Sam Bourne - The Last Testament

Uri approached gingerly, thinking, Maggie assumed, the same thoughts. He got closer, until he could lean over the desk within touching distance of the body. His hand hovered, unsure where to test first. Lightly, it came to rest on the neck, Uri pairing index and middle fingers to find a pulse. A second after he had pressed his fingers in, he leapt back, as if recoiling from an electric charge. At the same instant the body stirred, until both Uri and David Rosen were bolt upright, each as shocked as the other.

‘Jesus Christ, Uri, what the hell are you doing here?’ Silver-haired with large, unfashionable glasses, Rosen was thin, with spidery arms and legs. His arms, exposed by his short-sleeved shirt, were blotchy with liver spots. As he collected himself, Maggie could see faint red lines etched down one side of his face, the creases of a man who had fallen asleep on a hard surface. In this case, his desk.

‘You asked me to come here!’

‘What are you talking about?’ Maggie could see Rosen was looking for his glasses, even though he was wearing them. Also, bafflingly, he was speaking in English, with what seemed to be a trace of an English accent. ‘Oh yes, so I did. But wasn’t that yesterday?’

‘It was today. You just fell asleep.’

‘Ah yes. Arrived in from London this morning. Overnight flight. I’m exhausted. I must have fallen asleep.’

Uri turned to Maggie, rolling his eyes upward. And our fate is in the hands of this guy?

‘Yes, Mr Rosen. You called me. Said there had been a letter from my father.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ He began patting his desk, touching the multiple wobbling piles of paper. ‘He delivered it by hand it seems, last week.’ Suddenly he stopped and pulled himself up to his full height. ‘Uri, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. Please, come here.’ Uri approached and lowered himself, like an adolescent boy receiving a kiss from a tiny grandmother. Rosen hugged him, muttering what seemed like a prayer. Then, in English: ‘I wish you and your sister long life. A long life, Uri.’

Maggie gave Uri a stare.

‘Oh, yes. Mr Rosen, this is Maggie Costello. From the American Embassy. She’s helping me a bit.’ Maggie knew what Uri was trying on here.

‘What do you mean, the American Embassy?’

It hadn’t worked.

‘She’s a diplomat. Here for the talks.’

‘I see. But why exactly is Miss Costello helping you?’

He may be old and half-asleep, thought Maggie, but he’s not stupid.

Uri did his best to explain, giving away as few specifics as he could manage. His mother had trusted this woman, he said, and, now, so did he. She was helping solve a problem that seemed to be expanding exponentially. Uri’s eyes said something even simpler: I trust her, so you should trust her.

‘OK,’ said Rosen finally. ‘Here it is.’ And, with no more ceremony than that, he handed over a white envelope.

Uri opened it slowly, as if handling an exhibit in a court case. He looked inside, a puzzled expression spreading across his face, and then pulled out a clear plastic sleeve containing a single disc. There was no note.

‘A DVD,’ said Uri. ‘Can we use your machine?’

Rosen began fiddling with his computer until Uri moved round to his side of the desk, placed his hands on the old man’s shoulders and gently, but unmistakably, shifted him out of the way. No time for courtesies, not now.

He inserted the disc, then dragged across another chair and waited the agonizingly long wait for the programme to boot up and to offer the various prompts which, at this moment, seemed interminable and more annoying than Maggie had ever realized.

Finally a screen within the screen appeared, black at first, then after a second or two, filling up with a line of white characters. Hebrew.

‘Message to Uri,’ said Uri, translating.

Then, fading up from the black, a moving image appeared: Shimon Guttman sitting at the desk where Maggie herself had sat just last night. He seemed to be facing his computer. He must have filmed this himself, alone, Maggie guessed, remembering the video camera and other paraphernalia piled up in his study.

She looked hard at the face, so different from the man she had seen in that archive footage online. Gone was the arrogant bluster of the hilltop speech. Instead, Guttman seemed haggard and harried, like a man who had been chased all night and had hardly slept. He was leaning forward, his face drawn and gaunt.

Uri yakiri.

‘My dear Uri,’ Uri begain translating in a low murmur, ‘I hope you never need to see this, that I will come back to Rosen’s office in the next week or so and remove this envelope which I asked him to deliver to you only in the event of my disappearance or, God forbid, my death. With any luck, I’ll be able to solve this problem by myself and not need to drag you into it.

‘But if by any chance I do not, then I could not let this knowledge die with me. You see, Uri, I have seen something so precious, so ancient and so important I genuinely believe it will change anyone who sees it. I know that you and I disagree on almost everything, and I know you think your father exaggerates, but I think you will see that this is different.’

Suddenly Uri leant forward and stopped the computer playback. He turned to Maggie, mouthing, with a how-could-we-be-so-stupid expression, Bugs!

He was right. Rosen had phoned Uri; if Uri’s phone was tapped, then Israeli intelligence, or whoever else it was, would have had time to come here and bug this office. Could have done it while Sleeping Beauty was dozing on his desk.

Uri now prowled through the office searching intently, stopping once he saw a TV set. He switched it on, found a channel airing American game shows-plenty of whooping and cheering-turned up the volume and came back to the computer. Then he went back to the TV, swivelling it around so that its screen was facing a back wall. ‘Hidden cameras,’ Uri mouthed to Maggie. ‘Most common place to hide them, the TV.’ Rosen looked more baffled than ever.

Now when Uri translated, he did so in a whisper, direct into Maggie’s ear. Involuntarily she closed her eyes. She told herself it was so that she could concentrate on his words.

‘In the last couple of days I have come across what is the greatest archaeological discovery of my career. Of anyone’s career for that matter. It would be enough to make whoever owns it famous and of course very, very rich.’ Uri exhaled loudly.

‘Those would be reasons alone for me to fear for my life now that it has come into my possession. But there is something more. As always with your father, this something more is a matter of politics. That doesn’t surprise you, eh, Uri?’

Uri shook his head. ‘No, Father, it does not surprise me.’

‘To get to the point, I have seen the last will and testament of Avraham Avinu . You heard right. The final will of Abraham, the great patriarch. I know it sounds insane and, believe me, I have wondered about my own sanity. But here it is.’

At that instant, Maggie’s eyes opened wide. Uri stopped talking and they both simply stared at the computer screen, David Rosen as dumbfounded as both of them. Shimon Guttman, now with sweat beading on his forehead, had produced from below, out of vision, an object which he held up to the camera. Brown and around the same size as an old audio cassette, it was hard to make out. But Uri’s face shone with recognition. He knew exactly what it was. He must have grown up amongst these things.

‘I am not going to show you the text up close,’ Uri said, translating once more. ‘Just in case this recording should fall into the wrong hands. I don’t want anyone else seeing what it says. I know that will sound paranoid, Uri. But I fear that some people would go to extreme lengths if they knew this tablet existed.’