by James Becker
Then he pulled open the driver’s door and checked all the various storage compartments. Tucked away in the back he found three identical small black plastic boxes with hinged lids that he immediately recognized as pistol cases. All of them were empty, which was not entirely unexpected. They’d only found two weapons at the scene, and as far as they could tell, none of them had been fired, so it was a reasonable assumption that all three men had been killed with the missing third pistol, which had then been removed from the scene by somebody else, presumably the person who had killed the three victims.
The glove box on the dashboard was the last place he looked, and what he found inside it both clarified and at the same time deepened the mystery of the identity of the three men.
Fulton left the plastic boxes inside the vehicle, but opened another evidence bag and placed the contents of the glove box inside it before returning to the apartment and showing Wilson what he had found.
The inspector also pulled on a pair of latex gloves before he examined the three diplomatic passports and an international driving license that matched one of the names.
“Well, that buggers things up nicely,” he said, flicking through the first document. “All three of them had diplomatic immunity, which means that they could have walked pretty much as soon as we got them back to the station, despite the firearms we found on them. But of course they can’t, because they’re dead. And that of course raises the other obvious question: just what the hell are three armed Italian diplomats doing being tied up and then shot dead inside a deserted flat owned by a female bookseller, for God’s sake, in Dartmouth?”
“If it was easy, it wouldn’t be fun,” Fulton remarked, just loud enough for Chambers to hear, then raised his voice slightly. “Well, sir, we’d best sort out our reports and then get back on the road, so if there’s nothing else we’ll get out of your way.”
Wilson nodded distractedly. “Yes, and thanks for getting here so quickly.”
Then he turned his attention back to the scene in the apartment, wondering just what on earth he’d stumbled into.
22
Devon
Mallory knew beyond the slightest shadow of any doubt that they were safe, at least for the moment, though in dealing with the gang of thugs they’d encountered, the word safe was only a relative term. And even though he was certain that they couldn’t possibly be following them, that didn’t stop him glancing in his rearview mirrors every few seconds as he pushed the Porsche hard, covering the ground as quickly as he could to put some distance between them and the inevitable pursuit.
Robin, sitting next to him, was confused. And worried, constantly twisting around in her seat to look behind the car.
“You told me yourself,” Mallory said as she spun round yet again. “They’re stuck on the wrong side of the river.”
“I know, I know, but I’m still worried. And so are you, judging by the number of times you’ve checked the mirrors.”
Mallory nodded.
“You’re absolutely right. Look,” he went on, “we need to talk about this, obviously, and I have a question for you.”
“Just the one?”
“Well, no, several, actually. That move you made against the man on the balcony. That wasn’t karate, so I suppose it was an aikido move? It’s not a martial art I know much about,” he added.
Robin nodded. “Exactly. Aikido is really a defensive technique, and that was one of the most basic throws, designed to be used against an attacker with a knife or a gun, or even a punch, and if you follow it through completely you incapacitate him as well, just by not letting go of his wrist. But could I just ask you something? What’s your plan now? In fact, let me ask you an even more basic question than that: do you even have a plan?”
“I’d only really thought as far as getting out of Dartmouth, to be ruthlessly honest,” Mallory replied, “and now we’ve managed that. I think what we need to do now is get ourselves somewhere safe and then decide exactly what we’re going to have to do about what’s happened.”
“So no plan, then?”
“Not really, no. I’d just like to try and work out exactly what we’re up against, and especially why somebody should be so concerned about a thousand-year old bit of parchment that they were prepared to send three armed men out to get it back, and most likely to kill us—or rather you—in the process. Because one thing we do know is that it was the parchment they’d come for. What that man said made that absolutely clear, and that raises a whole lot more questions, like how they found out about it.”
“So, where are we going now?” Robin asked.
“Northish,” Mallory replied. “I’m kind of heading for Exeter. That’s the nearest big city where we can lose ourselves and lie low for a while. Obviously we can’t go back to your apartment, because it’ll be heaving with cops and forensic guys for hours, maybe days, while they try and work out just what the hell happened up there. And they’ll certainly be looking for you to supply some of the answers because it’s your property. Is your mobile phone switched on?”
Robin shook her head. “No. I turned it off before we went into the restaurant.”
“Good. You should pull out the battery, because you can be traced through the phone as long as it’s powered on, and sometimes even if it’s turned off.”
Robin looked at him, then opened her handbag, took out her smartphone, slid off the back, and removed the battery, replacing the three components separately in her bag when she’d finished.
“Well, what about your place, down in Helston?” she asked. “I’m not trying to force myself on you,” she added, “but we do need somewhere to sleep tonight.”
Mallory shook his head.
