Within about two minutes, Bronson was able to see the pointer on his laptop apparently moving of its own volition, as Billy took remote control of his machine. Then things started happening quickly, as various windows opened and closed and different images and lists of information popped up and then almost as quickly vanished. Billy, in the meantime, was silent, presumably because he was concentrating.
‘All righty,’ he said finally. ‘There’s good news and bad news, I guess. First, you need to take real good care of Angela Lewis, if that’s who that pretty blonde woman is. There are several pictures of her on that phone, and she’s mentioned by name in a couple of emails as well. My Spanish isn’t that good, but what they’re saying seems to be simple enough. She’s supposed to die. And the man who owned the phone, who called himself Jordi, was supposed to find something, some relic, and hand it over to the man who sent the emails. And his name, before you ask, is Pere, no surname, so it’s probably just the name he’s using for this particular operation.’
Bronson nodded, a pointless gesture, as he realized immediately.
‘Any information about where the handover of the relic was supposed to take place?’
‘No,’ Billy replied. ‘The last email just tells the man whose phone we’re looking at to call when the job is complete, and then Pere will tell him where the rendezvous is to hand over the cash. Seems to have been quite an expensive job. One of the earlier emails quoted fifty grand, euros not pounds, as long as the relic was recovered. And that’s another good reason for you to take care of Angela. Like the advert says, she’s worth it.’
It was Bronson’s turn to smile at that.
‘You don’t need to tell me that, Billy. I already know she’s worth it.’
Bronson glanced at Angela as he said the last sentence, and she looked back at him with a puzzled expression on her face.
‘Tell you later,’ Bronson mouthed, covering the microphone, then turned his attention back to what Billy was saying.
‘Listen, there’s a whole bunch of data on this phone. Easiest thing is if I just pull the whole lot off it and copy it onto your hard drive. That OK with you?’
‘That’d be great, Billy. Thanks a lot.’
‘I’ll expect a more tangible show of appreciation for my services when you get back to London, my friend. Gonna charge you for an hour of my time, and you’re getting away lightly with that.’
‘You can make it two hours, Billy, and I’ll buy you a drink as well. I really appreciate what you’ve done for me.’
‘Deal. OK, I’ll create a new folder on your hard drive, and I’ll just call it “Mobile”. You’ll find everything in that.’
The line went quiet and then, a couple of minutes later, Billy spoke again.
‘Right, that’s done it. Do you want me to delete the data from the phone? Be an idea if you’re planning on using it yourself. I can put it back to pretty much the way it was when the guy bought it, and I could change the language to English as well, if you’d like.’
While Billy had been effecting the data transfer, Bronson had been wondering if he could extract any more useful information from the mobile.
‘No, just leave the phone as it is, Billy. It might be more useful to me to have the information still recorded on it. One other thing. You said that the guy in charge, the one who was pulling Jordi’s strings, was called Pere. I’d quite like to find out where he is, because he’s got something — or rather someone — that I want. Is there any way you can work out where he’s been operating from?’
‘Ah, now that, my friend, is pretty serious hacking. I’ll have to identify which local provider his phone is registered with, and then work my way inside the system to trace which cells it’s been in contact with.’
‘I didn’t ask how you’d do it, Billy,’ Bronson said. ‘I just asked if you could do it.’
‘Of course I can. But before I even start, Chris, you do know that this is completely illegal? You and I could both end up in the slammer if anybody finds out about it. You sure you want me to do this?’
‘Going to jail is the least of my worries right now. Listen, I believe that this man Pere has probably kidnapped a colleague of Angela’s, who was out here in Madrid, and they’re almost certainly going to kill him unless we manage to find him first. This man called me on the phone that you’ve been looking at just over three hours ago, and if you can find out where he was when he made that call, that would be great.’
‘Right, this is your funeral, and if some guy from the thin blue line comes knocking on my door, I’ve never met you and I’ve never heard of you, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘Make sure you leave your laptop on and I’ll call you as soon as I get anything.’
74
Angela had only heard Bronson’s half of the conversation, but she’d been looking at the screen of his laptop throughout, and had a pretty good idea what was going on.
‘I saw a couple of pictures of me,’ she said, pointing at the phone which was still connected to the USB port on Bronson’s laptop. ‘I presume those were on that mobile?’
‘They were,’ he confirmed, ‘along with some details of the contract taken out on you here in Spain. Dead, you were worth fifty thousand euros, providing the killer could recover the parchment as well. Your value seems to be increasing.’
‘It’s not really a laughing matter, Chris,’ Angela said.
‘It isn’t, and I’m not,’ Bronson said. ‘However, I think what’s interesting is that the increased fee means the opposition are getting more desperate to recover that parchment.’
Angela nodded.
‘So what do we do now?’ she asked.
‘For the moment, nothing. I’ve asked Billy to try to find out where the call was made from when I heard Stebbins on the line. If he can do it, that’s probably where we’ll find him, alive or dead.’
Angela shuddered.
‘Do you really think they’ve killed him?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bronson replied. ‘I’m hoping they might be keeping him on ice, because they must know that he’s now the only bargaining counter they have left. The one hope they have of finding us — or rather of finding you and the parchment — is if we try to rescue Stebbins.’
‘But if they are holding him alive somewhere, in a warehouse or house or somewhere, how the hell can we rescue him? There could be half a dozen or more armed men waiting there, just hoping that we’ll show up.’
‘Right now,’ Bronson said, ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’
75
With nothing much else they could do but wait, they ordered room service and then lay side by side on the double bed, talking through the events of the day one more time and planning their next move.
After half an hour of what quickly felt like pointless speculation, Bronson asked if he could see the parchment, the cause of all the trouble they were in. They spent a few minutes looking at the ancient relic — which was actually a remarkably dull sight, just a piece of thick dark brown leather upon which a few letters or partial words could be seen — and studying the photographs of the object that had been taken by Ali Mohammed back in Cairo what felt like weeks ago.
‘Well, it certainly doesn’t look like much,’ Bronson remarked.
‘Nor did the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Nag Hammadi codices,’ she replied. ‘It’s what it says, and what the text actually means in today’s world, which is important. And until I get this relic back to the museum and subject it to a proper analysis, I won’t know exactly what event it’s describing.’