Laurence O’Bryan - The Jerusalem Puzzle

‘Sure, when I get back.’

He hummed loudly. ‘Make sure to tell the authorities everything you get up to. I don’t want any policemen ringing me. Every department is having its budget revised this year, Ryan, particularly the wasteful ones. I was planning to tell you in a few days, but I think you should bear it in mind. We may need to make further cuts. That may include staff numbers too.’

It was as veiled a threat as a knife poked in your face. If he could persuade the management committee that I was wasting the institute’s funds, my chances of continuing Alek’s work and of buying new equipment for other projects, would rapidly approach zero. I was angry, but with myself now too. I should have expected this.

‘Keep me informed,’ he said.

I cut the call.

On the way to the airport Isabel showed me an online article about people being burnt to death. It listed the thousands killed by fire and brimstone in Soddom and Gomorrah, the people burnt to death for making the wrong offerings, and lots of other weirdness.

We stuck out among the corporate types on the train. Isabel was in her trademark tight indigo denims. I was in my thin suede jacket and black jeans. We both had black Berghaus backpacks. We might as well have put up a sign saying ON HOLIDAY over our heads.

This was my first time visiting Israel, but not for political reasons. If I was honest, I’d have to say I was glad I had a good reason to go now.

The queue for the flight was moving like a film being downloaded over a slow connection. We went through three separate security checks. Given the daily media reports about Israel, I wasn’t too surprised.

‘Do you think it’s going to kick off out there?’ said Isabel, pointing at a headline in a newspaper about Israel denouncing Iran.

I shrugged. The man ahead of her turned the page.

‘We certainly got our timing right,’ she said. ‘To get there for the start of the third world war.’

Henry Mowlam, a senior desk-based Security Services operative, threw the bottle of water towards the blue plastic recycling bin next to the back wall of MI5’s underground control room in Whitehall, central London.

It missed the bin and burst open. A shower of water sprayed over the pale industrial-yellow wall.

‘Bugger,’ said Henry, loudly.

Sergeant Finch was at the end of the row of monitoring desks. She looked up, then walked towards him.

‘You all right today, Henry? Working weekends not suit you?’

Her starched white shirt was the brightest thing in the room.

‘They do, ma’am.’ He saluted her abruptly.

She went over, pushed the plastic bottle towards the bin with her foot. It looked as if she was checking what the bottle was at the same time. Then she came back to him. The simulated outdoor lighting hummed above her head.

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He was staring at his screen.

She walked away.

The report on the screen, which was the latest summary of the electronic monitoring of Lord Bidoner, a former member of the House of Lords only because of a title his father had inherited, had given him nothing new to go on. Lord Bidoner was one of those lords who didn’t apply himself to his responsibilities, and whose shady connections and wheeler-dealing made sure he’d never get an invitation to Buckingham Palace for a garden party.

But they still had nothing definite on Lord Bidoner. Taking a phone call from someone two steps removed from a plot to spread a plague virus in London was enough to put you on a watch list and get you investigated, but it was not enough to get you arrested.

‘We have new threats, Henry. We checked him out. You know there’s been a flood of suspects coming in from Pakistan and Egypt. We have to put Lord Bidoner on the back burner,’ was what Seageant Finch had said to him a week before.

But Henry wasn’t convinced.

He’d mentioned it again at their Monday morning meeting. The head of the unit had brought up Bidoner’s file on the large screen and had reeled off the details of the vetting he’d been subject to over the past six months.

‘He’s passed every check. His father was well respected, a pillar of the house. I know his mother was Austrian, but we don’t hold that against people anymore, Henry.’ There had been titters around the room. Henry hadn’t replied.

It wasn’t having an Austrian mother that made Henry suspicious. It was Bidoner’s use of encrypted telephone and email systems, his endless profits on the stock market from defence industry shares he picked with an uncanny prescience, and his political speeches at fringe meetings about population changes in Europe and the rise of Islam. Taken one by one they were all legitimate, but together they made Henry’s nose twitch.

He stared at his screen. He had other work to do. His hand hovered over the Bidoner report. He should delete it. And he should request that the Electronic Surveillance Unit discontinue the project.

He clicked another part of the screen. He would ask for the surveillance reports to be cancelled later. He had to review an incident in Amsterdam.

The victims of a bizarre double burning had been identified. They were a brother and a cousin of the men who had been arrested in London as part of the virus plot the previous August. The men arrested had known nothing about what they were doing that day. They had been dupes. But they were still in prison on remand.

It looked very much like whoever was behind that plot had just disposed of some people who could betray them.

There was another fact about this incident that concerned Henry. All these dupes were exiled Palestinians, from a village south of Jerusalem. A village where some sickening incidents had taken place.

In front of us in the queue there was a bald-headed giant of a man and his stony-faced partner. He must have been six foot eight. I was six one and he towered over me. I overheard a few words in Russian between them.

‘They look like they’re auditioning for the Organizatsiya,’ whispered Isabel.

I shook my head.

‘The Russian Jewish mob,’ she said.

‘That’s a bit harsh,’ I said. ‘What does that make us?’

‘Generation Z dropouts.’

‘Speak for yourself. I haven’t retired at thirty-six like some people I know.’

She gave me one of her smiles, then glanced away, as if she was looking for someone. I turned. There were too many people behind to work out who she’d been staring at.

‘Expecting a friend?’

‘No, it’s not that.’ She leaned toward me. ‘I thought I saw someone I know.’ She shook her head. ‘But it wasn’t him.’

On the plane I spent most of the time reading a guidebook about Israel. About halfway through the flight a small group of skull-capped men went to the front of the cabin and swayed back and forth, their heads down. They were praying.

Later, I looked out of the window when I heard someone say they could see the island of Mykonos. It was barely visible through a blue haze near the horizon. There wouldn’t be many people on the beaches there now.

As we began the descent and the seatbelt sign turned on again, I saw a plume of smoke spreading across the sky.

‘It’s a forest fire on Mount Carmel,’ said Isabel.

‘How the hell do you know that?’

‘There was an article about it on the Jerusalem Post website this morning.’

When we landed at the airport near Tel Aviv I felt the buzz of excitement around me. We reached immigration by passing along a wide elevated sunlit passage. There was a big queue for passport control in the area beyond, but it was moving quickly. Isabel’s ‘Russian mob friends’ allowed us to pass in front of them. I nudged her. There was a rosary in the woman’s hand.