THE TWISTED WIRE
Espionage and Murder in the Middle East
Derek Lambert
writing as RICHARD FALKIRK

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

50th Anniversary edition 2021

First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd

in association with Arlington Books 1971

Copyright © Estate of Derek Lambert 1971

Cover design by Stephen Mulcahey © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Richard Falkirk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008433901

Ebook Edition © June 2021 ISBN: 9780008433918

Version: 2020-12-04

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Keep Reading …

About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

Big Derek Lambert, newsman turned novelist, is darkly looking over a dying half of Guinness in the Bailey. Getting tired of resting. Essentially a newsman without a deadline. Talking. Killing time.

But why the hell should you worry about deadlines when your first novel, Angels in the Snow, brought in £10,000 and when that was four books ago and when there’s no tax on writers in Ireland?

And when your publishers in London send out blurbs describing you as one of their best new writers and when you are the only man in Dublin who can claim to be living in a Georgian house with a bow-backed back room (whatever that is)?

Forty years old. Six feet and fourteen stone big and dark like a Connaught cattle dealer with the same canniness in the face. An Irish mother called Riddick before Lambert. Another book, For Infamous Conduct, just finished. Publishers usually want just one book a year from the one ‘name’. Even cheating a little on ten pages a day (a personal deadline?), an old newsman can write a thriller in maybe five weeks. Maybe it’s time to get more names.

‘But still I miss the big story. The fellows I know are in Vietnam or in Nigeria. Though I don’t much fancy it, I get tired resting. I might go to Iceland next.’

Yesterday was Moscow for the Daily Express. Maybe it was India or Africa or the Middle East – on expenses. Yesterday was a time of two-finger pecking at the guts of a battered portable Olivetti, catching planes, meeting deadlines.

Yesterday was the UDI story from Rhodesia. A hot room in the hot city of Salisbury. Ambassador Hotel and the Derek Lambert byline over stories recording a colony slipping out of colonization.

Yesterday was Tel Aviv and sitting at a café table on the Dizengoff, drinking, watching the girls go by in military uniforms. Or it was Suez and battle. Standing beside a General and saying, ‘I can’t see any bloody snipers,’ then ‘Krak!’ – splinters flying and a head wound.

The room in the bleak flats where the Westerners live in Moscow was in Kutuzovsky Prospekt, only a little way from the Kremlin. ‘The room was bugged. You called the unseen bug “Fred” and often had conversations with it late at night. You got used to it after a while. It was stupid for a Westerner to bring one of the Muscovite women to his room with Fred there, and a camera could be operating across the roadway from anywhere.’ The Westerners still try, though. They get into trouble that way.

‘You have the impression that the women in Moscow are drab and unattractive. It’s the clothes. The women in Tel Aviv are beautiful. And Irish girls with their long slithery hair.’

The road back from Moscow ended in Ballycotton, where Moscow-based thriller Angels in the Snow was finished in the flat above Mrs Roberts’ grocery shop in Main Street and the book was dedicated to a lady called Mona in the Holiday Inn, where many good drinks were drunk and good times enjoyed.

For Infamous Conduct, an India-based adventure saga, is confidently expected to follow Angels and such other books as The Kites of War into the bestseller lists. By then Derek Lambert will probably be in either Brazil or Iceland or who knows where? These will be trips away from his flat in Ely Place which is now to become his permanent home. That’s where the battered Olivetti portable is now.

‘I like Ireland. I very much like Dublin. This is a writers’ city really. The trouble is that everybody wants to write a novel about Ireland. I’m a little unusual for a novelist because I don’t think up a plot and then find a location that would suit it. I prefer to visit a country then a plot occurs to me quite naturally. Will I write a book about Ireland? Maybe.’

Now that would be interesting.

This unattributed interview with Derek Lambert was published in 1970 as ‘The Newsman Who Swapped Stories for Novels’ shortly before his two Richard Falkirk books The Chill Factor and The Twisted Wire were published.

Part of a quote from a spokesman of the American Embassy in London, following a report in February 1969, alleging that, because of a crossed wire, someone overheard a telephone conversation between the Ambassador and the President of the United States:

‘Anything is possible with telephones …’

PROLOGUE

Three men listened to the President of the United States talking on the top security telephone wire from Washington to London.

Robert Lindsay Bartlett, the American Ambassador in London, for whom the call was intended. He took it in his office in Grosvenor Square and understood every word the President said because they had discussed the crisis the previous day.

Nicolai Malenkov, head of communications at the Russian Embassy in Kensington, still smug from the congratulations from Moscow for succeeding in tapping the Washington-London line. He reported the President’s remarks to his superiors in the KGB who partially understood them.

Tom Bartlett, geologist, who was totally confused by the President’s observations because he had been expecting to hear the voice of his wife, Helen Bartlett, who worked in the American Embassy library.

Bartlett subsequently decided that the reasons for the crossed wire were twofold. One, he was trying to call his wife at the Embassy. Two, he had the same surname as the Ambassador. But, on further consideration of the British telephonic system, he decided that the wire could have become crossed just as easily without any coincidences of name and timing.

At the time of the call he did not speculate on the reasons for the interception. The male voice on the phone, young, respectful, and possibly sycophantic, said: ‘This is the White House, Mr Ambassador Bartlett, I have the President for you.’

Tom Bartlett put down the ammonite which he used as a paperweight on his desk, stared at the receiver for a moment, then put it back to his ear.

He recognised the President’s voice at once. Authoritative, sincere but somehow always electioneering. The President was saying: ‘So you haven’t been able to get hold of this guy?’

The Ambassador said: ‘You didn’t give us much time, Mr President.’ It was the voice of big business unaccustomed to diplomatic subservience.

‘I’m aware of how much time I gave you. We’ll have to get to work on it at the other end. Even on the plane maybe.’

At this point Tom Bartlett, who suffered from hay fever, was overcome by the pollen count rising in the study because he had forgotten to shut the French window facing the honeyed garden of the country house in Sussex. He sneezed many times and when he picked up the receiver again the President was just finishing with the Ambassador. American prestige, said the President in his whistle-stop voice, was at stake. The Ambassador did not heckle him, but his silence was resentful.

There was a small click mocking the crash with which Bartlett imagined the President cracked down the phone. Then a louder click which sounded as if it emanated from the local exchange. Bartlett rubbed his itching eyes and pondered on the conversation he had overheard. It seemed vaguely as if, at one stage, they had been talking about the Ambassador in the third person. But that was ridiculous: it was his hay fever capsules affecting him again. They stunned his senses, convinced colleagues that he was on hard drugs and had no effect whatsoever on his early summer allergy.

Outside he heard rubber on gravel announce the arrival of the hire car to take him to London Airport. An old Bentley with sighing leather seats and inherited decorum; much more his style, Bartlett decided ruefully, than the serpent-faced jets screaming for their passengers on the tarmac.

The driver who was ageing decorously with the car said: ‘Where to this time, Mr Bartlett?’

‘Israel,’ Bartlett said. ‘The Promised Land.’

‘Ah,’ said the driver who had taken many passengers to the launching pad but never been launched himself. ‘More trouble there today. Just heard it on the news. The Israelites made another raid into Egypt.’ He reproached an E-type Jaguar overtaking him on a bend with a genteel note from his hooter ‘I shouldn’t have thought it was a place for a gentleman like yourself to be going.’

‘Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be going to a place where there’s a bit of action?’

‘No, sir. I didn’t mean it like that.’

But Bartlett knew he did. He glanced at the trousers of his new lightweight suit already bagging at the knees, at the stain from a ball-point pen on his lapel; he peered in the driving mirror and saw the wing of his shirt collar sticking out like a sleeping butterfly, his untidy, finger-combed hair. Indisputably the composite picture was not that of a man of action.

The driver said: ‘I meant you being a geologist, sir. You can’t somehow associate fossils with bombs and rockets.’

‘I’m going to address the International Geological Society in Jerusalem,’ Bartlett said.

‘Ah.’ The driver nodded as if the word society explained the incongruity.

The car left the green cushions of the South Downs where as a boy Bartlett had first examined the earth’s crust. He was excited about going to Israel. To see the headlines jerk into life like marionettes. To revisit the Negev and the Sinai. To see Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Caesarea.

It wasn’t until he was at the airport waiting to be called for the El Al jet that he realised that he hadn’t phoned his wife. He glanced at his watch. She would be on her way back to their town apartment in Marylebone High Street by now. He could always explain that he had been delayed by the President of the United States … at that moment they called the Amsterdam–Tel Aviv flight.

