‘I do,’ he said. ‘But you don’t.’
His phone rang.
I didn’t hear the first part of his conversation, as he turned his head away from me, but I did hear the next bit.
‘Good news at last,’ he said. He smiled at me. ‘Now all we have to do is get away from our friends.’ He glanced at the policemen. They were both staring at us.
50
Susan was sleeping, but she might have been unconscious. She’d talked for a long time about what she’d figured out from the book.
She’d been whispering, mostly, and had ended up rambling about the early Greek miniscule script alphabet, why it had been used in Jerusalem by scribes in Herod’s day, and how that style in the quire pages alone proved that the manuscript was genuine.
Isabel’s thirst was nagging fiercely at her again. He’d given them a bottle of water and a tub of cooked rice when he’d left them here, but it was all gone and panic wasn’t far away now.
The darkness didn’t help. She’d got a good look at the cave they were in. She’d seen it was no more than twenty foot by thirty, and that there was no other way out, before he’d sealed the way they’d come in – a three foot wide hole in the roof above her – by pulling a rock over it.
She’d always hated confined spaces.
She’d managed to take her jacket off and drop it below the exit hole before the darkness had come, to mark that spot, enable her to keep her bearings, as she’d learnt in the Foreign Office kidnap training course. But it had been years since she’d done the course and she couldn’t remember a lot of it.
What she did remember was one important part, the critical section about keeping hope alive. Because that was what she was having trouble doing.
The endless darkness was beating her down like a physical force.
She’d dreaded being held without light again when he’d taken her blindfold off and she’d seen the hole, seconds before she’d been forced down the ladder into the cave. And for a long time now she’d been battling frightening thoughts that wouldn’t go away.
Was this what he’d planned for them? A slow, lingering death, starving, dying of thirst? Was she going to sit here while Susan’s body decomposed nearby and the worms started eating at it? Would that be her fate too?
There was, she had to admit, very little chance that they’d be discovered accidently. Where they were, in a tomb-like cave under a rock in a barren valley that was littered with many other rocks, made sure of that. Being an hour’s drive from Jerusalem, as far as she could work out – time was difficult to calculate when you were petrified – meant they’d left civilisation far behind. And with it, almost all chance of being found by accident. It might as well have been the first century out here, not the twenty-first. Sean could walk these valleys for the rest of his life and not find her. Even if he knew what part of the country she was in it wouldn’t help.
She’d seen only barren rocks – no houses anywhere near – when the bastard had taken their blindfolds off, just before he’d pushed them, while waving his gun around, down the ladder into the tomb they were now held in.
‘When are you going to free us?’ she’d shouted at him defiantly, as she went down. His reply, a promise of eventual freedom if they did what they were told, was worthless, she knew, even as he spoke it.
His leaving them here at least meant one thing, of that she was sure. He had gone off to do something. And he didn’t want them dead yet.
The ladder had been a real problem for Susan. She’d swayed on it at the top, and Isabel had in the end half caught her when she fell the last few feet to the rough stone floor.
That had winded them both.
Then he’d thrown down the plastic bag with rice and water in it. And without another word, he’d pulled up the ladder and had pushed the rock slowly over the entrance hole. It was probably one of the rocks she’d seen nearby in the valley; irregular, several feet wide giant lozenges. There was no possible way anyone could know they were under this particular one.
She’d wondered if the rock presented him with a difficulty too, how to make sure he knew which one to move to find them.
Unless, of course, he didn’t intend to come back.
Stop thinking that, she said to herself. Stay positive.
She’d tried to reach the entrance hole by jumping. It was only about five feet above her head, from what she remembered, but she’d failed to touch the roof at all. And it had been like jumping in a nightmare. And so, after a while, as she lost her determination in the blackness, and heard a hollowness under her that spooked her, she’d given up on it.
Then an idea came to her.
What if she could dig away at the rock walls and pile up rubble under where the entrance hole was? At least she knew where to pile up the rocks she dug up.
It was a chance. If she could dig out enough rocks from the walls and floor, she might be able to reach the roof.
After doing it for a long time – she wasn’t exactly sure how long she’d spent trying to break stones free from the walls – she had accumulated only five large rocks and some loose rubble, which, all together, added barely two inches to her height.
And her thirst got worse from the exertion. It was nagging at her relentlessly now.
She heard a cough. For a second she was disoriented. The cough had sounded near, but its owner was invisible in the endless blackness.
Now a wheeze. It was Susan. But her voice sounded different when she spoke.
‘I heard you, moving … Please, don’t disturb them … don’t disturb the scorpions … The yellow one’s bite can kill you in a few minutes.’ Her voice was reedy, changed.
Isabel’s skin flushed cold.
What was that noise?
She listened, concentrating hard for even the tiniest of sounds. She knew that scorpion bites were painful as well as possibly being deadly if a poisonous bite went deep enough or you received more than one.
But all she could hear was her own breathing. It was coming fast.
Then she heard another sound.
A fevered rustling, as if a horde of insects had been released somewhere nearby. And it was getting louder by the second.
