'So we need two more letters.' She opened up a new window, Googled Jabotinsky and discovered his alternative, Hebrew name: Ze'ev.

'OK,' she said, typing in VladimirZJ. Nothing. VladimirJ1. Also nothing. VZJabotins. VZJabotin1. She went through at least a dozen permutations.

'What about a number? What if he did Vladimir12 or Vladimir99? Is there any two digit number that might be significant?'

'Try 48. The year the state was established.'

'Oh, that's good.' She spoke as she typed: 'Vladimir48.'

Login failed.

Uri came over to the desk, standing by her side. He bent down, to get a closer look at the screen. She could see the stubble on his cheek.

'I really thought that would work,' he said. 'Maybe I am wrong about Vladimir-'

'Or maybe we just got the year wrong. For a right-wing-' She caught herself just in time. 'For a pa.s.sionate nationalist like your father, there's one year that is just as important as 1948. Maybe even more so.'

She typed in Vladimir67 and suddenly the screen altered. An egg-timer graphic appeared, and a new page began loading: the email inbox of Saeb Nastayib.

At the top of the page, still in bold and therefore unread, was a name which gave Maggie a start: Ahmed Nour. She looked at the time the email was sent: 11.25pm on Tuesday evening, a good twelve hours after he was reported dead. She clicked the message open.

Who are you? And why were you contacting my father?

'It seems Mr Nour Junior knew as little about his father as you did about yours.'

'It could be a woman. Could be his daughter.'

'Uri, do you mind if we look at the messages your father sent?'

'Aren't you going to reply?'

'I want to think about it. Let's see what these two had been saying to each other first.'

She brought up the sent messages, all of which were to Ahmed Nour. This was obviously the back channel the two men had used, an Arabic name so that if anyone was monitoring Nour's email, they would have no grounds for suspicion.

The last one was sent at 6.08 pm on Sat.u.r.day, just a few hours before the peace rally at which Guttman was shot dead.

Ahmed, we have the most urgent matter to discuss. I have tried your telephone but without success. Are you able to meet me in Geneva?Saeb Maggie instantly scrolled down to the next message, sent at 3.58 pm that same day.

My dear Ahmed, I hope you got my earlier message. Do let me know if your plans permit a trip to Geneva, hopefully in the very near future. We have much to talk about.My best wishes,Saeb There was another at 10.14 am, and two the previous evening. All of them mentioning a planned trip to Geneva. As far as Maggie could see, Ahmed Nour had not replied to any of them. Had they fallen out? Was Ahmed blanking his Israeli colleague? And what was all this about an upcoming trip to Geneva?

Uri had left the piles of papers and pulled up a second chair. He was looking at the screen, but it was clear from his facial expression that he was as baffled as she was. Predicting her question, he turned to her, shaking his head. 'I didn't even know my father had been to Geneva.'

'It seems there was quite a bit about him you didn't know. Did he keep any kind of diary? You know, a desk planner.'

Uri began rummaging, at one point on hands and knees, eyeing the book shelves side on, while she went back to the computer. She called up the browser's history, seeing the cache of web pages Guttman had consulted in the last days of his life, looking for a travel agent, Swissair, a guide to hotels in Geneva, anything which might yield a clue as to what Guttman and Nour were planning. This connection between the two men, unlikely and unknown to those closest to them both, was intriguing. And she felt sure it was connected to what was happening right now, the first turns of a cycle of violence that would, if left unchecked, destroy the peace process.

'Uri, pa.s.s me the cellphone again.'

She grabbed it, realizing that she had made a stupid oversight. She had looked at the text messages, all of which had doubtless been wiped, but had not checked the call register, the record of outgoing calls. She stabbed at the keys until she pulled up the dialled numbers. There, at the top, was a call made on Sat.u.r.day afternoon. It showed up on the display not as a number, but a name.

'Uri, who's Baruch Kishon?'

'At last, something that is not a mystery. He is a very famous journalist in Israel. He writes a column in Maariv Maariv. The settlers love him; he has been denouncing Yariv every week for a year. He and my father were great friends.'

'Well, I think we ought to pay Mr Kishon a visit. Right now.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

JERUSALEM, WEDNESDAY, 3.10 PM PM.

