The Trespass (25 page)

“And this company of terrorists are going to help us? I don’t think so.”

“He believes he is safeguarding the
Korumak
.”

Sara snorted. “He’s mad. And Jassim?”

“He has not spoken against Kadesh. He is biding his time. Perhaps he will act, but I don’t think he has been pushed far enough.”

“Will he help us?”

Ruth shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s not worth the risk.” She glanced round to be sure they were alone. “But all this to-ing and fro-ing may help you – and Natasha.”

Sara nodded. “I’m listening.”

“They have a regular rendezvous each month. But before this takes place there are vehicles – jeeps and lorries – made ready for the journey. They arrive from the city at sunset on the seventh day. They depart the following dawn. If you timed your departure you wouldn’t be missed for hours.”

“Where do they keep the vehicles?”

Ruth smiled. “I will show you.”

Sara was shaking when she reached the solitude of her chamber. At any time she expected to be summoned. And if Kadesh had any inkling where she had been... She shivered and took a deep breath. Now she was committed. It could be done. No, it
had
to be done. But first, one further task had to be accomplished. Sara found her mobile and prayed that she could get a signal outside. She lifted her robe and tucked the phone under her suspender strap. Then she went to find Natasha.

Dracup climbed above the town and looked over the ridge to the distant mountains. Carey had left earlier with a cheery wave and a promise to return in two days. Dracup wiped his brow and wondered if he would find what he was looking for in two years, let alone two days. He headed down to his first site – Bet Giorgis, the cruciform church. From there he intended to visit the remaining ten churches in the hope that he could pick up some sign, some nuance of meaning that would lead him to his goal. As he looked down on the scattered collection of huts and watched the inhabitants move about the honeycombed village in their unhurried, typically African amble he considered again the odds of stumbling across
Omega
, the sister headpiece of Noah’s sceptre.

In the meantime there was a real chance that
Alpha’s
cuneiform would highlight some hitherto missing but significant detail – perhaps even the Lalibela connection. That being the case, he could expect CIA company any time – not an appealing prospect. Dracup wondered how Charles was progressing with his theories. What was it he had said at the airport?
I don’t think Theodore’s sceptre was originally Noah’s at all.
Under normal circumstances his professional fascination would be vibrating like a tuning fork, but right now Dracup didn’t care about the sceptre’s provenance as long as it pointed him to Natasha. That was his cue to move. Dracup set his hat squarely on his head and went exploring.

The church of Bet Giorgis – the house of St George – was an astonishing building. It lay partially hidden in a deep gully cut out of the pinky-red tuff of the surrounding terrain. But it was the shape that had drawn Dracup to investigate this particular church before the others. The roof decoration was a relief of three equilateral Greek crosses inside one another, chiselled to fit within the shape of the building that was itself of cruciform design. Too obvious, maybe? He walked quickly around the perimeter, searching for a way in. Eventually he found a group of tourists and tagged along, finding himself in a trench leading into an enclosed tunnel. A jagged circle of daylight announced their arrival at the base of Giorgis, where he could take in the sheer wonder of the building.

The sides of the pit from which the church had been carved were studded with black openings; caves or tombs, he couldn’t be sure, but now and then there was a flash of bright yellow or blue from within, indicating the presence of a priest or religious devotee of the church. Dracup gazed at the monolithic building. Seven steps led up to the main portal.
Seven
. He thought of Farrell, the Biblical encyclopaedia, and worried again that Potzner could arrive anytime to hinder or even curtail his own investigation.

Gathered in and around the church exterior were a motley assembly of priests and tourists, even a white-wimpled nun. One of the robed figures was chanting in a loud, alien lilt, watched admiringly by the camera-toting tourists. A group of young girls, pilgrims to the holy site, posed smiling for the clicking shutters, their white costumes a testament to inner purity. The atmosphere was charged, as if some hidden spiritual energy ran unseen beneath the foundations of the church.

He found himself ascending the steps. A priest bowed and extended an unspoken invitation to enter. Dracup passed into the interior, into a warm smell of stone and antiquity. A wall hanging depicted St George, the church’s namesake, fighting the dragon – a strange echo from home in this faraway place. Long drapes of red and blue hung from the ceiling, the primary colours contrasting with the terracotta shades of the church walls. The priest beckoned. Dracup followed him to a far corner of the church. The priest smiled, whether in genuine friendliness or solely to display his extensively gold-capped teeth Dracup couldn’t be sure, then chanted some unintelligible litany and disappeared behind a tapestry of symbols. Dracup peered at the runes of the ruffled curtain. Several represented a bright sun-like god, while others were obviously based on Biblical prophecy. There was the Lion of Judah, the crucifixion on Golgotha, and a nautical scene where the Ark of Noah balanced on the most precarious of waves.
Full circle
. Dracup exhaled in frustration.
Theodore... what am I looking for?

The priest was back, gesticulating. Dracup followed him to a long wooden box. Widely threaded wooden screws ran into the container, which the priest firmly grasped and turned demonstratively, nodding and smiling all the while. It was obviously meant to signify something. He ran his fingers over the wood and the penny dropped.

“An Ark?” he asked. The priest’s smile grew wider. There were many replica Arks in Ethiopia, as Carey had observed, modelled on the original Ark of the Covenant that was supposedly hidden away in Axum. These revered boxes contained holy books or relics of which the church was immensely proud. Could one of these boxes contain
Omega?

“Does it open?” Dracup made an upward motion with his hands. The priest pointed to a large padlock and made a non-committal gesture before sidling away to attend to other tourists. Carey was right. They didn’t give much away. He made a hurried reconnaissance of the interior. The floor was covered with a combination of rush matting and oriental carpeting. His feet produced no echo as he stepped around each cruciform nave of the church. He stole a glance at the door. Cameras were jostling for position. He returned to the wooden box. The floor was exposed here and Dracup noted the presence of a trapdoor cut into the stone. One large bolt was fixed in place, securing the building from unauthorised entry. He bent and took a closer look. Padlocked.

