Текст книги "The Butcher's Theatre"

Автор книги: Jonathan Kellerman

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 41 страниц)

What did you get when you crossed a nigger with a bike-a janitor who owned the building? A shylock who npped himself off?

One big hook-nose squashed flat.

One hell of a circumcision-have to use a chain saw.

The man felt the laughter climbing up through his esophagus, forced himself to keep it bottled up. He feigned relaxation, seated on the grass among all the other people, half-hidden behind a newspaper, wearing a wig and mustache that made him someone else. Scanning the park with cold eyes concealed behind sunglasses. One hand on the paper, the other in his pocket, fondling himself.

All those kids and families, kikes and sand-niggers. He would have loved to come rolling in with a giant chain saw of his own. Or maybe a lawn mower or a combine, something relentless and gas-powered… No, nuclear-powered, with gigantic blades, as sharp as his little beauties but big. As big as helicopter rotors.

And loud, making a sound like an air-raid siren. Panic-feeding, ear-bleeding loud. Blood-freezing loud.

Come rolling in with the nuke-mower, just pushing it through the human lawn, listening to the screams, churning everything up.

Back to the primordial soup.

Some terrific game, a real pleasure diddle. Maybe one day.

Not yet. He had other things to do. Hors-d'oeuvres.

Project Untermensch.

The one who'd refused him had set things back, fucked up the weekly rhythm, really gotten him upset.

Stupid sand-nigger bitch, his money hadn't been good enough.

He'd watched her for a couple of days, gotten interested because of her face, the perfect fit for his mind-pictures. Even when she put on the tacky red wig, it was all right. He'd take it off. Along with everything else.

Everything came off.

Then she goes and fuck-you's him.

Unreal.

But that's what he got for improvising, deviating from the plan.

Trying to be casual-that never worked.

The important thing was structure. Following the rules. Keeping everything clean.

He'd gone home that night and punished himself for stepping out of bounds.

Using one of the little dancing beauties-the smallest bistoury-he'd incised a series of curved discipline cuts in the firm white skin of his inner thighs. Close to the scrotum-don't slip, ha, ha, or there'll be a major endocrine adjustment.

Cut, cut, dance, dance, crosses with bent ends. Rotated. One on each thigh. The crosses had seeped blood; he'd tasted it, bitter and metallic, poisoned by failure.

There, that'll show you, filthy boy.

Stupid sand-nigger whore.

A delay, but no big deal. The schedule could be fouled if the goal was kept sacred.

Project Untermensch. He heard children laughing. All these inferior slimefucks-it made his head hurt, filled his skull with a terrible roar. He hid his face behind the paper, concentrated on making the noise go away by thinking of his little beauties asleep in their velvet bed, so shiny and clean, extensions of his will, techno-perfection.

Structure was the answer. Keeping in step.

Goose step.

Dance, dance.

Moshe Kagan seemed amused rather than offended. He sat with Daniel in the living room of his home, a cheaply built four-room cube on a raised foundation, no different from any of the others in the Gvura settlement.

One corner of the room was filled with boxes of clothes.

On the wall behind Kagan was a framed poster featuring miniature oval portraits of great sages. Next to it hung a water-color of the Western Wall as it had been before '67-no sunlit expanse of plaza; the prayer space narrowed by a war wall and shadowed by jerry-built Arab houses. Daniel remembered coming upon it like that, after making his way through dead bodies and hailstorms of sniper fire. How demeaned the last remnant of the Temple had looked, rubble and rotting garbage piled up behind the wall, the Jordanians trying to bury the last reminder of three thousand years of Jewish presence in Jerusalem.

Underneath the watercolor was a hand-printed banner featuring the blue clenched-fist logo of the Gvura party and the legend: TO FORGET IS TO die. To the left of the banner was a glass-doored bookcase containing the twenty volumes of the Talmud, a Mikra'ot Gedolot Pentateuch with full rabbinic commentary, megillot, kabbalistic treaties, the Code of Jewish Law. Leaning against the case were an Uzi and an assault rifle.

