The Lost Testament by James Becker Page B

possession of it. The assassin was well-known throughout Cairo and even elsewhere in Egypt for his success rate. How had he failed?
    And now Khusad had to pass the information up the line. A call that he was dreading.
    He opened a small notebook bound in red leather and opened it to a particular page. On it were a series of numbers. On first appearance they looked like rows of telephone numbers, but were simply a low-security way he had devised of concealing the one genuine telephone number—a number that actually ran diagonally across the grid.
    Below the grid were three time periods during which the recipient would be available to take his call. Khusad didn’t know precisely who his contact was, but he knew he was a senior person within the Vatican, and assumed that he would have to leave the Holy See in order to use his mobile phone without his conversation being overheard or his location identified. And, allowing for the time difference between Cairo and Rome, the man should be available right then.
    Khusad ran one stubby finger down the list until he came to the third number that, like all the others, began with a zero. Then he dialed the digits that appeared in a diagonal line running downward and to the right from that initial number. He heard the ringing tone of the recipient’s phone, and then his call was answered by a soft and heavily accented voice.
    “
Si
.”
    Their rules for communication were simple and inviolable. Unless it was completely unavoidable, neither man would use either his own name or the names of any of the other people involved in the operation, mention any dates or place-names, or refer to the relic directly. Both parties doubted if any of their calls were monitored, but it was never worth taking a chance.
    “We don’t yet have it,” Khusad began, speaking in French, “but we think we know where it is.”
    “That is not what I wanted to hear,” the other man replied. “You told me that your agent, this man you had hired, was acting immediately. And that he was competent.”
    Khusad had been expecting anger in response to his call, but instead the voice in the earpiece sounded nervous and disturbed, almost frightened.
    “His reputation suggested that he is normally very competent,” the Egyptian replied, “and you will recall your instructions were to employ an outside contractor and not one of my own men to ensure complete deniability. In the event, I do not think a member of my organization would necessarily have fared any better. The man followed my instructions to the letter but in the interval between your orders being issued and him obtaining access to the premises, the goods had been passed on to a third party.”
    There was a brief silence while the recipient of the call digested this piece of information.
    “So what of the original custodian? Is he aware of the significance and importance of the object?”
    “As far as we have been able to discover, he had no idea what it was or why anyone would be interested in it,” Khusad replied. “And now he has no knowledge of it whatsoever.”
    “You are quite certain of that?”
    “He will not be telling anyone anything that he knew.”
    The man in Italy was silent for a moment, then spoke again.
    “I suppose that has to be considered good news, in the circumstances. And now your agent will be approaching this third party you claim to have identified?”
    “Exactly. I have told him we need to conclude this operation within twenty-four hours.”
    “You may need to retain this agent you have hired for rather longer than that. Our monitoring system here has detected another instance of the same search term being used, and we will expect you to take the same action with this individual as with the first custodian.”
    That was a piece of news Khusad had definitely not expected, or wanted, to hear.
    “Perhaps this other search was initiated by the person who now has possession of the object,” he suggested.
    “Not necessarily.