Amir Tal was working hard to conceal his amazement, even his excitement. He had dealt with intelligence often; since taking this job in the Prime Minister's bureau, it was hard to avoid it. Reports, a.s.sessments, a.n.a.lyses, they all crossed his desk.

But he had never seen how it was done, how the raw information that formed that paper mountain was gathered. His army service had kept him inside the belly of an armoured personnel carrier. It was prestigious enoughhe served in the Golani Brigadebut nothing like this. Now, in this office, he was seeing how it worked, up close. And, best of all, he was the man in charge.

'Can I listen?' he said, gesturing at the woman who sat at the centre of the multiple computer screens, with what looked like a DJ's mixing desk before her. She took off her headphones and gave them to Tal, who wore them the way she had, one ear on, one ear off.

'The man's voice you hear is Uri Guttman, son of the deceased. The woman's voice is the American, Maggie Costello.'

'Irish,' Tal murmured, mainly to himself. The voices were remarkably clear. Costello was asking Guttman for his father's cellphone. Tal could even hear papers rustling. Say what you like about the Shin Bet, they were an impressive bunch: they had mounted this entire surveillance operation within a few hours of his demanding it.

'And you can do all this from that TV satellite truck parked outside?'

'With directional microphones aimed at the windowsthrough the gla.s.syou can do a lot. Better if you have something on the inside too.'

'Which you don't. So how come the sound's so good?'

The woman was plugging in a second pair of headphones into the side of the computer, so that she could listen in at the same time. She gave Tal a crooked smile.

'You do do have something in there! How?' He quickly altered his features: mustn't look too eager. have something in there! How?' He quickly altered his features: mustn't look too eager.

'Well, there have been a lot of flowers arriving in that house, and food parcels, too. Let's just say one of the bouquets does more than look nice.'

Amir took off the headphones, and put his hand on the shoulder of the woman. Keep up the good work Keep up the good work.

There was no point listening any further. Another operative was listening closely, taking a shorthand note. Anything of substance, he would report it immediately.

'Amir, you might want to see this.' It was the man who had remained glued to a computer screen since they had got here, at least as far as Tal could tell. He had wondered what this man was up to, but hadn't dared ask.

Now what he saw disappointed him. It was a standard webmail page, an inbox no different from the one he used for his personal correspondence at home. Nothing hi-tech or espionage about that.

And then he saw it. The cursor moving around the screen without any apparent human intervention; the operator's hands remained still.

'What is this?'

'You're looking at Shimon Guttman's computer, the one his son and that woman are working on right now.'

'Are these surveillance pictures?'

The man smiled in a way Tal didn't like, as if he was entertaining a question from a slow child.

'No, there's no hidden camera. Just a simple SilentNight program.' He waited a beat or twostandard techie practice, to let the ignorance of the explainee sink inthen went on: 'It's a neat little program that installs itself on someone else's machine and gains the kind of system-level privileges we need.' He could see that the penny had not yet dropped. 'It gives us total access to their computer. We could operate it remotely, from here, if we wanted to.'

'What, I could start typing at this keyboard, and it would show up on their screen?'

'Yep. But don't do it!' He placed his hand protectively over the keyboard and cursor, like a swot shielding his exam paper to prevent the other kids taking a peek. 'If they see their cursor moving around, they'll know we're onto them. Either that, or they'll think it's Guttman's ghost trying to freak them out.'

'So we just watch.'

'Exactly. Anything they type, I see it. Right now, for example, they're trying to hack into his gmail account.'

The woman with the headphones called out. 'OK, we have a phone call. Costello's just dialled Khalil al-Shafi in Ramallah.' Tal headed over, waiting to be pa.s.sed a set of headphones of his own. But the woman was concentrating too hard, listening to each word, to help the boss. By the time she had connected him, the phone call was over. Instead he heard Maggie Costello speaking to Uri Guttman.

'OK. What does What does nas tayib nas tayib mean mean?'

A moment later and it was the computer operator who was getting excited, forcing Amir Tal to rush back to his side. He felt slightly ridiculous, like a kid at a video arcade, watching as his older brothers played games, hopping from one machine to another to keep up with the action.

The computer guy was wide-eyed. 'Hey, this is interesting interesting.'

'What are they doing?'

