The Boudicca Parchments (Daniel Klein adventures)

by Adam Palmer

  “Anyone home?”

  No answer.

  He pushed the door gingerly with his hand. It swung open slowly and then, even slower still, started to close again. That could have just been the way it was hung on its hinges. At any rate, he stopped it with his hand and stepped across the threshold. As he entered, he turned his head to survey the contents.

  He saw nothing untoward. The place was almost completely empty, save for an old dark wooden chest that seemed like some aging relic to remind people that that house had once been occupied. It was then that Daniel noticed a pair of feet protruding from beyond the wooden chest.

  He well knew the old classic film noir scenario in which the innocent man stumbles on the corpse only to be accused of murder. The natural reaction was to run. But he was an adult and he had to keep his thought processes within the realm of a man’s estate. The feet might be attached to a dead body, but it could equally have been something innocent, like a tramp taking refuge in an abandoned house and oversleeping after a heavy night’s boozing. He had to know, before he did anything rash. So he took a couple of steps towards the chest and what lay partially obscured behind it.

  But as he was about to take his third step, something arrested his movement. For in that instant he became aware of an unpleasant smell. Not a rotting or decaying corpse. But still a strong pungent smell.

  It was the smell of petrol.

  And before he could process the information any further, there was a sound from outside and movement in his peripheral vision as a burning object seemed to fly overhead. It landed near him and there was a loud, deep roar of air, as the house went up in flames. He made a dash for the door, but tripped and as he tried to get up, he started coughing and choking from the smoke and fumes.

  He was amazed at how quickly the effect took hold of him. But this wasn’t just a fire: it was a fire started deliberately and aided by an accelerant. Though his mind was sharp enough to understand this, his body – wracked by the smoke-induced choking spasm in his throat – lacked the resilience to do anything about it. He could hardly keep his eyes open and his head was spinning as the blackness descended upon him.

  Chapter 9

  In a windowless room at the Mossad’s headquarters in the coastal town of Herzliya, a beep alerted David (“Dovi”) Shamir to the fact that a message had just arrived. Dovi, in his late thirties, was a man of southern Mediterranean appearance. His mother had been Iraqi and his father of German-Polish extraction. They had met in the army during the Six-Day War, when Dovi’s father had served in the unit that liberated the eastern areas of Jerusalem, including the Old City, from which Jews and Israelis had been excluded for the previous nineteen years.

  Formerly a field operative in the Kidon department of the Mossad, Dovi was now a desk officer. Kidon specialized in assassinations, working in small teams. But Dovi’s preference for flexibility led to him being re-assigned to work as a single operative. Successful at first, he was compromised in an anti-terrorist operation in which he successfully executed a terrorist who was planning a major operation in London. The execution itself was implemented flawlessly and the terrorists’ plan to blow up the sunken wreck of a second world war munitions ship was thwarted. But Dovi’s face was captured on the terrorist’s webcam and he was now known to the enemy.

  He had considered cosmetic surgery to alter his appearance – as the infamous terrorist Leila Khaled had done after she hijacked a TWA plane – so that she could resume her terrorist activities. In her case it had worked. She subsequently managed to board and initiate a hijacking of an El AL plane. But her efforts were thwarted by the bravery of the pilot – who refused to capitulate – and by El Al Security, who killed her terrorist partner and took Khaled alive, only to see her released by British Prime Minister Edward Heath as a collaborationist goodwill gesture towards the terrorists.

  In the end, Shamir decided that cosmetic surgery could not be relied upon, so he retired to the back office. But he secretly missed the cut and thrust of field work.

  He clicked on the eMail, keyed in his decryption key and saw the unencrypted eMail seconds later on the screen.

  Intercept transcript – 5 August, 2012 – 1:30 IST

  Call initiator(s): “Sam Morgan” (self-identified, see below) [no file or details]

  Initiator locus: Ashford, Herts, Great Britain

  Initiator phone: Cell phone +44 7535 330 560

  Call respondent(s): Shalom Tikva (AKA “HaTzadik”) [on file]

  Respondent locus: Me’ah She’arim, Jerusalem

  Respondent phone: +972 2 681 3660

  Reason(s): 1) Respondent on SHaBaK watch list for monitoring.

  2) Conversation references subject (“Daniel Klein”) on watch list of Dovi Shamir.

  FULL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:

  SHALOM TIKVA: Hallo.

  SAM MORGAN: It’s Morgan [PAUSE] Sam Morgan.

  SHALOM TIKVA: I know. Why are you calling me at this time?

  SAM MORGAN: We’ve got a problem. I’m at the dig site. One of the digging team found a scroll.

  SHALOM TIKVA: Why did you wait till this unearthly hour to call me?

  SAM MORGAN: Because he only just found it.

  SHALOM TIKVA: What, now? What time is it there?

  SAM MORGAN: Nearly midnight. He was digging after hours. I think he wasn’t part of the official team. But I know him. He’s a sleazy little man called Martin Costa.

  SHALOM TIKVA: And where is he now?

