The Messiah Secret

27

Bronson stopped short and stared at the apartment block, seeing immediately what she meant. The lights in her lounge windows were blazing away, and he knew she always switched everything off whenever she left home.

‘OK.’ Bronson passed her the leather-bound box he’d been carrying, fished in his pocket and pulled out his car keys. ‘My car’s parked in the next street,’ he said. ‘Get in it, lock the doors and drive back here. Pick a spot where you’ve got a good view of the building and keep watch. And keep your mobile on and close to hand.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going inside, of course, and find out what’s happening.’

‘Shouldn’t we call the police?’

‘My dear Angela, I am the police. If I call the local bobbies, they’ll send a squad car along, blues and twos switched on, and whoever’s up there will leg it long before the car gets anywhere near the building.’

Reluctantly, Angela passed Bronson her keys. ‘Just be careful in there,’ she said, shivering a little as she remembered what had happened in Carfax Hall.

Bronson leaned across and kissed her. ‘I don’t intend to get hit on the head again,’ he said. ‘So stop worrying, and get the car.’

‘Looking both ways, Bronson strode briskly across the road. On the opposite side he stopped and looked back, making sure that Angela had gone, then walked towards her front door. He looked closely at the lock. Even a casual glance was enough to show him that it had been forced.

Angela paused briefly at the street corner and looked back towards her apartment building. Bronson had just vanished inside the front lobby. She muttered a silent prayer for him and walked on.

As she did so, a shadow detached itself from a doorway on the opposite side of the street and moved after her.

Bronson pushed open the lobby door and the automatic hall lights flared into life. He had a choice of the lift or the stairs. Using the stairs would have been the quieter option, but Bronson knew he’d be out of breath by the time he reached Angela’s floor, and that wouldn’t be a good thing if he was going to have to get physical with a couple of tea-leaves in her flat. So he pressed the button for the lift instead.

When the doors opened, he stepped inside the lift and pressed the button for two floors above Angela’s apartment — that way, if somebody was burgling her flat, they’d hear the lift carry on past that floor, and wouldn’t expect him to then come creeping down the staircase. Or that’s what he hoped, anyway. Then he took out his mobile and pressed triple nine, but not the button to dial the number. If there was an intruder, he’d only have one button to press, and he could do that with the phone in his pocket. The mobile cell triangulation system would pinpoint his position even if he couldn’t speak, and he knew that would probably be a faster way of summoning help than talking to the operator, especially if the background noise on the call was the sound of fighting.

The lift shuddered to a stop and he made his way slowly and silently down the two flights of stairs to the correct floor.

Angela’s apartment door was ajar. Bronson could see a thin sliver of light between the door and the jamb. It looked as if whoever was inside the flat had switched on most of the lights. It also meant that there could be several intruders, confident they could handle anyone who tried to interfere with them.

If so, it wasn’t good news.

* * *

Angela walked swiftly down the street, looking for Bronson’s BMW. She spotted it about a hundred yards ahead, and felt in her coat pocket for the keys.

But as she approached the car, a figure dressed in black stepped out on to the pavement from between two parked vehicles a few yards in front of her, and stood there, motionless by the kerb, looking towards her.

Angela’s stride faltered. There was something about him, some hint of menace or implied threat, that her heightened awareness picked up. She stepped off the pavement, deciding to cross to the other side of the road in order to avoid him.

She glanced both ways but there was no traffic coming from either direction. When she got about halfway across the road she looked back, and her heart pounded in her chest. The man had also stepped off the pavement, and was angling towards her.

‘Oh, God,’ she whispered, remembering all too clearly what had happened to Bronson and Jonathan Carfax.

Desperately searching for help, she looked in both directions but the street appeared to be deserted. No pedestrians, no traffic.

For the briefest of instants she considered her options. Then she turned and started to run.

Bronson fingered the mobile in his pocket, wondering if he should make the call to the emergency services before he even stepped inside.

Then he shook his head and crossed to the door. Just like the outside door of the building, the lock had obviously been jemmied. He pressed his ear to the opening, but the only noise he could hear was the regular ticking of Angela’s old long-case clock that he knew stood in the hallway.

He took a deep breath, pushed the door open very slightly, just wide enough for him to see through the gap, and looked inside.

Immediately Angela started to run she heard pounding footsteps behind her. She risked a quick glance back, which confirmed what she already knew — her pursuer was much quicker than she was, and was gaining on her with every step. He’d be on her in a matter of seconds.

