Daniel was disappointed but respected her frankness and genuine offer. He straightened up, and shook off his infatuation.
‘It’s a deal.’
In a dark room an old man was sitting at his desk, deep in thought. A shadowy silhouette had crept into the house from the garden. Thinking that he heard an unusual noise, the old man left his desk and stepped into the corridor. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He returned to his study…the shadow moved up the stairs, then unhurriedly and noiselessly stepped onto the landing of the second floor. He walked down the corridor to the old man’s study. He knocked on the door. The old man looked up to face a bearded man in a dark suit.
‘Master,’ said the bearded man, bowing respectfully.
‘Good,’ said the old man, ‘You’re back. Are our people posted at all the major libraries?’
‘Yes master, Oxford, Cambridge, London, Aberystwyth and Edinburgh. One of our men thinks he recognised Miss Osman’s friend outside the University Library in Cambridge.’
‘Hmm. Send more men there immediately. We can’t afford to lose their trail again. What about Ephraim in New York?’
‘All is in place, he will act tonight.’
‘Any digital copies?’
‘They’ve already been destroyed.’
‘Good. We may not be as
Jack had explored the main reading rooms of the University Library but Mina was nowhere to be seen. Since then, he’d been sitting patiently in his car, waiting for her to show up at the library’s main entrance. He was trying to guess what she might have done if she’d already been there and left. It was mid-afternoon when he plugged his mobile phone into his laptop and started surfing the internet, reading about the library and its various research units. He came to the same conclusion as Mina and decided to ask after her at the Genizah Research Unit. Maybe she’d already been there and they would remember her. Half an hour later, having learned all he needed to know, Jack was on his way to Hildersham.
Natasha knocked on Oberon’s office door.
‘Come in,’ he said, looking up from his computer screen.
Natasha walked into the room. Oberon glanced at her sideways. She seemed nervous.
‘What’s the matter, Natasha?’
‘I’m going to need to access the vault, sir.’
‘Why?’
‘The tablet is back in Malibu, isn’t it?’
‘Yes it is. What’s going on, Natasha?’
‘Something very strange, sir. The three translators have disappeared, as well as the camera I used to photograph the tablet.’
‘Did you copy the digital images on our server?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘And?’ he asked patiently.
‘They’re gone too’, she answered, looking away.
‘What? How is this possible?’ he blurted out.
‘Someone hacked into our system and deleted the files and that same someone stole my camera from my own office.’
‘Don’t we have security systems?’ he asked.
‘I checked last night’s CCTV recordings but all they show is a blank image. Either they were all out of order or someone disabled the cameras.’
Oberon was furious.
‘You’re in charge of security!’ He screamed at her, ‘That’s why I pay you so much. And you don’t have a single god damn answer?’
‘I need to fly right now to Malibu and check the vault.’
‘You’ll leave this office when I say so. I want you to get to the bottom of this. The vault’s security is state of the art.’
‘But…’ began Natasha.
‘But what?’ asked Oberon.
‘This is the work of someone who is highly trained and extremely clever. I think he or they are after the tablet. It could be Mina Osman and her friend.’
‘Mina Osman? You must be joking,’ he spat with contempt.
‘No, her partner. He handled three of my best men in Mosul as if they were boy scouts, retrieved Mina Osman from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and shot his way out of Safed. I’m sorry sir, but I think we’re dealing with a tough son of a bitch.’
‘OK. Find out who he is. We leave for the mansion tomorrow morning. Set up the flight. Make sure there is extra security at the mansion tonight.’
‘I’m on it,’ she answered and left the room.
Oberon tapped nervously on the mahogany desk, and then picked up his laptop and hurled it against the wall.
Ephraim had left New York a few hours earlier, having successfully erased all data pertaining to the tablet from Oberon’s offices. He’d been lying naked on his bed for hours in this tiny Malibu motel room with the curtains drawn. Two guns were carefully placed on the bed stand as well as a set of darts, the sharp end covered in a dark substance. Standing up, he had read Shobai’s email over and over again, until he knew its lines by heart. He opened up his suitcase, and reached for a vial. He pulled out its stopper and a pungent fragrance immediately filled the room. He poured some oil into the palm of his hand and started applying it to his skin. When his entire body was covered in oil, he stood in the middle of the room and faced east. He closed his eyes and began chanting an incantation in a low, rhythmic voice.
‘Great Caliel, I adjure thee by thy great name, thee angel of clarity and justice,
He then moistened his skin with pure water from another vial and continued his incantations:
‘Make me invisible, lord Caliel, in the presence of any man from sunset till sunrise. Amen.’
He sat down, crossing his legs, and remained utterly still. A few hours later, he rose from his seated position. Outside, the sun was slowly setting. He moved so slowly that the contours of his body seemed to fade, or blend somehow with the surrounding darkness. He flexed his muscles and thought to himself, ‘It is time.’
Joshua Bamart was bringing wood from the garden into the house, when he heard someone knocking at the door. He called out to Mina from the bottom of the stairs, ‘Mina, could you open the front door, please. I’ve got an armful of fire wood right now.’
‘Of course Joshua, I’m coming down.’
Her mind still lost in various letters she had been reading in Joshua’s archive, Mina climbed down the stairs, and opened the front door to find Jack standing on the doorstep, with a beaming smile. She thought her heart had stopped beating.
‘So? You’re going to leave me standing here?’ asked Jack.
