As he sat there, his mind spinning, Ben remembered what Wolff had said. Paxton thought someone in your unit was onto him.

His mind flew back, connections firing that had lain in hibernation for years, images flashing up that he’d completely wiped away. He remembered Smith. Saw the man’s face as clearly as though it had happened yesterday.

They’d been in their quarters attached to the Embassy when the sergeant had come up to him. He seemed agitated about something.

‘I need to talk to you,’ he’d said. There’d been no sirs between them.

‘Talk,’ Ben had replied. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s delicate,’ Smith had said. ‘I’m not even sure.’

Then Paxton had appeared in the doorway and suddenly Smith didn’t want to talk any more; he just lowered his eyes and shuffled away. Strange behaviour from the normally confident soldier. Ben had meant to approach him about it later on-but then they’d had the green light for the assault, and everything had started rolling so fast there’d never been another chance. After what had happened next, Ben’s memory had just blanked it out. Until now.

As he sat there on the bed, he thought back to the old Bible story of the conversion of St Paul in Damascus. Once blind, Paul had suddenly been able to see God when scales fell from his eyes. That was how Ben felt at this moment-except it wasn’t God he could see but the face of Harry Paxton in his mind.

And Paxton was going to pay.

Ben’s head was suddenly clear. He burst out of the flat, sprinted like an athlete to the Mini and took off through the night streets. The rain had stopped, and the stars were twinkling over the Parisian skyline.

He cut across the city, back to the house in the suburbs. Parked the car, ran to the door and banged on it loudly.

This time it was Valentine who answered it. She stared at him, bemused.

‘I thought you weren’t coming back,’ she said. ‘Why are you here?’

‘To say I believe you now. And that I want to help, if I can.’

Valentine smiled. For the second time since he’d met her, she went up on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘You’d better come inside.’

‘Is she still here?’ he asked her in the hallway.

Valentine nodded. ‘She’s staying the night here, and going back to San Remo tomorrow.’

Ben didn’t reply. He followed her through to the makeshift operations room. Harrison and Wolff were sitting drinking coffee. They exchanged glances as Ben walked in, and grinned at one another and at Valentine.

‘Glad to have you back,’ Wolff said.

‘Sorry about the neck,’ Ben replied, pointing at the brace.

‘Forget it. You did what you had to do.’

Valentine put her head around a doorway. ‘Someone here to see you,’ she said.

A moment later, Zara appeared. She saw Ben and rushed over to embrace him, eyes shining.

‘I’m sorry I doubted you,’ he said. ‘Sorry I’ve been so blind for so long.’ He turned to Valentine. ‘You want me to work with you?’

‘I was kind of hoping so,’ she said.

‘Then you’ve got your wish. But I have some conditions.’

She blinked. ‘Such as?’

‘I don’t want Zara involved in this any longer. It’s far too dangerous.’

‘Hold on,’ Zara protested. ‘I want to be involved. Nobody’s going to stop me. I’m going back to San Remo in the morning, and I’ll be working from on board the yacht to find out everything I can while Harry’s here on business.’

‘These guys aren’t an official team any more,’ he told her. ‘That means no backup for you if something goes wrong. No extraction plan. No witness programme to hide you. You’ll be completely vulnerable and out in the open.’

‘So will you.’

‘It won’t be the first time for me.’

Zara shook her head. ‘I have to go back. Even if I were leaving him, I’d need to go back for my things.’

‘I’ll get you new things. Anything you want.’

‘My documents.’

‘Easily replaced.’

‘And what about me? Where am I going?’

‘My place.’

‘In Normandy?’

He nodded. ‘I’ll drive you to Le Val in the morning.’

‘But Harry knows where it is,’ she said. ‘You don’t think he’ll come looking for me? I know him.’

‘Harry will have other things on his mind, once I get started on him. And you’ll be safe there. It’s like a military camp, and I have trained men, with guns and dogs. Not even Harry can get in there. You’ll be safe.’ Ben turned to Valentine. ‘Then I’ll come back here, and we’ll make plans.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Valentine cut in. ‘This isn’t the deal. We need Zara on board. She’s an integral part of this. You can’t just take her out of the equation.’

‘Negative,’ Ben said. ‘We do this my way, or you’re on your own.’

Valentine sighed and glanced at Harrison and Wolff. Harrison shrugged. ‘We can’t afford to turn him away,’ he said.

‘OK,’ Valentine said to Ben. ‘It’s a deal. So what happens next?’

Ben took Zara’s hand, felt her warm fingers slip eagerly through his. ‘Let’s go.’

Cairo

Around midnight, Egyptian time

Claudel had been working on the encrypted file day and night for longer than his frazzled brain could recall, and was seriously worried for his own sanity.

He’d exhausted every possibility, explored every avenue until his eyes were burning, his fingers trembling. He’d scoured his brain for every name, place and any other kind of reference he could come up with that might somehow unlock this infernal thing. But it was simply not within the bounds of feasibility to hit on the correct password. It could be absolutely anything. It might have to do with the Pharaoh Akhenaten; or then again it could be the name of Morgan Paxton’s great-grandfather’s cat.

And the more Claudel racked his brains and sat there typing in random entries that never came to anything, the more bitterly he resented Kamal for making him do this.

Earlier that day, feeling on the brink of a nervous breakdown, he’d driven back out to the Abusir pyramid site and just stood there under the hot sun. He wanted to weep as he scanned the ocean of rubble that was the four-thousand-year-old wreck of Sahure’s necropolis. Prayed for a miracle that could make him see what it was that Paxton was into. None had come.

Then he’d had a thought. Something poor Aziz had said that day, minutes before his death. That when Morgan Paxton had come running from the ruins, he’d been covered in dust and cobwebs. Cobwebs, in a place like this. That could mean only one thing. Paxton had been inside something. And there was only one place you could actually be inside in this arid ruin. Sahure’s pyramid.

Why didn’t I think of that before? he’d thought. He knew the answer. With Kamal’s brooding presence around, it was impossible to think clearly about anything.

So Claudel had dashed towards the crumbling old heap that was all that remained of the king’s ancient tomb. He’d run around the edge of the monument to the dilapidated entrance. He’d crawled inside the claustrophobic passage, webs brushing his face. No archaeology excavation had ever managed to access the rubble-choked interior burial chamber-but maybe there was something in the shaft leading up to it. He’d shone his torch all over the inside, looking for markings, clues, anything.

Nothing. Just dust and spiders and crumbled rock.

He’d crawled out again, feeling utterly defeated. Dragged himself back to the villa and the hated computer. He’d been sitting staring at that password box ever since, deep into the night, too paralysed with fear and stress and rage and frustration to eat or drink or even take a piss.

A sudden surge of resentment made him kick his desk chair back and stand up. He paced the room. Sitting on another chair nearby was the well-worn military-type haversack Kamal had taken from the Englishman, Hope. Claudel lashed out with his foot and sent the chair clattering to the floor.