The Moses Stone

32

At eight thirty the next morning Dexter walked through the doors of the Bank Al-Maghrib on Avenue Mohammed V in Rabat. Fifteen minutes later he left the premises, his transactions concluded. Five thousand pounds of the money Charlie Hoxton had wired to Morocco was on its way to a numbered account in a small and discreet bank in Lichtenstein, where it would earn minimal interest for him but be entirely safe.

The previously smooth line of Dexter's tweed jacket was now marred by two bulges. The wads of dirham notes in his inside pockets – each the equivalent of £5,000 sterling – were bulky, and he wanted to get the meeting with Zebari over with as quickly as possible and get home to the calm and safety of his antique shop in Petworth. He'd never liked Morocco as a country; he liked its inhabitants even less.

He walked briskly along Avenue Mohammed V until he found a café that looked reasonably clean, pulled out a chair from a vacant table and ordered mint tea – Arabic coffee was far too strong and bitter for his taste. He checked his watch: eight fifty.

At nine exactly he pulled out his mobile and dialled the number Zebari had given him.

The Moroccan answered almost at once. 'Dexter?'

'Yes. I've got what you wanted.'

'You're in Rabat?'

'Yes.'

'Get yourself onto Avenue Hassan II and go east along it, heading towards the estuary. When you get almost to the end, just before it bends to the south-east, turn right into the Rue de Sebta. Walk down there and take a seat in the first café you come to on the right-hand side of the road. Sit outside, where I'll be able to see you. Got that?'

'Yes.' Dexter studied his street map of Rabat. Avenue Hassan II actually crossed Avenue Mohammed V, and the rendezvous Zebari had specified was only about a mile away. 'I'll be there in twenty minutes,' he said.

Half a mile away, Izzat Zebari snapped his mobile closed and nodded to himself in satisfaction. He trusted Dexter about as far as he could throw him, but he had the Englishman over a barrel, and both of them knew it. Dexter's client was obviously desperate to get his hands on anything relating to the clay tablet and Zebari was fairly sure he wouldn't try anything underhand. But if Dexter did try to gain possession of the card without handing over the money, Zebari guessed that his Walther PPK automatic pistol would provide all the additional persuasion he'd need to complete the transaction.

Zebari glanced around him as he stood up in the hotel lobby where he'd been waiting. Satisfied, he walked out of the building, squinting in the sudden glare of the sunshine.

He glanced up and down Rue Abd el Myumen before pulling a pair of sunglasses out of his jacket pocket and striding away towards the Rue de Sebta.

About fifty yards behind Zebari, two men dressed in jeans and T-shirts stood up from the café table where they'd been sitting and began to follow him, chatting to each other as they walked. One man held a small mobile phone close to his right ear.

In the back seat of a black Mercedes saloon that was even then cutting through the traffic towards the Rue Abd el Myumen from the south side of Rabat, the tall man with the frozen face was urging his driver to go ever faster. He listened on his phone to the reports from his two men. It wouldn't be long now before he recovered what was rightfully his.

The traffic along Avenue Hassan II, which was also the main N1 road that laterally bisected Rabat, wasn't anything like as bad as Dexter had anticipated. That, and the fact that he managed to flag down a cab within seconds of leaving the café, meant it took him less than ten minutes to reach the rendezvous.

He wasn't sure whether Zebari had chosen the café deliberately, or whether he'd just picked a fairly busy road and assumed that there would be a café somewhere along it. Either way, once he paid off the cab and turned into Rue de Sebta, he saw the white awning and collection of tables and chairs only twenty or so yards in front of him. Dexter glanced round when he reached the café but saw no sign of the man he was meeting. He ordered yet another mint tea and prepared to wait.

Five minutes later Izzat Zebari pulled out the chair opposite Dexter and sat down. He looked furtive and harassed, glancing all around him before he spoke, but at that hour there were few people in the café and only a handful of pedestrians. Two young men who'd been walking along the street behind Zebari carried on past the café without a backwards glance, deep in conversation.

'You've got the money?' Zebari demanded, as the waiter placed a cup of thick black coffee in front of him and moved away.

Dexter nodded. 'And you've brought the card?' he asked.

Zebari nodded in turn.

Dexter reached inside his jacket, pulled out two thick envelopes secured with elastic bands and slid them across the table. 'Ten thousand, in dirhams, as we agreed.'

