Treasure of Babylon, page 8
part #2 of Avalon Adventure Series
Golan drew himself up to his full six-foot frame and squared up to Riley. “I am an officer in the Yasam, Mr Carr, and you are a tourist in this city with zero jurisdiction. If I say we wait and hand the statue over to the director of the Rockefeller, than is exactly what we will do.”
“Is it now?”
Decker raised a hand to stop Riley going toe to toe with Golan. “Stand down, soldier. He’s only doing his job.”
“And I’m only doing mine,” Selena said. The three men turned to see she was now holding the statue up in her arms and had turned it upside down to inspect the base in the light.
“What are you doing with that?” Golan said. “Put it down at once.”
“I don’t know what this is,” Selena said, totally ignoring him. “But it’s not gold.”
“Not gold?” Golan said, shocked. “What are you talking about? Texts about the Angel are famous for their descriptions of the gold’s purity. Some say it comes direct from heaven.”
“I doubt that very strongly,” Selena said. She tapped the base and then pushed her fingertip right through it. A tiny cloud of dust puffed up when she pulled her finger back out again. “Unless there’s a plentiful supply of balsa wood in heaven.”
“Balsa wood?” Decker said. “Just what the hell is going on?”
“It’s too heavy for balsa wood, Lena,” Riley said. “I had to carry that little bastard all round the back streets so I should know.”
Selena continued to pick a hole in the base. “The statue is gold, but the base is balsa wood and there’s a narrow cavity inside.”
“You must stop right there!” Golan said. “We must wait until Director Dahan is here.”
“Oops, too late,” she said, and the balsa wood base popped out onto the floor. She held it up to the light and a faint smile appeared on her lips. “There’s something inside!”
Decker, Riley and Golan exchanged a concerned look. The Yasam officer was first to break the tense silence. “I don’t think this is right. If what you say is true, and the Angel of God was located in a chamber beneath Calvary Hill… then there’s a good chance whatever is inside the statue could be a world-changing piece of history. We should wait until there is at least one official from the museum, or even the government before we proceed.”
“Don’t be such a sook, Moshe,” Riley said. “You afraid you’re going to end up like those dudes at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark or something?”
Golan gave him a look. “They were Nazis, so… no.”
Selena pulled out a piece of paper from inside the Angel and after setting the icon back on the desk she held it up to the window and gasped. “It has some writing on it but it’s tiny.”
“So get a magnifying glass on the bastard and see what it says!”
Decker gave the young Australian soldier a disapproving look. “Do you have to swear every time your mouth opens?”
“I abso-fuckin-lutely do not, mate.”
Decker laughed and shook his head. “I might sound crazy but I’m glad you’re on my side, Riley.”
“What does it say?” Golan said, glancing at his watch. “The director should be here already.”
Selena rolled her eyes and gave a long, deep sigh of despair. “I can’t read Hebrew, but…”
They all leaned in. “What?” Decker asked. “What does it say?”
“I’m guessing this is a takeaway falafel menu, Moshe?”
She handed the paper to Moshe Golan and his face dropped from excitement to sadness. He looked like he’d been crushed by a lead weight. “Yes,” he said. “This is just a takeout menu for a local falafel company.”
They all turned to Riley.
“Well I didn’t fuckin’ put it in there!” he protested.
“We guessed that much,” Charlie said.
“And it’s my hypothesis that they didn’t have falafel takeouts in the time of Moses,” Selena said, glaring at Riley. “So when the hell did Kurz have the time to switch it?”
Riley’s face lit up like a Christmas tree as he put the pieces together. “Bastard must have done it when he crawled out the trashed van. It crashed into the falafel stand in the market! Son. Of. A. Bitch. I actually admire the bloke.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Charlie said.
Golan’s phone rang. He raised it to his ear and walked out the room.
Riley shook his head. “I thought it was odd when he never gave chase after I snatched it off him. Thought maybe I’d just knocked the wind out of his sails a bit too hard when I planted my boot in his guts. He never had time to tell the rest of his men that he’d switched it so they must have just kept after me thinking I still had it.”
“Either that or they just wanted to kill you,” Decker said.
“I know how they bloody feel!” Selena said. “How could you have let this happen, Riley? They could be anywhere now.”
Moshe returned from the hall and slipped his phone into his pocket. “Not anywhere, no. That was my boss. We think we know where they might have gone.”
After a long pause, Decker said: “If that was your boss, then what did he just tell you?”
“I’m not sure I can say.”
Selena sighed. “This is getting ridiculous, Moshe. Why not?”
13
Golan looked in two minds about the situation and gripped in chin in his hand for a few moments as if to support his head while he made such a difficult decision. He shook his head in answer to a question he had silently posed himself, paced up and down the hotel room and then finally blew out a long, stressful sigh. “Yes, it’s true that the call I just took was with my boss back at Yasam HQ, and yes, it’s true they have run some enquiries and come up with a name.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is the name belongs to someone who is located outside of Israel, and that is not within the Yasam’s remit. The information must be passed to Mossad, and only then can a decision be taken about deploying Israeli forces.”
