Adam Palmer - The Moses Legacy

And who was that woman on the road who had thrown the petrol bomb into the jeep? Was she trying to kill him? Or had she thought that he was Daniel or the Egyptian? Was she trying to kill them too?

A thousand questions and no answers. Still he had failed. He hadn’t even managed to get a sample of their clothing and that had been his main task. Killing them had been secondary. He didn’t even know why Morris wanted him to get the clothing. All he knew was that it was God’s will. And although they had left their travel bags in the jeep, the jeep had gone up in flames, taking their belongings with it, including the clothes that he had intended to take in accordance with Senator Morris’s instructions.

But how could he do it now that Daniel and the others had escaped? Did Senator Morris still want him to? Or had the plan been overtaken by events?

He had just purchased a smartphone with Internet capability, like Daniel’s, and thought about contacting the senator to ask him. But that might not be wise. The fact that the senator had intervened on his behalf did not mean that he had done so openly. He might have pulled strings behind the scenes or called in favours from others. The senator had once told him not to mention his name. That probably meant that he operated through third parties and did not like to expose his involvement directly. If Goliath now blew the cover of his patron and mentor might that not be yet another failure? Another breach of his duty? Another mistake?

No, he had to assume that Arthur Morris still wanted him to do what he had told him to do before. And that meant he had to find Daniel Klein and Gabrielle Gusack. As to the other woman – the one who had tried to kill him – he would deal with her later. They had told him her name when they came to warn him that she had escaped: Siobhan Stewart. So at least he had something to work with when the time came. For now, he had to concentrate on finding Klein and Gusack. But how?

He remembered the tracer program that he had planted in Daniel Klein’s phone. Was it still working? Easy enough to find out.

He switched on his newly-purchased smartphone and logged on to the search site with his UserID and password. It gave the ‘last known location’ of Daniel’s phone as the Nile Valley, near Luxor. That made perfect sense. If Daniel was trying to avoid being found by the Egyptian authorities, then he would keep his cell phone switched off. Everyone knew that people can be traced by their cell phones. When a man knows that he is wanted by the police then that is the time to switch off his phone or even get rid of it. As long as Daniel didn’t know he was being tracked, it was not a problem; but now that he was on the run from the Egyptian police, Daniel was presumably taking elementary precautions. And those precautions would also stop Goliath from doing a live trace.

But then Goliath had another idea. A man on the run wouldn’t want to be completely cut off. Of course, he might buy a new cell phone, as Goliath had. But maybe – just maybe – Daniel was switching on his phone temporarily in order to retrieve his messages? That in itself might facilitate tracking by way of giving updated last known locations.

That also afforded another opportunity. It meant that Daniel Klein could be reached. And maybe there was a way of getting through to him. What if that fear could be turned to Goliath’s advantage? What if he could prey upon that fear to lure Daniel into a trap?

He knew now what he had to do.

He called Daniel using his new smartphone and heard a standard message for voicemail. He deduced from this that Daniel was one of those people who was too lazy to create a personalized message: the proverbial absent-minded professor.

‘Hallo, Professor Klein… this is Mr Carter, the man you met on the aeroplane, the rather talkative man as you probably remember me. I’ve just seen a report about you on television, effectively accusing you of all manner of crimes and misdemeanours; and I have to say, having met you, that it sounds like a load of baloney! I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding and I’d like to help you. I am, as you know, a man who is not without means, and I would like to put those means at your disposal. If you could contact me as soon as possible, I can go about arranging lawyers for you both locally and in Britain. My number is…’

When he rang off, he was confident that he had baited the trap. How could a desperate man without a friend in the world, not respond to an offer to help like that one?

‘We can’t go by bus,’ Gabrielle was saying. ‘They’ll catch us at the checkpoints.’

‘There are checkpoints at the borders too,’ Daniel replied. ‘Any way you look at it we’re going to have to cross a border checkpoint. But I’d’ve thought that with the buses it wouldn’t be as intense as it is at the airports.’

They were in a cafe by the Nile in a small village outside Cairo, discussing their next move.

‘You have to understand, Daniel, that with the bus it isn’t just one checkpoint. It can be any number. In some ways it’s worse than an airport because at an airport you go through passport control and then you’re through. They only look at your passport when boarding to match it up to your boarding pass. But with the bus, because it stops at several places on the way, there are several checkpoints. And a checkpoint can be wherever an Egyptian army commander chooses to put one.’

‘Well, there’s no way we can use the airport. They’re bound to be watching that.’

‘Okay, so let’s say we find a way of getting to one of the borders. Why does it have to be the Israeli border? Wouldn’t that be the one they watch most closely?’

‘You tell me, Gaby. Do you think the security will be more lax at the Gaza border? Or the Libyan border?’

‘We could try and make it to Jordan.’

‘We could. But we’d still have to get to Taba in Sinai – even if we wanted to make it across to Aqaba. And besides… it’s Israel that we need to get to.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we need to talk to the Samaritans.’

‘The Samaritans?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why in God’s name do you want to talk to them?’

‘Because I want to show them those copies of the papyri that we took from Mansoor’s office. The one that appeared to be written by Ay, whom you think – we think – may have been Ephraim, the son of Joseph.’

‘Why do you want to show it to them?’

‘Because I think they may be able to shed some light on it.’

‘Would you care to elaborate?’

‘You remember what it said? The author expressed his wish that his bones be returned to Mount Gerizim?’

‘Yes, and you said that the valley nearby is the traditional resting place of Joseph and his sons.’

‘Yes. But the thing is, although the valley nearby has that tradition, the mountain itself has no major significance to the Jews. But it is regarded as the most sacred place in the world to the Samaritans. They even claim that it was the place where Abraham, the Israelite patriarch, was going to sacrifice his son Isaac, until an angel stopped him. And they also claim that it was the site where God told the Israelites to build the temple.’

‘But how do you propose to get their co-operation? Are you just going to go up to their leaders, as a complete stranger, and flash this copy of the papyrus and tell them that you’ve translated it and ask them to share their secrets with you?’

‘Basically, yes.’

‘Great. So now all we’ve got to do is get there.’

‘If we can make it to Taba, I have a plan for getting to Israel. But it’s risky.’

‘It’s also going to be risky getting to Taba, with all those checkpoints in the Sinai Desert.’