Of course, hewas a soldier; any Israeli his age would still be on the reserve. And if you happen to want to take your submachine gun to a party, you'd attract comment in civilian dress and no second glance in uniform.
He arranged us competently: Ken, Gadulla and me in chairs jammed into a corner, with nothing we could reach or kick within range. But not until Mitzi had searched us. Gadulla didn't like that. Not one bit he didn't.
Mitzi stood back, mousey eyes glinting and smiling watchfully.
Ken asked: 'I suppose young fuzzy-chops found out where you were staying and came a-calling?'
Ben Iver said: 'Miss Spohr decided to change her agent. She thought I might get her a better deal.'
Well, maybe. He could cut out Ken and me and Gadulla – if Gadulla agreed to turn up the sword at all – but he'd also be cutting himself a big slice of the action.
'Is that the gun that killed Papadimitriou?' Ken asked.
Ben Iver grinned. 'Hardly.'
It had been a ridiculous question. But the answer had solved Papa's death, all right.
'Any more questions?' Ben Iver asked cheerfully, his glasses twinkling in the lamplight. 'Or shall we move on to item three, like where is the sword?"
Nobody said anything, Gadulla in particular. Mitzi looked hopefully at Ben Iver. He held the gun one-handed – you can do that easily with a small, compact gun like the Uzi – and took out a smallish colour photograph.
'You know this, of course?' He waggled it at Gadulla. 'It was the original redemption ticket you gave Professor Spohr in return for the sword.'
'He stole it from me,' Gadulla said bleakly.
Mitzi looked a bit sharp, but Ben Iver nodded. 'That sounds more likely.'
I asked: 'Are we too young to see this picture?'
'No, but I would prefer to describe it. It shows Mr Gadulla in happy conversation with a certain Palestinian terrorist leader who lives in Beirut – or is it Damascus? Anyway, the likenesses are very good. I really don't know why people allow such pictures to be taken.'
Nor do I, yet you see books about the French Resistance with wartime group photos, everybody clutchinga Sten gun and grinning like a toothpaste ad, and what the Gestapo would have done if they'd found one of those pictures…
'It isn't evidence,' Ken said.
'Evidence, schmevidence. We know it would at least put Mr Gadulla across the border into Jordan, stateless, homeless, all his property here confiscated. Ha Mosad – which you kindly thought I belonged to – doesn't need legal evidence.'
He held up the photo. 'So I have here one pawn ticket for one sword.'
'It was in the letter Spohr wrote to Gadulla?' I asked, just to get things straight. 'Did Papa know what it was?'
Ben Iver shook his head without looking at me. 'Not exactly. But he had the sort of mind that understands blackmail. Now, please – the sword.'
Gadulla went on looking like a bent hawk for a moment longer, then nodded. 'If I may stand up?'
'Carefully.'
Gadulla went to a thin, colourful rug hanging on the wall, unhooked it and lifted the sword down from the pegs behind.
'Has it been there all the time?' Ken asked, staring.
'Only a few hours,' He laid it carefully on the table under the lamp and sat down. Mitzi moved quickly across to look.
I'd never really expected to meet it and so hadn't any high hopes about it, but even so I wasn't much impressed. It was just a big, very sword-like sword. A long straight, slightly tapered blade two inches wide at the top, and with occasional little nicks of rust. But painted with some brownish-red stuff – probably a rust inhibitor the Prof had slapped on.
The hilt looked oddly thin: just a bar of rough metal leading up from a straight crosspiece and loosely wrapped with a tangle of grimy gold wire. There'd probably been a grip of wood, long rotted, with the wire binding it in place. And at the top, fat as a small plum, the pommel, with the crest on one side, a wine-coloured jewel on the other.
Mitzi had her sharp eyes right down on it, almost as if she was trying to pick up a scent.'Ufert… the name is right… and three leopards, passant guardant…' she rubbed the crest carefully with her thumb; '… that is right… and the jewel. Yes!'
'Is that a ruby?' Ken asked.
'Ruby?' Ben Iver leant forward.
Mitzi shrugged. 'Miss Travis told you: they did not put yet real gems in German swords.' She had a ring on her finger with a tiny diamond; she scratched at the 'ruby'. 'No, it is what you call"balas".'
'Spinel,' Ben Iver said sadly. I think he'd have been more at home with a genuine gem and a doubtful sword, but you can't have everything.
