‘Of course not.’
‘Then just log in, will you?’
‘Like hell I will!’
She span on her heel, squeezed between two parked cars, hurried back across the road, fishing out her car keys as she went. The man called out for her to stop but she ignored him. Something thumped into the small of her back and her whole body jolted. She fell into the road, her limbs twitching, her muscles drained and feeble, saliva leaking from her mouth to form a small pool on the sunlit black tarmac. Polished shoes arrived beside her face. The man crouched to grab her collar. He hauled her to her feet then pressed the nodes of his taser against her throat. Though still dazed, it occurred to Rachel how bizarre this all was, being assaulted so brazenly while a policeman just stood there and let them.
The waiter held out his humidor once more. She didn’t want to submit, but she was scared and alone and she found herself complying. Her hands kept breaking into spasms so that she had to type with a single finger. She entered her username, was almost through her password when an engine roared in the street behind and a horn tooted loudly and she turned in bewilderment to see a red BMW hurtling with lethal speed towards their little group.
TEN
I
Avram crossed the Jaffa Road and was instantly in a different world, the ultra-Orthodox black uniforms of Mea Shearim replaced by the garish shorts and T-shirts of Ben Yahuda. He bought a card at a kiosk, found a payphone, dialled one of the several numbers he’d taken the trouble to memorize. ‘It’s me,’ he said, when Danel picked up.
‘It’s happening, then,’ said Danel. Half statement, half question.
‘Bring everyone you can trust,’ Avram told him. ‘Netanya, tomorrow afternoon. Same place, same time.’
‘It is,’ said Danel. ‘It’s really happening.’
‘Tomorrow afternoon.’ He finished the call, walked briskly to another bank of phones. ‘I need the truck,’ he said, when Ephraim answered.
‘When?’
‘This afternoon. Tonight.’
‘I sold the last one,’ said Ephraim. ‘I’ve got a new one. It’s dark blue and a little bigger. But shabby. I was going to repaint it this week.’
‘Shabby is fine. As long as it runs.’
‘It runs beautifully. I’ll leave it for you now.’
Avram moved on again for his third call. An abrasively cheerful young American woman answered. When he asked for Francis, she told him to hold, then went away singing a spiritual. Her voice faded and the minutes passed, so that Avram began to fear he’d been cut off. But then suddenly a man came on. ‘This is Francis. Who are you?’
‘You know who.’
‘Oh.’ Silence stretched out. ‘What do you want?’
Avram lowered his voice, less from the fear of being overheard than from shame. ‘I need a cow,’ he said.
‘That’s why we’re here,’ said Francis.
‘I need her by seven o’clock tomorrow morning.’
Francis laughed. ‘That’s not possible. You know it isn’t. Not perfect. Not three years old.’
‘You told me once that you didn’t believe the nine previous heifers could all have been perfect reds. You told me once that if we couldn’t breed even one, despite our huge herds, our varieties of cattle and our modern genetic techniques, then it defied credibility that the ancients had found even one truly perfect one, let alone nine. You did tell me that, didn’t you?’
‘And I believe it.’
‘I believe it too.’ He took a deep breath before diving headlong into the heresy. ‘I think that many things claimed as absolute in the Tanakh were in fact not absolute. I think too many of my brethren use literalism to show off how devout they are. That is not how one honours the Lord, praise His Name. That is the way one defies Him.’
A beat of silence, then: ‘Tomorrow morning?’
‘Seven o’clock. As good as you’ve got. And at least three years old. We can honour that much. And her documentation will have to be convincing. My companions will want to check. Oh, and make it seem like she turned three at the precise hour of the earthquake.’
‘You’re asking too much. There isn’t time.’
‘And we’ll need the whole place to ourselves. You should be there, to answer questions. But not your volunteers. They’ll only say something stupid.’
‘You’re not listening. There isn’t time.’
‘No,’ said Avram. ‘You’re the one not listening. Call America if you need authority. Thaddeus will explain. But this has to happen. This is going to happen. Seven o’clock tomorrow morning. Be ready.’ And he put the phone down before Francis could argue further.
II
Rachel was too groggy to do anything but stand there dumbly as the BMW rushed towards her. But the men were quicker, leaping out of its way. It swerved at the last moment, pulled up with a screech beside her. The passenger door flew open and an athletic-looking, dark-headed young man grabbed her wrist, pulled her sideways onto his lap, her legs still dangling out. Blond-hair lunged for her, but the driver stamped on the accelerator and the BMW surged away, acceleration banging the door against her shins. They reached the junction with the main road and passing traffic forced the driver to hit his brakes. The door flew open again, allowing her to bring her feet fully inside so that the passenger could close the door. She looked around. The three men were chasing hard, fury in their eyes. They were almost upon them when a barely-existent gap opened in the traffic and the driver squirted out into it, forcing oncoming cars to brake sharply, leaving them honking like indignant geese.
‘Who the hell are you people?’ asked Rachel, still in the passenger’s lap. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Those men back there,’ said the passenger. ‘Was that a policeman with them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fuck!’ he said.
The driver grimaced. ‘You reckon they got my licence?’
‘Don’t know, mate,’ said his passenger. ‘Probably. Can they trace it?’
The driver shook his head. ‘Won’t be easy. The company rented it for me.’
‘Hey!’ Rachel had to shout for attention. ‘Who are you people? What’s going on?’
The passenger grimaced, uncertain how to answer. He offered her his hand to shake, which was somewhat awkward with her still in his lap. ‘My name’s Luke Hayward,’ he said. ‘I knew your-’
‘Luke Hayward?’ she said. She pushed away from him in horror, spilling over onto the back seats. ‘You killed my aunt.’
‘No,’ he said, turning around to face her, holding his palms up to diminish any threat she might feel. ‘That’s not true. I swear it’s not true. It was those men back there. That man with the fair hair.’
‘They were police. You’re saying the police killed Aunt Penny?’
‘They weren’t police,’ he insisted. ‘They were with a policeman. It’s not the same thing.’
‘He was on duty. He said his orders came down from on high.’
‘They tasered you in the back,’ said Luke. ‘Are you really going to take the word of men who’d taser you in the back over the people who saved you from them?’
She sought for a good comeback, couldn’t find one. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ she asked weakly.
‘I don’t know,’ said Luke. ‘Not everything, anyway. But those men were at your aunt’s house earlier. They found out that she’d sent you an email she wasn’t supposed to send, and that fair-haired guy lost his rag. She was trying to get away from him when she fell down the attic stairs.’
‘You were there? You saw it happen?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why not report it?’
‘I tried.’
He launched into an extraordinary story about rooftop escapes, a phone call from a local pub, swarms of police. She listened in mounting horror. Fifteen minutes ago, she wouldn’t have believed a word of it. But now she did, she believed him completely. ‘This email my aunt sent,’ she said. ‘That man was talking about it too. He wanted me to forward it to him.’