by James Becker
* * *
‘Look out!’ Angela yelled, as she saw another car lurch into motion just beside them, the driver apparently not having seen them.
Bronson registered the other car at the same instant and reacted the way he’d been trained, turning the wheel away from the impending collision and accelerating hard to get clear of the path of the other vehicle.
Angela looked more closely at the driver and registered the bandaged ear, pale skin and dark, almost black, eyes of the man behind the wheel.
‘It’s that priest!’ she shouted. ‘He’s trying to kill us.’
Bronson glanced to his right, but his concentration was on the traffic, not on the driver of the other vehicle.
His options were limited. There was a line of vehicles — cars and light vans — heading towards them, but only a couple of cars in their lane ahead of them. No side streets, or not for about a hundred yards, and all the side turnings Bronson could see were dead ends. The last thing he wanted to do was get trapped somewhere that the priest could attack them. He didn’t know if the priest was armed, and had no desire to find out.
But a car is a weapon. A ton or so of metal able to travel at high speed, and in skilled hands — perhaps even more so in unskilled hands — can be lethal. He had to keep moving, keep them ahead of the other car.
He accelerated hard down the road. The single ace he held was that his car had already been in motion, and this gave him a tiny speed advantage.
He checked the mirror on the passenger side. The priest’s car was now perhaps ten feet behind him, and dropping back slightly. Fifty yards ahead was a lumbering grey van, the rear doors wedged open to reveal a motley collection of carpets and other unidentifiable materials inside it. To the left, an almost unbroken stream of cars was heading towards them.
Angela looked behind them, then tensed, pushing back in her seat, her arms pressing against the dashboard, as Bronson changed up and mashed the accelerator pedal again.
The priest was still close behind, maybe fifteen feet back, clearly visible in Bronson’s mirror and now matching speed with him.
Ahead, the back of the van loomed ever closer. At the last second, Bronson swung the wheel to the left, heading straight towards the oncoming traffic, gambling that the drivers on the other side of the road would give way.
But they showed no signs of moving over, and at the last second before a collision was inevitable, he slammed on the brakes and swung back on to the right-hand side of the road.
There was a bang and a scream of tortured metal as the front of the priest’s car crashed into the boot of his. The priest had braked as well, but too late.
‘There goes my no-claims bonus,’ Bronson muttered.
Angela spun round to look behind them.
‘He’s still coming after us,’ she said, her voice choked with fear.
Bronson had been hoping that the air bags in the priest’s car might have deployed as a result of the collision, but there was no sign of that having happened. Behind the wheel he could see the man’s black eyes staring right at him as he wrestled with the steering wheel.
Bronson swung his car to the right, back on to the correct side of the road, then moved even further over. He took a quick glance down the right-hand side of the slow-moving van, trying to see what was in front of it, then hit the accelerator again.
‘Hang on,’ he muttered, as the right-hand wheels of his car mounted the pavement. He sounded a long blast on the horn. With the left wheels of the car on the road and the right ones bouncing over the uneven paving slabs, Bronson powered past the van, scattering pedestrians, chickens and dogs as he did so.
Just as he reached the front of the van, a pile of boxes stacked four high on the pavement loomed in front of the car.
‘Brace yourself,’ he said, and hit them squarely, his eyes closing at the moment of impact. Cardboard and debris flew in every direction but, as he drove over their remains, he could see that the boxes had contained nothing more solid than a few dozen packets of crisps.
Bronson steered his car back on to the road. It bounced hard as it left the pavement, the suspension banging in protest. Behind them rose a clamour of angry shouts as crowds of people surged on to the streets. The van driver gave a long blast on his horn and gesticulated angrily. But Bronson had got past him, and that was all that mattered.
Then, as he straightened up, he saw the Renault drive around the outside of the grey van behind them — the priest had found a way through the opposite-direction traffic.
Angela saw the vehicle at the same moment and shouted a warning.
‘I know,’ Bronson said, desperately looking for a way out.
He slammed on the brakes and slewed his car over to the right-hand side of the road, on to a small open area. Behind him, the driver of the grey van also braked, but Bronson was gambling that he’d take longer to stop.
He swung the wheel hard round, spinning the car until it faced back the way it had come, then accelerated across to the other side of the road behind the grey van. The priest’s car was now the wrong side of the van, and Bronson hoped it would take him at least a minute or two to get back in pursuit.
The traffic was still heavy, but he forced his way into the line of vehicles, keeping on the outside and overtaking every time a gap appeared.
‘Where is he?’ Angela demanded, turning in her seat to stare back down the road. Her face was white, her eyes panicked.
‘Hopefully he’s still trying to turn round,’ Bronson said.
He checked his mirrors again, but there was still no sign of the other car. The traffic started slowing for some unseen obstacle ahead, and Bronson began to relax. Now his car was just another in a line of white cars, effectively invisible.
And then, just seconds later, the priest reappeared from a side street over to their right, and forced his way back into the traffic stream perhaps half a dozen vehicles behind them.