ONE

The official gunman sat in the front row of the tourist seats. Inside his suede jacket which he had bought in London he carried a Beretta. Just inside the flight deck was an Uzi submachine gun.

Ya’acov Krivine, who was twenty-two years old with bandit good looks, officially hoped that there would be no trouble when the Boeing landed at Amsterdam. Unofficially he envied the guard who had shot the Arab terrorists in Switzerland and hoped that a similar attempt would be made in Holland.

He glanced round at the rest of the passengers. All had been checked. All were clean with the possible exception of the young Polish Jew sitting beside the button-down-collar American diplomat. That, he had been told, was the trouble with Jews who were allowed out of Russia and its satellites: you couldn’t always be sure whether the young ones really considered themselves to be Jews or Communists. But Ya’acov was sure that all of them would be Jews once they had lived in Israel.

Behind the Pole and the American sat the Englishman Bartlett whose movements he had been told to keep under observation. He didn’t know why. Geologist, fortyish, vaguish. Perhaps he was a British agent; that would explain some of Britain’s more spectacular security blunders.

Ya’acov Krivine turned his attention to the Pole and the American sitting next to him. The Pole was pale and damp and wore unassertive gold-rimmed spectacles and a black suit with broad lapels. The American was just as Ya’acov expected all Americans to be: athletic, crewcut, excessively polite, probably ex-Army and Vietnam. Ya’acov wondered about the scrubbing-brush hairstyles which so many Americans wore and patted self-consciously: he knew from experience that girls preferred longer hair.

The tall, gentle-faced stewardess in the blue uniform just beginning to shine said in Hebrew: ‘Coffee, sir?’ Her voice was sarcastic. This annoyed Ya’acov because he was accustomed to girls who became instantly available on perceiving his looks and wholeheartedly acquiescent on seeing the scar of his Six Day War wound.

‘Yes, please.’ He looked up at her gentle face and recalled that she was a Judo expert as well as a stewardess. ‘Why are you so hostile to me?’

The stewardess glanced around and leaned towards him. ‘Because I am tired of tough guys,’ she said. ‘Every man in Israel who puts on a uniform thinks he’s Steve McQueen.’

Ya’acov favoured her with his brigand smile. ‘I think the Arabs must think so too.’

The stewardess who had been attached to the same Army unit as Ya’acov in the Sinai said: ‘I prefer other qualities in a man.’

‘You prefer someone like that Englishman who looks like a schoolmaster?’

Ya’acov noticed with surprise and irritation that her expression softened. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Someone like that. He’s rather sweet.’ She straightened up.

Ya’acov said: ‘There’s just one thing.’

‘Really? What’s that?’

‘Your black belt’s showing,’ Ya’acov said.

He leaned back in his seat, quite pleased with himself, and lit a Savyon cigarette. Below the English Channel was blue and molten. In ten minutes’ time they would be landing at Amsterdam. His hand strayed inside his jacket and fingered the barrel of the Beretta. Then he went into the flight deck to check the Israeli-made Uzi. Just in case, he thought hopefully and unofficially.

Five rows behind the official gunman Tom Bartlett obediently fastened his safety belt, extinguished his cigarette and picked up the fawn pamphlet called Flying Kosher. The tall stewardess leaned over the girl sitting beside him and checked his belt. She was, he thought, unusually solicitous. He smiled at her and went on reading. ‘Kosher is knadles, knishes, gefilte fish – all the traditional treats of the Jewish Kitchen.’

The girl beside him said: ‘Don’t worry too much. It just means you can’t have cream in your coffee after lunch.’

‘I only drink it black,’ Bartlett said. There was a pause. He smelled her perfume: Chanel No.5, he decided, because that was the only perfume he knew. He noted her shiny buckled shoes and her neat knees and became aware of the body warmth they shared between them. Again he was reassured by the virility of his observation.

The girl said: ‘Are you going to Israel on vacation?’

Bartlett half-turned so that he could see her face. Tanned, a little sad, greenish-eyed, finely textured hair worn in a fringe, inquisitive features. Not the sort of face you expected an Israeli girl to have after all those newspaper pictures of women soldiers toting rifles. If, in fact, she was an Israeli. He asked her.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I hope you didn’t mind me talking to you. But we are like that in Israel. I know that in the States and Britain it is different.’

‘I certainly don’t mind,’ Bartlett said. And meant it. ‘No, I’m not going on vacation – it’s a business trip.’

‘I see.’ She stuffed a copy of Maariv into the seat pocket. ‘Did you know that we Israeli girls are also very nosey?’ She spoke with a slight American accent.

‘There’s nothing wrong with curiosity,’ Bartlett said. ‘It’s the foundation of my profession. Which, incidentally, is geology.’

‘That,’ said the girl, ‘is quite remarkable, Mr …’

‘Bartlett,’ he said. ‘Tom Bartlett. Why is it so remarkable?’

‘Because I too have been studying the soil. Advanced methods of irrigation which have been perfected in the States.’

It was, Bartlett thought, quite remarkable. But it had been a remarkable day.

‘How long will you be in Israel?’ she said.

‘About three days in Tel Aviv,’ he said. ‘Then two or three days in Jerusalem for the actual conference.’

They were interrupted by the voice of the stewardess, first in Hebrew, then in English. ‘We hope you have enjoyed your flight from London to Amsterdam. We regret that, owing to the short duration of our stay in Amsterdam, passengers in transit will not he allowed to disembark from the aircraft.’

‘Why on earth not?’ Bartlett said. ‘They’ll take at least half an hour to refuel the aircraft.’

‘You sound like an experienced traveller,’ the girl said.

‘I’ve flown a bit.’

‘Perhaps there are other reasons for the precaution.’

The aircraft bounced gently on the runway, settled, taxied, stopped. The disembarking passengers departed and with them went the gangsterish young man in the suede jacket.

‘Why’s he been allowed out?’ Bartlett said.

‘Perhaps he’s disembarking,’ the girl said.

‘But he’s Israeli, surely.’

‘Just because he looks like a Mafia bodyguard doesn’t necessarily mean he’s an Israeli.’

‘Look.’ Bartlett pointed at the tarmac. ‘He’s got into that Volkswagen.’ The blue Volkswagen began to circle the aircraft.

The girl shrugged.

Bartlett realised then and said: ‘He’s the guard, isn’t he? In case the Arabs try anything.’

The girl shrugged again. Bartlett watched the tankers refuelling the jet, the patrolling Volkswagen, the officer in El Al uniform scanning the perimeter of the airport with field glasses. He shivered, because someone had pulled the strings of the marionette headlines.

The embarking passengers arrived through the hooded gangway that led straight on to the aircraft. Outside the Volkswagen continued to circle like a lost insect. Then the Israeli in the suede jacket climbed out and returned to the aircraft looking rather sulky. The Boeing taxied to the end of the runway, climbed the bright sky and headed towards Tel Aviv, the Hill of the Spring.

Over the Greek islands, pumice stones in the flat water, Raquel Rabinovitz said to Tom Bartlett: ‘Are you married, Mr Bartlett?’

Bartlett finished the little bottle of red Avdat wine that he had ordered with his meal and smiled. ‘You would make an excellent geologist, Miss Rabinovitz.’

The girl sipped her black coffee. ‘You are trying to evade the point already.’

Bartlett said: ‘Your curiosity is formidable. Yes, I am married.’ He lit a cigarette with the gold Dunhill his wife had given him a decade ago and considered his marriage.

‘Could you not have brought your wife with you?’

‘She didn’t want to come,’ he said. ‘She had other things to do.’

Like drinking and eating and sleeping with a fur-headed Arab from the Jordanian Embassy. And discussing dear old Tom, poor old Tom, with him. No, Israel was decidedly not the country for Helen.

‘Is she English?’ the girl said.

‘No, American.’

‘And very beautiful?’

‘Very.’

With a sigh Raquel Rabinovitz changed the subject. ‘I too come from the States. My parents were Russian but they escaped after the last war because they knew what Communism was all about. They settled in New York. I was born there. Then one day my father said, “What for should we stay here when we are about to be given our own country?” And my mother said, “Wherever you go, Doron, then I go with you.” And so we came to Israel just in time for the first war against the Arabs.’

There didn’t seem any point in asking her questions because all information was supplied unsolicited. He said politely: ‘So you are not a Sabra, then?’

‘Not a true Sabra. But I am one at heart, I promise you.’

‘I believe you. How old are you?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘And you served in the Army?’

‘Of course – all Israeli girls do.’

‘What did you do?’

