The Templar Heresy

6

For the first hour or so after they’d driven away from the encampment, Khaled had tried to study the pictures of the inscription on his laptop computer, and had transcribed the text, letter by letter, on to a sheet of paper. He knew that the next step would be a case of trial and error, until he worked out exactly what encryption system the originator had employed. To do that would take some time, and ideally he would need to be in a quiet room where he could concentrate, not bouncing around in the back of a jeep travelling across the Iraqi desert.

Nevertheless, he had spent a few unproductive minutes trying to crack the code using standard Atbash, having jotted down the sequence of letters at the bottom of the sheet of paper. But that had only converted the original gibberish into a different kind of gibberish, and eventually he’d given up. He tucked the paper away into the inside pocket of his jacket, and then leaned back in the seat to stare incuriously out of the window.

His mind ranged back over the events of the day, remembering the shocked expression on Mohammed’s face as the senior archaeologist had recognized him and, probably at the same instant, had realized that his life was about to end. Khaled hadn’t wanted to massacre the archaeologists, but he had known from the first — as soon as Mohammed had told him about the carving they had discovered — that he could not afford to let any of them stay alive. The quest on which he was embarking was far too important to leave behind any loose ends.

But as he sat there, something began to niggle away at his subconscious. He pictured the archaeologists standing, confused and frightened, in that small group surrounded by Farooq’s men, as he’d been driven past them in his jeep. And then the confrontation, such as it had been, with Mohammed.

His face darkened as he realized, in that very instant, what he’d missed.

‘Tahouti,’ he muttered. It was an epithet more normally used by Iranians, and referred to a corrupt agent of Satan.

There was a walkie-talkie unit clipped to the dashboard of the jeep, and he told the driver to hand it to him. He lifted the unit to his face, pressed the transmit button and called Farooq.

‘We have a problem,’ Khaled said. ‘Not everyone was there. We missed the woman.’

‘I’d forgotten about her,’ Farooq replied from the passenger cab of the leading lorry, the bouncing of the vehicle slightly distorting his voice. ‘Do you think she was hiding somewhere? My men checked all the tents, as you know.’

‘I don’t know,’ Khaled admitted, his voice bitter. He checked his watch. He couldn’t remember exactly what time they’d left the archaeologists’ camp, but he knew it was at least two hours ago, and that meant a long diversion he could have done without. But there was no choice, and he knew it.

‘We have to find her and silence her permanently,’ he said. ‘We need to go back to the camp, right now.’

‘Ma fi mushkila,’ Farooq responded: no problem. Moments later, he ended the call, then used the walkie-talkie to issue new orders to his men.

Both the lorries slowed to a stop and then turned around to face the direction from which they had come, but for two or three minutes they didn’t move, just remained stationary as they waited for the dust clouds to diminish so that the drivers could see where they were going. Then the small convoy, this time with the 4x4 jeep leading the other two vehicles, began to retrace the route it had taken earlier.

In the backs of the two lorries, Farooq’s men checked their weapons and talked quietly amongst themselves. Perhaps Farooq would allow them to take their time over the woman. She was going to die anyway, so it really didn’t matter if it was quick or slow.