The Trespass (36 page)

Yvonne backed away from the PC.
Why would the CIA want to hack into our – Malcolm’s – computer?
She remembered James Potzner, how strange he’d been during his brief visit. She hadn’t felt safe with him. Something about the way he’d looked at her – no, looked
into
her. She’d felt dirty afterwards, as if some invasion of privacy had occurred without her knowledge or consent. And now one of his people was crawling around inside their computer.

The text disappeared and a diagram took its place. It was – what? A circuit diagram? A plan of some sort? And then another – a type of pyramid? It looked like a picture her younger brother used to spend hours over, a cross section of a naval submarine, with all its compartments and passages exposed like an ant colony in a glass bottle. Yvonne bent over and flicked the printer on. She hit the print key, fished out the A4 sheet and examined it. There was something familiar about the design, but her memory couldn’t place it. She heard a key turn the front door lock.
He’s back
. Her heart leapt with excitement. A quick glance in the mirror – she didn’t have any make-up on. Never mind.

She took the stairs two at a time and threw herself into the arms of the man at the threshold. Malcolm was pinned to the doorframe, key in one hand, overcoat in the other. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed hard. “Hi. I’ve missed you.”

“Steady.” Malcolm placed his laptop case carefully onto the hall carpet. “Give me a chance to get in the door.”

Yvonne looked at him and smiled. Everything would be fine now. Solid, dependable Malcolm would look after her. She felt a pang of guilt. “I haven’t sorted dinner out yet – I was going to make –”

He placed a finger on her lips. “Don’t worry. I was going to take you out anyway.”

This was just what she needed. But he looked tired. Perhaps it wasn’t fair to drag him out again when he’d only just got in. She opened her mouth to voice the thought, then suddenly remembered the computer. “Come quickly.” She pulled him to the stairs.

“Hang on. I’m not quite ready for
that
.”

“No, it’s the computer. Quickly.”

She dragged him into the study and pointed at the scrolling screen. “There. Look.”

A change came over Malcolm’s face. He darted to the computer and flicked off the power. Then he turned to Yvonne. “What are you doing on this PC?”

“I’m sorry – I thought it was all right to –”

“I told you to only use the laptop in the lounge. All your mail is accessible from there.” His face had darkened with anger. She had never seen him so furious.

“But it was a – a hacker, wasn’t it? I – I thought you should know.”

“What did you see?” He took a step towards her.

“Nothing. There was a lot of rubbish on the screen, that’s all. Then some weird diagrams.”

He grabbed her arm. “I said, what did you
see?
”

“Malcolm. You’re hurting me.” Yvonne felt a flutter of panic. This was not like Malcolm. He was looking at the printout she had made.

“What is this?” He picked up the sheet.

“I – I haven’t a clue. Something that was on the screen – I thought I’d print it so you could see –”

He struck her hard across the face. She spun backwards and fell across the small computer station, the one she had chosen with him in IKEA. She was so shocked that no words would come.

“What – ?” But he was coming for her again. She backed away and tried to duck under him to get to the door. Her mind was reeling.
This can’t be happening
. He caught the back of her blouse and she wriggled free, feeling the material tear under his grip. She threw herself down the stairs, but he was surprisingly quick. He caught her in the hall and she felt his arm around her neck.

“Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?” he hissed in her ear.

“I don’t understand. Oh God, don’t hurt me –” She was crying and fighting for breath at the same time as he increased the pressure. She felt a fogginess descending.
So this is what it’s like, she thought. I’m going to find out after all.
And then there was a distant, heavy noise, like somebody striking a pillow with a hammer. As she drifted into unconsciousness she felt the arm relax its grip. And then she was kneeling on the floor, retching. A hand was on her shoulder, but it had a gentle, concerned touch.

“Mrs Dracup? Are you all right?” She turned and looked into the pinched, greyhound-like face of DCI Moran. Then she was violently sick on the parquet.

Yvonne sipped her tea. It was too sweet, but she didn’t care. Moran was looking at her with an expression of sympathy and repressed curiosity. Malcolm had been taken away a quarter of an hour ago by a pair of very young-looking policemen. Moran assured her he would be charged with assault and remanded in custody. Somehow it didn’t make her feel any safer.

“So,” Moran said. “Do you know what this is?” He held up the print of the sectioned pyramid.

She shook her head. “I haven’t a clue. Obviously something significant.”

Moran was nodding. He looked like a hound that had caught the scent after a long search. “It’s a ziggurat.”

“A what?”

“A ziggurat. A kind of temple the ancients made to worship their gods. Or God.” Moran’s long face lit up with a strange smile. “It has seven levels.”

Yvonne warmed her hands on the hot mug. Her brain was sluggish. She could still feel the arm around her neck, the squeezing. “I’m sorry, Inspector. I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

“Malcolm was a cog – an important cog – in this business from the start. He’s an IT specialist, right? Do you know his area of specialism?”

Yvonne sighed. “I don’t really understand it. Codes? Algorithms or something?”

“Security. Network installation and security. He could break into anything – and my guess is he was contracted to break into a
very
secure network. But now they’ve finally traced him.”

“The CIA?” Yvonne’s mouth was open in shock.

“Spot on. And whoever hired him had some other work for him to do. Something closer to home. Their home.”

Yvonne paled. “Natasha’s abductors? Malcolm
knew?
”

“I’m afraid he not only knew, Mrs Dracup. He’s been actively working for them for the past few months – if not longer.”

“I can’t believe it.” Yvonne felt paralysed, unable to take it in. “Their
home?
” she repeated, staring at the print.

Moran nodded. “A strange home, I’ll grant you, but a home nevertheless. And a very old one at that.”

