Текст книги "Keystone"

Автор книги: Luke Talbot

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 36 страниц)

Chapter 64

It was ten years since George had visited Amarna, yet it was as if the whole place was frozen in time. Nothing had changed since 2036, except that the small town on the other side of the Nile seemed slightly more deserted than before, and the ferry had acquired a new pilot.

Even the warm breeze felt the same as he emerged from the air-conditioned confines of Ben’s car, which had struggled along the dirt track leading to the bottom of the cliff, on top of which sat the engraved stone marking the entrance to the famous Library his wife had discovered. That is, if sitting on something to catch your breath could really be called ‘discovery’.

Ben took the lead as he clambered up the crumbling cliff towards the small plateau.

“Shame we didn’t rent a Land Rover,” George shouted up to him as he neared the top.

Ben rested against the cliff top and looked out over the sandy-plain below, towards the Nile. “Not really,” he said shaking his head. “It’s much quicker this way, as the other route takes you round the whole place to approach from the back.”

George reached his level, and they both took the final steps up to the plateau. Less than ten yards from where they stood was a small gatehouse made of breeze-blocks, no larger than a typical garden shed. It had no windows, and the metal door was locked with a large Yale padlock. A few yards away was the stone that had sealed the Library.

“Welcome to the finest archaeological find of the twenty-first century,” Ben mused as he handled the padlock, turning it over as if looking for weaknesses. “The most important site in Egypt is closed by a single lock, with no guard. And thanks to Kamal, the closest police are over five kilometres away.” He took off his rucksack and opened it, removing a foot-long crowbar. Inserting it into the ring of the padlock, he wedged one end of the bar against the frame of the door, and pulled back. The leverage applied to the padlock was insufficient to break the hardened steel, but the bolt the lock was fastened to buckled almost immediately. After re-adjusting the angle of the crowbar, he pulled back again in a single, jerking motion, and the lock fell away from the door, leaving it to swing freely on its hinges.

George looked at his friend in surprise. “Have you done this before?” he asked.

Ben opened the door and shrugged. “No. But when you’ve watched as much TV as I have, you pick up a few useful tricks.”

They were about to step inside when there was a shout from behind them.

“Stop!” a female voice barked authoritatively.

Ben turned round with a grin on his face, and George did his best to fight the urge to run away; the natural response programmed into him was to get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible, whether that crime was stealing cookies between meals as a child or breaking into one of the most highly regarded historical sites in Egypt. The dilemma facing him must have been obvious to his audience, because Zahra laughed out loud, and Ben slapped him on the shoulder.

“Sorry, George,” he said. “I lied to you, there are some police here.” He nodded towards Zahra and her four friends, three men and a woman, who followed her out from behind an outcrop of rocks twenty yards away. George thought he recognised one of the men from the patrol outside the airport in Cairo the previous afternoon. Though none of them were in uniform, they all carried weapons, which George assumed to be AK-47s. They were certainly not the sleek, modern-looking guns from the day before.

Zahra caught him looking at her rifle, and she winked at him knowingly. “So they do not know it is us,” she said.

“The police weapons are all traceable to the individual,” Ben explained, “based on biometric authentication built into the grips. Each bullet can be traced back to the gun that fired it, which can in turn identify who fired the shot and when the gun was fired.”

George looked at him in wonder. “You really do watch a lot of TV, don’t you?” Turning back to Zahra, he smiled and offered his hand. “Thank you for helping us, I hope you aren’t taking too much of a risk?”

She laughed freely, shaking his hand and then nudging Ben in the ribs. “No risk, don’t worry. It’s like old times, eh Farid?”

Ben looked sheepish, like a schoolboy being told off for getting his uniform muddy playing football, but knowing that he’s not in too much trouble and that it was absolutely worth it. Looking at George, he shrugged.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” he said.

Zahra brushed away his denial with a movement of her free hand. Choosing to move on to more important things, she proceeded to introduce her friends by first names only.

