The Key (36 page)

A light flickered on as he stepped into the washroom revealing a row of stone sinks facing a line of stalls. He stepped across to the furthest one and closed the door behind him.

The cubicle was little more than a square stall with a hole cut in the stone floor that led directly to the sewer. To one side was a bucket of water with a wooden cup floating in it that was used as a rudimentary flushing mechanism. There was no lock on the door, so Athanasius leaned against it and took the phone Gabriel had given him from his pocket. It lit up the dim cubicle the moment he touched the screen. He stared down at it, trying to remember the lesson he’d had on how to compose a message. He managed to call up a test message sent from Gabriel, hit the ‘Reply’ option then carefully transcribed a summary of everything he had discovered, working quickly, aware that the longer he was gone the more suspicion it would arouse, then he tapped the
send
button.

A small box opened up in the middle of the screen: ‘Cannot Send Mail.’

He tried again and got the same message.

Outside, the door opened and someone walked to the sink and started filling it. He slipped the phone in his pocket, mindful of the light it gave off, and poured a cup of water into the hole before opening the door.

Father Thomas was splashing water on to his face when he emerged. Athanasius seized the moment and thrust the phone at him. ‘It’s not working,’ he said, glancing nervously at the door.

Thomas took the phone and read the error message. ‘There’s no signal,’ he said. ‘We’re too deep in the mountain.’

Athanasius felt instantly deflated. He was trapped in quarantine, for the next few days at least, in a location he had specified, buried deep beneath solid rock. He needed to get out somehow, or the information he had found would be useless.

Thomas held out the phone and Athanasius reached out to take it from him when the door behind them flew open.

Axel stood in the doorway. For a moment he stood looking at them both, his eyes switching from one to the other, seemingly oblivious to the glowing device being passed between them.

Then they saw the fresh blood dripping from his nose, just as his face crumpled in anguish and he fell to his knees, his hands already clawing violently at the flesh beneath his red cassock.

‘Help me,’ he said, through ragged, mournful sobs. ‘Please, somebody, help me …’

It took Liv and Gabriel eight precious hours to reach the Turkish–Iraqi border on roads that became increasingly worse. They knew they were getting close when they came to the first military checkpoint. Gabriel did all the talking and they were quickly waved on. The checkpoint was manned by Turkish soldiers, he explained as they drove away, and their primary concern was the PKK – Kurdish freedom fighters – not Western fugitives; the border would be a different story. He handed her a maroon British passport with a picture of a blonde girl in the back that looked a bit like Liv if you squinted.

‘I borrowed it from one of the volunteers,’ he said, watching the checkpoint disappear in his rear-view mirror. ‘The border police never look too closely. They take photocopies for their files and I’ve already done some with the contrast whacked right up so you can hardly make out the picture anyway.’ He reached over and gave her hand a squeeze. ‘We’ll be fine. I promise.’

Fifteen minutes later they crested a hill and saw the border crossing at Silopi, built on the side of a muddy river. It was little more than a delta-shaped concrete car park that ended abruptly at the river’s edge. Liv’s first reaction when she saw it was that she was going to die there. A road bridge extended from the centre of it, spanning the river and joining another complex of squat buildings on the Iraqi side: one bridge, one road, and literally thousands of trucks waiting to use it. They were parked in rows by the border-patrol buildings and in makeshift car parks on either side of the main road that snaked away through the dry land, choked with a solid, unmoving line of more traffic. If they had to wait in line it would take days to get into Iraq, days that they didn’t have.

‘Don’t worry,’ Gabriel said, reading her mood. ‘That’s the queue for road freight. We’re going to join the one over there.’ He pointed to a clear strip of road close to the bridge where a US Army Humvee was speeding towards a line of waiting taxis. It left the road, kicking up dust as it skirted around the parked cars and barely paused at the barrier before picking up speed again to cross the bridge into Iraq. On the far side of the river were more military vehicles and men with M4 assault rifles slung across their chests. They stood in the shade of a small arch that spanned the road. Above them was a sign written in Arabic with an English translation beneath saying ‘Welcome to Iraqi Kurdistan Region’.

