The Sword of Moses (28 page)

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The Lord Nelson

Barking

London IG11

England

The United Kingdom

Uri—or Danny Motson, as he now called himself—closed the chipped and dented door behind him. It had at one time been painted a cheery blue, but its battered state, together with the general smell of urine and damp in the concrete corridor, comprehensively cancelled any uplifting effect it may once have had.

He had found the small flat pretty easily.

The landlord had met him in a café over a cup of tea and a plate of sausages and eggs. There was no paperwork involved—just a requirement for him to hand over a deposit and a week’s rent upfront, along with a threat that if he failed to pay any future sums owing, he would find his belongings in the street. He was also warned that if he caused any trouble at all, he would receive a visit from “associates” he was assured he would rather not meet.

The arrangement was pretty much what he had been expecting, and so was the property—a nondescript flat in one of London’s run-down concrete estates.

As he headed down the graffiti-covered stairwell, the smell of urine intensified. It was dingy, and there were no working bulbs behind the caged light-shades bolted into the walls, leaving the steps lit only by the fading daylight.

He had spent the afternoon on an uncomfortable plastic chair in a nearby internet café. Its narrow booths were separated by grimy chipboard partitions, and he barely had enough room to operate the small flimsy mouse. But it had given him the cyber-anonymity he needed, allowing him to immerse himself in the surprisingly complicated world of England’s extreme right-wing scene.

As he had expected, there was a wealth of racist material just a click away. None of it struck him as particularly new, insightful, or even shocking—just the usual monologues blaming race, colour, religion, or any combination for all society’s evils.

But he was not after the propaganda.

After a few hours of burrowing into usergroups, he finally found something that might serve his purpose.

Dogs of War
, a band that had previously been arrested for its extremist race-hate lyrics, was playing at a pub in Barking that evening. From the way some of the chat-boards were lit up with the news, it seemed likely to be a popular event.

It would do nicely.

Uri took down the details, then caught the train into central London, where he spent the remainder of the afternoon buying the designer label clothes preferred by his target crowd, who had long ago abandoned the black shirts, bomber jackets, and Dr Martens that once singled them out so easily. Now they wore select international designer labels—less visible to the police and public, but just as identifiable to each other.

When he finally made it to
The Lord Nelson,
it was exactly as he had imagined it—a run-down building on a scruffy street corner. It was a typical suburban pub—an Arts and Crafts mock-Tudor building dating from the turn of the twentieth century.

There were no welcoming plants or flower baskets arranged outside, or awards displayed on the door announcing its success in various good pub guides and competitions. Instead, there were rusty grilles over the gloomy windows, and a raised metal roller-shutter above the sturdy front door. A large grey satellite TV dish covered in peeling stickers dominated the sloping roof, and a tatty painted blackboard outside featured a bulldog in a Union Jack T-shirt proclaiming that visitors could watch all England’s matches on a big screen.

The pub was quite clearly not aimed at the family lunch crowd.

Its political allegiances were also unmistakeable. While one side of the swinging sign-board displayed a portrait of Admiral Lord Nelson, telescope in hand, Uri recognized the other side as England’s most infamous fascist, Oswald Mosley, in the same pose as Nelson, but clutching a rolled up map of the British Isles in place of the telescope.

In case that was not enough to warn off any non-English drinkers, the curb of the pavement in front of the pub had been hurriedly painted in faded red, white, and blue stripes.

There was already a rowdy crowd outside. By the puddles of beer and empty glasses on the pavement, it was clear they had been drinking for several hours. That was fine by Uri—their reflexes would be slower if there was any trouble.

Walking confidently, he made his way through the revellers and into the pub.

Despite the tens of thousands of non-white people thronging London’s pubs that evening, the faces at
The Lord Nelson
were exclusively white.