Raquel Rabinovitz looked confused. As confusion seemed out of character Bartlett repeated the question.

‘I was a member of the Hiba,’ she said.

‘And what on earth is that?’

‘It is the section of the Army that does street police duty. It is very essential work.’

Bartlett laughed aloud. ‘So I’m having lunch with a policewoman?’

‘Is that so funny?’

‘Not really. Except that it was once my ambition …’

‘Your ambition to what?’

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Would you care for some more wine?’

‘No thank you. You will find that in Israel we have little need for artificial stimulants. Now, if you will excuse me, I think I will sleep a little.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry if I offended you.’

‘That’s all right, Mr Bartlett. We Israelis do not mind people laughing at us. It’s when they start shooting at us that we object.’ She closed her eyes and Bartlett thought that she looked surprisingly vulnerable for an ex-policewoman.

The islands disappeared and a few parachutes of cloud appeared between the aircraft and the empty sea. Bartlett picked up the green and gold booklet containing 101 words of Hebrew – ‘the mother tongue of many Israelis whose mothers knew it not’. He discovered that El Al meant upward, which was reassuring. He put the booklet away with Flying Kosher and took his maps out of his old brown leather briefcase.

Ras Abu Radeis, Waddi Firan, St Catherine’s Monastery. Mountains the colour of rusting iron, morning air that smelled of sharp herbs, wadis green with palms that looked like moss from the granite peaks, wells filled with ice that had never frozen. When he had last visited the Sinai – ten or eleven years ago – it had been in the hands of the Egyptians. Not even the Israelis could have changed it very much.

Bartlett replaced the maps, tucked the briefcase under his seat, and relaxed. Then, after making an abortive effort to keep his mouth closed, he slept.

In front of him the Pole loosened his almost transparent grey tie and snored immediately. The American with the thick cropped hair dozed.

Only the official gunman remained completely alert as the Boeing approached the disputed territories of the Levant. And the pilot and the navigator.

Tom Bartlett was annoyed. ‘You must admit,’ he said, ‘that this is hardly an auspicious introduction to Israeli efficiency.’

‘It could happen with any airline,’ Raquel Rabinovitz said. ‘In fact El Al is one of the most efficient airlines in the world. Did you know that since the two Arab attacks they have carried more passengers than ever before?’

‘I didn’t know,’ Bartlett said. ‘Nor do I quite see what it’s got to do with the fact that they’ve lost my suitcase.’

‘Perhaps the London Airport porters forgot to load it. Or perhaps the Dutch unloaded it by mistake at Amsterdam.’

Bartlett smiled. despite his annoyance. ‘But no Israeli is to blame? Even though I personally handed it over to El Al?’ He prodded at the errant wing of his collar. He could feel sweat gathering beneath his tropical suit. He lit a cigarette. ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said. ‘You’ve done as much as you can. But everything I need for my stay here is in that case.’

‘I understand,’ she said. ‘But it could have happened on any airline.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘But is there anything more you can do?

‘I’ll see.’ She walked away, lithe and smart and aggressive.

Bartlett watched the other passengers pushing trolleys of luggage towards waiting business associates, Jewish mothers and predatory taxi drivers. He would have liked to have been in a receptive mood to assimilate the excitement and confidence he had sensed as he walked from the Boeing to the arrival lounge. But they had spoiled his pleasure by losing his suitcase.

He noticed that both the crewcut American and the Pole with the gold-rimmed spectacles were waiting around although they had picked up their baggage.

Raquel Rabinovitz returned smiling triumphantly with a customs official and the missing suitcase. ‘There,’ she said. ‘It was muddled up with the baggage off another flight. It could have happened anywhere in the world.’

‘Thanks,’ Bartlett said. ‘Thanks very much.’ And with uncharacteristic flippancy he added: ‘What a way to run an airline.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ said the customs official.

‘I’m sorry,’ Bartlett said. ‘I was joking. I’m very grateful to you for finding my luggage.’

‘Perhaps,’ the customs official said, ‘you would be good enough to open your suitcase for me.’

Bartlett said: ‘Very well.’ He found his keys in his trouser pocket and opened the suitcase that was even older than his briefcase. He looked at his shirts and underclothes, his papers and his geologist’s tools. ‘I don’t think you need examine them too closely,’ he said. ‘Someone already has.’

TWO

Bartlett first suspected that he was being followed as, town guide in hand, he walked up Dizengoff Street from Dizengoff Circle where a fountain splashed and teenage soldiers with submachine guns on their shoulders munched peta crammed with meat and tehina and humus and stalked the happy soldier girls.

There was no proof; it was merely a new instinct awakened when he realised that his suitcase had been searched. Twice he spun round to surprise his pursuer. Each time he thought he noticed a furtive movement on the sidewalk. But he couldn’t be sure: it might have been the overactivity of this new instinct. And there was so much jostling movement in the street. He walked on past the small expensive shops, bookstalls garlanded with Time, Newsweek and Hebrew scandal magazines liberally bosomed and buttocked, past a dozen sidewalk cafés where tourists drank beer and Israelis sipped mineral waters.

Halfway up the broad thoroughfare Bartlett stopped at the Stern Café and ordered a Gold Star beer. It seemed to him in his new state of awareness that there were two oiled movements behind him as he turned into the café. But, of course, it was all ludicrous. Why should anyone want to follow a middle-ageing geologist who had flown to Israel to escape briefly from a fossilised routine and. a faithless wife to present a paper to a gathering of colleagues who would be transfixed to their seats by the familiarity of his material?

But if there was anyone shadowing him then, Bartlett reckoned, they would now be sitting at one of the cafés down the street from which they could observe him. He leaned back in his seat and, with incredulity and enjoyment, observed the inhabitants of the twenty-one-year-old country parading past him.

Jews from Iraq, the Yemen, Germany, Russia, Poland, Britain, America. Youthful Jews strutting with victory and self-sufficiency, more sexually aware than any young people Bartlett had seen; middle-aged and elderly Jews with indelible blue numbers on their arms and indelible suffering on their faces; preoccupied Jews wearing wide-brimmed black hats, long coats and curly beards, Jews wearing skullcaps, sun-glasses and desert tans.

He ordered another beer and watched a bus queue swarming into a single-decker bus as if it were a captured Russian tank. A little one-armed man with a chattering face leading a gaunt giant with a ruined face from café to café selling dishcloths – everyone gave a few agora but no one took the cloths.

A smart, middle-aged woman with large soft breasts beneath white lace sat at the table next to him, ordered an ice cream and offered herself to him for 175 Israeli pounds. ‘Fifty dollars,’ she added helpfully.

‘I’m English,’ Bartlett said. He looked at his watch. It was 11 a.m.

She took a small plastic conversion table from her handbag. ‘About twenty-one English pounds. And a few agora – but we won’t bother about those.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Bartlett said. ‘It is a little early for that sort of thing.’

‘You English,’ she said. ‘It’s never too early.’ She moved into a seat closer to him; she smelled faintly of spices.

Bartlett paid the old black-jacketed waiter, picked up his briefcase and started to turn left up the sidewalk. Then he swivelled on his heel and ran back in the direction he had come.

At the first café on the right he saw the Pole in the gold-rimmed spectacles trying to disappear behind a copy of a Hebrew morning paper. At the next café he spotted the crewcut American attempting a similar illusion behind a copy of Life magazine.

At the third café he saw Raquel Rabinovitz.

‘Shalom,’ she said. She was drinking a Coke through a straw.

‘Shalom,’ he said.

‘Sit down and have a drink in the Champs Elysée of Tel Aviv.’

‘I’ve already had one,’ he said.

‘Then have another.’ She snapped her fingers at a waiter. Tom Bartlett sat down.

‘I know it sounds far-fetched,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure I’m being followed.’

‘It is just coincidence,’ she said. ‘You forget that Tel Aviv is just a village compared with New York or London. Every tourist comes to Dizengoff. They say it is one of the most exciting streets in the world.’

Bartlett who was watching a tall Yemeni girl in a short leather skirt agreed. ‘But that hardly explains why my suitcase was searched.’

‘Perhaps an overzealous customs official opened it.’

‘But I had the key.’

‘All right – but I tell you I could open that lock with a teaspoon.’ She drained the Coke with a gurgle. ‘And I think I am right in presuming that you are not the tidiest of men. The suitcase looked to me just as you might have packed it.’

Bartlett shook his head. ‘My wife packed it. She is a very tidy woman. That’s how I know it had been searched.’

‘Ah.’ The conversation lapsed.

