'Could you stop talking about me as if I wasn't here, and listen to me me for one f.u.c.king moment? Or am I not allowed to give my opinion before you dump me from this expedition?' for one f.u.c.king moment? Or am I not allowed to give my opinion before you dump me from this expedition?'

'Of course. Go ahead, Andrea,' Harel said.

'First, I want to know how the scorpions got into my sleeping bag.'

'An unfortunate accident,' Russell commented.

'It couldn't have been an accident,' Father Fowler replied. 'The infirmary is a sealed tent.'

'You don't understand,' Kayn's a.s.sistant said, shaking his head in frustration. 'Everybody is jumpy about what happened to Stowe Erling. Rumours are flying all over the place. Some people are saying it was one of the soldiers, others that it was Pappas when he found out that Erling had located the Ark. If I evacuate Ms Otero now, a lot of other people will want to leave as well. Every time they see me, Hanley, La.r.s.en and a few others say they want me to send them back to the ship. I've told them that, for their own security, they must remain here, because we simply cannot guarantee that they'll reach the Behemoth Behemoth safely. That argument wouldn't count for much if I evacuated you, Ms Otero.' safely. That argument wouldn't count for much if I evacuated you, Ms Otero.'

Andrea was quiet for a few moments.

'Mr Russell, am I to understand that I'm not free to leave whenever I want?'

'Well, I've come to offer you a proposition from my boss.'

'I'm all ears.'

'I don't think you quite understand. Mr Kayn himself will be the one making you the offer.' Russell took the walkie-talkie from his belt and pressed the call b.u.t.ton. 'Here she is, sir,' he said, handing it to Andrea.

'h.e.l.lo and good morning, Ms Otero.'

The old man's voice was pleasant, although he had a slight Bavarian accent.

Like that governor of California. The one who was an actor.

'Ms Otero, are you there?'

Andrea had been so surprised to hear the old man's voice that it took her a while to get her parched throat going again.

'Yes, I'm here, Mr Kayn.'

'Ms Otero, I would like to invite you to have a drink with me later around lunchtime. We can chat and I can answer your questions if you wish.'

'Yes, of course, Mr Kayn. I would like that very much.'

'Do you feel well enough to come over to my tent?'

'Yes, sir. It's only forty feet from here.'

'Well, I'll see you then.'

Andrea gave the walkie-talkie back to Russell, who politely said goodbye and left. Fowler and Harel didn't utter a word; they simply stared at Andrea disapprovingly.

'Stop looking at me like that,' Andrea said, letting herself fall back on the examination table and closing her eyes. 'I can't let a chance like this slip through my fingers.'

'Don't you think it's an amazing coincidence that he offered you an interview the moment we asked if you could leave,' Harel said with irony.

'Well, I can't pa.s.s it up,' Andrea insisted. 'The public has a right to know more about this man.'

The priest waved a hand dismissively.

'Millionaires and reporters. They're all the same, thinking they own the truth.'

'Just like the Church, Father Fowler?'

51.

ORVILLE WATSON'S SAFE HOUSE OUTSKIRTS OF WASHINGTON, DC.

Sat.u.r.day, 15 July 2006. 12:41 a.m.

The slaps woke Orville up.

They weren't too hard or too many, just enough to bring him back to the land of the living and make him cough out one of his front teeth, which had been damaged by the blow from the shovel. As young Orville spat it out, the pain from his broken nose coursed through his skull like a herd of wild horses. The slaps from the man with the almond-shaped eyes punctuated the rhythm intermittently.

'Look. He's awake,' said the older man to his partner, who was tall and thin. The older man smacked Orville a couple more times until he moaned. 'You're not in good shape, are you, koondeh koondeh2?'

Orville found he was lying on top of the kitchen table, wearing nothing but his wrist.w.a.tch. Despite never having cooked in the house - in fact, he had never cooked anywhere - he did have a fully equipped kitchen. Orville cursed his need for perfection as he regarded all the utensils lined up next to the sink, wishing he hadn't bought that set of sharp kitchen knives, the corkscrews, the barbeque skewers . . .

'Listen-'

'Shut up!'

The younger man was pointing a pistol at him. The older one, who must have been in his mid-thirties, lifted one of the skewers and showed it to Orville. The sharp tip gleamed briefly in the light from the halogen lamps on the ceiling.

'Do you know what this is?'

'It's a skewer. They cost $5.99 a set in Wal-Mart. Listen . . .' Orville said as he tried to sit up. The other man put his hand between Orville's fat b.r.e.a.s.t.s and made him lie down again.

'I told you to shut up.'

He lifted the skewer and, leaning heavily, drove the point right through Orville's left hand. The man's expression didn't change, not even when the sharp metal nailed the hand to the wooden table.

At first Orville was too dazed to realise what had happened. Then, suddenly, the pain ran up his arm like an electric shock. He squealed.

'Do you know who invented skewers?' asked the shorter man, grabbing Orville's face to make him look at him. 'It was our people. In fact, in Spain they were called Moorish skewers. They invented them when it was considered bad manners to eat at a table using a knife.'

That's it, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. I have to say something.

Orville was not a coward, but he wasn't stupid. He knew how much pain he could bear and he knew when he was beaten. He took three noisy breaths through his mouth. He didn't dare breathe through his nose and make it hurt even more.

'OK, enough. I'll tell you what you want to know. I'll sing, I'll spill the beans, I'll draw a rough diagram, plans. There's no need for violence.'

The last word almost became a scream when he saw the man grabbing another skewer.

'Of course you'll talk. But we're not the torture committee. We're the execution committee. The thing is that we want to do it real slow. n.a.z.im, put the pistol to his head.'

