The Moses Legacy

by Adam Palmer

  They couldn’t help but exchange a smile at that one.

  ‘What about Israeli law?’ Daniel asked with some trepidation. ‘Are we in any trouble over our somewhat unorthodox method of entry?’

  ‘Under ordinary circumstances you would be. But I have some discretion in this matter and we have no intention of prosecuting you… or deporting you.’

  In the silence that followed, Daniel realized that Shamir was being helpful and he decided to reciprocate. ‘There was another matter… I mean, it may very well be related.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Daniel explained about his brief return trip to England with Gabrielle and the murder of Harrison Carmichael. Shamir smiled as he spoke, as if he were way ahead of Daniel.

  ‘And you think that the murderer may have been the same person who locked you in the tomb?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  Shamir waited a moment before speaking. ‘I can tell you that the man who locked you in is the same man who killed Harrison Carmichael. But that is all I can tell you.’

  Daniel leaned forward keenly. ‘Who is he?’

  Shamir’s smile disappeared. ‘What part of “that is all I can tell you” didn’t you understand?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Daniel, realizing that he was lucky that Shamir had told him anything at all. ‘But there’s more to it than that. Technically I’m still a suspect in the murder of Harrison… and because I jumped bail, there’s now a warrant out for my arrest.’

  ‘I understand. But perhaps it’s better if you leave it to the professionals. We’ll liaise with the British authorities and make them aware of your innocence. But leave us to deal with the man who killed your mentor. We’re a lot better placed to catch him than you are.’

  Daniel realized from these words that the man who had killed Harrison – the man who had locked him and Gaby in the tomb – was still out there. But he wanted to know where he stood.

  ‘So about that problem with the Egyptian authorities… I was thinking, not so much about myself… but Gaby… Professor Gusack… is an Egyptologist. It’s her career… her profession…’

  Shamir held up his hand to stop Daniel. ‘Leave it with me. We’ll work something out. In the meantime, you’ll both be given three-month tourist visas to stay here. And you’re welcome to use that time to pursue your research here.’

  ‘Thank you. Oh, there is something else that you might be able to help me with. I was wondering if you could get me an introduction to the high priest of the Samaritans.’

  Shamir thought for a moment. ‘I may be able to go one better than that. I can try and wangle you an invitation to the Samaritan Passover celebrations.’

  Daniel was confused. ‘But the seider was three weeks ago.’

  ‘It’s at a different time to the Jewish seider this year, because of different leap years. The Samaritan seider is on the twenty-eighth.’

  That was in nine days’ time. ‘And you can get me an invitation? For me and Gaby?’

  ‘I have proteksia,’ said Dov with a smile, using the Israeli slang for connections with people on the inside.

  Chapter 70

  Back in his cheap hotel room, Goliath was thinking.

  Although Na’if had got away, Goliath did not feel the same sensation of failure that had haunted him these past few weeks. Instead, he felt engulfed in a strange feeling of satisfaction, bordering on elation. He had found out that they had gone to Taba and that Daniel didn’t have his mobile phone any more. That meant that he probably wouldn’t retrieve the message Goliath had left for him.

  But why had he gone to Taba? There were surely no antiquities there? It was largely a tourist resort like Sharm el-Sheikh. And the Egyptian authorities were after them. Surely they wouldn’t just decide to hang out in a tourist resort?

  But there were cheap hotels there, as well as expensive ones. And it was relatively out of the way. Maybe they were planning on hiding out there till the heat died down. Suddenly Goliath had another idea.

  He switched on the television and surfed the channels looking for the news, in the hope of hearing anything about the wanted Englishman and Austrian woman. Eventually his eye caught a scrolling text at the bottom of the screen that read: Shots fired in high-speed boat chase between Egypt and Israel. Realizing that this might be to do with Daniel, he switched on his smartphone and logged on to the Internet in search of more news.

  A few keywords later, he had the report in front of him: the incident at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Taba, the motorboat chase, the shots… Israel.

