on the table, completed my leaving routine and went home. In the early hours of the following day an agent banged on my door with orders to take me back to the agency. My papers had been processed as routine, and, to the decoders’ horror, everything I had seen had been happening as I was writing it down.’
Gabriel moved from the wardrobe and slumped on to the edge of the bed as if he no longer had the energy to stand up.
‘It’s a nuclear bomb, isn’t it?’ Gabriel asked, raising his eyes off the floor to look at Stratton. ‘That’s what the madman found in England and what he is now carrying.’
There was obviously no further point in lying to Gabriel. In fact, there was every reason to tell him the truth since this operation was far from over. If Stratton had any doubts about Gabriel, they were now gone. But he did not need to confirm Gabriel’s accusation. Gabriel could see it in his cold, dark eyes.
‘He’s here,’ Gabriel said. ‘But why are you? Aren’t you afraid?’
Stratton wanted to say it was his job, but that would have sounded pathetic. It would also have been a lie. Stratton was not about to die for anyone. It was his instincts that kept him chasing the Russian, but to analyse that any further would place him in the same confused netherworld as Gabriel.
‘I don’t like you, Stratton . . . No, that’s not entirely true. It’s your kind I don’t like.You’re the same as that man carrying his bomb.You may be the antithesis, but together you are one.You create each other and feed off each other. If you didn’t exist, he wouldn’t either.
Stratton could not agree with Gabriel. He wanted to say that for every force there had to be an opposing force.The concept of good could not exist without evil. If there was a question it was who were the good guys and where did the true evil lie. Perhaps Gabriel was right and that was why Stratton’s life often felt meaningless to him.
‘How big is the bomb?’ Gabriel asked.
‘Five miles.’
Gabriel shook his head sadly. ‘My God,’ he murmured. ‘It’s not just you . . . We’re all mad.’
A heavy knock on the door startled both of them, and Stratton got to his feet. Another energetic knock and Stratton opened the door to see Abed in the hallway.
‘He’s here,’ Abed said. ‘I saw him.’
‘The Russian?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’ Stratton asked with urgency as he stepped out of the room.
‘I was at the top of the road, opposite the shops, when I saw him leave the hotel. It was not until he passed me that I recognised him.’
‘When?’ Stratton asked as he headed down the hall.
‘I came straight here but it took me a while to find you.’
‘Stratton,’ Gabriel called out from the door of his room.
Stratton stopped at the corner to the stairwell and looked back to see Gabriel holding on to the doorway.
‘Number seven,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Seven,’ Gabriel repeated. ‘I don’t know what it means, but it’s important to the Russian . . . It’s today, Stratton.’
Stratton stared at him, a myriad thoughts crashing through his mind, including how to get away from Jerusalem as quickly as possible. He forced that to the back. ‘I thought viewers could only see the present. ’
‘That’s true.’
‘Then the future. If it hasn’t happened yet, it can be changed?’ It was more of a question than a statement, and his immediate actions depended largely on the answer.
‘Not mine,’ Gabriel said darkly.
Stratton stared at him a moment longer, then he ran down the stairs at the sprint, Abed close behind him.
A minute later, they were running out of the hotel entrance and up the road.
‘Was he carrying anything?’ Stratton asked.
‘A bag, a sack, over his shoulder.’
Stratton clenched his teeth and increased his pace up the hill, past the shops and towards the bend at the top.
They passed a van outside a photographic shop, daubed in various colourful slogans advertising photographic equipment. There was no one in the front of the vehicle and the interior was concealed from view by a panel behind the front seats with a mesh screen in it. The Shin Bet agent inside videoed Stratton and Abed running towards him, then he moved to the back of the van and operated another camera and recorded them heading around the bend and out of sight.
Chapter 14
Manachem Raz sat in the cramped press office that dealt with international media, which was situated on the third floor of