Manu and Haji waved as she gestured towards them and they heard their names; it was quickly apparent that neither of them spoke a word of English. It still came as a surprise to George to meet people who didn’t speak any English at all, which said a lot for the frequency with which he left the beaten track and ventured into the heart of any foreign country. Their lack of English also highlighted his own deficiencies in Arabic; usually, he would be able to meet anyone half way with a mix of English and Arabic, bastardised into some unofficial ‘Arabish,’ but when it relied solely on him, it was another story entirely. While they had obviously not been chosen for their linguistic or interpersonal skills, it was clear why Zahra had decided to bring them along: Manu was over six feet tall, had arms as thick as George’s thighs, no neck and a nasty scar running down the left cheek of his otherwise attractive, angular features. Haji, despite being a good six inches shorter, had a stocky physique and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a boxing ring.

Without weapons, they would have been a fearsome sight. With them, they were truly terrifying, and George was glad to have them on his side.

The third man, Tariq, had indeed been at the airport the day before, and he shook George’s hand enthusiastically. There was obvious excitement in his eyes, and while his English was worse than Zahra’s, which itself was far from perfect, his willingness to understand more than made up for it. Despite his less imposing physique when stood alongside Haji and Manu, Tariq carried his AK-47 rifle with an ease and comfort that demonstrated years of experience handling weapons.

The final addition to their septet was Leena. Almost as striking as Zahra, she was slightly taller, and had a crop of short bleach-blond hair covered with a Yankees baseball cap she wore back to front. Her English, though heavily accented, was close to perfect, which she explained as being down to her university education in Ireland. As soon as she mentioned it, George couldn’t help but pick up on a hint of Gaelic melody in her voice.

On top of the Kalashnikov assault rifles, the small company each had a holstered pistol and rucksacks, which George guessed held everything they would need for a small war. Zahra explained that they each carried ammunition, food and water as well as flashlights and encrypted walkie-talkies. They were all dressed casually except for their jackets, which were the type of flack-jacket the press would wear while reporting from a war-zone.

Tariq had a large spear-point knife in a sheath buckled to his lower right leg. It was a foot long, and had a hanger attachment on its wood-covered handle, indicating it was a bayonet. George couldn’t imagine how lethal the man would be holding an AK-47 with ten inches of carbon-steel sticking out of the end.

Again, Zahra caught him staring at the weapons, and she broke into another perfect smile. “The bayonet is a real history item,” she said. “Over eighty years old.”

He raised an eyebrow, impressed, and Tariq gladly pulled the slender blade from its metal sheath and passed it to him. It weighed as much as a bag of sugar, and he marvelled at how the ancient weapon, which felt more like a sword, looked as good as new.

“Amazing,” he said, passing the bayonet back to Tariq. “I really hope you don’t have to use it today!” He truly meant it.

“Don’t worry, George,” Ben reassured him. “We’ll do our best to get Gail back without bloodshed. But don’t forget, we’re not starting this; they took her away. And because they left a body in her place, we know that they have no plans of ever releasing her. They’re going to kill Gail if we don’t rescue her first, George.”

He nodded slowly, looking from face to face as he summed the situation up. He felt that they were waiting for his approval before moving forwards with their plans; my wife – my call, he thought grimly. There were seven of them in total; five well-armed and, he assumed, well-trained people, alongside Ben, whom he was sure would be getting a gun from somewhere before Patterson arrived. And then there was him, the odd one out, with no previous experience, he’d never even been in a fight, save for punching Captain Kamal and the odd bust-up at school, let alone fired a weapon. When he had held the bayonet, the one thought that occurred to him was how much heavier than his bread knife it was. This alone told him he was better off out of the combat zone.

But his emotional side was in conflict with this calm analysis. Gail was being held by Patterson, who would be in Amarna in a matter of hours. Would he be happy to simply stand by and watch as people he barely knew did all the work? Like hell I will, he thought. For the past few days, she had been officially dead. Now the man responsible for that was going to be handed to him on a plate.

He looked at Zahra sternly. All trace of a smile vanished from her face as she waited to hear his assessment of the situation.

Ben leaned forwards. “George, this may be our only chance to get close to these people. Once they leave Egypt, they’re untouchable,” he urged. “What do you say?”

“Do you have a spare gun?”