Zebari mirrored Dexter's action, producing an envelope and placing it on the table. Each man reached out and took what the other had offered. Zebari opened the envelopes and ran the end of his thumb over the crisp banknotes they contained, riffling them like two packs of cards, then swiftly slid them into the pockets of his jacket. Dexter unsealed the brown envelope and slid out the piece of card. He stared at what was printed on it.

'Jesus,' Dexter said after a few moments. 'This is nothing like as good as I was expecting. The picture's a lot smaller than I'd hoped, and the inscription's still not very clear.' He tossed the card across the table. 'I'm not satisfied. The deal's off. Give me back the money.'

Zebari shook his head. 'This Walther in my pocket says the deal is still on, Dexter.' He pulled the butt of a small semi-automatic pistol into view. 'Think about it. I've really got nothing to lose.' He stood up, tossed a few dirhams on the table, and walked away, back down the street.

There's a slight kink in the Rue de Sebta, where a sidestreet links it with the Rue de Bured. The black Mercedes reached that point at almost precisely the same moment as Zebari.

The heavy car squealed to a halt half on the pavement, its long bonnet blocking Zebari's way forward as two other men closed in on him from behind.

Zebari saw the car swing towards him and immediately guessed the identity of the vehicle's owner. Right then he knew he was in trouble, deep trouble. He swung round, turning to run, but two men were right in front of him, the same two who'd walked past the café only minutes earlier. Both were clearly ready to intercept him no matter which way he went. Behind him he heard the unmistakable sounds of car doors opening.

Pulling the Walther from his pocket, Zebari snapped off a quick and barely aimed shot at the men in front of him, forcing them to duck. But they too were drawing weapons. Zebari's only escape route was across the road, through the traffic – and that's where he ran.

He dodged around a slow-moving truck and sprinted for the pavement on the opposite side of the road. He'd almost reached it when he felt a tremendous punch in the centre of his back. The echo of the shot reverberated from the buildings all around, and he tumbled to the ground, all feeling gone from his legs. He dropped the pistol, which landed with a clatter well out of his reach.

Almost casually, the tall man and one of his men jogged across the road to where Zebari lay. Numbers of people began to gather on both sides of the road, attracted by the drama, but none showed any inclination to become involved.

'You stole something from me. Where is it?' the tall man demanded, as his associate picked up Zebari's Walther.

The wounded man lay half on the pavement, crumpled and barely moving, a pool of blood spreading around him. He stared up at the tall Arab. Oddly enough, he felt very little pain, just a growing numbness.

'I haven't got it,' he said, his voice barely audible.

The tall man gestured and his colleague roughly searched the recumbent figure. He didn't find the card, but pulled out the two envelopes stuffed with banknotes, which he passed to his boss.

'Have you sold the card?' he demanded, looking down.

'Yes,' Zebari gasped, a sudden wave of agony coursing though his body.

'Not a bad deal, Zebari. All this money just for a small piece of card,' the tall man said, his voice quiet and controlled. 'You know me, or at least you must know my reputation. When you broke into my house to try to steal my tablet, you must have guessed what would happen to you. So why did you do it?'

'It was just a job,' Zebari muttered, the pain now starting to bite. He coughed, and a spray of blood showered the front of his jacket. 'An order from a British collector.'

The tall man looked interested. 'Does he have a name, this collector?'

'I was dealing with an intermediary, an agent.'

'And what is his name?'

Zebari said nothing, and the tall man leant closer. 'Tell me his name,' he said, 'and we might walk away and you might live.'

Zebari stared up, his gaze fixed with a kind of horrified fascination at the tall man's milky-white, unseeing and unblinking right eye.

'Dexter. Everybody just calls him Dexter.'

'And where would I find him?'

'He's here in Rabat. He was right there. I've just sold the card to him.'

'Good,' the tall man said, straightening up. 'We'll find him. Right, Ahmed, finish it.'

'I told you what I knew,' Zebari said, his voice rising in terror. 'You said you'd walk away.'

'I lied,' the tall man muttered, the left side of his face lifting in a travesty of a smile. He nodded to the other man.

The echo of the second shot was just as loud as the first. Another pool of blood began to spread from Zebari's shattered skull to mingle with the congealing puddle that had already covered a large area of both the road surface and the pavement.