The Messiah Secret cb-3

by James Becker

  ‘We’ll go there, I think. There can’t be that many Egyptians who would have spent most of their working lives escorting English archaeologists around sites in the country. Don’t forget Al-Sahid didn’t just work for Bartholomew — he was a professional gang master.’ She got up and turned off her laptop. ‘At the very least we might find someone who remembers him.’

  Ten minutes later, they stepped out on to the street. The heat was brutal — Bronson guessed it was probably already in the high twenties — and the traffic driving past the hotel was heavy, horns sounding a discordant melody, dust and smoke billowing everywhere.

  The receptionist had told him where the nearest car hire agency was located, and it was only a fairly short walk from the hotel. The only feature the hire car absolutely had to have, as far as Bronson was concerned, was air conditioning, but in fact every vehicle available was equipped either with that or with climate control, so eventually he settled on a white — all the cars at the agency were white — Peugeot 309.

  There was a map of Alexandria and Cairo in the glove box, and another route-planning map that covered the whole of Egypt. While he sat in the driver’s seat, both doors wide open, waiting for the air con to haul the internal temperature down to a bearable level, Bronson looked at the latter. Compared to most whole-country charts, it was an unusual map, because almost all the roads, towns and cities were clustered in a fairly narrow T-shape, the top of which ran along the Mediterranean coast from the Libyan border east to Alexandria and then across to the border with Israel. The ‘leg’ of the T then followed the mighty Nile River all the way down to Sudan. To the west of the Nile there was just a vast empty expanse of desert, studded with the occasional settlement, and even the odd airfield. To the east of the Nile, between the river and the Red Sea, lay a ribbon of roads and settlements, but most of the built-up areas were in the north, where the Nile met the Mediterranean, in a rough ‘V’ that encompassed Alexandria, Port Said and Cairo itself.

  He switched his attention to the Cairo map and fairly quickly found Al-Gebel al-Ahmar. ‘It’s here,’ he said, pointing to an area on the east side of the city, just east of the Northern Cemetery. ‘Not too far away. Can you navigate?’

  ‘Of course,’ Angela said briskly.

  Bronson closed his door, buckled his seat belt, pulled out of the car hire agency parking lot and tried to turn into the street.

  ‘Tried’ was the operative word. The traffic was chaotic. Cars, coaches and vans were everywhere, their drivers grimly determined never to give way, never to allow a fellow driver the chance to get in front of them or pass. Bronson looked at the stream of vehicles for a couple of minutes, then decided the only way to beat them was to join them.

  ‘Just hold on,’ he muttered, as he waited for the smallest of gaps in the line of vehicles passing down the street. Then he pulled out, accelerating hard. Behind him he heard a sudden squealing of brakes and the inevitable bellows from a selection of car and van horns.

  ‘Jesus, Chris, was that necessary? Couldn’t you have waited?’ Angela looked pale.

  ‘If I’d waited,’ Bronson said, with a grin, ‘we’d still be sitting there at the side of the road, and would be for some time. I was just being pragmatic.’

  ‘Which means what, exactly, in this context?’ Angela asked. ‘Oh, shit,’ she muttered, closing her eyes as a coach shot out of a side road directly in front of them, forcing Bronson — and about a dozen other drivers — to hit the brakes hard.

  ‘It means that we’re in Egypt,’ Bronson said, ‘so I think the best option is to drive like an Egyptian. And that means all the normal rules about giving way and leaving a safe distance behind the car in front — all the stuff I was taught as a police driver, in fact — go right out of the window. Over here, if you leave a gap of more than about three feet in front of you, a driver will absolutely force his way into it.’

  ‘Aren’t there any rules here?’

  Bronson nodded. ‘I checked,’ he said. ‘Basically, there’s just one — the car in front has right of way. So if the guy next to us gets his bumper one inch ahead of mine, and then swings across in front of me, he’s in the right. That’s why they never give way, and never leave a gap.’