Bartlett considered telling her that yesterday he had overheard the President of the United States on the telephone. It seemed to him that the intercepted call might somehow be the key to the subsequent events. But he didn’t want her to think he was completely out of his mind. He opened his copy of the Jerusalem Post.

The girl leaned across and pointed at the four young faces peering from the front page. ‘There,’ she said. ‘That’s what it’s all about.’

The four soldiers had been killed in two days of artillery exchanges across the Suez Canal. Two of them at Kantara, two of them at Port Tawfik. Bartlett didn’t know what to say.

‘Every day,’ she said, ‘we see their faces. Alive one day, dead the next. Our young men, our future. Everyone you meet has had a relative or a friend or a neighbour killed since the truce. The world doesn’t realise what those communiqués mean to us Israelis. Two killed, three injured. In a way to a small nation like Israel such figures have as much impact as the American losses in Vietnam.’

‘I’m sorry for you,’ Bartlett said. He knew it sounded inadequate. Those young faces staring at him beside news from Cape Kennedy, above an advertisement welcoming two officials from the American board of the General Israel Orphans Home for Girls, Jerusalem, to Israel. He said: ‘It all seems so remote sitting here in the sunshine.’ He swallowed the warm dregs of his beer. ‘Do you see any end to it?’

‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘One day perhaps. When the Arabs realise that we will never be moved because the only place we can retreat to is the sea. One day when they realise how well we have treated the refugees in Gaza and elsewhere. One day when your governments leave us Jews to negotiate our own peace with the Arabs.’

‘One day when you give up some of the land you captured?’

She looked at him contemptuously. ‘What land do you suggest we give up?’

Bartlett opened his mouth to reply but he was stopped by a crack as loud as overhead thunder. He jumped. ‘What on earth was that?’

‘A supersonic bang. An aircraft passing through the sound barrier. We get them all the time.’ Amusement softened the contempt. High above Tel Aviv, two Mirage jets headed south in the general direction of Cairo. She lit a cigarette with theatrical calm and said: ‘We will never give up Jerusalem, the Golan Heights or the West Bank. Perhaps we may negotiate the return of some of the Sinai.’

‘You seem very hard,’ he said.

‘All Israelis are hard. We have to be.’ A wisp of warm wind stirred her fringe and the sunlight found gold in the ocean depths of her eyes. ‘Do you realise that not so long ago you and I would have been fighting each other?’

‘When the British were in occupation?’

She nodded.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you would have been a policewoman, not a soldier.’

They walked up Dizengoff, under the dark green trees, past the police station, to the area where the small, dusky shops were crammed with sausages, matzos, humus, slabs of compressed apricots, dried fish, bottles of wine, pickled herrings and cucumbers, fat olives, halva and peta; where butchers found pork and bacon beneath bloodless steaks; where greengrocers polished and piled their peppers, apples and thick-fleshed Jaffas with pride.

They turned left down a side street where every square yellow building housed an advocate, a dentist or a doctor. For most of the way Raquel sulked. But on the corner of Hayarkon, the seafront road, she turned swiftly and surveyed the street behind them. It was empty except for a vendor pushing a cart loaded with a glistening hillock of strawberries. The emptiness of the street seemed to placate her. ‘There,’ she said. ‘What did I tell you?’

Bartlett said: ‘I must have been mistaken.’ But he knew he hadn’t been.

They walked back into town along Hayarkon. Past the Hilton Hotel, past the British Embassy sporting the grubbiest-looking Union Jack that Bartlett had ever seen. On the town beaches the young men batted balls to each other with bats like aircraft marshallers’ indicators; the summer sound of ball on bat was as drowsily monotonous as the clicking of knitting needles.

Outside the Dan Hotel, Bartlett said: ‘Would you care to have dinner with me?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. She stood on the steps worrying about the invitation.

‘I’m an Englishman,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t expect me to insist.’

‘I think you are laughing at me all the time.’

Bartlett was contrite. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was very rude.’

‘I think perhaps we have a lot to talk about.’

‘I’m sure we have,’ Bartlett said.

‘Like soil irrigation. And the potential of the Negev. I am looking forward to your address in Jerusalem, Mr Bartlett.’

‘You will be there?’

‘Of course. I made arrangements to collect tickets this morning.’

Bartlett took the initiative and was surprised at himself. ‘Then we will discuss our common interests over dinner this evening.’

She smiled and Bartlett thought he detected relief that the decision had been taken from her. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘But first we must see the bonfires.’

‘What bonfires?’

‘Tomorrow is May 6, Lag Ba‘Omer, a Jewish holiday, Mr Bartlett. Tonight there will be bonfires all over Tel Aviv. It is just like your Guy Fawkes night. Except that there are no fireworks.’

‘Very well, Miss Rabinovitz. I’ll look forward to it.’

‘Be here at six,’ she said. ‘I’ll pick you up in my car.’

She ran down the steps and stopped a passing sherut. Bartlett took his key and walked past the tiny art gallery towards his ground-floor room. As he walked down the corridor his new instinct told him that he would discover that his room had been searched: His new instinct was right.

THREE

The first attempt on Bartlett’s life was made as he and Raquel wandered among the bonfires blazing on the bank of the narrow and muddy River Yarkon to the north of the city. Around the corner a queue formed for the Swedish film Elvira Madigan; from a jetty looped with fairy lights couples rowed into the gurgling, loving night: high above, the red light of an airliner moved among the thick stars.

But the children were concerned only with their fires pluming sparks and spitting with the fat venom. They roasted potatoes in their jackets, drank mineral waters and made black coffee.

Bartlett pointed to the top of one of the bonfires. ‘What’s that?’ he said.

Raquel who was wearing a dark blue trouser suit said: ‘It is nothing. Just some old heirloom they are burning.’

Bartlett fished his spectacles from his breast pocket. ‘It can’t be a Guy, surely.’

Raquel pulled at his arm. ‘It is nothing, I promise you.’

Bartlett peered at the effigy. ‘He might be nothing to you,’ he said. ‘But he means a lot to a few million Egyptians. That’s Nasser those kids are burning. I thought this was supposed to be some sort of religious celebration connected with the Passover.’

‘Just a childish prank,’ she said. She led him away. ‘For an absent-minded professor you seem to notice a lot.’

‘It’s my training,’ he said. ‘Staring at rocks all the time. That’s how I noticed that my room had been searched this afternoon.’

‘Not your suitcase again,’ she said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘They left that alone this time.’ He picked up a twig smouldering at one end and lit a cigarette. ‘You don’t believe me, do you, Miss Rabinovitz?’

‘It would take more than you have so far told me to make me believe that someone is after you.’ She peered at him, firelight flickering on her inquisitive features. ‘Is there something more you should tell me, Mr Bartlett?’

‘Nothing,’ he said.

His instinct, his reactions, and the shot all synchronised. In the darkness beyond the bonfires, in the paint-smelling waste where the skeletons of old ships yearned for the quick waters, he noticed a small shine of light like a brass knob on a black door. His instinct told him: gold-rimmed spectacles. Then a blur of face and a gleam of silver as slight as a minnow in deep water. A gun, his instinct said. He felled Raquel with one arm and hit the ground beside her. The bullet hit the fire beside them with a dusty thud.

Raquel twisted away from him. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Have you gone crazy?’

‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘You stay there.’

No one seemed to have heard the shot among the cracking embers. A few children gazed in astonishment at the two of them lying on the ground. Keeping low he ran towards the edge of the darkness. But there was no one there, although he thought he heard running footsteps and the sound of rotting wood breaking.

The girl joined him, dusting ash from her trouser suit. ‘And now I suppose you’re going to say someone was shooting at you,’ she said.

‘They were.’

‘This is getting beyond a joke.’

‘I entirely agree,’ he said. ‘Come on, I need a drink.’

They went to an open-air café where men played chess on black-and-white oilcloth spread on the tables. Bartlett ordered a Scotch, Raquel Rabinovitz a Carmel gin and tonic. ‘You’re driving me to drink,’ she said.

‘You still don’t believe me?’

‘I didn’t hear a shot. And I can’t think why anyone should be after you if your mission to Israel is so innocent.’ Beside them an excited chess player slapped his queen down with no respect for royalty. ‘What can anyone be after? Whatever it is it’s not in your suitcase and it’s not in your room. Perhaps it’s in your briefcase. Where is your briefcase?’

‘It’s at the hotel,’ he said.

‘In your room?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘In the hotel safe.’

‘Why do you put your briefcase in the hotel safe if you’ve got nothing to hide?’