An angry red sun Irad set itself resolutely in the sky and the drive down the Hebron Road had been hot and lonely. The unpaved turnoff to Beit Gvura anticipated Hebron by seven kilometers, a twisting and dusty climb, hell on the Escort's tires. Upon arrival, Daniel had passed through a guarded checkpoint, endured the hostile stares of a gauntlet of husky Gvura men before being escorted to Kagan's front door.

Lots of muscle, plenty of firearms on display, but the leader himself was something else: mid-fifties, small, fragile-looking, and cheerful, with a grizzled beard the color of scotch whisky and drooping blue eyes. His cheeks were hollow, his hair thinning, and he wore a large black velvet kipah that covered most of his head. His clothes were simple and spotless-white shirt, black trousers, black oxfords-and bagged on him, as if he'd just lost weight. But Daniel had never seen him any heavier, either in photos or onstage at rallies.

Kagan took a green apple out of the bowl on the coffee table that separated him from Daniel and rubbed it between his palms. He offered the bowl to the detective and, when Daniel declined, made the blessing over fruit and bit in. As he chewed, knotty lumps rose and fell in his jaw. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing thin forearms, sunburnt on top, fish-belly white on the inner side. Still banded, Daniel noticed, with the strap marks of the morning phylacteries.

"A terrible thing," he said, in perfect Hebrew. "Arab girls getting cut up."

"I appreciate your taking the time to talk to me about it, Rabbi."

Kagan's amusement spread into a smile. He ate half the apple before speaking.

"Terrible," he repeated. "The loss of any human life is tragic. We are all created in God's image."

Daniel felt he was being mocked. "I've heard you refer to Arabs as subhuman."

Kagan dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. "Rhetoric. Hitting the ass across the face in order to get his attention-that's an old American joke."

"I see."

"Of course if they choose to reduce themselves to animals by acting in a subhuman manner, I have no compunction about pointing in out."

Kagan chewed the apple down to the core, bit into the core, and finished it too. When only the stem was left, he pulled it out of his mouth and twirled it between his fingertips. "Sharavi," he said. "Old Yemenite name. Are you de-scended from Mori Shalom Sharavi?"

"Yes."

"No hesitation, eh? I believe you. The Yemenites have the best yikhus, the finest lineage of any of us. Your nusakh of prayer is closest to the original, the way Jews davened before the Babylonian exile. What rginyan do you attend?"

"Sometimes I pray at the Kotel. Other times I go to a minyan in my building."

"Your building-ah, yes, the toothpick in Talbieh. Don't look so surprised, Inspector. When you told Bob Arnon you were religious I had you checked out, wanted to make sure it wasn't just government subterfuge. As far as my contacts can tell, you are what you say you are-that kipah isn't for show."

"Thank you your endorsement," said Daniel.

"No need to get upset," said Kagan genially. "Blame the government. Four months ago they tried to slip an undercover agent-I don't suppose you'd know anything about that, would you? Yemenite fellow, as a matter of fact-isn't that a coincidence? He, too, wore a kipah, knew the right things to say, bless this, bless that-blessings with false intention, taking God's name in vain. That's a major transgression, not that the government cares about transgressions."

Kagan took another apple out of the bowl, tossed it in the air and caught it. "No matter. We found him out, sent him home to his masters a little the worse for wear." He shook his head. "Tsk, tsk. Jews spying on Jews-that's what thousands died for, eh? If the spineless old ladies of the ruling party spent as much time tracking down terrorists as they did harassing good Jews, we'd have an Eretz YLsrael as the Almighty planned it for us-the one place in the world where a Jew could walk down the street like a prince. Without fear of pogroms or being stabbed in the back."

Kagan paused for breath. Daniel heard him wheezing– the man was an asthmatic of some kind. "Anyway, Inspector Sharavi, the minyan in your building is Ashkenazi, not for you. You should be maintaining your noble Yemenite heritage, not trying to blend in with the Europeans."

