The Moses Stone (14 page)
“Whatever you want,” he muttered. “I did book you a separate room at the hotel.”
Angela leaned forward and reached for his hand. “Thank you,” she said. “I want it to be right for us both.”
Bronson nodded, but still looked concerned. “One thing you need to understand, Angela. Morocco might not be any safer for us than London,” he said, and explained what had happened at the Philipses’ hotel. “I told you about that gang of thugs who chased me. I’ve moved to a different hotel, just in case they’d managed to find out where I was staying, but we’ll have to keep a low profile.”
Angela smiled at him. “I expected that,” she said. “How’s David Philips?”
“He’s OK—he didn’t even need stitches. He’s got a nasty bruise on his forehead, and I guess he’s nursing a weapons-grade headache. Whoever attacked him used something like a cosh.”
“And you don’t think it was just a thief after the laptop?”
“No. I checked their room afterward, and it had obviously been thoroughly searched. The laptop was the only thing missing, and the thief ignored their passports, which were on the desk in the room, and didn’t touch their money or the credit cards that David Philips had in his pocket. The theft was almost exactly the same, in fact, as the robbery at their home in Kent. In both cases, it looks as if the thieves were after their computers, nothing else.”
“And that means?”
“Well, neither computer had much intrinsic value, so the thieves must have been after the data on the hard disks, and that means the pictures of the tablet. Can you trust your guy at the British Museum? Because no matter what he thinks about that lump of fired clay, somebody—apparently with international connections—obviously thinks it’s important enough to mount almost simultaneous burglaries in two countries,
and
knock David Philips out cold when he got in their way.”
and
knock David Philips out cold when he got in their way.”
Angela didn’t look entirely convinced. “I asked Tony Baverstock to take a look at the pictures, and he’s one of our most senior ancient-language specialists. You’re not seriously suggesting that he’s involved, are you?”
“Who else knew about the pictures of the clay tablet? At the museum, I mean?”
“I see what you’re getting at. Nobody.”
“So suspect number one has to be Baverstock. Which means he could even have been involved in your burglary as well. More to the point, it also means everything he told you about the tablet might be deliberate misdirection. What did he say, by the way?”
Angela shrugged. “He thinks the tablet was most likely used in a teaching environment, something like a basic textbook, and he was adamant that it’s not valuable.”
Bronson shook his head. “But it must have
some
value, because I still think it’s likely the O’Connors were killed to recover it.”
some
value, because I still think it’s likely the O’Connors were killed to recover it.”
“But Margaret O’Connor took pictures of an argument in the
souk
. Couldn’t the killers have wanted to silence her for that reason, and stole the camera to remove the hard evidence?”
souk
. Couldn’t the killers have wanted to silence her for that reason, and stole the camera to remove the hard evidence?”
“That might well be a part of it,” Bronson conceded. “It would explain why the camera and memory stick weren’t found in the wreckage. But unless Margaret O’Connor threw away the clay tablet before they left Rabat, somebody took that as well.”
“And you don’t think she just chucked it away?”
“No. Kirsty told me her mother was going back to the
souk
the next morning to return the tablet to the man—the Moroccan—who’d dropped it, and if she couldn’t find him she was going to take it back home with her as a souvenir of their holiday. She put all that in the e-mail she sent to Kirsty the evening before she and Ralph left the hotel. But by then the Moroccan was lying dead outside the
medina
with a stab wound in his chest—Kirsty got a final message from her mother the following morning, telling her she’d actually seen the dead man. Talabani’s confirmed that he
was
one of the people Margaret O’Connor photographed.”
souk
the next morning to return the tablet to the man—the Moroccan—who’d dropped it, and if she couldn’t find him she was going to take it back home with her as a souvenir of their holiday. She put all that in the e-mail she sent to Kirsty the evening before she and Ralph left the hotel. But by then the Moroccan was lying dead outside the
medina
with a stab wound in his chest—Kirsty got a final message from her mother the following morning, telling her she’d actually seen the dead man. Talabani’s confirmed that he
was
one of the people Margaret O’Connor photographed.”