Chapter 65

Squatting in the shade of the gatehouse, they went over the plan once more, with Ben and Leena translating into English, to make sure George was comfortable with it.

“I will greet Patterson at the foot of the cliff, with Zahra’s Toyota, on my own. I will be unarmed, and carry with me the fake excavation permits that we made last night back in Cairo,” Ben said.

“And if he realises they are fake?” George asked.

Ben shook his head. “He won’t. Zahra was completely taken in by them at first, so an American will be fooled for sure. Besides, he has no reason not to trust me.” He looked at his watch and realised they had little more than an hour until Patterson’s scheduled arrival time. They had all agreed that they should be in position with three quarters of an hour to spare, in case he was early. Otherwise they would all be clearly visible from a distance, standing on the small plateau. “I will then lead him round the road to approach the plateau from the rear. Zahra, you will observe from the ridge. This then gives you five minutes to prepare before we arrive at the Library entrance, and to make sure we are not followed by anyone. We then have one of three options.” He gestured to Leena to explain.

“Option one, this Patterson man is alone: we meet him at the top with guns. Option two, he is not alone, but there are more of us: we meet him at the top with guns. Option three, he is not alone, but there are more of them.” She pointed to a narrow gulley, at the bottom of which a rough trail led up towards the Library entrance. “There, if there is more than one car, we attack the rear one when it passes through. This makes a trap.”

“So if there are two cars, the front one has nowhere to go,” George agreed.

“We attack first,” Ben added. “If they outnumber us, then we have one chance only to take advantage. Once we lose the element of surprise, it’ll be impossible to win. If he brings people with him, I have no doubt that they will be well trained.”

George nodded in understanding. “What do we do to the trapped car?”

“Hopefully, the trapped one will be the Toyota with me in it.” Ben replied.

“And Gail?”

Ben looked at Zahra. “You have the photo of her, so you know what she looks like. If she is here, I will make sure that she gets in the Toyota with me and Patterson. Just in case she doesn’t though, you will need to make sure everyone knows which car she is in.”

George mused this for a few moments, scratching his chin. “What if she’s in the last car?”

“Then I let them go ahead of me on the way up. They go through, and I block the exit,” Ben replied simply.

The three of them thought this through in silence for over a minute, before Zahra stood up, stretched her legs and picked up her AK-47. “Good plan,” she said with a yawn. They’d all been there for over three hours now, and had been over the plan several times in Arabic already.

Ben started to stand up as well, but George put his hand on his shoulder. “Ben, what is the worst case scenario? What don’t we want?”

“That they get inside the Library, especially if they have Gail. If they get her down there, they have her as a hostage, and it gets complicated.” He looked back at him and put his hand on George’s comfortingly. “But don’t worry, we won’t let that happen.

George looked at the door hanging loose on its hinges, the padlock and bolt mechanism, now useless, sat in a heap in the sand. “If you hadn’t broken the lock, it would be a lot harder for them to do that, you know?” he said sarcastically.

Ben shrugged and picked the padlock up as he made it to his feet. “True, but if they have guns, and they live that long, then they’ll have bullets to open the door anyway.”

George brushed out the attack plan diagrams they had made in the sand with his foot, and picked up his own AK-47 that had been leaning against the breeze-block wall. The first time he had held a weapon had been an hour ago, when they had passed him the rifle from the back of the Toyota. It was heavier than he had imagined it would be, more so than a six-pint container of milk. He shook his head as he thought of the comparison; it was odd to find that the only things he could compare weapons to had so far been things found in the kitchen.

Tariq had walked him through the basics of holding, arming and firing the rifle, which seemed simple enough that even a child could do it. He thought of news stories from the Middle East and central Africa, and realised that children did do it.

The AK-47 had two firing modes. The first of these was semi-automatic, where one bullet, or round as Ben kept reminding him, was fired every time the trigger was fully depressed. To fire another round, the trigger needed to be fully released and then pressed again. The second mode was full-automatic, which everyone seemed to refer to as full. This meant that when the trigger was depressed, rounds would continue to fire until either the trigger was released, or the magazine was empty. You chose which mode to fire by operating a selector on the right-hand side of the rifle to the lowest position for semi-automatic and middle position for full. In its topmost position, the selector acted as the safety catch, and stopped the rifle from firing. “The most important thing,” Leena had reminded him, “is to make sure you turn the safety off before firing, and when you hear click, let go of the trigger and reload.”

