The Last Testament Part 22

He had dropped everything, gone into the office to write a column excoriating Yaakov Yariv for creating a culture in which a political a.s.sa.s.sination like this had become inevitable. That done, Kishon knocked out a warm, personal tribute to his friend, the late Shimon Guttman.

But the next day, once it began to leak that Guttman had been unarmed, that he had been striding to the front of the rally to hand the Prime Minister a note, Kishon began to wonder. The fevered phone call his old friend had made could have been the random ramblings of a man who had flipped, in the throes of a breakdown evinced by his kamikaze attempt to b.u.t.tonhole the PM. Or he might have been making perfect, albeit agitated, sense, his march to the front of the rally evidence only of the seriousness of his intent. Kishon weighed up all he knew of Guttman, the years they had worked together, the professor's combination of steady tactical cunning and deep scholarly knowledge, the fact that he had been speaking coherently when they had talked just a few days previouslyhe weighed all that up and concluded that Guttman deserved to be trusted, posthumously as much as in life. Shimon had clearly made an enormously significant discovery and he owed it to his old friend to find it and show it to the world. It would be a last act of friendship. Besides, if what Guttman had said on the phone was right, it promised to be nothing less than every journalist's dream: the scoop of the century.

Kishon tried to a.s.semble the few elements he could remember from the phone call. He looked at the note he had scribbled while they had spoken. To his great irritation, he had written down only two words, those that were unfamiliar to him, the name of some Arab trader in East Jerusalem: Afif Aweida. The other details, he had a.s.sumed he would get later when he met up with Guttman. He hadn't so much as jotted them down. Now he had to reconstruct them from memory: stolen antiquities, a clay tablet, Geneva, Mount Moriah. The will of Abraham.

He considered contacting Aweida, but decided against it. If he, Kishon, knew Guttman and his methods, this trader probably had no idea what he had just sold. If he had, the professor certainly wouldn't have been able to afford it. No, a better lead would be Geneva, one of the centres of the global antiquities trade. There was a time when almost everything went through there. The Swiss took the old nemo dat nemo dat doctrine doctrinenemo dat quod non habet, 'you can't give what you don't own'rather literally, believing that if you were selling something, then you had to be its rightful owner. It meant that an object bought in Switzerland was automatically deemed legitimate, no questions asked. It didn't matter how it had got to Switzerland. Once it left there, its provenance was deemed sound. No wonder the Swiss capital had become the laundromat for the world market in the looted treasures of the ancient world. Kishon booked a ticket online and was there by Sunday night.

Most journalists, thought Kishon smugly, would have headed straight for one of the freeports, the heavily-fortified warehouses that acted as salerooms for these ancient goodies. But Kishon knew better. Guttman would not have been interested in selling this tablet. His interest was in its political impact; he had said as much on the phone.

Which could only mean that the professor had planned to come here not to have the item valued, but verified verified. Guttman could not have made a declaration to the world'Here is proof that Abraham bequeathed Jerusalem to the Jews!'unless he was rock-solid certain it was genuine. Too much was at stake to get it wrong. So Kishon had Googled 'cuneiform, Geneva, expert' and, to his delight, come up with a name. Professor Olivier Schultheis.

He would be there in another ten minutes or so. He hadn't bothered calling in advance: no point giving a source a chance to say no. Better to turn up in person, get your foot in the door.

And the delight of these motorways was the smooth ease of the journey. Not like the congestion and fist-waving lunacy of the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. But what was this? A car behind, right on his tail, flashing him repeatedly.

Kishon moved out of his way, shifting into the slower lane on the right. But the driver behind, in a black BMW, changed lanes with him, staying right on his tail. Kishon indicated again, changing once more, this time aiming for the outside, and slowest, lane.

But the BMW was sticking to him, hanging on his tail. Kishon honked the horn, urging the driver to back off. But it had the opposite effect. He felt the BMW make contact with his rear b.u.mper.

Kishon hooted again. Back off Back off. Now the BMW rammed into the back of Kishon's car. He checked the mirror and looked ahead. There was no alternative. If he was to escape this psychopath, he would have to come off the autobahn and take the next turning.

It was a small, mountain road and Kishon had to negotiate the turn and the sudden deceleration. But he managed it. To his relief, he was now on his own on a single-lane, winding country road. He would stay on the little road for a while, then rejoin the highway.

But then he saw it, its black shape filling up his rear-view mirror, its headlights flashing. The BMW was back. Kishon tried to keep calm. Perhaps this car was not a stalker, but some kind of state vehicle, trying to flag him down. Had he done something wrong? Was one of his lights broken? He would pull over.

