The Moses Stone

66

Dexter swung the wheel of the hired Fiat to the right and accelerated along the street that ran behind the hotel in Giv'at Sha'ul where, according to one of Hoxton's contacts in Jerusalem, Angela Lewis and Chris Bronson had taken two rooms.

In the passenger seat beside him, Hoxton was carefully feeding nine-millimetre Parabellum shells into the magazine of a Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic pistol. On the floor in front of him, tucked out of sight, was another pistol – an old but serviceable Walther P38 – that he'd already checked and loaded.

Two days earlier, he'd met with a former Israeli Army officer on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. The price the man had demanded for the weapons and ammunition – he'd bought three pistols from him – was, Hoxton knew, nothing short of extortionate, but the Israeli was the only person he knew in the country who could supply what he wanted and, just as important, not ask any questions.

'Stop somewhere here,' Hoxton ordered.

Dexter found a vacant space on the right-hand side of the road and parked the car in the early-morning sunshine.

'Their hotel's just around the corner,' Hoxton said, handing over the Walther.

'I'm not that good with guns,' Dexter muttered, looking down at the blued steel of the pistol in his hand. 'Do I really have to take this?'

'Damn right you do. I've come too far to let this pair beat me now. We're going to find the Silver Scroll, and the only way to guarantee we can do that is to grab all the information – photographs, translations, whatever – the two of them have got. If we have to kill Bronson and the woman to get their stuff, than that's what we'll do.'

Dexter still looked unhappy.

'It's easy,' Hoxton said. 'You just point the pistol and pull the trigger. We'll kill Bronson first – he's the most dangerous – and Angela Lewis will be a lot more cooperative if she's just watched her former husband die.'

The two men got out of the car, both tucking the weapons into the waistbands of their trousers, under their jackets. They walked around the corner, then down the street to the hotel, and straight in through the lobby.