  SAM MORGAN: I’ve dealt with him.

  SHALOM TIKVA: How?

  SAM MORGAN: Permanently.

  SHALOM TIKVA: Then why did you call me?

  SAM MORGAN: Because he took a picture of it with his mobile phone and sent it to some one else?

  SHALOM TIKVA: Do we know who?

  [PAUSE]

  SAM MORGAN: Yes. A man called Daniel Klein.

  SHALOM TIKVA: And who is this Daniel Klein?

  SAM MORGAN: He’s a professor or Semitic languages at University College London.

  SHALOM TIKVA: And you think he’ll be able to interpret the scroll?

  SAM MORGAN: The image was too blurred. He probably won’t be able to read the writing.

  SHALOM TIKVA: Then I return to my earlier question. Why did you call?

  SAM MORGAN: Because if he can read even part of it, then it’ll arouse his curiosity and he might start snooping around.

  SHALOM TIKVA: Well then I suggest you deal with this Mr. Klein.

  Call ended by SHALOM TIKVA.

  Encrypted audio recording attached.

  He had no need listen to the recording. It was all clear. The reason that it had been passed up the chain of command to Dovi was because he held a watching brief for Daniel Klein. Klein was not an intelligence man but an academic who had foiled a major terrorist attack against Israel that he had stumbled into while doing research on old Egyptian manuscripts in pre-Biblical Hebrew written in so-called “proto-Sinaitic” script. Initially resentful of this clumsy private citizen, bumbling his way through matters of state security, Shamir had come to admire Klein, when his academic competitiveness and curiosity had culminated in his crossing swords with some deadly enemies of the Jewish people – and winning.

  Dovi had grudgingly respected Daniel from then on, but feared that those whose nefarious aims Daniel had thwarted, might come after him for revenge. So he had put Daniel on a watch list for the Urim monitoring station, although he had not gone as far as to tap Klein’s own phone.

  But this transcript was three days old.

  He understood why. It had taken time to filter up through the inter-service bureaucracy. But what did it mean “deal with” Mr. Klein. This Sam Morgan had said that he had already dealt with Martin Costa “permanently.” Did that mean he was going to do the same with Daniel Klein?

  Not if Dovi Shamir had anything to do with it.

  He could institute all sorts of processes in motion to protect Daniel Klein, including offering him refuge in Israel. But the first thing to
do was call him and warn him.

  Dovi reached for the phone and called Daniel’s number. He heard the ringing tone but there was no answer.

  Chapter 10

  Through the haze of his semi-conscious state, Daniel could hear his mobile phone ringing. It was in his pocket. If he could only get it out, he could ask whoever was calling him to get help. But strength eluded him.

  No! he thought. Now is not the time to give up! You have responsibilities! You have people who love you!

  He rolled over onto his back, so that reaching into his pocket would be easier, and forced himself to reach into his pocket and take out the phone. But as he did so, he heard a series of loud, staccato cracking sounds and saw movement above him. In that instant, he knew that the remnant of the ceiling was about to collapse.

  No! his mind screamed.

  In that moment, he rallied his resources, rolled round, leapt to his feet and made a dive for the door, dropping his phone in the process. The door opened inward, and when he pulled it at first, he knocked it with his foot, almost closing it again. But he managed to open it the second time and staggered out, just as the ceiling beam collapsed on where he had once been.

  He was out in the open, but he could see very little. The path by the house was shaded, making the ambient light dim, and his eyes were watering from the smoke. In the distance he heard sirens in several different tones. Police? Fire Brigade? Probably both.

  But as they drew closer, he found that he could no longer hold out in the fight for consciousness.

  Chapter 11

  “Do you have any aisle seats left?”

  “We have one, but it’s right at the back.”

  “That’ll do.”

  The girl at the checkin pecked away at the keyboard, printed out the luggage tag, fixed it to the suitcase and then gave the man back his passport along with his boarding pass.

  “That’s 60C, boarding at Gate 37 starts at 21:50.”

  And with that he picked up his carry-on bag and the documents and walked off.

  He didn’t know why, but he was always nervous when he went through security at Heathrow Airport. It was there for his own protection, but he always felt like a criminal when he went through it. Then again, when he thought about it more carefully, he was a criminal and so it was only natural that he should feel self-conscious in the face of all that scrutiny.

  He wondered how thoroughly they would check his hand luggage. He didn’t want to let the parchment out of his sight. But in some ways taking it in his hand luggage was more risky, as hand luggage is subjected to even greater security checks. Still, he was sure that neither the parchment, nor the hard cardboard tube he had put in, would show up as anything suspicious in the x-ray.

  Nevertheless, he smiled with relief when he got through to the other side without anyone saying anything. He put on his belt and shoes and put his wallet and mobile phone back in his pocket. He realized that he had plenty of time for duty-free shopping. But he knew he wouldn’t do any. Duty free was a rip-off. You could get cheaper goods at any discount store.

  He decided to phone HaTzadik.

