the expensive briefcase, then stood up and began slowly walking down the street, alert to any indication of danger.

Nobody approached him as he covered the short distance to the café on the opposite side of the road. When he reached a point almost directly opposite the building, he stopped and looked in both directions, like a cautious pedestrian, before walking to the other side. He weaved his way between the tables until he reached the one where Angela was sitting.

Then he stopped.