The Messiah Secret

56

‘So where are we now?’ Donovan asked from the back seat of the leading Land Cruiser. He’d flown in from Cairo the previous day, and joined the group at the military airport at Hushe in Eastern Baltistan, just before the vehicles left for the Indian border.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ the man in the front passenger seat muttered under his breath, then glanced behind him. ‘We’re about here, between Lhayul and Gompa.’ He pointed towards the map in his lap.

‘How soon before we reach the road junction?’

Donovan had asked the same question at least four times already. He clearly wasn’t enjoying the bucking and lurching ride.

‘It’s about twenty miles away, so maybe forty minutes on this kind of surface. You still sure that’s where these two Brits are going, boss?’

Masters, sitting beside Donovan in the back seat, shook his head. ‘Right now, I’m not sure of anything. But according to the guys who followed them to Panamik, they’re going cross-country and it looks as if they’re heading towards the road that runs from Arann out to the east and then goes up and over the Saser Pass. So that’s where we’re going too.’

The border crossing had been much easier than Masters had expected. Rodini’s plan had worked just as they’d expected, and all the Americans had had to endure was a vitriolic tongue-lashing from the senior Indian Army officer there.

Now they just had to locate Bronson and Angela Lewis, after which they should be able to wrap up everything quickly. They’d whistle up Rodini’s chopper and get the hell out of India and back into Pakistan, where they wouldn’t have to sneak around quite so much. And once they got there, they could finally hand over the relic to Donovan, who could load it into the back of his private jet. And then they would collect the balance of their money.

Masters settled back in his seat. Good organization, that was what it was all about. Attention to detail. If all went according to plan — his plan — he’d be back in New York by the end of the week.

If they’d thought the pot-holed and dusty roads in Ladakh were any kind of a preparation for travelling cross-country, they were wrong. Bronson had tried to pick the smoothest route but, no matter what he did, the jeep lurched and bounced, throwing them from side to side.

‘I’ve had about enough of this,’ Bronson muttered, as the front wheels of the jeep left the ground completely and smashed down on to the rutted surface a split-second later, shaking the whole vehicle.

The good news was that they weren’t leaving much of a trail of dust, because the ground was rocky. Bronson was reasonably sure their progress would be invisible to anyone watching from Panamik.

‘I’m checking everywhere,’ Angela said, ‘but there are no signs of any Indian Army patrols anywhere ahead of us. Or behind us, for that matter.’

‘I guess they just put up roadblocks and patrol the roads. They probably think nobody would be stupid enough to try to drive cross-country anywhere around here. And they’ve got a point,’ Bronson added, as the Nissan lurched particularly savagely.

They were right — there were no Indian Army troops closer to them than the roadblock they’d already seen on the north-bound road out of Panamik. But they weren’t quite alone on the mountain. Nearly a mile behind them, a dusty grey Land Rover was plodding along steadily, not following exactly the same route as Bronson’s jeep because the driver didn’t need to. The tracking device, securely clamped to one of the chassis members, ensured that they knew exactly where Bronson was. That had been done the first night in Leh, after Bronson had collected the jeep from the vehicle hire company and parked it outside their lodging.

‘How much further?’ Bronson asked, the quaver in his voice caused by the car’s violent jolting.

‘No more than ten miles,’ Angela replied, trying to sound upbeat about the remaining distance. ‘We’ve already covered five.’

Nearly an hour later, Angela spotted a faint horizontal line on the side of the mountain right in front of them.

‘That’s got to be the road we’re looking for,’ she said, checking her map.

She looked over to the left and pointed. ‘I think those must be the outskirts of Arann.’

About ten minutes later, Bronson swung the Nissan on to the road and heaved a sigh of relief.

‘I vote we go back from here on the road. I’d rather try to crash through a bloody roadblock than do that again.’

‘You might not feel that way when we end up in jail,’ Angela said. ‘Now we head east, but take it slowly. We’re looking for anything that looks like a couple of pillars.’

About half a mile away, the driver of the grey Land Rover pulled the vehicle to a halt behind some rocks that completely hid it from the road ahead. Both men climbed out and stepped forward, pulling compact binoculars from their jacket pockets. In the distance, Bronson’s Nissan Patrol was heading slowly eastwards.

‘You reckon they’ve found anything?’ the driver asked.

‘Don’t look like it,’ the passenger replied. ‘He’s going real slow. I’ll go get the sat-phone, check in with Masters.’

He dialled a number and held a brief conversation.

‘What’s he want us to do?’

‘We stay here and keep eyes on the jeep. If it turns off the road, we tell Masters, then drive over there, stash the Rover and follow on foot, keepin’ out of sight. Masters is going to hole up with the other guys near Arann until he knows where Bronson and the woman are going. He doesn’t want them spooked, not when we’re this close.’

They watched the jeep continue down the road, moving at little more than a crawl, until it was only a distant speck at the limit of their vision.

‘You think we should maybe follow them now?’

‘No need. The tracker’ll tell us where they are if we have to move. Masters seemed to think that whatever they’re lookin’ for is most likely somewhere at this end of the valley.’

Both men focused their binoculars on the distant vehicle.

‘Looks like they’ve stopped.’

And moments later they watched as the Nissan four-by-four turned round in the road and began heading back in their direction.

In ten minutes, the jeep had covered most of the distance back to the point where they’d watched it join the road.

The driver stared through his binoculars, then lowered them to his chest.

‘Looks like Masters could have been right, and maybe the end-game is near, because the Nissan’s just stopped again.’

Bronson pulled the jeep to a halt beside the road and looked over to his right, in the direction Angela was pointing.

‘Could that be it?’ she asked, her voice clouded with doubt.

On the north, uphill side of the road a fairly narrow gully opened up, a tumble of rocks partially blocking the entrance to it.

‘I don’t see anything much there that looks like a pair of pillars.’

‘Me neither. OK, just go on a little bit further, and see if there’s anything else closer to Arann that looks like a better candidate.’ Bronson slipped the jeep into gear and eased it back on to the road. But he’d only covered about ten yards when Angela suddenly grabbed his arm.

‘Stop,’ she said, pointing again.

Perhaps two hundred yards further up the mountainside, beyond the entrance to the gully, a vertical crack split the rock in two.

‘What?’ Bronson said.

‘Look — over there. It’s the closest thing I’ve seen so far.’ Angela’s voice was high with excitement. ‘The ancient languages didn’t have the huge vocabularies we’ve got today. “Pillars” might have been the most accurate word the author could find to describe what he was seeing. Anyway, I think it’s worth checking out. Can you get the jeep up there and into that gully?’

Bronson studied the rock-covered ground and nodded. ‘Probably,’ he said. ‘Though I’m not sure how far I’ll be able to take it off the road. I guess we’ll be walking for the last part, up to that cleft.’

He reversed the jeep about twenty yards then swung it over to the right and inched his way off the rutted surface of the road and into the entrance to the gully, weaving his way between the fallen rocks. Beyond the fairly narrow opening, the rocks opened up slightly, and there were fewer fallen boulders to negotiate. He was able to drive about a hundred yards towards the split in the rock, which was further than he thought they’d be able to manage.

But eventually the ground became too steep and the surface too broken up for him to drive any further. He reversed the jeep into a gap between two large boulders and switched off the engine.

‘That should be invisible from the road,’ he said. ‘Now we walk.’