As she approached the desk, she caught the eye of an attendant in a long embroidered robe. Pulling out her wallet, she flashed her Baghdad museum identity card at him. It had an imposing looking crest, her photograph, and a few lines of Arabic writing. She was taking a gamble, praying the Filipino man could not read Arabic.
“UAE Federal Customs Authority,” she said, holding the card up so the man could see it.
He straightened up instantly with a small glint of fear in his eyes, reminding Ava of the power of government officials in the Middle East.
Without pausing, she continued. “A Russian guest recently arrived with a very large and heavy flight case. It would have taken at least four people to carry it.”
The attendant nodded. She could see from the vast number of suitcases being unloaded out of a recently arrived gas-guzzler that the hotel was used to dealing with travellers bringing back-breaking quantities of luggage. But she suspected the size and weight of the Ark must have been unusual—even for the kind of patron who visited the Burj al-Arab.
“Yes, ma’am,” he nodded, speaking hurriedly, running his eye expertly down the list on his desk, flipping several pages backwards. “Mr Arkady Yevchenko, room 2004.”
Ava passed him a twenty dirham note. She doubted officials from the Federal Customs Authority tipped hotel staff when on duty, but she figured he could probably use the money.
Heading back into the hotel, she made straight for the upper lobby and elevators, slipping into one just as it was closing.
Emerging on the twentieth floor, she could see straight ahead of her the butler at his circular desk guarding access to the floor’s suites. She waved her room key at the smartly dressed duty butler, and strode past him along the balcony of even-numbered rooms.
She had learned long ago that confidence was everything.
Arriving at the heavy door, she realized she need not have bothered thinking up an excuse for ringing Yevchenko’s bell.
The door was slightly ajar.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed it open, slipping quietly into the room.
It was chaos inside.
Furniture, lamps, and glassware lay smashed and scattered. There had evidently been a struggle—but the room had also been professionally ransacked. The fabric of the furniture had been slashed, the insides ripped out, and the contents of drawers and cupboards strewn all over the floor.
It was a war zone.
On high alert now, she listened intently, straining to hear if there was anyone still in the room.
She did not want any surprises—especially as she was unarmed.
She could hear nothing, and no one seemed to be around. From the faint lingering odour of cooking coming from the kitchen, she assumed Yevchenko’s butler had recently prepared him an early lunch before he left.
She looked through a sheaf of papers lying scattered on the floor, but it did not seem to contain anything of value—just travel arrangements and bills.
As she put them back, her eye was caught by a laptop which was hidden underneath the mess. She pressed the power button to boot it up, but froze instantly on hearing a faint sound coming from the kitchen.
Her heart beating faster, she stood up silently, and slowly edged closer to the kitchen doorway, stooping to pick up the heavy wooden leg of a smashed chair.
She held her breath, her back flat against the wall next to the open kitchen doorway.
She waited for several minutes, but there was no further sound.
As she began to relax, she heard it again, barely audible this time.
It was a low moan—little more than a sigh.
Steeling herself for a confrontation, she swung into the kitchen, the chair leg raised high.
Of all the things she was expecting to see, she was completely unprepared for the scene in front of her, and overwhelmed by the sudden urge to retch.
Putting a hand out to steady herself, she looked away, but the image was already burned into her mind.
The dining table had been dragged into the kitchen, and was pushed up close against the cooker. A man was lying on the table, with his feet and ankles stripped bare of shoes and socks, his lower legs resting on the cooker. The gas fire rings were now off, but they had clearly been on very recently.
She felt momentarily lightheaded as she looked at where his feet had once been. All that remained were blistered charred stumps.
Looking at the rest of the body, the man’s black silk shirt had been ripped open, and she could clearly make out the telltale ragged puncture marks and bruises to his chest from repeated injections directly into his heart.
The injuries were among the worst she had ever seen.
Bending down, she picked up a handful of the discarded medical phials littering the floor, and saw what they were—ephedrine and epinephrine.
She knew exactly what that meant.
Both substances were used by combatants the world over as stimulants to keep their bodies functioning when they had pushed themselves too far. The combination was, in effect, a cocktail of amphetamines and adrenaline. Whoever had done this to Yevchenko had been pumping him full of the alkaloid and hormone to revive him repeatedly for interrogation each time he passed out from the agony of the torture.
Steeling herself, she stepped towards Yevchenko and put her ear directly over his mouth.
His breathing was feeble and shallow, only just audible.
Putting the chair leg down on the floor, she took his wrist and felt for a pulse—it was weak and erratic. She doubted he would last much longer.
“Who did this to you?” she asked him gently.
She could see the effort on his face as he tried to reply. But the only sound that came out was a low wet rasping noise.
Holding her ear over his mouth to make out any words, she heard the unmistakeable sound of the front door clicking shut.
Looking about rapidly, she reached down and silently picked up the heavy chair leg again, before tucking herself in behind the far side of the tallboy fridge, where she would be invisible to anyone entering the room.