“I’m not even sure if that would be safe,” he replied. “Whoever those three people—and we know there are at least three of them because we saw two of them in that Range Rover, plus the man who was shooting at us—are working for, they have impressive resources. If they were able to pick up your search string on the Internet, I think it’s reasonably certain that they can also hack into your e-mail. And if they can do that, then it won’t take them very long to work out that I might be involved with you. And if they can do that, then my house will be the next place they’ll look. No, I think our best bet is to pick a random destination because if we don’t know where we’re going, obviously nobody can predict where we’ll turn up.”
“And then what?” Robin asked.
“We’ll find a hotel,” he replied.
“I’d already guessed that. What I meant was, once we’ve thought this through and tried to work out just what the hell’s going on, what do we do then?”
“Right now I have no idea. I’m just hoping that somehow we can discover what the rest of the encrypted text on the parchment says, because once we know that we’ll have a much better idea about why it’s so important. And that might tell us why these people are so desperate to get their hands on it. Before we can do anything else, we need information, much more information.”
Robin didn’t respond for a minute or so; then she shook her head. “You said we need more information, but have you any idea at all who you think we’re dealing with here?”
Mallory shrugged. “I don’t know, but there are some pointers, I suppose. Those men are Italian, that much I think is obvious, or at least two of the three men who went to your apartment were—the two who spoke, I mean. And they clearly belong to some kind of large organization.”
“How do you know that?” Robin asked. “And what organization could it be?”
“Again, I don’t know,” Mallory admitted, “but the one I think was named Giacomo talked about the relic having been taken from them years ago, something like that, and to me that obviously suggests a group of people, not an individual. If it was just him looking for it, he would have said ‘taken from me,’ because his English was good enough for that. And I got the fe
eling that whoever he works for has been looking for that piece of parchment perhaps for decades, not just a year or two, which again most probably means a long-lived group or organization.”
Robin nodded. “That makes sense and it would tie up with what little I know about the history of the object. I always try and find out what I can about the provenance of any book that I buy, just in case there’s some interesting or unique feature in its past that would help increase its value or make it easier to sell.”
“So a Bible definitely owned by Oliver Cromwell, for example, would be a lot more valuable than another anonymous Bible from the same period. That kind of thing?”
“If you can find me an undisputed Cromwell Bible, I’ll pay you handsomely,” Robin replied. “Yes, exactly that kind of thing. Anyway, according to the man I bought the book safe from, it was part of a large collection that had been sitting on a shelf in the library of a private house somewhere up in the wilds of Scotland for centuries. Even allowing for a bit of artistic license on the part of the man who sold the collection to me, I think it’s quite possible that nobody had actually seen that book safe—or at least realized what it was—for well over a century. And you’re right, obviously. That does mean these two must be working for some group or other. But you’ve still no idea who, or what kind of group?”
“Not a clue, but whoever it is definitely has considerable resources. They were obviously monitoring Internet search engines, or at least the one that you used when you entered the Ipse Dixit question, and traced you from that.”
“They can do that?” Robin asked, sounding surprised.
Mallory glanced across at her and nodded.
“You’d better believe it,” he said. “You’d be amazed at the degree of monitoring that goes on these days. Ever heard of Echelon? Or Carnivore? Or PROMIS or PRISM?”
“PRISM, yes. That was in the news not that long ago, I think. Isn’t it a kind of surveillance operation mounted by the American government that gives them access to stuff on Facebook and Google?”
“Exactly.” Mallory paused for a second or two and glanced over at Robin. “Are you sure you want to talk about all this now?” he asked.
“No,” Robin replied. “I’m sure it’s fascinating stuff, but right now I’m not in the mood for a lecture. I’m more interested in trying to work out who these people are and what they want.”
“We know what they want,” Mallory said. “They’re desperate to recover that parchment and, incidentally, to kill us presumably because we know about it. In fact,” he added, “that’s not strictly true. It’s not the parchment they want, but the encrypted text.”
“That seems obvious now that you say it,” Robin replied. “The parchment is essentially worthless: it’s just a bit of ancient animal skin from a calf or a goat. It has to be whatever information is contained in the encrypted text, so that’s what we have to decipher.”
They fell silent for a few moments as they came up behind another car traveling much more slowly. Mallory waited until the road ahead was clear and he could see that it was more or less straight, and accelerated past the other vehicle.
“I still find it difficult to believe they could have tracked me just because I entered a search term on the Internet.”
“Trust me,” Mallory said, “they can. As long as they have the resources, the technology isn’t that difficult to implement. They would just have to put a piece of monitoring software in place and provide it with a lookup table containing the words and phrases they’re interested in, rather like eBay does.”
“You can do that on eBay? I didn’t know.”
“Yes, really easily. You just enter details of whatever it is you’re searching for and save the search. Every time an item matching that description is offered for sale, eBay will send you an e-mail telling you about it and providing a link to the product. It’s quite old technology now, but still very effective.”
“So that’s what you think they did?” Robin finished for him. “Set up some kind of monitoring software on that search engine?”
