Read The Boudicca Parchments for Free Online Page A

The natural reaction was to run. But he was an adult and he had to keep his thought processes within the realm of a man’s estate. The feet might be attached to a dead body, but it could equally have been something innocent, like a tramp taking refuge in an abandoned house and oversleeping after a heavy night’s boozing. He had to know, before he did anything rash. So he took a couple of steps towards the chest and what lay partially obscured behind it.
    But as he was about to take his third step, something arrested his movement. For in that instant he became aware of an unpleasant smell. Not a rotting or decaying corpse. But still a strong pungent smell.
    It was the smell of petrol.
    And before he could process the information any further, there was a sound from outside and movement in his peripheral vision as a burning object seemed to fly overhead. It landed near him and there was a loud, deep roar of air, as the house went up in flames. He made a dash for the door, but tripped and as he tried to get up, he started coughing and choking from the smoke and fumes.
    He was amazed at how quickly the effect took hold of him. But this wasn’t just a fire: it was a fire started deliberately and aided by an accelerant. Though his mind was sharp enough to understand this, his body – wracked by the smoke-induced choking spasm in his throat – lacked the resilience to do anything about it. He could hardly keep his eyes open and his head was spinning as the blackness descended upon him.

Chapter 9
    In a windowless room at the Mossad’s headquarters in the coastal town of Herzliya, a beep alerted David (“Dovi”) Shamir to the fact that a message had just arrived. Dovi, in his late thirties, was a man of southern Mediterranean appearance. His mother had been Iraqi and his father of German-Polish extraction. They had met in the army during the Six-Day War, when Dovi’s father had served in the unit that liberated the eastern areas of Jerusalem, including the Old City, from which Jews and Israelis had been excluded for the previous nineteen years.
    Formerly a field operative in the Kidon department of the Mossad, Dovi was now a desk officer. Kidon specialized in assassinations, working in small teams. But Dovi’s preference for flexibility led to him being re-assigned to work as a single operative. Successful at first, he was compromised in an anti-terrorist operation in which he successfully executed a terrorist who was planning a major operation in London. The execution itself was implemented flawlessly and the terrorists’ plan to blow up the sunken wreck of a second world war munitions ship was thwarted. But Dovi’s face was captured on the terrorist’s webcam and he was now known to the enemy.
    He had considered cosmetic surgery to alter his appearance – as the infamous terrorist Leila Khaled had done after she hijacked a TWA plane – so that she could resume her terrorist activities. In her case it had worked. She subsequently managed to board and initiate a hijacking of an El AL plane. But her efforts were thwarted by the bravery of the pilot – who refused to capitulate – and by El Al Security, who killed her terrorist partner and took Khaled alive, only to see her released by British Prime Minister Edward Heath as a collaborationist goodwill gesture towards the terrorists.
    In the end, Shamir decided that cosmetic surgery could not be relied upon, so he retired to the back office. But he secretly missed the cut and thrust of field work.
    He clicked on the eMail, keyed in his decryption key and saw the unencrypted eMail seconds later on the screen.
     
Intercept transcript – 5 August, 2012 – 1:30 IST
Call initiator(s): “Sam Morgan” (self-identified, see below) [no file or details]
Initiator locus: Ashford, Herts, Great Britain
Initiator phone: Cell phone +44 7535 330 560
Call respondent(s): Shalom Tikva (AKA “HaTzadik”) [on file]
Respondent locus: Me’ah She’arim, Jerusalem
Respondent phone: +972