O Jerusalem

the Haram: 1:36. Allenby and the others were still inside of the Dome.

Once clear of the open space, we trotted after Ali and Mahmoud, who seemed to know precisely where they were heading. They turned right into el-Wad Street, then into a typical Jerusalem maze of minute passageways and stone walls and unlikely bits of garden before fetching up in an alleyway that ran along the side of a massive building.

“The Old Serai,” Ali explained briefly. “Bey has come home, but it is not his prison anymore, and he will have to come and go secretly. That door is one way. At that end of the alley is another, unless he has wings. You two stay here, and stop him if he comes out,”

The two men were gone before Ali finished the sentence, and although Holmes palpably ached to go with them, he could see the sense of it. He subsided, and we settled down beneath a tree to watch.

One-forty-two. No explosion from the depths, and no fleeing monk, only a piebald dog skulking over the stones.

One-forty-seven. Ali’s head appeared over the parapet far above us. Even at the distance, his fury and frustration was visible and Holmes, seeing it, leapt to his feet and smacked his hand against his forehead.

“Wings!” he shouted. “Of course he has wings—the rope he stole from the monastery! How could I be so stupid?” He snatched the torch from his robes, turned, and fled down the alleyway, back to el-Wad and, running now, dodging merchants and tourists, pious Jews and donkey carts, with church bells clattering in the air and me on his heels he pounded into the Souk el-Qattanin and, brushing aside the breathless excitement of the young orange seller, heaved himself up into the house and launched himself down the slick steps into the cellar. Ignoring the ladder that stood there, he dropped through the hole into the tunnel and began to run again, the torch in one hand, the revolver in the other. I started out on his heels, but without a torch I stumbled and banged into the walls and dropped farther behind. The bobbing light came to a bend and went abruptly still as, with a shout, Holmes flung himself to the ground. The echoes of his voice rang through the stone passageway, and I came up noiselessly and pressed myself against the inner curve of the wall to peer down the tunnel. Holmes lay nearly at my feet, his torch and gun both pointing steadily ahead of him at the figure of the bearded man in the monastic habit, now straightening incredulously and blinking at the light.

“You’ve lost, Karim Bey,” said Holmes.

“Who are you?” the false monk demanded, his voice imperious and shrill with fury.

“Russell, do you have your gun on him?”

“I do,” I replied, although the most dangerous weapon I possessed was my throwing knife, and Bey was both too far away and on the wrong side. The man’s head jerked at the sound of my voice, and his hand went slowly away from the front of his habit. I heard noises behind me, and ducked my head to see first Ali, then Mahmoud tumble into the tunnel and begin to run in our direction, only to slow when their torches picked me out, my hand raised in warning. The three of us moved around the corner to stand behind Holmes’ prostrate form.

Bey held his lamp up higher, and narrowed his eyes at Ali and me, whom he had never seen before. He similarly dismissed Mahmoud and was returning to Holmes when with a jolt his gaze flew back to the older man at my shoulder. I watched his wide, cruel mouth relax from the surprise of recognition into a smile distressingly close to intimacy, even affection. I could feel both of the men beside me react to that smile; I thought Ali would shoot him then and there, but Mahmoud seized his partner’s arm and the gun stayed down. The man in the habit, still smiling, allowed his attention to return to Holmes, who lay unmoving, his gun pointing unwaveringly at the man’s chest. Bey squinted down against the light of the torches, and then his eyes went wide and he took a step back.

“You!”

“I,” replied Holmes.

Silence fell, silence aside from the strained breathing of several people, which ended when Karim Bey seemed to make up his mind about something and gave an almost imperceptible nod. We all braced ourselves and Ali’s gun went up again, but the man moved only his eyes, first to look at Mahmoud, then Ali and me, and finally at Holmes. He held his gaze there for a long moment, studying his escaped victim, then lifted his eyes to a point over all our heads, raised his right fist, and swung it in towards his chest. I thought for a startled instant that Bey was giving some archaic form of salute until Holmes shouted “No!” and started to scramble to his feet, but he was too late. When Bey’s fist made contact with the front of his robe there was a muffled thump—not a big noise, but Bey flew backwards as if he’d been kicked by a horse. His lamp crashed to the floor and burst into flames, sending a great billow of burning paraffin down the tunnel towards us, but even as we flung ourselves around the corner, we could see the man in the monk’s robes, crumpled against the wall of the tunnel, thrown there by the force of the spare detonator he had carried in his breast.

TWENTY-EIGHT

?

Scholars are, of all people, those least acquainted with the methods of politics.

—

THE

Muqaddimah

OF IBN KHALDUN

We climbed out of the depths like four wraiths leaving a tomb, every bit as dirty and nearly as lifeless. Once we had lifted ourselves up into the derelict house in the Souk el-Qattanin, we collapsed to the floor with our backs against the walls, staring unseeing at the hole at our feet. Ali cursed monotonously, in Arabic and at least two other languages, and for once I was in full agreement. It was a victory, but not a clean one, and far from complete. Holmes, I knew, might look as if he was about to fall asleep, but his brain would already be worrying away at the sizeable question of how, with Bey dead, we were going to lay hands on his informant, and weighing the possibilities of it being the Government House clerk Bertram Ellison.

I dropped my head into my hands and waited for the ringing in my ears to subside, the flash spot in my vision to fade; all I could see was Bey’s curious gesture, over and over again, that quasi-military salute with which he had gone to his death. That we-who-are-about-to-die-salute-you sort of gesture.

And I could not reconcile the salute with the man’s scorn for his victims, neither the intimacy with which he had run his eyes over Mahmoud’s scar nor the surprise on his face when he recognised Holmes. And surely a slap would have been a more effective way to set off the detonator, not the smaller surface of the fist. And—

I shook my head. This was sheer phantasy, akin to augury or the reading of a crystal ball. What difference did it make if he slapped or he pounded? How could I know if the gesture meant anything to him beyond proud defiance?

But he had looked up, beyond us all. And his back had straightened. And his elbow had been raised to bring the fist straight on. Drawing himself up to meet death? Or… or a last, half-humorous salute to an unseen captain?

God, I thought, I’m losing my mind. Mahmoud is going to look down his nose at me and Ali will laugh in harsh scorn, but I have to say this.

“Holmes?”

“Yes, Russell.”

“Are we certain that Bey was the leader here?”

Ali jeered and Mahmoud looked, and Holmes leant back and closed his eyes. I persisted.

“He recognised you just now, but he did not know who you really are. And he certainly did not know me for