“No, highly secret and all that.”

“You’re troubled. Why?”

“All I can say is there’s a Jewish element and it disturbs me.”

“In what way?”

“Let me ask you a question. The man who shot Prime Minister Rabin-”

He interrupted her. “Murdered is a more accurate word.”

“The man who did that, and those who support him, claimed some sort of biblical authority for what he did.”

His voice was stern. “No such authority exists in either the Bible or the Torah. That despicable act of violence was a great sin in the eyes of God.”

“So, if I had to hunt down such people, it would not disturb you?”

“Because they are Jews? Why should it? We are the same as other people. Good, bad, average, sometimes evil.”

“Tell me,” she said, “why does God allow these things to happen, the evil that men do?”

“Because he gave us free will, the possibility of choice. In that lies the only true meaning of salvation.” He held her hands. “Trust in what you believe is right, child, do what you have to do. You have my blessing as always.”

She kissed his forehead. “I must go. I’ll see you soon.”

She went out. He sat staring at the door, then started to pray for her.

The ambulance was parked in the street, Brown’s black Escort behind it, and he stood beside it. As she came out of the gate of the small garden in front of her grandfather’s house, she had to pass the Escort and the ambulance to get to her Mini car. Brown knocked on the rear doors of the ambulance and spoke to her at the same time.

“Detective Inspector Bernstein?”

She paused instinctively, turning toward him. “Yes, who are you?”

The doors of the ambulance opened and Moshe jumped down, grabbed her arm, and pulled her between the doors. Aaron reached down and lifted her inside. Moshe followed and produced a pistol with a silencer.

“Now be good, Chief Inspector. If he had to shoot you, no one would hear a thing.” Aaron took her handbag, opened it, and removed her Walther. “I’ll look after this.”

“Who are you?”

“Jews like you, Chief Inspector, and proud of it.”

“Maccabees?”

“You are well informed. Wrists, please.” He cuffed them in front of her with plastic handcuffs. “Now behave yourself.”

He got out and closed the doors. Brown said, “I’ll be right behind. I’ll join you in Dorking.”

“Let’s get moving, then,” Aaron told him, and he got behind the wheel and drove away.

Moshe said, “You want a cigarette?”

“I don’t smoke,” she said in Hebrew.

He smiled delightedly and replied in kind. “But of course, I should have known.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“You’ll never get away with it.”

“I’m ashamed of you, Chief Inspector, that’s just a line from a bad movie. We are Maccabees, as Dillon must have told you. We can do anything. We kidnapped the President’s daughter. We kidnapped Dillon and where is he now? On a slab in a Washington morgue.”

“So you animals did that, too? I wasn’t sure, now I know. How do you justify that?”

“He served his purpose, but Dillon was the kind of man who could have become a serious liability.”

“You had him murdered?”

“Sometimes the end does justify the means and our cause is just. More important than the life of a man like Dillon.”

“That sounds familiar.” Hannah nodded. “Ah, yes, Hermann Göring, nineteen thirty-eight. Don’t let’s get upset over the deaths of a few Jews, that’s what he said.”

Moshe was pale and the pistol trembled in his hand. “Shut your mouth!”

“Gladly. Actually, I’d rather not talk to you at all,” Hannah Bernstein told him.

In his office, Ferguson checked his watch. It was just after five and no sign of Hannah yet. At that moment, his phone rang and he switched on the Codex. “Ferguson.”

“It’s me,” Dillon said. “Just hit Farley Field. Thanks for the RAF Range Rover.”

“Straight down to the Ministry,” Ferguson told him. “So much traffic in and out of our garage, you’ll be swallowed up.”

“No one would recognize me, anyway.”

“One good thing. No directional microphones in here. I’ve had a fresh detection outfit brought in so we’re secure.”

“All except for our computer system,” Dillon said. “See you soon.”

Aaron reached Dorking within half an hour and pulled into the parking lot of a huge supermarket crammed with vehicles. Brown parked his car and came round and Aaron leaned out.

“Okay, you get in the back. Afterwards, drive back here in the ambulance, dump it, and clear off in your own car.”

“Fine.”

Brown went round, opened the rear door and climbed in, closing it behind him. Hannah looked him over as the ambulance drove away, and a kind of realization dawned. “Well, now, you wouldn’t be George Brown by any chance?”

Brown was put out. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, an informed guess. Put it down to twelve years as a copper. One develops a nose for these things.”

“Damn you!” he said.

“No, damn you!” Hannah Bernstein told him.

Onwards from Dorking, Aaron made for Horsham. On the other side, he moved further into Sussex toward the River Arun, finally turning into a maze of country lanes following signs to Flaxby. He reached it, the kind of village which was a single pub and a scattering of houses. A mile on, he turned into a narrow lane that emerged into a huge overgrown airfield, a tower and several hangars decaying with age. He braked to a halt outside the hangars.

He went round and opened the rear doors. “All out.”

He put a hand up and helped Hannah. She said in Hebrew, “Where are we, or am I being naive?”

“Not really. We’re in the depths of rural Sussex. This used to be a Lancaster bomber base during the Second World War. Notice the lengthy runway, still usable in spite of the grass and weeds. We need a long runway.”

Engines started up, and a moment later a Citation jet moved out of one of the hangars. It stopped close by and the door opened, steps dropping down.

“Do I get to know our destination?” Hannah asked.

“Magical mystery tour. Take her on board, Moshe.”

Moshe urged her up the ladder, and one of the pilots pulled her in and seated her. Outside, Aaron said to Brown, “On your way. We’ll be in touch.”

“I suppose if I was an Arab fundamentalist I’d say, ‘God is good,”’ Brown told him.

“But he is,” Aaron said. “Our God, anyway.”

He went up the steps, pulling them up behind him, and closed and locked the door. The Citation taxied to the end of the field and turned. It paused, thundered down the runway, and lifted. Brown watched it go, then got into the ambulance and drove away.

In one of the control rooms of the Ministry of Defense, Ferguson, Dillon, Riley, and Blake Johnson sat back and watched as the operator ran the relevant section of the video through.

“All right, enhance the image and work through the crowd.”

The operator did as she was told, bringing up a larger image, concentrating on faces, and Riley cried out, “That’s him there in the raincoat with the briefcase.”

“Freeze where possible,” Ferguson urged.

There were a number of views of Brown from the front and from the side, all different perspectives.

“That should do,” Dillon said. “Now print.”

In a matter of seconds the machine had disgorged several colored prints of various views of the man calling himself George Brown. Dillon passed them to Blake one by one.

“There’s our man.” He turned to the operator. “You can go now.”

“But how do we find him, Dillon?” Ferguson glanced at his watch. “And where the hell is the Chief Inspector? It’s six-thirty.”

The mobile Judas had given Dillon sounded in his pocket. Dillon pulled it out and switched on. He held it up, face expressionless, and handed it over to Ferguson.