The Last Testament

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

J ERUSALEM , W EDNESDAY , 3.14 PM

‘I hate the media in this country, I really do.’ Uri was standing at the window, pulling back the curtain just enough to see the street outside.

‘Hmm.’

‘They’re like vultures. Look at them, Channel 2 outside in their satellite TV truck. It’s not enough they all had to come here to show the world the death of my parents. They have to stay.’

‘Not only in this country, Uri.’ Maggie was not looking in his direction, but keeping her eye fixed on the computer. She was about to try out her hunch on the gmail account she had discovered on Shimon Guttman’s computer. She logged in as Saeb Nastayib, the name of the man who had sent those mysterious last emails to Ahmed Nour. And, as it happens, an approximate translation of the name Shimon Guttman. For the password, she tried Vladimir as before. ‘Login failed.’ Damn.

She pushed the swivel chair away from the desk, got to her feet and stretched. The worst thing about this line of work, she remembered, was the lack of exercise. As she stretched her arms backwards, her hands meeting in a knot behind her back, she caught Uri’s gaze and realized that, without intending to, she was pushing her breasts forward: his eyes had widened. She hastily repositioned her arms, but she could tell that the image lingered.

‘We need to crack this password thing, Uri. The prompt seems to demand ten characters: Vladimir is only eight.’

‘He always did Vladimir, on everything.’

‘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 passionate 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 Saturday, 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, pass 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 Saturday 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. 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.’