It was difficult to explain. A hardening determination to defeat those who were pursuing him. The excitement of a mysterious challenge as he approached middle-age after a life of preoccupation with sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks. Pure perversity. ‘I didn’t see why they should have it all their own way,’ he said.

‘If you’re so convinced that an attempt has been made on your life why do you not tell the police?’

‘Because, like you, they would not believe me.’

He finished his Scotch. Down the road the bonfires were dying and the children were fishing for potatoes in the glowing ash. They gave him an idea.

‘After we’ve had dinner,’ he said, ‘I can prove to you that someone wants to kill me.’

‘On your life?’

‘On my life,’ he said.

The first course at Yunis, the open-air Arab restaurant in the ancient adjoining city of Jaffa, named after Japhet, one of Noah’s sons, was served a minute after they sat down. The Arab proprietor apologised for the delay.

They sat at an unsteady table covered with oilcloth. A cat sat in the branches of a tree growing to one side of the courtyard waiting for night birds; behind them a party of exuberant Israelis in town from a border Kibbutz got drunk on Coke and fizzy orange; in front of them two elderly American tourists and their wives regarded everyone with affection.

They ate humus and tehina dips with peta, hot red Turkish salad and mixed salad, and drank white Avdat wine. They had reached the barbecued fish and the second bottle of Avdat when the crewcut American came up to their table. ‘Pardon me for interrupting your meal,’ he said.

Bartlett looked up and waited. The American hesitated. Then he said: ‘I wasn’t too sure when I first saw you come in. But I guess we were on the same plane together yesterday.’

Bartlett wiped up the last of the humus with his peta. ‘I believe we were,’ he said. ‘And you were in Dizengoff this morning.’

‘I sure was. What a street that is. It’s got Piccadilly and the Via Veneto licked.’ He paused, looking from Bartlett to Raquel and back again. ‘Say, do you mind if I join you in a glass of wine?’

Bartlett, who did mind, tried to appeal silently to Raquel. She said brightly: ‘Of course not. Please sit down.’ But he already had. He ordered another bottle of wine and said: ‘My name’s Everett. Harry Everett. It’s sure good to see a familiar face.’

‘Familiar since yesterday,’ Bartlett said.

Raquel said: ‘Are you here on vacation, Mr Everett?’

Everett shook his square, friendly face. ‘No, business I’m afraid. A two-day visit. That’s why I’ve gotten myself a seat on Mr Bartlett’s tour for the geologists tomorrow. So I can see some of the country before flying back to the States.’

Bartlett diverted the gaze of the fish head towards another table and said: ‘How did you know my name, Mr Everett? How did you know I was going on a tour tomorrow? And why did you fly here from London instead of New York if, as you imply, your business is in America?’

Everett looked surprised. ‘Gee,’ he said. ‘Are you from the FBI?’ He smiled boyishly.

‘No,’ Bartlett said. ‘Are you?’

‘No, sir. I’m an architect. There have been some last minute hang-ups on a new hotel my company is building out at Herzliya. I got your name from the Dan Hotel because I’m staying there too. Another coincidence, I guess. Anyway, I saw you walking out of the hotel today and I asked reception who you were because I thought we might get together for a drink sometime. He said you were here for a conference on geology at Jerusalem. Then I remembered reading in the local paper that all you geologists were going to be taken on a tour of Israel tomorrow even though it’s a holiday. So I made me a few calls and wangled myself a trip.’ He patted his thick chopped hair proudly.

Bartlett ran his fingers through his own untidy hair and imagined he could feel the thicker texture of the grey strands. He was aware that Everett was much nearer to Raquel’s age group than he was. He decided to leave as soon as possible. He turned to Raquel. ‘Shall we bother with coffee?’

‘Yes please,’ she said.

Bartlett controlled his irritation. They drank Turkish coffee from thick cups while Everett talked informatively about the effect of salt and sunshine on the façades of seafront hotels in the Eastern Mediterranean. The effect was not good, Bartlett gathered, as he examined Everett’s façade. A face so honest that it had to be devious, strong freckled hands, blue Brooks Brothers suit, thin tie with thin black and red stripes, square-toed black shoes. Bartlett called for the bill.

‘Hey,’ Everett said, ‘at least let me pay for the wine.’

Bartlett shook his head. ‘Buy me a drink tomorrow – at the Dead Sea.’

As they walked out Everett held Bartlett’s arm so that Raquel drew ahead of them. ‘Tom,’ he said as if a lifelong friendship had been crystallised into the last hour. ‘Can I have a chat with you later? Alone.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘I can’t tell you now. But it’s very important.’

Bartlett allowed his annoyance to surface. ‘Not tonight,’ he said. ‘As you can see I’m out with a girl. A very attractive girl. I might be in my dotage as far as you are concerned but I can assure you that it is not my intention to spend the rest of the night discussing the geological characteristics of the Beit Shean Valley with her.’

But Everett’s manner had changed. His fingers were tight around Bartlett’s forearm and his candid, campus features were suddenly ruthless. To Bartlett the change was as frightening as suddenly glimpsing cruelty in a child. ‘Tonight,’ Everett said.

His insistence encouraged the perversity in Bartlett’s nature. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow on the trip,’ he said. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me there’s a lady waiting for me outside.’

Everett’s face relaxed. He replaced his mask of naïveté and patted his hair. ‘Okay Tom,’ he said. ‘Till tomorrow.’

They walked into the street where cats waited for scraps and children waited for agora. Raquel was sitting at the wheel of her small Fiat.

As Bartlett walked towards it an old Ford V8 came rocking down the dark, narrow street. He flattened himself against the wall as it swept past.

Raquel said: ‘I suppose you think that was another attempt on your life.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘I think the driver had merely been smoking.’

‘Smoking?’

‘Hash,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of it round here.’

The Ford stopped near Yunis restaurant and the Arab driver climbed out, sat on a doorstep and smiled idiotically into the darkness.

‘No,’ Bartlett said. ‘I don’t think he was trying to kill me. But if you drive me first to the Dan Hotel and then to the River Yarkon I’ll prove to you that someone is.’

First he swept away the still-warm ash. Then he began to excavate with his tools. He could smell the mud from the river and the saline breath of the sea. The girl kneeling beside him said: ‘Now I know you are crazy.’

‘Just wait,’ he said. ‘You’ll see.’

‘See what?’

‘Just wait.’

It was 1 a.m. The darkness was warm, the suburb dead. After digging and scratching in the moonlight for five minutes he began to feel anxious. Perhaps he was crazy. He felt the girl’s hair brush against his face. He didn’t want to be proved crazy in front of her.

His trowel struck metal. ‘Watch carefully,’ he said. He dug lower and then levered the trowel upwards. The bullet came free and rolled on to the trowel. He knew how a dentist felt. ‘Now do you believe me?’

She nodded, her face grave in the moonlight. And Tom Bartlett found that he was happy that he had proved that someone was trying to kill him.

FOUR

A thrush was singing in Grosvenor Square. The morning air smelled of evaporating dew and unfurling roses and the hair of the pretty girls and young men bounced as they walked to work. But Dean Ralston, one of the senior security officers at the United States Embassy in London, was not affected by the expectancy of the morning. He walked rapidly and unhappily down the corridor of the magnificent embassy to the office of the Ambassador.

The Ambassador said: ‘It can’t have been. There must have been a mistake.’

Ralston shook his head and stared at his policeman’s feet. ‘I’m afraid not, sir. We have indisputable proof that the Russians managed to plug into the Washington line.’

The Ambassador stared grimly at the photograph of the President at his desk. ‘I understood that was impossible. How long do you reckon they’ve been tapping it?’

Ralston lit a cigarette with a large windshielded lighter. ‘Not long, according to my contact. A couple of days at the most.’

‘Who is this contact of yours?’

‘Begging your pardon, sir, but I’d prefer not to say.’

The Ambassador who had been accustomed to total obedience during his business life walked over to the window, fists bunched in his pockets. He was a small man with a pouchy face that belied his toughness. ‘What the hell are you going to do about it then?’

‘The wire’s been taken care of,’ Ralston said. ‘There’s no sweat there. Our only worry is what information the Soviets picked up in the last couple of days. Can you help us there, sir?’

The Ambassador poured himself a glass of water. ‘The President has only been on the wire twice this week. Both times it was about this guy Bartlett. The President is very anxious that we gain some prestige from the four-power talks on the Middle East crisis. It seems that Bartlett can help us.’