  Angela dragged her unwilling gaze from the melee in front of them and glanced across at her ex-husband as he changed lanes, braked hard, accelerated and changed lanes again before pulling the car to a halt behind a line of unmoving vehicles which were somewhat surprisingly waiting at a red light. Traffic lights only appeared in Egypt in about 1980, and most of the locals still tended to ignore them.

  ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ Angela said accusingly.

  Bronson took his eyes off the road for an instant and grinned at her. ‘Absolutely. It’s like dodgems, but with full-sized vehicles; great fun. Now, stop complaining about my driving and tell me where you want me to go.’

  About a hundred yards behind them, a Mercedes with tinted windows was following. In the driver’s seat, JJ Donovan flipped open a pack of Marlboros and extracted one, then pressed the dashboard lighter. Once he’d lit the cigarette, he cracked the window slightly to let the smoke escape, and concentrated on the traffic in front of him.

  He’d watched Bronson and Angela Lewis step out of their hotel that morning, followed them to the car hire agency and then sat waiting in his own vehicle until they drove out. Then it had been a simple case of keeping tabs on them as they headed towards the centre of Cairo.

  In fact, ‘simple’ wasn’t quite the right word. Donovan was used to driving in the States, but even fighting his way through the Los Angeles traffic a couple of times every day hadn’t prepared him for the reality of the morning rush hour in downtown Cairo. The two good things were that the Merc had an automatic box, so all he had to do was steer the big car, and he was used to driving on the right-hand side of the road, though Egyptian drivers seemed to drive more or less wherever and however they wanted.

  Donovan knew Bronson was driving, and it looked as if he was pretty competent. A couple of times the smaller Peugeot had nipped through gaps that the Mercedes wouldn’t have fitted in, and were barely large enough for the French car, but there was so much traffic that losing sight of his quarry had never really been likely.

  And, even if he did lose contact with Bronson’s car, it wasn’t going to be that much of a problem. Donovan just loved technology. After he’d questioned Jonathan Carfax in the kitchen of the old house in Suffolk, he’d walked out of the room, taking Bronson’s mobile with him. Out in the hall, he’d quickly opened the phone and installed a sophisticated GPS tracking chip, then gone back into the kitchen and replaced the Nokia on the table. He didn’t think Carfax even noticed what he’d done.

  Powered by the phone’s own battery, and virtually undetectable unless the user knew exactly what his mobile’s circuit board should look like, the chip computed its position from signals received from the GPS satellites, and radiated that position to the GSM cellphone network. Donovan could then monitor the chip’s signal from his laptop using a combined tracking and mapping program. The chip was one of the latest generation, and allowed him to pinpoint the position of the phone — and by implication its owner — to within about thirty feet anywhere on the surface of the earth.

  The chip had allowed him to follow them to Heathrow, and because neither Bronson nor Angela Lewis had even seen his face, he’d been able to get close enough to hear what they were saying to each other. He had actually flown out to Cairo with them on the same plane.

  He settled down to follow Bronson’s Peugeot. He had a full tank of fuel, his laptop was sitting in its case on the seat beside him, and built into the computer was a WWAN adapter — a wireless wide area network card — that meant he could access the mobile phone network to surf the internet. So wherever Bronson went, he would be able to follow, as long as he was within range of a cell.

  Donovan leaned back in his seat, picked up a bottle of water from the cup-holder in the centre console and took a
swallow. He was deliberately trying to avoid drinking too much, because he didn’t want to have to stop until Bronson and Angela Lewis also pulled up. He needed to find out as soon as possible where they were going and what it was they were looking for.

  Angela studied the map of Cairo, then looked out of the window. ‘Where are we now?’ she asked.

  Bronson glanced away from the road for the split second it took to register a direction sign.

  ‘That sign said we’re just about to reach Abbassiyya,’ he said. ‘If I were you I’d forget about road names and numbers and just work out the districts we need to drive through.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ Angela said, and looked again at the open map. ‘If you’re right and we are in Abbassiyya, it means we must have been heading south-west, more or less. When you can, take any street on the left, because we have to cross the main road, the Salah Salem. Failing that, just follow the signs to Al-Gebel al-Ahmar, obviously, or the Northern Cemetery, Manshiyet Nasr or even Muqattam City. Any of those will get us into the right general area.’