51
‘Take this,’ said Mark. He handed me a small laminated ID card. There was no picture on it. It just gave his name and title: SECURITY OFFICER – HER MAJESTY’S EMBASSY, CAIRO.
‘We have to get out of here. Say you need to make a call. Flash this at the two policemen. I’ll back you up if they ask. If they let you pass, find the main reception area. I’ll follow you as soon as I can. I’ll get someone from Mossad on the phone to tell the policemen to forget what happened.’
‘Why don’t you just go up to them now, and get your Mossad contact on the phone?’
‘It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. This way there isn’t much point in them making a big deal of it.’
All I said in reply was ‘Okay.’ I didn’t care about consequences. I wanted out of there. I buttoned up my shirt, rubbed at the scuff marks on my suede jacket, gave up, put it on.
A haughty expression was just what I needed now. I walked straight up to the quarterback, held the ID card out.
‘I’ll be back. Keep an eye on our guest.’ I pointed my thumb in Mark’s direction.
The quarterback put a hand up.
He hadn’t fallen for it. His eyes narrowed as he took the ID card, examined it. My heart pumped.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked. His voice was gravelly, as if he’d been smoking since he was a child.
‘I’ve got to make a call,’ I said, as calmly as I could. My voice sounded odd, lower than normal, but there was no way he could tell that.
He handed me back the ID card and looked away.
I’d done it.
Two minutes later I was sitting in a busy modern reception area. Near me was a Palestinian family, at least ten of them. Beyond them was an Israeli couple with a young child. Behind me was an older Bedouin woman with
a sad expression. The other rows of seats were similarly busy. I was asked, by a dark-haired, sweetly smiling girl, if I’d come in to have my bandage changed.
‘My friend is coming.’ I said. ‘He won’t be long.’ She smiled at me.
The noise of a police siren poured in through the doors as someone exited. A surge of adrenaline flowed through me. I stood up, walked around, waiting for the police to rush in looking for me.
Should I run for it?
I was getting weird looks, but I couldn’t sit down.
‘You look a sight,’ said a voice.
I spun around. It was Mark.
Ten minutes later we had exited via a side door and we were in a taxi. I could smell leather and a strong pine deodorant. It almost made me sick after the tension of the last few hours. American rock music was playing loudly on the radio.
‘Where are we going?’ I said.
Mark didn’t look at me. He said something to the driver in what I guessed was Hebrew. The driver shrugged. The taxi sped up.
Mark turned to me.
‘You need new shoes,’ he said.
I looked down at my feet. My shoes were stained and scuffed badly. The taxi pulled over on King David Street outside a small shoe shop.
‘I don’t give a damn about my shoes,’ I said, after the taxi was gone.
‘Neither do I,’ said Mark.
‘So where are we going?’
‘We’re meeting Ariel.’
He started walking quickly. We passed a group of children who were squabbling loudly. There were five of them, Arab and Jewish children. They were shouting at each other, fighting over a bright yellow football that one of them was holding.
‘This way,’ said Mark. A green Toyota Land Cruiser, different to the last one we’d been in, was pulled up half on the kerb near a bus stop. Mark climbed into the front beside Ariel.
‘You two look like trouble,’ said Ariel, as I got in.
‘Don’t blame me,’ said Mark.
Ariel turned, looked me over, as if he was checking me.
‘You are a lucky man,’ he said ‘Breaking into an historical monument is an offence punishable by up to five years in prison.’
‘Thanks for pointing that out,’ I said.
I leaned forward. ‘Do you have any news about Isabel?’ My tone was so sharp Ariel turned halfway round to me.
‘Sit back, Mr Ryan. Don’t ask too many questions, unless you want to go back to your hotel to calm down.’
I sat back.
Ariel inched the car out behind two white buses.
A phone rang. I put my hand to my pocket, then remembered my phone was lost. Ariel had his out and was talking fast in Hebrew a few seconds later. Then he finished the call.
‘Look out the back window and you will see a column of smoke,’ he said, softly.
I looked. He was right. It was coming from the Old City and rising up towards the lid of clouds above us.
‘A house, just off the Via Dolorosa, is on fire.’
I watched the smoke rise. ‘We visited that area,’ I said.
‘You went to the house where Max Kaiser worked,’ said Ariel. ‘Where that classified dig’s been going on.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘Yes.’
‘That’s the one that’s on fire,’ he said.
My mouth opened. Then I realised I didn’t care. I had to find Isabel.
‘Is there any news about that bastard I met in the church?’
My whole body felt bruised, but it didn’t bother me.
Ariel glanced at me in the rear-view mirror. He had a grave look that did nothing to reassure me.
My anxiety ticked higher. Was he saying nothing because he knew something he didn’t want to tell me?
‘What kind of person burns people to death?’ I said to no one in particular.
No answer came.
‘Where’s Isabel?!’ I slammed my hand into the door.
Ariel looked at me in his mirror, but didn’t change speed.
‘You break anything, you pay for it,’ he said.
