The Sacred Scroll

by Anton Gill

She looked at him suspiciously, but opened it. It contained a Cartier wristwatch in white gold.

  ‘Time will, I hope, always be on our side from now on,’ said Adler.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, rising and giving him a peck on the cheek. He resisted the urge to recoil. But he knew that the watch she was now placing on her wrist would not stay there long.

  ‘The pleasure is all mine,’ he replied, grinning broadly.

  ‘What do the British say? “Here’s to crime”?’ She managed a cold smile.

  ‘Very witty, Dr de Montferrat.’

  They clinked glasses, and drank. The slightly nutty champagne was delicious.

  After she had left, Adler summoned his new personal assistant.

  ‘Little job,’ he said. ‘Little tidying up to do.’

  The PA’s face was expressionless. ‘Do you wish me to contact Trotter and Sparkes?’

  Adler waved a hand. ‘No need for that. This doesn’t really require special skills. The boys from Pankow should be able to handle it. It concerns Dr de Montferrat.’

  ‘When, sir?’

  ‘Tonight at the latest. By the way, she has a Cartier watch, which I shouldn’t mind having retrieved. And freeze that Kleinwort Benson account as soon as the job’s done.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘I do need Trotter and Sparkes for another job,’ Adler continued. ‘So get them here immediately for a briefing. Tell them to pack an overnight bag, and organize the Gulfstream for them. They’ll be bringing a guest back with them.’

  ‘From where, sir?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Adler. ‘New York.’

  110

  New York City, the Present

  Graves sat in her apartment sipping a glass of Chablis and watching the dusk wrap its cloak over the New York skyline.

  Shortly before leaving INTERSEC, she’d relayed the information provided by the watch commander about Su-Lin to Marlow, now in Berlin. She tried to imagine him there, wondered if he’d be sleeping, if he’d have time to sleep.

  It had been a long day, of tension, of waiting. Waiting for news from Switzerland which, they hoped, would confirm that the copy of the Reinhardt letter in the bank vault in Bern had not been removed. The latest news from the bank had been that it was secure, but there was a rather stiff rider to the bank’s email to the effect that their responsibility was to hand it over, if requested, to anyone with the correct authorization. There was no way, they had said, rather more formally, that their client confidentiality would be compromised, no matter how much time had passed. Graves had spent that afternoon organizing an injunction to be used against the bank in case of need, forcing them to hand the letter over to INTERSEC.

  As for the copy lodged in the OSS files and later transferred to the CIA archive, Sir Richard, for once, had been as good as his word. It had arrived at INTERSEC after a delay of only nine hours, and Lopez had quickly confirmed that it contained, in precise, somewhat dated, German, not only where the tablet was, but how it could be identified. It was some comfort that their deduction that it would now be in the Vorderasiatisches Museum was correct but, more disquietingly, the letter itself imparted authority to its bearer to demand the tablet’s immediate release by the museum’s director. It was unclear whether the letter they had in their possession, or the one in Bern, or both, carried weight in such a scenario. For security, the letter they had was being couriered over to Marlow now, in a diplomatic bag carried by an INTERSEC field operative on Sir Richard’s immediate staff. Maximum priority and super-ultra-security. That important.

  Graves wished she had been selected to be the courier, but INTERSEC feared that, after her brief capture by the forces they were now able to identify as ‘most likely adversary’, her profile was too visible, and she should travel separately. She had to accept waiting until the following day, when she’d fly to the German capital on an INTERSEC Falcon to join Marlow. The rendezvous in Berlin would be sent to her via an encoded SMS on her arrival.

  It was still early evening, but her flight left at dawn, and she was exhausted. She finished her wine and switched on the television, where an episode of Frasier was airing – Eddie was suffering from some mysterious depression which was affecting Martin and the whole household. She left the TV to play and, undressing, prepared to shower and go to bed with an apple and a good book. She was determined to finish The Princess of Cleves before she left; she found the formal, old-fashioned style soothing. She already knew it would end badly. Honour before self-gratification. But either course would lead the heroine down the tubes, poor thing. Sometimes you just couldn’t win.