  A few seconds later, a slight gap opened up in the traffic on their left and Bronson slid his car expertly into the space. He was rewarded with a cacophony of blasting horns. Then he swung down a fairly narrow street, dodging parked cars, dogs and children, and at the end turned right. Here the road was wider, better surfaced and properly marked, and almost entirely full of virtually stationary traffic.

  ‘Bugger,’ Bronson muttered. He was completely surrounded.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Once we get off the main road, I’m sure there’ll be a lot less traffic.’

  ‘Well, there could hardly be more traffic, could there? This is supposed to be a three-lane road but I can see four lanes of traffic heading in each direction.’

  Just then it all started moving again — slowly, but it was moving — and Bronson eased the car forward, keeping it no more than eighteen inches behind the battered rear bumper of the vehicle in front. They came to a stop again, then began inching forwards once more.

  ‘It’s more modern here than I anticipated,’ Bronson said, after a few moments, looking at the slightly grubby skyscrapers that lined both sides of the road.

  ‘In the centre and in Cairo proper, I guess that’s true, but I imagine that if you went out of the city you’d see houses that have hardly changed for half a millennium.’

  About a quarter of an hour later, Angela spotted a sign for Al-Gebel al-Ahmar, and Bronson hacked his way through the traffic to make the turn. Angela had been right — once they cleared the main road and started heading south, the traffic was much lighter.

  They crossed a railway line and kept moving, Angela checking the street signs as they passed.

  ‘That’s the first address,’ she said, pointing to the left as Bronson drove past the end of a minor road. ‘That’s where Hassan al-Sahid — or at least a Hassan al-Sahid — lives.’

  ‘Right,’ Bronson said, swinging the car round in a U-turn to retrace their steps. ‘Let’s find out.’

  30

  ‘Your name is Suleiman al-Sahid?’

  The young man standing in the doorway of the large whitewashed house on the eastern side of the Al-Gebel al-Ahmar district looked puzzled. He hadn’t been expecting any visitors, and certainly not a black-suited American priest carrying a large and apparently heavy suitcase, with a thick plaster covering most of his left ear.

  ‘It is,’ he replied in heavily accented English, ‘but I-’

  ‘You don’t know me,’ the priest interrupted, ‘but I know your father, Hassan. How is his health these days?’

  Suleiman shook his head. ‘He died a few years ago,’ he replied. ‘But I-’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I also know the Wendell-Carfax family, from England. Now, I have an important message for you from them, so may I come inside?’

  Suleiman nodded, and stepped to one side. The priest picked up the suitcase and followed Suleiman into the house.

  ‘You have a message for me, you said? And what is your name?’

  ‘Daniels. Father Michael Daniels.’ The priest extended his hand. ‘You have a lovely home here,’ he added, glancing around the spacious hallway.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Now, Bartholomew Wendell-Carfax entrusted your father with two large oil paintings. Were you aware of that?’

  Suleiman nodded. ‘Yes. My father left very specific instructions about them. They’re hanging in this room.’

  He turned and led the way into a room just off the hall, dominated by a large dining table surrounded by eight chairs.

  ‘My father bought this dining set in England,’ Suleiman said. ‘It’s not to my taste, but he loved the British way of life. And those are the paintings.’ He pointed at the wall opposite the doorway, where two oils were hanging.

  The priest smiled. ‘I’ve been asked to collect these two paintings ready for Oliver Wendell-Carfax when he arrives here in Cairo to start his expedition. Did he advise you that I was coming?’

  A shadow of doubt crept suddenly across Suleiman’s face, and he shook his head. ‘No. In fact, in his last message to me he specifically told me he would be arriving here in person to inspect the paintings. He also said that under no circumstances was I to release them to any third party.’

