The Jerusalem File Read online

  Jehns shifted too. "Unless we manage to find them first."

  Millie looked quickly from Jehns to me to Jehns again. "By 'we,' I assume you're referring to AXE?"

  He looked at his leg hanging in traction from the ceiling. "Well, let's put it this way — I don't mean me. Thanks to that stupid idiot drunk. You know, once upon a time an Arab gypsy told me that Tuesday was my unlucky day. So every Monday night, I clean my gun and I never arrange dark business for Tuesday. So what happens? I'm walking down the street on an innocent errand and a stoned tourist runs me down with his car. When?"

  "On a Friday?"

  Jehns ignored me. "And I'd give my right foot to be in Syria now."

  I looked at his foot. I said, "No one would take it."

  He continued to ignore me, and looked at Millie. "Anyway, in answer to your question, love, you can bet your bottom that a lot of guys are looking for Shaitan right now." Now he turned to me. "Christ, they had over two weeks — a whole wide world of hot-shot agents — and they couldn't come up with a damned thing."

  "And then Foxx goes and dies before he can talk. I bet Washington really went ape over that." I squinted at Jehns. "You think AXE was on it?" He started to shrug.

  Millie said quickly, "About Al Shaitan — what kind of action do you think they're planning? I mean, against whom?"

  Jehns shrugged again. "It depends on who Al Shaitan is. There are dozens of factions in the fedayeen and they all have slightly different goals and a slightly different enemy list."

  Millie frowned. "Would you mind explaining?"

  He gave her a wink. "I love explaining. It makes me feel smart. Look: you've got a couple of extremist groups who not only want to put Israel off the map, they also want to overthrow the Arab regimes — start a whole revolution. And if Al Shaitan is part of that gang, the 'against whom' list can get pretty long. Then, on the other hand, there's Al Fatah, the biggest group. They more or less take a compromise line — which may be a crock. Because Black September — the bloodiest guys in the whole P.L.O. — are supposed to be a part of Fatah." He threw up his hands. "So you try to figure it out."

  "But the paper said Shaitan might be part of Black September." Millie looked at me. "What does that say about them?"

  I shook my head. "Absolutely nothing. Look, the reason they've got so many factions is that everybody's got his own ideas. So they form a group, and pretty soon the group starts to splinter into groups, and pretty soon the splinters splinter into groups, and for all we know Shaitan could be six silly guys who didn't like what they were getting for supper." I turned to Jehns. "How's that for a theory? A bunch of power-mad vegetarians?"

  Jehns was giving me a very strange look.

  I frowned at him. "That — in case you didn't get it — was a joke."

  He kept on giving me a very strange look. "You might be right."

  I turned to Millie. "I think he needs a shot."

  "I'm perfectly fine." He was still looking strange. "I'm trying to tell you you might be right. That Al Shaitan could be anything at all. Could want anything at all. Suppose they were only six guys — you wouldn't need more to pull off the Foxx nab…"

  "So?"

  "So — so maybe they are off on their own. Maybe they do have their own nutty scheme."

  "Like maybe they want to legislate carrots?"

  "Or maybe they want to blow up the world."

  We were suddenly exchanging a long quiet look. We'd come up with one hell of a messy idea. If Shaitan were six crazies off on their own, they'd be a lot harder to second guess. Their moves and their plans could be anything at all Absolutely anything.

  I thought about that a few minutes later as Shilhaus was testing and prodding my leg and pronouncing me better. "Much better, N3. Almost a hundred percent" He smiled.

  * * *

  Millie was smiling. "Much better."

  I slapped her on her bare beautiful bottom. "Unromantic bitch," I said. "Talking about my leg at a time like this…"

  "Oh well," she said archly, "I couldn't help but notice…"

  "You're not supposed to notice anything at all. You're supposed to be too busy seeing colored lights."

  "Oh those," she said, running her finger down my back, very slowly, all down my back. "You mean those red and blue shimmery things that go on when the bells ring…?"

  I gave her a look. "You're just lucky," I said, pulling her toward me, "that J happen to like smart-mouth women." My hands were making a cup around her breasts and my cup was running over with her luscious womanliness.