  “Hi, it’s Sam Morgan.”

  “And?”

  “I just want you to know… I’m at the airport.”

  “Lod?”

  “Heathrow.”

  “Why are you calling?”

  Shalom Tikva sounded impatient.

  “I just wanted to let you know.”

  “Call me when you land.”

  The line went silent.

  Chapter 12

  The first thing that he noticed was sound. His auditory sense was responding. There were people around, talking. There was movement… human activity.

  He opened his eyes and saw the ceiling. It was just a plain, bland ceiling in a pale colour. But the room was too bright. He closed his eyes again and almost drifted back to sleep. Something stopped him… pain… not localized pain, but pain all over his body. It was more intense in his stomach than elsewhere. But then he realized that it wasn’t his stomach: it was his lungs. It hurt him to breathe.

  He tried to remember who he was and where he was. He remembered a fire… being trapped… escaping. He remembered an SMS… a picture… his irritation towards the man who had sent it… Martin Costa.

  Was that what it had been? A trap? Martin Costa that conman and thief and out-and-out scoundrel had lured him into a trap. But why? To kill him? It made no sense. He had clashed with Costa a few times before, but never in way so extreme or severe that Costa would have any reason to kill him.

  Through the haze of confusion he remembered what Costa had sent him: a picture of a manuscript in post-Biblical Hebraic script. But it wasn’t in Hebraic script. That is, when he recalled the image, it didn’t look like the Hebrew alphabet. It didn’t look like anything. It was all too blurred and unclear.

  Why then did he think that it was in Hebrew, or at least Hebraic script?

  Because of Costa’s words.

  “Why would a Romano-British site have a Hebrew manuscript?”

  Why indeed?

  It was those words that made him think it was in Hebrew – nothing in the text itself. And as he remembered it now, he had speculated that it might be Aramaic or some old less known Semitic dialect.

  He opened his eyes again and forced them to stay open, despite the light.

  Where am I?

  He looked around in one direction and realized that he was in a hospital. But there was no one else about. He was in a private room. He wanted to curl up in the foetal position against the stomach cramps that he was feeling. But when he tried to turn onto his right side, he couldn’t. Something was holding his left arm by the wrist, restricting his movement.

  He rolled onto his left side instead and saw what was restricting his movement. His left wrist was handcuffed to the bed.

  But why?

  He wrenched at the handcuff, but to no avail.

  What the hell was going on?

  He needed to talk to some one… a doctor… a nurse…

  “Nurse! Some one!”

  The door opened and two men walked in. But they were neither doctors nor nurses. The tall one, in a dark blue uniform, was aged about thirty. The other, slightly shorter and in plainclothes, looked in his mid to late forties, a few years older than Daniel. But there was no mistaking the fact that they were both policemen.

  “What’s going on here?” asked Daniel.

  It wasn’t the presence of police officers that he was asking about. His recollection of the fire and the protruding feet, made that all too reasonable and something to be expected. It was the handcuff on his left wrist.

  The man in plain clothes flashed his warrant card at Daniel.

  “Chief Inspector Vincent.”

  “Sergeant Connor,” said the other, relying on his uniform for identification. “And you, Mister Klein, have some explaining to do.”

  Chapter 13

  Sam Morgan was still feeling the annoyance and frustration as he sat in the taxi to Jerusalem. The immigration staff at Ben Gurion Airport in Lod, Israel had been particularly obnoxious in the way they questioned him – treating him almost as if he were a criminal. At one point he was worried that they were going to get his suitcase from baggage and search it. That thought alone frightened the hell out of him. It would have been disastrous if they had found the parchment scroll.

  How would he explain it to HaTzadik?

  At some point he noticed that other passengers were getting similarly harsh treatment and some were even being escorted – or rather dragged – away from the area and not being allowed to enter the country.

  It was only in the baggage area, when he asked another passenger about the incident, that it was explained to him that some protestors were trying to “infiltrate” the country to stage protests with Palestinian and “left wing” groups. With that reassurance, he had no qualms about scooping up his bag when it came round the carousel and marching confidently through the Green Channel at Customs. />
  But he was still fuming. Just because a few protestors were trying to enter the country was no reason to treat all foreign visitors as if they were criminals. Worse still, he couldn’t escape the feeling that it was only the non-Jewish passengers who were being subjected to the third degree.

  He felt like talking about it to the taxi driver, but feared that this would merely flag him up as another “trouble maker.” So instead he sat in stony silence and soaked up the view of the buildings of the coastal plain, the fields and then finally the mountain road as it snaked its way upward towards Jerusalem.

  It seemed like barely an hour after he left the airport, that he arrived at the David’s Citadel Hotel, a modern, luxury hotel adjacent to the newly developed Mamilla District. He head read about this area before he came – all part of his tendency to over-research and check things out. Looking around his environs now, he would not have been able to guess that the area had degenerated into a slum in the fifties and sixties, when it sat on the border of the no-man’s-land that separated Israel from Jordanian-occupied eastern Jerusalem.