“Margaret didn’t say what she was going to do with the tablet, though?”
“No. Her last message was very short, just a couple of lines, probably sent while her husband was paying the hotel bill or getting the car or something.” Bronson paused and leaned forward. “Now, the tablet. What
did
you manage to find out about it?”
did
you manage to find out about it?”
“As I told you on the phone,” Angela replied, “it’s a lump of clay of almost no value. The writing is Aramaic, but Baverstock told me he could only translate one line. And I think he was probably being honest in that at least, because he knows I can read a little Aramaic. If he was trying to mislead me, all I’d have to do to check that would be to compare his translation with the original.”
“And have you?” Bronson asked.
“Yes. I looked at a couple of the lines on the photograph, and I came up with the same words.”
“OK,” Bronson said grudgingly, “for the moment, let’s assume he
is
being accurate. Tell me what he said.”
is
being accurate. Tell me what he said.”
“On that single line of text, the words are clear but they don’t make sense. I’ve got a translation of that line and another couple of words written out for you.”
“Is there anything special about the tablet? I mean, anything that would make it worth stealing, let alone killing someone because of it?”
“Nothing. Baverstock found a part of a word that might refer to the Essene community at Qumran, but even that’s not conclusive.”
“Qumran? That’s where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but that’s probably irrelevant. As far as Baverstock could tell, the tablet didn’t originate at Qumran, but simply mentions the place. What’s interesting is that one of the few other words he translated was ‘cubit.’ ”
“And a cubit was what?” Bronson asked.
“It was a unit of measurement equivalent to the length of a man’s forearm, so it was pretty variable—there were at least a dozen different sizes, ranging from the Roman cubit of about seventeen inches up to the biggest, the Arabic Hashimi cubit of nearly twenty-six inches. But the fact that there’s a mention of a cubit could mean that the tablet
is
written in a type of code, and it might be indicating the location of something that’s been hidden. Maybe that’s why it’s important.”
is
written in a type of code, and it might be indicating the location of something that’s been hidden. Maybe that’s why it’s important.”
“Let’s face it,” Bronson said, “if Baverstock
was
being accurate, the inscription has to be a code of some sort. Nothing else makes sense.”
was
being accurate, the inscription has to be a code of some sort. Nothing else makes sense.”
“I agree. Here”—Angela opened her handbag and fished around inside it—“this is the translation of the Aramaic.”
Bronson took the single sheet of A4 paper from her and quickly scanned the list of about half a dozen words.
“I see what you mean,” he said, looking at the text more carefully. “Did Baverstock think this might be encrypted?”
“No, but his field of expertise is ancient languages, not ancient codes, and that’s something I
do
know about. The good news is that we’re dealing with an object that dates back around two millennia. And that’s good because although there are very few known examples of codes and ciphers from that period of history, those that we do know about are very, very simple. The best-known was probably the Caesar Cipher, which was allegedly used by Julius Caesar in the first century BC to communicate with his generals. It’s a really basic monoalphabetic substitution cipher.”
do
know about. The good news is that we’re dealing with an object that dates back around two millennia. And that’s good because although there are very few known examples of codes and ciphers from that period of history, those that we do know about are very, very simple. The best-known was probably the Caesar Cipher, which was allegedly used by Julius Caesar in the first century BC to communicate with his generals. It’s a really basic monoalphabetic substitution cipher.”
Bronson sighed. He knew that Angela had done some research on cryptology as part of a project at the museum. “Don’t forget I’m just a simple copper. You’re the one with the brains.”
Angela laughed. “Now why don’t I quite believe you?” She took a deep breath. “To use a Caesar Cipher, you write out the message as a plaintext, apply whatever shift you’ve selected to the alphabet, and then transcribe the enciphered message.”
Bronson still looked blank, so Angela moved her empty plate to one side and took a piece of paper and ballpoint from her handbag.