  That made perfect sense. He had been half-expecting something like that when Na’if told him they had gone to Taba. It was close to the Israeli border. Where else would they be going?

  But where in Israel? There was no point going there unless he could find that out.

  Then he had an idea.

  Chapter 71

  ‘So what did he tell you?’ Daniel asked Gabrielle.

  ‘Nothing. The flow of information was strictly one-way.’

  After their debriefing in Herzliya, Daniel and Gabrielle had taken a taxi to Jerusalem. It had been a strange experience getting there. At eleven o’clock, as the taxi was steadily ascending the long and winding road to the city, a siren had sounded. Not a rising and falling siren to warn of an enemy attack, but a flat siren, like the all-clear at the end of an air raid. But in Israel on this day it heralded neither the beginning of an attack nor end of one, but rather the recollection of many battles and their tragic consequences.

  When the driver stopped the taxi and stood by the roadside, Daniel followed suit and Gabrielle did likewise. Afterwards, when they got back into the taxi, Daniel explained that it was Remembrance Day and the siren heralded the two-minute silence to honour the war dead, something that Israelis took very seriously.

  They had booked into the Leonardo Plaza Hotel, in the centre of town – having to share a room because the hotels were packed for the forthcoming Independence Day celebrations. The hotel stood on the edge of Independence Park and their luxury suite near the top of the tall building had a panoramic view of the whole city. At Daniel’s suggestion, they had decided to forgo lunch at the prestigious Cow on the Roof for the ‘best little diner in Jerusalem’.

  ‘Far be it from me to endorse any of the age-old stereotypes about women, but I refuse to believe that you didn’t pump him for information.’

  Gabrielle smiled wickedly. ‘Oh, I pumped like a milkmaid. But the udders were dry.’

  They were in Pinati, a tiny but packed little diner on the corner of a main road and a side street in the centre of Jerusalem. Clashing elbows at the Formica table they shared with three blue-collar workers, they were tucking into stuffed peppers, moussaka and meatballs with rice and beans, accompanied by pickled cucumbers, onions and chilli peppers. This was after a starter consisting of the best humous they had ever tasted.

  ‘You don’t come to Pinati for the décor or the ambience, let alone the comfort,’ Daniel had explained. ‘You come here for the food.’

  And he was right. That’s why they had stood outside in a long queue in a city that appeared to be bustling more than usual, with people scurrying to the souk to buy pita bread, meat, bags of charcoal and disposable barbecues.

  ‘For tomorrow,’ their taxi driver had explained cryptically.

  ‘You didn’t get anything out of him?’

  ‘All I got was what he told you,’ Gabrielle replied defensively. ‘They know who locked us in the tomb but won’t say who,’ Daniel confirmed.

  ‘Did he tell you that the man who locked us in was the man who killed Uncle Harrison?’ Gabrielle asked.

  ‘Yes. But he didn’t say who it was.’

  ‘I guess that means he doesn’t want us interfering.’

  ‘Maybe he’s right, Gaby. Maybe we should leave it to the pros.’

  ‘So why is the city so busy today?’ she asked.

  ‘Like they told us at the hotel: Independence Day. Actually the celebrations star
t this evening, because in Israel festive occasions start the night before, running from sunset to sunset. But tomorrow there’ll be about a million barbecues. That’s the way they celebrate Independence Day over here. So everyone’s getting ready for that.’

  That evening, Gabrielle decided to sample the true Israeli experience of Independence Day, venturing out into the jam-packed streets and dragging Daniel in tow. Caught in the crush of thousands of happy Israelis, they edged their way along slowly amidst the throngs of mostly young people. Once in a while they emerged into free space, where the people – natives and immigrants – danced and sang to the strains of amplified live bands that filled the air with both modern and traditional songs about Israel. Songs of victory and songs of peace… an eclectic mixture of nationalism and optimism.