  "Darling?" she said very softly, "Just for the record" — she kissed my ear — "you're a whole spectacular sound-and-light show."

  "And would you" — I kissed her breast — "like to play that record again?"

  * * *

  Millie was awake. I felt her eyelashes flick against my shoulder. She was pretending to be asleep and I did her the favor of pretending to believe her. When a woman plays that particular game, she's usually got a pretty good reason. And Millie didn't play pointless games.

  It was quiet in the room, and dark, except for the moonlight that slanted through the blinds making a pattern of stripes on the ceiling. The night was cool and the lush brown body that was wrapped around mine was covered over with a dark blue blanket I didn't have to see it. It floated in my mind, danced between strips of moon on the ceiling.

  Millie was a paradox. A complexly simple girl. She had an unshakable matter-of-factness. Nothing fazed Millie. She could look you in the eye even if half your face were blown away. And the look wouldn't hold either pity or fear. And you'd know she wasn't putting on an act.

  Everything with Millie was matter-of-fact Including us. It was a good deep friendship that included sex, but it wasn't a love affair. Millie had had one love affair once — Sam, but Sam had died.

  Only the picture wasn't right Nobody ever "never loves again." If Juliet hadn't bumped herself off, four years later she'd have married someone else, and five'll get you ten, she'd have married for love. Maybe not exactly the same kind of love, but love Just the same. Because loving is like any other talent. If you do something well, you need to do it again. Millie had the talent. She was just scared to use it.

  She stirred against my shoulder. "What time is it?" she asked.

  It was eleven o'clock.

  I stretched out my leg and turned on the television set with my toes. She said, "Stop showing off," and yawned discreetly.

  The set flickered on and a woman announced to a sleepy America that she didn't worry about underarm odor. Millie pulled the pillow up over her face. "If you're watching the movie, I'll tell you how it ends. The Americans, the cowboys, and the cops always win."

  I said, "I hate to tell you, but I plan to watch the news."

  "The same ending. The Americans, the cowboys, and the cops always win."

  The newscaster was saying: "Terror is back in the headlines again." I sat up straight. Millie rolled over and back into my arms.

  "Three days after Leonard Foxx's death — another daredevil kidnapping. This time on the Italian Riviera, as American millionaire Harlow Wilts was snatched from his private vacation villa. Wilts, who owns the controlling interest in the Cottage Motel chain, had Just arrived in Italy to discuss plans for buying the Ronaldi Hotel." (A shot of Wilts arriving in Italy.) "Chris Walker, in Minnesota, spoke with his wife…"

  The camera cut to a palacial living room in a millionaire's suburb in Somewhere, Minnesota, where a weeping Mrs. Wilts told the same cold story. The kidnappers wanted a hundred million dollars. In two weeks. In cash. They called themselves Al Shaitan. The Devil.

  Whatever they planned to buy with the money, the price was now up to two hundred million. And if somebody didn't rescue Wilts, there was going to be The Devil to pay.

  I closed my eyes. Just what the world needs now. A two-hundred-million-dollar terror spree.

  Millie reached over and turned off the set. "Hold me," she said. "Just hold me, will you?"

  I too
k her in my arms. She was really shaky. I said, "Honey — hey! What's all this? Listen, nobody's after you."

  "Mmm, I know. But I've got an awful feeling that someone's after you. That this is the last night we'll be together."

  I frowned. "Come on. Who's after me? Who in the world even knows that I'm here?"

  "AXE " she said quietly. "AXE knows you're here."

  We looked at each other for a very long time. And suddenly it wasn't matter-of-fact. Suddenly, it got a lot more than just friendly.

  "You know…"she began.

  I kissed her. "I know.'"

  I pulled her closer, close as we could get, and after that, nothing was matter-of-fact.

  Id fact, it mattered.

  The next morning, Hawk phoned from AXE in Washington and by nightfall I was flying to the Middle East Assignment: Find and stop The Devil.

  Three

  Rehov Dizengoff is the Broadway of Tel Aviv. Or to be more exact, it's Picadilly Circus, the Sunset Strip, and Miami's Collins Avenue rolled into one. It's cafes, shops, bars, broads, diamonds, denim, music, theatres, lights, noise, cars, crowds, and brand new plastic pizza stands.

