by Sam Bourne
Henry was beginning to sweat. He had stashed the items in the heaviest, double-doored safe in the shop, but he was still anxious. He knew these were items of serious value: Jaafar would not have taken such painstaking care to disguise them if they were not.
He called Lucinda at Sotheby’s, a move that always smacked of desperation.
‘Hello, darling,’ she drawled, audibly exhaling cigarette smoke. ‘What do you want this time?’
‘Lucinda! What makes you think I want anything?’
‘Because you never, ever ring me unless you want something.’
‘That’s not true,’ Henry said, even though it was. Apart from one highly regrettable snog tumbling out of the Christie’s Christmas party, their relationship had only ever been about what Henry could get out of her. Maybe including the highly regrettable snog. If he thought about it, about the girl who, in their college days, had been quite a beauty but who had descended rapidly into blowsy, he would have felt sad for Lucinda. But Henry didn’t think about it.
‘On the contrary, I have something of an opportunity.’
He went to see her that same afternoon, Lucinda being easily enticed by the promise of a gin and tonic afterwards.
‘So what are these delights you have to show me, Henry?’
He produced a small jewellery box, holding it in the palm of his right hand.
‘Oh, Henry, you’re not going to propose, are you? Here?’
Henry rolled his eyes indulgently, then popped open the box, revealing a pair of fine gold earrings, each one consisting of a single leaf. Extracting them from the charm bracelets and putting them back together had taken a delicate touch, but it had not been too difficult. Luckily the earrings had been photographed more than once, and he had found a clear colour picture in a reference book. ‘Photo reproduced by kind permission of the National Museum of Antiquities, Baghdad,’ the caption had said.
‘Good God, Henry. Those are…those are…’
‘Four thousand five hundred years old.’
‘Magnificent was what I was going to say. Four thousand five hundred years old? Incredible.’
‘You know what I want you to do, don’t you?’
‘I can guess. But why don’t you tell me?’
‘I want you to sell them. So that I can buy them off you.’
‘And that way they’re kosher. “Purchased under auction at Sotheby’s”.’
‘Lucinda, that’s what I love about you. So quick.’
‘Except you don’t love me, Henry. Anyway, it’s impossible.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, let’s say we were actually allowed to sell pieces from…there. If we were, these would go for an absolute bloody fortune. They’re priceless. Far out of your reach. We’d have to lie about what they were. And that would defeat the object rather, wouldn’t it?’
‘You could say they’ve been bought from a private collector in Jordan. That is in fact how I got them.’
‘Except we all know what private collector means, don’t we? Come on, Henry. Everyone’s on the lookout for stuff from you-know-where. It’s the kiss of death. We can’t touch it.’
Henry stared into the puddle of gin at the bottom of his glass. ‘Well, what the hell am I going to do? I have to sell this stuff somehow.’
‘In the old days, I could have introduced you to some very rich people who would have been happy to take them from you on the QT. But it’s different now. This whole ghastly Nazi business has everyone terrified. Unless you can give them ten certificates in triplicate, signed and countersigned, no one will buy a bloody thing.’
‘What would you do?’
‘I’d sit tight, darling. Eventually this stuff will be in major demand. It’s too good to go to waste. But now is not the time.’
When Henry spoke to Jaafar al-Naasri that evening it was only after he had fortified himself with two more stiff drinks. He prepared a script for what he would say, which he delivered with much less fluency than he had planned, the fault of the alcohol and his nerves. But he spat out his basic message. Jaafar would have to be patient and he would have to trust him. Henry would hold back on the prestige, high-value items, which he could continue to keep in the showroom safe or, if Jaafar wished, they could be transferred to a safety deposit box at Henry’s private bank, an institution known for its discretion. They would wait till the market was more propitious. ‘You’ll get the same story all over the world, Jaafar,’ Henry told him when the Jordanian threatened to take his custom to a New York dealer. ‘The Americans are even more uptight on all this than we are.’
