‘Do you think we’re still in danger?’ he asked.
‘After the efforts they made to kill us today,’ Bronson said, ‘I think you can safely assume that if those people can possibly do so, they’ll kill us immediately. But it’s a bit different assassinating someone on the streets of London than machine-gunning a jeep in the Iraqi desert. Once we get back to Britain, my guess is that we’ll be safe enough, especially if we do the obvious and post pictures of the inscription on the Internet, which will release the images into the public domain. They’d probably still like to tie up the loose ends, but they wouldn’t actually achieve anything if they did murder you.’
‘Cold comfort,’ Angela said, ‘but comfort all the same.’
The talk ranged back and forth, but without them reaching any conclusion that made sense of what had happened. Although they were talking together, all three of them were supremely conscious of their surroundings, and in particular the possibility of police officers or airline officials approaching them. Not that they could have done anything much if that had happened. But eventually they boarded the Meridiana Boeing 767 to Milan without incident. As they buckled up their seat belts, Angela breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Are we really safe now?’ she asked.
‘We’re safer, but I wouldn’t say we’re actually safe yet,’ Bronson replied. ‘Just work out the timing. The police from Baghdad will have reached the camp this afternoon, and when they found that we weren’t waiting for them as they instructed they would immediately have started looking for us, because that’s how the corporate police mind functions. They would know, and if they didn’t know they would definitely have guessed, that about the only place we could go would be Kuwait, and if I was running the investigation absolutely the first thing I’d have done would be to block the two of you from getting on any aircraft, going anywhere.’
Stephen looked around anxiously, as if already checking for a policeman brandishing handcuffs to be approaching him down the aisle of the aircraft.
But Bronson shook his head.
‘I think we’re okay for the moment,’ he said reassuringly. ‘I reckon it would have taken at least two or three hours for the wheels to start turning, and even if they began by running checks on credit card usage, it will still take them a significant amount of time to find out where we went once we left Kuwait. The electronic trail will basically stop in Alexandria, and they might well assume that we went to ground somewhere there. Obviously they’ll eventually discover that we flew down to Sharm el-Sheikh, and from there up to Italy, but I doubt if there’ll be any kind of a reception committee waiting for us in the arrivals hall at Milan airport. I just don’t believe that they could get the information in time to move that fast.’
Ten minutes after they’d boarded, and three minutes after its scheduled departure time, the Boeing lifted smoothly into the air and climbed swiftly up to its cruising altitude.
23
It was early morning, a few minutes after six, when the aircraft touched down in a damp and muggy Milano Malpensa airport. They passed through customs and immigration without any problems, and immediately made their way to the departure side to check on outbound flights to London.
‘We’re in luck,’ Bronson said, pointing at the board, which showed two scheduled flights to London, both leaving at around eight.
But when they presented themselves at the ticket counters, they discovered that not only were both flights fully booked, but there were around a dozen people on the waiting list for each one.
That really only left them with two other options. They could find a hotel or get out of Milan using a different form of transport than an aircraft, and in Bronson’s opinion, keeping moving was far more important than getting some sleep.
Stephen had a different point of view.
‘Do we really need to do this?’ he complained. ‘I’m completely knackered.’
‘We all are,’ Angela snapped, ‘but Chris is just trying to keep us alive, and I’m going with him. If you want to stay here, that’s entirely up to you.’
Stephen looked from one to the other, and shook his head.
‘I can’t see how they could possibly trace us this far in such a short time. This is Milan anyway, it’s not like we’re still in the Middle East. I’m going to find a hotel near the airport, get some sleep and then fly back to London this afternoon or sometime tomorrow.’
‘I really don’t think that’s a good idea, but it’s your choice,’ Bronson said. ‘One word of advice, though. When you check in, make sure you use a different name and pay in cash. Definitely don’t show the clerk your passport or anything that can identify you. Tell them that you’ve been robbed and that all your personal documents have been stolen. That way, if anybody does manage to trace us here, they’ll have no way of telling where you went after we disembarked from that aircraft.’
Stephen nodded absent-mindedly. ‘Thank you for everything you did back there,’ he said.
He hugged Angela, shook Bronson’s hand, and walked away towards the exit from the arrivals hall.
Angela watched him go, a thoughtful expression on her face.
‘I’m tempted to say he’s right, you know,’ she said. ‘This could be a bit of overkill on your part.’
Bronson shrugged. ‘Maybe it is. Maybe not. I just really don’t want to take the chance, especially not if you’re likely to be in the firing line. Doing this should hopefully break the chain completely. Nobody — not the men following us or the Iraqi police or anybody else — should know that I’m involved at all yet, so the paper trail that you’ve left from Kuwait City will end right here in Milan, and there’ll be nothing to show where you went or what you did after you walked out of the airport.’
Angela nodded. ‘You’ve talked me into it,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to go with you to the desk?’
‘Definitely not. I don’t want anybody here to remember us being together. There’s a café opening up just over there. Grab yourself a coffee and buy some soft drinks and a couple of sandwiches or something for the journey, and then walk out of the building. I’ll pick you up outside.’
Bronson’s Italian was fluent, and hiring the mid-sized Peugeot was a reasonably simple process. Quicker than he had expected, he was handed the keys and directions to the car rental parking area. A few minutes after that, he pulled up outside the door of the arrivals hall to allow Angela to place her bags in the boot and climb into the passenger seat of the car.
‘How far do you want to go? Today, I mean?’ Angela asked as she did up her seat belt.
‘All the way, if possible,’ Bronson replied.
‘It is a hell of a long drive, though,’ said Angela.
‘I know, but I won’t be happy until we’re back in the UK and this is behind us. Anyway, while I’m driving you can get started on working out what that inscription is all about.’
The built-in satnav steered them through the outskirts of Milan until they picked up the ring road, the Tangenziale Ovest di Milano, to the south-west of the city. Near the district of Pero, Bronson turned on to the Autostrada Serenissima, which ran almost due west towards the French border. Driving through Switzerland would have been a shorter route, but he didn’t want any possible problems at the border, and thanks to Schengen there were no border controls of any sort between Italy and France.
While they drove, Angela talked, partly to rehash what they knew about the putative temple, the obliterated inscription and the killings, but mainly, Bronson knew, to keep him awake as the seemingly unending tarmac of the autostrada unrolled in front of them in the early morning. Simply staring at it was hypnotic, and there was surprisingly little traffic at that time of the day so any kind of an external stimulus was a bonus.