A few minutes later the stranger was about to leave. 'What about the coffee break?'
'Don't take them.'
For the first time the perfect teeth disappeared.
'But I usually leave here about seventeen hundred.'
It was only after he had gone that Theli realized she still didn't know his name.
FORTY-NINE
Bull amp; Rose Public House
Abington, Gloucestershire
Northwest of London
A Day Later
Lang sipped his room-temperature pint of ale, admiring the meticulously landscaped rose garden, typical of those surrounding each lock of the Thames. The lock itself was crowded with small pleasure boats, each equipped with weekend mariners and one or more dogs. Most of the former wore swimming attire that showed off skin the color of fish bellies. Lang wondered if the English ever had enough summer weather to tan.
Across from him, Jacob was making rings on the Weathered wooden tabletop with the bottom of his black and tan, a half-and-half of beer floating on stout: 'No bother?'
Lang shook his head. 'Not a bit. Had a friend drive me to Victoria Station and buy a ticket while I stayed out of the way in the men's WC, and caught the first train. Was here in less than an hour. Why'd you choose this place, anyway? Doesn't seem to be much going on.'
Jacob glanced around. The sluggish river crept right to left, then narrowed to pass under an arched stone bridge that seemed to be buttressed by a grove of willow trees.
In the other direction was the domed town hall, one of the few buildings erected during the rule of Cromwell. 'You've answered your own question, lad. Far as I know, farming's all that's up around here. There's a county fair every summer and that's it. Few coppers, fewer surveillance cameras.'
Both men were silent for a moment, as though contemplating the rarity of such pastoral surroundings.
Jacob was reaching for what Lang suspected was a pipe when Lang spoke. 'You said your folks found something?'
The pipe stopped halfway to Jacob's mouth. 'I did indeed. Using your premise that the rotters in this case are somehow connected to Israel…'
'Had a connection to Israeli intelligence,' Lang corrected.
Jacob was patting his pockets in the search of the tobacco pouch. 'Just so. I had some friends at Mossad start with the Desert Eagles. The army swapped them in four years ago. Chap by the name of Zwelk, a former colonel in the quartermaster's corps, handled that. The old guns were to be melted down. You can imagine what a dilemma that was, choosing between destroying several hundred thousand dollars' worth of equipment or selling it in the same international arms market that equips Hamas and that lot.'
Lang smiled at the thought of the quandary that must have posed. 'And?'
'Appeared to have been a discrepancy between the number turned in and the actual number receipted by the smelter. About forty weapons in all.'
Lang had forgotten his ale. 'Too many for a clerical mistake. Was there any follow-up?'
Now Jacob was conducting a pocket-by-pocket search for matches. Despite the view, Lang was wishing they had chosen a table inside, where smoking was forbidden. 'Oh, there was a proper ruckus, an exchange of e-mails, but that was about it. Zwelk was about to retire to a kibbutz, anyway. It was an election year, and the government wasn't too keen about making a public brouhaha of it.'
Compared to Israeli politics, those in the States were calm indeed. In such a small country many of the constituents knew their representatives and were passionately pro or anti. Accusing one of the many factions, cults, or sects of something could easily upset the precarious balance of power based on the thinnest coalitions between groups disparate in culture, ethnic origin, or belief. Alienation of the smallest group could bring down the government.
Lang sat back in his chair, waiting.
Jacob found his own Mirabelle's matches, and puffs of evil-smelling smoke dissipated into the air. 'I pulled some strings, as you Yanks would say, and got a peek into the man's service jacket. Seems the pistols weren't the first things nicked on his watch. A dozen or so A-model Heckler amp; Koch MP5s vanished the year before.'
The same model Lang had seen far too well just outside Brussels.
Jacob took the pipe out of his mouth and inspected the bowl, a gesture Lang recognized as a dramatic pause before revealing the more important part of what he had to say. 'He was still being investigated for that when the Desert Eagles went missing. Had the cheek to deny he knew anything about it.'
'Amazing the man could be so careless,' Lang commented dryly.
Jacob nodded. 'Seems Colonel Zwelk had had a past with Mossad. There was a spot of bother there, too. Suspected but never convicted of sharing classified with unauthorized. Rather than cause problems, transferred to the quartermaster corps of the army.'
A definite demotion. Like going from naval intelligence to galley duty.
Lang tried to mask his impatience. 'Any reason given?'
Jacob took a full five seconds applying another match. 'No. But I did find that, while he was there, the good colonel had whatever Echelon access Mossad could beg from the Americans or English.'
'So, it's possible that he kept a contact there.'
Jacob eyed Lang over his glass. 'Possible his contact passed on an occasional transmission, but how would he know which ones?'
Lang remembered the glass in front of him and emptied it before waving to the waiter. 'Once you're into Echelon, you're into the filter system. You can key in words, names, phone numbers.'
Jacob mouthed a perfect smoke ring that spun into the still air a moment before dissolving. 'Well, then, there's your answer as to how they knew where you were. Whoever the sodding 'they' might be.'
Lang knew his friend well enough to know there was more. 'I can't imagine you stopped there.'
Jacob applied yet another light before continuing. 'You know me well. The lad's background's seemed worth a glance. He was born into a sect of extremely conservative nationalistic Jews who call themselves the Essenes.'
Lang thought a moment. The name sounded familiar. 'Weren't they the group that lived out in the desert, out near Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found?'
'Had quite a settlement: water conduits, huge meeting rooms, their own coinage. They settled in the desert before Christ's birth, were displaced by an earthquake, and moved back to the same place about the time of Herod the Great. They were one of the three philosophical Jewish sects, the others being the Pharisees and Sadducees.'
'And they're still around?'
The pipe had gone out and would not rekindle. 'So it would seem. Though that lot no longer live in isolation, they are intensely loyal to their order, are extreme Zionists, have their own kibbutz, and still hold to many of the old ways. Think of them as Jewish Amish crossed with your VFW'
Use of the most sophisticated eavesdropping devices the world had ever known, theft of modern weapons, and attempted and actual murder did not exactly comply with Lang's concept of peaceful, if eccentric, Pennsylvania farmers.
Lang thought a moment before asking, 'I don't suppose this colonel of yours has any connection to Bruges?'
Jacob stopped in the middle of reaming the pipe bowl with the nail. 'Bruges? As in Belgium?'
'As in.'
'Odd you would ask. Bruges happens to be the only place outside of Israel where there are any of them to speak of. Understand a small colony is still there, remains of the many who migrated during the Middle Ages, when Jews were the only banks in Europe, what with you Christians finding it sinful to lend money for interest. This lot