Daniel pulled out his note pad. "I'll need a list of all your members-"

"I'm sure you've already got that. In quadruplicate, maybe more."

"An updated list, along with each member's outside job and responsibilities here at the settlement. For the ones who travel, their travel logs."

"Travel logs." Kagan laughed. "You can't be serious."

"This is a very serious matter, Rabbi. I'll begin interviewing them today. Other officers will be arriving this afternoon. We'll stay until we've talked with everyone."

"The children too?" said Kagan sarcastically.

"Adults."

"Why exclude the little ones, Inspector? We train them.to butcher Arabs as soon as they're off the breast." Kagan spread his arms, closed them, and touched a hand to each cheek. "Wonderful. Secular Zionism at its moment of glory.' He put the apple down, stared into Daniel's eyes. "What wars have you fought in? You look too young for '67. Was it Yom Kippur or Lebanon?"

"Your contacts didn't tell you that?"

"It wasn't relevant. It won't be hard to find out."

"The '67 war. The Jerusalem theater."

"You were one of the privileged ones."

"Where were you in '67, Rabbi?"

"Patrolling the streets of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Taking on shvartzes in order to prevent them from mugging old Jewish ladies and stealing their social security checks. Not as glorious as liberating Jerusalem, but philosophically consistent with it. Or at least it was until the Jews of Israel got as soft and stupid as the Jews of America."

Daniel shifted his gaze down to his note pad. "Some of your members have police records. Have any new people with criminal backgrounds joined the settlement?"

Kagan smiled. "I have a police record."

"For disturbing the peace and illegal assembly. I'm more interested in those with a violent background."

That seemed to insult Kagan. He frowned, retrieved the second apple, and bit into it hard, so that the juice trickled over his beard. Wiping himself with a paper napkin, he held out the bowl again.

"Sure you wouldn't like some fruit, Inspector?"

"No, thank you."

"A polite Israeli? Now I'm really suspicious."

"Please answer my question, Rabbi. Have any new people joined who have violent histories?"

"Tell me, Inspector, did you risk your life in '67 so that the few could reach a new level of self-denigration?"

"Rabbi," said Daniel, "the investigation is going to proceed one way or the other. If you cooperate, everything will go faster.'

"Cooperate," enunciated Kagan, as if learning a new word.

'How long have you been involved in this investigation?"

"From the beginning."

"From the beginning," echoed Kagan. "So, no doubt you've visited an Arab home or two in the course of your investigation. And no doubt you were offered food in those homes-the vaunted culture of Arab hospitality, correct?"

Rabbi Kagan-"

"One moment. Bear with me, Inspector." Kagan spoke softly but with intensity. "You were offered food by the Arabs-quaint little dishes of nuts and fruits and seeds.

Maybe they rubbed it in donkey meat before bringing it out. Maybe they spit in it. But you smiled and said thank you, sahib, and ate it all up, didn't you? Your training taught you to respect their culture-God forbid one of them should be offended, right? But here you are, in my home, I offer you fruit, and you turn me down. Me you're not worried about offending. Who gives a damn if the Jew is insulted?"

Kagan stared at Daniel, waiting for an answer. When he'd had his fill of silence, he said, "A lovely little secular Zionist democracy we've got here, isn't it, Daniel Sharavi, descendant of Mori Shalom Sharavi? We bend over backward to pay homage of those who despise us, but kvell in the abuse of our brethren. Is that why you fought in '67, Inspector? Were you shooting and stabbing Arabs in order to liberate them-so that you'd have the privilege of providing them with free health care, welfare checks, turn them into your little burnoosed buddies? So that they could propagate like rats, push us into the Mediterranean by outbreeding us? Or was it materialism that kept your gunsights in place? Maybe you wanted video-recorders for your kids. Playboy magazine, hashish, abortion, all the wonderful gifts the goyim are more than happy to give us?"

"Rabbi," said Daniel. "This is about murder, not politics."

