The Moses Stone

'You have some news?' Eli Nahman asked, as he walked into the room in the ministry building in Jerusalem, Yosef Ben Halevi following close behind him.

'Yes,' Levi Barak said, gesturing to the two academics to take seats at the table. 'Through one of our operatives in Morocco,' Barak began, 'we do now have more information about this relic. But we still don't know where it is. Our best guess is that the English couple mailed it to their home.'

'Can you send someone to check that?' Nahman asked.

Barak shook his head. 'There's no need,' he said. 'Our people in London have already started investigating.'

'And?'

'And we're not the only ones looking for it.'

Nahman glanced at Ben Halevi. 'Who?' he asked.

'There were two obvious addresses to cover in Britain,' Barak began, not answering Nahman's question directly. 'The O'Connors' own house and the one belonging to their daughter and son-in-law. Both are in a city called Canterbury, in Kent, in south-east England. We organized watchers at both properties. Yesterday, the team covering the O'Connors' property observed their daughter drive to the house and go inside. About ten minutes later an unknown male was seen at the side door of the house. He'd approached the property from the rear, across a stretch of waste ground, not down the street, which was why they didn't see him coming. Our team got several photographs of him.'

Barak passed each man two pictures. They showed a dark-skinned, black-haired man, obviously filmed through a powerful telephoto lens, standing beside a house.

'He's holding a crowbar,' Barak continued, 'and he used it to force the side door. He was apparently unaware that anyone was inside the property. A few minutes later he came out of the house and ran away, using the same route as before, down the garden and over the waste ground.

'Several minutes after that, a neighbour entered the house – perhaps she'd seen the daughter's car parked in the driveway – and emerged seconds later screaming. Police cars and an ambulance appeared, and we now know that Kirsty Philips, the O'Connors' daughter, had been killed, obviously by this intruder.'

'Who is he?' Nahman demanded.

'We don't know,' Barak replied. 'We've circulated an 'anything known' request through all the intelligence services with whom we have good relations but I don't expect this man's face will be on any of their databases. We believe he's probably a member of a Moroccan gang.'

'And did he get the tablet?'

'We don't think so. Our watchers are still in place, and the same man has been seen in the vicinity again, but he didn't approach the house because of the large number of police there. Obviously, if he had got the tablet, he would be long gone.'

'So where is it?' Ben Halevi demanded.

Barak shrugged. 'We don't know. It could still be in the post system somewhere, or maybe the British police are sitting looking at it. If they are, we should find out today, through one of our contacts in the Metropolitan force.'

'And if they're not?'

'The moment this man' – Barak gestured at the photographs on the table – 'reappears after the police have left the house, I've given orders to our surveillance team to snatch him for interrogation.'

An expression of distaste passed across Nahman's face. 'But I haven't been consulted about any such action.'

Barak shook his head. 'I'm sorry, Eli, but this matter has now moved a long way up the tree. I've come here to keep you informed as a matter of courtesy, but I'm now taking my orders direct from the head of the Mossad. Finding that tablet has become my highest priority. All other considerations are secondary, and any level of collateral damage is acceptable. And it means that anyone who tries to prevent us from obtaining the relic will be considered expendable.'

The shock clearly registered on Nahman's face. 'Dear God,' he muttered. 'Is this really necessary?'

Barak nodded and glanced at the two men. 'If you're right in your analysis of the pictures we've recovered, those four clay tablets could lead us to the ultimate key to Jewish sovereignty. We will do whatever it takes to recover that relic.'

40

Ahmed grabbed a handful of Angela's hair and pulled her head firmly against the chair. He ran the back of the blade of the flick-knife down her cheeks, first one, then the other, playing with her, the tip of the cold steel leaving a transient white furrow on her lightly tanned skin, a mark that faded into invisibility almost as soon as the blade had passed.

'Which side first?' he muttered, leaning close to her ear. 'It's your face, so you can choose.'

Angela's eyes bulged as she choked behind the tape gag, a thin trickle of mucus running from her nose. Bronson had never seen such terror on any human face, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

'I'll tell you anything I know,' he said desperately.

'Tell me where the tablet is,' the tall man replied, his voice rising almost to a shout at the end of the sentence.

'I don't know,' Bronson said bitterly. 'And I won't know, no matter what you do to me, or to Angela.'

'Then she'll die here, and so will you. Get on with it, Ahmed,' he added.

At that instant there was a sudden noise from the floor above the cellar. The tall man grimaced in annoyance, stood up and turned towards the door. Ahmed stopped moving, his blade resting on Angela's left cheek.

Bronson stared at the door. He heard another noise, raised voices, and the clatter of shoes on concrete. The tall man called out something in Arabic, his irritation obvious from the tone of his voice.

'Wait for me to come back,' he instructed Ahmed, and headed for the stairs.

For two or three minutes there was a confusion of noise from above, shouts of alarm or perhaps anger, a succession of faint thuds, and then silence fell once more. Staring at the flight of concrete steps, Bronson saw a jellaba-clad figure walking down them. He felt a sudden stab of fear. The tall man was returning, and this time there would be no further delays.

But when the figure arrived at the entrance to the cellar, Bronson's brow creased in puzzlement. The man was holding a large piece of cardboard in front of him, which completely obscured his face and most of his upper body.

Bronson glanced at Ahmed, who looked equally puzzled.

'Yacoub?' Ahmed asked.

The answer and what happened next were both unexpected.

'No,' the man said, and dropped the cardboard.

Immediately, Bronson recognized the familiar features of Jalal Talabani, his face grim as he raised the pistol in his right hand, looking for a target.

Ahmed emitted a sudden curse, then swung the flickknife downwards, towards Angela's face, at the same instant as Talabani pulled the trigger. The semi-automatic pistol was fitted with a slim suppressor, and the noise of the shot was little more than a dull pop. The slide flew back, a brass cartridge case tumbled to the ground, and Talabani fired again, then once more.

On the other side of the cellar, Ahmed clutched at his chest and flew backwards, the flick-knife falling from his hand. As he crashed against the wall, a sudden fountain of blood sprayed in a wide arc across the floor.

Talabani ran over to the fallen man, felt for a pulse and then stood up, sliding the pistol into a holster under his jellaba. He bent down again, grabbed the flick-knife and strode across to Bronson.

'Jesus, Jalal. Am I glad to see you,' Bronson gasped.

'You've been lucky, my friend,' the Moroccan police officer said, as the newly sharpened blade of the knife made short work of the cable ties, freeing Bronson from the chair.