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The Seventh Scroll
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Текст книги "The Seventh Scroll"


Автор книги: Wilbur Smith



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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 42 страниц)

losses that the syndicate suffered was unlimited. The enormity of that

responsibility had weighed lightly; for there had never been serious

losses to account for, not for fifty years, not until this year.

With the California earthquake and environmental pollution claims

awarded against one of the multinational chemical companies, the

syndicate's losses had amounted to over twenty-six million pounds

sterling. Nicholas's share of that loss was two and a half million

pounds – some of which had been settled, but the rest was due for

payment in a little over eight months' time – together with whatever

nasty surprises next year might hold.

Almost immediately after that the Quenton Park estate's crop of sugar

beet, almost a thousand acres in total, had been hit by rhizomania, the

mad root disease. They had lost the lot.

"We will need to find at least two and a half million," said one of the

lawyers. "That should be no problem – the Hall is filled with valuable

items, and what about the museum? What could we reasonably expect from

the sale of some of the exhibits?"

Nicholas winced at the thought of selling the Ramesses statue, the

bronzes, the Hammurabi frieze or any item of his cherished collection at

the Hall or the museum. He acknowledged that their sale would cover his

debts, but he doubted that he could live without them. Almost anything

was preferable to parting with them.

"Hell, no," Nicholas cut in, and the lawyer looked across at him coldly.

"Well, let's see what else we've got," he continued remorselessly.

"There's the dairy herd."

"That will bring in a hundred thousand, if we are lucky," Nicholas

grunted. "Leaves only two point four million to find."

"And your racing stud," the accountant came into the conversation.

"I have only six horses in training. Another two hundred grand."

Nicholas smiled without humour, "Brings us down to two point two. We are

getting there slowly."

"The yacht," suggested the youngest lawyer.

"It's older than I am," Nicholas shook his head, "belonged to my father,

for heaven's sake. You probably wouldn't be able to give it away.

Sentimental is the only value it has. My shotguns would be worth more."

Both lawyers bent their heads over their lists, "Ah, yes!

We have those. A pair of Purdey sidelock ejectors in good condition.

Estimate forty thousand."

"I also have some secondhand socks and underpants," Nicholas admitted.

'%why don't you list those also?"

They ignored the jibe. "men there is the London house," the elder lawyer

went on unperturbed, inured to human suffering. "Good address. Value one

point five million."

"Not in this financial climate, Nicholas contradicted him. "A million is

more realistic." The lawyer made a note in the margin of his document

before going on, "Of course we want to avoid, if at all possible,

putting the entire estate up for sale."

It was a hard and difficult meeting which ended with nothing definitely

decided, and Nicholas feeling angry and frustrated.

He saw the lawyers off, and then went up to the family quarters to take

a quick shower and change his shirt. As an afterthought, and for no

good'reason, he shaved and splashed aftershave on his cheeks.

He drove across the park and left the Range Rover in the museum car

park. The snow had turned to sleet, and I his bare head was sprinkled

with cold droplets by the time he had crossed the car park.

Royan was waiting in Mrs. Street's office. The two of them seemed to be

getting along well together. He stopped outside the door to listen to

her laughter. It made him feel a little better.

The cook had sent across a hot lunch from the main house. She seemed to

believe that a substantial meal would keep this foul weather at bay.

There was a tureen of thick, rich minestrone and a Lancashire hotpot,

with a half bottle of red Burgundy for him and a jug of freshly squeezed

orange juice for her. They ate in front of the fire, while the rain

whipped against the windowpanes.

While they ate he asked her to give him the details of Duraid's murder.

She left out nothing, including her own injuries and drew back her

sleeve to show him the dressing over the knife wound. He listened

intently as she told him of the second attempt on her life in the

streets of Cairo.

"Any suspicions?" he asked, when she had finished.

"Anybody you can think of who might be responsible?" But she shook her

head.

"There was no warning of any kind, she said.

They finished the meal in silence, each of them thinking their own

thoughts. Over the coffee he suggested, "All right, then. -What about

our agreement?"

They argued back and forth for nearly an hour.

"It's difficult to agree on your share of the booty, until I know just

what your contribution is going to be,'Nicholas protested as he topped

up their coffee cups. "After all, I am going to be called on to finance

and conduct the expedition-'

"You will just have to trust that my contribution will be worthwhile,

otherwise there will simply be no booty, as you call it. Anyway you can

be certain I am not going to tell you one thing more until we have -an

agreement, and have shaken hands on it."