The one called n.a.z.im, his expression a complete blank, sat down on a chair and placed the muzzle of the gun on Orville's skull. Orville went still when he felt the cold metal.

'As long as you're in the mood to talk . . . tell me what you know about Huqan.'

Orville closed his eyes. He was scared. So this was what it was about.

'Nothing. I've just heard things here and there.'

'Bulls.h.i.t,' said the short man, slapping him three times. 'Who told you to go after him? Who knows about the thing in Jordan?'

'I don't know anything about Jordan.'

'You're lying.'

'It's the truth. I swear to Allah!'

The words seemed to set something off in his aggressors. n.a.z.im pressed the muzzle of the gun harder into Orville's head. The other one placed the second skewer against his naked flesh.

'You make me sick, koondeh koondeh. Look how you've used your talent - to drag your religion to the ground and betray your Muslim brothers. And all for a handful of beans.'

He traced the point of the skewer over Orville's chest, stopping for a moment on the left breast. He gently lifted the fold of flesh, then let it drop suddenly, making the fat ripple across his belly. The metal left a scratch on the flesh, the droplets of blood mixing with the nervous sweat on Orville's naked body.

'Except that it wasn't exactly a handful of beans,' the man went on, sinking the sharp steel a little more deeply into the flesh. 'You have several houses, a nice car, employees . . . and look at that watch, blessed be the name of Allah.'

You can have it if you let go, thought Orville, but he didn't utter a word because he didn't want another steel rod run through him. s.h.i.t, I don't know how I'm going to get out of this. s.h.i.t, I don't know how I'm going to get out of this.

He tried to think of something, anything, he could say to make the two men leave him alone. But the horrible pain in his nose and his hand screamed at him that such words did not exist.

With his free hand, n.a.z.im removed the watch from Orville's wrist and gave it to the other man.

'Hey . . . Jaeger LeCoultre. Only the best, isn't that right? How much does the government pay you for being a rat? I'm sure it's a lot. Enough to buy twenty-thousand-dollar watches.'

The man threw the watch to the kitchen floor and started stomping as if his life depended on it, but all he managed to do was scratch the face, which made his theatrical gesture lose all its impact.

'I only go after criminals,' Orville said. 'You don't have a monopoly on Allah's message.'

'Don't you dare say His Name again,' said the short one, spitting in Orville's face.

Orville's upper lip began to shake, but he was no coward. He suddenly realised that he was about to die, so he spoke with as much dignity as possible. 'Omak zanya feeh erd3' he said, looking straight into the man's face and trying not to stutter. Anger flashed in the man's eyes. It was clear that the two men had thought they could break Orville and would watch him begging for his life. They didn't expect him to be brave.

'You're going to cry like a girl,' the older man said.

His arm went up and came down hard, driving the second skewer into Orville's right hand. Orville couldn't help himself and let out a scream that belied his daring of a few moments before. A spray of blood landed in his open mouth and he began to choke, coughing in spasms that wracked his body with pain as his hands jerked away from the skewers that pinned them to the wooden table.

Slowly the coughing lessened and the man's words came true as two large teardrops rolled down Orville's cheeks onto the table. It seemed to be all that the man needed to free Orville from his torture. He raised a new kitchen utensil: a long knife.

'It's all over, koondeh- koondeh-'

A shot went off, echoing from the metal skillets that hung on the wall, and the man fell to the floor. His partner didn't even turn around to see where the shot had come from. He leapt over the kitchen counter, scratching the expensive finish with his belt buckle, and landed on his hands. A second shot splintered part of the door frame a foot and a half above his head as n.a.z.im disappeared.

Orville, his face smashed, his palms run through and bleeding like some strange parody of the crucifixion, was barely able to turn to see who had saved him from certain death. It was a thin blond man of about thirty, dressed in jeans and what looked like a priest's dog collar.

'Great pose, Orville,' the priest said as he ran past him in pursuit of the second terrorist. He hid behind the door frame and then suddenly leaned out, holding the pistol with both hands. The only thing in front of him was an empty room with an open window.

The priest came back into the kitchen. Orville would have rubbed his eyes with amazement had his hands not been pinned to the table.

'I don't know who you are, but thank you. See what you can do to let me loose, please.'

With his damaged nose, it sounded like 'led be looze, bleaze'.

'Grit your teeth. This is going to hurt,' the priest said, pulling on the skewer in his right hand. Although he tried to draw it straight out, Orville still screamed in pain. 'You know, you're not easy to find.'

Orville interrupted him by raising his hand. The wound on it was clearly visible. Gritting his teeth again, Orville rolled to his left and pulled the second skewer out himself. This time he didn't scream.

'Can you walk?' asked the priest, helping him to stand.

'Is the Pope Polish?'

'Not any more. My car is close by. Any idea where your guest has gone?'

'How the f.u.c.k should I know?' Orville said, grabbing a roll of kitchen towels next to the window and wrapping his hands in thick layers of paper, like giant wads of candy floss, which slowly began to turn pink from the blood.

'Leave that and get away from the window. I'll bandage you up in the car. I thought you were an expert on terrorists.'

'And I suppose you're from the CIA? Here I was thinking I'd got lucky.'

'Well, more or less. My name's Albert and I'm an ISL4.'

'A link? Who with? The Vatican?'

Albert didn't answer. Agents of the Holy Alliance never acknowledged their affiliation with the group.

'Forget it, then,' Orville said, fighting back the pain. 'Look, n.o.body's going to help us here. I doubt if anyone even heard the shots. The nearest neighbours are half a mile away. Do you have a cell phone?'

'Not a good idea. If the police show up, they'll take you to hospital and then they'll want to question you. The CIA will arrive in your room half an hour later with a bunch of flowers.'