She’d never reach the main road, she knew. She took a deep breath and screamed; a loud, panicky yell that echoed off the walls of the buildings. But as the sound died away, the only noise she could hear was the thudding of the man’s feet behind her. He was getting closer with every second.

To her right was an apartment block, the lighted entrance lobby offering a safe haven. If the door was open, and if she could reach it before the man caught her.

She changed direction abruptly, cutting across the road towards the lobby, but she was still twenty yards short when a hand seized her shoulder.

Angela screamed again and jinked to her right, shaking off the man’s hand and trying to dodge away from him. But almost immediately he grabbed her again. She spun round, reached for his face and scratched her nails down his cheek, digging as deep as she could.

Then she ran again.

The hall of Angela’s flat was empty, and it looked as if nothing had been disturbed. Bronson swung the door wider and slipped into the flat. On one side was the kitchen, the light switched on but the small room clearly empty. To his right, the open door led into the lounge, and it was obvious even from where Bronson stood that the room had been comprehensively searched. Every drawer on the sideboard had been pulled open, the contents scattered all over the floor. But, again, the room looked empty and there was no noise from anywhere in the apartment.

Making as little sound as he could, Bronson stepped over to the lounge door and glanced inside the room. Nobody was there. Moving more confidently now, he strode further down the hall, checking each room. But within a couple of minutes he’d confirmed his initial suspicions — the burglars had already left.

Angela felt a blow to her side that slammed her hard to the right. The next instant, she was gasping for breath, pinned by the man’s left hand against the rough brick wall of a building. She stared in terrified silence at her attacker.

He was short and stocky, with a bandage covering one side of his head. The clerical collar didn’t fool her for an instant. Perverts, she assumed, would adopt whatever guise they thought would put their victims off-guard, and most people deferred to priests, even if they never went to church.

But what happened next utterly amazed her.

‘You’ve got something I want, Angela,’ the man said calmly, his voice measured and level. Blood trickled steadily down his neck from the ragged scratches on his cheek. ‘Give me that case.’

‘How do you know my name?’ she stammered.

‘Just give me that,’ he snapped, grabbing for the leather-bound box of papers Angela had removed from Carfax Hall.

But Angela didn’t let go. Instead, she pulled back, trying to wrench the box from his hand, and herself out of the man’s grasp.

The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a switchblade knife and pressed the button. The ‘snick’ of the five-inch blade snapping open was ominously loud in the quiet street. He drew back his arm and then swung the knife forward in a vicious under-arm blow aimed directly at Angela’s stomach.

Bronson pulled out his mobile phone, cancelled the triple nine that was displayed on the screen and dialled Angela’s phone. There was no answer.

In that instant he guessed that something was wrong. Stuffing the mobile in his pocket, he ran out of the flat, ignoring the lift and pounding down the stairs towards the ground floor.

The moment she saw the knife swinging towards her, Angela reacted instinctively. Grasping the leather-bound box with both hands, she slammed it downwards to meet the blade.

She felt a sudden blow as the switchblade slammed into the wood and staggered with the force of the impact. She looked down. The blade had penetrated both sides, and a couple of inches of it were sticking out.

The man tugged on the knife, trying to pull it free, but the blade was stuck fast.

Angela wrestled the box from side to side, but couldn’t loosen the man’s grip on it. So she did the next best thing. She kicked upwards, as hard and as accurately as she could, and felt her foot connect firmly with her attacker’s groin.

He grunted in shock and his eyes clouded with pain, and for a moment it seemed as if he might let go of the knife. But then he tightened his grip on the weapon and pulled back his left arm to punch Angela in the face.

She did the only thing she could. The instant he released his grip on her shoulder, she let go of the leather-bound box and dodged away from him, ducking under his outstretched arm. And then she ran away — ran for her life — up the street towards safety.

* * *

Running as fast as he could, Bronson reached the corner of the street where he had parked his car and turned into it. She had to be down there somewhere.

He’d barely made ten yards down the street when he saw her, dishevelled, panting and running hard in the opposite direction.

‘Angela!’ he yelled, and ran across to her.

She slumped to a stop and collapsed into his arms, gasping for air and trembling with exertion.

‘What happened?’ Bronson demanded. As he held her, he scanned the street behind her. It was deserted.