‘We’ll be on our way in no time,’ he said. ‘Trust me, I’ve done it many times before.’

Liv wasn’t convinced. ‘Have you ever done it with half the Turkish police force after you?’

He smiled and handed her a passport. ‘They’re not looking for me, they’re looking for someone called Gabriel Mann.’

She opened the passport and saw his face staring back with someone else’s name beneath it.

‘Who’s David Kinsella?’

‘I am, when I need to be – all part of my glamorous existence as a charity worker. I got fed up with being thrown out of various countries for trying to help people the government were busy persecuting. Unfortunately, the deck is stacked heavily in favour of any regime who want to keep you out. All they have to do is stick your name on a list of undesirables and all normal methods of entry cease to work. So I got a little creative and stopped playing by the rules. Believe me, getting out of Turkey won’t be a problem; it’s what happens when we get into Iraq that worries me more.’

They drove along the road past the wall of lorries and parked next to the local taxis.

‘This is where we might get held up a little,’ Gabriel said, nodding towards the taxi drivers. ‘They make a good living out of guiding tourists and travellers through all the red tape and don’t take kindly to free agents who don’t need them. We could plead with them, see if they’ll let us queue jump, but I doubt any will, and we don’t really want to cause a scene and draw attention to ourselves.’

Liv studied the line of taxi drivers and their passengers. There were around fifteen of them, all looking as if they were on a leisurely Sunday outing. Some were talking to the border guards, some were eating; most were smoking; a small group was even playing cards, but none of them seemed in a particular hurry.

‘How do we know how many people are in front of us?’

Gabriel pointed at a blackboard with a number 12 chalked on it. ‘You get a chit from the desk and wait until they chalk your number up.’

A wave of heat flooded the interior as he got out of the car and headed across to a uniformed man sitting behind a scratched Perspex window to get a number. Liv stared out of the window, jogging her leg up and down with tension. They couldn’t afford to hang around here waiting patiently in line. Time was too short. They had to get to the front somehow, even if she had to kiss every driver to do it. She surveyed the level of male beauty on display. Stained shirts, vests and hairy shoulders. Maybe she’d try a different approach. She popped open her door, stepped out into the dry heat and headed over to join Gabriel.

‘Twenty-six,’ Gabriel said, showing her the chit he had just been given. ‘I’m going to have to chat with some of these guys, see if I can’t get us moved up the list.’

‘Let me try,’ Liv said, taking the chit and heading over to the four card sharks. ‘Have you got any money?’

‘A little.’

‘Give me enough to grab these guys’ attention. And translate for me, would you.’

She arrived at the upturned oil drum that served as a card table and smiled broadly. ‘Hey, fellas. Any of you guys got a lower number than me?’ She held up the chit while Gabriel translated. They each reached into various pockets and produced their own chits. Unsurprisingly, they all had lower numbers. She turned the full beam of her smile on to the driver holding up the number 14, a short, tubby man with a beard and the sort of glasses that went black in sunlight. ‘How would you like to win some money?’ she said. His face clouded with suspicion the moment Gabriel translated.

‘Stick down twenty bucks’ worth of dinars and ask him again,’ she said to Gabriel out of the corner of her still-smiling mouth.

With the appearance of real money the man was suddenly interested. Liv scooped up three cards from the pile and held them up: a three of hearts, a seven of diamonds and the queen of spades. ‘All you have to do is find the lady,’ she said, flipping them over and mixing them up in such a way that it was easy to follow the queen. ‘If you guess right, you get the money. If you guess wrong …’ she held up the chit with 26 written on it, ‘… we swap numbers.’

Gabriel explained the rules. The man still wasn’t convinced, but Liv was undeterred. ‘OK, free go. No bets down.’ She shuffled the cards some more. ‘Find the lady.’ The man hesitated then pointed to the middle card. Liv flipped it over to reveal the queen. ‘Hey, we have a winner.’ She handed him the cash.

‘I thought there were no bets on that one,’ Gabriel whispered.

‘I can’t see him complaining,’ she muttered back. ‘Stick some more money down while I’ve got the hook in him.’

