“Playing God won’t make you any friends in the Islamic world,” Jack said quietly. “Not very devout to keep a collection that mimics God’s creation.”
Aslan waved dismissively as his cellphone chirped. He removed it from a pouch on his chair and spoke in a guttural tongue Jack took to be his native Kazakh.
The food on the table looked appetizing and Jack took the opportunity to make the most of it.
“My apologies.” Aslan slipped the phone back into its pouch. “Business before pleasure, I fear. A small matter of a delayed shipment to one of our valued customers. You know the story.”
Jack ignored this. “I take it I am in Abkhazia,” he said.
“You are correct.” Aslan pressed a button and his chair swivelled towards a map of the Black Sea on the opposite wall. He aimed a laser pointer at a region of mountains and valleys between Georgia and the Russian Caucasus. “A matter of destiny. This coast was the summer residence of the Khans of the Golden Horde, the western Mongol empire based on the river Volga. I am a direct descendent of Genghis Khan and Tamburlaine the Great. History, Dr. Howard, is repeating itself. Only I will not stop here. I will take up the sword where my ancestors faltered.”
Abkhazia, fiercely independent and tribal, was a tailor-made hideout for warlords and terrorists. Once an autonomous region within the Soviet Republic of Georgia, the collapse of the USSR in 1991 had precipitated bloody civil war and ethnic cleansing in which thousands had died. With the upsurge of Islamic extremism, fighting had again broken out, leaving the Georgian government no alternative but to give up all claims to the region. Since then Abkhazia had become one of the most anarchic places on earth, its ruling junta surviving on payouts from gangsters and jihadists who had arrived from all corners of the world and transformed the old Soviet resorts along the coast into their own private fiefdoms.
“The border of Abkhazia is one hundred and fifty kilometres north of the volcano,” Jack observed tersely. “What do you propose to do with us now?”
Aslan’s demeanour suddenly changed; his face contorted to a sneer and his hands gripped the armrests until the whites of his knuckles showed.
“You I will ransom.” Aslan’s voice was a snarl, his rage seething. “We will get a good price on your head from that Jew.” He spat out the final word with all the venom he could muster, his hatred a poisonous cocktail of anti-Semitism and envy for Efram Jacobovich’s spectacular success as a financier and businessman.
“And the others?”
“The Greek will cooperate when I tell him you will be tortured and beheaded if he does otherwise. He has a small task to perform for us. He will lead us back through the volcano to Kazbek.”
“And Katya?”
Another dark cloud passed over Aslan’s face and his voice dropped to little more than a whisper.
“In the Aegean I decided to stand off when she said she would lead us to a greater treasure. I gave her two days but she failed to make contact. Fortunately Olga had already copied the ancient texts in Alexandria and had done her work. We knew you could only be heading here.”
“Where is Katya?” Jack tried to keep his voice controlled.
“She was a loving child.” Aslan’s eyes appeared briefly to soften. “Our holidays in the dacha were a joy before her mother’s untimely death. Olga and I tried our best.”
He looked at Olga, who smiled ingratiatingly back at him from the table of folios. When he turned back to Jack his voice was suddenly shrill and harsh.
“My daughter has dishonoured me and her faith. I had no control over her education in the Soviet period, then she fled west and was corrupted. She had the effrontery to reject my patronymic and adopt her mother’s name. I will keep her on Vultura and take her back to Kazakhstan where she will be treated according to sharia law.”
“You mean mutilated and enslaved,” Jack said icily.
“She will be cleansed of the vices of the flesh. After the rite of circumcision I will send her to a holy college for moral purification. Then I will find her a suitable husband, insh’allah. If God wills it.”
Aslan closed his eyes for a few moments to calm himself. Then he snapped his fingers and two attendants materialized to help him to his feet. He smoothed his red robe and arranged his hands over his paunch.
“Come.” He nodded towards the window. “Let me show you before we get down to business.”
As Jack followed the huge shuffling figure, his eye was caught by another glass case mounted on a plinth beside the window. With a thrill he recognized two exquisite ivory plaques from the ancient Silk Road site of Begram, treasures thought lost forever when the Taliban desecrated the Kabul museum during their reign of terror in Afghanistan. He paused to inspect the intricate carving on the plaques, imports from second-century AD Han China found in a palace storeroom alongside priceless Indian lacquer and rare masterworks of Roman glass and bronze. He was delighted that the hoard had survived yet dismayed to find the artefacts in this monument to ego. Jack believed passionately that revealing the past helped unify nations by celebrating the shared achievement of humankind. The more great works of art disappeared into the black hole of bank vaults and private galleries, the less that goal seemed attainable.
Aslan turned and noticed Jack’s interest. He seemed to derive great pleasure from what he saw as Jack’s envy.
“It is my compulsion, my passion, second only to my faith,” he wheezed. “I look forward to selecting items from your museum in Carthage as part of your ransom. And some of the paintings in the Howard Gallery interest me very much.”
Aslan led Jack across the room to a convex window which swept round the rotunda. It was as if they were looking out from an airport control tower, an impression enhanced by the complex of runways that spread out across the valley floor below them.
Jack tried to ignore Aslan and concentrate on the view. The runways formed a giant L shape, the east-west tarmac below them skirting the south side of the valley and the north-south runway lying to the west where the perimeter hills were low. Beside it a cluster of warehouse-sized buildings marked the terminal. Next to it was a helipad, three of its four roundels occupied, by a Hind E, a Havoc and a Kamov Ka-50 Werewolf. The Werewolf rivalled the American Apache in manoeuvrability and firepower. Any one of them could deliver a devastating attack on a patrol vessel or police helicopter brazen enough to confront Aslan’s operations.
Jack’s gaze moved to a series of dark openings on the far side of the valley beyond the end of the runway. They were aircraft shelters dug deep into the rocky slope. To his astonishment he realized the two grey shapes in front were Harrier jump jets, their noses peering out from camouflaged covers that would be invisible to satellite surveillance.
“You see, my hardware is not limited to the former Soviet arsenal.” Aslan beamed. “Recently your government foolishly disbanded the Royal Navy’s Sea Harrier force. Officially they were all scrapped, but a former minister with an interest in the arms trade proved amenable to a deal. Fortunately I have no lack of trained personnel. Olga was a reserve pilot in the Soviet Air Force and recently made our first experimental flight.”
With increasing dismay Jack followed Aslan’s gaze as he pressed a button on the balustrade and the bookcases to either side retracted to reveal the coastline. The ridges bordering the valley continued out to form a wide natural harbour. The spur nearest them abutted a massive concrete quay that angled northwards to conceal the bay from passing ships.
Aslan’s latest vessel was a Russian Project 1154 Neustrashimy-class frigate, from the same stable as Vultura but with three times the displacement. It was in the final stages of refit with weapons and communications pods being hoisted aboard by dockside cranes. A distant shower of sparks showed welders hard at work on the extended helipad and jump jet platform.