For several seconds Angela couldn’t speak. Finally, she gasped out a single sentence.

‘He knew my name, Chris.’ She flung out an arm and pointed down the street behind her. ‘The priest,’ she said, ‘down there.’

But apart from a couple of girls who’d just appeared from a side street about a hundred yards away, there was nobody in sight.

‘Thank God for that,’ she whispered.

‘What happened?’ Bronson asked again, holding Angela hard against his chest.

In short, breathless sentences, Angela explained what had happened to her since they’d separated outside her apartment building.

‘And you thought he was a priest?’ Bronson asked.

Angela shook her head. ‘I meant he looked like one. He was wearing a black suit and a clerical collar.’

‘Would you recognize him if you saw him again?’

Angela nodded decisively. ‘Absolutely. I’ll never forget those cold, dead eyes. And I left him a souvenir.’ She held up her hand and Bronson saw the blood under her fingernails.

‘Good for you,’ he said, hugging her.

She pushed herself back, her hands on Bronson’s shoulders. ‘He called me “Angela”, but I’ve never seen him before in my life. He wanted the box of papers and I’m afraid he got it. But it saved my life. If I hadn’t jammed it down when he swung the knife at me, I’d be dead by now.’ She turned and looked towards the end of the street.

‘What happened to the flat?’

‘You’ve been burgled,’ Bronson stated flatly. ‘You’d better check and see what’s been taken.’

‘Oh, shit,’ Angela said, her old spirit returning. ‘Why the hell is it always my place that gets robbed?’

As Angela looked around her flat, Bronson found a couple of long screws in the small toolbox she kept under the sink and replaced the lock assembly on the main door of the apartment.

‘You’ll need to get that door fixed properly,’ he warned her, ‘but that should hold it for a day or two. And there is some good news.’

‘Like what?’

‘Whoever did this was a professional, not some hyped-up junkie looking for something to sell so he could buy his next fix.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Those drawers over there.’ Bronson pointed at the sideboard. ‘Amateurs usually start searching in the top drawer, but that means they have to close it afterwards so they can look in the one below it. Professional searchers — or professional thieves — always start with the bottom drawer and work their way up. That way they can leave each drawer open when they’ve finished.’

Angela straightened up, and put her hands on her hips. ‘That makes me feel a lot better.’

‘Actually, it should. The other trick amateur burglars are fond of pulling is to take a dump on the floor, preferably in the middle of the carpet, before they leave the place. They seem to think it leaves all the bad luck in the property, and means they won’t get caught.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Absolutely. So what’s been taken?’

‘Just my laptop and the broken pottery vessel from Carfax Hall. The laptop wasn’t an expensive model, and those broken pottery shards are worthless from a commercial point of view.’

‘So whoever took them was clearly looking for those and nothing else.’

Angela nodded. ‘Odd, isn’t it? Especially as there are lots more valuable things around.’

‘It’s pretty clear what happened,’ Bronson said. ‘The man who attacked you broke in here first and took those bits. Then he waited for you down on the street. And that begs another question.’

Angela nodded grimly. ‘Yes. Somebody must have told him what I look like.’

‘We’ve been here before, Angela,’ Bronson said slowly. ‘Somebody else is obviously searching for this “treasure of the world”, and we’ve no idea who it is, or why they’re looking for it.’

‘If I’m right and it is the Ark of the Covenant, the “why” is a very easy question to answer: the value of that relic is incalculable. I mean, you’d certainly be talking tens of millions of pounds, maybe even hundreds of millions.’

‘High stakes, and that means high risk. And now you’ve lost all your research notes and the box of papers, I suppose we’re pretty poorly placed to keep searching?’

Angela shook her head firmly. ‘Of course not. What was on the laptop is duplicated on my desktop computer at the museum, and I’ve got a full back-up of the data on a memory stick in my handbag. I duplicate everything. And even losing the papers isn’t important, because I scanned everything as soon as I got to the museum this morning.’ She stopped and smiled for the first time since she’d escaped from the man on the street. ‘That bastard might think he’s one step ahead of us, but he’s not. However, he now has exactly the same information, and he’ll probably eventually make the same connection, so we have to get there first.’

‘Get where?’ Bronson looked confused.

‘Egypt, to see a man named Hassan al-Sahid, and also to visit el-Hiba and the temple of Amun-Great-of-Roarings. Let me just grab my overnight bag. We leave in five minutes.’

Egypt