Besides, it was not all gloom and doom. Henry had held back some good news, to lighten the call. For the less glamorous items, he had a plan, a way to realize some value sooner rather than later. No, it would not be wise to go into details over the phone. But Henry knew exactly where those clay tablets would be going. And he would take them there himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
J ERUSALEM , W EDNESDAY , 3.14 PM
‘I hate the media in this country, I really do.’ Uri was standing at the window, pulling back the curtain just enough to see the street outside.
‘Hmm.’
‘They’re like vultures. Look at them, Channel 2 outside in their satellite TV truck. It’s not enough they all had to come here to show the world the death of my parents. They have to stay.’
‘Not only in this country, Uri.’ Maggie was not looking in his direction, but keeping her eye fixed on the computer. She was about to try out her hunch on the gmail account she had discovered on Shimon Guttman’s computer. She logged in as Saeb Nastayib, the name of the man who had sent those mysterious last emails to Ahmed Nour. And, as it happens, an approximate translation of the name Shimon Guttman. For the password, she tried Vladimir as before. ‘Login failed.’ Damn.
She pushed the swivel chair away from the desk, got to her feet and stretched. The worst thing about this line of work, she remembered, was the lack of exercise. As she stretched her arms backwards, her hands meeting in a knot behind her back, she caught Uri’s gaze and realized that, without intending to, she was pushing her breasts forward: his eyes had widened. She hastily repositioned her arms, but she could tell that the image lingered.
‘We need to crack this password thing, Uri. The prompt seems to demand ten characters: Vladimir is only eight.’
‘He always did Vladimir, on everything.’
‘So we need two more letters.’ She opened up a new window, Googled Jabotinsky and discovered his alternative, Hebrew name: Ze’ev.
‘OK,’ she said, typing in VladimirZJ. Nothing. VladimirJ1. Also nothing. VZJabotins. VZJabotin1. She went through at least a dozen permutations.
‘What about a number? What if he did Vladimir12 or Vladimir99? Is there any two digit number that might be significant?’
‘Try 48. The year the state was established.’
‘Oh, that’s good.’ She spoke as she typed: ‘Vladimir48.’
Login failed.
Uri came over to the desk, standing by her side. He bent down, to get a closer look at the screen. She could see the stubble on his cheek.
‘I really thought that would work,’ he said. ‘Maybe I am wrong about Vladimir-’
‘Or maybe we just got the year wrong. For a right-wing-’ She caught herself just in time. ‘For a passionate nationalist like your father, there’s one year that is just as important as 1948. Maybe even more so.’
She typed in Vladimir67 and suddenly the screen altered. An egg-timer graphic appeared, and a new page began loading: the email inbox of Saeb Nastayib.
At the top of the page, still in bold and therefore unread, was a name which gave Maggie a start: Ahmed Nour. She looked at the time the email was sent: 11.25pm on Tuesday evening, a good twelve hours after he was reported dead. She clicked the message open.
Who are you? And why were you contacting my father?
‘It seems Mr Nour Junior knew as little about his father as you did about yours.’
‘It could be a woman. Could be his daughter.’
‘Uri, do you mind if we look at the messages your father sent?’
‘Aren’t you going to reply?’
‘I want to think about it. Let’s see what these two had been saying to each other first.’
She brought up the sent messages, all of which were to Ahmed Nour. This was obviously the back channel the two men had used, an Arabic name so that if anyone was monitoring Nour’s email, they would have no grounds for suspicion.
The last one was sent at 6.08 pm on Saturday, just a few hours before the peace rally at which Guttman was shot dead.
Ahmed, we have the most urgent matter to discuss. I have tried your telephone but without success. Are you able to meet me in Geneva?
Saeb
Maggie instantly scrolled down to the next message, sent at 3.58 pm that same day.
My dear Ahmed, I hope you got my earlier message. Do let me know if your plans permit a trip to Geneva, hopefully in the very near future. We have much to talk about.
