WHAT follows initially: Unclassified records (public).
WHAT follows in the middle: Top Secret speculations (private).
AND FINALLY WHAT follows in the all-important end. (A note to agents filling out this form.
You have now arrived at the meat of your report and you are warned, here above all, to be brief and to the point. Your ability to describe your meat succinctly is the only reason anybody will ever read your report, if anybody ever does, which is in no way guaranteed by the hierarchy of the UIA. So summarize ruthlessly, in one sentence, making your case in plain language accessible to all. Extravagant attitudes may be allowed elsewhere, but not here. And the same goes for dabbling in fanciful notions or toying with idle speculations, with taking side trips down curious byways or pausing to explore obscure corners, all of the above and more, in fact any device whatsoever that may creep into your reports elsewhere. That's one thing but this is another, and we repeat, it must not happen here. Your meat of the matter, that's what is wanted now.
All right then, we're there, this is it and good luck. State your end product, what valuable contribution you have today to this crazy business we're all in. Go.): True identities of all major figures who have operated clandestinely in Jerusalem during the period covered by this report 930 B.C. to August 1933).
The first records Nubar came to were copies of documents from a Jerusalem tax office, dated from 1921
to 1933. But there was no indication what significance the records might have, or what was being taxed.
Next there were Jerusalem telephone bills and water bills for the same years, evidently purloined, followed by bills of lading for a cheap but sturdy juice squeezer of Czech origin, the squeezer's lever and cup and strainer all detachable for packing and cleaning purposes.
The bills of lading were dated 1921 and traced the juice squeezer from a factory in Prague, by rail, to an outlet on the Black Sea. By Bulgarian lugger, in a load of general cargo, to Constantinople. By cart, overland to Beirut, and by Greek caique down the coast to Jaffa. Whence by rail up to Jerusalem, the ultimate destination of the juice squeezer.
Nubar put his finger on the last bill of lading and gazed into the dark corners of his subcellar.
Jerusalem. A pattern was beginning to emerge.
He tightened the stockings around his neck against the chill, scratched himself thoughtfully and went back to the report. He had finished with the records.
The next page showed a floor plan of what appeared to be a tiny room. The walls were irregular. There was a door and one window, a counter and two chairs. At the end of the counter next to the door was the emblem of the UIA, §, also the symbol of the planet Uranus. Outside the door in a space marked alley was the number 18 and an arrow with an N at the tip. A scale beside the arrow listed foot and yard.
Nubar measured the room with his thumb and found it to be about eight feet long and five feet wide, narrowing to only three feet at the back.
He turned over the diagram. Now the pages began to be numbered for security reasons.
Page 1 of 407 pages, a report on the Great Jerusalem Poker Swindle.
1. The preceding diagram shows a fruit juice stand. Mine. I squeeze fresh juice by the glass, on order, and customers generally drink it on the premises. Shops in the Old City are often small and oddly shaped.
2. N indicates north.
3. 18 indicates the street number my shop might have if it were on a street and had a number, which it isn't and doesn't, being situated in a narrow alley and cul-de-sac near the bazaar in the Moslem Quarter, the rent there being about as cheap as can be found inside the walls built around the Old City by Suleiman I in 1542.
Good, thought Nubar. Completeness and unerring accuracy was the motto he had adopted for the UIA way back in 1921 when he had first begun hiring literary agents to steal all the known works of the great doctor and master alchemist, Paracelsus, real name Bombastus von Hohenheim.
4. Trade is reasonably brisk in the summer, almost nonexistent in the winter and more or less half and half at other times.
5. To the east of my shop at a distance of a dozen yards or less, occupying the end of this dead-end alley, stands the entrance to two vaulted rooms owned by an elderly man who claims he was formerly an antiquities dealer. This elderly man wears a faded yellow cloak and a rusty Crusader's helmet, goes barefoot, and calls himself Haj Harun.
Nubar instantly sucked in what was left of his cigarette, inhaling so forcefully it burned both his fingers and his lips. He licked his lips and gasped.
Haj Harun's shop? The actual site of the vicious poker game for the last twelve years? Nubar closed his eyes to concentrate. He took a deep breath, then read on.
6. My clientele comes almost exclusively from the lower classes, but without regard to race, religion or creed. Members of other classes, however, have patronized my shop on occasion, generally because they were lost in the Old City and seeking a way out, as we shall soon see below.
Indeed we will, thought Nubar suspiciously.
7. The constant stream of visitors, many wealthy, who frequent Haj Harun's murky premises at all hours of the day and night, for purposes of poker, never enter my shop. On their way into Haj Harun's they often remark disdainfully that my shop is much too dirty for their patronage. But on their way out, penniless and dazed, stripped of all they own, they just as often sag on my counter and beg for credit. Please? A mere glass of juice? Just a sip? Just a lick of the strainer? No, I answer firmly, cash on the counter having always been my policy.
Excellent, thought Nubar. Sound and businesslike. Why take pity on anyone? It could only lead to disruptions in the social order, and order was all-important.
In fact Nubar was beginning to like this informer and his thoroughly straightforward approach to a problem. No wonder Dead Sea Control had seen fit to evaluate him as POTENTIAL URINE. He was indeed. Nubar thought of another cable that should be sent as soon as he finished the report.
FLASH PRIORITY. BRAVO TO ALL HANDS. OUR MAN AT THE FRUIT JUICE STAND IN
THE OLD CITY IS THE BEST POTENTIAL URINE WE'VE HAD IN YEARS. YOU ARE
HEREBY AUTHORIZED TO PROMOTE HIM IMMEDIATELY TO FULL OFFICER STATUS
WITH ALL MEDICAL AND RETIREMENT BENEFITS.
BY ORDER OF
NUBAR
LEADER,
FIELD MARSHAL,
SUPREME GENERALISSIMO COMMANDING
Nubar smiled. He liked that. Good. He read on.
8. I have no phone. The phone-bill records apply to the phone in a nearby coffee shop where I have made all my personal and business calls over the last twelve years, or since I arrived in Jerusalem.
9. I have paid no taxes over the last twelve years because my cash flow is meager and I have been able to bribe the tax clerk in charge of my alley with free pomegranate juice. Therefore I have included the tax records for this same coffee shop, and also its water bills, because completeness and unerring accuracy are everything to an informer for the UIA.
Perfect, thought Nubar. Maybe the enormous sums of money consumed by the UIA weren't being entirely squandered after all.
10. During the twelve years that I have operated this fruit juice stand, pomegranate juice has outsold orange juice, although not by much. Before coming to Jerusalem I worked briefly in Damascus and for a