Mitzi lifted the sword reverently. It must have weighed like a bad conscience and I'd hate to have been on the consumer's end, but it still looked just a rather crude old sword.
Not to her. 'It was mine and now Ihave it! '
Ken said gently: 'Bruno didn't plan on you getting it'
She swung round on him. 'He had no right. / am his daughter. When he is dead his money is mine, not to some criminals in here and Beirut! '
I said: 'But he wasn't going to die…' then remembered he was, anyway. Then I knew why he'd died.'You told him he'd got cancer. The doctors had told you secretly, the way they do, and you got into a row that night – it would be about money, wouldn't it? – and you said "Screw you, dear daddy, you'll be dead in two months and it'll all be mine anyway." The jolt of that, and knowing he'd got just two months of pain to come, he rings Gadulla then posts the two letters… It figures.'
Mitzi was looking at me with a little mousey Mona Lisa smile.
Ken swallowed. 'If he's determined to do her down, why not leave a note saying what happened?'
'Let's put in one more scene. For neatness. She doesn't go out. She hears a shot. She goes in next door: one dead father, one suicide note. She confiscates that, maybe she goes through his papers. But nobody's come running. So she can walk out, to prove her uninvolvement -and get rid of the note. She daren't dispose of that around the hotel.'
Ben Iver said: 'Please do not go on. These family dramas make us Jews feel very sentimental.'
Mitzi turned and glared at him. 'I did not know he would kill himself!'
I nodded. 'It caused you a lot of trouble when he did. You just wanted him to appreciate his last two months to the full.'
Beside me, Ken gave a little shiver.
Gadulla said calmly: 'If I may have the photograph?'
Ben Iver seemed surprised to find it in his hand, then crunched it and tossed it across. Gadulla picked itöS the floor – Arabs aren't ball players – uncrumpled it, looked at it unemotionally. Then stood up again slowly. 'May I?'
He went to the table and lit the spirit stove. 'Of course, you may have copied this.'
Ben Iver shrugged. 'So may the Professor. But you have what you always expected. And we are both in business… there may be a time when we can work together.'
Gadulla nodded briefly, held the photo to the stove. There's something about flame that makes you watch it. Ben Iver said: 'I think that is the best-'
Mitzi hit him with the sword.
It was a simple back-hand swing, and if she couldn't put much weight behind it, the sword had plenty of its own. Ben Iver got his arms up and the sword chopped into them, swept them back past his head and sliced into the bridge of his nose, exploding his glasses. And stuck there. He slammed back against the wall – and then I got my eyes shut.
I heard the Uzi clatter free, then the thud and clang as Ben Iver's face hit the floor. Reluctantly, I looked again.
Mitzi was grabbing for the gun, Gadulla pushing the stove off the table and it bursting in a whuff of flame around the gun. Ken took two long strides, kicked the Uzi clear.
I got on my feet to watch Gadulla. He went quietly back to the corner and sat down again.
Ken snick-snacked the Uzi's bolt and a cartridge clunked on the floor. Loaded, all right 'First, you'll be wondering why I called you here… somebody put that fire out.'
I pulled the rug off the wall.
Mitzi screamed: 'Give me the gun! I want it! That is why I did it!'
'Going for a hundred per cent, huh?' Ken said. I threw the rug on the flames and tramped it down, then bent over Ben Iver.
I think he moved as I touched him, but never again. The blood was oozing where it should have been pouring.
Mitzi was still screaming. Ken pointed the gun at her. 'Stand aside and shut up. You don't get a third chance.'
She took a pace back and stood there, looking a little mad.
I said: 'Ken, forget about Ben Iver.'
'Fine. I didn't fancy explaining him at a hospital.'
Gadulla said, calm as ever: 'I do not want him found in that uniform in this place.'
Ken said: 'Amen and join the club.'
The phone rang.
Ken and I looked at each other. He said: 'Ben Iver must have friends.'
I turned to Gadulla. 'His or yours?' He made a tiny shrug.
'Answer it – in English.'
All he had to say was 'Hello', then listen a moment. Then hold it out to me. 'He wants Mr Case or Mr Caviti.'
It seemed a long time before I got to saying: 'Roy Case.'
'Inspector Tamir.'
I mouthedpolice at Ken. His face hardened.
