The Messiah Secret - James Becker [63]
‘I am sorry we have disturbed you,’ Bronson said, speaking slowly and clearly. Mahmoud al-Sahid’s English was far from fluent, his accent thick and heavy. ‘Obviously you are not the person we are looking for. Our apologies. You do not, I suppose, know where Hassan al-Sahid lives?’
‘Hassan al-Sahid is dead, as I told the other man. But his son – his name is Suleiman – still lives in his father’s house.’
‘What other man?’ Bronson asked, alarm bells suddenly ringing.
‘The priest,’ the elderly man said. ‘The priest was also looking for Hassan al-Sahid.’
Angela clutched Bronson’s arm. ‘A priest?’ she echoed.
‘Where does Suleiman al-Sahid live?’ Bronson demanded.
Back inside the house, Killian opened the large suitcase he’d brought with him. Inside were three two-gallon cans of petrol, all full of fuel. He picked up the first one, twisted off the cap and tossed it away.
He looked round, choosing where to spread the accelerant. There was a lot of wood in the house, so he guessed it probably wouldn’t matter too much where he put it – the place would burn anyway. He walked across to where Suleiman al-Sahid still lay unconscious, looked down at the man and crossed himself. Then he splashed petrol over his shirt and trousers, spread it out all around him and poured out still more in a trail that led to the door of the room. He continued laying a river of fuel out into the hall, then closed and locked the dining-room door from the outside.
Killian hoped Suleiman would come round before the flames reached him, and he spent a few moments imagining the look of terror on the man’s face as the trail of fire swept under the door and headed straight for him across the floor. Killian knew it would be a painful and protracted, but ultimately cleansing, death. The Church had always believed that fire cleansed even the most unrepentant sinner or heretic, and had used the flames of sacred fires to save the souls of thousands from eternal damnation during the various Inquisitions across Europe.
He splashed the contents of the other two cans liberally around the ground floor of the house, finishing just inside the front door. Then he took a small plastic bag from his pocket, and extracted a stubby candle through which he’d bored a hole from one side to the other about an eighth of an inch below the wick. Then he took a short length of twine which he’d soaked in paraffin and fed that through the hole. He positioned one end of the twine in a pool of petrol and placed the candle a few inches away. He’d experimented with different types of candles and knew that the wick would burn down to the twine in about five minutes, which would give him ample time to get clear of the area before the accelerant blew.
Killian lit the candle, made sure it was burning properly, then strode across to the front door and left the house.
* * *
‘Where the hell is it?’ Bronson demanded, looking frantically for a street sign – any street sign – that would tell them where they were in the maze of roads that made up Al-Gebel al-Ahmar.
‘Stop,’ Angela yelled, pointing. ‘There’s a sign.’
Bronson braked hard, slewing the car sideways, then reversed back up about twenty feet so Angela could see the sign clearly.
She read the letters, checked the map and then pointed ahead. ‘Keep going down this road,’ she instructed, ‘and take the second turning on the left.’
In the hall of Suleiman al-Sahid’s house the candle flame burnt steadily, the flame flickering slightly in the erratic air currents that worked their way under the front door. Four minutes after Killian had applied his lighter to the candle wick, the flame reached the length of twine. There was a sharp fizzing from the twine as it ignited, and then the flame started burning its way down it towards the petrol.
Killian had chosen paraffin for his fuse because it would burn more slowly. Even so, the flame reached the