  It was after her shower, after she had towelled herself dry, put on her favourite kimono – white silk, with a golden dragon embroidered across its back – and wandered back into her living room, that she sensed something was wrong. The TV played softly on, everything was in its place, as it had been. But …

  She stood quite still in the centre of the room. Her automatic was in her briefcase by the side of the sofa and her INTERSEC-dedicated cell-phone lay on the coffee table next to last month’s edition of the New Yorker, open at a review of a Pollock retrospective at MoMA. For some reason, both seemed far away, separated from her by a dangerous journey of just a few metres. The shadows had deepened while she’d been taking her shower and she hadn’t yet switched the lights on. Daylight had faded and the only illumination in the room came from the electric cityscape beyond her windows.

  Silence. Nothing. Yet she sensed – she was sure – that she was not alone. What was it? A slight odour? Patchouli oil? Something that reminded her of her mother when she herself had been a little girl. Her mother had been at Woodstock. She’d also been involved in the student demonstrations in Chicago and, later, at Kent State – she’d been standing near Allison Krause when the National Guard gunned the kid down. Her mother would have been horrified if she’d known what Graves did for a living; she wouldn’t have understood it.

  Why were these thoughts coming to Graves now? Now, with the smell of patchouli oil and the sense of impending danger?

  In the shadows, someone sniffed, and a light went on. An Aram lamp which hung over the sofa, its light spreading just enough to reveal the form of a plump woman in a flowing dress covered with flowers. She wore a straw hat over long dark hair. Graves could see nothing of the face but the mouth.

  It smiled. ‘Don’t be alarmed, dear.’

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  The woman chuckled. ‘Your travel agent.’

  Graves made a quick calculation. There was no way she could get her gun out of the briefcase, but if she could grab the briefcase itself and swing it, she just might –

  Even as she started to lunge forward, an incredibly strong, bony arm wrapped itself round her throat from behind and pulled her close to a body which, under its clothes, felt skeletal. A faintly sour, antiseptic smell. ‘Sweet dreams,’ said a male voice close to her ear and, as she struggled, she felt a hypodermic needle thrust hard into her upper right arm.

  111

  Berlin, the Present

  The nine-hour delay caused by Homeland, and the extra time it took for the INTERSEC courier to get the letter to him, had counted for a lot. Just how much was clear to Marlow the moment the curator of Mesopotamian Antiquities at the Vorderasiatisches Museum expressed, with some embarrassment, his regrets.

  ‘You must understand that there was nothing we could do,’ he said. ‘The conditions of the loan were perfectly clear, and we were presented with impeccable credentials.’

  It was four o’clock in the afternoon. Outside, the sun shone brightly in the clear Berlin air, in mockery of Marlow’s dark mood.

  The tablet had been handed over to a young woman presenting herself as Frau Birgit von Machtschlüssel-Reinhardt the previous evening; after half a day of checking references, all of which had been confirmed with extraordinary speed. The transaction must have taken place soon after Marlow had landed in Berlin. As soon as the letter was in his hands, Marlow had gone to the muse
um, to be confronted by the news that the tablet was gone.

  ‘It was very sudden – quite irregular. Unique, in my experience; but the tablet in question was not on actual display, and the lady was insistent. She said she only had limited time in Berlin, so we had no alternative.’

  Marlow was silent.

  ‘She left an address, contact number, email, of course.’

  Marlow remembered the combination on the steel container that had held Adhemar’s empty iron box and its key: 13-1-24. M-A-X. MAXTEL.

  Adler would know that he was in pursuit. Would the tablet even still be in Berlin? And how much time did he have? If Adler already knew how to use the tablet, he had no time at all.

  But he still had to try.

