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‘Since Eli’s death I’ve been wondering about something. Something that just doesn’t make sense. You would agree that as far we know, Wheatley isn’t aware of Tudela’s letter or the Safed chronicle. Remember how in the cemetery his men stopped pursuing us as soon as they had your tablet in their hands?’

‘Yes. And?’

‘For Wheatley’s men, Eli was just a means to an end, to get to us. So why did they look for him in the synagogue? And why was there hardly any sign of a struggle in the Ari’s room?’

‘It’s a tiny room. Eli was a frail old man. He’d have seen them coming towards him, abandoned all hope and succumbed to his fate,’ Mina said.

‘I don’t buy that. He had searched all his adult life for this chronicle. I’d bet a dollar to a dime that he would have put up some sort of fight.’

‘Maybe. So why didn’t he? And should we suppose that Oberon knew about the Safed chronicle?’

They both remained silent and deep in thought.

‘Eli, what happened to you? Why didn’t you fight back?’ Mina thought to herself as she shed a tear for the old man.

‘I think we should stay in London for a few days’ Jack resumed, obviously trying to focus on something practical. ‘And meet this old scholar researcher who warned you about the tablet. He obviously knows something.’

‘Yes. His name is Moshe Shobai. The poor man, when he hears what we’ve been through he won’t believe how prophetic his words were.’

‘How did you get to know him?’ asked Jack.

‘I met him at a conference a few years ago. A really lovely old man.’

‘He might be really lovely, but if he knew how dangerous this tablet was, he would have told you more about it. Didn’t he strike you as suspicious?’

‘In comparison to everything we’ve gone through, no I don’t think he’s particularly suspicious,’ she answered sharply.

‘Are you still pissed off at me?’ he grumbled.

‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t you. If Oberon disappeared from the face of the earth in a pool of his own blood, I’d feel less angry.’

‘Don’t despair, it could still happen. But for now we should concentrate on what we can do. I was trained not to worry about or wish for things that are out of my present remit. Why don’t you sleep? We’ll be in London in a few hours.’

She nodded in agreement, breathed in deeply a few times and closed her eyes. Jack recognised the years of yogic training in the way Mina relaxed all her muscles by a simple act of will. He had learned to do the same but the hard way, during military ops when he had to force himself to relax and sleep for a few hours before springing back into action. He picked up Mina’s notes and read through the last pages. Who was behind Eli’s murder? He had downplayed this subject in front of Mina, but he was not satisfied with their conclusions.

Same day. New York.

Natasha stepped through the glass revolving doors of the Wheatley Forecast Corporation building, into the main lobby. The security guards greeted her as she walked to the main lift. As the elegant glass lift ascended, she smiled at the irony of a glass building that housed within its walls a business that was anything but transparent. When she reached the thirty-second floor, she inserted a key into a slot next to the lift buttons and the lift rose to the thirty-third, Oberon’s floor. She proceeded through the main lobby decorated in an art deco style, with a mixture of glass and metal ornaments, and veered left into the sophisticated waiting area outside Oberon’s private office. His secretary, Miss Dawson, was a sixty-year-old Oxford-educated English spinster, always immaculately dressed and totally au fait with every aspect of Oberon’s official business. She looked up impassively at Natasha, ‘Mr Wheatley is expecting you.’

Natasha knocked on the door and walked into his office.

Oberon was on the phone, closing a deal with a major weather broadcast channel, for special rights on advanced meteorological information. A single glance at Oberon’s hunter’s smirk, was enough for Natasha to guess that he was forcing his deal down the other person’s throat, and enjoying every bit of it. He finished his call and looked at Natasha with glee, eyeing up the metal attache case she held in her hand.

‘So my dear, what have you brought me?’

‘A certain stone tablet’ she answered.

She slid the attache-case on his desk and opened it. He looked at the cuneiform tablet, picked it up and examined it on all sides.

‘What sort of stone is it?’ asked Oberon.

‘I’m looking into it,’ said Natasha. ‘We’ll have the results of the analysis in a day or two.’

‘Excellent. Send it to Professor Manfred this afternoon, under the usual confidential terms. I want the translation as soon as possible.’

‘That won’t be possible, sir.’

‘Just double his fee.’ Then, noticing that Natasha was avoiding his gaze, he asked, ‘Why not?’

‘He passed away three months ago.’

‘How unfortunate.’