  I was sitting at a table in an outdoor cafe, nursing my third Gold Star beer and watching the sun set over the city. It was like a fat red beach ball, tumbling slowly through an orange sky.

  I was here because Jackson Robey was dead. Robey had been based in Tel Aviv. But he got around. His visa had defined him as an American journalist, Middle East stringer for World magazine. The title allowed him to ask a lot of questions and send back cables, cryptic and otherwise, to Amalgamated Press and Wire Service. Which just so happens to be Washington AXE. His real occupation was an AXE observer.

  An observer's job is pretty much what it sounds like. To observe. To know what's up in his part of the world. Which means, among other things, knowing who the informers and hired muscles and local bandits are, as well as finding out who are the guys who can lend you a boat, give you a hideout, or cut out a bullet. Robey was good. Better than good. Robey was a thinker. He had one of those analytic chess-master minds. He'd been at the job for over three years and he hadn't called us a wrong shot yet. So when Robey cabled, in four-star code, "Found the Devil. Send troops," there was only one question left to ask: Was there room on Mount Rushmore for Robey's face?

  Only one hour later, Robey was dead. He'd been knifed in the back in a Jerusalem alley. When it had happened, Foxx still had been a captive, but if Robey really had known where the millionaire was, he hadn't had time to tell anyone else. At least he hadn't had time to tell AXE.

  It was my job to try to pick up the threads. To follow Robey's trail to the Al Shaitan hideout and rescue the new victim, Harlow Wilts. I'd decided to start in Tel Aviv because that's where Jackson Robey had started. Something he'd learned in Tel Aviv had sent him off on a trail to Jerusalem.

  Maybe.

  Maybe is the best you get. An agent's job is made of a mountain of maybes, a giant haystack of probabilities. And you're always playing find-the-needle, and you're always playing the game against time.

  I looked at my watch. It was time to go. I flagged the waiter and called for the check while the sky produced roses out of thin air and then blushed to a deep purpled pink, as though it heard all the cameras clicking and got self-conscious about the whole thing.

  I headed through the crowd toward Allenby Street, watching the girls in the low-slung jeans and the soft, loose, embroidered shirts that hinted at round, bra-less riches. I watched the boys watching the girls, and the tourist women in cotton dresses watching, with equally lusty eyes, the displays of pastries on the cafe carts.

  I found a taxi and gave an address — the wrong one — in Jaffa, the old Arab city, which was a few miles south and a couple of centuries back in time. Back into narrow winding streets and vaulted stone alleys and Casbah-like mazes. Back into the real Middle East and away from the Universal Modern that seems to be turning every city in the world into every other city in the world.

  I paid the driver and walked the four blocks to Rehov Sheeshim, to the squat, thick-walled, red-roofed building. Through a stone courtyard and up one flight.

  I knocked three times on the heavy wood door.

  "Mah?" said a voice. It was sharp and deep.

  "Gladat vanil," I answered, falsetto.

  "Hayeem har?" He was starting to laugh.

  "Loh," I sopranoed. "Yorad gehshem."

  One translation of that would be: "What?" "Vanilla ice cream." "Is it cold?" "No, it's snowing." Another translation was that I hadn't been tailed.

  The door opened. Benyamin was smiling. He gestured me in to a dark comfortable mess of a room. "Every time I have to use one of those codes I feel like a goddamned comic-strip agent. You want some cognac?"

  I said I did.

  He went to the kitchen and poured two glasses. David Benyamin was a first rank agent of Shim Bet, Israeli intelligence. I'd worked with him about ten years before and I was here because Robey might have worked with him too. A lone AXE observer in a friendly country is bound to cooperate with local agents. And if he hadn't been in touch with Benyamin, then maybe Benyamin would know who he had been in contact with.

  He came back with the glasses and the bottle and settled his gangling six-foot frame on the worn brown leather sofa Raising his glass, he said, "Le chaim. Good to see you, Carter." He put his feet up on a scarred table.

  Benyamin had changed. He'd lost the glossy young-warrior look with its cool assumptions of immortality. Now he looked like a real warrior. Both harder and softer than the boy he'd been. The face was sculptured down to basic angles and the sea-blue eyes were framed with squint lines. He was wearing an itchy-looking sweater and jeans.