But there was no hard shoulder, just the crumbling grey rocks at the side of the road before a sheer Alpine drop. He slowed down all the same but the BMW did not seem to get the message.

Kishon honked the horn, a long, sustained blast. The BMW now revved up and rammed into the back of his car, sending Kishon's neck whiplashing forward. He briefly lost his grip on the steering wheel, so that he could hear his tyres crunching over the loose gravel at the road's margin. As he pulled back onto the road, he was rammed again. Then, in a sudden movement, the BMW pulled out to Kishon's side.

He looked to his left, but the windows were solidly tinted. And now he was being rammed from the side, sending his car juddering towards the edge of the road. He could see from his window the clean, vertical drop. Just ahead, the road bent into a hairpin. Kishon knew he would need room to negotiate the turn, but the BMW would neither drop back nor speed forward. He tried to come to a stop, but each time he did, the BMW banged him from the side.

His only hope was to accelerate and break free. As the turn came he tried it, slamming his foot on the gas just as the road bent. But as he was swerving round, much too fast, the BMW shouldered him harder than ever before. It was enough to send Kishon's right wheels over the edge. Desperately he tried steering himself back onto the road, but he could feel the difference: his car was gripping nothing, the wheels turning freely in midair.

He felt the lightness of it, as his car plunged almost gracefully off the mountainside for five, six, maybe seven seconds before hitting the first outcrop of rocks. The impact shattered his spine, and almost severed his head from his neck. When the Swiss highway patrol eventually found the wreck of his car two hours later, they had to search the rest of the night, under floodlights, until they were satisfied they had found every last trace of the flesh and bones of Baruch Kishon.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN.

JERUSALEM, THURSDAY, 1.49 PM PM.

Maggie did her best to conceal what had happened. She strode past the security guards on the hotel door, two young men who asked every guest whether they were carrying a weapon, checking those they suspected, with all the straight-backed purpose she could muster. She had come to know that of all the competing elements of body language, the gait was often the most eloquent. The second-rate negotiators always set great store by the usual macho indicators: iron handshake, unwavering eye contact. But they forgot the first battle had already been won the moment the two sides entered the room. You had to stride in like victors, confident in your case, controlling the s.p.a.ce. If you shuffled in, reluctant to be there, you would spend the rest of the time on the defensive, reacting.

All this knowledge Maggie tried to impart to her aching bones and muscles as she came through the automatic door of the hotel to see Uri, pacing, head down, in the lobby. She wanted him to have no idea what had happened to her in the market. Growing up, she had never understood the girls at her school who had not breathed a word about Father Riordan, despite everything he had done to them. But she understood now.

Fortunately, Uri didn't ask how she was, only what she had found out. She told him about the real Afif Aweida, the trader in looted antiquities who had lived while his fruit-selling cousin had been murdered. As she explained, Uri was smiling a bitter, rueful smile.

'What is it?'

'It's just that this happened before. Not to me. But some colleagues of mine.'

'What happened?'

'A very bad case of mistaken ident.i.ty. It happened during the second Lebanon war, just a few years ago. Israeli special forces s.n.a.t.c.hed the man they thought was the leader of Hizbullah. It was a big coup for Israeli intelligence. Only problem, he was just a Beirut shopkeeper. Same name. Wrong man.'

'You think it was Israeli intelligence who killed Afif Aweida?'

'I'm not saying that. Just that dumb mistakes like that happen. Anyone could have made it.'

They were walking along Shlomzion Ha'Malka Street towards his car. She had wanted to go upstairs to her room, to freshen up, but Uri had been adamant: there was no time. As she got into the pa.s.senger seat, she explained what she believed had happened: that Shimon Guttman had visited Aweida's shop, translated several clay tablets and come across one of profound political significance. Some text that would have a huge impact on the peace process. He had called Baruch Kishon, his long-time political partner, to discuss how they could best publicize his find. And then he had set about getting this information to the Prime Minister.

'For my dad to get so excited, it must have been something that showed the Jews have been here forever. Some fragment in Hebrew going back a million years.'

'Like the Bet Alpha synagogue?'

'Maybe.'

Maggie bit her lip and looked outside, at the pa.s.sing streets. Men in black coats and the trademark wide-brimmed hats, some of them edged in fur, even in this Middle Eastern heat. Women in long, shapeless dresses darting in and out of shops, plastic bags swinging. Uri caught Maggie's gaze.

'The religious. Taking over this place. Anyway, we'll know what it was my father saw soon, I reckon. His lawyer was out of the country until today. He got back this morning and saw this letter waiting for him.'

'Did he say how long it had been there?'

'Apparently my dad dropped it off last Sat.u.r.day. By hand.'

Uri and Maggie looked at each other.