Most of the drinkers were in their twenties to mid-thirties—and dressed in the designer label clothes Uri had spent the afternoon browsing. As he passed through the crowd, he noticed that although the clothes and haircuts were smarter and more expensive than those that would have been seen in the pub two decades earlier, beneath it all, the atmosphere was still unmistakably one of fists, boots, and bricks.

Uri was confident. At school in Haifa he had learned British English not American English, so his accent sounded as good as anyone else’s in the pub.

He was just another dirty-blond white guy.

Heading for the stripped wooden bar, he ordered a beer. He would drink it slowly. He needed to stay clear and focused.

There was a set of double-doors at the back of the room, pasted with advertising posters for the performance by
Dogs of War
that evening. Uri headed for it, keen to scope out the layout of the pub.

He pushed open the doors to find the back room was a medium-sized space, already filling with drinkers. A third of the floor was taken up with a wooden stage set against the far wall, overhung with stage-lights cycling through a calm pre-programmed display of cool red, white, and blue tunnels of light. Occasionally, a hiss of smoke from a metal box at the back of the stage replenished the theatrical fog hanging over the guitars, amplifiers, and drum kit, whose chromed fittings gleamed brightly whenever caught by the stage-lights.

Behind it all, a large black flag had been tacked to the back wall, featuring the name ‘
Dogs of War
’ over a manga-style painting of a medieval battlefield dominated by the heads of three snarling mastiffs, saliva dripping onto their studded collars, all three advancing under a Union Jack pennant.

Uri leaned up against the wall. He had plenty of time. For now he just needed to observe.

The crowd were becoming progressively more drunk, and the atmosphere was increasingly charged with the arrival of ever more people into the backroom.

As the crowd thickened around the stage, the periodic shouts and jeers for the band to start got louder.

Eventually, the house lights dimmed, and the audience began to bay and howl in anticipation, heckling the band to appear.

They did not have to wait long.

The PA soon came to life with the strident opening notes of
Land of Hope and Glory
. The crowd immediately launched into a bellowing accompaniment, before the four musicians appeared on the stage, and the audience began cheering themselves hoarse.

As the drummer shouted the count off for the first song, the speaker stacks on the sides of the stage ripped into life, sending huge pressure waves of sound straight into the audience.

The volume level was ear-splitting—a howl of overdriven guitars chopping across the remorseless thump of the bass and a furious machine-gun drumbeat that Uri could feel drill right through him.

He watched with interest as a large section of audience at the front of the stage started swirling like a whirlpool, dissolving into a seething mass of limbs—fists alternately punching the air and connecting with other members of the audience in a circular maelstrom of rhythmic male violence.

He could barely understand a word of the singer’s breakneck delivery. Whatever the sweating shaved-headed front-man was shouting was distorted beyond recognition by the sheer decibel level. But the crowd seemed not to care. They were lost in a vortex of brutal noise and aggression.

Uri looked on as the heady mixture of alcohol and the thudding drumbeats catalyzed the concert room into a free-for-all fight pen. If anyone ever doubted that Viking blood still flowed in English veins, he reflected, they only needed to watch this. All that was missing were the forked beards.

He stood against the back wall and listened to a few songs, until it was clear that all those who wanted to watch the band were there.

Heading back through the double doors into the main bar, he looked around at the dozens of men filling the room.

Standing by the counter, he reflected that he had been given some challenging assignments before, but this was the most stretching yet. It was strange enough being asked to recover the biblical Ark of the Covenant—the most potent legacy of his forebears, but now he found himself in a room full of drunk and violent extremist anti-Semites.

He smiled to himself.

This is what life in the Institute was all about.

He loved the danger. Nothing made him feel so alive as knowing it was all hanging by a thread. One that he controlled. Mostly.

This mission was entirely new territory for him, and he was getting a heavy endorphin thrill from it. He knew his colleagues in the political division regularly infiltrated hostile groups. But in the
Metsada
, he usually did quick surgical in-and-out operations, largely relying on his own planning and resources to carry out liquidations.

This was going to be very different. This would require going properly undercover for a sustained period.

