wall named the road as the Via Dolorosa, the Path of Pain.
He quickly opened his map and searched the list on the back of it. Station three was where Christ fell for the first time. Station seven was where he fell for the second time. Stratton turned the map over hoping to see the stations indicated, but they were not.
A Palestinian stepped out of a shop a few yards away and Stratton hurried over to him. ‘Where’s station seven?’ he asked urgently.
The Palestinian did not appear to understand him. Stratton took his shoulder with the minimum of politeness and directed his attention to the mausoleum.
‘Station three. Three,’ he said, holding up three fingers. ‘Station seven,’ he said, holding up seven fingers. ‘Where is it?’
The man still appeared confused. Then the penny dropped and he repeated the number in horrible pronunciation while holding up seven of his own fingers.
‘Seven. Yes. Where?’
The man pointed towards the market area and before his hand had levelled in that direction, Stratton was off at the run.
He grabbed the Tokarev in his pocket, not only to stop it bouncing about, but in anticipation of meeting the Russian although the feeling remained that he was too late. Much as Stratton wanted to get away, it was his nature that if there was even the most slender of chances of succeeding, he could not resist pursuing it. There might be life yet left in this hunt. If there was ever a time to start praying, this was it. It was certainly the right place.
He sprinted around a gentle curve to see people milling about the marketplace ahead and slowed to search for station seven.
He concentrated on the walls hoping to find something written above a door or a plaque on a wall. A woman in traditional dress approached carrying a bag brimming with assorted vegetables and Stratton blocked her path.
‘Station seven? Seven?’
As soon as he asked her it was obvious she could not speak anything other than her native tongue and she looked at him as if he were an alien and moved around him without uttering a word. He turned to ask a man passing the other side of him who did not understand either.
Stratton carried on along the walkway which grew steeper. Up ahead it passed through an arch to burrow inside the city. Traders’ tables lined one side of the tunnel which was illuminated by strip lights fixed to the low, arched stone ceiling.
Suddenly shouts came from inside the tunnel but Stratton was too far away to see what the commotion was. As he moved under the arch, he could see the walkway ended at a T-junction some forty yards ahead. More shouts echoed through the stone tunnels and people scurried away to avoid a couple of police officers running across the end of the junction.
He closed on it just as a soldier, clutching his M16, followed the police officers, pushing his way through the people and shouting at them to move.
Stratton did not care what the fuss was about and concentrated on searching for station seven.
Before he reached the end of the walkway he stopped dead in his tracks. Directly in front of him, twenty yards away, at the end of the T-junction and facing him, was a pair of doors set into the stone wall, and above them, on a large brass plaque, was the number seven in Roman numerals and the letters ST.
The black doors were shut.Trash was strewn about the ground, and Stratton was suddenly positive he was looking at the place where an atomic bomb was ticking away. When he had first learned it was a nuclear device, he had considered what he would do if he found the bomb armed and ready to go. The brief report he had read on its probable type and construction had provided no hope of dismantling it. The only plan he had come up with was to warn the authorities of whichever country he was in and let them deal with it, while he got out of there as quickly as he could. Now that he was possibly faced with that option, he could not improve on this choice of action, but before he could do anything, he had to see the bomb.
He was about to take a step forward when one of the doors started to open inwards. He stopped dead in his tracks and his hand shot to his pocket, pulled out the Tokarev and held it down against his thigh,