Read Online The Sword of Moses by Dominic Selwood - Free Book Online Page A

added.
    “When’s the rendezvous?” he asked, glancing at his watch.
    “In thirty minutes, at the Republika Fountain,” DeVere confirmed. “The contacts will be driving a red Mercedes with a white stripe on the bonnet. They’ll take you directly to the Ark.”
    Ava stared out of the smoked-glass window. Beyond the city, the vast landscape was bleak and uninspiring. She had never been to the steppes before, and knew little of the region other than it had been a wilderness throughout history—infamous for its brutal Gulag camps, where millions of Soviet political prisoners were ‘processed’ from the 1920s to 1950s.
    A tourist poster at the airport had proudly proclaimed that Astana had been the capital of Kazakhstan since 1997, when the government had relocated its historical powerbase from ancient Almaty on the borders with Kyrgyzstan and China to Astana in the north, where the population was more resolutely Russian.
    Gazing out into the Kazakh night, Astana appeared to Ava just like she imagined a former Soviet city would—dull and monochrome, with a smattering of hi-tech buildings that had shot up since the fall of the Union.
    As they passed a spectacularly tall tower of twisted white latticework supporting an immense golden egg, she realized Prince was talking to her. “Dr Curzon, you and Major Ferguson need to get out here. Good luck.”
    It had been agreed that DeVere would stay in the car with the driver. He would note down the red Mercedes’s number plate, then tail it once Ava and Ferguson were inside.
    At the same time, Prince would be on foot in the area around the Republika fountain. Once she had seen Ava and Ferguson get into the Mercedes, she would jump into a waiting car and join DeVere in tailing them. At the same time, a vanload of Kazakh National Security Committee commandos would be in the vicinity on standby, in permanent radio communication with DeVere and Prince in case anything went wrong.
    Ava stepped out of the SUV and breathed in the cold night air, pulling her coat closer around her shoulders.
    The fountain was dead ahead. Through gaps in the traffic, she caught glimpses of its four monumental grey stone fish spraying jets of icy shimmering water high into the night air.
    She watched DeVere’s car move to the other side of the fountain. To her right, she spotted Prince stop by an all-night refreshment kiosk about twenty-five yards off. The man sitting in it looked cold and bored.
    Ava checked her watch.
    11:45 p.m. Still time to kill.
    Standing on the pavement side by side, she and Ferguson looked for all the world like a carefree tourist couple admiring the fountain. All that was missing were the guidebooks and cameras.
    The bag of equipment Prince had given her was on the pavement between them. It was a large white canvas holdall, doubling as the identifying signal for the militiamen to recognize them.
    “So you know all about me?” she asked, looking straight ahead and not at Ferguson. “The DIA file you had in Qatar seemed pretty detailed.”
    His expression remained fixed.
    “What about you?” she asked, aware she knew nothing about him. “What’s your role in this?”
    “I enjoy exotic travel,” he answered non-committally, as he continued to scan the traffic.
    Ava stamped her feet to warm them up. “You can do better than that,” she pressed him. “I know an ex-soldier when I see one.”
    He turned to look at the roads leading to the roundabout. “What do you remember of your hostage training?”
    Ava was in no mood for a lecture. “I always assumed I’d have a fulfilling relationship with my captors and develop Stockholm syndrome.”
    “I’m being serious,” he cut in, watching a group of drunken men approaching. “There are rules that could save your life.”
    “I can look after myself,” she answered bluntly, turning to look him full in the face. “I appreciate you coming along, but I didn’t ask for a babysitter, and I don’t need one—”
    He grabbed