36

'You know,' Bronson said, as he and Angela strolled along a street near their hotel, enjoying the cooler night air, 'there's one thing we haven't really talked about, and that's the purpose of the tablets. I mean, exactly what did the people who made these tablets hide? What was their treasure?'

They had finished their dinner, and Angela had insisted that she needed to stretch her legs before going back to her room. She'd told Bronson that if he was still concerned about the armed men who had chased him before, she would go out on her own – after all, nobody even knew she was in Morocco. Bronson hadn't liked it, but he'd agreed to go outside with her. If something happened to Angela, he knew he'd never forgive himself.

'Whatever it was, it had to have been really important to them because of all the trouble they took. They enciphered the message on the tablets and then, presumably, hid them in separate locations so that the hiding place of their treasure could only be found when all four tablets had been recovered. And there are some clues in what we've found already. About half a dozen words in particular seem to me to be significant.'

'Let me take a guess. Those would be "scroll", "tablets", "temple", "silver", "concealed" and "Jerusalem"?'

Angela nodded. 'Precisely. Any kind of ancient scrolls are of interest to historians and archaeologists today, but if a scroll was hidden two millennia ago, that suggests it was believed to be really important even then. And if you prefix the word "scroll" with "silver", it raises a very interesting possibility—' She broke off as Bronson reached out and seized her arm, pulling her to a stop.

'What is it?' she demanded.

'I don't like—' Bronson started, looking first up the street, then back the way they'd come.

About twenty yards in front of them, a white van had just pulled into the kerb and was sitting there, engine idling. Perhaps fifty yards behind them, a black Mercedes saloon car was approaching slowly, keeping close to the kerb, and closer – much closer – a handful of men in flowing jellabas were walking quickly towards them.

It could all be entirely innocent, just a series of separate and unconnected events, but to Bronson's trained eyes it looked like an ambush. He paused for under a second, then reacted.

'Run!' he whispered urgently to Angela. 'Run. Get away from here.' He pointed towards a side-street. 'Down there, as fast as you can.'

Angela glanced behind her, saw the approaching men for the first time and took to her heels.

Bronson span round to face the group, but tried to stand his ground, walking steadily backwards to provide a measure of protection for Angela. He looked behind him, and saw that she had reached the corner of the sidestreet and was starting to run down it. He turned on his heels to follow her, but at that moment the approaching men themselves began to run, and in seconds they had caught up with him.

He felt a sudden tug on his shoulder as somebody grabbed at him, and tried to spin round to face his attackers. Then two blows crashed into the back of his head. He lost his balance and fell forward, his body collapsing limply to the potholed pavement.

The last thing he heard before his consciousness fled was a single distant scream from Angela as she called out his name.