"A bit harsh?" he asked, and she gave him a wicked smile.

"If you don't like my terms, there are three other names on Duraid's

list of possible sponsors," she threatened.

"All right," he cut in with a contrived look of martyrdom, "I agree to

your proposal, But how do we calculate equal shares?"

"I shall choose the first item of any archaeological artefacts we are

able to retrieve, and you the next, and so on, turn about."

"How about I choose first?" He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Let's spin for it," she suggested, and he fished a pound coin from his

pocket.

"Call!" He flipped the coin, and while it was in the air she called,

"Heads."

"Damn!" he exclaimed, as he retrieved the coin and shoved it back into

his pocket. "So, you get first choice of the booty, if there ever is

any." He held out his hand across the lunch table. "It will be yours to

do exactly what you want to do with it. You can even donate it to the

Cairo museum, if that is still your particular aberration. Deal?" he

asked, and. she took his hand.

"Deal," she agreed, and then added, Partner."

"Now let's get down to it. No more secrets between us Tell me every

detail that you have been holding back."

"Bring that book," she pointed to the copy of River God, and while he

fetched it she pushed the dirty dishes aside. "The first thing we should

go over is the sections of the book that Duraid edited." She turned to

the last pages.

"Here. This is where Duraid's obfuscation begins."

"Good word,'Nicholas smiled, "but let's keep it simple.

You have obfuscated me enough already."

She did not even smile. "You know the story to this point. Queen Lostris

and her people are driven out of Egypt by the Hyksos and their superior

chariots. They journey south up the Nile until they reach the confluence

of the White and Blue Niles. In other words, present-day Khartoum. All

this is reasonably faithful to the scrolls."

"I recall. Go on."

"In the holds of their river galleys they are carrying the mummified

body of Queen Lostris's husband, Pharaoh Mamose the Eighth. Twelve years

previously she has sworn to him as he lay dying of a Hyksos arrow

through his lung that she would find a secure burial site for him, and

that she would lay him in it with all his vast treasure. When they reach

Khartoum she determines that the time has at last come for her to make

good her promise to him. She sends out her son, the fourteen-year-old

Prince Memnon, with a squadron of chariots to find the burial site.

Memnon is accompanied by his mentor, the narrator of the history, the

indefatigable Taita."

"Okay, I remember this section. Memnon and Taita consult the black

Shilluk slaves they have captured, and on their advice decide to follow

the left-hand fork of the rivet, or what we know as the Blue Nile."

Royan nodded and continued the story. "They travelled eastwards and were

confronted by formidable mountains, so high that they were described as

a blue rampart.

So far what you read in the book is a fairly faithful rendition of the

scrolls, but at this point," she tapped the open page, we come to

Duraid's red herring. In his description of the foothills-'

Before she could continue, Nicholas interjected, "I remember thinking

when I originally read it that it didn't accurately describe the area

where the Blue Nile emerges from the Ethiopian highlands. There are no

foothills. There is only the sheer western escarpment of the massif. The

river comes out of it like a snake out of its hole. Whoever wrote that

description doesn't know the course of the Blue Nile."

"Do you know the area?" Royan asked, and he laughed and nodded.

"Alhen I was younger and even more stupid than I am now, I conceived the

grandiose plan of boating the Abbay gorge from Lake Tana down to the dam

at Roseires in the Sudan. The Abbay is the Ethiopian name for the Blue

Nile., "Why did you want to do that?"

"Because it had never been done before. Major Cheesman, the British

consul, had a shot at it in 1932, and nearly drowned himself. I thought

I could make a film, and write a book about the voyage and earn myself a

fortune , from the royalties. I talked my father into financing the

expedition. It was the kind of mad escapade that appealed to him. He

even wanted to join the expedition. I studied the whole course of the

Abbay river, not only on maps. I also bought myself an old Cessna 180

and flew down the gorge, five hundred miles from Lake Tana to the dam.

As I said, I was twenty-one years old and crazy."

"What happened?" She was fascinated. Duraid had never told her about

this, but it was the type of adventure that she would have expected this

man to launch into.