Tamir said: 'I am sorry to trouble you but I want you to know the shop is surrounded and all gates to the City watched. So it would be simplest if you came out quietly, and with the sword.'
I absorbed some of this, then asked: 'What's your number?'
He gave it. Probably the police barracks just inside the Jaffa Gate.
I rang off. 'He says we're surrounded and come out quietly.'
Gadulla shook his head. 'You cannot surround a street like this, with all the back doors… And they will not use much force in the City. They are afraid of riots.'
Ken looked at him steadily. 'But somebody sold us out. Again.'
He spread his hands. 'For what? What would the police offer me?'
I picked up the phone, dialled the number. It was a police station, all right. 'Do you speak English? – good. I want to speak to Miss Eleanor Travis. The American lady. I think she came with Inspector Tamir.'
'Yes. I will find her.'
I put the phone down, feeling suddenly tired. 'Little Eleanor, all right. She met the cop in Tel Aviv. She discovers the sword for the government, they give her the inside track for the first bid.'
Mitzi said: 'But I promised her first refusal.'
'But this way,' I said, 'it's legal and above-board and the Met's reputation isn't hurt. Fame and promotion for our Eleanor.'
Ken leant against the wall. 'We're in real Judas country, aren't we?'
Mitzi suddenly panicked. 'But when the police come in, what will they think abouthim?' She flustered a hand at Ben Iver.
They won't believe he committed suicide,' I said. 'What you mean is you murdered somebody and you'd rather it didn't become public knowledge. You should think of these things in advance. Can we manage to lose him?' I asked Gadulla.
'We will have to,' he said calmly.
Ken nodded. 'Right. And then out the back door.'
I said: 'Ken – they're watching the gates, and at night they don't need many men for that. There's only seven ways out of the City.'
'There's always another way.'
Gadulla shook his head dubiously. "The City was always a fort. It still is.'
'Allright, we'll hide out somewhere here until we've grown beards like rabbis! They'll get tired after a month or two.'
'I can just see Mitzi with a beard.'
And that was it. Unless we kept her nailed down, she'd be off like the good news from Ghent to Aix doing a new deal that swapped us for whatever the police had on offer that week. Ken sighed and nodded.
I said: 'We can walk out now – without the sword. No sword, no body – no crime. Eleanor can't prove the thing existed. So they'll screw us around for a day and let us go.'
Gadulla liked it. Ken didn't. 'No-o. I've come a long way to find the damn thing and I'm not letting go.'
Of course, if the sword stayed with Gadulla so did the profit. I picked it off the floor and wiped it clean on the charred rug. The gold wire was crumpled around the hilt now, but otherwise it wasn't harmed from tasting blood for the first time in nearly eight hundred years.
I swung it gently. Heavy, all right, but balanced. A simple killing weapon, worth maybe a million dollars. Logic, please.
I shook my head to clear it. 'Ken, we've never been much good on swords. Just forget it.'
'No! That'sit! Our years in jail and losing the aeroplane and all.'
'And growing old?'
He took a slow breath. 'Like running out of time. Dying a loser.'
The phone rang again. I took it out of Gadulla's hand. 'Yes?'
'Shalom. Mr Case? You have ten minutes. That's what they usually say on TV, so it must be right.'
'Shalom.' I put the phone down. 'Well, they may not have the place surrounded but they know which front door to kick in. Ten minutes.'
'Move that body, then, if you want to.'
I looked at Gadulla. After a moment, he stood up. I passed the sword to Ken.
We wrapped the rug around the arms and face, then carried it down the basement steps, winding full circle or more so at the bottom I didn't know what direction we were facing. Gadulla turned on a torch and wedged it under his armpit, aiming down a narrow arched tunnel that smelt of rats'-piss and was lined with flaky patches of dry lichen. We took a couple of turns, past heavy old wooden doors with modern padlocks and up a short flight of worn stone steps.
At the landing, there was a metal grille, its bars rusted thin with time, set in the wall. We put Ben Iver down and Gadulla lifted the grille clear. Beyond was a sort of chimney, leading up and down, and I could hear the bustle of flowing water at the bottom.
'It only fills after a storm,' Gadulla said. 'At other times it is dry. Perhaps Suleiman planned that – who can know?'
'Where does he come out?'
'Never. When it is dry you can hear the rats.'
