The Sacred Scroll (49 page)

‘We have enough information to know that the tablet is here in Berlin, and not only that, that it is lodged
somewhere in the collection now housed at the Vorderasiatisches Museum. We also know that a copy of Reinhardt’s letter exists in a bank vault in Bern. That letter will give the precise location of the tablet,’ said Su-Lin crisply.

‘Getting the thing from Bern can be arranged,’ said Adler drily. ‘I have people in Switzerland who have influence with that particular bank and, as we know that the general left us long ago, a close relative with the right papers in his hand can be organized to pick up his remaining effects even at this distance in time. We don’t have to resort to violence or robbery, and the expense that would entail. But we must move fast. Marlow will be on its track already.’ He thought for a moment. ‘What we need is someone who can decipher the tablet for us when we have it. Someone who is guaranteed to have that knowledge and produce results quickly. She was within our grasp once, but Marlow rescued her. Fortunately for us, as it turns out.’

‘The Graves woman?’

‘Precisely.’

‘We know where she is. Springing her might be quite an undertaking.’

Adler smiled. ‘You underestimate me,’ he said.

‘Whatever is to be done, it must be done now.’

‘Alas, I should have liked to use you. But I am afraid that, as you say, your usefulness in that connection is at an end.’

‘My work has been impeccable.’

‘And rewarded.’

‘For the moment.’

Adler looked at her. ‘You are comfortable in your apartment here?’

She returned his gaze, guardedly. ‘Yes.’

Adler spread his hands expansively. He had installed his aide in a penthouse not far from Charlottenburg, with its own exclusive elevator and his own security firm guarding it. The last detail she did not know. If she had known, she would also have known that she was a fly already caught in a web. ‘I have put a car and driver at your disposal. I suggest you relax for a couple of days, enjoy yourself. As soon as Ms Graves has been successfully delivered to us, I’ll bring you in to help persuade her to … advise us. I’m confident she’ll come round.’

‘It’ll take you a couple of days to get her?’

‘Less, I hope. But these things take a little organization.’

‘INTERSEC’s already organized.’

‘Don’t worry about INTERSEC,’ Adler said curtly; but he saw her expression change at the snarl he’d been unable to keep out of his voice, and recomposed his face into a bland smile. ‘Where are my manners? We should be celebrating your achievement.’

‘Have we time for that?’

‘Indulge me,’ replied Adler, keeping a close rein on his patience. He rose and, crossing to a concealed refrigerator, produced a bottle of Dom Perignon from it, and two cold flutes. He placed them on the table, opened the bottle and poured the wine, then crossed to his desk and, unlocking a drawer, brought out a small black box. This he placed by Su-Lin’s glass.

She looked at him suspiciously, but opened it. It contained a Cartier wristwatch in white gold.

‘Time will, I hope, always be on our side from now on,’ said Adler.

‘Thank you,’ she said, rising and giving him a peck on the cheek. He resisted the urge to recoil. But he knew that the watch she was now placing on her wrist would not stay there long.

‘The pleasure is all mine,’ he replied, grinning broadly.

‘What do the British say? “Here’s to crime”?’ She managed a cold smile.

‘Very witty, Dr de Montferrat.’

They clinked glasses, and drank. The slightly nutty champagne was delicious.

After she had left, Adler summoned his new personal assistant.

‘Little job,’ he said. ‘Little tidying up to do.’

The PA’s face was expressionless. ‘Do you wish me to contact Trotter and Sparkes?’

Adler waved a hand. ‘No need for that. This doesn’t really require special skills. The boys from Pankow should be able to handle it. It concerns Dr de Montferrat.’

‘When, sir?’

‘Tonight at the latest. By the way, she has a Cartier watch, which I shouldn’t mind having retrieved. And freeze that Kleinwort Benson account as soon as the job’s done.’

‘Sir.’

‘I do need Trotter and Sparkes for another job,’ Adler continued. ‘So get them here immediately for a briefing.
Tell them to pack an overnight bag, and organize the Gulfstream for them. They’ll be bringing a guest back with them.’

‘From where, sir?’

‘Oh,’ said Adler. ‘New York.’

