The Moses Stone

them in a folder that bore the current date.

When he'd finished, he put all the clippings in the rubbish bag with the discarded newspapers, then prepared an email that contained no text at all, but to which he attached copies of all the scanned images. Some days the sheer number and size of the attachments meant he had to divide them up and send two or even three emails to dispatch them. The destination email was a numerical Yahoo web-based address that gave no clue as to the identity of the owner. When the account had been set up, five separate email addresses had been created to form a chain that would obscure the identity of the originating email. Once the account was up and running, all those other addresses had been cancelled, ending any possible attempt to trace the source.

Of course, he knew exactly who the recipient was. Or, to be absolutely accurate, he knew precisely where his message would be read, but not exactly who would read it.

He had been stationed in Britain for almost two years, steadily building a name and establishing himself as a journalist specializing in writing for foreign magazines and newspapers. He could even produce copies of various continental journals that included articles he'd written – or which appeared over his byline. If anyone had bothered to check the original copies of those publications, they'd have seen the articles reproduced word for word, but with an entirely different byline. In fact, the copied pages had been carefully prepared in a secure basement in an unmarked and equally secure building in a town named Glilot in Israel, just outside Tel Aviv, for the sole purpose of helping to establish his cover.

He wasn't a spy – or not yet, at any rate – but he was an employee of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. One of his tasks as a support agent was to copy any and every article that related, however obliquely, to the British government and to all branches of the armed forces, including the special forces, and to the United Kingdom intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies. But like all agents in the employ of the Mossad, he had also been given an additional list of topics that were in no way connected with any of these subjects. Ancient tablets, whether made of clay or any other material, had been accorded a very high priority in the list.

Once he'd dispatched the email, there was usually nothing else for him to do until the following day, but on that afternoon, within minutes of sending the message, his computer emitted a double-tone that showed an email had been received. When he opened his inbox, the coded name of the sender jumped out at him, as did the priority. He scanned the message quickly, then read it again.

Whatever the importance of that old clay tablet, it looked as if the article he'd sent had stirred up a hornets' nest in Tel Aviv, and the new instructions he'd been given clearly emphasized this. He glanced at his watch, weighing his options, then grabbed his jacket from the hook in the hall, left his apartment and headed for the stairs leading to the small car park at the back of the building.

With any luck, he should reach Canterbury in just over an hour.

10

'This,' Talabani said in English, 'is Hafez Aziz, and he's the man who saw the accident. He only speaks Tamazight, so I'll have to translate for you.'

Bronson was in another interview room at the Rabat police station. On the other side of the table was a short, slim Moroccan wearing faded blue jeans and a white shirt.

For the next few minutes, Jalal Talabani translated what Aziz said, sentence by sentence, and at the end of it Bronson knew no more than he had before. Aziz patiently repeated exactly the same story that Talabani had told him earlier, and what he said sounded to Bronson like a statement made by an honest man.

He said he'd seen the Renault approaching the bend, travelling very quickly. He'd watched the car start to make the turn, but then swing wide and hit the rocks at the side of the road. He'd seen it fly into the air, tumble sideways over the edge and vanish from sight. He'd stopped his car at the scene and called the police, then scrambled down into the wadi to try to help the occupants, but it was already too late.

There was only one question Bronson really wanted to ask, but he kept his mouth shut and just thanked Aziz for coming to the police station.

When the Moroccan had left the interview room, Bronson turned to Talabani.

'I'm very grateful for all your help,' he said, 'and for arranging that interview. I think I've seen almost all that I needed to. The last thing is the suitcases and stuff you recovered from the car. And I think you said you'd already prepared an inventory?'

Talabani nodded and stood up. 'Stay here and I'll have the cases brought in,' he said, and left the interview room.

Twenty minutes later, Bronson acknowledged that the Moroccan had been right. There was nothing at all in the O'Connors' luggage that was in any way unusual, not that he had expected that there would be. It was just one last check he'd needed to make. In fact, the only unusual thing about the inventory was not what was on the list, but what wasn't. One item he was certain he would see – the O'Connors' camera – simply wasn't there.

'One last thing, Jalal,' he said. 'There wasn't any sign of an old clay tablet in the car when you recovered it, was there?'

The Moroccan looked puzzled. 'A clay tablet?' he asked. 'No, not that I remember. Why?'

'Just something I heard. No matter. Thanks for everything. I'll be in touch if I need anything more.'

Bronson's last appointment was to see the O'Connors' daughter and her husband at their hotel the following morning. He folded up the printed inventory, slipped it into his pocket, and glanced at his watch. He should, he hoped, be able to catch a flight out of Casablanca the following day and be back home by late afternoon.

When Jalal Talabani left the police station in Rabat that evening, he didn't follow his usual routine and walk to the car park to collect his car and drive to his home on the northern outskirts of the city. Instead, he visited a local cafe for a drink and a light meal. Then he followed a circuitous route around the nearby streets, varying his pace and stopping frequently to check behind him. Only when he was quite certain that he was unobserved did he walk to a public telephone and dial a number from memory.

'I have some information you might find useful.'

'Go ahead.'

'There's a British policeman named Bronson here in Rabat looking into the deaths of the O'Connors. He's also interested in finding an old clay tablet. Do you know anything about that?'

'I might,' the man replied. 'Where's he staying?'

Talabani told him the name of Bronson's hotel.

'Thank you, I'll take care of him,' said the man, and ended the call.

11

Early that morning, in a conference room in one of the numerous Israeli government buildings near the centre of Jerusalem, three men met by appointment. No secretaries were present; no notes were taken.

In front of each man were two large photographs, one in colour and the other monochrome, depicting a grey-brown clay tablet in considerable detail. There was also a photocopy of the article from the British regional newspaper, together with a translation of the text into Hebrew.

'That report appeared yesterday in a British newspaper,' Eli Nahman began. He was elderly, thin and stooped, with a white beard and a mane of white hair topped with a black embroidered yarmulke, but his eyes were a clear and piercing blue, and sparkled with intelligence. He was a senior professor at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and an authority on pre-Christian relics.

'The story was spotted by one of the Mossad's assets in London and forwarded to Glilot,' he continued, gesturing to the younger man sitting at the head of the table.

Levi Barak was in his late thirties, with black hair and a tanned complexion, his otherwise regular features dominated by a large nose that would forever stop him being described as handsome. He was wearing a light tan