was more than one man firing. From the number of double bursts he decided there were two, possibly three, and that they were rapidly closing in.
He drew his own Beretta, fired once, blind, into the shrubbery, then caught a quick glimpse of a figure running, stooped, above him to his left. He was being flanked. He turned the other way, fired again, then rose to a crouch. Then he dashed, head low, to his right past the wild boar, toward a cage where a solitary water buffalo stood gazing out at him with stupid glassy eyes.
Yes, there were three of them, spread out in a line on the high ground, slowly forcing him down into the lower corner of the zoo. He wouldn't be able to crawl out under the fence down there; he wouldn't have the time. But if he could get one of them he might have a chance to break through and lose himself in the woods on the other side. Time now, he decided, to go on the offense, take one out, then try and slip by the other two. He was wondering just how he could do this when he heard a new sound, burp!-burp!-burp!-burp!, fire from an Uzi directed from the sector where he'd first entered the park. But this new fire was not aimed at him. Someone, an unseen ally, was there spraying the high ground with bullets, driving his attackers back.
'Hey! Hey, Bar-Lev! They're gone.' He recognized the voice and it was not the voice from the phone. He crouched by the buffalo's cage until he saw Peretz, Uzi slung low over his shoulder, striding toward him down the path.
'It's okay. Really. I scared them off. Fuckers too chicken-shit to make a stand…'
David stood up, furious. 'This your set-up, Peretz?'
'Relax, Bar-Lev.'
''Peretz and his boys.' All that phony crap about a 'list.''
'For a guy who's just been rescued you're a pretty ungrateful son-of-a-bitch.'
'You're telling me you were just passing by and just happened to hear the noise? Far as I'm concerned, this was your little show. Consider yourself under arrest.'
'For what? Saving your life? Don't make me laugh.' But Peretz was laughing anyway.
'You think it's funny?'
'Three guys trying to kill a cop-no, not funny at all. Look, I saw you were in trouble so I decided to intervene. I've been following you the last ten nights. Saw all the stuff you've been doing up on Berenice Street.'
'Following me?'
'Bet your ass. I told you: I want this guy. I want to break his head.'
'You're crazy!'
'Aren't you glad? If I weren't so crazy, you'd probably be lying dead right now down there by that cage full of baboons.'
David shook his head. He believed him. Peretz was a killer, not a man who arranged elaborate practical jokes.
'You and I have to talk.'
'Sure. Okay. But let's get the hell out of this zoo. Stinking animals. Another minute here and I'm going to puke.'
From Peretz's apartment, David phoned Dov, woke him up, told him to have the zoo sealed off, and then at dawn to send in a team to search for slugs and shells. Then, while Peretz opened a bottle of red Carmel, he went out onto the terrace where he found an odd contraption, a cushioned three-seater swing hanging from a rusting frame.
He walked across the terrace, grasped hold of the railing, and stared out at Jerusalem. Across the Old City he could see the Dome of the Rock, at night a mysterious floating presence, its golden dome glowing softly beneath the three-quarters moon.
His hands were shaking even as he gripped the ironwork. A delayed reaction to the ambush, he knew. He'd been stupid to go to the zoo alone. Maybe I'm getting soft, he thought. Stephanie warned me and I didn't listen. Taking it for granted that no one would go after me-that was really dumb.
Peretz appeared with the wine and glasses, set them down, sprawled out on the swing and began to push himself back and forth. For a while David continued to stand at the railing. Then, as the creaking of the swing picked up in tempo, he turned and faced Peretz. He didn't bother to conceal his disgust.
'You were following me-why?'
'Nothing illegal in that.'
'You said you'd be looking up your boys.' Peretz nodded. 'So, why follow me?'
'I want this guy real bad.'
'If I find him, you don't get him, Peretz. Don't you realize that?' No answer. 'Mess around with the police, you're going to be in a lot of trouble.'
'Okay, Bar-Lev. Let's make a deal. I'm an officer. Put me in your unit. That shouldn't be too hard to arrange. We'll work together. The two of us will be unstoppable. We'll make a terrific team.'
When David shook his head, Peretz stuck out his foot and stopped the swing. 'Why not? Just tell me-why the fuck not?'
'First, I don't want to work with you. We hate each other's guts -remember? Second, the last thing I'm going to do is give you a license to break somebody's head.'
Peretz gazed at him, furious, then shrugged and poured himself a second glass of wine.
'Interesting bunch of guys there in the zoo tonight,' he said casually. 'First-class ambush tactics. Really had you by the balls. Course they couldn't do much to you, not with those baby pistols. Things are only good for close-up work. If they'd really wanted to nail you they'd have brought in bigger stuff.'
'So what are you trying to tell me?'
Peretz hauled his legs up onto the swing, then lay down across the three seats and stared up at the sky. David could imagine the many seductions he must have engineered on this old, rusty, swinging outdoor bed.
'You see, Bar-Lev, I don't think they really wanted you dead. More like they wanted to scare you off. Or, since they probably know you're not the type who scares, wanted to let you know they know you're there and let you know that they're there too. Because those guys weren't amateurs. They were well-trained men. Elite military training. Could be veterans of a crack unit. Or Mossad. Or Shin Bet guys. Or even active IDF Intelligence Corps. So Big-Shot, ever think of that?'
Sunday at noon he drove down to Ben-Gurion Airport to meet Anna's plane from Brussels. He used his credentials to enter the customs hall, and then, when he saw her, he watched her a while, savoring his joy in her return.
Yosef spotted him first. 'David!' Her head snapped up. She saw him and then she smiled, and when she did he knew he was a very lucky man.
'We got fabulous reviews,' Yosef said, as they started the drive up to Jerusalem. 'Anna's gotten very strong. She doesn't play anymore like a talented kid. There's a new confidence. The audiences picked up on it and the better they liked her the better she played.'
Yosef was sitting in back with the cello. Anna sat beside David, her fingers resting gently on his arm.
'So is this true?' David asked.
She grinned, then shrugged.
'Now she's ready for America,' Yosef said. 'Last time she impressed them. This time she'll knock them dead.'
Later, when he began the climb into Judea, she and Yosef turned quiet. The hills glittered tan and gold. A lone hawk riding the thermals circled in the distance.
Finally Anna spoke. 'Oh how I missed this place!'
'It's home,' David said.
She nodded.
'And no one will ever take it away from us,' Yosef said. 'We won't let them. Ever.'
Late that afternoon, after she had hung her clothes, and set up her music stand, and placed her cello in the corner and her pearl necklace on the little table beside the bed, she came to him and they made love. Afterward she slept against him, her head pressed to his shoulder, her body molded to his flank. At eight o'clock, they went out to East Jerusalem to eat.
At the Ummayyah she gazed around, taking in the boisterous atmosphere. As always the place was alive, waiters rushing about with skewers of meat, journalists huddled in booths with Palestinian politicians, Israeli tourist
