Beers in hand, the two men headed towards one of the vacant booths, neither missing the two striking women chatting at the end of the bar.
‘Nice legs,’ Mike said, glancing back towards the bar. ‘Wonder what time they open.’
‘You haven’t changed. Looks as if they’re on their own, too.’
‘Let’s hope so. Cheers!’
‘Good health!’
‘Have you got any contacts in the FBI, Mike?’ Tom asked when he’d taken a swig of his beer.
‘A barnful. Depends what you want them for,’ Mike replied.
‘I need a favour. Some fingerprints need checking. I’ve got a suspicion they belong to someone I’ve known in a previous life.’
‘That shouldn’t be too hard,’ Mike said. ‘Give me the prints and I’ll send them back in the black bag to a buddy of mine.’
‘Thanks, I appreciate it. How’s Washington?’ Tom asked.
Giorgio Felici slid into the bar and, keeping a large pillar between himself and his targets, he unobtrusively manoeuvred himself into the next booth.
‘Every bit as bad as I remember it,’ Mike replied ruefully, and he brought Tom up to date. ‘I’ve never seen the Agency in worse shape in all the years I’ve been part of it. Intelligence has become irrelevant to the politicians. The “Baghdad or Bust” brigade over at the Pentagon changed anything I came up with to fit the decision to invade that they’d already made.’
Over the years the two men had built up a trust that was highly unusual between a CIA agent and a journalist, and it was as valuable to both men as it was curious. Tom could check the information that he had from other sources, as well as getting the inside running on what was really going on inside the CIA, and Mike gained equally valuable information from Tom. Neither had any time for self-serving politicians, and neither would ever disclose their source.
‘A bit like the Brits and their “forty-five minutes until an attack on Harrods”, which turned out to be the time it would take for Saddam to get his fucking mortars into action,’ Tom said with a grin. ‘The military operation in Iraq’s been such a ham-fisted, club-footed cock-up that we’ve managed to kill more than a hundred thousand civilians. Most Iraqis will be glad to see the back of us and the Islamic fundamentalists are having a field day,’ he added more grimly.
‘I saw your piece on the Omega Scroll. Do you think there’s any connection between the fundamentalists operating in the Middle East and the scroll?’ Mike asked.
Tom nodded. ‘Yes, and not only in the Middle East. There are a couple of mathematicians here who have been doing some work decoding biblical manuscripts. Rips has been working on the Torah and Yossi Kaufmann has been working on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Kaufmann thinks that the rise in Islamic fundamentalism and the Omega Scroll are definitely connected.’
‘You think these codes are real?’
‘I think so. The technique involves isolating every third or fourth letter of the old text, what Rips calls a skip code. I used to think you could do a skip code on the dictionary and get the same result, but these guys are nobody’s fools and Kaufmann thinks there is a catastrophic warning in the Omega Scroll that involves fundamentalist Islam,’ said Mike.
‘Any word on that Russian scientist?’
‘Tretyakov?’ Mike shook his head. ‘Last we heard he was in Peshawar. We’ve also had reports that one of bin Laden’s top lieutenants, Abdul Basheer, has been sighted on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, so if Tretyakov’s linked up with al-Qaeda he could be well into the Hindu Kush by now.’
‘Basheer is a master strategist. Kaufmann might be closer to the truth than he realises,’ Tom reflected.
‘Kaufmann’s the guy who is running against Sharon and Peres with a new platform. What’s it called – the Liberal Justice Party?’
‘That’s the one. For a politician, he’s very different and between you and me, his Liberal Justice Party has got a pretty good chance of getting up. Sharon’s approach borders on thuggery, and ultimately this wall he’s built will do more harm than good. Ordinary Israelis are starting to realise this and they’re looking for someone who can give them some hope.’
Mike nodded. ‘Yeah. You can’t go round ripping up hundreds of olive groves and expect to win the hearts and minds campaign. The election’s coming up soon?’
‘Yes, in early January. There is some hope on the Palestinian front as well. Ahmed Sartawi who won the Palestinian election knows Kaufmann pretty well and their peace plans are already well advanced. Between the two of them they might just make it in the peace stakes. Even the militants might come onside if these two can achieve a Palestinian State, although I’m not holding my breath.’ The sceptical journalist in Tom had seen it all before.
‘What do you think the chances are of finding this scroll?’ Mike asked, nonchalantly turning the conversation back to his mission.
Tom shrugged. ‘Hard to say. Yossi’s son David is an archaeologist and he seems keen on finding it, as does his partner, Dr Allegra Bassetti. They were down at Qumran a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know what she’s like as a sleuth, but she’s an absolute stunner to look at, lucky bastard.’
Mike got up to order more beers. The trip had already been worthwhile. The ‘ruins’ were more than likely Qumran and the Omega Scroll was more than likely real, and if he played his cards right his visit to the Holy City might be even more worthwhile, he thought, as the two women at the bar returned his smile.
‘Staying in Jerusalem long?’ he asked.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The Hindu Kush
T he wind howled viciously outside the heavily guarded cave complex, high in a remote area of the Hindu Kush on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The majestic snow-capped peaks soared to 6000 metres and beyond. Today the temperature had dropped to 15 degrees below zero and visibility was down to a few metres. Dr Hussein Tretyakov placed the heavy metal suitcase in the centre of the cave and rubbed his hands vigorously. It was one of several for which his new employer had paid ten million dollars each. Most of the others were already with the sleeper cells in the United States, Britain and Australia.
The small group of Arabs gathered around the bomb. They were led by a man in his mid-fifties dressed in a nondescript but expensive robe and a spotless white turban. Hussein Tretyakov had come to know and like the Egyptian lawyer, Abdul Musa Basheer, and his gentle sense of humour. Both men were now on a similar path and Abdul Basheer was one of bin Laden’s most trusted lieutenants and strategists. The former member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad was a man of extraordinary ability and the West had every reason to be worried. If anything happened to either bin Laden or himself, Basheer had recruited some of the finest engineers, soldiers, lawyers and doctors in Islam to carry on the struggle.
‘The original nuclear bombs were fission bombs where atoms were split, giving off an enormous amount of energy in the form of heat, neutrons and gamma rays,’ Hussein explained, waiting for the interpreter to translate.
‘Neutrons and gamma rays penetrate the body and destroy the body’s cells, resulting in hundreds of thousands more deaths than might be achieved from just the blast and heat of a nuclear explosion,’ he continued. ‘Plutonium has a half-life of about twenty-four thousand years. Together, the heat and force of a nuclear suitcase bomb, coupled with the radiation, will render the Western cities unusable for a very long time.’
The Arabs exchanged glances. Praise be to God, the infidels could now be dealt a blow that would make September 11 look like child’s play.
Tretyakov opened the lid of the deadly nuclear bomb. ‘As you can see, this suitcase contains a heavily shielded cylinder in which the fuel is kept in what is called a sub-critical mass so that it won’t detonate prematurely. On detonation the plutonium inside compresses and when it reaches a critical mass we have our nuclear explosion.’
Dr Tretyakov passed around a sheet of paper with a diagram of the inside of the cylinder and its plutonium