I paused a moment, then picked up my end. He made a shallow splash that echoed like a bell. Gadulla muttered something and lifted back the grille. The stone blocks at the lip were rounded with centuries of wear, so maybe Ben Iver wouldn't be lonely.
'What did you say then?' I asked. I mean whispered.
'Allah-hu ahkbar. God is great.' And I suppose that about covered it. 'What will your friend Caviti do now?'
'You mean what will we do, him and me. Lead the way and we'll find out.'
As we came back into the shop Mitri had just finished wiping the floor clean. Ken was on the phone; he seemed a little surprised to see us, but just dropped his voice and went on talking. '… nearly a hundred, I'd guess… Just a clear passage out of the countrywith the sword… Yes, nine boxes andnot here so don't waste your time looking… Okay.' He put the phone down.
Nearly a hundred what? In nine boxes? I sat down because my knees suddenly felt like it.
'You were quick,' he said. 'I got to thinking we could maybe arrange something-'
'Not you, Ken. Not you as well.'
He looked blank, but he'd always been able to. 'What d'you mean?'
'I mean…" I mean twenty years and a million flying miles and the girls and the booze and the failed engines and times like in Isfahan… Why can you only think of the pieces of something after it's busted? '… I mean not you.'
'Look, just-'
'I mean nine boxes marked champagne! You swap a terrorist plot for a clean getaway. Who stays behind this time?'
The Uzi waggled vaguely in my direction. 'Ah, well…'
'Of course, it's my turn, isn't it?'
'Just a couple of years-'
'Ten, for terrorism.'
'Roy, it's at least half a million dollars! I'll be waiting.'
'So you do the ten and I'll do the waiting.'
His face hardened. 'I'm never going back.'
I nodded. The room was thick with over-breathed air and the smell of that spirit stove. Gadulla and Mitzi didn't seem to feel like contributing.
'Ken – you – you're a fuckup even as Judas. There's no boxes. Jehangir got them before I could reach him.'
'Ahhh.' The sub-machine gun wilted towards the floor. 'I wish I'd known… I never was much good at the business side. And you don't look much like Jesus, either."
I stood up. 'Fine. Dump the gun and we'll walk out of here.'
'No.' And oddly, his face seemed suddenly younger. Untroubled. He flicked the gun at Gadulla. 'I want the keys to the roof! ' He got them. 'Coming, Roy?'
'Not this time.'
'See you then.' He picked up the sword and went through the door to the roof stairs.
I snapped at Gadulla: 'Open your front door. Maybe we can distract them.'
He shrugged fatalistically, but led the way to the front of the shop. As he got the padlock clear, he turned. 'What will happen to me?'
'If they catch Ken, you could have a problem explaining the sword.'
'But I looked after the sword, when I could have sold it-'
'You looked after it because you were being blackmailed and you were being blackmailed because you're a Goddamn terrorist and frankly I don't much care what happens to terrorists. Open itup.'
He pushed up the metal curtain and I stepped cautiously out into the patchily-lit alley. Figures moved at either end, stepping back into doorways.
Somebody called: 'Put up your hands! '
I put them up and waited. A couple of police, one with an Uzi, the other a pistol, scuttled up and frisked me, then Gadulla. Sergeant Sharon appeared out of the shadows, muttering into a small walkie-talkie.
Then she said: 'You can put your hands down. Who are these?'
I introduced Mitri and Gadulla.
'Where is Mr Cavitt?'
I jerked my head at the shop; instinctively, both the other cops levelled their guns at it. Sharon lifted the radio.
Machine guns wentbrrrap in another street. Two bursts. Then a third. Then silence.
He was huddled along the bottom of a house wall, the submachine gun in one hand, the sword glinting dully in the middle of the dark alley.
'Don't touch him,' Sharon warned.
I didn't need to. A burst had caught him across the chest. I asked: 'Did he kill anybody? '
'No, but he hit one of our men in the legs.' Her voice was cold, almost contemptuous. 'What did he hope to do? There are only seven gates to the City. No other way out.'
'No?'
She stared at me. 'But why did he try to fight?'
I shrugged. 'I don't know. He was growing old. You die of that, too.'
Tamir materialised at my shoulder. He looked down at Ken. 'Ah.' Then, sounding a little breathless: 'Have you been told you are under arrest?'
'I guessed.'
'The charges – we can work those out later. But you will probably go to jail for a small time anyway.'
I nodded. 'There's nobody waiting.'