  He drove back the short distance to INTERSEC’s Berlin base, where he’d established a modest operations centre. Something else was nagging at his mind. Why wasn’t Graves here yet? She should have made contact by now, even allowing for the time difference. The time difference, he reflected as he tore through the nascent rush-hour, ignoring outraged horn-blasts from other motorists – that was another factor to Adler’s advantage, as it bought him another six hours, easily time for him to have sprung the copy letter from the Bern bank, which, with his influence, must have been a simple task.

  At INTERSEC base, there was more bad news. Worse, if possible, than he’d just had.

  In response to the message waiting for him, he immediately put through a priority call to Lopez.

  ‘Thank Christ,’ said Lopez, as soon as he heard Marlow’s voice.

  ‘What’s happened to her?’

  ‘Our people went to her apartment at 4 a.m. to collect her for the flight. They called ahead and there was no response. When they got there, there was no response either. Of course they had a set of duplicate keys to her place, but when they got in, nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Not a trace. Nothing disturbed. Nothing at all. Her case was half packed at the side of her bed, but her bed hadn’t been slept in.’

  ‘OK, Leon.’

  ‘We’re following every lead. Forensics have gone over the place. One or two small elements, fibres from clothes, a couple of fingerprints, but I’m not optimistic.’

  ‘I don’t think we need Forensics to work out what’s happened to her,’ said Marlow, his throat dry. ‘And we need to find her, not how they managed to get to her. What happened to her security cordon?’

  ‘In place, but hell, she’s not the only person living in her block. And you kept it low-level in order not to draw attention to us. The third party, remember? The other guys you think are interested in the tablet, apart from MAXTEL?’

  Marlow was silent.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Lopez went on. ‘Come over?’

  Marlow thought. Lopez was the only other person, apart from Graves, to be fully in the know. He could use him here, in Berlin. But was that outweighed by the need to keep some kind of anchor in New York.

  How deliberate had that nine-hour delay been?

  And he couldn’t afford the time it’d take Lopez to get there, even if he boarded a plane immediately.

  ‘We have one chance,’ he said. ‘Graves is still equipped with a homing implant, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. If Adler hasn’t second-guessed it.’

  ‘Activate it.’

  Marlow hung up. He glanced round the functional room he sat in. Plain white walls, grey woodwork, a plain blind covering the square window. Cold, flattening light. For a moment he felt helpless.

  Unless Adler had specialists in his pocket – and Marlow already suspected the translation delay at Yale hadn’t originated from him – then Graves was the one person in the picture apart from himself and Lopez who had guaranteed knowledge of the tablet, and she was the only person who could interpret it. If Adler had all the data he needed, except the vital means of using the instructions which would open the door of unlimited power to him, then it followed that …

  Wherever she was now, the tablet, and Adler, would be with her.

  Adler had planned this every step of the way. If he knew about the tracker in Graves’s arm, they were lost.

  112

  The room was dark, wood-panelled, the only light – whether natural or artificial, she could not tell – filtering from windows which were mere slits high up in the walls. An indeterminate light. She couldn’t tell from it what time of day it was. It seemed slowly to be waning. It might have been approaching dusk.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been there, didn’t know where she was. She estimated that she’d been conscious for maybe ten minutes since the drug they’d pumped into her had worn off. She was still groggy, but her eyes were able to focus and the headache she had was manageable. She was still dressed in the kimono she’d been wearing when they’d taken her, and her naked body felt vulnerable beneath it.

  The room was simply furnished. There was a plain table, two simple wooden chairs, and the single bed on which she was lying. A cell, she thought. They’ve put me in a cell.

  She had already raised herself on one elbow, and now she got unsteadily to her feet. Her head swam a little, but she kept her balance. She started to explore what little there was to explore in the room but, after a few steps, she had to sit down on one of the chairs. She’d noticed that there was one door, made of steel, with no handle or any other feature. The slits of windows were two metres above her highest reach, even if she’d stood on the table, too narrow in any case for anyone to pass through, and had thick glass panes with no sign of any catches to open them.

  So she was trapped.