Ralston said: ‘I know about that, sir. We have a man out there now. The trouble is that the Russians will be on to him because of this intercepted call. My sympathies lie with this poor bastard Bartlett.’

‘Is there anything more we can do?’

Ralston shrugged. ‘One of our best operators is out there. And our people in Israel have been alerted. We have an edge because we’ve got diplomatic recognition and can operate more freely.’

‘Details like that never stopped the Soviets,’ the Ambassador said. He tossed back his glass of water as if it were vodka.

Ralston looked out of the window at the blossoming May day. ‘There’s just one more thing, sir,’ he said.

‘What is it? It can’t be anything worse.’

‘It’s not exactly worse,’ Ralston said carefully.

‘What the hell is it then?’

‘It seems that one of the presidential calls got crossed. We’ve had a call from a local exchange down in Sussex. Apparently the call was picked up in a village down there.’

The Ambassador sat down again. ‘You mean some yokel listened to the President talking to me?’

‘Not exactly a yokel, sir.’

‘Who was it then?’

‘Bartlett, sir. Your namesake. Apparently he was calling his wife here just as the President came through.’

‘This,’ the Ambassador said slowly, ‘is the sort of thing that you can never imagine happening to the Russians.’ He paused. ‘Although I guess they screw up things from time to time. Is there anything more we can do?’

‘Not a lot,’ Ralston said. ‘We’ve already clammed up the local exchange. As far as we know the only other people who heard the President – apart from yourself and the Soviets – was Bartlett himself. Our man is on to Bartlett but of course he doesn’t know yet that the KGB are on to him as well.’

‘What about Bartlett himself? If he overheard the conversation he must realise that he’s dynamite.’

‘He doesn’t appear to have reacted so far,’ Ralston said.

The Ambassador pondered on the implication. Then he said: ‘Hell, you don’t think that Bartlett’s sympathies lie in the other direction, do you? You don’t think that he’s a Commie?’

‘I don’t figure it that way,’ Ralston said. ‘He’s just a geologist. A bit bumbly, a bit absorbed with his work. He probably didn’t realise what he was listening to.’

‘How did we get this Bartlett lead in the first place?’

‘Through his wife,’ Ralston said. ‘As you know, she works in the library. She has a tendency to shoot her mouth off. Normally we feed her stuff that we want her to broadcast. She’s quite useful that way. But in this case she picked up the information from her husband.’

‘Why do you feed her information?’ The Ambassador’s voice was touched with sarcasm. ‘Of course you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I am only the Ambassador.’

‘Because she’s taken to sleeping with an Arab,’ Ralston said. ‘That poor sucker Bartlett. He’s got the Americans, the Russians, the Arabs and the Israelis on to him.’

‘How do you know the Israelis are on to it?’ the Ambassador said.

‘I don’t for sure. But I’ll wager a week’s salary on it because the Shin Beit is the best secret service in the world.’

The phone rang and the Ambassador picked it up. He put his hand over the receiver and gestured to Ralston to leave the room. ‘It’s the President,’ he said.

Outside the office Ralston said to himself: ‘And you don’t want the call overheard.’ He smiled for the first time that morning.

From a tousled bed in an apartment just off the Kings Road, Chelsea, Helen Bartlett observed Ahmed Heykal preparing to dress. It was, she thought, a slow, exhibitionist process. His body was very brown and muscular, very hirsute; his felt cap of hair was undisturbed although they had just finished making love. She thought suddenly of the frailer body of her husband and was immediately disgusted by her infidelity. But she knew from experience that subsequent attentions from Ahmed would quickly dispel the disgust.

However, momentarily, contrition prevailed. She remembered meeting Bartlett ten years ago at a cocktail party when he had been attending a geological conference in New York. He was the sort of man who inadvertently attracted women: they always wanted to straighten his tie, remove the ballpoint pen from his breast pocket; then show him the city and later their apartments. It was only during the permanent relationship of marriage that his forgetfulness and untidiness became an irritation rather than an attraction. And since he had achieved worldwide recognition in his profession they had become more remote from each other, she often staying in the town apartment while he worked in his study in Sussex. But, she thought, he was nice; she wouldn’t like to think of him coming to any harm in Israel.

‘Ahmed,’ she said.

‘Yes?’

He was standing naked selecting a suit from a wardrobe like a miniature men’s outfitters. In the long mirror she could see the front of Ahmed’s body and, behind it, her own pale face framed with gossamer blonde hair.

‘Tom won’t come to any harm, will he?’

‘Why should he?’ Ahmed chose a diplomatic grey lightweight and turned his attention to his ties.

‘I don’t know. You seemed rather excited about what I told you.’

‘Not excited. Just interested.’

‘You promise me nothing will happen to him?’

Ahmed selected a blue silk Christian Dior and moved to the dressing table to look for socks. ‘I promise you, my dear.’

She sank back in the pillows and regarded his broad back thickened at the waist by his London cost-of-living allowance, ‘Why were you so interested?’

He chose a pair of black socks and returned to the bed. ‘It’s nothing for you to worry about my dear,’ he said. Helen Bartlett decided that she was glad that Ahmed had not put any clothes on. Almost immediately the disgust and contrition evaporated.

FIVE

It was 7 a.m. when Bartlett awoke. A Khamsin was blowing from the south; the morning light was orange and the window was rimed with dust from the desert. Undeterred, elderly and middle-aged American tourists were performing their exercises on the beach in front of the hotel.

Bartlett avoided the raw delights of a Jewish breakfast by telephoning for hard-boiled eggs. He lay in bed and glanced at the Jerusalem Post. Moshe Dayan had reported to the Cabinet on security; Mrs Golda Meir was flying to Washington to ask for more arms to balance the Russian aid flowing into the Arab countries.

At the Lag Ba’Omer celebrations at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai two hundred people had been treated for insect bites, two more had suffered heart attacks, dozens of children had been lost, twenty pickpockets had been arrested and the beggars had departed with ‘bulging pockets’. But, according to the reporter, ‘the spirit of merry-making was not to be dimmed’.

On the Israeli-held bank of the Suez Canal an Irish captain in the United Nations had been wounded when his Jeep hit a Chinese mine. The UN’s task, Bartlett thought, was probably the most abortive in its history. On the front page there were two more photographs of Israeli soldiers killed at Kantara.

He switched on the radio. There had already been an artillery duel that morning 85 kilometres away on the Jordanian cease-fire line north of Jericho, and Israeli jets had attacked a radar installation across the River Jordan from Beit Shean.

On the beach outside the hotel two youths started up with bats and balls and the Americans came in for breakfast lightly coated with Khamsin dust.

Bartlett took a shower and shaved carefully with his old razor and moulting badger-hair brush. As he shaved he considered the events of the past two days. Fear, excitement and determination to confound his pursuers fused into a single emotion. But why was anyone pursuing him? He decided to report to the police after the trip to the Dead Sea.

Beneath the perplexity and excitement there was another emotion. He identified it while he was dressing: it concerned Raquel Rabinovitz. The emotion was vague – affectionate, almost paternal. Paternal? He looked at himself in the wardrobe mirror and thought: ‘Bartlett, you’re a bloody liar.’

He picked up his camera and joined his group in the hotel foyer.

The geologists were assigned to five minibus sheruts visiting different destinations so that if the Arabs opened fire the world would not instantaneously be deprived of all its geological brainpower. As Bartlett had anticipated Everett was assigned to the same sherut as himself. Bartlett sat down abruptly and pulled down a geologist he had met in Los Angeles on to the seat beside him. Everett sat in front of them.

The guide was a young American immigrant named Samuel who had brought his southern drawl with him. He was dark and angular and dedicated.

‘I must warn you folks,’ he said, ‘that there is a very slight element of danger in this trip. But only very slight, I assure you. There has been shooting around the Dead Sea in the past. But it’s usually been early in the morning. As you may have heard on the radio our jets strafed the Arabs across the Jordan River early this morning so it’s my guess that there won’t be any more trouble today. Still, if there’s any of you who would like to opt out now’s your chance.’

No one moved. In any case, Bartlett thought, you could hardly be expected to publicly affirm cowardice.

As they passed through the apartment-block suburbs of Tel Aviv, Everett turned and said: ‘We’ll talk a little later, Bartlett.’

‘Perhaps,’ Bartlett said.

‘When we stop,’ Everett said.

‘I expect so,’ Bartlett said.

The American geologist whose name was Wheeler said: ‘When I met you in Los Angeles I never guessed we’d meet here. You’re an authority on these parts, aren’t you?’

‘Not an authority. I’ve been in the Sinai before. That’s all.’