“The
ziggurat?
” Yvonne was incredulous.

“The ziggurat.”

The interior of the aircraft had more in common with an executive lounge than a flying machine: comfortable seats, individual mahogany tables, what appeared to be a cocktail bar, two widescreen television monitors and subtle lighting. Dracup thought of his stomach-churning Channel crossing in Charles’ two-seater and shook his head at the contrast. This was straight out of a Harrison Ford movie.

“Something the matter, Prof?” Farrell asked him. “Get yourself strapped in. We’re clearing for take-off.”

Dracup saw Farrell place a box carefully on the floor beside him. He didn’t have to open it to know what was in it:
Alpha
. His heart beat slowly in his chest. He now knew Natasha’s whereabouts and would shortly close the distance between them. That made all the difference to his exhausted mind. He had a chance. A small one, maybe, but a chance at least. Dracup felt a frisson of fear override his exhaustion. He buckled his seat belt and tried to concentrate.

Potzner appeared, his whole body vibrant with nervous energy. Farrell pointed to the seat belt signs and to his own secured strap. The engine note increased in pitch and Dracup felt an invisible pressure push him firmly back in his seat.

Farrell grinned and shouted over, “A lot more thrust than a conventional airliner, huh? It’ll settle once we reach altitude.”

When the scream of the turbines had quietened the seat belt signs flicked off and Potzner was immediately at the bar. He poured two shots of malt and sat next to Dracup. “Here’s to a successful mission, Prof. Glad you could come along.”

“I don’t recall accepting an invitation.”

“Sure you do. You want your little girl back, don’t you?”

Dracup studied Potzner’s face. He had lost weight and there were deep bags under his eyes. “Of course I do. But that’s not why you want me on this trip, is it?”

Potzner looked at him with an amused expression. “Are you sussing me out?” He looked down at his hands. “Not giving anything away, right? No readable signals – isn’t that what you guys call it?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re an anthropologist. You study behavioural patterns, check out body signals, right?”

“You mean interpret gestures? Yes, it’s an unconscious habit. But there’s a little more to anthropology than that. Broadly speaking it encompasses the origin and behaviour of the human race plus physical, social, and cultural development.”

Potzner leaned in close, the whisky on his breath a sour waft. “I’ll bet you’re having to do a little reconstructed thinking around that area now, huh?”

Dracup conceded the point with an irritated shrug. “So why do you really want me here?”

Potzner settled back in his seat with a sigh. “Because I’m willing to bet that whatever else you found up in Scotland is going to come good for you again. For
us
.”

Dracup maintained a blank expression. Of course Potzner knew. The wax tablet was too bulky – and too fragile – to carry around indefinitely, and so Dracup had painstakingly copied Theodore’s abbreviations to a thin piece of card and concealed it under his watchstrap. The truth was that he had despaired of making any sense of the final letters of the tablet.

Until Fish had come up with the translation. And then the cryptic
K. zig
of Theodore’s tablet took on a whole new meaning. Dracup had, by necessity, a working familiarity with the ancient world, but even if this had not been the case he had heard of Kish. And he had heard of the Tower of Babel – and of other Mesopotamian constructions that had been built for the same purpose:
places of worship
. A place where men could reach up to God… Most of these buildings were ruins, of course, their composition of baked mud unable to withstand the harsh conditions imposed by the relentless passage of time. But it seemed that one had survived – fashioned perhaps from more enduring material because of its special nature. It was buried now, Dracup theorized, under the sand and dust of the Iraqi alluvial plain, but was very much a going concern. They had an unusual name, these stepped pyramidal structures, a name that had made Dracup’s heart dance when he remembered. They were known to historians and archaeologists as
ziggurats
.

To Potzner he simply smiled and said, “I’m as much in the dark as you are.”

“Oh yeah,” Potzner said. “I’ll bet.”

In a corner of the cabin a fax machine hummed into life. Farrell wandered over and gathered the transmitted papers together. He scanned the documents and looked up with a frown.

“Fish is checking out the lie of the land. He’s done a satellite scan – nothing new so far, just the known archaeology. ‘Important remains still standing at Kish –
yada yada yada
– include the city’s red-bricked ziggurat built perhaps by Nebuchadnezzar –
yada yada
– on a rectangular base. Also the grand palace and two other ziggurats –’”

“Give me that.” Potzner snatched the documents and read them briskly. “This is crap. We’re looking for something else – something subtle. Get Fish on the phone.”

Fish was on within seconds. “You’ve got nine square miles to check out, Fish.” Potzner bent and peered out of the jet window as he listened to the response. Dracup caught a glimpse of the sun, a red disk on the horizon, the clouds a scattering of grey and white cotton.

Potzner was pacing the small space now, glass in hand. “They’ve only excavated three out of forty mounds? So the other thirty-seven should keep you busy for a coupla hours.” Potzner sat down heavily, his face contorted with frustration. “Uh huh.” His voice took on an exaggerated emphasis, as if he was talking to the most challenging pupil in a remedial class. “
Anything
unusual. That’s right, Fish. No, I don’t have any clues either. Just
get on with it
.”

Dracup watched the sun reflecting on the surface of the cloud. He was so tired he had forgotten how it felt to be rested, or what it was like to wake up with nothing more than the mundane activities of a University lecturer to inform his mind for the day. He found himself thinking about the number seven.
Seven
. What was it Sara had said? Seven sevens – the square root of your age is seven. Seven sevens are forty-nine.
Forty-nine
. He closed his eyes as the figures jumbled and swirled with the clouds, like a white alphabet soup, but with tumbling numbers that refused to add up or make any kind of sense.