‘Shit,’ Bronson said. He dropped down a gear and accelerated past a couple of cars.
‘How on earth-’
‘He must have used a parallel street,’ Bronson snapped. ‘Either he knows the area well or he just got lucky. We’ve got to lose him.’
He pulled out, tyres screaming, and dived in front of a Mercedes saloon and down a street to the right, praying that it wasn’t a dead end.
It wasn’t, and it took several seconds before the other car appeared behind them. But Bronson knew he couldn’t keep running. Somehow he had to finish the chase and stop the priest. And he had the glimmerings of an idea.
Ninety yards back, Killian smiled grimly. Bronson’s car was in front of him, and despite the earlier impact, his own was apparently undamaged. And on these quieter streets, he should easily be able to finish the job.
He accelerated, starting to close the gap, and looked well ahead, searching for a spot where he could drive Bronson off the road. Once he’d forced his car to stop, he could kill Bronson — the switchblade was still in his pocket — and then Angela would be easy meat. It was just a shame he wouldn’t be able to take his time over the killings, and make them truly appreciate the exquisite beauty of the divine agony he could offer them before death ended their rapture.
Bronson saw the priest getting closer and accelerated to maintain the distance between them. He needed to make a couple of rapid turns, but not so quickly that the priest would lose sight of him.
He picked a wide street on the left and turned down it, his car’s tyres howling in protest. Fifty yards further on, he swung right, just as the other car appeared around the previous corner. There were narrow streets on both sides of them. It would have to do.
Bronson slammed on the brakes, pulled the gear lever into reverse and backed his car down one of the streets on the right, stopping just a few yards from the junction.
‘Get down,’ he snapped, grabbing Angela by the shoulder. They ducked down below the level of the windscreen and just waited, listening for the sound of the engine of the pursuing car.
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The priest raced past. Bronson immediately slipped the gear lever into first and drove out of the side street.
‘Thank God. Let’s get out of here,’ Angela breathed, then stared at Bronson as he turned right to follow the priest, not left, as she’d expected. ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.
‘Ending this,’ Bronson said simply.
Killian stared down the street in front of him and lifted his foot from the accelerator pedal. For the moment, he’d lost sight of Bronson, though he knew he had to be somewhere nearby.
He slowed still further, checking every opening on both sides of the street, his head snapping from side to side as he searched for his prey.
‘Can’t we just get back to the hotel?’ Angela pleaded.
‘He must have found out where we were staying,’ Bronson pointed out. ‘That was why he was waiting on the street nearby. It’s the one place we can’t go back to.’
‘But if we just drive to the airport?’
‘That’s where we’re going, eventually. But first I’m going to make sure that priest is stuck here in Cairo long enough to let us get out of Egypt without seeing him again.’
Bronson turned the next corner and saw, just as he’d expected, the priest driving fairly slowly down the street in front of them.
‘Get down,’ Bronson said. ‘He’ll be checking his mirrors, looking for two people in a white Peugeot.’
Angela ducked down as low as she could.
Bronson looked ahead, weighing up the situation. He was closing up on the priest quickly, and knew it was only a matter of time before he realized who was behind him.
He’d closed to about ten yards when the priest suddenly accelerated hard. He knew he’d been recognized.
Bronson floored the accelerator pedal to increase speed, then eased out until the front wing of his car was level with the rear wing of the other. Then he swung the steering wheel hard over to the right, still keeping the speed up. In America, it’s known as the ‘PIT manoeuvre’. Bronson had no idea what it was called in Egypt, but it worked just the same.
As he kept up the pressure on the steering wheel, the rear wheels of the priest’s car suddenly lost adhesion and it started to spin anti-clockwise. Bronson quickly turned the wheel left again, so that the front of his car hit the rear of the other, finishing the manoeuvre.
The priest’s car spun sideways across the road, tyres howling as shreds of rubber were torn away from the tread, and slammed hard into the jagged edge of the pavement on the left-hand side of the road. As the car hit, Bronson distinctly heard the bang as at least one of the tyres blew. He smiled in satisfaction.
‘Now you can sit up again,’ he said to Angela. ‘He won’t be bothering us any more.’
In the rear-view mirror he saw a figure climb out of the wrecked Renault. Then he swept round a corner and out of sight.
‘Now where do we go?’ Angela asked.
Bronson shook his head. ‘We’ll drive to the airport and climb on to the first flight out of this country, ideally one heading back to Britain.’
To his surprise, Angela shook her head. ‘I haven’t finished with this yet,’ she said firmly. ‘Going to the airport’s a good idea — there’ll be armed guards and police there, because of the terrorist situation. As soon as we arrive I’m going to start translating that text. Then we’ll decide where we go next, but I can pretty much guarantee it won’t be Britain.’
Half a mile away, Killian picked up his bags and walked away from his crashed car, ignoring the shouts and protestations from the crowds of people who’d gathered at the scene.
