stepped forward and briskly handcuffed their arms behind them, then checked they weren't carrying any concealed weapons. As soon as he'd done that, the air of tension eased noticeably.
With a roaring, clattering sound that was completely unmistakable, the helicopter landed on a patch of level ground about fifty yards away, the rotors kicking up a huge cloud of dust and debris that billowed out across the site. Bronson and Angela turned away and closed their eyes.
As soon as the chopper touched down, the roar of the jet engines diminished and the dust cloud dispersed.
Bronson turned back to look across at the helicopter, a bulky black shape just visible against the deeper black of the night sky, its navigation and anti-collision lights now switched on. In the light from the torches held by the men around them, he could see two figures walking slowly towards them.
The men stopped directly in front of them and, immediately they could see their faces, Angela gave a gasp of surprise. 'Yosef!' she said. 'Why are you here?'
Yosef Ben Halevi smiled slightly. 'I could ask you the same question,' he replied. 'Why are you and your exhusband digging around on one of Israel's most important ancient sites in the middle of the night?' He smiled again. 'But I think I already know the answer to that one.'
He turned to his companion and murmured something. The other man nodded, and at a gesture one of the men removed their handcuffs.
'Who are you?' Bronson asked the other man. 'Shin Bet? Mossad?'
There was no reply, and after a couple of seconds Yosef Ben Halevi turned to his companion. 'We've just watched Bronson kill a man in front of half a dozen witnesses. Whether or not he knows your name and who you work for really doesn't matter.'
'Yes, I suppose you're right. OK, Bronson. My name's Levi Barak, and I'm a senior officer in the Mossad.'
Bronson pointed to the black-clad figures standing a short distance away. 'Are they IDF?'
Barak shook his head. 'Not exactly. They're members of the Sayeret Matkal, a special operations unit that works for the Israeli Defence Forces' Intelligence Command. It's a deep reconnaissance unit with counter-terrorist responsibilities, something like your British SAS.'
'I've heard of it,' Bronson said. 'Weren't they the people responsible for the Entebbe rescue? When PLO terrorists hijacked an Air France plane and flew it to Uganda?'
Barak nodded. 'That was an outstanding piece of work. But we're not here to discuss past military operations. We need to decide what to do with you and Angela Lewis.'
'And what to do with what you found,' Ben Halevi interjected. 'Where are the relics?'
'The stone tablets are resting against the side of the altar over there,' Angela said, pointing, 'but I have no idea where the Silver Scroll is. The man that Chris killed took it away from us in the water tunnel.'
Barak issued an order, and two of the men walked around the circular altar, picked up the stone tablets and brought them over to where Ben Halevi was standing. They rested them carefully against a low wall.
The academic crouched down in front of them and, as Barak illuminated the tablets with the beam of his torch, he gently, almost lovingly, ran the tips of his fingers over them, caressing the ancient script. 'Old Aramaic,' he muttered, then stood up.
'Are they what you thought they were?' Levi Barak asked.
Ben Halevi shook his head. 'It's far too early to say, but to me they look right.'
'And to me,' Angela said. 'You do mean the Decalogue, don't you? The original covenant? The second set of stones that Moses himself carried down from Mount Sinai?'
Yosef Ben Halevi nodded slowly, barely able to take his eyes off the ancient relics.
'Right,' Barak said briskly. He looked back at Bronson. 'You just killed a man,' he stated flatly, 'and as a police officer you know what that means.'
'It was self-defence,' Angela said hotly. 'If you saw what happened, you'd know that.'
'I did see it, but there's a problem. The Sayeret Matkal officers are properly authorized members of Israel's armed forces, able to carry weapons and use them. That man' – he pointed at Yacoub's body – 'was killed by a pistol, and not the type we carry.' Barak turned and beckoned one of the officers towards him. 'Give me your weapon,' he instructed.
The officer hesitated for a second, then undid the Velcro strap on his holster and handed over the pistol.
'This,' Barak said, 'is an Israeli Weapons Industries SP-21 nine-millimetre pistol. One of its characteristics is the polygonal rifling in the barrel. That pistol' – he pointed at the weapon Bronson had dropped on the ground – 'is a Czechoslovakian CZ-75, with conventional rifling. When we carry out a post-mortem on the body, we'll find one or two deformed nine-millimetre slugs in the torso, and the rifling marks will clearly show the make and model of pistol that fired them. That will tell the pathologist that this man wasn't killed by any of the troops I ordered to come here. That's the problem.'
Barak stepped across to where Yacoub's body lay, and with a single quick movement raised the pistol and fired a single round into the corpse's chest. The body twitched with the impact.
Then he walked back and returned the pistol to the Sayeret Matkal officer. 'Now,' he said, 'the pathologist will find a bullet fired from an SP-21 in that man's body, and will come to the appropriate conclusion.'
'What about the other two slugs?' Bronson asked.
'I think that the post-mortem will show that they passed straight through his body and were not recovered. And now,' Barak said, 'it's time for you to leave. We have to tidy up this place before the tourists start arriving tomorrow morning, and we've still got to find where that one-eyed bastard hid the Silver Scroll.'
Three minutes later, Bronson and Angela stared down through the open side door of the helicopter as it lifted away from Har Megiddo. Below them, banks of floodlights were being set up to enable the search for the Silver Scroll to get under way, and the top of the old fortress seemed to be swarming with black-clad men.
77
The rays of the early-morning sun were just striking the roofs and upper levels of the buildings around them, turning the white stone to silver, when Bronson pulled the hire car to a stop in a parking space just off Sultan Suleiman, close to the bus station and at the very edge of the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.
He and Angela got out and started walking south-west, towards the Damascus Gate. It was three days later, and they were booked on a flight back to London out of Ben Gurion late that afternoon, courtesy of the Mossad. They'd spent most of the time since the showdown at Har Megiddo in an interview room in an anonymous ministry building in Jerusalem, explaining precisely what had happened since Bronson had been briefed to fly out to Morocco what seemed like weeks earlier. Eventually, Levi Barak and Yosef Ben Halevi had decided that there was nothing else they could usefully tell them, and Barak had suggested it would be best for all concerned if they left Israel as soon as possible.
On this, their last day in the country, they'd decided to take a look around the Old City. As they crossed the street to walk along beside the massive city wall, Bronson glanced behind him.
'Are they still there?' Angela asked, taking his hand.
'Yes. Two grey men in two grey suits.'
Levi Barak had made it clear that they could go where they liked before their flight, but insisted that they would be watched at all times, and they'd quickly got used to the sight of their two silent shadows.
There were no tourists anywhere, and precious few locals, and the day was pleasantly warm, but the pink and turquoise sky was redolent with the promise of baking heat later.
'It's like having the place to ourselves,' Angela said.
The sense of quiet and calm lasted until they reached the open area in front of the Damascus Gate.
Despite the early hour, there were already crowds of people milling round the dozens of temporary stalls – many of them little more than small wheeled carts with umbrellas to shade the produce and the seller – that had been set up among the stately palm trees. Angela and Bronson walked past elderly women wearing traditional embroidered dresses selling snap peas from open sacks, and the air was heavy with the scent of fresh mint. In several places Bronson saw colourful posters, all depicting handsome young men, spread on the ground almost like prayer mats.
'Arab pop stars,' Angela said, in answer to his unspoken question.
