The Moses Stone by James Becker

Author:James Becker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Mystery And Suspense Fiction, Detective, Suspense, Police, Relics, Mystery & Detective, Fiction - Mystery, Fiction, Christian, Suspense fiction, Historical, Thrillers, Mystery fiction, Crime, Mystery & Detective - Historical
ISBN: 9780451412874
Publisher: Penguin Group USA
Published: 2010-09-15T07:00:00+00:00

Part Three

Israel

46

The flight was no problem, but actually getting into Israel took Bronson and Angela several hours, and that was after they'd disembarked from the aircraft. The problem was the small blue square they each had stamped in their passports with the word 'sortie' printed in a vertical line down the left-hand side, a date in the centre and Arabic script across the top and down the right side – their exit stamps from Morocco.

The Israeli authorities are notably suspicious of travellers arriving at any of their borders who have recently left an Arab country, even one as distant as Morocco. The moment the immigration officer had seen the stamps, he'd pressed a hidden switch and minutes later Bronson and Angela were whisked away into separate interview rooms while their luggage was found and comprehensively searched.

Bronson had anticipated what their reception was likely to be, and they'd taken precautions to ensure that none of the photographs of the clay tablets, or of their translations of the Aramaic text, remained on Angela's laptop, just in case the Israelis wanted to inspect the contents of the hard disk. She had transferred all these files to a couple of highcapacity memory sticks, one of which was tucked away in the pocket of Bronson's jeans and the other hidden in Angela's make-up kit in her handbag. Back in London, they'd gone to Angela's bank, where she had a safety deposit box that held the deeds to her apartment and other important papers, and deposited the clay tablet there, because they didn't want to risk travelling with the relic.

The questioning was thorough, relentless and competent. What had they been doing in Morocco? How long had they been there? Had they been there before? If so, why? All repeated again and again, the questions the same, though the way they were asked changed frequently as the interrogators looked for any discrepancies or alterations in their answers. Bronson, who had considerable experience in sitting on the other side of the table, interviewing suspects, was impressed by their thoroughness. He hoped that his police warrant card and Angela's British Museum identification were helping to establish their bona fides.

Only towards the end of the interviews, when they were apparently satisfied with what they'd been doing in Morocco, did the officials begin asking why they'd come to Israel. Bronson had discussed this with Angela on the flight out, and they'd decided that the only right answer to this question had to be 'holiday'. Any other response would simply cause problems and certainly lead to more questioning.

It was mid evening before they were finally allowed to leave the interview rooms by the unsmiling Israelis.

'I don't mind the security checks they do here,' Angela said. 'At least you can feel fairly safe on an El Al flight.'

'We flew British Airways,' Bronson pointed out.

'I know. I mean, when you're flying out of an Israeli airport, the chances of anyone being able to smuggle a weapon or a bomb on to a departing flight are almost nil.

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