Christine nodded solemnly.

Rob reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. The sensation was almost elation. He felt it in his lungs and in his heart. He had worked it out: he had deciphered the great secret Cloncurry had been born to conceal. The Genesis Secret. And that meant Rob had power over Cloncurry, at last. Rob was going to win his daughter back.

Anxious-but hopeful for the first time in these bitter weeks-he keyed in the number. He was about to phone Cloncurry and demand his daughter’s immediate return when he heard a voice.

‘Well, hello.’

Rob swivelled. A figure was standing on the crest of the hill above them, between the valley and the westering sun. The sun behind the figure was so bright Rob couldn’t make out who it was. He squinted and raised his arm.

‘Have I put on weight? How depressing. Surely you recognize me?’

Rob felt his blood congeal with fear.

Jamie Cloncurry was standing on the hill above them, with a gun in his hand. The gun was aimed at Rob. The killer had two large men beside him. Big Kurds with black moustaches, also conspicuously armed. These two thugs were holding a small figure between them bound and strapped.

Lizzie! Alive, but evidently frightened, and gagged very tightly.

Rob stared to his left and right at Radevan and his friends-seeking their help.

Cloncurry chortled. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t expect any assistance there, Mr Robbie.’ With a languid gesture, he signalled at Radevan.

Radevan nodded, obediently. He turned and stared at Rob and Christine, and then rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. ‘Englishman much money. Dollars and euros. Dollars and euros…’ Then he gestured to his friends and the rest of the Kurds dropped their tools and walked away from Rob and Christine, nonchalantly deserting the couple. Leaving Rob and Christine to their fate.

Rob watched-slack-jawed, defeated, and desolate-as the Kurds calmly loped up the hill towards the last Land Rover. Radevan reached in the boot of the car and took out the Black Box. He carried it over to Cloncurry and laid it in the dust beside Lizzie. Cloncurry smiled and nodded, and Radevan walked back to the car, jumped in the front seat, and the car was driven away with a spin of wheel dust, taking with it the shotguns and the pistol.

The orange dust hung in the air, reproachfully, as the vehicle disappeared over the sunburnt horizon, leaving Rob and Christine alone and defenceless in the bottom of the valley.

Above them stood Cloncurry, armed, with the other two Kurds. The killer had his four-wheel-drive parked a few hundred yards away, silver and glittering in the desert light. He had obviously approached on foot, to surprise them. And it had worked.

They were trapped. Lizzie knelt, gagged and bound, in the dust, staring at her father with wild and puzzled eyes. Imploring him to save her.

But Rob knew he couldn’t save her. He knew what was going to happen next. And it wasn’t going to be a heroic rescue.

Cloncurry was going to kill Lizzie in front of him. He was going to sacrifice Rob’s firstborn, here in this wilderness, as the crows and the buzzards circled in the sky. His daughter was going to die, cruelly and brutally, in the next few minutes, and Rob would be forced to watch.

49

Cloncurry waved the gun at Rob and Christine. ’More over there, lovebirds.’

Rob gazed at his daughter kneeling there in the dust, feeling perplexed, and utterly anguished. Then he stared with fierce anger at Cloncurry. He’d never felt such a lust to hurt someone-he wanted to dismember Cloncurry with his bare hands, with his teeth. Dig out his eyes with his thumbs.

But Rob and Christine were trapped and unarmed: they had to obey; following Cloncurry’s languid directions, they moved up a slight rise in the middle of the valley, onto a kind of sandy knoll, though Rob had no idea why Cloncurry wanted them on this isolated hillock.

The wind was whispering and melancholy. Christine looked as if she was about to cry. Rob glanced left and right, desperate for some escape. There was no escape.

What was Cloncurry doing? Rob squinted, visoring his gaze against the sun with a hand. It seemed that Cloncurry had some kind of phone or other gadget in his hand. He was pointing it left, towards the encroaching floods. Where the levee protected them from the inundations.

At last Cloncurry spoke. ‘It’s not every day one gets to mutilate and kill a child in front of her daddy, so I think some celebrations are in order. Indeed, some fireworks. So. Here we go. Surf’s up!’

He pressed a button on the device he was holding. A fraction of a second later the boom of an explosion ripped across the desert-followed by a tangible blast wave: Cloncurry had blown up the little shepherd’s hut on the levee. As the smoke and the flames cleared, Rob saw why.

It wasn’t just the hut that Cloncurry had sent hurtling into the sky: half the levee had gone too. And now floodwater was pouring through the gap: it had found this lower channel, and the floodwater was tumbling, down the sides of the valley, tons of water spouting and screaming. Coming their way, very fast.

Rob grabbed Christine hard, and pulled her to the top of the knoll. The water was already gushing beside them; tons of water, some of it lapping at their ankles. Rob looked up at the crest: Cloncurry was laughing.

‘Do hope you can swim.’

The water was cascading now, filling the valley, splashing at Rob’s feet. A wall of water, roaring and engulfing, carrying with it a repulsive scum. Bobbing on the surface were bones, and slops of mummified baby, and some of the warrior skulls: floating and tumbling. Soon the scummy and turbulent waters had completely surrounded Rob and Christine on their little hill. If it continued to rise they were going to drown.

‘Perfect!’ exclaimed Cloncurry. ‘Can’t tell you how difficult that was. We had to come out here in the middle of the night to set it all up. In that nasty little hut. Lots of explosives. Tricky. But it worked to perfection! How enormously gratifying.’

Rob stared across the waters at Cloncurry, safe on his elevation. He didn’t know what to think about this man, the utter madness mixed with this…devious subtlety. And then Cloncurry made his usual near-telepathic remark:

‘I guess you’re a tad confused, little Robbie.’

Rob stayed silent; Cloncurry smiled.

‘Can’t work out how such a total psycho like me should end up on this side of the water? Eh? While the good guys, all you guys, you’re on that side. The drowning side.’

Again, Rob said nothing. His enemy grinned wider.

‘I’m rather afraid I’ve been using everyone all along. I got you to find me the Black Book. I harnessed the fine and famous minds of Christine Meyer and Isobel Previn to the cause. OK, I sliced Isobel’s head off but she’d done her job by then. Showed me the Book surely wasn’t in Kurdistan.’ Cloncurry was gleaming with pride. ‘And then, by simply sitting back and doing nothing, I got you lovely people to do the rest of the work, as well: to decipher the Book, to locate the Valley of the Slaughter, to find the only evidence of the Genesis Secret. Because, you see, I needed to know for sure where all the evidence is, so it can be destroyed forever.’ He gestured across the frothing floodwater. ‘And now I am going to erase all of this in a huge flood-entomb it underwater for all time. And as I wipe away all the evidence, I will simultaneously kill the only people who know the Secret.’ He looked down, very happily.’ Oh yes, nearly forgot, and I have the Black Book, too! At least I think I do. Let me just make sure…’

Stooping to the dust, Cloncurry grabbed the box and wrenched the leather lid away. He peered down, reached inside, and took out the hybrid skull. For a moment he cradled the skull, caressing the smoothness of the cranium. Then he turned the skull so it met his gaze.