"I recruited eight of my friends from Sandhurst, and we devoted our

Christmas holidays to the attempt. It was a fiasco. We lasted two days

on those wild waters. The gorge is the most hellish corner of this earth

that I know of It's almost twice as deep and as rugged as the Grand

Canyon of the Colorado river in Arizona. It smashed up our kayaks before

we had covered twenty miles out of the five hundred.

We had to abandon all our equipment and climb the walls of the gorge to

reach civilization again."

He looked serious for a moment, "I lost two members of our party. Bobby

Palmer was drowned, and Tim Marshall fell on the cliffs. We were not

even able to recover their bodies. They are still down there somewhere.

I had to tell their parents-' he broke off as he remembered the agony of

it.

"Has anybody ever succeeded in navigating the Blue Nile gorge?"-she

asked, to distract him.

"Yes. I went back a few years later. This time not as leader, but as a

very junior member of the official British Armed Forces Expedition. It

took the army, the navy and the air force to beat that river."

She stared at him with a feeling of awe. He had actually rafted the

Abbay. It was as though she had been led to him by some strange fate.

Duraid was right. There bably no man in the world better qualified for

the was pro work in hand.

"So you know as much as anybody about the real the gorge. I will try to

give you a general nature of indication of what Taita actually set down

in the seventh scroll. Unfortunately this section of the scroll had

suffered some damage and Duraid and I were obliged to extrapolate from

parts of the text. You will have to tell me how this agrees with your

own knowledge of the terrain."

"Go ahead, he invited her.

"Taita described the escarpment very much the -way you did, as a sheer

wall from which the river emerged.

They were forced to leave their chariots, which were unable to cover the

steep and rugged terrain of the canyon. They were forced to go forward

on foot, leading the pack horses.

Soon the gorge grew so steep and dangerous that they lost, which fell

from the wild goat tracks some of these animal they were following and

plunged into the river far below.

This did not deter them and they pressed on at the orders of Prince

Memnon."

"I can see it exactly as he describes it. It's a fearsome bit of

countryside."

"Taita then describes coming to a series of obstacles, which he

describes as "steps". Duraid and I could not decide with certainty what

these were. But our best guess was that they were waterfalls."

"No shortage of those in the Abbay gorge, either," Nicholas nodded.

"This is the important part of his testimony. Taita tells us that after

twenty days' travel up the gorge they came upon the "second step". It

was here that the prince received a fortuitous message from his dead

father, in the form of a dream, in which he chose this as the site of

his own tomb.

Taita tells us that they travelled no further. If we are able to

determine what it was that stopped them, that would give us an accurate

measurement of just how far into the gorge they penetrated."

"Before we can go any further we will need maps and satellite

photographs of the mountains, and I will have to go over my expedition

notes and diary," Nicholas decided "I try to keep my reference library

up-to-date, and so we should have satellite photographs and the most

recent maps on file here in the museum. If they are Mrs. Street is the

one to find them."

He stood up and stretched, "I will dig out my diaries this evening and

read over them. My great-grandfather also hunted and collected in

Ethiopia in the last century. I know he crossed the Blue Nile near Debra

Markos in 1890something. I'll get out his notes as well. They are

preserved in our archives. The old boy may have written something there

that could help us."

He walked with her to the old green Land Rover in the car park, and as

she started the engine he told her through the open window, "I still

think that you should stay over here at the Hall. It must be an

hour-and-a-half's drive across to Brandsbury – each way that's three

hours a day. We are going to have a lot of work to do before we can even

think of leaving for Africa."

"What would people think?" she asked, as she let out the clutch.

"I have never given a damn about people," he called after her. "What

time will I see you tomorrow?"

I have to stop off to see the doctor in York. He is going to take the

stitches out of my arm. I won't be here before eleven," she stuck her

head out of the window to yell back at him.

The wind tossed her dark hair around her face. His fancy had always run

towards dark-haired women. Rosalind had had that mysterious Eastern

look. He felt guilty and disloyal making the comparison, but the memory

of Royan was hard to shake off.

She was the first woman who had interested him since Rosalind had gone.

The admixture of her blood drew him.

She was exotic enough to pique his taste for. the oriental, but English

enough to speak his language and understand his sense of humour. She was

educated and knowledgeable about those things that interested him, and

he admired her spirit. Usually Eastern women were trained from birth to

be self-effacing and compliant. This one was different.

eorgina had phoned her doctor in York to make an appointment to have the

stitches removed from Royan's arm. They left after breakfast from the

cottage in Brandsbury. Georgina was driving and Magic sat between them

on the bench seat.

