‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘I have told myself that. But… it is still a difficult thing to accept. How do you deal with it?’
‘The hard way.’
His face fell further. ‘I had hoped you would have advice for me on how to make it easier.’
‘There is no easy way. I’m sorry.’
‘Yes, that is what I was afraid of.’ He stared at the artefact. ‘Dr Wilde… would you be willing to work with me on the relic?’
She was surprised by the offer. ‘As an individual, or as a representative of the IHA?’
‘Both.’
‘You’re not in the IHA any more,’ said Eddie, with a subtle tone of warning. ‘And we’ve got other plans, remember?’
‘I know, I know,’ she said, before turning back to Banna. ‘But… this wouldn’t be a long-term commitment, would it?’
‘No, no,’ Banna replied. ‘Only until we have translated the text and understood the working of the mechanism.’
Macy raised a cautious finger. ‘Ah… just to remind you, the Antikythera Mechanism was found over a hundred years ago, and nobody knows exactly how it works yet.’
‘The Antikythera Mechanism is missing some pieces,’ Nina said. ‘This isn’t. And it’s even got instructions written on it.’ She moved back to the table and gazed at the metal fish. ‘A couple of days should be enough…’
‘Nina.’ There was no subtlety in Eddie’s warning now. ‘That’s not what we agreed.’
‘I’m still doing what Seretse and the Egyptian government asked me to do,’ she insisted.
‘No you’re not. What Seretse asked you to do was help the Egyptians secure Alexander’s tomb. Well, that’s done.’
‘Yes, but the thing those Nazis came for is right here,’ she said, jabbing a finger at the relic. ‘And it leads to something incredible.’
‘It might lead to something incredible. Or it might lead to absolutely bugger-all — I mean, he said yesterday,’ Eddie gestured at Banna, ‘that the Alexander Romance was full of crap.’
Banna did not want to be drawn into the argument. ‘If you want to help me, Dr Wilde,’ he said, ‘then call me. Here is my number.’ Avoiding Eddie’s glower, he handed her a business card.
‘Thank you. I’ll talk to you later; I think Eddie and I should have the rest of this discussion somewhere else.’
‘Yeah, that way I can swear more,’ her husband rumbled. ‘Deyab’s waiting to drive us back to the hotel. Macy, you coming?’
Macy looked apologetically between the couple. ‘Thanks, but… I’ll take a cab. You two might want to talk in private, you know?’
13
‘We are almost at the hotel,’ said Deyab, with considerable relief.
‘Good, great,’ growled Eddie. Privacy, even the relative kind, had not brought his and Nina’s increasingly bitter argument any closer to a conclusion. He turned back to his wife. ‘So that’s it? What I think — and what we both agreed on before — doesn’t matter now you’ve got a chance to chase after another piece of archaeological bollocks?’
Nina tried unsuccessfully to contain her frustration. ‘It’s not “bollocks” — this is important to me, Eddie! This is what I do, this is what I’ve spent my whole life doing. And it’s not that big a deal. It’ll only be for a day or two.’
‘Only a day or two,’ he echoed. ‘And what if it takes longer? Macy said they haven’t worked out what that Antique-tick-tock Mechanism does after a century, so what if you and Banna can’t just do a Robert Langdon and figure everything out in five minutes? Are you going to stay working on it for a week? A month?’
‘I don’t know! Maybe, maybe not.’
‘And how long have you got left? You’re going to use up a chunk of that time sitting in a bloody lab translating ancient Greek!’
‘For God’s sake, Eddie! It’s just a few days.’
‘A few days, yeah — out of how many? If you’re going to live to be ninety, that’s not a big deal, but if you only live to thirty-fou—’ He stopped abruptly, fear refuelling his anger. ‘For fuck’s sake, Nina! You’re dying, but you’d still rather spend time with people who are already dead than with me!’
‘That’s not true!’ she cried.
Her hurt expression warned him that he had overstepped the mark, but he was in no mood to back down. ‘That’s what it feels like, though. You could have told Seretse to piss off and let the Egyptians handle it, but you had to come here to see for yourself. And even though a bunch of Nazis, actual out-of-World-War-fucking-Two Nazis, just tried to kill us both, you still want to go chasing after another bloody legend!’
‘It might not be a legend, though.’
‘That doesn’t make it your problem.’
‘No, but it’s my choice. I want to follow up on this, Eddie.’ She folded her arms across her chest.
‘Decision’s made, is it?’ he said. There was no reply; Nina was not even looking at him. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he muttered.
Deyab broke the chilly silence. ‘Here is the hotel!’ he said, even more relieved than before. He stopped the Mercedes and got out to open Nina’s door. ‘If you need me for anything else, just call.’
‘Thanks, Deyab,’ she replied as she exited.
Eddie emerged from the other side. ‘If you hear shooting, it’ll probably just be the two of us.’
They entered the hotel in single file rather than side by side. Eddie was about to follow Nina to the elevators when someone caught his eye. ‘Ay up,’ he said as Zane beckoned to him from across the reception area. ‘Somebody wants a word.’
Nina hesitated, not in the mood for company, but there was a sadness around the Israeli’s eyes that his stoical mask could not fully conceal. Zane went to a corner seat; they joined him. The cuts to his head and neck were now covered by Band-Aids. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ he said brusquely, before adding in a slightly softer tone: ‘Thank you.’
‘What’s up?’ Eddie asked.
Zane glanced around to make sure that none of the other patrons were listening. ‘We got some information from the phone Ben took from the dead man.’
‘By “we”, you mean Mossad, right?’
The younger man’s eyes twitched in aggravation. ‘Yes, and don’t shout it out across the room. We checked the phone’s memory, and got our friends in America to track down the contact numbers.’
‘Your friends at the NSA, I’m guessing.’
A small nod. ‘It was a pre-paid phone, and most of the calls were to other burners — probably belonging to the other members of the cell. None of them are active any more, so the raiders must have disposed of them when they realised they’d been compromised. But one number was different. A landline.’
‘Someone phoned home?’ said Nina.
Zane shook his head. ‘If we’d located their base, the Criminal Sanctions Unit would already have been fully reactivated. All I have is a potential lead. The call was to a man named Leitz, Frederic Leitz — he’s from Luxembourg, but lives mostly in Italy. He’s been on the Mossad’s watch list for a long time.’
‘The guy in LA had been in contact with someone in Italy,’ Nina recalled.
‘What’s this Leitz done?’ Eddie asked, becoming intrigued in spite of himself.
‘He’s a middleman, arranging money transfers for anti-Israeli and extreme right-wing organisations. And individuals, too; he has some very powerful and very wealthy clients, all of them known anti-Semites.’
‘So you think this guy might know where these Nazis came from?’
‘I do, yes. The dead man having contacted Leitz can’t be a coincidence. I want to find out what he knows.’