As she held her breath, a man stalked into the kitchen and made straight for Yevchenko. He was average height, slim, with close-cropped dark hair, dressed in a black jumpsuit and combat boots.
Pulling a Walther PPK from a hip pocket, he advanced towards the table, and held the end of the small steel barrel to the bridge of Yevchenko’s nose, directly between his eyes.
“Hello again, Arkady.” He spoke with an east London accent. “I hope you’ve had some time to think about your priorities. We need to go now, so it’s do svidaniya, tovarishch.”
Ava watched as the intruder slowly began to squeeze the trigger.
Moving with lightning speed, she leapt from behind the fridge and brought the finely turned but heavy column of wood down on the back of his head with all her force.
The intruder barely had time to register the blur of movement before the sickening crunching noise of wood on bone indicated it was all over. His finger relaxed on the trigger, and he sagged to the floor.
Bending down quickly, she went through his pockets. But they were empty apart from a spare clip of ammunition and a slim metal walkie-talkie.
There was nothing to identify him or the group he was with.
She looked back at the dying lawyer on the table. He was waxy and pale—his breathing now coming in shallow bursts.
She repeated her question. “Arkady, tell me—who did this to you?”
He did not respond. His bruised eyes were swollen and closed, and there was now a pale sheen of greenish sweat covering his face and chest.
She was running out of ideas, and time. She could see he would not last much longer.
Quickly filling a cup from the water cooler, she poured a few soothing dribbles onto his lips and put her ear close to his mouth again. “Arkady, tell me.”
Visibly summoning all his remaining strength, she distinctly heard the word “insurance”—but it was otherwise lost in his ra
ttling breathing.
“What insurance?” she asked, more urgently. “What do you mean, Arkady?”
But she knew from the long slow wheeze escaping from his blue lips that there was no point.
He was dead.
She looked down at the motionless body—anger rising.
The Ark was proving to be a dangerous companion.
First the murder of the monk at Aksum. Then Kimbaba’s attempt on her and Ferguson’s lives. And now the brutal murder of Yevchenko.
The usual dangers in archaeology were exposure to the elements, unclean water and, occasionally, mould or bacteria in long-sealed rooms, caves, or tombs. But so far the injuries surrounding the Ark were all very manmade, and the body count was mounting.
She turned with a start as the intruder’s walkie-talkie on the floor crackled into life. Against a whine of background engine noise, she could hear the command, “Exfil in two minutes.”
So the rest of the team were still around.
She did not have much time.
Thinking quickly, she knew they could not have gone far.
Just as importantly, she had to assume that if they were leaving, it was because they already had the Ark.
She forced herself to focus.
The noise on the walkie-talkie had been engine noise. She was sure of that. Very loud engine noise. But not a car—it was bigger. More like an aeroplane.
She struggled to think.
There was no airport nearby.
Then it hit her.
Of course.
She spurred herself into action.
Grabbing the walkie-talkie, she sprinted for the door, then out onto the twentieth floor.
The route she had taken earlier that morning to the helipad was complex, via the ballroom on the twenty-seventh floor.
She had no time for that now. She would have to go directly. And she could not afford to lose valuable seconds waiting for an elevator.
Throwing herself up the back stairs, she sprinted up to the twenty-eighth floor.
Her lungs were burning as she burst through the sliding doors at the top.
Exiting into the harsh sunlight, she found herself on a platform built out six hundred feet above the sea. There was a strong wind, and the view down to the blue water below caused her to sway for a moment, unnerved by the height of the sheer drop.
Squinting against the wind, she could see a set of white-painted metal steps leading up to the helipad about twenty yards away.
Resting on it was the source of the noise—the unmistakable shape of a Bell Huey helicopter, its rotors whining deafeningly. It was painted a dull green with no identifying markings, but was unambiguously military.
She counted two men in the chopper and four loading a large matt silver flight case into its cabin. All were dressed in black jumpsuits and boots identical to those worn by the man who had come back to execute Yevchenko.
As the men climbed aboard and the helicopter’s side door slid shut, she sprinted for the steps.
Flinging herself up the stairs, she arrived on the circular platform just as the helicopter was lifting into the air.
Shielding herself from the rotor wash as the blades angrily sliced the air, she peered into the helicopter’s windows, trying to catch a glimpse of the men’s faces inside, hoping it would give a clue to their identity.
But the glass was heavily tinted, and she could see nothing except reflections of the iconic hotel.
She pressed the walkie-talkie to her ear and squeezed the transmit button.
“This is not over.” she yelled into the metal microphone over the deafening roar. “I will find you.”
There was a pause before the answer came. It was a slow mocking laugh.
“Who are you?” Ava shouted into the receiver.
When the reply came, it was in a cold precise voice. “Legio mihi nomen est, quia multi sumus.”7
Despite the burning midday sun, Ava felt a chill, immediately recognizing the demonic biblical quotation, as well as the unmistakable tones of an east-German accent.
From everything she had learned, it could only be one person.
Malchus.
The handset went silent.