'I know,' said Uri. 'I thought the same thing. Like he knew something was going to happen to him.'

They drove on in silence, Maggie replaying the events of that morning, and of the previous night. If only there was a way to try to make sense of it all. Maybe she should tell Uri what had happened in the market: maybe together they could work out who her attackers were. But she had already revealed so much about herself last night. She was about to say something when Uri reached for the car radio, turning on the noon headlines. Once again he translated each story as it came.

'They're saying that there are fears across the world for the Middle East peace process after both sides admitted they had effectively broken off negotiations. Satellite pictures show Syrian army units mobilizing on the border. The Egyptian military have cancelled all leave. And apparently the President of Iran has said that if Israel refuses this last chance to be accepted in the region, then the region will have to remove Israel once and for all. Cast this cancer out, he said. Washington has said any first use of nuclear weapons against Israel will be punished, er, how do you say that? "In kind"?'

Jesus. Miller and the others were not kidding. The world really was watching; failure in Jerusalem would trigger some geopolitical catastrophe. Then she heard in the stream of Hebrew babble two familiar and unexpected words. 'Uri?' she said. 'What's happened?'

He held up his hand to silence her. Then he paled, the colour visibly leaving his face. Finally he spoke, his voice barely audible.

'They said tributes are coming in for veteran journalist Baruch Kishon, killed in a car accident in Switzerland. Just outside Geneva.'

'Uri. Pull the car over. Now.'

But Uri was stuck in traffic; he couldn't move across. Maggie's mind was racing. Somebody was one step ahead of every move they were making. She and Uri had deciphered the name of Afif Aweida at Kishon's apartment; within hours a man called Afif Aweida was lying in a pool of his own blood in the Jerusalem market. They had been the only people to get into Kishon's home and to have discovered that Kishon had received Guttman's last phone call. And now he too had been hunted down.

It could only mean one thing: they were being followed and their every conversation bugged. That was it. There could be no other explanation.

Uri was hooting at the cars in front, desperately trying to pull over.

Unless.

Where did Uri say he had done his army service? In intelligence. He was the only person who knew all she knew. She had not mentioned Kishon's name to anyone, yet here he was dead, almost certainly murdered.

She had trusted Uri immediately and completely. Maybe she had made a mistake. After all, she had misjudged people before.

She was feeling queasy, her palms clammy with sweat as she looked at him. She thought of the man who had grabbed her that morning, his hand squeezing her there there. She had not been able to see his face or place his voice. The accent was so strange; maybe, she now wondered, it was the sound of someone disguising his voice. Was it possible that Uri had followed her there? Could that man in the mask have been...? She waited for the traffic to bring the car to a halt and, when it did, she swiftly reached for the handle to open the door.

But Uri got there first, using the b.u.t.ton on his side to lock all the doors. She was trapped here; he had her cornered.

He turned to her and in a voice steady and calm said, 'You're not going anywhere.'

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT.

JERUSALEM, THURSDAY, 2.25 PM PM.

'Uri, I want to get out.'

'Maggie, you're not going anywhere.'

'Let me out. NOW!' Maggie only very rarely raised her voice, and she knew the sound of it was shocking. Uri finally pulled over.

'Listen, Maggie. You can't walk out on me now. Just because this is getting frightening.'

'It's you I'm frightened of, Uri.'

'Me? Are you crazy?'

'Whenever we've found a name, that person has ended up dead. First Aweida, now Kishon. And I know I I didn't kill them.' didn't kill them.'

'So you think it was me?'

'Well, you're the only one who knew what I knew.'

Uri was shaking his head in disbelief, staring down at his lap, the car engine still running. 'This is insane, Maggie. How could I have run a guy off a road in Switzerland, when I was here?'

'You could have told someone.'

'I didn't know he was in Switzerland!' He tried to collect himself. 'Look, I just want to find out what happened to my parents. Someone killed my mother, Maggie. I'm sure of it. And I want to know who it was. That's all.'

She felt the anxiety recede, as if the blood in her veins was subsiding. 'But you could be pa.s.sing on what you know to Israeli intelligence.'

'Why would I do that? It was Israeli security who shot my father, remember. They may even be the people behind all this. So why would I help them?'

It was true. It didn't make much sense: a secret agent who loses both his parents, just to maintain his cover. She had allowed herself to panic.

'OK. I believe you. Now unlock the doors.'

He clicked them open and waited for her to get out. When he saw that she wasn't moving, he spoke. 'I only locked them because I need you, Maggie. I can't do this alone.' He held the silence a moment longer. 'I don't want you to go.' She held his gaze until she saw in his eyes what she had seen there last night. The same warmth, the same spark. She wanted to dive into that look, to stay inside it. Instead she turned away, nodding, as if to signal that it was time for him to drive on.