While firing seemed pretty straight forward, reloading was something he was less comfortable with. Although it seemed simple in theory, he was sure that in the thick of things, he would forget to do something crucial and the magazine would simply fall out of the bottom in a slapstick fashion, leaving him with an empty weapon and a stupid grin on his face. As he stood in the shade on his own, Zahra and Ben having gone to meet up with the others to confirm their plans, George decided to run through the reload a few more times.

He turned the AK-47 on its side and found the magazine catch, which was underneath the trigger assembly, behind the magazine itself. I can just see myself pressing that by mistake, he thought nervously. Pressing it, he pulled the magazine out, and placed it at his feet. He then put the selector on the right of the rifle from safety to semi-automatic. Grasping the bolt catch, also on the right side of the AK-47, he pulled it back firmly and the single round that had been in the chamber of the rifle popped out of the side. It fell to the floor, and he picked it up cautiously, feeling the weight of the bullet in the palm of his hand before sliding it into his pocket.

Picking up the magazine, he slotted it back into the bottom of the rifle, and pulled the bolt catch back; this time it slid back and forwards again effortlessly. He then very carefully moved the selector into its topmost position and onto safety.

To ensure he’d done it properly, he gave a quick tug on the magazine. Satisfied that it was firmly secured, he release it again, and repeated the whole process twice, on the last attempt managing to catch the chambered bullet as it popped from the side of the rifle.

Happy that he had put in enough practice to remember how to do it in a rush, he ensured the safety was on and shouldered the rifle.

“How are you doing?” Ben said as he strode across the sand towards him, a grim smile on his face.

“Not bad,” he admitted. “I think I have the hang of reloading now, it’s easier than I first thought!”

Ben patted him on the back and went to lead him to the rest of the group, who were starting their climbs towards their elevated positions on either side of the gulley, above the track. Suddenly, he stopped and pointed towards George’s clenched fist.

“What’s that?”

George opened his hand, revealing the round he had caught moments earlier. His hand dived into his pocket, and came back out with two more identical rounds. Looking up at Ben, his face dropped.

Ben laughed and took the rounds from him. “Easy, eh? If you’d practised reloading much longer, you’d have run out of bullets!”

They both laughed as Ben removed the magazine, un-chambered a fourth round, and then proceeded to demonstrate how they could be reloaded into the magazine by pressing them down against the other bullets. The spring loaded mechanism would carry the rounds down into the magazine until the last round sat neatly between the lips of the magazine at the top. He then reloaded the AK-47, reset the safety and passed the rifle back to George. “You shouldn’t need to do that again, because there are three of these fully loaded magazines in your backpack anyway. You won’t need to fire any more than that.”

“And if I do?”

“You won’t.”

Just then, Zahra shouted over at them.

He looked at his watch and cursed in Arabic. “Time, George!”

They were late to their positions, and Patterson was due to arrive in less than forty minutes. Looking up at his friend, he put his hand on the Englishman’s arm and smiled. “Do not worry, my friend. You will be fine. We will also be fine, and we will rescue Gail. In less than an hour, we’ll all be standing here laughing about it, wondering what all the fuss was about.”

George watched as he walked towards the cliff and disappeared over the edge, on his way down to where Zahra had parked the Toyota in preparation. Ben’s car was safely hidden behind an outcrop of rocks further down the track.

He turned towards Zahra, in time to see her taking up position, lying down just behind the cliff’s edge, giving her a perfect view of Ben and the track that led back to the Nile. Leena and Tariq were settling behind some rocks on the left hand side of the gulley, while Manu and Haji had already disappeared on the right.

He stood on the plateau, alone, surveying the scene for more than a minute before Zahra barked an order at him to hide. Doing as he was told, he ran towards the left side of the gulley, and as he climbed up the smooth stones, thought about Ben’s parting comment: In less than an hour, we’ll all be standing here laughing about it, wondering what all the fuss was about.