'Watch that window right there. They're logging on as that name we just heard. Saeb Nastayib. Now they're trying different pa.s.swords.' A series of asterisks appeared in the pa.s.sword box on the screen. The operator clicked open a small window and suddenly real characters appeared, one by one. 'Having a go at VladimirJ. Nope.'

'How can you see that? Even their screen doesn't show up the pa.s.sword.'

'That's why this SilentNight programme is such a beauty. It records every keystroke. So even if the screen doesn't show what b.u.t.tons they pressed, we can still see them. Oops, Vladimir48. Wrong again.'

'OK, let me know when you have something useful.'

Amir Tal didn't have long to wait. Within ten minutes the surveillance team parked in the Channel 2 truck outside the Guttman residence reported that Costello and Guttman Junior had left the house, apparently heading for the home of journalist Baruch Kishon. Meanwhile, computer a.n.a.lysis suggested a correspondence between the late Shimon Guttman and the late Ahmed Nour, the former using an Arab codename, combined with the intensely Zionist pa.s.sword of Vladimir67. They were arranging to meet in Geneva.

'OK, gather round, people,' Tal began, enjoying taking command. 'I want whatever intel we can get on Nour: who was he, why did he die and what the h.e.l.l was he talking about with Shimon Guttman? What were they planning? Was this some kind of alliance of the extremes, two guys both opposed to the peace process agreeing to work together to derail the talks? Talk to Mossad in Geneva. Find out whether they'd met before. Travel plans for the last year. If that yields nothing, go back further. Everything you can get, I want it.

'Also Khalil al-Shafi. What's he been saying to Costello? Why did she call him? And what's his precise connection to Ahmed Nour? We need answers on this right away. Is he onside for these peace talks or not? If he is sabotaging from the inside, I want to know about it.

'I hope the most crucial thing goes without saying. We keep following Costello and Guttman. And, whatever happens, we get to Baruch Kishon before they do. Go!'

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

THE A AFULA-BET S SHEAN ROAD, NORTHERN NORTHERN I ISRAEL, WEDNESDAY, 8.15 PM PM.

Their orders were very clear. Get in, search and possibly destroy, get out. Above all, don't get caught. The Director of Operations had spelled it out: this was not to be a suicide mission.

There were four of them in the car. They had not met before and only went by the names they had been given: Ziad, Daoud, Marwan and Salim. Ziad would be in charge.

He checked his watch and worried again that this operation had begun with a fatal flaw. It was too early. Much better to strike in the dead of night. But the boss had said it was urgent; no time to waste.

'OK. Turn off here.' It was a slip road, narrowing rapidly into a dirt track. Suitable for a tractor, but tricky for a rented Subaru. 'Drive off, into the crops. OK. Kill the engine.'

It was a cotton field, planted high enough to conceal a car, just as they had been briefed. The reconnaissance boys had done a good job.

The four men began to change into black clothing. Ziad handed each of them balaclavas to put over their faces and made sure they had removed any other form of identification. Each of them had a small torch in his pocket, a lighter, a knife and a Micro Uzi submachine gun. Ziad and Marwan had cyclists' water pouches strapped to their backs. Both of these contained petrol.

They all knew the plan: they would walk twenty minutes through the fields belonging to the kibbutz until they were within sight of their target. Once they were certain no one was around, they would move fast and get out.

Ziad could see the lights of the perimeter. Soon the crops would give way to the asphalt of the visitors' car park and service roads. They would be lit too. This would be the area of greatest danger.

Sure enough, he soon saw the sign in English and Hebrew, welcoming guests to 'Kibbutz Hephziba, Home of the Legendary Bet Alpha Synagogue'. Silently, he gave the order to duck down. One at a time, the four men ran in a low crouch towards the area Ziad's map had described as the site entrance. The door was locked, as antic.i.p.ated. He gave the nod to Marwan, who produced a wire and jimmied the door open. They slipped in, Ziad looking back to make sure no one had seen the movement of the door in the lamplight of the car park.

Inside there was complete darkness. The men waited till they were deep within before switching on their torches: too risky to let light leak out through the gla.s.s walls of this visitors' centre. Ziad was first to use his, shining it down on the centrepiece of this location, the treasure that had brought sightseers here since the 1930s.

