46

The flight was no problem, but actually getting into Israel took Bronson and Angela several hours, and that was after they'd disembarked from the aircraft. The problem was the small blue square they each had stamped in their passports with the word 'sortie' printed in a vertical line down the left-hand side, a date in the centre and Arabic script across the top and down the right side – their exit stamps from Morocco.

The Israeli authorities are notably suspicious of travellers arriving at any of their borders who have recently left an Arab country, even one as distant as Morocco. The moment the immigration officer had seen the stamps, he'd pressed a hidden switch and minutes later Bronson and Angela were whisked away into separate interview rooms while their luggage was found and comprehensively searched.

Bronson had anticipated what their reception was likely to be, and they'd taken precautions to ensure that none of the photographs of the clay tablets, or of their translations of the Aramaic text, remained on Angela's laptop, just in case the Israelis wanted to inspect the contents of the hard disk. She had transferred all these files to a couple of highcapacity memory sticks, one of which was tucked away in the pocket of Bronson's jeans and the other hidden in Angela's make-up kit in her handbag. Back in London, they'd gone to Angela's bank, where she had a safety deposit box that held the deeds to her apartment and other important papers, and deposited the clay tablet there, because they didn't want to risk travelling with the relic.

The questioning was thorough, relentless and competent. What had they been doing in Morocco? How long had they been there? Had they been there before? If so, why? All repeated again and again, the questions the same, though the way they were asked changed frequently as the interrogators looked for any discrepancies or alterations in their answers. Bronson, who had considerable experience in sitting on the other side of the table, interviewing suspects, was impressed by their thoroughness. He hoped that his police warrant card and Angela's British Museum identification were helping to establish their bona fides.

Only towards the end of the interviews, when they were apparently satisfied with what they'd been doing in Morocco, did the officials begin asking why they'd come to Israel. Bronson had discussed this with Angela on the flight out, and they'd decided that the only right answer to this question had to be 'holiday'. Any other response would simply cause problems and certainly lead to more questioning.

It was mid evening before they were finally allowed to leave the interview rooms by the unsmiling Israelis.

'I don't mind the security checks they do here,' Angela said. 'At least you can feel fairly safe on an El Al flight.'

'We flew British Airways,' Bronson pointed out.

'I know. I mean, when you're flying out of an Israeli airport, the chances of anyone being able to smuggle a weapon or a bomb on to a departing flight are almost nil. Did you know that all hold luggage is subjected to a pressure drop in a sealed bomb-proof chamber that simulates a high-altitude flight, just in case there's a bomb in a suitcase that's linked to a barometric switch? And that's in addition to everything being X-rayed and passing through explosive sniffers?'

'No,' Bronson admitted, 'I didn't. And that is comforting, especially when you compare it to somewhere as leaky and slapdash as Heathrow. The security there is a joke.'

Angela looked at him with a quizzical expression. 'I'm so glad you didn't tell me that before we took off.'

Ben Gurion International airport is close to the city of Lod, about ten miles to the south-east of Tel Aviv, so the train journey only took a few minutes. The railway line followed the route of the main road into the city – in fact, for some of the distance it ran between the two carriageways – and they got off at HaShalom Station, at the edge of the industrial zone, and almost in the shadow of the hulking Azrieli Centre.

Most of the hotels in Tel Aviv are unsurprisingly strung along the Mediterranean coast, but their prices are fairly high, so Bronson had booked two rooms in a more modest establishment tucked away in the side-streets near Zina Square, not far from a tourist office.

They caught a cab from HaShalom to Zina Square, checked into the hotel and deposited their bags, then walked the short distance to the Lahat Promenade that borders Frishman Beach, found a restaurant and enjoyed a reasonable meal. Bronson wished fleetingly that they were going to return to the same room but he decided not to push this. They were in Israel, working together. This, for the time being, would have to be enough.

The BMI flight had landed at Tel Aviv on time late that afternoon; two of the three passengers travelling together on British passports cleared customs and immigration without any particular delays. The third man, Alexander Dexter, was pulled aside and subjected to about an hour of detailed questioning before he was allowed to proceed. But he'd expected that to happen because of the Morocco exit stamp in his passport, so it didn't bother him.

Outside the airport, he rejoined Hoxton and Baverstock, who'd already collected their pre-booked Fiat Punto hire car, and the three men drove off together, heading for the centre of Tel Aviv and their hotel.

Just over two hours after the BMI flight landed at Ben Gurion, a flight arrived from Paris. On board were four men of distinctly Arabic appearance. Their French passports, which lacked any signs of transit through Morocco, raised no suspicions at all, although their luggage was thoroughly checked by the Israeli customs officers.

Once they had left the airport in their Peugeot hire car, heading for a hotel they'd already booked on the outskirts of Jerusalem, the man in the passenger seat made a telephone call to a number in the city on a pay-as-you-go mobile that he'd bought just before they boarded the aircraft in Paris. Once he'd ended the call, he leant back and looked incuriously through the windscreen.

'Everything OK?' the driver asked.

'Yes,' the tall man known only as Yacoub said shortly. 'I know exactly where they are.'