"Ah, said Kagan, disgustedly, "you don't see the point. They've indoctrinated you, ripped your fine Yemenite spine right out of your body."

He stood up, put his hands behind his back, and paced the room.

"I'm a member of Knesset. I don't have to put with this nonsense."

"No one's immune from justice," said Daniel. "If my investigation led me to the Prime Minister, I'd be sitting in his house, asking him questions. Demanding his travel log."

Kagan stopped pacing, turned to Daniel and looked down at him.

"Normally I'd dismiss that little speech as garbage, but you're the one who. dug up the Lippmann mess, aren't you?'

"Yes."

"How did your investigation bring you to me?"

"I won't tell that. But I'm sure you can see the logic."

"The only thing I see is political scapegoating. A couple of Arabs get killed-blame it on Jews with guts."

Daniel opened his attache case, knowing there was truth to what Kagan was saying and feeling like a hypocrite. He pulled out crime-scene photos of Fatma and Juliet, got up and gave them to Kagan. The Gvura leader took them and, after looking at them unflinchingly, handed them back.

"So?" he said casually, but his voice was dry.

"That's what I'm up against, Rabbi."

"That's the work of an Arab-Hebron, 1929. No member of Gvura would do anything like that."

"Let me establish that and I'll be out of your way."

Kagan rocked on his heels and tugged at his beard. Going over to the walnut case, he pulled out a volume of Talmud.

"Fine, fine," he said. "Why not? This whole thing is going to backfire on the government. The people aren't stupid-you'll turn me into a persecuted hero." He opened the book, moistened his finger, and began turning pages. 'Now be off. Inspector, I have to learn Torah, have no more time to waste on your naarishkeit." Another look of amusement. "And who knows, maybe after you've spent some time with us, something will rub off on you. You'll see the error of your'ways, start davening with the proper minyan."

The Gvura members were a motley bunch. He interviewed them in their dining hall, a makeshift concrete-floored space roofed with tent canvas and set up with aluminium tables and folding chairs. Clatter and the smell of hot oil came from the kitchen.

About half were Israelis-mostly younger Moroccans and Iraqis, a few Yemenites. Former street kids, all of them hard-eyed and stingy with words. The Americans were either religious types with untrimmed beards and oversized kipot or tough-talking secular ones who were hard to categorize.

Bob Arnon was one of the latter, a middle-aged man with curly gray hair, long, bushy sideburns, and a heavy-jawed face assembled around a large broken nose. He'd been living in Israel for two years, had acquired three disorderly-conduct arrests and a conviction for assault.

He wore faded jeans and crossed gun belts over a new YORK YANKEES T-shirt. The shirt was tight and showed off thick, hairy arms and a substantial belly. Poking up into the belly was the polished wooden grip of a nickel-plated.45-caliber revolver-an American-made Colt. The gun rested in a hand-tooled leather holster and made Daniel think of a little boy playing American cowboy.

In addition to the Colt, Kagan's deputy wore a hunting knife ensconced in a camouflage-cloth case, and carried a black baseball bat, the handle wrapped in adhesive tape that had long ago turned filthy gray. He was a combat veteran, he informed Daniel, and more than happy to talk about himself, starting in American-accented Hebrew but shifting to English after Daniel responded to him in that language.

"Saw hard action in Korea. Those were toughlittle suckers we were fighting-no Arabs, that's for certain. When I got back to the States I knocked around."

"What do you mean by 'knocked around"?" Arnon winked. "Little of this, little of that-doing my thing, doing favors for people. Good deeds, you understand? My last hitch was a bar in New York-up in Harlem, gorgeous place, you ever heard of it? Five years I worked the place, never had a single problem with the shvoogies." This last comment was punctuated by a toothy grin and a slap of the bat. "May I see your knife, please?"