My best wishes,
Saeb
There was another at 10.14 am, and two the previous evening. All of them mentioning a planned trip to Geneva. As far as Maggie could see, Ahmed Nour had not replied to any of them. Had they fallen out? Was Ahmed blanking his Israeli colleague? And what was all this about an upcoming trip to Geneva?
Uri had left the piles of papers and pulled up a second chair. He was looking at the screen, but it was clear from his facial expression that he was as baffled as she was. Predicting her question, he turned to her, shaking his head. ‘I didn’t even know my father had been to Geneva.’
‘It seems there was quite a bit about him you didn’t know. Did he keep any kind of diary? You know, a desk planner.’
Uri began rummaging, at one point on hands and knees, eyeing the book shelves side on, while she went back to the computer. She called up the browser’s history, seeing the cache of web pages Guttman had consulted in the last days of his life, looking for a travel agent, Swissair, a guide to hotels in Geneva, anything which might yield a clue as to what Guttman and Nour were planning. This connection between the two men, unlikely and unknown to those closest to them both, was intriguing. And she felt sure it was connected to what was happening right now, the first turns of a cycle of violence that would, if left unchecked, destroy the peace process.
‘Uri, pass me the cellphone again.’
She grabbed it, realizing that she had made a stupid oversight. She had looked at the text messages, all of which had doubtless been wiped, but had not checked the call register, the record of outgoing calls. She stabbed at the keys until she pulled up the dialled numbers. There, at the top, was a call made on Saturday afternoon. It showed up on the display not as a number, but a name.
‘Uri, who’s Baruch Kishon?’
‘At last, something that is not a mystery. He is a very famous journalist in Israel. He writes a column in Maariv. The settlers love him; he has been denouncing Yariv every week for a year. He and my father were great friends.’
‘Well, I think we ought to pay Mr Kishon a visit. Right now.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
J ERUSALEM , W EDNESDAY , 3.10 PM
Amir Tal was working hard to conceal his amazement, even his excitement. He had dealt with intelligence often; since taking this job in the Prime Minister’s bureau, it was hard to avoid it. Reports, assessments, analyses, they all crossed his desk.
But he had never seen how it was done, how the raw information that formed that paper mountain was gathered. His army service had kept him inside the belly of an armoured personnel carrier. It was prestigious enough-he served in the Golani Brigade-but nothing like this. Now, in this office, he was seeing how it worked, up close. And, best of all, he was the man in charge.
‘Can I listen?’ he said, gesturing at the woman who sat at the centre of the multiple computer screens, with what looked like a DJ’s mixing desk before her. She took off her headphones and gave them to Tal, who wore them the way she had, one ear on, one ear off.
‘The man’s voice you hear is Uri Guttman, son of the deceased. The woman’s voice is the American, Maggie Costello.’
‘Irish,’ Tal murmured, mainly to himself. The voices were remarkably clear. Costello was asking Guttman for his father’s cellphone. Tal could even hear papers rustling. Say what you like about the Shin Bet, they were an impressive bunch: they had mounted this entire surveillance operation within a few hours of his demanding it.
‘And you can do all this from that TV satellite truck parked outside?’
‘With directional microphones aimed at the windows-through the glass-you can do a lot. Better if you have something on the inside too.’
‘Which you don’t. So how come the sound’s so good?’
The woman was plugging in a second pair of headphones into the side of the computer, so that she could listen in at the same time. She gave Tal a crooked smile.
‘You do have something in there! How?’ He quickly altered his features: mustn’t look too eager.
‘Well, there have been a lot of flowers arriving in that house, and food parcels, too. Let’s just say one of the bouquets does more than look nice.’
Amir took off the headphones, and put his hand on the shoulder of the woman. Keep up the good work.
There was no point listening any further. Another operative was listening closely, taking a shorthand note. Anything of substance, he would report it immediately.
‘Amir, you might want to see this.’ It was the man who had remained glued to a computer screen since they had got here, at least as far as Tal could tell. He had wondered what this man was up to, but hadn’t dared ask.