New York City, the Present

Graves sat in her apartment sipping a glass of Chablis and watching the dusk wrap its cloak over the New York skyline.

Shortly before leaving INTERSEC, she’d relayed the information provided by the watch commander about Su-Lin to Marlow, now in Berlin. She tried to imagine him there, wondered if he’d be sleeping, if he’d have time to sleep.

It had been a long day, of tension, of waiting. Waiting for news from Switzerland which, they hoped, would confirm that the copy of the Reinhardt letter in the bank vault in Bern had not been removed. The latest news from the bank had been that it was secure, but there was a rather stiff rider to the bank’s email to the effect that their responsibility was to hand it over, if requested, to anyone with the correct authorization. There was no way, they had said, rather more formally, that their client confidentiality would be compromised, no matter how much time had passed. Graves had spent that afternoon organizing an injunction to be used against the bank in case of need, forcing them to hand the letter over to INTERSEC.

As for the copy lodged in the OSS files and later transferred to the CIA archive, Sir Richard, for once, had been
as good as his word. It had arrived at INTERSEC after a delay of only nine hours, and Lopez had quickly confirmed that it contained, in precise, somewhat dated, German, not only where the tablet was, but how it could be identified. It was some comfort that their deduction that it would now be in the Vorderasiatisches Museum was correct but, more disquietingly, the letter itself imparted authority to its bearer to demand the tablet’s immediate release by the museum’s director. It was unclear whether the letter they had in their possession, or the one in Bern, or both, carried weight in such a scenario. For security, the letter they had was being couriered over to Marlow now, in a diplomatic bag carried by an INTERSEC field operative on Sir Richard’s immediate staff. Maximum priority and super-ultra-security. That important.

Graves wished she had been selected to be the courier, but INTERSEC feared that, after her brief capture by the forces they were now able to identify as ‘most likely adversary’, her profile was too visible, and she should travel separately. She had to accept waiting until the following day, when she’d fly to the German capital on an INTERSEC Falcon to join Marlow. The rendezvous in Berlin would be sent to her via an encoded SMS on her arrival.

It was still early evening, but her flight left at dawn, and she was exhausted. She finished her wine and switched on the television, where an episode of
Frasier
was airing – Eddie was suffering from some mysterious depression which was affecting Martin and the whole household. She left the TV to play and, undressing, prepared to shower
and go to bed with an apple and a good book. She was determined to finish
The Princess of Cleves
before she left; she found the formal, old-fashioned style soothing. She already knew it would end badly. Honour before self-gratification. But either course would lead the heroine down the tubes, poor thing. Sometimes you just couldn’t win.

It was after her shower, after she had towelled herself dry, put on her favourite kimono – white silk, with a golden dragon embroidered across its back – and wandered back into her living room, that she sensed something was wrong. The TV played softly on, everything was in its place, as it had been. But …

She stood quite still in the centre of the room. Her automatic was in her briefcase by the side of the sofa and her INTERSEC-dedicated cell-phone lay on the coffee table next to last month’s edition of the
New Yorker
, open at a review of a Pollock retrospective at MoMA. For some reason, both seemed far away, separated from her by a dangerous journey of just a few metres. The shadows had deepened while she’d been taking her shower and she hadn’t yet switched the lights on. Daylight had faded and the only illumination in the room came from the electric cityscape beyond her windows.

Silence. Nothing. Yet she sensed – she was sure – that she was not alone. What was it? A slight odour? Patchouli oil? Something that reminded her of her mother when she herself had been a little girl. Her mother had been at Woodstock. She’d also been involved in the student demonstrations in Chicago and, later, at Kent State – she’d been standing near Allison Krause when the National
Guard gunned the kid down. Her mother would have been horrified if she’d known what Graves did for a living; she wouldn’t have understood it.

Why were these thoughts coming to Graves now? Now, with the smell of patchouli oil and the sense of impending danger?

In the shadows, someone sniffed, and a light went on. An Aram lamp which hung over the sofa, its light spreading just enough to reveal the form of a plump woman in a flowing dress covered with flowers. She wore a straw hat over long dark hair. Graves could see nothing of the face but the mouth.