"This? Sure. Genuine buck, great all-purpose weapon, had it for fifteen years." Arnon took it out of its case and gave it to Daniel, who turned it over in his palm, inspecting the wide. heavy blade, the serrated edge honed to razor-sharpness. A nasty piece of work, but from what Levi had told him, not the one he was looking for. Gray Man, on the other hand, he used a serrated blade. But duller, smaller… He gave the knife back to Arnon. "Do you own any other knives, Mr. Arnon?"

"Others? Oh, yeah. Got a tackle box that I brought over from the States-haven't had a chance to use it yet. They say there's great fishing in the Sea of Galilee. That true?"

"Yes. Your other knives, Mr. Arnon."

"A gutter and a scaler in the box, along with a Swiss Army-least, I think it's still there. Maybe a spare scaler too.

Then there's another buck for under the pillow and an antique Japanese samurai sword that I picked up in Manila. Want to know about the guns, too?"

"Not right now. Some other detectives will be here soon. They'll want to see your weapons."

"Sure." Arnon smiled. "But if I was the one cut up those Arab whores I wouldn't be advertising it, now would I? Leaving the knife around to show you."

"What would you be doing, Mr. Arnon?"

"Wiping it clean, oiling it, and hiding it somewhere. That's if, mind you. Hypothetical."

"Is there anything else you want to tell me-hypothetical?"

"Just that you're barking up the wrong tree. Gvura doesn't concern itself with an Arab here, an Arab there. It's a sociological problem-they've all gotta go."

The women were an odd mix of toughness and subser-vience, filing in after the men had been questioned. Stoic and unsmiling, they brought their children with them, resisted Daniel's suggestion that the youngsters leave.

"The questions I'll be asking aren't fitting for a child's ears." he told one of the first. She came in with three small ones, the oldest a girl of no more than four, the youngest an infant who squirmed in her grasp.

"No. I want them to see," she said. "I insist upon it." She was young, pallid, and thin-lipped, and wore a long-sleeved striped shift that reached below her knees. Her hair was covered completely with a white kerchief, and an Uzi was strapped over her shoulder. The baby's tiny fingers reached out and touched the barrel of the submachine gun. 'Why?" asked Daniel. 'To show them what it's like."

She sounded like a kid herself. A teenager asserting herself with her parents. So young, he thought, to have three of them. Her eyes were bright, vigilant, her breasts still heavy with milk.

'What what's like, Gveret Edelstein?" 'The world. Go on, ask your questions." A glance down-ward, the ruffling of hair. "Listen carefully, children. This is called harassment. It's part of being Jewish."

By noon he'd talked to a third of them, found no one who interested him, other than Arnon, with his knives and assault conviction. And even he seemed more bluster than substance, an aging tough guy living out his mid-life fantasies. His assault conviction itself wasn't much-the result of a confrontation at a rally. Arnon's left hook had landed on the nose of a peace now placard-bearer; when the police came to break it up, Arnon resisted. First offense, no jail time. Not exactly your psychopathic killer, but you could never tell. He'd have the others follow up on Cowboy Bob.

At twelve-thirty the lunch bell rang and settlement members swarmed into the dining room for salad and fried fish. They took their places automatically and Daniel realized seats were preassigned. He vacated his chair and left the hall, meeting Kagan and his wife as they came in.

"Any luck, Inspector?" asked the leader loudly. "Find any crazed killers among us?"

Mrs. Kagan winced, as if her husband had told an off-color joke.

Daniel smiled noncommittally and walked down the path toward the guard post. As he left he could hear Kagan talking to his wife. Something about melting pots, a fine old culture. what a shame.

At twelve forty-six, Shmeltzer and Avi Cohen drove up to the guard post in Cohen's BMW. Laufer had wanted four detectives questioning the Gvura people. Daniel had given in partially by pulling Avi out of the Old City for the afternoon, but this was no job for Daoud and he had no intention of removing the Chinaman from his current assignment.

