The 13th Tablet

After breakfast, she started preparing for the interview. It was her understanding that the grant had been practically offered to her, but you never quite knew with these things and it was not in her nature to go anywhere unprepared; she would express her gratitude for the offer, try to show off the little she knew about the Foundation’s goals and explain what her project encompassed. If the grant was as substantial as she thought it might be, she would need to add all the postfieldwork expenses: various expert opinions, chemical analyses, thermo-luminescence, 3D digital scanning, the whole works. She needed to put together a much more extensive budget than she had first planned when applying for the in-house grant at Columbia.

She did a couple of hours’ work and then decided to take a break and walk around Tel Aviv. Mina still had a day to get ready and loved discovering new cities. She went downstairs and picked up a few flyers and a map of the city in the lobby. She walked along the beach for a while thinking how disappointing it was she had not come during the summer, as she would have loved to swim in the Mediterranean. Instead, she headed resolutely into the city, following the directions on one of the leaflets to the best shopping areas. After some pleasurable window shopping on Dizengoff Street, she arrived at the crossroad with Gordon Street, where she saw a cafe with a large bay window and people sitting out on the terrace. She sat down and ordered a double espresso. It was brought to her promptly, along with a glass of water, by a charming and clearly gay waiter in an extremely tight t-shirt and designer sunglasses; in fact, all the customers looked somewhat flamboyant. She was surrounded by artists, media people and intellectuals — it was so different from Mosul. Mina felt almost reborn, back in a mini-New York. She looked on her map and found the Eretz Israel museum, but it was quite a hike from where she was, so she thought that she would take a taxi and surprise Liat. She hoped her friend was at work today and could spare some time.

‘Are you a tourist?’ a young man seated at the next table asked her in English. He said he’d be delighted to take her sightseeing. Mina thanked him and told him she was waiting for a friend. He did not insist. She really wasn’t interested in him, but she was impressed by the direct yet courteous way in which he had approached her. The truth was that she could not help thinking of Jack. Had she been too harsh with him? She kept replaying their last meeting on the military base, over and over again. As she often did when she felt lost, Mina took out her notebook. It was her preferred method for clarifying her thoughts and feelings — she would often make detailed lists of pros and cons. In Jack’s case, she had been brutally direct with him and had made it clear she did not want to see him again. And yet she had a nagging, irrational feeling that she might have been wrong. Even though he had lied to her, she had loved that magical evening with the villagers, and their walk up the hill in the desert. And above all, he had saved her life. Something told her she would be seeing him again, whether she liked it or not. More pressingly, she knew that she was in deep trouble with the department and needed to email Professor Almeini to clear things up. She would email him once she knew the result of the grant interview. She also had to try to find out what had happened to Hassan, but doing so would make her relive her ordeal at the hands of the three men in the flat.

Natasha was at Ben Gurion airport, waiting for Oberon Wheatley. She had spent the previous night checking and re-checking every aspect of security at the harbour. No-one could approach the yacht uninvited, nor leave it for that matter. Natasha could not help but admire how her boss gathered information on everyone. Mina Osman had arrived at her hotel just as he said she would. Wheatley suddenly appeared outside the main entrance, saw her, and walked straight to the car. She took his luggage, put it in the boot and together they drove off immediately to the harbour.

Oberon had bought his yacht from the famous Italian yacht designer Benetti, for an obscene amount of money. With its steel hull and aluminium superstructure, the 230ft Reverie moved at a maximum speed of 16 knots, weighed 1600 tons, had seven decks and an interior designed by John Munford. Oberon had had his eye on the boat for some time and once it became his, he had had his technicians transform it into much more than a dilettante’s pleasure vessel. One sensed that under the aristocratic veneer of absolute comfort and luxury, dark mahogany and top-quality marble, the yacht possessed every technological amenity that the modern world had to offer.