“Let me give you an example. Say your message is ‘move forward,’ ” she said, writing the words in capital letters on the paper, “and the shift is left three. You write out the alphabet, then write it out again underneath, but this time you move each letter three places to the left, a so-called left rotation of three. So you’d find ‘A’ directly above ‘D,’ ‘B’ above ‘E’ and so on. In this case, the enciphered message ‘move forward’ would read ‘pryh iruzdug.’ The obvious problem with this method is that every time a particular letter appears in the plaintext, the same enciphered letter will be in the coded message. So in this example, which is only two words in length, two letters—the ‘R’ and ‘U’—are repeated, and somebody trying to decrypt the message can use frequency analysis to crack it.
She looked hopefully at Bronson, who shook his head. “Sorry, you’ll need to explain that as well.”
“Right,” Angela said. “Frequency analysis is a simple method of cracking a basic code. The twelve most common letters in the English language, in order, are ‘E,’ ‘T,’ ‘A,’ ‘O,’ ‘I,’ ‘N,’ ‘S,’ ‘H,’ ‘R,’ ‘D,’ ‘L’ and ‘U.’ I remember it as two words—‘ETAOIN SHRDLU.’ And you probably already know the most famous example of a Caesar Cipher.”
“I do?” Bronson looked blank and shook his head. “Help me out here.”
“
2001
,” Angela said, and sat back in her chair. “
2001—A Space Odyssey
. The sci-fi film,” she added.
2001
,” Angela said, and sat back in her chair. “
2001—A Space Odyssey
. The sci-fi film,” she added.
Bronson frowned; then his expression cleared. “Got you,” he said. “The filmmakers didn’t want to use the acronym ‘IBM’ for the computer on the spaceship, so they came up with the name ‘HAL,’ which, if I’ve understood you correctly, is a Caesar Cipher with a right rotation of one.”
“Exactly. There’s another slightly bizarre example,” Angela said. “The French ‘
oui
’ becomes the English ‘yes’ if you apply a left rotation of ten.”
oui
’ becomes the English ‘yes’ if you apply a left rotation of ten.”
“Do you think anything like that is probable in this case?”
“No,” Angela replied, “and for one very simple reason: we can read the Aramaic words on the tablet. One of the obvious problems with a Caesar Cipher is that every word of the enciphered text is invariably gibberish, which is the biggest clue that the message is encrypted. That definitely isn’t the case here.”
“What about other kinds of ciphers?” Bronson asked.
“You’ve got the same problem with all of them. If the individual words are encrypted, they cease to be recognizable as words and end up as collections of letters. The Aramaic words on this tablet”—she tapped the paper in front of Bronson—“aren’t encrypted. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t some kind of message hidden in the text.”
“You need to explain that,” he said, “but wait until we’re back on the road.”
“Just wait in here a second,” Bronson said as they reached the door of the restaurant. “I want to check there’s nobody waiting for us out there. Then I’ll bring the car over.”
Angela watched him walking around the handful of cars parked outside, glancing into each of them, then stepped through the door as Bronson pulled the hire car to a halt just outside.
“So if the words aren’t encrypted, how can there be a message in the text?” he asked, as he pulled out onto the main road.
“Instead of an alphabetic substitution, you can use word substitution. You choose particular words to mean something completely different. The Islamic terrorist groups have been doing this for quite some time. Instead of saying something like ‘We will plant the bomb at three this afternoon’ they say ‘We will deliver the fruit at three this afternoon.’ ”
“So the sentence still makes sense, but the apparent meaning is entirely different to its real meaning,” Bronson said.
“Exactly. Shortly before the attack on the World Trade Center, the lead terrorist, Mohammed Atta, contacted his controller and passed him a message that made no sense to the American security forces at the time. He used a sentence that included a phrase something like ‘plate with one stick down, two sticks.’ With a bit of imagination, you can see that he meant the numbers ‘9’ and ‘11.’ He was actually telling his al-Qaeda contact the exact date when the attacks on America were going to take place.”
“And on this tablet?”
Angela shook her head in the darkness of the car, the headlamps boring a tunnel of light down the almost empty road in front of them. “I don’t think there’s anything like that incorporated in the text, simply because the sentences don’t make sense.”
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