Just outside Tel Aviv the sherut stopped at a road block. Police glanced inside and waved the driver on.

Samuel said: ‘Sorry folks – a necessary precaution these days, I guess.’

They drove past rusting fleets of captured lorries, past orange groves and fields of sunflowers. The flat countryside began to dip and climb. Pine and cypress and green hills stepped with terraces as old as the Bible. Beside the road they saw old-fashioned armoured cars wrecked and abandoned during the 1948 war. Then new Jerusalem materialised – a wall of apartment blocks.

‘The most disappointing first view in the world,’ Bartlett said.

Wheeler said: ‘At least it’s not divided any more. The old and the new city, I mean. At least it’s all ours.’

Bartlett looked at Wheeler in surprise. He was a middle-aged man who wore loneliness like an old and familiar coat. ‘Are you Jewish then?’ Bartlett said.

Wheeler nodded. ‘I never thought I’d be able to visit the old city of Jerusalem.’

Everett turned round. ‘I understand you’re all touring the old city tomorrow when you move base from Tel Aviv.’

Bartlett said: ‘And you’re coming with us?’

Everett’s smile was a seal of friendship. ‘Sure thing,’ he said. ‘I’m real glad I managed to hitch a lift with you guys.’

‘It’s a pleasure,’ Wheeler said. Bartlett remembered the ruthlessness and said nothing.

The sherut edged round. the walls of the old city and headed towards Jericho. The countryside harshened. Obelisks, pyramids and cubes of brown and white rock sculptured and scoured by wind and sand. A few Bedouin tents like brown aphides in the distance.

Samuel said: ‘It was down this road, folks, that the Arabs retreated after the Six Day War.’ Two Israeli half-tracks mounted with machine guns crunched up the winding road; Samuel waved and the dusty, goggled soldiers waved back.

The sherut stopped behind a small hotel on the shores of the Dead Sea. The air was as dead as the sea; no wind, no birdsong.

‘Kind of spooky, isn’t it, folks?’ Samuel said. ‘But you see those hills over there? He pointed across the thick water at the limestone defences of Jordan. ‘There’s as many guns in those hills as St Peter’s fish in the Sea of Galilee.’ He grinned proudly and pointed behind them at the brown battlements of the Israeli-occupied hills – the Wilderness of Sudan. ‘But I reckon there’s a darn sight more there.’

An ancient and theatrical Arab asked them to pose with a live camel that looked as if it had been stuffed beside a notice which said: WORLD’S LOWEST POINT. 394 MTRS. (1291 FT.) BELOW SEA LEVEL.

Samuel said: ‘You can have a swim, folks, if you want to. I reckon it’s going to be quiet for the time being. But don’t swim out too far. Just remember that the cease-fire line runs down the middle of this here sea.’

In the changing room Everett said: ‘There’s no point in dodging any more, Bartlett. We have to talk.’ It was an order from the man behind the friendly mask.

‘In here?’

Everett looked around at the geologists changing. ‘No, we’ll swim away from the rest of these guys.’ He stripped down to a pair of tartan boxer trunks; Bartlett noted hard muscles beneath freckled skin. He decided not to examine his own torso in the mirror.

They walked to the edge of the sea and tested the oily water with their toes.

Samuel said: ‘I don’t have to tell you folks not to get this stuff in your eyes. I guess you know more about these things than I do.’

They all waded out and suspended themselves in the water. Rolled themselves in a ball, lay out with hands behind their heads – the experts on the world’s crust besporting themselves at its nadir.

Everett said: ‘Come on, Bartlett, we’ll swim out a bit.’

‘All right,’ Bartlett said. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

‘You know what all this is about, of course.’

‘I have no idea. All I know is that you’ve been following me and I was shot at yesterday.’

‘The hell you were. Where was that?’

‘Up by the River Yarkon when all the bonfires were burning.’

‘Any idea who took a shot at you?’

‘I think it was the Pole who was sitting beside you in the plane. But I can’t be sure.’

‘Ah yes,’ Everett said. ‘The Pole. He’s supposed to be one of you guys. A geologist.’ He stopped swimming and floated upright like a seahorse. ‘A good front. That’s how the Russians work. They give a man his front when he’s still a kid.’

‘The Russians?’

‘Sure, the Russians. He might be a Polish Jew but, just as sure as there are Jordanian guns trained on us at this moment, he’s a Soviet agent.’

‘What on earth is this all about?’ Bartlett peered across the motionless water towards the break in the shoreline where the River Jordan entered the lake.

‘According to a message I received this morning you overheard a certain telephone call the day before yesterday. Is that correct?’

‘Yes,’ Bartlett said. ‘I overheard the President of the United States.’ It sounded so incongruous that he laughed and swallowed a mouthful of liquid salt.

‘And you still don’t know what this is all about?’

‘Not a clue,’ Bartlett said.

Everett frowned. ‘You’re one of three things,’ he said. ‘You’re either a liar, a Communist, or incredibly naïve.’

‘I’m going back to the shore,’ Bartlett said.

‘Okay, okay – you’re none of those things.’

‘I’m not sure what you are,’ Bartlett said. ‘But whatever it is you’re not a diplomat.’

‘Okay, so my manners aren’t so good. But I guess you’d better know what this is all about. Didn’t you get the gist of any of the conversation you overheard?’

‘Not really.’ How could you explain that you had been expecting to hear the voice of your unfaithful wife and that you had been overcome by an attack of hay fever?

‘I suppose it’s possible because you didn’t overhear the conversation the day before.’

‘I don’t listen to all the President’s private conversations.’

‘The fact of the matter is that you can play a pretty important role in ironing out the Middle East crisis.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Bartlett said.

‘And bring a lot of prestige to the United …’ He stopped himself. ‘To the West.’

‘How?’

Wheeler splashed up behind them. He was trying to do the crawl; the result was ludicrous because his body stayed on the surface of the water. ‘Hallo there,’ he said. He had already got the water in his myopic eyes and they were turning from pink to red.

Everett said: ‘Do you mind leaving us alone for a couple of minutes, Mr Wheeler? We’ve got something rather important to discuss.’

Wheeler looked surprised and hurt. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I was just trying out the crawl. I’ve wanted to do it all my life but I usually sink.’

‘I’ll join you in a minute,’ Bartlett said.

‘You don’t have to,’ Wheeler said, rubbing more salt in his eyes.

Everett said: ‘I’m sorry, Mr Wheeler.’

The words were spoken by the naïve and completely spurious Everett. They were also the last words ever to be spoken by either Everett the ingenious or Everett the devious.

In the Jordanian hills Bartlett noticed a tiny puff of grey smoke. Ahead of him a line of splashes appeared on the water and subsided. Fractionally later he heard the shots. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘they’re shooting at us.’

Everett didn’t reply. Behind Bartlett the other geologists were floundering towards the shore and Samuel was shouting at them on the stony beach. Beside him Everett floated in water dyed red by the blood pouring from a wound in his chest.

Bartlett swam up to him. But there was no pulse, no hope. On his friendly face there was an expression of mild surprise and his eyes were open just below the surface of the water. Involuntarily Bartlett put this hand on the tough stubble of Everett’s hair.

Faintly he heard Samuel’s voice. ‘For God’s sake get back here you two. The bastards are shooting at us.’

About fifty yards in front of him another clutch of bullets plucked the water like hailstones. He let go of Everett’s body. Beneath him he felt a deep salty current. Everett’s body moved away and turned over so that he looked as if he were peering at the sea bed through goggles.

‘Come back, for God’s sake.’ Samuel’s shout whispered across the dead air above the Dead Sea.

On shore near the border a saloon car started up and accelerated towards Jerusalem in a ball of dust.

Bartlett started to swim after Everett’s body but the current was pulling it swiftly from him. By the time Bartlett reached the beach it had crossed the cease-fire line. At least, he thought, it would never sink.

SIX

In his second-floor room in the Dan Hotel the Polish Jew, Matthew Yosevitz, dismantled the rifle with the telescopic sights given to him in Jaffa by agents of El Fatah and ordered a pot of tea with lemon.

Then he lay down on the bed, stared out across the placid sea draped with orange Khamsin dust and considered his predicament.

He was twenty-seven years of age, a qualified geologist. with a growing international reputation, a trained assassin, an up-and-coming officer in the KGB, and a member of the Communist Party. But he was also a Jew and therein lay his predicament.

