The Messiah Secret

To his surprise, Angela shook her head. ‘I haven’t finished with this yet,’ she said firmly. ‘Going to the airport’s a good idea – there’ll be armed guards and police there, because of the terrorist situation. As soon as we arrive I’m going to start translating that text. Then we’ll decide where we go next, but I can pretty much guarantee it won’t be Britain.’

Half a mile away, Killian picked up his bags and walked away from his crashed car, ignoring the shouts and protestations from the crowds of people who’d gathered at the scene.

Though he realized a British police officer would be a competent driver, Bronson’s move had taken him completely by surprise. His car was undriveable – not only had one of the tyres blown, but the sideways impact with the kerb had snapped one of the front suspension components, and that wheel leaned drunkenly to one side as well.

He’d have to find a taxi and get away from the area as quickly as he could, before a car-load of cops turned up and started asking awkward questions. Then he’d have to decide what to do next. He tried to put himself in Bronson’s place. He guessed that Bronson and Angela would either return to their hotel or, perhaps more likely, head straight for the airport to follow whatever clues they’d found in the Montgomery paintings. And if they were following the clues, he would be able to follow them.

A taxi squealed to a halt in response to his raised arm.

‘The airport,’ he snapped. ‘And make it quick.’

41

‘I’ll be as fast as I can with this,’ Angela said, sitting down at a table in one of the cafés and switching on her laptop.

Bronson bought some food and drinks at the counter, then sat beside Angela as she downloaded a Persian–English dictionary from the web and fed the letters and words she could see in the photographs into it, jotting down the results on a piece of paper.

But it wasn’t a quick job. They sat in the café for well over an hour before she finally leaned back in her seat.

‘I think that’s it,’ she said.

‘Right,’ Bronson said eagerly. ‘What’s it say?’

But Angela seemed strangely reluctant to read out the text. ‘Look, there are a couple of words in it that could have alternative meanings, and a few that aren’t in the dictionary at all, so maybe they’re proper names. I’ve transcribed them exactly as they’re written. Here. See what you think.’

She turned the sheet of paper round so that Bronson could see what she’d written on it, and slid it across the table.

He scanned the lines Angela had written down. ‘I recognize some of it from what you told me before, the bit you found in the guidebook, I mean. But there’s no mention of Judea or a temple, which were the other two words you found on the Hillel fragment, if I remember rightly. So what do you think all this means?’

‘That’s the problem. I’m reasonably certain this is the whole thing, but it’s still not clear to me where – or even what – it refers to. It looks as if the first verse is a statement of intent, if you like. Then the second appears to be a general description of what the people involved did, and the third section looks as if it provides some details about the location they picked.’

Bronson looked down again at the text, and then read it aloud, his voice low-pitched and almost reverent as he spoke Angela’s translation of the two-millennia-old verses.

And then the son of Yus of the purified,

instructed that the light which had become

the treasure was to be taken from Mohalla

and returned from whence it came.

And Isaac journeyed long and far

with his trusted followers into the

valley of flowers and there fashioned

with their own hands a place of stone

where they together concealed and made

hidden the treasure of the world for all

eternity until the heavens shall be rent asunder

and all shall tremble in the face of judgement.

With their shadows ever before them

from the rising to the setting

beyond the meeting point where waters tumble

towards the mighty river that flows never.

Then turned to face the glory

between the pillars and beyond their shadows

into the silence and the darkness formed of man

to rest forever.

‘More information, but a whole bunch of new questions,’ Bronson muttered. ‘Why couldn’t it be easy for once?’