The Moses Legacy

Chapter 72

‘So we still haven’t got a fix on Goliath,’ said Sarit.

She and Dov were in the Mossad’s headquarters in Herzliya where Sarit had been debriefed over the events in Egypt and had spent the last week liaising with the Israeli embassy in Egypt to determine the fate of Goliath. They had monitored the press and sent operatives to engage nurses at local hospitals in casual conversations in an effort to extract information. But because of the recent cooling off of relations with Egypt, they had to keep a low profile.

‘We managed to trace him to a hospital in Cairo. But by the time we got there, he’d already discharged himself.’

‘It feels so silly calling him Goliath. Don’t we know his real name?’

‘Unfortunately not. Even Audrey Milne doesn’t know it. She thinks that the only person who does is Senator Morris and he’s keeping his cards close to his chest.’

‘You said they operate in cell structure, didn’t you?’

‘That’s right, like all good subversive organizations. Arthur Morris’s cell comprises Morris, Milne and Paul Tomlinson, aka “the professor”.’

‘Plus Goliath.’

‘Goliath is more Morris’s private asset, essentially his attack dog.’

‘But technically part of the cell.’

‘Yes, but if we didn’t know about them already, the only one he could implicate is Morris.’

‘And presumably the others also have their own assets whose identities they don’t give away.’

‘Exactly. Any member of a cell can have a private asset, known only to him. And an asset of one cell member can be the head of his own cell. If his recruiter wants something done, he may call on his asset and the asset in turn is able to call on other members of his cell who are unknown to the recruiter who owns the asset.’

‘So Senator Morris may be an asset of someone in another cell who can call on him to get the kind of results that he specializes in. Morris would either do what he’s asked to do or tell them that he can’t do it.’

‘Exactly. And by the same token, Goliath could have his own cell to help him implement the senator’s wishes. Although I suspect not.’

‘So is it possible that Carmichael was one of Professor Tomlinson’s assets?’

Dov gave this a moment’s thought. ‘It’s unlikely. If it were the case, then the professor wouldn’t have been so anxious to kill him.’

‘Why not? Maybe they saw him as trouble.’

‘Well, it was apparently Carmichael’s research that alerted them to the possibility of using the plague against us.’

‘But doesn’t that prove my point?’

‘Not really. You see, Carmichael didn’t set out to work against us. He just made them aware of the fact that the plague could be revived in certain circumstances. He was a senile old man whose occasional lapses into lucidity gave them a heads-up on a plausible strategy to advance their nefarious agenda.’

‘And it was those same lapses into lucidity that made him a threat to them. In short, he knew too much for his own good.’

‘Exactly. They got some useful info from a paper that he had written and was trying to get published. But at any time he might have realized that he was being played for a sucker and start rocking the boat.’

‘And so they got Goliath to kill him.’

‘Yes.’

‘And they also tried to kill Gusack, Klein and Mansoor.’

‘And damn nearly succeeded. But I think we can rule out Mansoor as the main target. It was Klein and Gusack they wanted to silence.’

‘And now we’re giving them shelter.’

‘Well, there’s no reason not to.’

‘So we’re not worried about all that stuff about Joseph and Moses.’

‘Why should we be? There’s nothing new in it. The theories have been around for ages, and as you said, we can’t bump them off just for challenging the Bible.’

‘Okay, but what about the plague? Any danger that they brought it with them on their clothes?’

‘They arrived in swimsuits that they had just bought in Taba. And before we picked them up, they’d already taken a plunge in the Gulf of Eilat.’

‘So they were in water?’ she asked, nervously.

‘ Salt water. Trust me on this, Sarit: the worst they can manage is to ruffle the feathers of a few religious fundamentalists. They’re not going to bring the walls of Jericho tumbling down.’