He examined a wall-mounted crucifix by a wooden lectern. On the lectern was a thick, leathery book. Dracup opened it and inspected the contents. His eyes lit upon a full-page illustration of a man, bearded and holding a wooden staff. Dracup read the title of the picture and the accompanying paragraph with a growing excitement.

The staff of Moses and Aaron, fashioned from the blessed Tree. The wood shall for ever live, indestructible in nature, miraculous in power. Blessed be the descendants of Adam touched by its perfection, tho’ blackened by sin, yet shall they be raised to life everlasting.

He turned the page gently and caught his breath. A three-quarter-length illustration showed a scene of dark devastation. Stars fell from the sky and plummeted into a raging sea. A multitude was gathered on the shore, arms raised either in terror or supplication, Dracup couldn’t say. At the head of the crowd, in a slightly elevated position, stood a man holding a sceptre high against the storm. It was the same staff as the previous page. Beneath the picture there was a line of indecipherable script. He pointed his camera and clicked.

The priest was at Dracup’s shoulder. He reached over and firmly closed the book, shook his head and pointed to the exit. Dracup reluctantly retreated. Donning a pair of sunglasses, the priest joined him at the entrance to pose for photographs.

Grinding his teeth in frustration, Dracup walked twice round the building but saw no obvious external entry point. It was as if he were caught in the centre of some diabolical game where each puzzle, once solved, brought only further complexity and merely lengthened the distance between him and Natasha. He wiped sweat away from his eyes with an impatient gesture.

Perhaps somewhere in the complexity of tunnels and corridors there was a way back into the church via the trapdoor. He retraced his steps along the entry tunnel and trench, briefly inspecting every cavity, perspiring in the enclosed space despite being submerged in the shadow of the walkway. His thighs burned with the effort. To his horror he saw that some of the holes were occupied – a mummified pair of feet dangled from one, and slightly further up a skull lay separated from its skeleton in a dark recess, as if marking the way, watching each passing tourist with wide-eyed curiosity. Dracup stopped and beat the wall with his clenched fist in frustration. How was he supposed to negotiate this maze? Then he remembered Carey’s comment about the boy who had offered to take his bags.
They’ll do anything if you cross their palm...
Cursing himself for an idiot he exited from the trench and walked swiftly back to the hotel. His next foray into the tunnels would be a guided one.

“Come on, boss.” The boy waited for Dracup to catch up. He hadn’t been hard to find, shying stones with a group of youngsters near the hotel, impatiently kicking his feet in the dust as others took their turn, hollering out his availability to any new arrivals wearing the
tourist
badge. “What’s your name?” Dracup had asked.

“Bekele. Call me Bek, boss, everyone does.”

“Well, Bek, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get going.”

The boy had grinned, obviously pleased with the prospect of a long-term contract. And so far, Dracup was getting his money’s worth. Bek knew Lalibela and didn’t hang about. He glanced up from under the brim of his hat. The boy’s lithe figure was just in his line of vision, disappearing round the next corner.

“Hang on,” Dracup shouted. He took the corner at speed, only to find Bek grinning, hands on hips, waiting.

“You have to be quicker, boss, okay?”

“Yes, but I need to be methodical. Where are you taking me?”

“Method-what, boss?” He grinned, showing dazzling white teeth. “You want to see a cross, I’ll show you a cross.”

Dracup nodded. He had shown Bek Theodore’s sketch, filled in the gaps for the boy. He needn’t have worried. Bek was bright. “Only half of it you’ve got there, boss, I tell you.” And then he’d said something that had made Dracup’s heart lurch. “Same as the Lalibela cross, you know what? Shape is just the same. Just like these here.” He stabbed a dirty finger at the detailed, painstakingly drawn frieze.

“Are you sure?” Dracup asked. He restrained the urge to seize the boy and hug him.

“Sure? Of course.” Bek seemed affronted at Dracup’s ignorance. He widened his eyes and made an exaggerated gesture. “The Lalibela cross – it’s the biggest deal above everything, boss. We have a whole festival about it. It has power. People, they kiss it all the time – the priests rub it all over your body, your pains go away. You come. Follow.”

Several minutes later they were outside another of the eleven carved churches. “What is this called?” Dracup asked Bek, disoriented.

“Bet Maryam, boss. Come – come along.”

A number of white-robed monks were sitting on the steps of the church or talking in small groups of two or three. Their language was strange, even stranger than the Amharic Dracup had learned to recognise. Bek saw his puzzlement.

“Ge-ez, boss. Only spoken by the holy men of the church.” As he spoke a bell began to ring. Dracup looked up and saw the iron instrument tilting on its timber frame, responding to a priest’s enthusiastic tugging from below. The summons to worship concluded, he stood in the arched entrance and raised his arms. The small gathering began to move towards him, muttering prayers and making signs, Dracup assumed, of some ritualistic significance. Bek turned and whispered, “That one, boss, he has the cross here. He’ll show you for sure.”

“Can we ask to see it?”

“Yah – but not yet, they’re starting their prayers.”

“How long till they’re finished?”

Bek shrugged. “A while. Until sundown, maybe.”

“What? That’s hours away.”

“Sorry, boss. That’s how it is.”

Dracup moved forward. “I’m going in.” He reached the archway and peered inside.

Bek scampered up behind. “You can try. They might not like it.”

As his eyes grew accustomed to the reduced light Dracup’s attention was drawn to the great central column, swathed in some sort of gilded cloth. The images were stereotypical – the manger, some knights on horseback. Angels with trumpets.