George had no idea how wrong this would turn out to be.

Chapter 66

Seth Mallus checked his watch impatiently. He then barked a single command and looked at the virtual window behind his desk.

The news channel logo sprung into the centre of the screen, wobbling slightly as if to emphasise the speed of its arrival. In doing so, introductory movies of the latest news stories slid out in all directions, filling the screen. The logo then spun round to reveal the disembodied head of a young lady, with thin librarian-style glasses and hair tied up in a short ponytail.

“Would you like a news roundup, or a specific story?” she said smilingly, her head cocked to one side and an eyebrow lifted in anticipation.

“Give me a summary of everything major,” he mumbled.

“Thought so,” she smirked. She turned round as if to look at the introduction videos behind her, and the camera shifted to her point of view. The videos that had been looping their short introductions in the background fizzled out, to be replaced by a tapestry of a dozen or so smaller videos. One by one they were brought forward, as the avatar gave a running commentary.

“There’s been widespread flooding in Eastern Europe, they’re now in the fourth consecutive day of non-stop deluge in the Carpathian Mountains, which has swollen many of the rivers in the region. Bratislava and Budapest on the Danube are currently the worst affected large cities, while large areas of countryside in Romania and Slovakia are completely underwater.” The video moved from raging torrents of swollen rivers to swathes of people wading knee-deep through murky-brown water, carrying bundles of belongings, children, the elderly and the exhausted. The standing water stretched as far as the eye could see, and power boats littered the countryside, picking up passengers here and there. “A humanitarian crisis is being predicted by the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontières, with thousands of refugees fleeing the worst hit parts, while Austria has closed its border with the Slovak Republic.  Vienna is on heightened alert for fears the rainfall will move west in the coming days and the Austrian government is making preparations for large scale evacuations of the city. More than a thousand people are thought to have died already, with that number set to rise as conditions for refugees deteriorate.”

The video dissolved, to be replaced by several bodyguards clearing a way through a heaving throng of reporters and protesters; then emerged an attractive woman in a red dress-suit, smiling and waving as she followed the bodyguards towards a waiting car. “Jane Getty was today cleared of all charges in the Oil-Aid scandal, by a High Court ruling in Canberra. The Australian far-left politician, who made headlines in July last year for her strong support of the Central African Republic’s communist uprising, had been accused of embezzling several billion dollars of funding from the World Bank targeted towards developing infrastructure in Africa. The aid, designed to facilitate the increase in oil production for the region and help meet global energy demands, has so far been very effective in Nigeria, more than doubling its crude oil output to make it the fourth largest oil producing country in the world, behind the United States, Russia and China.”

The video switched to a view of a desolate African town. Burnt out cars littered the sides of the road, barely a dusty track between rows of dilapidated shacks. “Jane Getty, a former advisor to OPEC following Australia’s accession to full membership in 2042, has fought back at her recent critics, who say that her position in Australian politics is untenable, by attacking Prime Minister Humphries directly. In an interview after her court hearing, Ms Getty called Humphries a Puppet of Westminster and a Slave to nineteenth century Imperialism and the Old World, who didn’t have the strength to break away from Europe and forge new alliances in the Southern Hemisphere to help make Australia a truly great nation.” The video cut to a three dimensional pie-chart. “Polls taken directly after the interview showed Getty’s Populist party taking a slight lead over the Australian Labour Party, sparking fears in London that dissolution of the constitutional monarchy, in effect since 1901, could be a real possibility when votes are cast in the New Year.”

Mallus checked his watch again and then returned his gaze to the screen.

The video disappeared, and another story came forwards.

