The Sinai Secret

FORTY-FIVE

Middle Temple Inn

Fleet Street

London

Minutes Later

Jacob listened patiently as Lang brought him up-to-date.

Removing the dead pipe from his mouth, he stared into the bowl as he reached for the nail-like tool. "So, your guess is that those sods in Cairo weren't Mukhabarat at all?"

Lang nodded. "Otherwise they would've called in backup."

Jacob was busily excavating the pipe's bowl. "So, who were they?"

"I think they were Jews. In fact, I think there's some Jewish organization behind this whole thing."

Jacob stopped, his hands for once still as his glasses slid down the bridge of his nose. "You're cocking me a snook."

Despite what Churchill described as the barrier of a common language, Lang guessed at the meaning. "No. I'm serious."

"But why…?"

"Okay, let's look at the facts." Lang held up an index finger. "One, the only way those people could have known I'd contacted Shaffer, the Austrian, was by intercepting a call from my BlackBerry."

"They could have tapped his phone," Jacob argued.

"How would they know to do that? Other than the one call, I'd never spoken to the man before he felt he was being followed, as he clearly was."

Lang flinched at the memory of the corpses in the crypt.

Jacob used the stem of the briar to push the spectacles back into place. "Cell phones are subject to interception."

"Odds of any specific phone are, what, less than hitting the sweepstakes?"

"But the only other way your call could have been intercepted-"

"Would be Echelon," Lang finished the sentence.

Jacob shook his head. "But that's strictly Anglo- American. No one who isn't American, British, Canadian, Australian, or Kiwi has access."

Lang stared at his friend for a few moments.

Jacob finally looked down, running a hand along the edge of the desk as though looking for flaws in the wood. "Dash it all, okay. So, an occasional scrap gets shared with Mossad." He looked up. "But you don't think…?"

"That Mossad's involved? No, I don't. I do think someone in Mossad may be, though. In fact, has to be. The Israelis are the only people outside the club who ever have access to Echelon. Plus the weapons…"

Jacob snorted. "The Israeli army discarded those Desert Eagles years ago. Too heavy."

"I'd be interested in knowing how they disposed of them."

"You can bloody well bet they didn't hand them out as sodding gifts at bar mitzvahs. The army usually destroys obsolete weapons."

"Humor me; call up old pals and see what you can learn about who was supposed to melt down the guns and who has access to Echelon. I'd bet it turns out to be the same person or persons."

It was clear Jacob wasn't happy but that he'd do it. "Anything else on your great bleeding laundry list?"

"Yeah, what I think is the clincher-"

There was a knock on the door, the one between the outer office and the common hallway. "Police! Open up!"

Jacob looked ruefully over his glasses. "This, as you Yanks say, is where I came in, what with the coppers about to beat the door down just like at my flat the last time you got involved with the wrong people."

Lang stood, but not before more blows fell on the outer door. For once he was thankful for his friend's paranoia that had resulted in the locking mechanism.

"Open up before we knock the door in!"

Lang desperately glanced around the office; the only exit was into the outer office. "I haven't done anything."

Jacob nodded calmly. "Same thing you said last time before you wound up hanging off the bleedin' balcony sixteen floors up. Maybe this time you'd like to explain your innocence?"

There was the sound of something hard smashing into wood.

For whatever reason the police wanted him, Lang wasn't about to surrender, to render himself incapable of movement. It was all too easy to arrange an "accident" once someone was incarcerated.

"Where?"

Another smash.

"Where indeed?" Jacob replied.