It was a Roman-style mosaic, perfectly intact, stretching some ten metres long and five metres wide. Even in this light, Ziad could see the clarity of the colours formed by the countless tiny squares: yellows, greens, ochres, browns, a deep wine red, a coa.r.s.er shade like reddish brick as well as sharp blacks, whites and multiple variants of grey. As he had been told, the floor was divided into three distinct panels. Furthest away, what seemed to be a sketch of a synagogue, including a pair of traditional Jewish candelabra, the menorah. At the bottom, a primitive, almost childlike, depiction of Abraham's sacrifice of his son Isaac.

But the eye was drawn immediately to the larger, middle panel. It showed a circle, divided into twelve segments, one for each sign of the zodiac. Ziad let his torch pick out each image, stopping to take in the clearest: a scorpion, next to it a pair of twins, a ram, an archer. He had not meant to linger, but he couldn't help it. This ancient artwork, over fifteen hundred years old, was so vivid that it was impossible to look away.

'OK, you know what to do.' Marwan began checking the top panel, Daoud the lower, while Salim examined the central zodiac. Even the slightest sign of recent activityfresh digging or tampering of any kindand they were to summon the others. If something had been buried here in the last few days, they were to find it.

Ziad, meanwhile, had specific instructions. He was to locate the museum officeand take it apart, searching it meticulously. Every drawer, every filing cabinet. If there was a safe, he should get it open and leave not a speck of dust unexamined. The Director had been clear: 'He needed to hide this item in a hurry. He will not have been able to conceal it well. If it's there, you'll find it.'

Ziad worked through the desk drawers first. The usual c.r.a.p: rubber bands, business cards, sticky tape, envelopes. There was an old metal box, like the kind that used to hold pipe tobacco, which seemed to have potential: it felt the right weight. But inside was simply a bundle of Friends of the Museum membership cards, tied together so that in the tin they sounded like a single thick object.

He was starting on the filing cabinet when he heard a noise, the crunch of a foot on the gravel outside. A beat later, and the room filled with a sweep of torchlight, as if a beam had been pa.s.sed across the whole exterior of the building.

'Mee zeh?' Who's there?

Without needing an order from Ziad, the team instantly killed their own flashlights and froze. Do that and, most times, a night-watchman will tell himself that what he had seen was a trick of the light, a reflection from his own torch, and walk away. Given the choice of going to the bother of opening a locked building or doing nothing, lethargy usually won out. The unheralded friend of intruders and thieves the world over: the sheer indolence of security staff.

But this man was different. He advanced, the beam thrown by his torch getting larger as he approached the gla.s.s door. Ziad, stock still in the office, his hand gripping the drawer he had just pulled out of the filing cabinet, heard the jangle of keys. In a second, this guard would discover that the lock had been forced.

There was no time to lose. Ziad drew his weapon from the holster and stepped out into the main lobby, where he had a clear line of sight to the door. He saw the guard look up and notice not Ziad or the others, but their shadows, now giant against the walls, rendered colossal by the guard's very own torch. Without hesitation, Ziad aimed his Micro Uzi and sent a 9mm-calibre bullet straight through the gla.s.s and into the man's skull.

The sound of the door shattering, and the guard's brain exploding, were the cue for an immediate change of tactic. His aim was no longer to find the object but to disguise the nature of this mission. Ziad returned to the office and, abandoning his meticulous examination, now turned the place upside down. He yanked out each desk drawer, emptying its contents onto the floor, finding nothing. Next, he shoved the filing cabinets to the ground, before sweeping the desk with a single movement of his arm, so that every item was sent flying. Then, he used his gun to break each window in turn.

He turned around to find Marwan and Daoud, carrying the corpse of the guard like a stretcher. Silently they counted one, two, three then swung his body onto the ground, amid all the debris of the office. There was a crunch as the flesh landed on the shattered gla.s.s; then, in a single, smooth action, Marwan removed the cyclist's water pouch from his back, took off the cap and began dousing the room with petrol.

Outside Salam was switching his torch back on, lighting up a wall covered in panels explaining the Bet Alpha exhibit. He produced a can of spray paint and, slowly and calmly, daubed the wall in red graffiti. In Arabic he wrote: 'No peace for Israel till there is justice for Palestine. No sleep for Bet Alpha till there is sleep for Jenin'.