“Diplomatic relationships between China and the United States worsened this afternoon, as four Chinese warships moved into defensive positions in International Waters off the Pacific coast of America. The ships, Lanzhou class destroyers, form part of the country’s recently formed Fourth Fleet, the first Chinese fleet to undertake exercises in so-called blue water, beyond the traditional coastal and pacific island range of the Chinese Navy. The public display of strength, a first for typically well-guarded China, comes after talks between the two countries broke down regarding the US military presence in South Korea. In an attempt to play down fears that the situation will escalate further, the President of the United States stated in a press conference that talks would resume soon, and that the diplomatic process would prevail.” A flying camera took in miles of border fences, lookout towers and barracks, mirrored on the other side of an empty band of grass a couple of miles wide. “The United States continues to have a significant military presence in South Korea, in particular along the one hundred and fifty mile long Demilitarised Zone, with over forty thousand active personnel stationed there. A recent peace treaty between North and South Korea has been brokered mainly by China, though the former has refused to sign the accord while the United States maintains a presence in the region. Despite significant external pressure, the US has refused to leave its defensive positions, a move largely resented by South and North Koreans alike.”

The next video showed the unmistakable backdrop of the Pyramids of Giza, in front of which the sprawl of Cairo shimmered in the baking sun. Plumes of smoke emanated from half a dozen locations across the Egyptian capital. “No one has yet claimed responsibility for yesterday’s terrorist bombings in Cairo, which left dozens dead and hundreds more injured. The attacks, against mainly Western targets, are believed to have been carried out by one of a number of Islamic fundamentalist cells in the country, who have been calling for the creation of an Islamic State, the introduction of Sharia Law and an end to the democracy that many Egyptians believe has favoured Western influence over traditional values.”

The video of Cairo vanished, to be replaced by a deserted factory, its gates padlocked. “Production at the Chicago Assembly manufacturing plant ended for the last time this morning. The factory, Ford’s oldest remaining manufacturing plant, first built the famous Model T Ford in 1924, and in the subsequent century saw production of the characteristic Taurus, Mercury and Centauri models. Analysts see the closure of the Chicago plant as the final nail in the coffin for the American automobile industry, following –”

“OK, stop,” Mallus held his hand up, giving a quick glance to his watch as he did so. “Floods, terrorists, diplomatic tension over Korea, political scandals, factories closing, I get the picture.” He looked into the eyes of the lady on screen, who had turned round to face him as the screen zoomed away from the news. “No mention of Mars in all that, was there?”

She shook her head. “Nothing new. But everyone knows the real tension between the US and China is because of the cover up on Mars and the suspicion over the Taikonaut’s death in transit to Mars. The Korean situation is a good excuse for China to really pull its weight, and thanks to the Mars story, there is considerable public support behind the action.”

“And Cairo? The fundamentalists?”

She looked to the top left of the screen pensively for a few seconds, as if trying to remember something, then faced him again. “The online community is largely of the opinion that Islam sees the West as being weakened by the Mars findings. Christianity, which is the main religious belief system in the West, is reeling from the discoveries, and is not dealing with it very well. The existence of intelligent life on Mars seriously puts into question the Book of Genesis, which is the fundament for most of Christianity. So far, the only defensible position that has been put forward is that the Martian findings are human artefacts, but that still contradicts the timelines put forward by the Bible. No official body has commented on the Mars findings yet. Until they do, and in particular until the Vatican does, news agencies remain cautious. One consideration is that with a lack of follow-up evidence from Mars, there is a hope that the story will simply blow over and be judged a fake. This is something the Islamic fundamentalists don’t want to happen, so they’re taking advantage of it while it’s still a hot topic among the general public.”

He looked at the lady and shook his head. “Screen off,” he said bluntly, and she dissolved into the background looking slightly offended to be switched off.

In her place, a busy cityscape emerged, giving the impression that his office was actually at the top of a tall skyscraper overlooking a large coastal metropolis. The illusion was impressive, one of the more satisfying virtual landscapes that had been programmed in to the office’s window to add colour to an otherwise bland underground setting. He afforded it a half-interested gaze for several moments, following a small airship with minor enjoyment as it wound its way round the towering buildings advertising a popular beer. The attention to detail in the simulation was truly stunning, although he knew full well that if he sat there watching for long enough, the very same airship would wind its way inexorably back along the exact same route, ad infinitum. The one touch that was unpredictable was the weather, and its effect on the sky. In fact, in spite of the basic algorithms that governed the ‘actors’ in the scene, the way in which the light played off every surface, even bending round and through individual drops of water as they ran in rivulets down the window panes on a rainy day, meant that it never looked the same twice.