“Almost certainly. And probably on a lot more than just that one. Whoever these people are, they’re organized and powerful.”
23
Devon
“We’ve lost them,” the driver—he was using the work name Dante—muttered as the Range Rover plowed on through the night, its powerful headlamps illuminating the entirely empty road in front of them. They were just passing to the west of Paignton, traveling close to the maximum speed limit.
“We lost them back in Dartmouth,” Toscanelli snapped. “I don’t expect to see them again tonight. But don’t worry about it.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“There’s a lot you don’t understand, Dante. Just keep driving. Keep heading toward Exeter. That’s got the best motorway access, and we’ll need to move quickly once I get the call.”
“What call? You spoke in English to the man you rang, so we don’t know what you said. What can he do to help us?”
“Don’t ask questions. Just drive. I’ll tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it.”
* * *
As they entered the outskirts of Exeter, Mallory crossed the river Exe and then took turnings entirely at random, just heading in the general direction of the city center, but with no specific aim in view. All he was looking for was a hotel with off-street parking, ideally underground or otherwise secluded and secure, because he absolutely needed to get the Porsche off the road. It was too easily recognizable a vehicle to risk leaving it on the street. He wouldn’t put it past the thugs in the Range Rover to spend all night driving around the streets of Paignton, Exeter, and all the other large conurbations in the area looking for the Cayman.
And if he did park it in the open somewhere, he had no doubt that the inexorable workings of Sod’s Law would ensure that it would be spotted by the bad guys or, almost as bad, it would be either stolen or vandalized.
About ten minutes later Mallory pulled the Cayman to a stop by the side of the road and pointed across to the other side.
“That looks as if it would do,” he said.
It wasn’t a chain hotel or, if it was, it was such an obscure chain that Mallory had never even heard of it, but what had attracted his interest was the large closed garage door to the right of the main entrance, and the sign above it that proclaimed SECURE PRIVATE PARKING.
“Works for me,” Robin said. “Do you want me to go in and book a couple of rooms?”
“I’d better do it,” he replied. “Nobody’s looking for me, but I bet by this time the plods are looking for you. Stay in the car, and we should be able to get up to the rooms from the garage so you won’t have to pass the reception desk.”
He looked at the expression on her face. “Don’t worry about it. They’ll want to question you about what happened in Dartmouth, obviously, but I think it’s better if we can try to sort out this mess without the cops getting involved at all, at least at the moment. The keys are in the ignition, just in case,” he added, then stepped out of the car and crossed the road to the hotel.
About five minutes later he walked back across to her and sat down in the driver’s seat again. “No problem. We’ve got adjoining rooms on the third floor, and you’re my sister if anybody asks.”
The garage door opened automatically on the approach of a vehicle, but a ticket was required to leave the underground car park, which suited Mallory. He parked the Porsche in a space over to one side of the garage, and then they went up together in the lift. The rooms each had a double bed and an en suite bathroom, but for a few minutes Mallory stayed in Robin’s room while they discussed what they had to do.
“I’ve never been on the run before,” she said, “and I’m not absolutely sure I like it. There is a kind of buzz about it, though.”
Mallory just looked at her. “You’re actually enjoying this?
Getting shot at and chased by a bunch of Italian thugs intent on murdering you?”
“Kind of, yes,” Robin replied. “In the excitement stakes it certainly beats trying to make a living flogging a bunch of old books. Now, tomorrow,” she went on briskly, “we’ll have to go shopping, because the only clothes I’ve got are what I’m standing up in. I can wash my underwear tonight and it’ll be dry by the morning, but I’ll definitely need to buy a few bits and pieces.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Mallory said, standing up. “Exeter’s a busy place, and I’m sure we can blend right in. Right, I’m going next door. Try and get a good sleep, because we have no idea what tomorrow is likely to bring, but I very much doubt if it’ll be good news.”
“I’m going to have a bath,” Robin said, walking over to slip the security catch on the door behind Mallory, “because I feel grubby after everything that’s happened this evening. We’ll talk at breakfast, or do you want to get food sent up from room service?”
“I’ll think about it. Sleep well, and don’t open the door to anybody but me.”
In the side compartment of his computer bag, he had a change of underwear, a small washing kit including a razor, a spare summer shirt, and one of the T-shirts he normally used instead of pajamas. He had been half expecting to spend the night somewhere in Dartmouth, and had brought the bare minimum of stuff with him. So it looked as if both of them would need to hit the shops the following day, which, he realized with a jolt of surprise, was only Saturday. So much seemed to have happened in the last twenty-four hours that it felt as if several days had passed since he left home.
He’d already noted that free Wi-Fi was available in the room, and he was still wide-awake, so he took out his computer and plugged the power cord into the wall socket behind the desk on one side of the bedroom. Then he connected his laptop and switched it on, before rummaging in his bag for a gadget that he guessed might greatly increase their degree of invisibility.