  ‘What’s with the plastic hammers?’ Gabrielle had to shout to be heard above the noise of the crowds. She had just been hit over the head for the umpteenth time by a plastic hammer wielded by a child of about four or five, who was seated atop his father’s shoulders. It was painless and the father of the child seemed to find it amusing too, even when he in turn was hit by a teenager’s plastic mallet in a well-timed counter-strike.

  ‘It’s an old-new tradition,’ Daniel replied cryptically.

  ‘Isn’t that a bit of an oxymoron?’

  ‘It goes back to a merchant who bought them for another celebration. He overestimated the demand and had a few thousand left over, so he sold them off cheaply for Independence Day. That was a few decades ago and it’s been an Israeli tradition ever since.’

  ‘I guess I’ll get used to it eventually,’ said Gabrielle as she succumbed to another couple of sneak attacks. Daniel didn’t seem to mind or even notice it when he was the target. But the children – and adolescents and adults – seemed to get a perverse pleasure in landing one on Gabrielle’s head, as if her height made her an especially distinguished target.

  ‘I’m glad we had a big lunch,’ said Gabrielle.

  She had a point. Food rather than drink was normally the Israelis’ preferred method of celebration. But today there was no one available to serve food.

  ‘What the—’

  Gabrielle had just been sprayed with foam by a teenage youth with a cheeky grin on his face. He was clearly being egged on by two of his friends who flanked him and laughed at his antics before moving on to a new target.

  ‘Is that also an Israeli tradition?’

  ‘A more recent one,’ said Daniel. ‘Albeit a rather annoying one. I think they imported it from Tel Aviv. I thought Jerusalemites had more class though.’

  ‘I guess when you live in a country that has so many wars, it’s nice to have one day a year when you can let your hair down.’

  Daniel noticed for the first time in the last three weeks that Gabrielle was having a good time. In Egypt, even before the incident in the tomb, she had seemed uptight and tense. Now, for the first time in ages, she seemed to be full of the joie de vivre that he hadn’t seen in her since she was a teenager.

  By two in the morning, fortified by a bottle of Arak that they had managed to obtain in their downtown adventures, Gabrielle had learnt the hora – Israel’s national dance – and half a dozen Israeli folk songs, or at least the chorus thereof. Her favourite, judging by her constant repetition of it, seemed to be ‘Od loh Ahavti Dai’ – ‘I Haven’t Loved Enough’ – an up-tempo song in which the singer laments that they haven’t done enough in life, listing all their unachieved ambitions from finding water in the desert to writing their memoirs and building their dream house. But most importantly, not having loved enough.

  Daniel realized she was drunk and decided to get her back to the hotel before she embarrassed herself. He had to half-prop, half-carry her to the bedroom as she flirted with everyone from the security man on the door to the night porter. Undressing her on the king-size bed was relatively easy, but he had to remind himself to keep his intentions honourable – or at least his actions.

  But when he was undressed himself, she seemed to undergo a revival. ‘Come over and kiss me, Danny.’

  ‘You’re tired.’

  ‘No I’m not. I’m just drunk.’

  ‘Well I’m tired.’ He realized that he was drunk too, having consumed a fair amount of Arak himself. ‘Goodnight, Gaby.’

  He lay down on top of the bed – it was too hot for the covers.

  ‘Now that you’ve called me Gaby, you’ve got to make love to me.’

  ‘Goodnight, Professor Gusack,’ he said, making his honourable intentions clear.

  ‘If you don’t make love to me, I’ll have to force you,’ she said. And without waiting for his reply, she rolled over on top of him and tried to hold him down with a schoolgirl pin.

  It looks like we’re going to have that wrestling match after all, he thought, putting up a token show of resistance.

  Chapter 72

  ‘So we still haven’t got a fix on Goliath,’ said Sarit.

  She and Dov were in the Mossad’s headquarters in Herzliya where Sarit had been debriefed over the events in Egypt and had spent the last week liaising with the Israeli embassy in Egypt to determine the fate of Goliath. They had monitored the press and sent operatives to engage nurses at local hospitals in casual conversations in an effort to extract information. But because of the recent cooling off of relations with Egypt, they had to keep a low profile.

