'Still a few little things that bother me.' David looked at him. 'Such as seven homicides.'
'You're not going to get anywhere with that. Quit now and save yourself the trouble.'
'Just give up, is that what you're saying? Withdraw honorably from the field?' When Ephraim nodded, David said: 'I'm a cop. We don't fold our tents.'
After that they didn't speak until they reached Ein Kerem. Ephraim glanced at him, confused when the other two cars turned off toward the farmhouse and David continued to drive straight on. Then, when David parked at the foot of the drive that led up to the Franciscan church, Ephraim shook his head.
'What are we doing here? Is this some kind of outing?'
'Sort of. Let's take a walk.' David motioned toward the top of the hill. 'Help yourself to a pair of binoculars, Ephraim. You'll want to take full advantage of the view.'
He got out of the car. Ephraim scowled but took the binoculars, then the two of them started walking up the drive. It was a fine day for a walk in the country, David thought, the air fresh and clear, butterflies fluttering and bees humming and songbirds flitting from tree to tree.
David paused outside the gates of St. John's. Here, from a stone wall, there was a direct sightline to the ruined farmhouse below. David set his field radio on the wall, leaned against it, and began to sight in his binoculars. Ephraim stood beside him and did the same.
'I see them,' Ephraim said. 'They're down there in a field of rubble.'
'Your man, Yoni-he's looking kind of nervous.'
'He's going to show you the van. What's that going to prove?'
David continued to observe the scene. He spoke casually. 'You've got it wrong, Ephraim. Yoni hasn't said a word. Not yet. But I think he will. Just keep a watch on his face. It'll be interesting to see his expression turn when he realizes he's been betrayed.'
Uri and Dov had gone around behind the stone barn. Now they were returning with the broken panel door.
'See that door? Yoni's wondering how we found it. He stashed the van, and, since he didn't tell us about that, he knew, when we drove him out here, that one of his pals had blabbed. But that door's something else, an added complication, because it was damaged in the original accident. That was long before there were any pickups or killings of whores and hustlers and soldier girls. In a way you could say that door is what those killings were about. So now Yoni's maybe wondering if the person who blabbed was you.'
Ephraim laughed. 'Very clever, David, but, believe me, it's not going to work. Not with Yoni anyway. His balls are made of brass.'
'We'll see. Personally I think he'll spill. Don't forget: He knows how far you'll go to cover something up.'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'That under the right kind of pressure he'll wonder if you'd kill him too. To save yourself. It's only logical. After all, if you'd order the killing of a soldier girl to fancy up a phony murder series, why would you hesitate to kill the very guy to whom you gave that order, a guy who could really roast you if it came down to a forced choice between him and you.'
'Bullshit, David. You'll never force that kind of choice.'
'Let's just see what happens, shall we?'
As he peered down again through his binoculars, he sensed that Ephraim was becoming unstrung. David's posture throughout had been directed at convincing him that, on account of his bitterness over Gideon, he was prepared to go a lot further than a cop might ordinarily go.
The view through the binoculars was extraordinarily clear; the light fell just right upon the group below. David could see the strained expression on Yoni's face as Dov gestured toward the barn. The doors were open now. He could see the gleaming front end of the van, and the ruined panel door lying on the ground. Yoni seemed to hesitate. But then he shrugged and began to move.
He walked straight into the barn. After David lost sight of him he imagined him squeezing himself inside the van, then rolling down the window to air the vehicle out. Dov would call to him: 'Drive it out,' and Yoni would fumble around searching for the key. He'd remember finally where he'd hidden it, on top of the visor on the passenger side. He'd reach for it, bring it down, then insert it into the ignition switch. And then he'd hesitate again.
'What are you waiting for? Get that crate out of there,' Dov would shout.
Yoni would sense that something was wrong, but he wouldn't know exactly what. Ephraim had told him to wipe everything clean and now he was leaving prints on the steering wheel and the key. But what difference would prints make if someone had actually squawked? So, okay, he'd drive the damn van out and pray there weren't any old prints or bloodstains in the back.
David imagined him reaching down, turning the key, pumping on the gas. And then how the whole front end of the van would seem to explode right in his face.
Smoke poured out of the barn.
Ephraim turned to him. 'What the hell!'
But David didn't turn, just planted his elbows on the wall to steady his binoculars, and continued to observe.
They all ran forward at once to pull Yoni from the driver's seat. They brought him out, badly shaken, then laid him carefully on the ground. Shoshana, playing Good Nurse, knelt beside him and began to mop his brow.
'What happened?' Ephraim demanded.
'Someone wired up your van.'
'You!'
David shrugged. 'Question now is, what does Yoni think. My guess is he thinks it was you.'
'Your people wouldn't be trying now to put that crazy notion in his head?'
'I have to admit that in this particular case, Ephraim, my people most definitely are.'
'That's coercion. Coerced testimony can't be used in court.'
'Up to Yoni to say whether or not he felt coerced. I'm betting he'll say he wasn't. But let's not argue about it. Let's see how it goes. His ears are ringing and he's scared and he's not all that bright anyway. My people are telling him what they think must have happened, and, believe me, he's getting the idea. You blabbed on the van so we'd bring him out here, but you'd had it wired so it would kill him when he started it up. Something went wrong. The charge wasn't big enough. So he escaped, he's shaken up, and now he's starting to grasp the implications. And here comes the clincher, Ephraim. Watch this carefully. This is the part where you actually get to see him turn.'
Yoni was sitting up now. Dov and Shoshana were talking to him, showing him the kind of sympathy a man betrayed and nearly killed deserved. Shoshana handed him a pair of binoculars, while Dov pointed up at the church. Yoni put the binoculars to his eyes, peered through them, and saw David and Ephraim spying down on him. 'See, Yoni,' Dov was saying, 'he's up there watching. He set you up.' And then Yoni grasped it-like a lightning bolt it suddenly struck him in the brain: Ephraim wanted him dead, and the only way he was going to survive was to tell these people every single thing he knew.
David turned on his field radio.
'Micha, how's it going?'
'He says he wants to talk, and that he doesn't need a lawyer. We're setting up now to videotape.'
David shut the radio off and turned to Ephraim. 'Well, guess that kind of settles it,' he said.
'You can't do it like that.'
'We can't? Why not?'
'Because it's not legal, dammit!' Ephraim kicked the wall.
David turned to him then, and examined him with great curiosity. 'Tell me something, Ephraim: Just what kind of game is it that you think we're playing here, where there's one set of rules for you and another set for us?'
Yoni talked for three days straight; it took him that long to tell them everything. They followed him around frantically with camera and videotape recorder as he led them to the killing house in Mei Naftoah, the place on the Tel Aviv beach where Shlomo had picked up Halil Ghemaiem, the hitching stop at Ben-Gurion Airport, the Damascus Gate, and the place Yaakov Schneiderman had parked his truck the night that Ari had hidden in the back. Then on to all the different places where the bodies had been dumped: the ditch beside the road to Mevasseret; the Old City wall near the Dung Gate; the construction site behind the Augusta Victoria Hospital; the road up the Hill of Evil
