The Messiah Secret - James Becker [88]
‘Could that be it?’ She looked at Bronson, frowning slightly.
Bronson shook his head. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘If it is correct, it does explain exactly who “Yus of the purified” was, and where Mohalla was located.’
‘Yes, but after all this time – I mean, there’d be nothing left now, surely?’
‘We don’t know that. It all depends on what they did, how they did it, and where they ended up.’
‘So all this time we’ve been looking for the wrong relic?’ Bronson asked.
‘We’ve been looking for the wrong treasure, from the wrong time period, and in the wrong country.’ Angela rubbed her eyes. ‘How the hell could I have got everything so badly wrong?’
‘We were just following the clues,’ Bronson said softly, taking her hand. ‘We made deductions based on the best evidence we could find. The problem was that once we thought we knew what we were looking for, it was easy enough to make each new piece of evidence fit our preconceptions. It happens all the time in police work.’
‘But to be so wrong—’
‘At least now we know what the Wendell-Carfaxes were looking for. But is it worth following up, after all this time? Wouldn’t we be better just packing up and going home?’
Angela looked shocked. ‘But we’re only just getting started.’ She pointed at the screen of her laptop. ‘If this information checks out, this would be the single biggest find in the history of the world – bigger than Tutankhamun, bigger than anything else. If there’s even a one in a million chance of finding this treasure, it’s definitely worth trying.’
For the next few minutes Angela scoured the internet, copying the information she found on some websites, discarding others. Finally she found one that held her attention for several minutes.
‘You ever heard of somebody called Holger Kersten?’ she asked.
Bronson shook his head.
‘Or Nicolai Notovitch?’
‘No. He sounds Russian.’
‘He is Russian. And how about Hemis Gompa?’
‘Never heard of him, either.’
Angela sighed. ‘It’s a place, not a person.’
‘Can you stop the twenty questions routine and tell me what you’ve found?’
So she did.
Ten minutes later, Bronson sat back in his seat, his face a mask of disbelief. ‘You’re serious about this, aren’t you?’
Angela leaned towards him and took both his hands. ‘Damn right I am. Most of this information’s been out there in the public domain for years, but without the translation of the Wendell-Carfax Persian text, it’s just been a story, and a tall story at that. But when you add the Persian text into the equation, absolutely everything changes. We simply have to check this out.’
‘What about the “valley of flowers”?’
‘If Mohalla is where I think it is, I’ve got a good idea where the valley is, too,’ she said. ‘The difficulty is going to be getting there. It’s not what you might call a particularly hospitable part of the world.’
Bronson nodded slowly, recognizing the determination in her eyes. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it.’
India
43
In his apartment in New York City, a man called Nick Masters sat upright and looked at the illuminated display of his bedside alarm clock: 3.17. He’d been in bed for less than two hours. ‘Have you any idea what time it is?’ he said.
‘How long have we known each other?’ JJ Donovan asked.
‘What? You call me up in the middle of the night to ask me that?’
‘This is important. How long?’
‘Ten years, maybe twelve, I guess. Why?’
‘And do you trust me?’
‘As much as I trust anyone else in this goddamn country, yes.’
‘And I trust you, Nick, which is why I’m calling. We go back a long way. We know each other, and we’ve worked together before. I need some help. I need somebody who can handle whatever’s about to kick off out here.’
‘Where are you?’ Masters asked.
‘India. I need you and I need some of your men as well. Men who know what they’re doing. Guys with combat experience.’
‘All my people know what they’re doing. That’s why I recruit them. So what do you want from me?’
In his