‘Can you tell me how you’re picking up these phone signals you’re tracking?’
‘That’s classified.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ I said. ‘Just give me a bloody clue.’
There was silence for a minute, then Ariel spoke. ‘When we pick up a signal from someone’s phone who’s gone missing these days, we can identify all other phones used from that location in the last week or the last month or the last year. Clever, no?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s all he needs to know,’ said Mark.
‘What about Xena?’ I said. ‘What’s happened to her?’
‘She’s busy,’ said Mark.
Ariel manoeuvred the car into the outside lane of the two lane highway and put his foot down. We passed a line of military vehicles, mostly trucks, with a few jeeps. The road ran between steep hills, then curved to the left. I had no idea which way we were heading out of the city. Then a sign went by that pointed straight ahead for Bethlehem.
I looked at my watch. It was half past ten at night. The traffic was sparse. That sickly burning smell was in my nostrils again. The smell of those bodies. The smell of death.
‘Sit back, Mr Ryan. We will be there soon,’ said Ariel.
I couldn’t. My right hand was pressed across my stomach, pushing the ache inside away. I took a deep,
long breath and held it. I had to be calm, believe that Isabel was safe, that she was alive. I couldn’t give up. I wouldn’t.
The highway curved through low, tightly packed hills. We passed the lights of a town. They stretched up one hill, as if the houses were on stilts. I looked out the back window. The lights of the occasional cars behind us corkscrewed back into darkness.
Then we went through a tunnel.
When we came out there were more hills. We slowed. There was a wide, brilliantly lit military checkpoint up ahead. Young olive green-clad soldiers carrying guns waited, standing off on each side. Ariel opened the window, waved as we came up to the metal barrier. The barrier lifted. We were through.
Ariel’s phone rang again. He put it to his ear, didn’t speak for a minute, then said something rapid in Hebrew and cut the call.
‘What’s going on?’ I said. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Your friend has made two calls. The first one was from this road. The second was from south of here. That’s where we’re going.’
‘Can’t we go faster?’ I said.
Ariel increased our speed a little.
Headlights flashed past us in the opposite direction. The road wasn’t a highway anymore. There wasn’t even a dividing line.
As we rounded a curve, a packed yellow minibus passed us at a suicidal speed. The driver must have been certifiable. He’d been totally on the wrong side of the road, right on the bend, going as fast as he could.
I closed my eyes, said part of a prayer I’d learned in a boarding school in Briarwood, New York, that I’d been at for just one year. A periculis cunctis libera nos simper. From all danger deliver us always.
I’d repeated that Latin phrase over and over all that year in the school. I did it now too. Nobody paid attention to my muttering.
That had been the year my dad had been transferred to England for active duty. We followed him the next year.
I couldn’t remember the rest of the prayer, but repeating that part now was enough. I would take help from any place I could get it.
The road twisted and turned. Signs in Arabic only flashed by. We passed a group of men standing at the side of the road beside a barrel that had a fire burning in it.
They all seemed to be dressed in black. Ariel accelerated as we swept past them. Then we turned a corner and a sparkling cobweb of lights filled the steep rolling hills to our left, like a scene from a sci-fi movie set on an alien planet.
52
Henry Mowlam was still at his desk. He’d been on duty for twelve hours. If he stayed on duty for fifteen
his presence would be flagged to the duty manager.
He didn’t care.
Events in Jerusalem justified him staying late, never mind the fact that the operation to find Susan Hunter and Isabel Sharp was, he knew from experience, at a critical point.
The situation with the Israeli stock market, due to open Sunday morning, had been enough to get him to stay for the afternoon, but the search for the two women, to avoid them meeting the same fate as Max Kaiser, was now uppermost in his mind.
If they were still alive, the next move for whoever was holding them had to be to kill them in a horrific way. He’d seen it before. When a mission looks like it’s failing, the principles lash out, killing captives and followers who might betray them.
That thought left Henry without any desire to go home. He was needed here.
The cooperation from the Israelis had been first class, access to second-by-second mobile phone data and clearance at the highest level for Mark Headsell to participate in operations alongside their Security Service had meant the search for Susan and Isabel had proceeded as quickly as could be hoped.
And because of that cooperation, they had another lead.
The rising tension, bombings, tit-for-tat military deployments and media frenzy in Egypt over that caliph’s letter, and reports of dirty tricks by Mossad to hide the letter and its translator, were all unwelcome distractions.
An even more unwelcome distraction would be a war between Egypt and Israel. A war, precipitated by mistakes on both sides and political posturing, which seemed eminently possible now, when it had seemed an unlikely, distant possibility only a week before.
The situation had moved so suddenly up the international agenda that a meeting of the UN Security Council had been called for the following morning in New York. Twelve hours from now.
What a lot of people were worried about though, was what might happen in those twelve hours.
Israeli military units had been deployed to front line positions and the Egyptians had recently responded. Sorties by their air force had resulted in two incidents with Israeli F-16I Sufa fighters. Missile systems had locked on and pursuits had been initiated.
The Jerusalem Puzzle Page 25