The Last Testament

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

J ERUSALEM , F RIDAY , 3.20 AM

Maggie flung her arms around Uri’s neck and planted a long kiss on his mouth. She felt the sudden softening, and moistening, as his lips began to part.

‘I knew it!’ she said, her eyes closed as she bathed in the sense of satisfaction. ‘It had to be!’

For the first time, she felt this was a problem that could actually be solved. Shimon Guttman was sharp, she knew that: his political stunts had been famous for their attention-grabbing creativity, and she had seen his canniness herself, with the neat little sleight concealing his collaboration with Ahmed Nour by creating an Israeli alter ego, ‘Ehud Ramon’. And Uri had told her that, despite his age, his father was utterly at ease with new technology. Didn’t Uri even say the old man liked playing computer games?

What he had done was utterly in character. Under pressure, aware that he was holding in his palms, no doubt growing clammier by the minute, a geopolitical timebomb, he had decided to hide the Abraham tablet where no one would think to look. Nowhere in the real world at all. But in the virtual realm, “A better, newer place, where you can be anyone you want to be”. He had hidden his treasure, or at least the secret of its location, in Second Life.

And then her stomach gave way. Oh no. To have come this far and to have screwed up now. How could they, how could she, have been so stupid?

‘What is it?’ asked Uri, still baffled.

Maggie said nothing, simply placing her finger over her lips. What idiots. Ever since the death of Afif Aweida, they had realized that someone was listening to their private conversations. From that point on, they had only spoken against a background of loud music or noise; or had whispered in public places, even exchanged scribbled notes. Yet when she had come round after Uri had whacked her on the neck, neither of them had thought to take precautions. Perhaps she had been too dazed by the blow; maybe he was too sleepy, or too guilty. But they had both forgotten. It wasn’t enough that they had changed rooms; their pursuers had had several hours to catch up. Which meant her crucial discovery would now be known by whoever was listening.

Maggie reached for the hotel message pad by the phone, scribbling fast: Get dressed. There was no time to waste. She had to get onto Second Life before they did. If she moved now, she might have a head start: it would surely take the Israelis or whoever it was time to work out what she already knew. She was tempted to use her laptop in this room and be done with it. But it was too risky: if they had already hacked into that, they would discover whatever she was about to find the instant she found it.

Uri dressed in the dark. If they were being watched from outside, no point in telegraphing that they were about to leave. She caught the outline of Uri’s frame only in silhouette now and felt a stirring of desire.

She checked they were ready then led the way downstairs, back to the business centre. She powered up the machine, reassured by its anonymity: there was nothing that could lead those stalking her to this computer. She immediately logged into Second Life, using the name and password Liz had given her. Uri stood over her shoulder, his face lit up by the reflected, lurid colours on the screen. When Liz’s avatar materialized, his eyes widened.

‘Wow. Hey, Lola.’

‘It’s not mine!’ Maggie grimaced. ‘It’s my sister’s.’

‘Your sister Lola looks like a fun girl.’ For that, she slapped him on the arm.

Feeling like a veteran now, Maggie called up the Teleport prompt and keyed in the six letters she hoped would unlock this puzzle once and for all. She imagined it, the phone call to Sanchez, telling him she could explain the recent spate of violence; she imagined his response. You better tell them yourself, Maggie. Get them round the table and get these peace talks back on track. I know you can do it…

Her avatar had now landed in the scrubbed streets of virtual Geneva. She began walking down Rue des Etuves, turning into Rue Vallin. There was hardly anyone about, save for a couple of rabbit-headed avatars on a street corner. Maggie headed down Rue du Temple to avoid them.

‘I can’t believe this,’ murmured Uri. ‘You’re saying my dad came to this…place?’

‘Geneva, but not the city everyone knows. That’s what he said. Kishon went to the wrong Geneva. What your father had was hidden here somewhere.’

‘But you’re just wandering down streets. What are we looking for exactly?’

‘Right now, I don’t know. It could be a map, maybe directions. Something that will tell us where he left the tablet. We’ll have to work it out.’

She reached into her pocket, looking again at the Post-it note. I have put it somewhere safe, somewhere only you and my brother could know. If only she understood what the hell that meant. She read on. I need you to remember the good times, like that trip we took together for your Bar Mitzvah. What did we do on that trip, Uri? I hope you remember that. I can tell you only that this search begins in Geneva…

‘What did you do on the trip, Uri? Think.’

‘I told you. We went to Crete. We talked a bit. I got bored. I’m sorry, Maggie. I just can’t think of anything.’

‘All right. We’ll just have to see if Geneva has some Greek museum or something.’

‘Minoan.’

‘What?’

‘Crete is Minoan.’