“But my team are ready to go right now, Mr Golan,” Selena said. “And let’s not forget that I am representing the London Museum of Archaeology, an institution formally connected with the Rockefeller Museum right here in Jerusalem.”
“I understand, but…”
“And let’s not forget that it was a joint dig involving both these museums that was just raided by Kurz and his thugs. The items in that dig, including the Angel of God are to be shared between the two institutions for the public good of both nations.”
Golan sucked his teeth and started to pace up and down the room once more.
“Jeez, mate, you’ll wear a groove in that carpet in a minute.”
“It’s very complicated,” the Israeli said. “A decision like this is above my pay grade.”
“The way I see it, it’s perfectly simple,” Decker put in. “The LMA has some kind of a right to exhibit the statue, if not now then at some point in the future, but now it’s been stolen by a bunch of crazies, am I right?”
Riley dropped down onto the bed and stretched out his full six-foot two inch frame. “Bang on target so far, mate.”
Golan made do with a sorry nod.
“So far, so good,” Decker continued. “So, we have a right to pursue the original contents of the statue and we have the means to do so right now. Any delay could easily mean none of us ever sees what was inside, so waiting for the chain of command to cross over to Mossad and then issue orders seems like a bad plan to me. Our team has a plane, and all the necessary skills to retrieve the Angel of God’s secret for the LMA.”
“And the Rockefeller,” Golan said. He sounded like he was starting to warm to the idea.
“And the Rockefeller, indeed,” a look of hope began to flicker in Selena’s eyes for the first time since Golan had returned.
“So what do you think, Moshe?” Decker said. A cautious smile broke on his lips. “Want to come with us and find out what your statue was hiding?”
Golan’s face grew serious. “And also get my revenge?”
“That too.”
The Israeli was silent for a few seconds. In that way of his, he folded into himself and turned away from them. He paced over to the window and they watched as he squeezed his hands, full of stress and uncertainty, and bring them up to rub his neck. Then, his body language seemed to change. He straightened up and grew taller, and his arms dropped down to his sides. He pulled his gun and checked the mag and then slid it back inside the holster. When he turned to face them all the anxiety was gone and now his worn, tanned face hosted an expression of steely determination. “You say you have your own plane?”
Decker and Selena exchanged a smile, but Riley was the first to speak. “Thank fuck for that, mate, and welcome to the mayhem.”
“Thanks, I think…”
Decker said, “You said you had a name?”
Golan nodded. “We used CCTV to trace the man called Kurz back to a hotel in the city’s west. Once we had that we were able to trace what emails he was sending out of the hotel.”
Charlie’s eyes lit up. Now Golan was talking his language. “And?”
“They traced the email account to an ISP in Austria. Further investigations revealed that the ISP belongs to a woman, an Austrian national. Here.”
He held up a grainy black and white image of a woman with blonde hair. She was tall, and good-looking but the details of her face were obscured by the long range from which the picture had been taken. “Do you recognize her?”
“Not me,” Riley said.
Selena shrugged. “Nor me.”
“What is this, Moshe?” Charlie said. “What’s going on?”
Moshe Golan sucked his teeth and put the photo back in his pocket. They all heard the sound of the clock ticking on the wall. He took a long time before making a reply and didn’t seem to mind how much of their time he wasted. “This woman is Dr Ursula Moser. Does her name ring any bells?”
“Wait a minute,” Selena said. “Hasn’t she got something to do with a church?”
Moshe gave a brief nod. “That’s right, she’s a theologian who runs the Church of the Sacred Light. She’s a serious recluse, rarely venturing outside the confines of her compound in the Austrian Alps. She has spent a considerable part of the last few years concentrating her efforts in various African countries, but as I say, she spends most of her time at their headquarters in the Austrian Alps. Here.”
“And the coincidence just keep on coming.” Selena said.
Golan looked confused. “I don’t understand.”
“Earlier today, the man that approached me – Kurz… he told me he was with the church.”
“Looks like Moser’s pulling his strings,” Riley said.
“Right,” Golan growled. “And Bloch too. He met her back when she was trying to establish the church in Angola. He was the muscle that kept local warlords out of the picture. Bloch is an operator. He gets things done. Dirty things no one else would touch.”
“I don’t like coincidences like that,” Decker said.
“Me neither, mate,” said Riley. “Looks like this Moser hired Kurz and his crew to get the Angel and take us all out.”
“Anyone above Moser?” Decker asked.
“Maybe. The Church’s biggest donor is heavily veiled behind layers of bureaucracy and what looks a lot like money laundering practices but it looks a lot like it might be coming from Hagen Global Industries.”
Selena was ashen.
“Lena, what’s the matter?” Decker said.
“I know that name,” she said almost in a whisper. “My father knew Tor Hagen many years ago. If I recall correctly, he has something to do with biological science.”
Golan nodded. “You’re right. Hagen Global Industries is the baby of a Norwegian recluse by the name of Tor Hagen. His specialist field was originally DNA sequencing but now HGI’s tentacles stretch all over the world. Wherever there’s any cutting-edge science, Tor Hagen has an interest in it, and most often a controlling interest.”
