“Come in, Menachem, come in. Menachem, this is Willi calling.” He spoke now in a heavily accented English.
There was a static burst, then, from the loudspeaker, a distant voice. “Willi, this is Menachem. Is she there?” The voice was strong, speaking in English with a guttural mid-European accent: Polish? Russian? “Hold on, Menachem.”
Willi handed over the headphones and seat to Eve. She hooked on the phones and picked up the mike with professional ease.
“Shalom, Menachem, it’s Ava. What happened? Is it true?”
“I made the calls myself. One to the British in the King David. One to the French embassy next door. And one to the press. The British had twenty-five minutes to clear the hotel. They did nothing.”
“Did the French listen?”
“They closed all their shutters.”
“I don’t understand. The British are not stupid.”
“ But they are arrogant. A British officer said we don’t take orders from Jews!
The whole corner of the hotel, above the kitchens, it’s gone. Those idiots!” His voice rose higher and higher with every utterance. Then he broke off.
“Any of our people?” she asked.
“No one in the squad was hurt. It went like clockwork. Such a waste…” He suddenly sounded bone weary.
“Listen, Menachem. We have to act. More than ever we need to get the truth out.
We must tell the world what happened.”
There was silence for a while except for the background hum down the line. “Ava, do you think there is anything we can say that will be believed? Already they are talking of a Jewish massacre. Already they are saying there will be vengeance.”
“It’s all the more important! We must get our story out, Menachem. Tell them we issued a warning.”
His angry voice dripped down the line. “Do you think it matters? So many dead.
Young girls, our own people in the kitchens… Is this the way we build our promised land? There has been so much blood. All we wanted was a scrap of desert. A place we could be safe.”
Eve’s jaw was clenched. She shook her head.
“Menachem, Menachem, we have to try. I’m going to contact our Reuters man. We’ll get the message out. I’ll contact the British press. They’ll listen to me. We have to try.” Her fists were clenched on the table.
“Try, my dear. Try. What is there to lose? Listen, are you safe? Can you get out of there?”
She turned and looked at me. “Don’t worry about me. Shalom, Menachem.”
“Shalom, Ava.”
Eve sat back and took her phones off. She wiped her face and turned to me.
“Willi, do we have a phone? Does it work?”
“Yes, yes. They repaired the lines last week. But I haven’t dared…”
“We must dare, now!” She turned to me. “I’m going to make some calls, Danny. Can you amuse yourself for an hour?”
Eve placed calls with the operator and after a long wait, wonder of wonders, got patched through to New York. She spoke to her man in Reuters, but he seemed to be having a convenient bout of amnesia. He denied all knowledge, denied he knew her, denied the truth as she saw it.
She turned to her radio transmitter. From the world’s radio stations it was clear that the real message wasn’t being picked up. The constant refrain was that the casualty number had risen to eighty and was expected to climb. There was widespread condemnation for this act of evil by these unspeakable terrorists. Eve scrubbed at her hair, her face getting pinker by the minute. At last she flung off her earphones and sat back. We shared our last cigarette.
“I’ve got to get back. I need to see Jim Hutcheson. He’ll listen to me. He’ll print the story.”
I didn’t say anything. Even if she could get through to Hutcheson he wouldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t want to.
TWENTY TWO
We left Willi wringing his hands and asking what would become of him. The authorities would tap the phone calls and come looking for him. We had no advice. We walked back in silence through the steaming pine woods, back to the city stewing in the sulphurous heat of late afternoon. The buses seemed to have stopped. Tainted petrol or a hold-up by one of the marauding gangs. It took us four hours to reach the safe house, sweaty and footsore, and out of cigarettes.
Maybe it was time to give them up anyway. I made some tea and we sat glumly at the table and stared into our cups. I should have paid more attention to the sounds outside. I was vaguely aware of truck noises and a motorbike. But nothing prepares you for the sound of your own name being bellowed from the street via a megaphone.
“Daniel McRae! You are surrounded. You and Ava Kaplan cannot escape. Surrender now!”
We shot to our feet, teacups thrown across the table, staring at each other in the hope that we’d both misheard. My breath clenched in my chest. The cry came again. Even with the distortion of amplification I recognised Colonel Toby Anstruther’s voice.
“Shit. We must have been followed.” I realised I was talking in whispers, which was silly given the ruckus outside. I heard shouted orders and the pounding of army boots on the cobbles.
“Is there any way out? Is there a skylight? Where would it lead?” I had hold of her arms and was shaking her.
“Danny, Danny! There’s no place to go. Even if we got on to the roof, we can’t get off the building. We’re trapped.” Her eyes were pleading, telling me the game was up, that it was time to let go. I dropped my hands from her shoulders and let my arms slump by my side. It was over.
The shouts came again, this time with a warning of an attack if we weren’t out in ten seconds. I went to the window and stood by the side, not wanting to make myself a target for any trigger-happy squaddie. I eased the window catch and flung it open. A gust of warm air came in and flapped the curtain round my face.
I cupped my hands and shouted, “All right. We’re coming out. But on one condition.” I waited, wondering if he’d heard me.
“What is it, McRae?”
“We’re out of fags.”
There was silence. No sense of humour. Then, “Come and get them. Slowly. With your hands in the air.”
I walked over to her and without asking, took her in my arms and gave her a squeeze. We clung like shipwrecked sailors for a moment then let go.
“Say nothing about Jerusalem. Got me? They know nothing about any connection to the bomb.”
“But I have to get back to London, Danny. I have to tell the story!”
“The best way is to say nothing. Not yet. They’re bound to throw us on the first train out of here.”
She nodded, reluctantly. We grabbed our meagre possessions and left the flat. In the hall I pulled open the door and led the way, hands in the air. We were ringed by troopers pointing their rifles at our hearts. The Colonel stood directly in front of me. Alongside him was Vic looking sheepish. A small crowd congealed at one end of the street, in which our downstairs neighbour was prominent. He folded his arms and made some sneering remark to one of the others. This city had got into the habit of snitching on its neighbours.
We were marched to the truck and shoved up over the tailgate. Half a dozen red-faced soldiers climbed in after us and squeezed on to the parallel benches.
The familiar smell of wool uniforms and sweaty males filled the tarpaulin-covered truck. They kept their guns on us. As we settled down a packet of fags sailed through the air from outside and landed at my feet.
I looked at the boys in uniform. “All right, lads. I think these are for me.
Steady with those guns.” I slowly reached down and picked up the packet.