  The priest looked puzzled. ‘How strange. I have a letter here’ — he reached into his pocket and pulled out a creased and folded sheet of paper — ‘in which he has authorized me to take possession of them.’

  He passed the paper to Suleiman. But as Suleiman reached out to take it, the priest moved with fluid, well-practised ease, seizing Suleiman’s right wrist and dragging him towards him, pulling him off-balance. Then he swung his right fist, hard, into Suleiman’s stomach.

  The unexpectedness of the attack caught Suleiman by surprise, but he was a young and strong man and the blow rocked, rather than incapacitated, him. He straightened up and danced backwards, moving away from his attacker, and brought up his fists to ward off any further blows.

  But the priest still had the advantage of surprise, and he, too, was very strong, and a trained fighter. He powered forwards, knocking Suleiman’s arms aside, and landing two more hard punches on his stomach.

  Suleiman swung wildly, one fist catching his attacker on the left side of his head.

  The priest howled in pain as the blow slammed into his ruined ear, reopening the wound and sending a throb of agony searing right across his skull. For an instant his vision clouded and he lifted his left arm high to prevent Suleiman following up with another punch.

  Suleiman realized instantly his best chance of defeating the priest was to target his head again — the man’s reaction to his lucky blow had been extreme. He swung his right fist once more, aiming for the now bloodstained plaster on the left side of the priest’s head.

  If the punch had landed, that might have been enough, but the priest saw it coming. He expertly blocked the blow with his left hand and swung his right straight into Suleiman’s jaw.

  Suleiman’s head snapped up and he stumbled back, crashing into one of the chairs that lined the dining table. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog that had descended over his vision. But the priest didn’t give him the chance. He stepped forwards and slammed two more blows into his face, opening deep cuts on his lips and breaking blood vessels in his nose.

  Suleiman lifted his arms weakly to try to ward off the attack, but the priest finished it with two more hard punches to his face. Then he grabbed Suleiman’s shirt, hauled him upright, spun his limp body round and slammed his forehead into the edge of the dining table. The Egyptian crashed to the floor, unconscious.

  Killian stood looking down at the man for a couple of seconds, then raised his left hand and carefully felt his injured ear. The plaster seemed to be intact, but blood was flowing from the open wound at the top of the ear, and he knew he’d have to change the dressing. But that could wait. He had more important things to do. He kicked Suleiman hard in the ribs, then turned
away.

  He walked across to the wall where the paintings were hanging and swiftly lifted them both off their hooks. He didn’t know where the parchment had been concealed in them, but he guessed it was probably hidden in a secret compartment in the frame. He would need time to inspect them thoroughly.

  Killian carried both paintings out into the hall. He opened the front door of the house, checked in both directions, saw nobody, then walked across the kerb to his hire car, opened the boot and slid them inside.

  He looked back at the house, wondering if he should just drive away. Then he shrugged and retraced his steps. Better to finish the job properly.

  ‘I have never heard of anybody called Wendell-Carfax,’ the elderly Egyptian man said, his tone polite but with an underlying edge to it.

  Bronson and Angela were standing outside a small white house on a side street at the northern edge of Al-Gebel al-Ahmar. They’d received no reply at the first property they’d tried, the one listed as the residence of Hassan al-Sahid in the phone directory, so they’d moved on to the second address, the home of one ‘M. al-Sahid’. The man’s first name had turned out to be Mahmoud, and he obviously wasn’t pleased at the interruption to his day.

  ‘I am sorry we have disturbed you,’ Bronson said, speaking slowly and clearly. Mahmoud al-Sahid’s English was far from fluent, his accent thick and heavy. ‘Obviously you are not the person we are looking for. Our apologies. You do not, I suppose, know where Hassan al-Sahid lives?’

  ‘Hassan al-Sahid is dead, as I told the other man. But his son — his name is Suleiman — still lives in his father’s house.’

  ‘What other man?’ Bronson asked, alarm bells suddenly ringing.

  ‘The priest,’ the elderly man said. ‘The priest was also looking for Hassan al-Sahid.’