Gabriel did as he was told while Liv shuffled the cards. Again she did it so slowly that following the queen was easy. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Your number against my bet. You want to take it?’

The man was staring at the card on the left and clutching the money he had just won. He nodded and laid chit number 14 down next to the cash.

‘OK, then. Find the lady.’

He pointed to the card he’d been looking at. Liv flipped it over. It was the three of hearts. She scooped up the cash and the chit and shrugged. ‘You can’t win ’em all,’ she said. ‘But everyone gets a prize in this game.’ She handed him the chit with 26 written on it and walked quickly back to the car.

Ten minutes later they were driving over the bridge and crossing the border.

Gabriel shook his head and smiled. ‘Where on earth did you learn to do that?’

‘Coney Island. I did a series of articles on classic boardwalk cons and an old-time grifter showed me how they worked. When all this is over, I’ll show you how it’s done.’

Gabriel’s smile deepened. ‘Deal.’

They passed under the sign welcoming them to Iraq and Gabriel parked in the shade of the arch ready to go through the whole process again with Iraqi customs and immigration officials. The office on the other side was almost identical to its Turkish counterpart – the only difference being the uniforms. The patrol guards here wore drab green fatigues with military-style badges showing palm fronds encircling a sword and an AK-47. There were plenty of US military personnel around too. Gabriel had spotted a small enclosure of field tents set up off the road behind the main buildings. The Hummer they had seen earlier was parked in front of one and several other vehicles suggested there was a full platoon stationed here – thirty men at least.

The border guard studied their passport photographs, checked them against their faces, then handed them back. He finished his checks, stamped the vehicle documents and that was it.

‘Welcome to Iraq,’ he said.

It had been easier than Liv had thought. All they had to do now was drive for several hundred kilometres along some of the most dangerous roads in the world with no escort and no real idea of where they were going, to a place they hoped would lead them to the ancient site of Eden. It wasn’t the most promising of missions, but even so, it felt like a minor victory to Liv as she pushed through the office door and back out into the blinding sun. Then she saw the welcoming committee.

There were three of them, all wearing the chocolate-chip fatigues of the US Army. Two were inspecting their vehicle, the third faced them, his eyes hidden behind standard-issue Oakleys. ‘Could I see your passports, please,’ he said, his finger resting on the trigger of his cradled weapon.

‘Is there a problem?’ Gabriel stepped in front of Liv, as if that might protect her from what was happening. The soldier said nothing, he just continued to hold out his hand for the passports. Gabriel handed them over. The soldier didn’t even look at them.

‘Follow me, please. We need to ask you a few questions.’

Brother Axel was strapped to his bed and stripped to his loincloth. He lay moaning, his fingernails drawing blood from his palms as they worked away at the only bit of skin they could reach.

Athanasius, Thomas and Malachi were in the washroom, silently scrubbing their hands and faces with antiseptic soap in the stone sinks, wondering if the same poison that had claimed Axel was now working its way through them. It had taken all three of them to hold him down until the attendant Apothecaria had eventually managed to subdue him with a well-aimed shot of strong sedative.

They emerged from the washroom and were met by Brother Simenon, drawn here by the news that the contagion had claimed a new victim. He was hunched over the pustulant chest of Brother Axel, drawing a sample of fluid from one of the larger boils. When he finished, he handed it to an assistant then turned to the group, unsnapping his gloves and lowering his mask. The face beneath was drawn and hollow. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in a month, though in truth it was only a few days.

‘Well, at least this solves one problem,’ he said, moving away from the bed to the far side of the room and perching on a reading desk. ‘Brother Axel is not alone; there have been three other new cases of the Lamentation in the past few hours, apparently unconnected to the initial outbreak, which changes the game somewhat. I was wondering where we could put these new patients to keep them isolated; I might as well put them here. We can easily fit them in if we take more desks away and convert the second reading room. As you said earlier,’ he nodded at Athanasius, ‘the sealed nature of the library makes this a perfect isolation ward.’

‘And what about us?’ Malachi asked, his magnified eyes terrified and tearful. ‘Are we to stay here too, sharing a room with the infected?’