The Templar Heresy

57

Farooq was far from happy. That was the second time he’d encountered the Englishman in an unlit underground tunnel and, once again, Bronson had somehow managed to get away. At least Farooq hadn’t been hit by any of the bullets the other man had fired, which was perhaps a surprising bonus in the circumstances, and he assumed that Bronson had also walked out unscathed.

Khaled had immediately issued orders to the men in the second car and to the motorcyclist waiting down in the village below the castle to follow the rental vehicle. But his plan had been thrown by the fact that the car had left the area on an entirely different road. By the time the second car had driven down towards the castle, the Renault had vanished from sight. The only thing they knew for certain was that it had not continued on the main road through the village of Al Muthallith and on towards Aqaba, because if it had, their man on the motorcycle would definitely have seen it.

But at that moment locating and killing Bronson and the woman was less important than identifying whatever clue the Englishman had found in the tunnel.

‘He definitely took photographs?’ Khaled asked Farooq for the second time.

‘Yes, at least half a dozen.’

‘You don’t think he was just triggering the flashgun on his camera to try to blind you?’

‘No, because he’d already destroyed most of my night vision by shining his torch straight at me,’ Farooq replied. ‘And he would have known that.’

‘So he must have found the clue he was looking for at virtually the same moment that you called out to him.’

Five minutes later, Khaled and Farooq retraced Bronson’s steps, climbing into the building above the well and walking up the long and narrow staircase towards the castle above, both men now carrying torches.

‘How far up was he when you challenged him?’ Khaled asked, panting slightly from the steepness of the climb.

‘Much closer to the castle. He was probably about a third of the way down the tunnel.’

The beams from their torches played over the solid stone walls as they looked for anything that could possibly have been the clue Bronson had been seeking. They climbed higher and higher until eventually Farooq abruptly stopped, the light from his torch illuminating the stone treads beneath their feet.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘There are two brass cartridge cases on this step. They would have been ejected from the pistol when he fired the weapon for the first time. They may have bounced down a few steps after that, but this must be more or less where he was.’

They resumed their scrutiny of the walls as they continued their slow ascent, but saw nothing at all. No carvings, no inscriptions. Then Farooq had a sudden thought.

‘I’ve just remembered,’ he said. ‘When he took those photographs, he was pointing the camera more or less straight at me, straight up the staircase. We’re looking in the wrong place. Whatever he found must been carved into the stairs themselves.’

They changed their tactics, walked back down the passageway until they reached the spot where Farooq had seen the discarded cartridge cases, then focused their torches on the steps above them and resumed their slow climb.

Two minutes later they were looking at the carving on the stone riser, and Khaled was busy taking a sequence of photographs of it.

‘It’s just a name,’ Farooq said, sounding disappointed. ‘Have you any idea what it means?’

‘Yes,’ Khaled replied, taking another two pictures. ‘I know exactly what it means, and where it is. Now we need to move really quickly, because it’s essential that we get there before they do.’