He was interested in the big man's story about the flat-eyed American with the strange grin, despite Little Hook's credibility problem, because it was something-a solitary buoy bobbing in a great sea of nothingness. He double-teamed the Chinaman and Daoud again-the Arab helping out until sundown, before he began the Roselli surveillance. Those two and Cohen were to put all their energies into finding some backup for Little Hook's story, someone else who might have encountered Flat Eyes. And in locating

Red Amira Nasser. The dark hair and the fact that she was dull-witted put her in league with Fatma and Juliet. So far the only thing they'd come up with was a rumor that she had family in Jordan, had escaped there. And a medical chart at Hadassah Hospital-treatment six months ago for syphilis. No welfare payments, no other government records; a true professional, she lived off her earnings.

Avi parked the BMW next to Daniel's Escort. He and Shmeltzer got out and trudged up the sloping pathway, kicking up dust. Daniel greeted them, summed up his procedures, gave them the list of Gvura members, and told them to do a weapons check on all of them, paying special attention to Bob Arnon. Any blade that remotely fit Levi's descriptions was to be taken and tagged.

"Anything about this Arnon that makes him interesting?" asked Shmeltzer.

"He's an American, he likes to play with guns and knives, he beat up on a leftist last June, and he hates Arabs."

"Are his eyes flat?" Shmeltzer smiled sourly. He knew Little Hook from his days on the pickpocket detail, was far from being convinced of the hunchback's story.

"Bloodshot," said Daniel. "Otherwise unremarkable."

"Fucking political games, coming down here. A total waste of our time." Avi nodded along like a dutiful son.

"Okay, let's get it over with," said Daniel. "Send a report to Laufer and move on."

"Laufer knew my father," said Cohen. "He thinks I'm his boy. I think he's a shithead."

"What's with Malkovsky?" Daniel asked him.

"Nothing. Still edgy. I wish I were there instead of playing the shithead's game."

"The shithead cornered me in the hall this morning."

said Shmeltzer. "Wanted to know what we've gotten out of these sweet souls-just itching for another press release.

I told him we just started, it was too early to tell, but from the way it looked, they were all blameless as newborn lambs-did the esteemed Tat Nitzav wish us to continue in the same vein? 'What do you mean?' he says. I say,

'Should we start checkin' out the other MK's and their people too?'"

Daniel laughed. "What did he say to that?"

"Made like an old car-sputters and snorts, metal against metal-then headed straight for the bathroom. Primed, no doubt, for a little vertical communication."

Daniel got back to Jerusalem at two-thirteen, bought a felafel from a street vendor near the train station, and finished it while driving to Headquarters. Back in his office he began transcribing the interview with Kagan onto official forms, wanting to be rid of it as quickly as possible, then called the operator and asked for radio contact with the Chinaman. Before she completed the transmission, she interrupted, saying: "There's one for you coming in right now. Do you want it?"

"Sure." He endured a minute of static, was connected to Salman Afif, the mustachioed Druze, phoning from his Border Patrol Jeep.

"I'm out here with some Bedouins-the ones we spoke about that first morning. They've migrated south, found something I think you'll want to see."

He told Daniel what it was and reported his location, using military coordinates. Daniel pulled out a map and pinpointed the spot, three and a half kilometers due north from the Scopus ridge. Fifteen hundred meters past the perimeter of the grid search he'd ordered after viewing Fat-ma's body.

So close.

"What's the best way to get there?"

"I can drive up into the city," said Afif, "and take you back, retracing on the donkey paths, but it would be quicker for you to climb down the first kilometer or so on foot-to where the slope eases. From there it's a straight ride. How are your shoes?"

"They'll survive. I'm leaving now-meet you there. Thanks for keeping your eyes open."

"Nothing to it," said the Druze. "A blind man couldn't have missed it."

Daniel hung up, put his papers away, and called Forensics.

He parked the Escort across the road from the Amelia Catherine, put on a narrow-brimmed straw hat to block out the relentless Judean sun, tightened the buckles on his sandals, and got out. The watchman, Zia Hajab, was sitting at the entry to the hospital. Slumped in the same plastic chair, apparently sleeping.