As they turned into the village street, Royan noticed a large MAN truck

parked down near the post office, but she thought no more about it.

Once they were out in the countryside they found there were patches of

heavy fog that in places reduced visibility to thirty yards, but

Georgina made no concessions to the weather, and sent the Land Rover

rattling and whining through it at the top of its speed, which Royan

reflected thankfully was on the right side of sixty miles an hour.

She glanced over her shoulder to check the road behind them, and saw

that the MAN truck was following them, Only the cab rose above the sea

of low mist that surrounded it like the conning tower of a submarine.

Even as she watched it, a bank of fog intervened and swallowed it up.

She turned back to listen to her mother.

"This government is a troop of incompetent nincompoops." Georgina

squinted her eyes against the smoke from the cigarette that dangled from

her lips. She drove singlehanded, stroking Magic's flowing silken ear

with her free hand, "I don't mind ministers boiling themselves into a

stupor, but when they start fiddling around with my pension I get really

mad." Her mother's pension from the foreign service was her sole source

of income, and it wasn't much.

"You don't truly want a Labour government, now tell the truth, Mummy,'

Royan teased her. Her mother had always been the arch Conservative.

Georgina wavered, and then avoided the choice, "All I say is, bring back

Maggie."

Royan turned slightly in her seat and glanced through the dirty rear

window again. The truck was still behind them, looming out of the fog

and the trail of blue exhaust smoke that Georgina was laying behind her

like the vapour trail of a jet aircraft. Up until now it had hung back,

but suddenly it accelerated up behind them.

"I think he wants to pass you," Royan told Georgina mildly.

The massive bonnet of the truck was only twenty feet from their rear

bumper. The radiator was emblazoned with the chrome logo "MAN' and stood

taller than the cab of the Land Rover, so that she could not see the

face of the driver from where she sat.

"Everybody wants to pass me," lamented Georgina.

"Story of my life." She held the centre of the narrow road doggedly.

Royan glanced back again, and saw that the truck was creeping still

closer. It filled the rear window completely.

The driver declutched and revved the gigantic engine menacingly.

"You' better give over. I think he means business."

"Let him wait,' Georgina grunted around her cigarette butt. "Patience is

a virtue. Anyway, can't let him through here. There is a narrow stone

bridge ahead of us. Know this stretch of road like the way to my own

bathroom."

At that moment the truck-driver sounded his klaxon so close that it was

deafening. Magic jumped up on the rear seat and barked in outrage.

"Stupid bastard," Georgina swore bitterly. "What does he think he is

playing at? Write down his number plate. I am going to report him to the

York police."

"His plates are covered with mud. Can't make it out, but it looks like a

continental registration. German, I think."

As if the driver had heard her protest he slowed slightly and fell back

until a gap of twenty yards opened between the two vehicles. Royan had

swivelled right round in the seat to watch him.

"That's better," Georgina said smugly. "Ruddy Hun learning some

manners." She peered ahead through the fog, "There is the bridge For the

first time Royan was able to see up into the driver's cab of the truck.

The driver wore a balactava helmet that covered all but his eyes and

nose with dark blue wool. It gave him a sinister and evil aspect.

"Look outV Royan screamed suddenly. "He is coming straight at us!" The

engine beat of the great truck rose to a bellow that engulfed them like

the sound of a gale-driven sea. For a moment Royan saw'nothing but

glittering steel and then the front of the truck smashed into them from

behind.

She was thrown half over the back of her seat by the impact. She dragged

herself up and saw that the truck had picked them up like a fox with a

bird in its jaws. It carried the Land Rover forward on the steel bull

bars that protected the shining chromed radiator.

Georgina wrestled with the wheel, trying to maintain control, but the

effort was futile. "Can't hold her. The bridge! Try and get clear-'

Royan hit the quick-release buckle on her safety-belt and reached for

the door handle. The stone walls of the bridge were racing towards them

at a terrifying pace. The Land Rover was slewing across the road,

completely out of control.