He had driven about a hundred yards when, in a sudden movement, he reached for the volume k.n.o.b on the radio and cranked it up loud. Then he re-tuned until he had found some pounding rap music. The car seemed to be shaking.

Maggie, her head hurting from the noise, reached for the same k.n.o.b and turned it down, only for Uri to reach back and turn it even louder, his hand lingering there to block any attempt she might make to reverse his decision. 'What the h.e.l.l are you doing?' she shouted.

Uri looked back at her, his eyes wide as if he had made an important realization. Bugs Bugs, he mouthed silently. The car could be bugged The car could be bugged.

Of course. Security had always been a key factor in past mediation efforts and she had, in her time, taken some extreme precautions, once briefing a Foreign Minister in a hotel bathroom while the water was running. But that was when she was dealing with negotiations. This, she had a.s.sumed, was different. Her panic over Uri and now this. She suddenly felt very stupid: her year out, nursemaiding warring couples, had left her rustier than she realized.

He was right, they needed to a.s.sume they were being bugged. When they reached a traffic light, Uri leaned across to her, so that he could whisper into her ear without his voice being picked up. 'The computers, too.' She could feel the words as much as she could hear them, Uri's breath caressing her ear. She could smell his neck. 'They will have seen whatever we saw. From now on, talk just like normal.'

He turned the music back down. 'You don't like it? Rap's very big in Israel right now.'

Maggie was too thrown to play-act. If their session on Shimon Guttman's home computer had been monitored, then whoever was doing the monitoring would know all they knewincluding the truth about Ahmed Nour. And now, this morning, something had got them rattled; rattled enough to want to scare her away. By seeing Aweida, she was getting too close for their comfort.

Uri pulled over. Once they were out of the car, she began speaking immediately, only for Uri to shake his head and put his finger across his lips. Hush Hush.

'Yeah, there's a really thriving music scene here now,' he said, still in fake chat mode. 'Mainly in Tel Aviv of course.' He made a beckoning gesture with his hand, urging her to follow his lead.

Maggie stared at him. He was stubbled from several days without a shave, his hair loose and unkempt, the curls tumbling around his face; and now she couldn't think of a single thing to say, about music, or anything else. Instead, she gave him a look of near-complete bafflement.

He leaned in to her ear. 'Our clothes too,' he whispered. Reflexively, she patted her pockets, feeling for a tiny microphone. He smiled, as if to say, 'There's no point, you'll never find it.'

They were walking towards what looked like an apartment building, not the law office she was expecting. Were they calling on the Guttman family lawyer at home?

Uri pressed the buzzer by the main entrance. 'Hi, Orli?'

Maggie heard a woman's voice crackle through the intercom. 'Mi zeh?'

'Uri. Ani lo levad Ani lo levad.' I'm not alone.

The door buzzed open and after two flights they came to an apartment door that was already open. Framed in the doorway, looking bewildered, was a woman Maggie decided was at least five years younger than herand unnervingly beautiful. With long dark hair that fell in easy curls, wide brown eyes and a slim figure that even loose, faded jeans could not conceal, Maggie found herself hoping this was Uri's sisterbut fearing it was his girlfriend.

Instantly, the pair embraced, a long, closed-eyes hug that made Maggie want to disappear. Were they family? Was this woman consoling Uri on his double loss? A moment later, they were inside, Maggie still standing apart, unintroduced.

Without needing direction, or asking permission, Uri made for the stereo, putting on a CD and turning up the volume. Over Radiohead, he began explaining to Orli what had happened and what he suspected. Then, to Maggie's surprise, he pointed towards what she a.s.sumed was the bedroom, urging her to follow him. Now the three of them were in there. Still whispering over the music, Uri introduced the two women to each other, each offering an embarra.s.sed nod and polite half-smile. Then he turned to Maggie and explained in an even lower voice that, first, Orli was an ex-girlfriend and, second, Maggie needed to get undressed.

Then in a louder, more deliberately normal voice, he continued: 'Orli trained as a designer in London. I thought maybe you'd like to take a look at some of her latest clothes.' He made a listening gesture, cupping his ear with his hand, then started pointing. The bug could be anywhere: shirt, shoes, trousers, anywhere.

Next, Uri opened up a cupboard and began to pull out men's clothes. Were those his, still stored here, despite his insistence that the gorgeous Orli was an ex? Or did they belong to Orli's new boyfriend?

She couldn't stare for long because Orli was now standing Maggie before her own closet, a.s.sessing her up and down with the brutality women reserve only for each other. As it happened, while Maggie might not have Orli's skinny arms, they weren't too far apart: she would be able to fit most of the clothes on the rail.