And with dangerous people.

He had never known a high like it.

He looked around closely for anyone who might fit the profile of what he was after.

Assessing the crowd, he realized most of them were simply there for the chance to bond with their tribe in the ageless rituals of intoxication and aggression.

But there was a group in the far corner that looked more promising.

A powerfully built dark-haired man dominated a large table. He seemed a few years older that the gang around him—perhaps in his mid-forties. The sleeves of his leather jacket were pushed up, showing muscular forearms wrapped in geometric tattoos. He had a strong physical presence, intensified by his size. Uri ran an expert eye over his seated frame, and estimated he must have been around six foot four, and built like an ox.

Scanning the pub, his eyes kept returning to the large man. It was increasingly clear he was the focal point of the group, surrounded by a deferential audience that nodded and smirked on cue.

“You’re very interested in our friend?” The voice next to Uri was strong and confident, with a heavy south London accent.

Uri turned to see a thin angular-faced man in a checked shirt, also a little older, nodding in the direction of the table in the far corner. Uri recognized him—he had been sitting with the big man a little earlier.

Taken by surprise but keeping his cool, Uri answered nonchalantly, “I’m wondering if it’s all talk in here, or if you’re good for anything real?”

The man bit his lip thoughtfully, looking Uri up and down critically. “That’s pretty strong talk, my friend.”

“It’s a simple question.” Uri returned the gaze directly. His challenge was unmistakable.

The man let out a short laugh. “You’ve got some balls, son. I’ve been watching you.”

“Then so have you,” Uri replied. He was not going to let the man assume authority over him.

The man’s sociable expression faded. Underneath it, he had a hard face. “Look, my friend,” he began slowly, in a tone that was anything but friendly. “Let me tell you something.” He was gazing hard at Uri. “You don’t fit in here. You stand out. And that’s not good. For you. You’re on your own, and you’re not drinking. That’s a load of warning bells, you know? Whoever you are, you’re out of your depth. You should go.”

“Thanks,” Uri ignored the threat. “If you can’t help me, then don’t waste my time. I’ll find someone who can.” His tone was purposefully dismissive. It was a fine line. He did not want a fight in the main room. He would soon be outnumbered.

The man stared coolly at Uri, clearly sizing up whether or not to make an issue out of it.

Uri returned the stare, unflinching. He knew this was just as much a ritual as the circle mosh pit in the next room.

At length the man put his glass down on the countertop beside Uri, and turned around with his back to the bar so he was side by side with Uri. “Alright, son. Let’s do it your way. At least for now. So what’s your thing?”

“As I said,” Uri replied. “Some action.”

The man paused. “Like what?”

“Anything heavy.” Uri watched the man closely for a reaction.

The man’s expression did not change. “You like a bit of contact, do you?”

Uri sighed. “It’s going to be a long night if I have to repeat myself.” He made no effort to hide his irritation.

“Can you handle yourself?” The man was looking him up and down critically.

Uri had no idea if the discussion was going anywhere. But it was the first contact he had made all evening. And the man he was talking to seemed connected to the big man in the corner. It was worth seeing where the conversation would lead.

“Can you?” Uri was keen to move the conversation on.

The man blinked slowly before changing tack. “Where are you from, son?”

“I move around,” Uri answered vaguely. “Family’s from Liverpool. I spent the last few years in Australia.” It was far enough away to be uncheckable.

“You don’t sound like you’re from round here,” the man pressed.

“As I say, I move around.” Uri’s tone was non-committal.

The man took a sip of his beer. “So which firms have you been with? Who can vouch for you?”

“No one round here,” Uri answered truthfully. “Look, can you get me a meeting with the don over there, or not? He’s the only serious guy in here. And I want to know if he’s got anything going down.”

The man laughed. “Well you’ve got an eye, son, but what do you think this is? The Salvation Army?” He shook his head. “You don’t just walk in here, you know. There are rules. Procedures.”