It smiled. ‘Don’t be alarmed, dear.’

‘Who the hell are you?’

The woman chuckled. ‘Your travel agent.’

Graves made a quick calculation. There was no way she could get her gun out of the briefcase, but if she could grab the briefcase itself and swing it, she just might –

Even as she started to lunge forward, an incredibly strong, bony arm wrapped itself round her throat from behind and pulled her close to a body which, under its clothes, felt skeletal. A faintly sour, antiseptic smell. ‘Sweet dreams,’ said a male voice close to her ear and, as she struggled, she felt a hypodermic needle thrust hard into her upper right arm.

Berlin, the Present

The nine-hour delay caused by Homeland, and the extra time it took for the INTERSEC courier to get the letter to him, had counted for a lot. Just how much was clear to Marlow the moment the curator of Mesopotamian Antiquities at the Vorderasiatisches Museum expressed, with some embarrassment, his regrets.

‘You must understand that there was nothing we could do,’ he said. ‘The conditions of the loan were perfectly clear, and we were presented with impeccable credentials.’

It was four o’clock in the afternoon. Outside, the sun shone brightly in the clear Berlin air, in mockery of Marlow’s dark mood.

The tablet had been handed over to a young woman presenting herself as Frau Birgit von Machtschlüssel-Reinhardt the previous evening; after half a day of checking references, all of which had been confirmed with extraordinary speed. The transaction must have taken place soon after Marlow had landed in Berlin. As soon as the letter was in his hands, Marlow had gone to the museum, to be confronted by the news that the tablet was gone.

‘It was very sudden – quite irregular. Unique, in my experience; but the tablet in question was not on actual
display, and the lady was insistent. She said she only had limited time in Berlin, so we had no alternative.’

Marlow was silent.

‘She left an address, contact number, email, of course.’

Marlow remembered the combination on the steel container that had held Adhemar’s empty iron box and its key: 13-1-24. M-A-X. MAXTEL.

Adler would know that he was in pursuit. Would the tablet even still be in Berlin? And how much time did he have? If Adler already knew how to use the tablet, he had no time at all.

But he still had to try.

He drove back the short distance to INTERSEC’s Berlin base, where he’d established a modest operations centre. Something else was nagging at his mind. Why wasn’t Graves here yet? She should have made contact by now, even allowing for the time difference. The time difference, he reflected as he tore through the nascent rush-hour, ignoring outraged horn-blasts from other motorists – that was another factor to Adler’s advantage, as it bought him another six hours, easily time for him to have sprung the copy letter from the Bern bank, which, with his influence, must have been a simple task.

At INTERSEC base, there was more bad news. Worse, if possible, than he’d just had.

In response to the message waiting for him, he immediately put through a priority call to Lopez.

‘Thank Christ,’ said Lopez, as soon as he heard Marlow’s voice.

‘What’s happened to her?’

‘Our people went to her apartment at 4 a.m. to collect
her for the flight. They called ahead and there was no response. When they got there, there was no response either. Of course they had a set of duplicate keys to her place, but when they got in, nothing.’

‘
Nothing?
’

‘Not a trace. Nothing disturbed. Nothing at all. Her case was half packed at the side of her bed, but her bed hadn’t been slept in.’

‘OK, Leon.’

‘We’re following every lead. Forensics have gone over the place. One or two small elements, fibres from clothes, a couple of fingerprints, but I’m not optimistic.’

‘I don’t think we need Forensics to work out what’s happened to her,’ said Marlow, his throat dry. ‘And we need to find her, not how they managed to get to her. What happened to her security cordon?’

‘In place, but hell, she’s not the only person living in her block. And you kept it low-level in order not to draw attention to us. The third party, remember? The other guys you think are interested in the tablet, apart from MAXTEL?’

Marlow was silent.

‘What do you want me to do?’ Lopez went on. ‘Come over?’

Marlow thought. Lopez was the only other person, apart from Graves, to be fully in the know. He could use him here, in Berlin. But was that outweighed by the need to keep some kind of anchor in New York.

How deliberate had that nine-hour delay been?