Maggie gave Uri a glare. ‘Thank you, Professor.’ She tried to see if there was a directory of buildings, even a detailed map, of this virtual Geneva. Nothing. She decided to fly, to see if any large structures caught her eye. Perhaps there would be a large museum with a Minoan department. Maybe Shimon Guttman had left this vital clue to the tablet’s location in there.

‘The funny thing is,’ Uri was saying, more to himself than to Maggie, ‘the only really strong memory I have of that trip is the flight; it was the first time I had ever been on a plane. That’s what really stuck in my mind. I told my father that, probably hurt his feelings. But it was true. We sat together, by the window seat, and I found it amazing, looking down at this beautiful blue water, while he pointed out the different islands below. That was the highlight, really. From then on-’

Maggie suddenly turned to look at him. She could hear Shimon Guttman’s voice: What did we do on that trip, Uri? I hope you remember that.

‘He wants us to do the same thing here,’ she said, hitting the arrow keys with new vigour. ‘He wants us to fly over Lake Geneva, looking for islands.’

The avatar was hovering above the virtual city, as Maggie directed it first west, then east. She had no idea of the geography of Geneva. She had been there once, for some UN thing, but it had been the usual international diplomacy experience: airport, car, meeting room, car, airport. So she relied on the crudest method possible: looking for a big patch of blue.

Once she had found the shoreline, she slowed down so that her avatar could fly low and close, with time to see what was below.

‘There’s one!’ said Uri, pointing in the bottom left of the screen. Clumsily, Maggie turned herself around and came as close as she could, hovering over what looked like a cartoon depiction of a desert island. It was round with a single flag planted in the yellow sand: it announced times for a weekly poetry discussion group. Maggie hit the Up arrow.

There were several islands in the lake, some used as venues for virtual events-Maggie saw signs advertising a concert and a press conference for a software company-some no more than simple plots of land for private owners. None seemed to have any connection to Shimon Guttman. Maggie was growing anxious; this was their only lead.

‘Come on,’ said Uri. ‘Keep flying. If it’s here, we’ll find it.’

Maggie kept it up, looping and dipping over the blue of Second Life’s version of Lake Geneva. For nearly a minute she did that, silently, so that it was as if the pair of them were in a glider, floating through the cloudless, midday skies above a real city, instead of here in this dark, soulless room in the dead of a Jerusalem night.

She was concentrating hard. It wasn’t easy to stay at the right altitude: too high and the islands were just dots, too low and they had no sense of perspective. If Uri was right, they needed to recreate the childhood experience he had had in that plane, spotting the islands below.

‘Hey, what’s that?’ said Uri, pointing at a small patch of land below. Maggie had to double back, steering Lola round. When she saw it, she hovered, then steadily lowered herself.

‘I don’t believe it,’ Uri said, shaking his head. ‘Even here.’

‘What is it, Uri? What?’

‘Look at that. Can you see the shape of that island? Look at the shape.’ He was pointing at the yellow pixels on the screen.

Maggie could see that it was unusual. Not the rough-edged, vaguely circular blob favoured by the owners of most of Second Life’s private islands, but a series of wobbling lines, with a large square protruding from the right. It was a deliberate design of some kind. But it meant nothing to Maggie.

‘Uri, what is it?’

‘See that on the left? That’s Israel. And that big bulge? That’s Jordan. This is the map of Eretz Yisrael, the complete Land of Israel, according to the right-wing fanatics who worship Jabotinsky. People like my father. They have this shape on their T-shirts. The women wear it as a pendant. Shtei gadot, they call it. It means two banks. They even have a song: “The River Jordan has two banks, both of them ours”.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I knew this shape before I knew my alphabet, Maggie. I grew up with it. Believe me, my father did this.’

Maggie clicked to stop flying, landing splashily on the water lapping against the island’s shore. She walked forward, but was pushed back. A red line, like a laser beam girdling the island, materialized each time the avatar got too near, effectively bouncing her away. When you looked closely, you could see it was made up of words: NO ENTRY NO ENTRY NO ENTRY. It was an electronic border fence. A small message appeared on screen: ‘Cannot enter parcel-not member of the group.’

‘Damn. It’s locked somehow.’ Her avatar was static. Maggie looked at the bottom of the screen, trying to find a box for keying in a password.

‘Hey, Maggie. Who’s this?’

She looked up and felt a chill run through her. Two avatars were hovering close by. They had the same, eerie bunny heads she had seen just before, but now both were clad in black. She remembered the men in the alley, the black ski-masks, the hot breath.

Maggie looked up at Uri. ‘They’re following us. They’re trying to get whatever information your father stored here before we do. What should I do?’

‘Can you talk to them?’

Maggie stared hard at the screen. They were still lingering at her side. She hit Chat and typed into the window, trying hard to stay in character. hey guys, what’s up?

She waited for a reply. Three seconds, four, five. She waited till the Second Life clock in the corner of the screen turned a minute. Nothing.

