of hours. The As and Bs went quickly; there were no Cs or Ds. By the time she’d reached L her stomach was churning. She continued to scroll.
And then she stopped.
‘mercer, luke.’
She bit her lip.
You can trust him. Chet’s voice rang in her ears.
You can trust him.
Suze looked over at Harry. Was she doing the right thing? Was she keeping him safe? The little boy turned in his sleep, and in that instant she saw Chet’s features in his face. It caught her heart.
She pressed the call button quickly, because if she waited she might never do it.
A few seconds’ pause, then a ringing tone.
She was holding her breath again. Her mind was a blank. What was she going to say? What would this man think of her, calling out of the blue? Would he believe her, or just think she was some nutter?
It continued to ring.
And then it went silent.
A pause. And then: ‘This is Luke, leave a message.’
She gasped and quickly ended the call. Her courage had deserted her.
Suze was sweating, despite the cold. The man’s voice had sounded curt and unfriendly. For a moment she wondered what the hell she was doing. How could she be so stupid as to use the phone? Didn’t she remember what happened that night? Didn’t she remember her mother?
But then she saw in her mind the image from the TV. The woman. She remembered her face, and the scenes of devastation around the world. She remembered the feel of her hands around her neck.
And then she jumped.
The phone was vibrating in her hand. Its screen was lit up. The caller ID read: ‘mercer, luke’.
Luke sat in the darkness of his room, his mobile pressed to his ear, listening to the ringtone. It stopped, and a voice answered. Timid. Unsure of itself. Female. ‘Hel… Hello?’
He didn’t answer for a moment. He’d never expected to hear Chet’s voice, of course, but there was still a corner of his mind that thought maybe…
‘Is that… is that Luke Mercer?’
‘Who the hell are you?’ he demanded finally.
‘I can’t talk for long. I was with Chet Freeman the night he died.’
A pause. Luke said nothing.
‘The night… the night he was murdered.’ There was a tremor in the caller’s voice.
‘What are you talking about? Chet died in a fire…’
The woman ignored him. ‘He said that if I ever needed help that I should come to you. That you’re the only person I could trust. Well..’ Her voice broke down again, and she sounded terribly weak. ‘Well, I need help. It’s important. I wouldn’t have risked calling you otherwise. I know things. Things I haven’t told anyone since Chet died
… about the bombings…’
Luke still had no idea who this woman was, but he knew one thing: she sounded sincere. She also sounded scared.
‘Where are you?’ he asked, ignoring the voice in his head that told him this was a very bad idea.
‘I can’t say.’ Her voice was half desperation, and half relief that he hadn’t dismissed her as a fantasist.
‘Then this could be a pretty short conversation, honey. How about we cut the crap and you tell me what the fuck this is all about?’
He could hear her breathing heavily. He could almost hear the cogs turning in her brain.
And then the line went dead.
‘Hello?’ he said. ‘
Nothing. He stared at the phone. ‘For fuck’s sake…’
The handset vibrated and the phone beeped. ‘one message received.’
Luke narrowed his eyes in the darkness as he opened the message. It was short and to the point: ‘tomorrow. 5 p.m. steps of st paul’s cathedral. i won’t wait.’
He quickly called the number to speak to the woman. No dice. The line was dead.
TWENTY
7 December.
It was early morning in the eastern Mediterranean. The sun was just rising. Ephraim Cohen sat in a comfortable chair, but he didn’t feel comfortable at all.
He was in the XO’s office of the Mossad training academy in Herzlia, just north of Tel Aviv. It was a small, functional room from which he helped coordinate the training of new recruits to the Institute. He’d been in the job for nearly eight years now, and he missed his days running agents. This new position was not exactly a demotion, but put it this way: it wasn’t a promotion either.
His desk, as usual, was clear. Cohen was an organised man. A telephone, a laptop that he seldom used and a rather expensive Mont Blanc fountain pen that he had bought many years ago in London. And in the centre, a photograph. Black and white. Grainy. It had appeared on TV screens the world over and purported to show two of the UK train bombers minutes before they boarded.
But Ephraim Cohen wasn’t looking at them. He was looking at the woman behind them. And the person on the opposite side of the desk was looking at him.
‘Ring any bells, Ephraim?’
Cohen glanced up over the thick black rims of his glasses. Just for a second, so he could judge the way in which his guest was looking at him.
‘It’s possible, Ehud, yes,’ he replied noncommittally. ‘Of course, it’s not a very good picture.’
That was a lie, and they both knew it.
‘If you’d like me to have it enhanced…’
‘No, no. That won’t be necessary.’ He sat back in his chair, removed his spectacles and started cleaning them on his plain navy tie. ‘Would you like some coffee, Ehud?’
‘What I’d like, Ephraim, is some answers.’
Ehud Blumenthal was a man with a reputation. In Ephraim Cohen’s experience, most reputations were carefully managed. Blumenthal’s wasn’t one of those. He was, without question, just what everybody thought he was: a grade-A, bona fide, dyed-in-the-wool bastard. Blumenthal was the Israeli Prime Minister’s Rottweiler, nasty policeman to the PM’s nice. Everybody loathed him, but Cohen suspected he didn’t mind that, because he loathed everyone back. So when Blumenthal had woken Cohen in the small hours of the morning and demanded a meeting at six a.m., Cohen knew he was in for a shitty day.
‘How have you enjoyed your time at the academy, Ephraim?’ Blumenthal asked.
Cohen shrugged. ‘I serve the Institute in whatever way they wish.’
Blumenthal’s face lit up. ‘Well, that is excellent, Ephraim. Truly, that is excellent. Because the word on the street is that the Director is looking for an enthusiastic candidate to establish a new station in Sierra Leone. Does that sound like your kind of job, Ephraim? Because I’d be more than happy to put in a good…’
‘You know who she is, Ehud. Why are you coming to me?’
A satisfied look crossed Blumenthal’s face, but he didn’t respond immediately. He rather nonchalantly brushed down the lapels of his jacket with his right hand, before standing up and pacing for a few moments around the tiny room.
When it came — the explosion of fury — it was so violent that even the normally unflappable Cohen jumped. Blumenthal strode towards the desk with a vigour that belied his age and slammed his fist down with such force that the Mont Blanc pen jumped a few millimetres in the air. ‘I have been in government,’ he yelled, ‘for more than
