Tom Knox - The Genesis Secret

'And if they go through Ankara it will take ages,' Christine went on, 'and they will antagonize the Kurds, the whole thing will be a terrible fiasco. They don't understand. They've never been there, never seen Sanliurfa…'

'So maybe you have to go. Now.' Sally leaned and squeezed Rob's hand. 'Just do it. Take the Black Book, the skull-whatever it is-just take it to Cloncurry, and give it to him. Just fly there, now, tomorrow: the police can't stop you. Do what Cloncurry wants. She's our daughter.'

Rob nodded slowly. 'Absolutely. And I know someone who can help…in Sanliurfa.'

Christine raised a hand. 'But we still can't trust Cloncurry. Can we? Forrester is right about that, at least.' With the last rays of the setting sun soft on her face, Christine looked earnestly at Rob and then at Sally. 'Sure he's hunting for the Book. But once he's got it, once we give him the Black Book he may just…do what he wants anyway. You see? He's psychotic. As he says. He enjoys killing.'

'So what do we do?' Rob said despairingly.

"There may be a way. I saw the map.'

'What?'

'When we were in the office,' Christine explained. 'The parchment is written in Late Ancient Aramaic. The language used by the Canaanites. And I think I can read that. Just about.'

'And?'

Christine looked down at the leather box, sitting at Rob's feet. 'Show me again.'

Rob bent and opened the box, retrieved the parchment and flattened it on his knee. Christine nodded. 'That's what I thought.' She pointed at a line of ancient handwriting. 'It says the "great skull of the ancestors" comes from…"the Valley of the Slaughter".'

'So, what's that then?'

'It doesn't say.'

'Great. OK. So what about the writing? Here. What does that mean?'

'It mentions the Book of Enoch. It doesn't quote it.' She frowned. 'But it refers to it. And then it says, here: "The Valley of the Slaughter is where our forefathers died". Yes. Yes, yes.' Christine pointed at one line on the parchment. 'And here it says the valley is a day's walk towards the setting sun, from the "place of worship".'

'And this…?'

'That shows a river and the valleys. And here's another clue. It says the place of worship is also called "the hill of the navel"! That's it!'

Rob's mind was blank. He felt so tired, and so stressed about Lizzie. He glanced at Christine. Her expression was the opposite of his: alert and eager.

She eyed him. 'The hill of the navel. You don't remember?'

Rob shook his head, feeling an idiot.

'Hill of the Navel is the English meaning of the Turkish phrase…Gobekli Tepe.'

A light dawned in Rob's head.

Across the lawns, the police were evidently concluding their debate, and shaking hands. Christine went on, 'So. According to this parchment, a day's walk from Gobekli Tepe, walking west, away from the sun, is the Valley of the Slaughter. And that's where this skull comes from. And that's where, I suspect, we will find many others like it. We have to be proactive. Think a few moves ahead. We can bring Cloncurry to us. We need to have something so powerful that he has to hand Lizzie over unharmed. If we actually unearth the secret, implied by the Black Book, contained in the skull and the map, if we dig up the Valley of the Slaughter and find out the truth behind all of this, then he will come to us in supplication. Because that valley is where the secret is hidden. The secret he keeps banging on about. The secret revealed to Jerusalem Whaley that ruined his life. The secret that Cloncurry wants hidden for ever. If we want to have power over Cloncurry we need to go right past him, dig up this valley, find out the secret, and threaten to reveal the mystery, unless he hands over Lizzie. That's how we win.'

The police were walking towards them now, their debate apparently concluded.

Rob squeezed Sally's hand, and Christine's too. He whispered to them both. 'OK. Let's do it. Christine and I will fly to Sanliurfa immediately. We do it alone. And we dig up this secret.'

'And we don't tell the police,' said Christine.

Rob turned to Sally. 'Are you sure about this, Sally? I need your agreement.'

She stared at Rob. 'I'm…going to trust you, Rob Luttrell.' Her eyes filled with tears: she fought them back. 'I'm going to trust you to bring back our daughter. So, yes. Please do it. Please, please, please. Just bring Lizzie back.'

Forrester was rubbing his hands as he approached them. 'Getting a bit nippy, shall we head for the airport? Have to get the Home Office onto it. We'll pile the pressure on, I promise.'

Rob nodded. Behind the DCI loomed the sombre grey elevations of Newman House. For a second Rob had an image of the house as it had been when Buck Egan and Buck Whaley had held their roistering parties in the guttering light of Georgian lamps; the tall young men laughing and roaring as they set fire to black cats soaked in whisky.

Christine and Rob flew to Turkey straight from London the same evening, after telling blatant lies to Forrester and Boijer.

They decided to take the Black Book with them: Christine was obliged to show her archaeological credentials at Heathrow and flash her most charming smile to get a strange and arguably human skull past London customs. In Turkey they had to be even more careful. They flew to Dyarbakir, via Istanbul, then made a long, dusty, six-hour cab-ride to Sanliurfa, through the night and the dawn. They didn't want to announce their arrival to Kiribali by turning up at Sanliurfa Airport, conspicuous, Western and unwanted; indeed they didn't want Kiribali to know they were anywhere near Turkey.

Just being here, in Kurdistan, was risky enough.

In the thrumming heart of broiling Urfa they headed for the Hotel Haran. Right outside the lobby Rob found his man-Radevan-sheltering from the hot morning sun, arguing noisily about football with the other cab drivers, and acting a little grouchy. But the grumpiness was due to Ramadan: everyone was grouchy, hungry and thirsty through the hours of daylight.

Rob went straight for it and asked Radevan if he could find some friends to help them dig the Valley of the Slaughter. He also quietly asked him to procure some guns, as well. Rob wanted to be ready for anything.

Initially, Radevan was moody and unsure: he went off to 'consult' with his numberless cousins. But an hour later he returned with seven friends and relatives, all smiling Kurdish lads. In the meantime Rob had bought some second-hand shovels and hired a couple of very old Land Rovers.

This was probably going to be the most makeshift archaeological dig of the last two hundred years, but they had no choice. They had only two days to unearth the final answer to all their questions, two days to unearth the Valley of the Slaughter, and lure Cloncurry into a position in which he would have to give up Lizzie. And Radevan had done his job with the guns: they were concealed in a shabby old sack: two shotguns and a German pistol. Radevan winked at Rob as they made the transaction. 'You see I help you, Mr Robbie. I like Englishman, they help the Kurds.' He grinned, luxuriously, as Rob handed over the wad of dollars.

As soon as everything was stowed in the cars, Rob jumped in the driver's seat and keyed the engine. His impatience was almost unbearable. Just being in the same city as Lizzie, yet not knowing where she was or how she was suffering made him feel as if he was having a serious heart attack. He had pains shooting up his arm; palpitations of anguish. His jaw hurt. He thought of Lizzie, tied to a chair, as the last of Urfa's suburbs became a haze of dust and greyness in the rearview mirror.

Christine was in the seat beside him. Three Kurdish men were in the back. Radevan was driving the second Land Rover, right behind. The guns were hidden in their sack, under Rob's seat. The Black Box, in its worn leather box, was firmly wedged in the boot.