“Phew, what have you been eating?” Drummond laughed with good humor. Kroen passed him a clean towel, which he used to wipe off the blade. “This might surprise you…” he went on, stepping out from behind the dying man “…but a human being can survive…well, exist anyway, with his bowels outside of his body, for many, many hours.” He looked up with raised eyebrows. “Not a good look though, hmm?”

He walked slowly towards Agent Kahan. “Now, to you…and for you, I do have questions, and yes, you will answer them. Your only reward will be death. But by the time I finish, it will be the most blessed reward any man on this Earth could wish for.” He pretended to count for a moment. “You have ten fingers, ten toes, a nose, two ears…and a penis – plenty of things to remove, and I promise you, each will be more painful than the last.”

Drummond turned and nodded to Kroen, who walked over, and grabbed the man’s left hand. He levered up one finger, and held it, its joint now in the jaws of the bolt cutters. Kroen looked to Drummond, waiting.

“Question one.” Charles Drummond stepped in front of Kahan. “Agent Kahan, please tell me if they believe they can read it?”

*

It was five in the afternoon and they were dry, warm and sitting together in the café inside the hotel. Matt noticed that Adira and Baruk looked on high alert, and he hated it – if the Mossad woman was nervous, then he sure should be.

Adira had called for more agents as support, and also a team to find the missing men. But they wouldn’t arrive until the next morning, and the dive needed to be undertaken that night. By the morning, events would have already overtaken them, or not.

Matt closed his eyes and leaned back, luxuriating in a beam of sun that came though a tall window and bathed the rear of his neck. He tried to shut out anything remotely to do with the Book so his mind could rest. At eleven forty-five that night, they needed to be descending on the sunken island of Pharos – the moon would be at its zenith at midnight and they needed to be there, ready. If something was going to occur, they would be on top of it, waiting and watching.

“It’s too dangerous; we should think about aborting, or at least waiting for backup,” Andy said.

“No, we need the book. End of discussion.” Tania snapped back.

“I agree; we can’t wait,” Abrams said. “It’ll be another month until the next full moon.” He snorted and shook his head. “Nix that, it’ll be another thirteen hundred years until the next planetary convergence, and frankly, given what Dr Albadi told us, we don’t have thirteen hundred hours. We need answers, now, and if, as we believe, Adira’s men have been taken, then whoever did take them is only one step behind us. If we abort, we might be handing the Book over them.” His face was grim. “As risky as it sounds, we have to search tonight with or without backup. We’ve got to believe we’re still in front.”