At the age of seven Yosevitz, whose parents had been killed in the war, had been taken from Warsaw to Moscow. There he was brought up as a Russian and a Communist. By the age of seventeen all traces of Semitism had ostensibly been expunged: he was a young Communist zealot and a fledgling member of the secret police. There was no treachery involved: it was merely that Communism was all he knew.

After aptitude tests held in the vaults of Lubyanka police headquarters opposite a toy shop in Moscow, Yosevitz was sent back to Warsaw to study geology and renew contacts with the Jewish community.

By these methods Communist agents were introduced into Israel as immigrants afire with Zionism. Each was schooled in the attitudes to present to the Israeli screening officers. When the immigrants had satisfied the Israeli security machine the Soviets assumed that they had established an agent in Israel. And that, Yosevitz now knew, was where the Soviets could well be making a considerable error of judgement.

When he arrived in Israel, Yosevitz phlegmatically resolved to carry out the bidding of his KGB colonel in Warsaw. The obstacles did not appear formidable – a pleasant but ingenuous English geologist, a known American agent, and probably an Israeli operator somewhere around. But even as he drove from Lod airport to Tel Aviv the instincts of Judaism began to awake – a heritage that could never be completely erased by any modern ideology; a heritage that suddenly germinated and blossomed on its own soil.

Yosevitz found he wanted to share the aloneness and swagger of the Israelis – but you couldn’t completely discard beliefs assimilated for twenty years. He wanted to help protect his land – but he had been briefed to undermine its protection. He was a Communist and a Jew. In other words, he thought, drawing the curtains across the orange afternoon, I am a dual personality, a schizophrenic.

A waiter brought the tea. A tough-looking man in his thirties with a handsome hawkish face. He didn’t look like a waiter.

Yosevitz said: ‘Just a minute.’

The waiter stopped at the door.

‘How long have you worked here as a waiter?’

‘Not very long, sir. I’m just helping out. Several of the staff have had to go on reserve duty in the Army.’

‘Why, is there anything particular happening?’ Yosevitz the spy wanted to know in case there was anything to report: Yosevitz the Jew wanted to know because of his involvement.

‘Not that I know of, sir.’

‘Much news today?’

‘Not a great deal, sir. An American businessman was shot dead in the Dead Sea.’

Yosevitz glanced at the violin case containing his rifle. The shot had synchronised nicely with the burst of fire from the Jordanian hills. He would have to get the rifle back to Jaffa in the evening. Before the party.

‘Poor bastard,’ Yosevitz said. He poured a cup of tea. ‘Can you see any end to all this?’

The waiter shrugged, powerful shoulders pushing his jacket out of shape. ‘Not until the terrorists stop attacking us. How can there be? And they won’t stop because Nasser and Hussein aren’t in control any more.’

‘You mean the guerrillas are dictating to the Arab leaders?’

The waiter looked quizzically at Yosevitz. ‘I said the terrorists. Of course they’re dictating. The Lebanese are scared stiff of them. And when Hussein was away El Fatah ordered the shelling of Eilat against his wishes.’

‘It sounds very depressing.’

The waiter said: ‘There will be another war. Another victory for the Jews.’

‘You sound as if you’re looking forward to it,’ Yosevitz said.

The waiter opened the door. ‘I am a soldier,’ he said. ‘We are all soldiers.’ He closed the door.

Yosevitz put on his wide-lapelled jacket and tightened the knot in his thin tie. He thought of all the expensive suits and silk ties in the hotel. He looked around his fine room and thought of the poverty of the barrack-block of apartments in which he had lived when he was a student at Moscow University. Yosevitz the Communist strapped his pistol under his jacket with deliberation and picked up the violin case.

But as he left the room he glanced at a copy of the evening newspaper on the bed. At the faces of two Jewish soldiers. Both dead. Yosevitz the schizophrenic walked wearily across the busy foyer to the street. Those who noticed the pale preoccupied young man in the gold-rimmed spectacles carrying a violin case presumed that he was mentally composing. In fact Matthew Yosevitz was debating whether or not to carry out his second killing of the day.

A hundred yards from the floodlit tourist centre of Jaffa where the most ancient history seemed to be contemporary, Yosevitz sat with two Arabs in a cellar beneath a defunct brothel and listened to the voice of El Fatah broadcast from Cairo.

Yosevitz understood a little of the broadcast. The two Arabs listened intently, talking excitedly, smoking incessantly. The voice on the radio, exhorting all refugees to rise against the Israelis who had driven them out of their homeland, stopped. A more furtive voice replaced it.

‘What’s he saying?’ Yosevitz said. The senior of the two El Fatah agents signalled to him to be silent and lit another cigarette. An American cigarette, Yosevitz noted. The voice changed again and the Arab whose name was Hamid switched off the radio.

Yosevitz said: ‘Well?’

Hamid said: ‘It was in code. Part of it was addressed to me, Blue Lion, as I am known on these broadcasts.’

Yosevitz lit an Israeli cigarette. ‘Was there any message for me?’

Hamid was a powerful man with greying, fuse-wire hair and a Nasser smile. ‘I have been told to leave the Englishman, Bartlett, to you.’

‘Good. That simplifies matters.’

Hamid lit a new cigarette with the stub of the old. ‘I am not too happy about it,’ he said.

Yosevitz’s words froze into chips of ice. ‘Really, why is that?’

The second Arab who possessed all the sycophancy of a dirty postcard vendor shrank into the shadows of the dimly lit cellar.

Hamid said: ‘Because you are a Jew.’

Yosevitz took out his pistol and fitted the silencer on to the barrel. ‘In case it has escaped you,’ he said, ‘I am also a senior officer in the KGB. I am here as a representative of the Soviet Union to assist the Arab nations regain their heritage. Do you really wish to question my role here?’

‘I do not question your ability. But it seems strange that you, a Jew, should be working for our cause.’

‘It is impossible to have a Russian national here since the Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with Israel.’

‘Then why not let the Arabs do your work? Our organisation here has a good record. The explosion in the supermarket at Jerusalem – three hundred pounds of TNT and thirty pounds of gelignite – and the bomb at Tel Aviv bus station. All the time our organisation is gaining power.’

‘You did lose the war,’ Yosevitz said.

‘We did not. The leaders and armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria lost the war. We are the true representatives of the Arab people.’

Yosevitz weighed the pistol in his hand. The act of killing had never bothered him. He didn’t enjoy it; it was his job – if he didn’t perform the execution then someone else would. In every killing he had perpetrated, the cause had been more important than the person. At the moment Yosevitz the Jew considered the cause of Zionism more important than the life of Hamid the Arab, although he knew he wouldn’t kill him.’Why then do you fight among yourselves?’ he said.

Hamid spread wide his hands. ‘Every organisation has its disagreements.’ He showed his teeth – half smile, half snarl. ‘Even the Kremlin.’

Yosevitz put down his gun and polished his spectacles. Once he had wounded a man instead of killing him because the lenses had been blurred. ‘Do you think you could do this job better than me?’

‘It is not difficult to kill.’

‘There is more to this than killing. The killing is incidental.’ He put his spectacles on again. ‘What is your opinion of the National Front for the Liberation of Palestine?’

‘Amateurs,’ Hamid said promptly.

‘And you really think that you can all operate as Fedayeem with so much disagreement among you?’

Hamid said: ‘El Fatah is the true voice of the Arab people. And that is what they feel.’ He pointed to a poster on the wall. It said: This is the way to liberation of my homeland. And so, my brothers, I’ll fight on. Above the caption an Arab commando was disposing singlehanded of four Israeli soldiers.

The poster, Yosevitz thought, was rather pitiful. He said: ‘First, Hamid – to quote a Western saying – you must put your own house in order.’

‘No,’ Hamid said. ‘First we must drive the Israelis into the sea.’

Once again instincts as old as the prophets stirred within Yosevitz. Casually he pointed the pistol at Hamid’s head.

Hamid said: ‘There was, by the way, a personal message for you over the radio.’

Yosevitz lowered the pistol. ‘What was it?’

‘It was merely to tell you that your wife and two children were in good health and looking forward to your return to Warsaw.’

Yosevitz slipped the pistol back into the shoulder holster. Sometimes, he thought, you couldn’t fault the Soviet system.

He walked back to the tourist centre and caught a cab back to Tel Aviv. As the cab left behind the mosques and mildewed terraces and penetrated the neon aureole of Tel Aviv, Yosevitz the Communist sneered at such flamboyant prosperity; at the same time Yosevitz the Jew revelled in the self-sufficiency of the Promised Land.

He leaned forwards and told the driver to take him to the apartment block in Gordon Street where the party to which Bartlett had been invited was taking place.

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