bundle of notes, then stepped forward. Yacoub raised his arm to stop him advancing any further.
'And you have the goods?' he asked. 'Let me see them.'
The man nodded and turned back towards one of the cars. As he and Yacoub reached it, one of his companions popped open the boot, and all three men peered inside. On the boot floor were two black briefcases, their leather scuffed and scratched. The man glanced round, then leant inside, snapped open the catches and lifted the lids. Each case contained half a dozen semi-automatic pistols of various types, each with two or three magazines. All of the weapons looked well used, nicks and scrapes all over them, but they were clean and oiled, which suggested they had been properly cared for.
Yacoub bent down and picked up several of the weapons for inspection.
'We'll take the two CZ–75s and two of the Brownings,' he said, 'and two magazines for each. You have plenty of shells?'
'Of course. How many boxes do you need?'
'Four will be enough,' Yacoub said.
The man opened another, smaller case, took out three boxes of nine-millimetre Parabellum ammunition and handed them to Hassan, who passed over the money he was holding.
'Thank you, my friend,' Yacoub said. 'A pleasure dealing with you.'
'The weapons,' the man replied, as he checked the money and then slammed the boot shut. 'When you've finished with them, call me. If they're undamaged we'll buy them back at half the cost.'
'Only half?'
'That's our normal rate. Take it or leave it. You have my numbers.'
49
The longer Angela and Bronson worked at the translation, the easier it seemed to get, and although the first line had taken them over an hour to crack, they managed to get the entire inscription finished in just under three hours, which Angela didn't think was bad going, even though there were still three words that had stubbornly refused to yield their meanings.
They rewarded each other with a drink from the minibar and then started the most difficult phase of the entire operation – trying to decipher what the Aramaic text actually meant. As he'd done before, Bronson wrote out the words they'd translated, in the order they appeared on the clay tablet:
Then he reversed the order to allow them to read the words in the correct sequence:
Bronson looked at what he'd written, then flicked back through the other pages in front of him.
'Right,' he said, 'I'll incorporate these words in the full translation and then maybe we'll be able to see the wood rather than just the trees.'
He worked for a few minutes, then passed over the final version – or at least the final version with the information they had to hand:
'I can probably fill in another couple of the words we haven't deciphered.' Angela pointed at their translation. 'I think that section reads 'the settlement known as Ir-Tzadok B'Succaca'. I just wish we had a few more . . .'
Her voice died away as she stared at the page, and Bronson looked at her sharply. 'What is it?' he asked.
'The lines just before it,' she said. 'From the tone of what you've read in this translation, how would you describe the person who wrote it?'
'I don't follow you.'
'I mean, do you think that person was a priest, or a warrior, or what?'
Bronson read the text again and thought for a moment. 'There's not a lot to go on apart from that last section, where it looks as if he could be justifying fighting the invaders. So if I had to guess I'd say he was probably a warrior, maybe a member of the Jewish resistance or whatever they had in those days.'
'Exactly. Now look at this section, from where it says 'the copper scroll' to 'the cave'. Remember that around the beginning of the first millennium the Jews didn't have an army. They weren't organized in the way that the Romans were, into formalized fighting units. They were more like gangs of fighters that would band together against the common invader when it suited them. The rest of the time they fought amongst themselves when they
