The Nostradamus prophecies

54

Sabir lay on his belly at the edge of the stand of trees, watching. He could feel the horror of his position leaching through his body like a cancer.

Yola was standing on a three-legged stool. A bread sack covered her head and a noose had been slipped around her neck. Sabir was certain that it was Yola by her clothes and by the timbre of her voice. She was talking to someone and this person was answering her – a deeper, more dominant timbre. Not up and down, like a woman, but fl at – all on one note. Like a priest intoning the liturgy.

It didn’t take a genius to realise that the eye-man had staked Yola out as bait to catch him and Alexi. Nor to realise that the minute that they showed themselves, or came within range, they would be dead meat – and Yola with them. The fact that the eye-man would thereby inadvertently lose the best chance he had ever had to discover the location of the prophecies was yet another of life’s tender little ironies.

Sabir made up his mind. He squirrelled himself backwards through the undergrowth towards Alexi. This time he would not blunder in and risk everybody’s lives. This time he would use his head.