  She could guess who had captured her, and why. All she could do was wait.

  She didn’t have to wait long.

  They must have been watching her, for soon afterwards the door opened soundlessly, and an elegant man of perhaps fifty entered. Impeccably dressed in a charcoal-grey business suit. Not a hair out of place, and fine, delicate hands whose fingers tapered to immaculately manicured nails. He carried a small black leather case, which he placed on the table. She knew his face. It did not surprise her.

  He was followed by the plump woman who’d been in her apartment, and a tall, bony, impossibly thin man. Both were incongruously clad in grey nylon boiler suits and wore surgeon’s gloves. Plastic goggles hung round their necks and their heads were covered in nylon surgeon’s caps. The man was carrying an oilcloth or tarpaulin, the kind you lay on floors to protect them when you’re decorating.

  The door swung to behind them, and closed with the softest of clicks.

  The man in the suit carefully unzipped the case he’d been carrying, and from it drew a grey velvet bag, from which he took a small oblong object which seemed to be made of terracotta. This he placed on the table before her, on top of its little bag. She knew immediately what it was.

  ‘If you’re counting on being rescued, don’t,’ the man said at last. ‘But I haven’t much time. I need your help. A little translation work.’

  ‘You won’t get it,’ Graves replied.

  ‘I think I will,’ he replied. ‘I could tell you that we are already watching your mother’s house in Mount Vernon. I could even tell you the house number and the name of the street. But you might still think I was bluffing, and that she could not be in any real danger. So …’

  He reached into the case again and from it took two more objects, which he placed near him on the table. Graves looked at them and flinched. A scalpel and a pair of jeweller’s pliers. Behind her, she heard a discreet noise, and half turned to see the bony man shake out the oilcloth and spread it neatly on the floor.

  ‘My associates are rather expert with these simple tools,’ said Rolf Adler. ‘Take off your kimono.’

  ‘Let me help you, dear,’ said the plump woman, coming forward. The smell of patchouli oil was overpowering in that confined space. ‘Don’t struggle.’

  She pulled the gown clear of Graves’s body and left it draped behind her on the chair. Graves tried to retrieve it,
to stand, but she was still unsteady, and could not collect her thoughts. What little strength she’d regained now ebbed.

  Adler regarded her gravely for a moment. Then, delicately, he picked up the pliers and handed them to the gaunt man, who stepped forward in turn to receive them and pulled his goggles up over his eyes.

  ‘Now,’ he said to Graves again. ‘I need your help.’

  113

  ‘We’ve got a signal, but it’s faint,’ Lopez told Marlow. The secure New York/Berlin line was poor, and Marlow had to strain to catch his associate’s voice. ‘Shall I send it to you?’

  Marlow moved to the window of his hotel room in a vain effort to improve the reception. ‘Tell me,’ he said. He didn’t want to involve his INTERSEC colleague in Berlin too closely. He was no longer sure how well any information could be contained. He looked at the large-scale map of Berlin and its immediate surroundings, spread out like a coverlet on the bed.

  ‘Place called Bönigsdorf. Tiny. About fifteen kilometres south-west of Potsdam. There’s a mansion just outside the village. Not a big place, but old. Very thick walls. Kind of mini-fortress. Modernized recently, stands alone in a walled garden, big, couple of acres. Nothing on security there.’

  ‘That’s where he’s gone to ground?’

  ‘That’s where Graves is, as far as the tracker is concerned.’

  ‘Do you think he’s wise to it?’

  ‘Jesus, I hope not.’

  Neither of them voiced the fear they both shared. To separate Graves from the implant, Adler would have to cut it out of her arm. But he’d have to find it first.

  ‘I’ve got the place,’ said Marlow, pinpointing it on the map.

  ‘You could need backup.’

  ‘If I need it, I’ll call for it. I’ll check it out alone first.’

  ‘You’d better hurry.’

  ‘She won’t collaborate.’

  ‘He won’t give her any choice. And what if he doesn’t need her?’