The door burst open in Royan's grip, but she could not push it all the

way before the Land Rover was flung into the solid stonework columns

that guarded the approaches PI to the bridge, The two women screamed in

unison as the vehicle crumpled, and the impact hurled them forward. The

windscreen shattered as they bounced off the stone columns, and the body

of the Land Rover flipped over as it went down the embankment and began

to roll.

Royan was catapulted through the open door and flung clear. The slope of

the bank broke her fall, but it knocked the wind out of her. She bounced

and rolled down the incline and then dropped into the icy waters of the

stream below the bridge.

Just before her head went under, she found herself looking up at the sky

and the bridge above her. She caught one last glimpse of the truck

before it roared away. It was towing two huge cargo trailers. The tall

bodywork of the trailers stood higher than the guard rail of the bridge.

Both of the trailers were covered by a heav green  nylon tarpaulin roped

down to the lugs on the body. She had only a subliminal glimpse of a

large red trademark and company name painted on the side of the nearest

trailer, but before she could register the name she was plunged below

the surface of the stream and the cold and the force of her fall drove

the air from her lungs.

She fought her way to the surface of the river, and found she had been

washed some way downstream.

Impeded by her sodden clothing, she floundered to the bank and used the

branch of a tree to haul herself out.

She knelt in the mud, coughing up the water she had swallowed and trying

to assess what injury she had suffered in the collision. Then her own

plight was forgotten as she heard the terrible sounds of her mother's

agony from the overturned wreck of the Land Rover.

In frantic haste she clawed herself to her feet and stumbled through the

wet and frosted grass to where the Land Rover lay on its back at the

foot of the embankment.

The bodywork was crumpled and torn, and the bright silver aluminium

metal shone through where the dark green paint had been stripped away.

The engine had stalled, and the front wheels were still spinning

aimlessly as she reached it.

"Mummy! Where are you?" she cried, and the terrible sounds never

checked. She used the metal body of the vehicle to steady herself as she

dragged herself towards the sound, dreading what she might find.

Georgina sat on the wet earth with her back against the side of the car.

Her legs were thrust out straight ahead of her. The left one was twisted

so that the toe of the booted foot was pointed down into the mud at an

unnatural angle. The leg was obviously broken at the knee or very close

to it.

This was not the cause of Georgina's distress. She held Magic in her

lap, and was bowed over him in an attitude of abandoned grief; the sound

of it bubbled up unchecked from deep inside her. The spaniel's chest had

been crushed between metal and earth. His tongue lolled from the corner

of his mouth in his last smile, but the blood dripped steadily from the

pink tip and Georgina was using her scarf to wipe it away.

Royan sank down beside her mother and placed one arm around her

shoulders. She had never before seen her mother weep. She hugged her

hard and tried by main strength to quell the sound of her sorrow, but it

went on and on. , She never knew how long they sat together like that.

But at last the sight of her mother's maimed leg, and an awakening fear

that the driver of the truck might return to finish the job, roused her.

She crawled up the bank and tottered into the centre of the road to stop

the next car that arrived on the scene.

Not until Royan was two hours late for their meeting did Nicholas become

sufficiently worried to phone the police in York. Fortunately he had

noticed the licence plate of the Land Rover.

It was an easy one for him to remember. The registration number was his

mother's initials combined with an unlucky 13.

There was a delay while the woman constable checked her computer, and

then she came back. "I am sorry to have to tell you, sir, that Land

Rover was involved in an accident this morning."

"What happened to the driver? Nicholas demanded brusquely.

"The driver and one passenger have been taken to the York Minster

Hospital."

"Are they all right?"

"I am sorry, sir. I don't have that information." It took Nicholas forty

minutes to reach the hospital and almost as long again to trace Royan.

She was in the women's surgical ward, sitting beside her mother's bed.

Her mother had not yet come round from the anaesthetic.

She looked up when Nicholas stood over her. "Are you all right? What the

hell happened?"

"My mother – her leg is badly smashed up. The surgeon had to put a pin

in her thigh – the femur.

"How are you?"

"A few bruises and scrapes. Nothing serious., "How did it happen?"

"A truck – it pushed us off the road."

"Not deliberate?" Nicholas felt something inside him quail as he

remembered another truck on another road on another night.

I think so. The driver wore a mask, a balaclava. He crashed into us from

behind. It must have been deliberate."

"Did you tell the police?"

