He had to do his task. Just do it. Have one attempt. Then go home and protect his son and wife and save his brother.
He rose and stepped outside. The corridor was midnight dark. The monastery was creaking and whispering, like an Elizabethan galleon riding the oceans. Creaks and groans and weird distant noises. From this vantage, he could hear a hundred people breathing in their sleep. Like the entire building was respirating. Like it was a huge concrete lung. With a malignancy at its heart. A black mass on the scan.
The walk to the reception room took him two minutes. And yes, the key was hanging there, from its hook, it was actually marked Pyramide.
But the glass keycase was locked. Of course.
Simon looked left and right and, absurdly, up and down, and he unclasped a Swiss Army knife. He prised at the latch of the door. He heard a noise. He turned. Sweating. The rooms and corridors were empty. Clammy with tension, he returned to his task: he jemmied the knife-blade viciously.
The glass door swung open. Half panicked, he grabbed at the key on its hook, then scuttled out into the dark empty corridor.
He was ready. Running very stealthily he made his way down the darkened steps, down some more empty steps, down towards the longest sloping corridor.
A sharp voice stopped him. It froze through him, made him shrink against a wall. He stared, panicked, into the gloom. But then Simon realized: this stupid building. The voice was probably three floors up. Maybe just the drunken archivist, yelling in his faithless sleep. Cursing the god of nightmares.
The concrete ramp led to the huge bronze door of the basement chapel. It was unlocked; it didn't even seem to possess a lock. Indeed it swung open to the touch, with surprising grace and ease: beautifully balanced. As it turned on an axis, in the middle of the door space, it became a vertical bronze line.
Behind the door was a horizontal window, filtering silver moonlight. The two lines formed a cross.
An electrifying sensation.
Simon gazed about him; he couldn't help it — this was the first time he'd had a serious look at the chapel, when it was quiet, and solemn, and unused — and now he realized: it was purely beautiful. The lofty concrete space was set with serene wooden pews, and an archaic altar; on the far side, the slots of stained glass windows tinted the external starlight — speckling the imperious chamber with exquisite parallels of colour.
He felt a strange desire to pause. Here. Forever.
But his conscience stabbed at his heart.
The Pyramid.
The chapel ran the length of the building, and there had to be an entrance somewhere in the rear, which would direct him to the mysterious inner sanctum of the building.
He searched for two minutes, and found it quite easily: a small metal door, in the dry shadows of a corner. Simon reached in his pocket, and slotted the key. He could hear another noise. From somewhere. An edgy scraping noise. Echoing down the concrete corridors.
Come on, come on, come on.
The lock yielded. He stepped down the narrow, almost totally blackened passageway. Advancing into this space was like squeezing into a tube. Simon wondered if this was what it was like: being in his brother's mind. The walls closing in, the darkness pressing on all sides, every day and forever. The walls tapered so severely he had to turn edgeways to shuffle through, then at last the passage concluded at another rusty steel door, barely visible in the gloom; Simon pushed it.
He fell into a bright pyramidal whiteness.
Simon protected his dazzled eyes with a hand.
Sitting on a chair in the middle of the room was the archivist monk. Brother McMahon. His teeth were red from wine.
'There are two keys to the pyramid, Mister Quinn.'
36
In the gloom of the Damara twilight, Miguel looked older, more savage, even feral. The jentilak. He had a gun levelled at David's head. Boots clattered on the sand as four, six, and now eight men got out of the black-windowed cars. One of them spoke, with an American accent. Enoka lurked at the back.
'So that's Angus Nairn,' the American said. 'And David Martinez and Amy Myerson?'
Miguel nodded. 'Yes. But the Cagot girl, Eloise? Where is she?'
The accomplice shrugged.
'Can't see her — anywhere.'
Miguel spat the words:
'Check! Check the cars and the camp. Alan! Jean Paul! Enoka!'
The men did as they were ordered; they moved swiftly between the Land Rover and the pink nylon tents, pitched along the dry river bed. The search took them barely half a minute, to confirm that it was just Alphonse and David, and Amy and Angus.
The tallest accomplice, Alan, spoke up. 'Sorry, Mig. No sign. Must've moved her.'
'We will find her. Mierda. Pincha puta! We will find her.' Miguel scowled at the sky — and then seemed to master himself. 'Cuff them.'
Someone came at David from the side. He was pulled to his feet, and his hands were yanked down and roughly hand-cuffed behind his back. The same was happening to Alphonse, Angus and Amy. Then he was rotated, facing away from the table, so he couldn't see what was happening. Now he was staring out into the nocturnal silence of the desert; the blackness was darkened by the contrast of the car headlights.
'Amy?'
'I'm here,' she said, her voice directly behind. 'What are they doing? David?'
Her question was overcut by a louder voice. Miguel was interrogating Angus. Slapping him. David could just about see this for himself: it was happening to his left.
'Tell me. Where is Eloise?'
Angus shook his head. Enoka came over. Once again the squat little man appeared painfully subordinate to Miguel — a cub seeking the approval of the alpha, the dominant male, the leader of the wolf pack. Miguel nodded.
Enoka grabbed Angus's hand and bent back the fingers.
Angus grimaced with the pain.
Miguel stood close. 'Tell me. Where is she? Have you done the testing yet? Have you?'
Angus spat a dusty answer: 'Get to fuck.'
'Just tell us. Or we will hurt you. More and more. And more.'
'If you kill us you will never know. Do what you like.'
Miguel's face twitched; he walked a few metres away, then turned.
'Why are you in Damaraland? You haven't finished the tests…have you?'
David craned to his left to see.
There were men surrounding the Kellerman Namcorp Land Rover, searching inside. A different voice, this time French accented, called across.
'Nous avons! We have the blood samples, Miguel.'
Garovillo smiled. 'Milesker. Make sure you get all the test tubes.'
The men continued their search.
Again David called, quietly: 'Amy?'
He still couldn't see her, she was right behind him. The dazzling headlights shone in the darkness, trained on the central drama. It was like a spotlit stage-set, in the very darkest of theatres.
And Miguel was the actor, the tragic hero, smiling wistfully into the moonlight. He gazed at David. He looked at Alphonse. His smile widened. He looked at Alphonse again, as if confirming a suspicion. He spoke, to no one in particular.