Though he realized a British police officer would be a competent driver, Bronson’s move had taken him completely by surprise. His car was undriveable — not only had one of the tyres blown, but the sideways impact with the kerb had snapped one of the front suspension components, and that wheel leaned drunkenly to one side as well.
He’d have to find a taxi and get away from the area as quickly as he could, before a car-load of cops turned up and started asking awkward questions. Then he’d have to decide what to do next. He tried to put himself in Bronson’s place. He guessed that Bronson and Angela would either return to their hotel or, perhaps more likely, head straight for the airport to follow whatever clues they’d found in the Montgomery paintings. And if they were following the clues, he would be able to follow them.
A taxi squealed to a halt in response to his raised arm.
‘The airport,’ he snapped. ‘And make it quick.’
41
‘I’ll be as fast as I can with this,’ Angela said, sitting down at a table in one of the cafes and switching on her laptop.
Bronson bought some food and drinks at the counter, then sat beside Angela as she downloaded a Persian-English dictionary from the web and fed the letters and words she could see in the photographs into it, jotting down the results on a piece of paper.
But it wasn’t a quick job. They sat in the cafe for well over an hour before she finally leaned back in her seat.
‘I think that’s it,’ she said.
‘Right,’ Bronson said eagerly. ‘What’s it say?’
But Angela seemed strangely reluctant to read out the text. ‘Look, there are a couple of words in it that could have alternative meanings, and a few that aren’t in the dictionary at all, so maybe they’re proper names. I’ve transcribed them exactly as they’re written. Here. See what you think.’
She turned the sheet of paper round so that Bronson could see what she’d written on it, and slid it across the table.
He scanned the lines Angela had written down. ‘I recognize some of it from what you told me before, the bit you found in the guidebook, I mean. But there’s no mention of Judea or a temple, which were the other two words you found on the Hillel fragment, if I remember rightly. So what do you think all this means?’
‘That’s the problem. I’m reasonably certain this is the whole thing, but it’s still not clear to me where — or even what — it refers to. It looks as if the first verse is a statement of intent, if you like. Then the second appears to be a general description of what the people involved did, and the third section looks as if it provides some details about the location they picked.’
Bronson looked down again at the text, and then read it aloud, his voice low-pitched and almost reverent as he spoke Angela’s translation of the two-millennia-old verses.
And then the son of Yus of the purified,
instructed that the light which had become
the treasure was to be taken from Mohalla
and returned from whence it came.
And Isaac journeyed long and far
with his trusted followers into the
valley of flowers and there fashioned
with their own hands a place of stone
where they together concealed and made
hidden the treasure of the world for all
eternity until the heavens shall be rent asunder
and all shall tremble in the face of judgement.
With their shadows ever before them
from the rising to the setting
beyond the meeting point where waters tumble
towards the mighty river that flows never.
Then turned to face the glory
between the pillars and beyond their shadows
into the silence and the darkness formed of man
to rest forever.
‘More information, but a whole bunch of new questions,’ Bronson muttered. ‘Why couldn’t it be easy for once?’
‘If it was easy, it wouldn’t be fun,’ Angela said, ‘though I wouldn’t mind trying “easy” just once in a while.’
‘Which are the two words that have multiple meanings?’ Bronson asked.
‘In the first line, “purified” seems to be the best meaning of the word, but it also has something to do with lepers, and I can’t quite pin that down. Then in the fourth line, “it” can also be translated as “he” or “she�
��, but in that context the word has to mean “it”.
‘What about the last two lines of the second paragraph — they’re a bit apocalyptic, aren’t they?’
Angela nodded. ‘Yes, but you quite often find that kind of thing in ancient writings. If the author of the text wanted to emphasize that he was talking about a really long time, he might well include some kind of reference to a day of judgement. Don’t forget, this idea of the world ending and the souls of all the living and dead being judged by some kind of god is very common in most civilizations. In the Bible it’s the Book of Revelations and in Islam-’
‘Yes, I remember,’ Bronson interrupted. ‘All the dead are supposed to assemble in the Well of Souls on the Temple Mount to await judgement.’
‘Exactly. I think almost every civilization believes the world will end, one way or another, but most seem to think it’ll be with a bang, and with some sort of a creator god involved who’ll weed out the good from the bad. I’m not sure that passage is significant — it looks to me like it’s just a bit of poetic licence on the part of the author.’
Bronson looked again at the piece of text. ‘Well, it seems to me that there are at least three new clues worth following up,’ he said. ‘The three proper names — Yus, Isaac and Mohalla. And you’ve spelt “Mohalla” wrong. That should be “Moalla” or “el-Moalla”, shouldn’t it?’
‘That’s how it’s spelt in the Persian,’ she said, ‘with the “h”.’ She shook her head. ‘Maybe the original author of the text spelt the name wrongly, though I would have expected the “el” prefix to be included.’
‘Or perhaps he really didn’t mean “el-Moalla”, but somewhere completely different?’
‘That’s possible, I suppose.’