  ‘We managed to trace him to a hospital in Cairo. But by the time we got there, he’d already discharged himself.’

  ‘It feels so silly calling him Goliath. Don’t we know his real name?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. Even Audrey Milne doesn’t know it. She thinks that the only person who does is Senator Morris and he’s keeping his cards close to his chest.’

  ‘You said they operate in cell structure, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right, like all good subversive organizations. Arthur Morris’s cell comprises Morris, Milne and Paul Tomlinson, aka “the professor”.’

  ‘Plus Goliath.’

  ‘Goliath is more Morris’s private asset, essentially his attack dog.’

  ‘But technically part of the cell.’

  ‘Yes, but if we didn’t know about them already, the only one he could implicate is Morris.’

  ‘And presumably the others also have their own assets whose identities they don’t give away.’

  ‘Exactly. Any member of a cell can have a private asset, known only to him. And an asset of one cell member can be the head of his own cell. If his recruiter wants something done, he may call on his asset and the asset in turn is able to call on other members of his cell who are unknown to the recruiter who owns the asset.’

  ‘So Senator Morris may be an asset of someone in another cell who can call on him to get the kind of results that he specializes in. Morris would either do what he’s asked to do or tell them that he can’t do it.’

  ‘Exactly. And by the same token, Goliath could have his own cell to help him implement the senator’s wishes. Although I suspect not.’

  ‘So is it possible that Carmichael was one of Professor Tomlinson’s assets?’

  Dov gave this a moment’s thought. ‘It’s unlikely. If it were the case, then the professor wouldn’t have been so anxious to kill him.’

  ‘Why not? Maybe they saw him as trouble.’

  ‘Well, it was apparently Carmichael’s research that alerted them to the possibility of using the plague against us.’

  ‘But doesn’t that prove my point?’

  ‘Not really. You see, Carmichael didn’t set out to work against us. He just made them aware of the fact that the plague could be revived in certain circumstances. He was a senile old man whose occasional lapses into lucidity gave them a heads-up on a plausible strategy to advance their nefarious agenda.’

  ‘And it was those same lapses into lucidity that made him a threat to them. In short, he knew too much for his own good.’

  ‘Exactly. They got some useful info from a paper that he had wr
itten and was trying to get published. But at any time he might have realized that he was being played for a sucker and start rocking the boat.’

  ‘And so they got Goliath to kill him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And they also tried to kill Gusack, Klein and Mansoor.’

  ‘And damn nearly succeeded. But I think we can rule out Mansoor as the main target. It was Klein and Gusack they wanted to silence.’

  ‘And now we’re giving them shelter.’

  ‘Well, there’s no reason not to.’

  ‘So we’re not worried about all that stuff about Joseph and Moses.’

  ‘Why should we be? There’s nothing new in it. The theories have been around for ages, and as you said, we can’t bump them off just for challenging the Bible.’

  ‘Okay, but what about the plague? Any danger that they brought it with them on their clothes?’

  ‘They arrived in swimsuits that they had just bought in Taba. And before we picked them up, they’d already taken a plunge in the Gulf of Eilat.’

  ‘So they were in water?’ she asked, nervously.

  ‘Saltwater. Trust me on this, Sarit: the worst they can manage is to ruffle the feathers of a few religious fundamentalists. They’re not going to bring the walls of Jericho tumbling down.’

  Chapter 73

  Participating in the open-air Samaritan Passover celebrations on Mount Gerizim was a rare privilege. Ordinary members of the public were not allowed into the fenced-off area – for logistical and security reasons – although several thousand came to witness the event from every vantage point they could find. Apart from the seven-hundred-strong Samaritan community and the police and soldiers on security duty, the only people who were allowed in were invited guests – the media, politicians from both Israel and the Palestinian Authority and people with the right connections.

  So Daniel and Gabrielle could consider themselves highly honoured just to be there.