James Becker - The Messiah Secret

Bronson studied the rock-covered ground and nodded. ‘Probably,’ he said. ‘Though I’m not sure how far I’ll be able to take it off the road. I guess we’ll be walking for the last part, up to that cleft.’

He reversed the jeep about twenty yards then swung it over to the right and inched his way off the rutted surface of the road and into the entrance to the gully, weaving his way between the fallen rocks. Beyond the fairly narrow opening, the rocks opened up slightly, and there were fewer fallen boulders to negotiate. He was able to drive about a hundred yards towards the split in the rock, which was further than he thought they’d be able to manage.

But eventually the ground became too steep and the surface too broken up for him to drive any further. He reversed the jeep into a gap between two large boulders and switched off the engine.

‘That should be invisible from the road,’ he said. ‘Now we walk.’

In a level area just off the road about a mile outside Arann, Masters ended the call on his sat-phone and grabbed a topographical map of Kashmir. Spreading it out across the bonnet of the Land Cruiser, he studied it for a few minutes, Donovan right beside him. Then he gestured to the other men, who clustered around him.

‘OK,’ he began. ‘Bronson and Lewis have just stopped their vehicle and pulled off the road right here. According to the surveillance team, the jeep drove up this narrow gully about ten minutes ago and it hasn’t reappeared.

‘So what we can’t do is drive up the gully after them. That would be real stupid. We need to sneak up on them.’

The heavy-set man at the edge of the group shook his head. Right then John Cross’s surname fitted his mood pretty much like a glove. ‘This makes no sense, Nick. These two Brits don’t have anything more than maybe a penknife between them. We’ve got assault rifles and pistols. I don’t see why we don’t just drive straight up to them, stick a pistol down the woman’s throat and tell the guy we’ll pull the trigger unless he tells us what he knows.’

A couple of the other men nodded their agreement.

‘Oh, and by the way, Nick, we still have no clue what the hell we are supposed to be looking for in this god-forsaken hole.’ Cross added, ‘because, so far you’ve told us diddly-squat.’

Masters nodded. ‘I’m still not going to tell you why we’re here,’ he snapped, ‘because that guy over there’ — he gestured at Donovan, who had walked a short distance away from the group of merceneries — ‘is the man who’s paying your wages, and he wants it that way. The reason we’re not going to give Angela Lewis a nine-millimetre tonsillectomy is because she’s the person most likely to find what we’re looking for. If you’re not happy with this, unload your weapons, put them back in the truck and start walking.’

He looked round at the men. Not one of them had moved. ‘No takers? OK, get ready. We leave in two minutes.’

Bronson shrugged a haversack on to his back. Inside it were bottles of water and half a dozen chocolate bars, plus a couple of sweaters and a handful of tools he’d bought in Leh that he thought might be useful. They left the rest of their survival equipment in the Nissan — if they had to spend the night in the open, they’d have to return to the vehicle.

‘Are you ready?’ he asked.

‘Ready and eager to get going,’ Angela said with a smile.

Bronson led the way up a gentle slope, clambering around boulders and over fallen rocks, and paused to help Angela over the last section. As he stretched out his hand to her, he saw her eyes widen as she stared at something behind him, something he obviously hadn’t noticed.

Bronson spun round. ‘What is it?’

‘There,’ Angela said, pointing directly behind him. ‘Just beyond those rocks. There’s a straight line. It looks like the corner of a building — something man-made, at any rate.’

Bronson stared at the feature she’d spotted. The rocks closer to them curved slightly outwards, and so only the very bottom of whatever lay around the corner was visible from where they were standing. But from what he could see, it did look like the base of a vertical stone wall.

‘Let’s check it out,’ he said.

‘Just over there,’ Masters gestured to an area of ground on the left-hand side of the track they’d followed for perhaps a quarter of a mile from the road.

The driver swung the wheel and braked to a halt.

Masters waved the driver of the second four-by-four to park beside it. His four men piled out and stood waiting for orders.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Break out the assault rifles. Make sure all your magazines are fully charged right now, but do not — I say again — do not chamber a round in either the AKs or your pistols. We can’t afford a negligent discharge now. Leave two of the Kalashnikovs and a couple of pistols, plus ammo, between the jeeps for the recce team to collect.’

‘Suppose somebody else comes along here?’ Cross asked.

Masters just stared at him. ‘Out here?’ he snapped. ‘Get real. The worst that could happen to the weapons is that a goat could come along and crap on them. And gimme that sat-phone.’

Five minutes later they’d locked their vehicles and were heading towards the gully where Bronson and Angela had parked their vehicle.

On the side of the Saser mountain, the grey Land Rover was again mobile, following the same route Bronson had taken. Their plan was to collect the weapons Masters had left for them, drive past the gully, and stop half a mile or so away. They would then position themselves in the hills to the west, too far away to intervene in what was going to happen in the valley, but they’d make sure nobody could get out in that direction.

Caught between two groups of armed men, Bronson and Angela were walking into a trap.

‘You need to get ready,’ Tembla instructed as he walked into the briefing room. He was wearing a set of flying overalls, a survival belt including a holstered pistol around his waist. ‘Bronson and Lewis are proceeding on foot up into the valley.’

Killian stepped across to the table and looked down at the map.

‘They’re here, near these ruins,’ Tembla said, ‘not far off this road that runs east from Arann. It looks as if they’re heading towards the centre of the valley.’

Outside the building, Killian could hear the sound of a jet engine spooling up, and there was a faint whiff of burnt kerosene in the air.

‘When do we leave?’ he said.

‘Not yet. The moment we fly into the valley, everyone will know we are there. Until we’re sure they’ve found something, it’s better if we watch what happens through the camera on the Searcher. But I’ve ordered the helicopters to be manned and their engines started, so we can take off at any moment.’

Killian nodded, somewhat reluctantly. ‘Can I see the images?’ he asked.

‘Of course. Follow me.’

A couple of minutes later, Killian was sitting in an adjacent room staring at a small video screen. On it was an image that moved slightly as the Searcher manoeuvred in the sky, though the area displayed remained reasonably stable.

‘This is the jeep,’ Tembla said, pointing to an oblong shape in the bottom right of the screen, more or less in the middle of which was a small circle of colour — the mark Tembla’s man had painted on the roof of the vehicle. ‘Bronson and Lewis are here, standing beside these ruins. But I’m afraid that if they think what they’re looking for is inside that building, they’re going to be disappointed.’

Bronson stepped around the corner and past the overhanging rock, turned to his right and then stopped.

‘What the hell is this place?’