  I lit a cigarette. "I told Vadim why I wanted to see you. So I suppose I don't have to start from the top."

  He shook his head. "No. I understand the problem. The trouble is that our mutual friend was somewhat lacking in cooperative spirit. Oh yes, of course," he shrugged and leaned back, "if I needed information, if he had it, he'd tell me. If I asked him. He didn't exactly volunteer."

  I looked at him and smiled. "Tell me," I said, "if you knew where the Shaitan was hiding, would you rush to a phone booth and telephone AXE?"

  Benyamin guffawed. "All right," he said. "So that makes us even. If I knew, I'd go in there with my own men and take them for the greater glory of Israel. But if I knew and you asked me, I'd be honor-bound to tell you. And since I gather you're asking — no. He didn't tell me anything about where Al Shaitan might be."

  "Know anyone else he might have told?"

  "In Shin Bet? No. If he'd told anybody it would have been me. I did a little bit of digging for you. Came up with something that might mean nothing, or it might be a place to start. Just before Robey left Tel Aviv for Jerusalem, he drew about twelve thousand pounds from his fund."

  "Three thousand dollars."

  "Yes. Bight"

  "Payoff to someone?"

  "So I'd imagine. And one thing I know about Jackson Robey. He never paid off till he checked the information. So you have to figure that for three thousand dollars, somebody told him a great big truth."

  "Which leaves the question: Was the money for somebody here in Tel Aviv — or for someone he was going to meet in Jerusalem?"

  Benyamin smiled. "It does leave that question." He poured another round of the slightly sweet cognac. "And again — if I knew the answer, I'd tell you. And again — I don't" He took a quick swallow and made a face. "Look," he said, "this Shaitan gang has us worried too. My God, we're the ones they're really after. If they get their hands on that four hundred million…"

  "Wait a second! Four? Where I come from, one and one makes two. Foxx and Wilts. Two hundred million."

  "And Jefferson and Miles. Four hundred million." He crossed the room and picked up a copy of the Jerusalem Post. "Here. Bead."

  He tossed me the paper. I read the account Roger R. Jefferson, Chairman of the Board of National Motors. Thurgood
Miles, a multi-minion dollar dog food heir. Both had been kidnapped the night before, snatched from the safety of their homes in the States. Now there were three guys I had to rescue. I put down the paper.

  "This Shaitan sounds too slick to be true."

  Benyamin nodded. "Don't they, though." He smiled grimly. "And the myth of Arab inefficiency takes another major dive to the dust"

  I studied him and sighed. "You were saying Shin Bet is worried too…"

  "Sure. Somebody's working on it." He shook his head. "But who? Where? I'm as much in the dark as you are. The only thing we can safely assume is that Shaitan's base is not in Israel. That leaves a lot of other choices. Libya? Lebanon? Syria? Iraq? The guerrillas are branching out."

  "Okay, so we know it's the Middle East — and Robey's first lead came from Tel Aviv."

  "Or Jerusalem. Look, Vadim knows why you're here. You spoke to him today. Vadim is my boss like Hawk is yours. So if he didn't tell you anything, you can either figure he doesn't know anything — or he knows something and doesn't want to tell you. Me, I'm up to here in another case. The best I can do is point you in what might be the right direction and tell you that if you're ever pinned in an alley with your back to the wall and six guns at your gut — if you can get to a phonebooth, call and I'll come."

  "Thanks, David. You're a real peach."

  He smiled. "They don't come better than me. You want the leads?"

  "Do I have to answer?"

  "I'd suggest you look up a Sarah Lavie. Allenby Street here in Tel Aviv. American expatriate. A teacher, I think. She and Robey were… shaking up. Is that the word?"

  "Shacking," I laughed. "But it's the same thing."

  He thought about that for a minute and smiled. Then he started laughing. A low, full, rolling sound. It reminded me of evenings a long time ago. David and his girl. I asked how she was.

  His eyes greyed over. "Daphna is dead." He reached for a cigarette, his face made of stone. I knew enough not to say a paltry "I'm sorry." He continued evenly. "I've got another hunch you might want to follow." His eyes were begging me not to make him feel.