‘They’re waiting for us to make a move. They know only what they pick up from us.’ With that, Maggie had one more attempt at breaking through the laser cordon that appeared around the island every time she got close. Cannot enter parcel-not member of the group.

The rabbit-heads remained close by, unmoving. They were shut outside the cordon too, but something about their stillness unsettled Maggie. She imagined their operators, whoever they were, hammering their way through complex algorithms, running serious de-encryption programmes, working out how they could smash through Guttman’s little barrier. If these people were clever enough to have followed Maggie, or Lola Hepburn, to this spot within Second Life, they would hardly let one piffling cordon stand in their way.

Maggie hit Chat. you again! are you rabbit boys hitting on me?

‘Maggie, what are you doing?’

‘Letting them know we know.’

She carried on typing, now using the Second Life search function. The search word: Guttman. Maybe there was an obvious way into the island, something they were both overlooking.

‘I’m going to get something,’ Uri said, heading for the door. ‘I’ll be back in a second.’

The Guttman search was still chugging through, taking much longer than before. No entries were coming up. ‘Come on, come on,’ Maggie murmured. Then, as if hearing her command, there was a whooshing sound and everything went blank.

Suddenly the screen was loading with a landscape Maggie did not recognize. She had been teleported somewhere else within Second Life, even though she had clicked no button. Had she fumbled the keyboard without realizing it?

But then she saw them. Not two rabbit-heads but four now, surrounding her. She pressed the forward arrow and moved a few paces, then froze. Then, jerkily, she regained movement again, turning rapidly into a side alley. The four rabbit-men were behind her, gaining ground. She froze again.

Maggie could feel her own, real-life, breath coming short and fast. Whoever was behind the rabbit-heads was paralysing her avatar. Now she wouldn’t be able to return to the island in Lake Geneva. Whatever message Shimon Guttman had locked there would be out of reach.

Maggie heard the sound of the lift ping open. She turned around to see the room empty behind her. Where was Uri? She could hear footsteps coming closer and now, through the glass, she could see a man approaching. In the dark it was impossible to make out his face.

The door opened and Maggie saw the figure in full: it was Uri, clutching a neat pile of brown clothes. Without explanation he began unbuckling his trousers and removing his shirt, before stashing them under one of the desks, out of view. That done, he started putting on the items he’d brought in, an outfit that seemed to be made entirely of a noisy polyester material in a sickly shade of beige. The trousers were too short, which required some strenuous downward tugging to make contact with his shoes, but soon the transformation was complete. He was wearing the uniform of a hotel bellboy.

‘How on earth-’

‘Anyone who’s ever worked night shifts in a hotel, as I have, knows one thing: they all have a laundry room somewhere. You just have to find it and break in.’

‘But why?’

‘Don’t you see? These people have been bugging us and following us, so that we would lead them to the tablet. And now they have what they want. They know the answer is on that island and they’ll get it. They don’t need us any more, Maggie. We’re in the way.’

Her heart hammering, she turned back to the screen, where Lola was now surrounded by six rabbit-headed men. She hit the Fly button, to escape. It didn’t work. She began stabbing, dumbly, at all the buttons, but nothing would happen. The avatars in black were closing in.

And now something else was happening. The face on Lola Hepburn, the fresh-faced Valley girl with the ponytail, was starting to change. The eyes began to droop, as if they were about to dissolve into tears. Now the nose began to descend too, the face of this electronic creature no longer perky but increasingly hideous.

Maggie could only watch as the deterioration spread down Lola’s body, the breasts melting into a swirl of red, white and blue like a sundae on a summer’s day. Now the torso slid down into the legs, until the entire body was a pool of sludge on this side street, the rabbit-headed avatars still circling, like gulls about to feast on dead flesh. Maggie’s only chance to find out what Shimon Guttman knew had gone.

‘Maggie.’ It was Uri, at the door, about to leave. ‘In three minutes’ time, go down the fire escape. The entrance is there.’ He pointed. ‘Don’t take the elevator. Walk down the stairs as far as you can. Don’t stop at the lobby, but one level lower. You’ll come out in the kitchens. As quickly as you can, turn left out of the elevator, and head for the refrigeration area.’

‘How the hell-’

‘Just follow the cold. At the back will be a loading bay. Get out there and I’ll be in a car.’

‘How are you going to get-’

‘Just do it.’

And then he vanished, for all the world a member of the night team of the David’s Citadel Hotel.

Maggie collected the few things she had. Uri was right: their every move was being watched and their pursuers were serious. She had seen that for herself this morning and seen it again now, as they had locked on to and destroyed the avatar lent to her by Liz. Maggie shut down the program and moved towards the fire escape.

As she stepped into the blackness of the staircase, she realized that she had not a clue where she was going or what she was going to do next. Their best hope had been taken from them, reduced to a few computer pixels that had simply melted away.