Now he sat in the rear seat of the van trying to imagine what the accident had been like. Two of the three were probably sitting where he was seated now, the third on the bench opposite. The driver, using the alias of Hurwitz, had been driving them in random circles around Jerusalem. A moving safe-house. Extreme precautions. Everything arranged so that three men would not be seen. But then the unexpected: Schneiderman's truck smashed into the side of their secret mobile conference room. Suddenly, in front of witnesses, the three men had been exposed.
He slid open the side panel door, squeezed out, closed it, bent down and ran his fingers lightly over its entire surface. The paint looked fresh, unscratched, and he could find no trace of damage. Which meant, he concluded, that Ephraim's men had replaced the entire panel door.
Later, when he was outside, Uri pointed out the sightline to the church.
'I saw that,' David said, 'but you could sit up there for a month and still miss out. When they take the van out, if they do, they'll be smart enough to move it out at night.'
'So now what? Is this a dead end?'
David shook his head. 'There's still the damaged door, Uri. Probably still lying around wherever it was they had it replaced.'
The next morning he invited Micha out for coffee to a police hangout on narrow Rivlin Street. When they had ordered and were seated in a quiet booth in back, David asked him if he'd be willing to take on a small piece of unofficial work.
'Sure. You know me, David. What do you want me to do?'
'For a guy like you the padlock on that farm building would probably be a cinch.'
Micha's hand, holding his cup of coffee, was trembling just a little bit. 'What do I do once I open it?'
'Wire the ignition of the van. Nothing big, you understand. We wouldn't want to blow off anybody's legs. Just a small charge, enough to send a message. The kind of message they sent to me when they used me for target practice at the zoo.'
Micha's hand was suddenly still. 'Yeah, I think I'd like to do that.'
'How about tonight?'
'Tonight would be good.'
David stood up. 'Get together whatever you need and we'll drive out there after work.'
'Micha says he's just too perfect, that there's got to be some dirt.'
'If there is, it's hard to find, captain. No sign he fools around with boys.'
'What about girls?'
Liederman shrugged. 'If he does he's pretty careful. But maybe he's got no need to fool around. His wife's the kind we used to call a dish.' '
They were standing at the overlook on the top of the Mount of Olives. It was a blazing summer day. Air- conditioned tourist buses were parked in the circular drive, tourists were milling about, taking pictures, exclaiming at the view. Several waited in line to mount a bedraggled camel which stood, its snout dripping foam, in a small dry pile of camel excrement.
'He drives a BMW. Works at that Shin Bet sub headquarters beside the Brandeis School. Couldn't hang around there. Security's too tight. But I caught him a couple times driving home at six o'clock. In the evenings he and the wife go out, usually pretty well dressed. Cocktail parties, restaurants, one night to see the Danish ballet. One evening he took off by himself. I broke contact when I saw he was heading down to Tel Aviv.'
'Maybe he's got a boy down there.'
'That's possible. There were fifteen of us the night we tracked Peretz. By myself in Tel Aviv…'
'Yes,' David said. 'I understand.'
Liederman cupped his hands to light a cigarette. The gold hemisphere of the Dome of the Rock glittered far below.
'One interesting move he made. He was walking around downtown, aimlessly I thought. Then suddenly he started acting furtive. I turned away. Next thing I knew he wasn't there. I figured he'd slipped into this office building, 28 Histadrut. There's an American-style hamburger joint out front. I took a seat. Sure enough, about twenty minutes later he came out of there walking fast.
'I still had this feeling his antennae were up so I didn't take off after him. But when he was gone I went into the building and had a look. Lots of offices, small businesses, gem wholesalers, import-export firms. Then on the stairs I bumped into this old man stumbling around like he was in a daze. Minute later I saw this other guy, tall and very thin, lingering in the hall. So on the off-chance there was some connection I decided to hang around. And guess what? The thin guy was tracking the old man, which was not very difficult because the old man was almost blind. I followed them a couple of blocks-'
'Moshe, please-is there a point to all of this?'
'Well, you know me, captain. I'm not intuitive.'
'So you always say.'
'But still, you see, I felt it was all connected. Don't ask me how. I just had this feeling the two of them, the old man and Cohen, had come there separately to meet. Never had a hunch like that before. Never had any kind of hunch. So I thought: 'Okay, Moshe, now you finally got yourself a hunch, start acting like a detective, see where the hell it leads.' '
David nodded. He was interested.
'…by this time it was dark. They got on a bus for Talpiot. I got on too. Then, when they got off near an apartment project, I did the same. Okay, the old half-blind guy was stumbling his way toward one of those new immigrant housing blocks. Suddenly the thin guy broke off and, couple of seconds later, he and I were face to face. I stopped him, flashed my ID, demanded to see his, discovered he was an American, and then, in my rotten English, asked what the hell he was doing following around an Israeli citizen in the dark. I tell you, captain, the guy was scared. He started fumbling around. Something about his name, Rokovsky, gave me an idea, so I started talking to him in Polish, and from that point he started to relax.'
'Rokovsky? Anatole Rokovsky?'
'Yeah, something like that. Do you know him, captain?'
'Not exactly,' David said. 'Go on. What happened then?'
'Long and short of it, he finally admitted he was following the older guy. And when I asked him why, he started telling me this story about some missing money and a loan. So where had he followed him from? I asked. In the end he told me what I wanted to know: the office at 28 Histadrut where the old man had met Ephraim Cohen. It's some kind of arts foundation. Room 304…'
HER DREAM
David was speaking to her. Anna looked up.
'Now we have a very peculiar situation,' David was saying. 'The man Liederman is following meets the man Rokovsky is following. Ephraim Cohen meets Sergei Sokolov. What's the connection? Why?'
He had broken in on her mid-afternoon when she'd been practicing. Now, trying to concentrate on what he was saying, the tortured sonata still whirling through her brain, she was aware only of a feeling that she was needed. Yes, now finally he needs me, she thought.
'… but how can this be?' David continued. 'Of course I remembered what you told me-Sasha saying he'd uncovered some kind of fraud. But still…'
'David, I'll find out for you.' At the moment she had realized that he needed her, she had felt a surge of joy.
'I thought of that. But I'm not sure I want you involved. What if Sasha's implicated? This is a nasty case. If only there were some other way…'
She stood up. 'There is no other way.'
He smiled. 'Well, since you're so insistent, I'll drive you over there. We'll talk about it. You'll have to be careful, guarded about what you say.'
'Oh, I'll be guarded.' She was already at the door.