She nodded. "Apparently the truck was reported stolen early this

morning, long before the accident, while the driver was stopped at one

of those Little Chef cafes. He is German. Speaks no English."

"That is the third time they have tried to kill you," Nicholas told her

grimly. "So I am taking over now."

He went out into the hospital waiting room and used the telephone there.

The chief constable of the county was a personal friend, as was the

hospital administrator.

By the time he returned, Georgina had come round from the anaesthetic.

Although still woozy she was comfortable as they wheeled her off to the

private ward that Nicholas, had arranged. The – orthopaedic surgeon

arrived a few minutes later.

"Hello, Nick, what are you doing here?" he greeted Nicholas. Royan was

surprised how many people knew him.

Then he turned his attention to Georgina. "How are you feeling? We have

got ourselves a nice little compound fracture. Looks like confetti in

there. We've managed to put it all together again, but you're going to

be with us for ten days at the very least."

"Right you are, young lady," Nicholas told Royan as they left Georgina

sleeping. "What more do you need to convince you? My housekeeper has

made up a room for you at the Hall. I am not letting you wander around

on your own any more. Otherwise, next time they try to cull you they may

have a little more luck."

She was still too shaken and upset to argue, and she climbed meekly into

the front seat of the Range Rover and let him drive her first to have

her stitches removed and then back to Quenton Park. As soon as they

arrived, he sent her up to her bedroom.

"The cook will send dinner up to you. Make sure you take the sleeping

pill that the doc gave you. Somebody will fetch your gear from 's

cottage to Mrs. Street. In the meantime my housekeeper has set out some

nightclothes and a toothbrush in your room for you. I don't want to hear

from you again before tomorrow morning."

It was good to have him take control of her life. For the first time

since that terrible night at the oasis she felt secure and safe. Still,

she made one last gesture of independence and self-reliance; she flushed

the Mogadon sleeping tablet down the toilet.

The nightdress that was laid on her pillow was full, length sheer silk

with finest Cambrai lace at the cuffs and It. . A robe. She had never

worn anything so luxurious and sensual against her skin before. She

realized that it must have belonged to his wife, and the knowledge

stirred mixed emotions in her. She climbed up into the four-poster bed,

but even that lonely expanse of over'soft mattress and her unfamiliar

surroundings did not keep her too long from sleep.

ù the morning a young housemaid woke her with aù copy of The Times and a

pot of Earl Grey tea, then returned a few minutes later with her

holdall.

"Sir Nicholas would like you to take breakfast with him in the dining

room at eight-thirty., While she showered Royan inspected her naked body

in the full-length mirror that covered one wall of -the bathroom. Apart

from the knife wound on her -arm, which was still livid and only

partially healed, there was a dark bruise on her thigh and another down

her left flank and buttock, legacies of the car crash. Her shin was

scraped raw, and gingerly she pulled a pair of socks over the injury.

She limped a little as she went down the main staircase to find the

dining room.

"Please help yourself." Nicholas looked up from his newspaper to greet

her as she hesitated in the doorway. He waved at the display of

breakfast dishes on the sideboard.

As she spooned scrambled eggs on to her plate, she recognized the

landscape on the wall in front of her as a Constable.

"Did you sleep well?" He didn't wait for an answer, but went on, "I have

heard from the police. They found the MAN truck abandoned in a lay-by

near Harrogate. They are going over it now but they don't expect to find

much.

We seem to be dealing with someone who knows what he is doing."

"I must phone the hospital," she said.

"I have already done so. Your mother had an easy night. I left a message

that you would visit her this evening."

"This evening?" She looked around sharply. "Why so late?"

"I intend to keep you busy until then. I want to get my money's worth

out of you."

He stood as she came to the table, and drew back her chair to seat her.

She found the courtesy made her feel slightly uncomfortable, but she

made no comment.

"The first attack on you and Duraid at your villa in the oasis – we can

draw no conclusions from that" apart from the fact that the assassins

knew exactly what they were after, and where to look for it." She found

the abrupt change of subject disconcerting. "However, let's give some

thought to the second attempt in Cairo. The hand grenade.

Who knew you were going to the Ministry that afternoon, apart from the

minister himself?"

She reflected as she chewed and swallowed a mouthful of egg. "I am not

sure. I think I told Duraid's secretary, maybe one of the other research

assistants."

He frowned and shook his head. "So half the museum staff knew about your


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