Alex blinked in disbelief. ‘A US senator is behind this?’

‘Oh, it’s not like he even knows about it,’ Slater said. ‘Bud Richmond’s just a rich boy evangelist jackass who barely knows what day of the week it is. I sign the cheques, not him. He might be the one being set up to lead the faithful, but this is my operation.’

‘What the fuck are you people doing?’ Alex yelled up at them.

Slater shrugged. ‘I hate the idea of a beautiful woman like you dying in ignorance. We’re just about to open the curtain on the biggest show on earth, though unfortunately you won’t be around to witness it. We aim big, and we’re starting big. Something that’ll make the Corfu bombing look like a firecracker.’

Then he told her what it was, clearly enjoying the look on her face as she listened in horror.

‘You’re mad,’ she breathed. ‘You’re completely insane.’

‘Just moving things along, Agent Fiorante,’ Callaghan said. ‘Don’t think of it as our agenda. This is God’s plan. If it leads to war, then that’s the way God wants it to be.’

‘Though personally, you can keep the God bit,’ Slater added. ‘Callaghan is the religious nut here.’

The CIA agent threw him a hard look.

‘You can’t get away with it,’ Alex protested. ‘They’re expecting Zoë to turn up in England. When she doesn’t, alarm bells will be ringing.’

Callaghan smiled and shook his head. ‘Wrong again. They’re not expecting her any more.’

‘They made me call my parents from the car,’ Zoë sniffed. ‘Made me tell them I’d met someone and wouldn’t be back for a while.’

‘And they’re pretty used to that, aren’t they?’ Callaghan added.

‘Then Murdoch will notice I’m missing,’ Alex said. ‘Either way, this will come back on you.’

‘Listen, honey,’ Slater cut in. ‘By the time anybody cottons on to anything, the world will be a very different place. They’ll have more to worry about than you two.’

‘You can kill us,’ Alex said evenly. ‘But Ben Hope will be coming for you.’

Slater and Callaghan exchanged amused glances. ‘Nice sense of timing, Agent Fiorante,’ said Callaghan. ‘Because right now it’s coming up to 11.25 a.m. That’s

6.25 p.m. Israeli time. Your boyfriend is walking into a trap, right as we speak. In five minutes, he’ll be dead.’

Slater chuckled. ‘Have a nice time, girls.’

The two men turned and headed back up the cellar steps. Then the heavy door slammed shut and Alex and Zoë were left in darkness.

Chapter Sixty

The Jewish Quarter, Jerusalem

6.29 p.m. Israeli time

Ben found the crumbling old apartment building at the end of a narrow, cobbled alleyway. The street was quiet. A woman in traditional headgear saw him coming and retreated hurriedly through a doorway. He looked at his watch. Dead on time.

He checked the notebook again as he stepped into the cool shade of the apartment building. His footsteps echoed off the stone floor and the craggy walls as he climbed the stairs, glancing at the numbers on the doors.

It was a very ordinary abode. A sleeper working for an agency like the CIA needed to blend in totally with their environment, indistinguishable in their lifestyle from any normal member of the community. Sometimes their spouses were completely in the dark about their double life. They were usually people from an unassuming background, who would never attract the attentions of the police or other authorities. Their role was to gather low-grade intelligence, sometimes to act as messengers or assist more senior agents on missions in their area.

Ben came to the apartment number he’d been given and knocked on the door. He listened. There was no sound from inside. He checked his watch. He was right on time for the rendezvous. He knocked again.

The door opened. The man in the doorway was lean and hawklike, with cropped black hair and a thick beard, casually dressed in jeans and a white shirt. His eyes were dark and intense. ‘Mr Hope?’

Ben nodded.

‘Come this way,’ the man said, motioning him inside.

Ben followed him into a living room. The place was small and sparsely furnished, the walls bare and white. They’d clearly been expecting him. On a table was a slim card file, the bottom edge of some papers visible. Next to the file was a Heckler & Koch 9mm pistol, action locked open, and a loaded magazine. On a nearby couch was a disassembled sniper rifle with silencer and scope. ‘If this comes to a sniper-counter-sniper situation,’ Murdoch had said.

‘Callaghan told me you had something for me,’ Ben said.

‘That is correct,’ the man answered with a mysterious smile. ‘Something important. But first, you will take coffee?’

‘I don’t have time for coffee.’

The man smiled again. ‘You are right. You do not.’

The movement was sudden and violent. Ben felt the wind of the attacker rushing up behind him before he could react. Something flashed in front of his face. He instinctively raised his hands to defend himself. The garrotte bit harshly into his fingers. Ben desperately tried to wrench it away, but the attacker was powerful, dragging him backwards off his feet. The wire sliced through his flesh. He kicked and struggled.

The bearded man was smiling. He slowly reached for the gun on the table.

Ben was fighting for his life. The man with the garrotte twisted and sawed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a door open. Another man walked in, holding a long, curved knife.

The trap was sprung. Callaghan had lured him to his death.

Then he’d die fighting. He threw himself down to the floor. The strangler went down with him, tightening the wire even more. Ben could feel himself choking. He lashed out with his foot, kicking out in a wide arc over his body. It connected with the guy’s face. Suddenly the garrotte was loosening.

The knife guy was moving in closer.

Ben rolled across the floor and threw a sideways kick at the knifeman’s knee. Hit the joint sideways with brutal force and felt the crunch. The guy screamed and dropped the blade to the floor.

Then Ben was on his feet. He grabbed the strangler’s hair and drove a knee hard into his face. Whirling round, he delivered a web-hand strike to the knifeman’s throat that crushed his windpipe. Then he spun back round to the strangler, putting all his weight into a backwards elbow blow to the face that impacted hard and smashed his teeth down his throat. The guy crashed to the floor, rolling on his back. Ben stamped down on his neck. Blood spurted out of his mouth.

The bearded man was fumbling with the gun, slamming in the magazine and chambering the first round. He raised the pistol and fired. The report was deafening in the small room. Ben felt the shockwave of the bullet. Plaster stung his cheek as the shot ploughed into the wall six inches from his head. Ben tore a picture frame from the wall and hurled it. It spun sideways across the room and caught the man’s wrist. Glass splintered. The man cried out and dropped the gun. Ben threw himself at him, punching and gouging. The man was quick. A grab of the wrist, a twist of the body and Ben was flying through the air. He landed on a glass-topped coffee table and crashed right through it. Then the man was on top of him, a knee hard in his chest and raining blows down on him. Ben lashed out with his foot and caught him in the solar plexus, sending him flying back. But the man recovered his feet in a backward roll and was closing in again.

The fight was fast and furious. Strike, block, strike, block, a blur of fists. Ben drove a hard punch into his throat. The man staggered back a pace, but he had an iron grip on Ben’s arm and used it to send him spinning into a corner bookcase. Ben crashed hard into it and it collapsed on top of him. Books and broken glass and bits of shattered shelving everywhere. Ben grabbed a hardback volume and sprang to his feet.