Finn didn’t look too happy. ‘Luke, mate, we…’
‘Just do it.’
Finn nodded, strode across the garden towards the church and disappeared inside, leaving Luke and Stratton to stand awkwardly together, surrounded by the distant noise of the East Jerusalem traffic and the cheeping of the birds in the olive trees.
Five minutes later Finn returned. ‘It’s clear.’
Luke nodded at Stratton. ‘All yours.’
Stratton surveyed Luke with a mistrustful glare before marching up to the church with the two Regiment men following behind. The facade of the building was highly ornate, with three large arches forming its entrance. He disappeared into the gloom, while Luke and Finn took up their positions outside.
‘I don’t know why you’re winding the fucker up,’ Finn said. He sounded almost as pissed off with Luke as Stratton did.
‘I’m just a bit fed up with the holy-man act,’ Luke replied.
Finn shrugged.
Luke glanced into the temple. ‘No one diverts from a meeting as important as the RV with Hamas just to kneel before a fucking altar. Holy man or no holy man.’ He turned back to his mate. ‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘I’m going in.’
He made to enter the temple, but Finn grabbed him by the arm. ‘Mate, what’s going on?’
For a moment Luke thought of telling him. But where the hell would he begin? No. Now wasn’t the time or the place. He pulled away from his friend. ‘I don’t want a bollocking from the Ruperts for leaving him alone. He doesn’t have to know I’ve got eyes on.’ Without another word, he slipped into the church.
It was musty, thick with incense, all gold and marble. The ceiling was vaulted and the air colder than outside. Stratton stood about twenty metres ahead at the altar, his head bowed. He looked very small in the large chamber of the church, and he stood very still. Luke crept to the left-hand side of the building, much as he had done in St Paul’s two nights previously, only this time he had his 53 in his fist and his Sig strapped to his body. Stratton did not notice his presence as he crept silently up the church, before stopping behind a metre-thick pillar, out of the peace envoy’s view.
Luke had heard a noise.
Footsteps.
He barely breathed. His back was pressed against the pillar, so he was looking towards the front entrance of the church. On the ground to his left, the stained-glass window behind the altar had cast a colourful arrangement of reds and blues and greens on the marble floor. Luke looked down at it. A dark shadow there would give him a split-second warning of anyone approaching; and it was difficult, in the echoing acoustic of the church, to work out from which direction the footsteps were coming, or where they were headed.
They stopped after a few seconds and for a moment there was silence.
Someone spoke. A woman. She had a husky voice and a pronounced Israeli accent.
‘This had better be important,’ she said, speaking only just loud enough for Luke to hear. ‘You know Jerusalem isn’t safe for me.’
‘You don’t need to worry,’ Stratton replied. ‘The church is empty. So is the garden. I’ve seen to it.’
‘Obviously. But if I know about the tunnel to the crypt, other people will know about it too.’
‘Right now this is the most secure place in Jerusalem. We can talk freely here.’
‘I don’t like it.’
‘I didn’t ask you to like it.’ Stratton’s voice was sharp now, like he was reprimanding an employee. ‘That little bit of housekeeping in London. Ostentatious, wouldn’t you say?’
There was a pause. Luke could feel his blood pumping in his veins.
‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ she said, though her voice didn’t indicate that she cared either way. ‘And you should know I don’t like loose ends.’
‘Was the kid really necessary? The old woman? And the priest, for heaven’s sake?’
The woman made a sound almost as if she was spitting. ‘Don’t give me that,’ she said, her voice full of derision. ‘What difference do they make?’
‘Four bodies attract more attention than one,’ Stratton retorted.
‘It would be better,’ the woman said, ‘if I worried about what I’m good at.’
‘Are you sure nobody saw you?’ Stratton persisted.
A pause.
‘Don’t try my patience, old man.’
‘Are you sure nobody saw you?’
‘Have I come all the way to Jerusalem to hear you complain?’
‘You’ve come to Jerusalem because I told you to.’ Stratton had raised his voice slightly. ‘Don’t forget who you are working for.’
‘Quiet!’ The woman’s voice was little more than a whisper.
A brief silence. ‘For crying out loud, woman. Put that weapon away.’
The woman didn’t reply. Suddenly Luke heard her footsteps again. They were coming in his direction.
He moved his left arm very slowly, so as not to make a noise, and felt for the safety catch on his 53. His fingers pinched the switch and turned it very gently.
The footsteps grew nearer, perhaps five metres. Luke saw a shadow on the colourful pattern of the stained glass. He could determine the outline of a person, with a weapon in their outstretched hand. He prepared himself for it to go noisy.
‘Maya!’ Stratton sounded almost schoolmasterly. ‘There’s nobody in this church. It’s been checked. Now get back here. We haven’t got much time.’
Silence.
The shadow receded, but one word echoed in Luke’s head just as surely as it echoed softly around the church.
Maya.
For a moment he was no longer in Jerusalem. He was many miles further east, by the side of the road in Iraq, at night. A gravely wounded Mossad operative was shaking in the car. He was close to death, and knew it.
You must find her. You must tell her what I did.
Luke shook his head as the memory came flooding back. What did it mean?
And then Stratton was speaking again. ‘Do you know where we are?’
‘Of course I know where we are,’ the woman replied.
‘But do you really know? Here, at the foot of the Mount of Olives. Do you really know where you are, Maya?’
‘What are you talking about?’
Footsteps again. But not towards Luke this time. Away from him. He pictured Stratton hurrying up to the altar. ‘The Book of Daniel,’ he announced loudly. ‘It tells us it is here that the End Times will start. It’s quite clear about that, Maya. Quite clear.’
‘Keep your voice down,’ the Israeli hissed.
‘There are two bone-headed men with guns obeying my orders to guard the entrance,’ Stratton replied. ‘Nobody will come.’
‘You don’t know the risk I take being here.’
When Stratton spoke again, there was a quiet fervour in his voice. ‘Tell me, Maya. Do you want to be part of history?’
Footsteps again — quick and deliberate, but this time most definitely heading away from Luke.
‘Move!’ Maya Bloom said. ‘There’s a room at the back. If you trust your two guards, you’re an idiot.’
There was a shuffling sound.
And then silence. A thick, impenetrable silence that seemed to suffuse the whole place. Luke realised he was sweating profusely. He returned his 53 to the safe position. Then, very slowly, he peered round the corner of the pillar. Stratton was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Maya Bloom.
Luke wanted to follow them, but something held him back. Stalking Stratton was one thing; stalking a Mossad agent was quite another. Maya Bloom must have heard or seen something just now. If he pushed his luck, they’d be on to him. Given what he’d just heard, that wasn’t an option.
But something was happening. Luke didn’t know what, but it involved Alistair Stratton and it involved Maya Bloom. With Suze McArthur dead, he was the only one on to them.