The Moses Legacy - Adam Palmer [15]
He dropped the paperweight and placed a hand on the professor’s neck, looking for any sign of a pulse. He felt none. Satisfied that the old man was dead, he proceeded to do what he had come here for.
Switching on the computer, he went into set-up and changed the boot order so that it would boot from the CD drive first. He then inserted a bootable CD which contained a utility program called Darik’s Boot and Nuke that would automatically destroy the entire contents of the hard disk. Then he rebooted the computer and let it do its work.
However, this was only the first stage. He was sure that Roksana would have made at least one hard copy as well as backups on a CD or memory stick, but he had no intention of spending any more time looking for them. It could take ages and he couldn’t be sure of finding them all. He knew that Carmichael probably wouldn’t have been able to tell him and he had been a little too quick dispensing with Roksana.
So while Darik’s Boot and Nuke did its work, he went to his car and siphoned off some petrol. He poured it on to the floor in the office and carefully placed a lighted candle there, making sure there was no draught that could extinguish the flame. There was no more to be done.
Half an hour later, the big man was well on the way to Heathrow Airport and Harrison Carmichael’s house was well and truly ablaze.
Chapter 6
Akil Mansoor had been true to his word about providing first-class service to bring Daniel over to Egypt. As an internationally acclaimed scholar, Daniel was accustomed to flying. But he wasn’t used to changing his plans at short notice.
So now, Daniel was trying to relax in the First Class lounge of Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport. Bedazzled by its gold leaf adornments, he considered trying the aromatherapy treatment or shiatsu massage in the travel spa. But there wasn’t going to be enough time before boarding. His normal remedy for stress was a single glass of wine taken slowly and savoured, but he didn’t like drinking before a flight, so he stuck to mango juice.
The boarding call came quite soon after that. He followed the other priority passengers feeling somewhat calmer than he had been when he first arrived at the airport.
He didn’t know why now of all times, he should think of his ex-wife Charlotte. Perhaps because travelling by air reminded him of their near-constant travel between the two worlds of New York and London, bringing back a flood of memories and endless speculations about maybes and might-have-beens.
Once airborne, he decided that he wasn’t really interested in the in-flight entertainment. He always found it hard to follow the plotline of a movie on an aeroplane, but the one thing he could always do on a flight was read. So he took out his widescreen smartphone and carried on reading a legal thriller that he had started a few days ago, set in California but written by his favourite British author.
‘Is that the new one?’ asked the huge, muscular man in the seat next to him. He had piercing eyes that looked at Daniel in a way that was neither hostile nor friendly, but was certainly unwavering. He was going bald, but did not look more than about forty.
‘What, the book?’ asked Daniel, seeking to clarify the man’s question.
‘The reader.’
‘Er, yes,’ said Daniel, hoping to get back to the novel. ‘It’s like a smartphone, only better.’
‘Is it any good?’
‘I’ve only had it a couple of weeks. But it seems okay so far. It’s one of the new 3G ones. You can order the books direct to the reader in over a hundred countries.’
‘I was thinking of getting one myself. Not that I read much of the commercial trash that they’re spewing out these days. I’m more into academic books.’
Daniel wasn’t really interested in prolonging the conversation, but it would have been rude to seem too aloof. ‘What’s your field?’
‘Oh, I don’t really have a field as