Taking a quick backward look at the gully where Fatma had been found, Daniel sprinted toward the ridge, climbed over, and began his descent.

Walking sideways on bent legs, he made rapid progress, feeling nimble and fit, aware of, but unperturbed by, dry fin-gers of heat radiating upward from the broiling desert floor.

Summer was approaching-twenty-three days since the dumping of Fatma, and the case was snaking its way toward the new season. The rainy season had been brief this year, attenuated by hot easterly winds, but clumps of vegetation still clung to the terraced hillsides, denying the inevitability of summer. Digging his heels in and using his arms for balance, he half-walked, half-jumped through soft expanses of rusty terra rossa. Then the red earth began yielding to pale strips of mendzina-the chalky limestone that looked as dead as plastic but could still be friable if you knew how to work it-until soon all was pale and hard and unyielding-a crumbling, rocky course the color of dried bones. Land that would rather dissolve than accommodate, the emptiness relieved only by the last starved weeds of spring.

Afifs jeep was visible as a khaki spot on the chalk, its diameter expanding as Daniel drew near. Daniel removed his hat and waved it in the air, saw the blue Border Patrol light flash on and off. When he was forty meters away, the jeep's engine started up. He trotted toward it, unmindful of the grit that had lodged between his toes, then remembering that no sand had been found on either body. Afif gave the jeep gas and it rocked on its bearings. Daniel climbed in and held on as the Druze made a sharp U-turn and sped off.

The ride was spine-jarring and loud, the jeep's engine howling in protest as Afif tortured its transmission, maneuvering between low outcroppings of limestone, grinding single-mindedly through dry stream beds. The Druze's pale eyes were hidden by mirrored sunglasses. A red bandanna was tied loosely around his neck, and the ends of his enormous moustache were blond with dust.

"Which Bedouin clan is this?" Daniel shouted.

"Locals, like I told you. Unrelated to any of the big clans. They run goats and sheep from here up toward Ramallah, come in for the summer, camping north of the city."

Daniel remembered a small northern campsite, nine or ten low black tents of woven goat-hair, baking in the heat.

"Just past the Ramot, you said?"

"That's them," said Afif. He downshifted into a climb, twisted the wheel, and accelerated.

"How long have they been herding here?"

"Eight days."

"And before that?"

"Up north, for a month or so."

Bedouins, thought Daniel, holding on to his seat. Real ones, not the smiling, bejeweled businessmen who gave tent tours and camel rides to tourists in Beersheva. The most unlikely of informants.

The Bedouin saw themselves as free spirits, had contempt for city dwellers, whom they regarded as serfs and menial laborers. But they chose to live at bare subsistence level in terrain that had the utmost contempt for them and, like all desert creatures, had turned adaptation into a fine art.

Chameleons, thought Daniel. They told you what you wanted to hear, worked both sides of every fence. Glubb Pasha had built the Arab Legion on Bedouin talent; without them the Jordanian Army wouldn't have lasted twenty-four hours. Yet, after '67, they'd turned right around and vol-unteered for the Israeli Army, serving as trackers, doing it better than anyone. Now there were rumors that some of them were working for the PLO as couriers-grenades in saddlebags, plastique drop-offs in Gaza. Chameleons. "Why'd they come forward?" Daniel asked. "They didn't," said Afif. "We were on patrol, circling southeast from Al Jib-someone had reported suspicious movement along the Ramot road. It turned out to be a construction crew, working late. I was using the binoculars, saw them, decided to go in for a close look."

"Ever had any trouble with them?"

"No, and we check on them regularly. They're paupers, have enough trouble keeping their goats alive long enough to get them to market without getting into mischief. What caught my eye was that they were all gathered in one place. It looked like a conference, even though their camp was a good kilometer north. So I drove and found them huddled around the mouth of the cave. They started to move out when they heard us coming, but I kept them there while I checked it out. When I saw what was inside, I had them pull up camp and regroup by the cave while I called you."