“And where do we find this guy?” Charlie said, still struggling with the bottle of mineral water.
“No one knows. He has homes all over the world, but he moves around so much that no one ever really knows where he is, not even the Mossad.”
“That’s a great start.”
“But Moser’s our lead,” Selena said. “We know she’s the one who’s been pulling Kurz’s strings, so we need to start there.”
“Right,” Golan said.
“Wait just a minute,” Decker said. “Wasn’t this Hagen guy on the cover of Time recently?”
“Not recently,” Golan corrected, “but yes, Tor Hagen was featured once by Time a few years ago. It was something to do with his research into sequencing crop genomes, but as I say, he is involved in anything to do with science.”
Selena looked confused. “I read that article, but the thing that stands out to me now is that when he was asked about religion, he said he was a strict atheist.”
Riley was still on the bed, struggling to make the remote work. He looked up for a moment and said, “So what’s the problem with that? Lots of people are atheists.”
Selena rolled her eyes. “Oh, do keep up, Riley. Moshe just told us Hagen Global Industries is the biggest donor to the Church of the Sacred Light.”
“Ah… gotcha.”
“Precisely,” Decker said, frowning. “Why would a committed scientific atheist be diverting serious levels of financial funding to a pretty far out religious organization?”
Golan shook his head. “You’re right, it doesn’t make sense – not unless he’s just using them to evade tax or launder money, maybe.”
“I’m not buying that,” Decker said. “There’s a specific connection between Moser’s church and HGI, and I’m thinking that when we know what it is a lot of this is going to start making sense.”
They all agreed. “So what’s next?” Riley said.
“First, we need Diana,” said Selena. “She’s the best hope we have of working out whatever was inside the Angel.”
“Where is she?” Charlie said.
“Portugal.”
“And you say this Moser is based in Austria?” said Decker.
Golan gave a confident nod. “Of that there is no doubt. The Church of the Sacred Light’s headquarters is in the mountains above Innsbruck.”
“My parents used to take us skiing there most seasons,” Selena said, her face glowing for a moment at the pleasant memory. “I know the city well.”
“This isn’t a skiing holiday, Professor Moore,” Golan said firmly. “We’re going there to find the criminals who desecrated the Holy Church and the Temple Mount, murdered innocent people and stole a sacred artefact.”
“You hardly need to tell me that, Mr Golan,” she said sharply. “I was blasted across the chamber by one of their grenades and nearly killed by them, and I’m presuming one of these people has my father as well.”
Golan was suitably chastened. “I’m sorry, but you shall have your revenge.”
“I’m not looking for revenge, Moshe,” Selena said quietly. “I want the contents of the Angel of God returned to its rightful owners and if we can bring Moser and the others to justice then so much the better for it.”
“Of course,” Golan said.
“Now,” Selena continued confidently. “Mitch, ready the Avalon for a flight to Innsbruck, please. Riley and Charlie go and get some supplies for the flight, and Moshe can make sure things are all clear with the Austrians. In the meantime, I’m going to telephone Diana in Porto and ask her to meet us there at her earliest convenience.”
“I see you know how to lead,” Golan said.
Selena looked at them all for a moment. “Well, what are you all waiting for? We’re flying to Austria within the hour. Chop chop!”
14
Innsbruck, Austrian Alps
“I always wanted to come here,” said Riley. “I used to ski in the Australian Alps and that’s great, but nothing like this. You were pretty lucky that your parents used to come here, Lena.”
“There is nothing like this where I’m from, either,” Diana said. She had arrived on a commercial flight an hour earlier and waited for the Avalon with a cup of coffee and an old text book on ancient Hebrew.
They were driving a hired car along the south bank of the River Inn as they headed toward the Grand Hotel. The flight was quiet and uneventful, unless you counted Moshe Golan’s complaints about the turbulence. Now, they had reached the oldest part of the city and the streets grew narrower. Old cobblestone squares and clock towers huddled beneath a Persian-blue sky as they cruised past pedestrians and tourists, none of whom had the vaguest idea about what was at stake tonight.
Selena sighed. “God, I hope Dad’s all right,” she said absent-mindedly.
Decker didn’t know what to say. From his position behind the wheel he was able to check the rear view mirror and scan the faces of the others in the car and it looked like they were all thinking along the same lines. They all knew Atticus Moore was involved in this business to some degree, but exactly how was an unknown factor. Reassuring Selena felt like the right thing to do, but it was hard when he had no idea what had happened to her father, and she knew it.
Another half-kilometre passed beneath them, and eventually the former Marine said, “Whatever’s going on, we’re going to find out.”
She sighed, but made no other response.
“No news is good news, right?” Riley said.
Selena tried to smile, and Riley held her hand. “I know Atticus, and I know he’s all right.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said at last.
Diana gave her a reassuring smile. “We’ll get him back, Lena.”
They passed through the small city before leaving it behind and heading further east toward the smaller settlements of Rum, Thaur and Absam. Turning left off the main road they began to ascend up into the foothills of the Alps. Lined on either side by tall, black pine trees, the road quickly narrowed and began to twist and turn as it snaked its way deeper into the Austrian mountains.