Boiling over with frustration, she flung the walkie-talkie to the floor, only just resisting the urge to kick it hard off the edge of the helipad.
Seething, she knew there was nothing she could do except watch as the anonymous chopper finished its vertical ascent and turned, heading out over the azure waters of the Gulf—with the Ark stowed safely on board.
——————— ◆ ———————
32
Burj al-Arab Hotel
Dubai
The United Arab Emirates
The Arabian Gulf
Ava hurried back to her suite.
She ignored the sculpture of tropical fruit wedges set with dramatic shards of white, dark, and milk chocolate on her dining table, and dialled the number Saxby had given her at their meeting in the Abbasid Palace.
He answered before the first ring had finished.
Adrenaline was still coursing through her system.
She took several deep breaths to slow herself down. “I’m afraid things didn’t go to plan,” she reported.
“They rarely do.” His voice was calm.
“It was stolen,” she continued, “by an assault team—almost certainly military or paramilitary. They killed Yevchenko, and lifted it off by helicopter.” She paused, struggling to keep her frustration in check. “It’s gone.”
She could hear him exhale. “I see.” There was disappointment in his voice. “Was it the genuine object?”
“I can’t say,” she admitted, barely able to suppress her anger. “It all happened before the preview.”
There was a moment’s silence. “Who knows about this?”
“Just me, I think,” she answered. “I got closer to them than I really wanted to.”
“You’re okay though?” There was immediate concern in his voice.
“I’m fine,” she replied truthfully. “But there’s one fewer of them on the flight home.”
“Dear God.” Saxby was clearly horrified. “I can only apologize if I put you in danger.”
“I can look after myself,” she reassured him.
He breathed out audibly. “You realize this changes things?”
“Does it?” She was not quite sure what he meant.
“With regret,” he replied, “I must cancel our arrangement. If I’d known I was placing you in danger, I’d never have got you involved. Please—accept my sincerest apologies. We’ll conclude the matter with a donation to your museum that’ll hopefully make this unpleasant incident worthwhile for you. And let’s leave it at that.”
“No, wait a minute,” Ava interrupted. “This is no time to pull out.”
Saxby’s answer had not been at all what she wanted to hear.
She could hear Saxby sigh with resignation. “Dr Curzon, from what you’ve told me, this is no longer the relatively simple exercise I’d hoped it would be. I cannot have any harm to you on my conscience, so we’ll end it here.”
“Look,” she was thinking quickly. “You could’ve engaged anyone for this. But you chose me. And you made the right decision. I’m more than qualified to see this through and recover the artefact for you.”
“It’s out of the question,” he replied firmly. “The man I represent would be mortified if you were placed in any danger on his account.”
Ava could feel the discussion slipping away from her. “There’s another way to look at this,” she countered, needing to turn the conversation around quickly. “The Ark now in transit somewhere over the Arabian Gulf may be genuine. And the men who took it are exactly the kind of people who should never have it. So whether it’s real or fake, whatever one believes about its historical importance, someone has to get it back from them—for everyone’s sake. And right now, I don’t see anyone better placed than us.”
There was a long paus
e at the other end of the line. “Do you know what you’re asking?”
“I do.” She was taking a gamble—but right now Saxby was her best option if she wanted to stay in the game.
“Would you truly be willing to see this through?” His tone was sombre.
“You’d be making the right decision,” she replied, deadly serious. She was not at all sure who Saxby was, or what lay behind the Foundation he represented. She could follow the Ark on her own if she had to. But she had a strong feeling she would stand a better chance with the Foundation backing her. Along the way, she would make sure she found out who they really were. She could always cut her losses later if she did not like what she discovered.
“Very well,” Saxby paused. “Leave it with me. Meanwhile, I suggest you head to London and wait there. I’ll be in touch.”
With that, the phone went dead.
Ava breathed out heavily. She was not good at waiting, but she had done as much as she could for now. She had to trust Saxby—and hope he came back with the answer she wanted.
Walking up to the bedroom, she looked out of the panoramic window, and for the first time took in the extraordinary sight of the brand new city—miraculously transformed in only a few decades from a washed-up pearl-diving hamlet in a forgotten corner of the Gulf, to the hi-tech business capital of the Middle East.
She could see the world’s tallest building spiking up into the blue, dominating the ultra-modern skyline—a one-and-a-half-billion-dollar shimmering needle of triumphant engineering. If the original tower of Babel was the ziggurat temple in Babylon to Marduk, patron-god of the city, then the tower she was looking at was in the same tradition—a temple to Dubai’s gods of ambition and conquest.
As much as she had always wanted to explore the desert metropolis, her number one priority now was to get out of the hotel before an unfortunate chambermaid discovered the carnage in Yevchenko’s room.
Quickly throwing her belongings into her bag, she picked a wedge of dragon-fruit off the arrangement on the table. Taking a bite of the nutty seed-studded flesh, she closed the door of the suite behind her, and headed for the rank of air-conditioned taxis lined up outside the hotel.
The Sword of Moses Page 17
