He stopped for a few moments when his head came level with the landing, and listened again, depending on hearing rather than seeing in such poor light. There were three doors along the upstairs hallway, one to the left of the staircase, one directly in front, the last further down. The latter would have a view overlooking the entrance gates, but it was not for that reason alone Halloran chose to inspect it first: he knew, as surely as if someone were calling him, that he would find what he was searching for inside there.
As with the rest of the house, bare boards was the only flooring along the landing and he saw no reason to avoid making noise as he walked its length-it was too late for that. Nevertheless, his movement was stealthy and his right hand was kept free, ready to snatch the gun from its holster at the slightest provocation, even though he was there in his role as Kline's protector, not as an enemy.
The smell of rotting was nauseating as he drew close to the door and he swallowed the wetness rising in his throat.
Halloran went on by the door, going to the window at the tar end of the hallway. He pushed aside half-drawn curtains, the coarse material stiffened with dust, and rubbed a palm against the dirt on the glass, clearing a section to see out. Moonlight glimmered from the roof and bonnet of the Mercedes below; the iron bars of the entrance gates looked blackly solid; the undergrowth opposite seemed impenetrable. Light withered as a cloud rolled over the moon.
Halloran returned to the door, his torch haloing the handle. fie pressed his ear close to the wood, but heard no sounds from the other side. Hitching the bag so that it was secure on his shoulder, he reached for the doorhandle.
He was sure the door would be locked. It wasn't.
He expected to use force to push the door open. It opened smoothly.
He thought he would confront the lodge-keeper, the guardian of the gates.
Instead he met his past.
34 INTO THE PIT
Kline moaned as Khayed ministered the lotion to his ruptured skin. The burning would soon pass, the Arab assured him, and Kline knew the truth of what he said; his loyal servants had soothed him with their oils many times before. But that was when the sloughing of his skin had been expected, had become a ritual, a ceremony to be indulged in, to be celebrated, for it was the outward sign of spiritual rejuvenation.
And a continuance of his own servitude.
He uttered a cry, more in fear than in pain. Daoud misunderstood and hurried forward with the syringe.
'Mouallem?' Kline saw the needle and raised a hand to deny the morphine, for the drug would dim his thoughts, euphoria would blunt the danger that was so close. Yet his senses were already hindered, for dread gnawed at them like some avaricious parasite. The killing that day of the enemy within had not calmed his unease, as he thought it would; instead the mental effort had further drained his psyche, and weakened him physically. The death of Quinn-Reece had not resolved his own anguish, but had merely contributed to his present condition.
He beckoned Daoud forward again, speaking to the Arab in his native tongue. 'A moderate amount, Youssef. Enough only to soften my . . .' he almost said fear'. . . my pain.' The needle was like a blade heated by fire, but Kline's scream swiftly relaxed to a sigh as his senses began to float. Soon he dreamed, but in truth, it was a memory . . . . . he lowered himself into the pit, terribly afraid. It was so deep, so black. But for that reason, it would yield even greater treasures. Why else should it be so skilfully concealed from the other sepulchres? The reward for his courage would indeed be great! The Jewish merchant in Jerusalem had promised him that. Journey to Ur, find employment with the English archaeologist. He needs men of education, people who can direct the lazy and treacherous labourers, and who will appreciate and understand the cultural value of his great discovery. The Arabs will obey because the Englishman will put his trust in you and they will have little choice. You are clever, you are cunning. Bring back to me what ,small treasures you can easily steal and I will make you a rich man, for I have collectors who will pay kings' ransoms for the most meagre of items from the fabulous and glorious era! These Arabs are plunderers, destroyers, scum of the earth, and care nothing for their heritage. They will allow their own history to be taken from them by foreigners. But we will profit by their stupidity, my young friend. And we will bring great joy to those who honour such relics.
The journey to the Royal Cemetery of Ur had been long and wearisome and he had worried that the dig would be over by the time he arrived there; but no, there was still much work to be done, many more tombs that lay at the bottom of deep shafts beneath thousands of surface graves to be revealed. And the merchant had been correct: the team of foreigners needed several of his ilk to organise the transient labour force, arrange permits and payroll, maintain supplies and medicines, as well as sectoring the site against thieving infiltrators. He had worked diligently, never becoming too greedy with his own finds, taking only those objects small enough to be smuggled safely from the camp to the single roam he had rented inside the city, a place where he could hide his private cache and where every so often, the merchant from Jerusalem would arrive to relieve him of the treasures. The system worked well and when all was complete, the merchant assured him, the profits would be admirable.
He had not come upon the secret tunnel leading to the pit by accident, for he had always had the gift, the seeing in the mind, the ability to predict a death before it was claimed, a birth before conception, to judge beforehand good fortune for some, tragedy for others. Even when he was a child, should his mother lose a needle, it was he whom she urged to find it; .should his father misplace an article, it was the boy who sought out its hiding place. Later, when his gift became known to others, it was he who was taken into arid territories to locate a source of water beneath the soil so that new settlements could be built around it. Rewards for that rare inner knowledge had paid for his welfare and education after his entire family had been taken by disease (strangely a tragedy he had not been able to predict). So it was that the merchant realised the young man's potential when the great find outside the distant city of Ur in the land where the ancient Sumerians had once reigned became world news. Who better then to seek out those exquisite but concealed antiquities that would end up as mere exhibits in some stuffy London museum unless re-directed elsewhere?
On his very first day inside that vast labyrinth of shafts and corridors, hidden rooms and sepulchres, lie had become confused and almost overwhelmed by mourning voices of the dead, whose spirits were locked beneath the earth, for their human vessels had taken their own lives to be with their deceased kings and queens, and their high priests. Over the weeks that followed he had learned to shut out those incorporeal murmurings from his mind; yet one sensing persisted throughout, something that was not a spiritual utterance, but a kind of pulse, a split-second shifting of atmosphere, as if time itself had hiccuped.
He would feel it but once or twice a day, never more than that. At first he had believed it was a physical phenomenon, a faraway subsidence, but no one else ever noticed the brief disturbance. The deeper he worked his way into the complex layers of tombs, the louder- or more sensed the unheard 'sound'
became. Then one evening, when the day's labour was done, the workmen returned to their tents or hovels outside the city walls, and the foreigners retired to their lodgings, he had wandered alone through the lowest chambers, drawn by he knew not what, but compelled towards a destiny he had never dreamed of.
The secret tunnel was behind an empty room at the furthermost extremity of the Royal Cemetery, a square space that had puzzled the learned archaeologists, for it seemed to have no purpose: its walls were bare and there were no casks or ornaments within. It was merely an isolated chamber, one that was reached by crouching low along a lengthy corridor which had many turns and dips.