The Lost Testament

75

With nothing much else they could do but wait, they ordered room service and then lay side by side on the double bed, talking through the events of the day one more time and planning their next move.

After half an hour of what quickly felt like pointless speculation, Bronson asked if he could see the parchment, the cause of all the trouble they were in. They spent a few minutes looking at the ancient relic — which was actually a remarkably dull sight, just a piece of thick dark brown leather upon which a few letters or partial words could be seen — and studying the photographs of the object that had been taken by Ali Mohammed back in Cairo what felt like weeks ago.

‘Well, it certainly doesn’t look like much,’ Bronson remarked.

‘Nor did the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Nag Hammadi codices,’ she replied. ‘It’s what it says, and what the text actually means in today’s world, which is important. And until I get this relic back to the museum and subject it to a proper analysis, I won’t know exactly what event it’s describing.’

The screen on Bronson’s laptop suddenly changed, the screensaver vanishing as a Skype call came in.

‘At last,’ Bronson said. ‘That must be Billy.’

Bronson answered the call, and asked if the youthful hacker had found out anything useful.

‘I managed to pull some data, yes,’ Billy replied, ‘but it wasn’t easy. I had to run the hacking software through a bunch of proxies so nobody would be able to trace it back to me, and that slowed everything down. The good news is that if any of the Spanish security people decide to run a back-trace to try to find me, the trail will stop in Vienna. I thought that was kind of appropriate, Vienna being full of spies during the Cold War.’

Billy chuckled at his own joke for a moment, then got down to the business at hand.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘the phone number you asked me to investigate, the one that seems to belong to this guy Pere. The records only start from a few days ago, and he’s used it quite a bit, and from a bunch of different places in Madrid, so I guess he’s been out and about, probably looking for the two of you.’

‘That makes sense,’ Bronson replied.

‘You gave me a time, or a rough time anyway, when you wanted me to nail down his location, and that’s one of the places where he seems to spend quite a bit of time. I can’t be absolutely specific about where that is. It’s not anywhere near the centre of Madrid, so there are fewer masts to use for triangulation. But I’ve been able to pinpoint the spot to within about thirty metres.’

‘That’s brilliant, Billy. I’m ready to copy if you can read the location to me.’

‘With all this technology at your disposal,’ Billy scoffed, ‘you’re still using a paper and pencil? I’ve already sent the location to you. You’ll find it in your “My documents” folder on your hard drive. I’ve called the file “Bad guy”. If you want my guess, I think it’s probably a warehouse or an office on some kind of industrial estate, because of its position. It’s called Paracuellas de Jarama, and it lies pretty much halfway between the Barajas International Airport and the Torrejón Airport, and they’re both out to the north-east of Madrid.’

‘That’s excellent work, Billy,’ Bronson said. ‘I’ll make sure I see you as soon as I get back to England to settle up with you.’

‘You just do what you’ve got to do out there, my friend. I’m in no hurry. Oh, and the last time I ran the check through the system, the guy you’re looking for — or at least his mobile — was still at that location.’