Now what he saw disappointed him. It was a standard webmail page, an inbox no different from the one he used for his personal correspondence at home. Nothing hi-tech or espionage about that.
And then he saw it. The cursor moving around the screen without any apparent human intervention; the operator’s hands remained still.
‘What is this?’
‘You’re looking at Shimon Guttman’s computer, the one his son and that woman are working on right now.’
‘Are these surveillance pictures?’
The man smiled in a way Tal didn’t like, as if he was entertaining a question from a slow child.
‘No, there’s no hidden camera. Just a simple SilentNight program.’ He waited a beat or two-standard techie practice, to let the ignorance of the explainee sink in-then went on: ‘It’s a neat little program that installs itself on someone else’s machine and gains the kind of system-level privileges we need.’ He could see that the penny had not yet dropped. ‘It gives us total access to their computer. We could operate it remotely, from here, if we wanted to.’
‘What, I could start typing at this keyboard, and it would show up on their screen?’
‘Yep. But don’t do it!’ He placed his hand protectively over the keyboard and cursor, like a swot shielding his exam paper to prevent the other kids taking a peek. ‘If they see their cursor moving around, they’ll know we’re onto them. Either that, or they’ll think it’s Guttman’s ghost trying to freak them out.’
‘So we just watch.’
‘Exactly. Anything they type, I see it. Right now, for example, they’re trying to hack into his gmail account.’
The woman with the headphones called out. ‘OK, we have a phone call. Costello’s just dialled Khalil al-Shafi in Ramallah.’ Tal headed over, waiting to be passed a set of headphones of his own. But the woman was concentrating too hard, listening to each word, to help the boss. By the time she had connected him, the phone call was over. Instead he heard Maggie Costello speaking to Uri Guttman.
‘OK. What does nas tayib mean?’
A moment later and it was the computer operator who was getting excited, forcing Amir Tal to rush back to his side. He felt slightly ridiculous, like a kid at a video arcade, watching as his older brothers played games, hopping from o
ne machine to another to keep up with the action.
The computer guy was wide-eyed. ‘Hey, this is interesting.’
‘What are they doing?’
‘Watch that window right there. They’re logging on as that name we just heard. Saeb Nastayib. Now they’re trying different passwords.’ A series of asterisks appeared in the password box on the screen. The operator clicked open a small window and suddenly real characters appeared, one by one. ‘Having a go at VladimirJ. Nope.’
‘How can you see that? Even their screen doesn’t show up the password.’
‘That’s why this SilentNight programme is such a beauty. It records every keystroke. So even if the screen doesn’t show what buttons they pressed, we can still see them. Oops, Vladimir48. Wrong again.’
‘OK, let me know when you have something useful.’
Amir Tal didn’t have long to wait. Within ten minutes the surveillance team parked in the Channel 2 truck outside the Guttman residence reported that Costello and Guttman Junior had left the house, apparently heading for the home of journalist Baruch Kishon. Meanwhile, computer analysis suggested a correspondence between the late Shimon Guttman and the late Ahmed Nour, the former using an Arab codename, combined with the intensely Zionist password of Vladimir67. They were arranging to meet in Geneva.
‘OK, gather round, people,’ Tal began, enjoying taking command. ‘I want whatever intel we can get on Nour: who was he, why did he die and what the hell was he talking about with Shimon Guttman? What were they planning? Was this some kind of alliance of the extremes, two guys both opposed to the peace process agreeing to work together to derail the talks? Talk to Mossad in Geneva. Find out whether they’d met before. Travel plans for the last year. If that yields nothing, go back further. Everything you can get, I want it.
‘Also Khalil al-Shafi. What’s he been saying to Costello? Why did she call him? And what’s his precise connection to Ahmed Nour? We need answers on this right away. Is he onside for these peace talks or not? If he is sabotaging from the inside, I want to know about it.