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Schwarzenegger laid aside the laptop and slipped a Glock from the back of his jeans. Monroe and Jolie did the same, backing off and aiming at the door. The one in the Elvis Presley mask approached the bathroom and flattened himself against the wall beside the door. He paused, eyes flicking towards his colleagues, then reached out, turned the handle and threw the door open.
    ‘ Oy vey ,’ murmured Angelina.
    A girl was standing inside, naked, her ebony skin still glistening from the shower she had just taken. Judging from her underdeveloped physique she couldn’t have been much more than nine or ten. She was shaking, her eyes wide with terror.
    There was a brief, horrified silence. Then Marilyn Monroe hurried across the room, ripping off her mask as she went, revealing a pale face and a tumble of reddish-brown hair. She snatched a towel from the bathroom rail and wrapped it around the child.
    ‘It’s OK,’ she whispered, holding her. ‘ Ça va . It’s OK. It’s over.’
    She remained like that for a long time, calming and reassuring the girl, no one else moving or saying anything. Then, her cheeks flushed, she strode back into the room, went up to Semblaire and slammed the butt of her handgun hard against the side of his face, sending him sprawling backwards on the bed. He screamed and brought his hands up to defend himself. The other woman leapt over and grasped her companion’s arm, trying to restrain her.
    ‘ Lo , Dinah!’
    She tore her arm free and hit Semblaire again, and again, then grasped a handful of hair, yanked his head back and forced the Glock muzzle deep into his mouth, choking him.
    ‘I’ll kill you,’ she howled, her face now stained a deep red, her cheeks wet with tears. ‘I’ll kill you, you vile animal. I’ll blow your fucking head off.’
    She was hysterical, unhinged. Only when the man in the Elvis mask came forward and wrapped an arm around her, gently but firmly drawing her away, did she begin to calm. The two of them spoke in low voices, in a language Semblaire didn’t understand, although he was almost certain it was Hebrew. Then, trembling, she slipped the pistol back into her jeans. Returning to the bathroom, she helped the girl into the ragged pink dress that lay slung across the toilet seat. Taking her hand, she then led her to the main door, the child mute and acquiescent. She unbolted the door, swung it open and moved the girl through before turning back to Semblaire. He was curled on the bed groaning, his towelling bathrobe rucked up around his waist, its collar smeared with blood. For a moment she stared at him, faced twisted with loathing, then she spat in his direction.
    ‘We are your nemesis,’ she said, before stepping outside and closing the door behind her.
    Once she was gone, Elvis Presley took a swift look through the garden doors to make sure Semblaire’s bodyguards had not been attracted by the commotion. Satisfied, he returned to the bed and hoisted the Frenchman into a sitting position. His left cheek was swollen and puffy.
    ‘ Elle a cassé ma mâchoire, la chienne ,’ he mumbled, holding a hand up to his jaw.
    The man didn’t reply. Instead he took a couple of steps back and aimed his gun at Semblaire’s head.
    ‘You will look into the camera,’ he instructed. ‘You will state your name and the name of your company, and you will then explain exactly what it is you are doing here in Africa.’
    He motioned for the camera to be switched on.
    ‘Now start talking, you sick son-of-a-bitch.’
    J ERUSALEM
    The Cathedral of St James sat at the heart of the city’s Armenian Quarter, a two-hundred-metre walk from Kishle, along the high-walled canyon of Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate Road. Halfway there the rain really started hammering down, great driving sheets of it, forcing Ben-Roi to take shelter in the doorway of the Armenian Tavern. He cursed Pincas for denying him his umbrella, and pulled out his cell phone, taking the opportunity to call Sarah. To