“Two minutes,” he promised, and jumped out of the Mercedes,
scampered around to the rear and opened the boot. There was a scratching sound, a small bump and then the lid of the boot slammed and the driver came back into Peter’s line of vision carrying a brown paper parcel.
He grinned at Peter, with the ridiculous cap pushed onto the back of his head, mouthed another assurance through the closed window: “Two minutes ” and went into the main door of the apartment.
Peter hoped he might be longer. The silence was precious. He closed his eyes, and concentrated.
If Magda is not Caliph then then-There was the ticking sound of the engine cooling, or was it the dashboard clock? Peter thrust the sound to the back of his mind.
then then Cactus Flower exists. Yes, that was it!
My mother-in-law lives Cactus Flower exists, and if he exists he is close enough to
Caliph to know of Sir Steven Stride’s threat to expose him. Peter sat upright, rigid in his seat. He had believed. that Steven Stride would be perfectly safe until after the meeting with Caliph. “That was the terrible mistake. Cactus Flower must stop Steven Stride reaching Caliph! Yes, of course. Christ, how had he not seen it before. Cactus Flower was
Mossad, and Peter was sitting in a street of Jerusalem Mossad’s front yard dressed as Steven Stride.
Christ! He felt the certainty of mortal danger. Cactus Flower probably made the arrangements himself. If Magda Altmann is not
Caliph, then I am walking right into Cactus Flower’s sucker punch I The -racking damned clock kept ticking, a sound as nerve as a leaky faucet.
I am in Cactus Flower’s city in Cactus Flower’s limo The ticking.
Oh God! It was not coming from the dashboard. Peter turned his head.
It was coming from behind him; from the boot. the driver had opened and in which he had moved something. Something that was now ticking away quietly.
Peter wrenched the door handle and hit the door with his shoulder,
instinctively grabbing the Hermes case with his other hand.
They would have stripped out the metal partition between the boot and the back seat to allow the blast to cut through. There was probably only the leather upholstery between him and whatever was ticking. That was why he had heard it so clearly.
Time seemed to have slowed, so he was free to think it out as the seconds dropped as lingeringly as spilled honey.
Infernal machine, he thought. Why that ridiculously nineteenth-century term should occur to him now, he could not guess, a relic from the childhood days when he read Boy’s Own
Paper, perhaps.
He was out of the Mercedes now, almost losing his balance as his feet hit the unsurfaced and broken sidewalk.
It is probably plastic explosive with a clockwork timer on the detonator, he thought, as he started to run. What delay would they use? Thirty seconds? No, the driver had to get well away. He had said two minutes, said it twice The thoughts raced through his mind,
but his legs seemed to be shackled, dragging against an enormous weight. Like trying to run waist deep in the sucking surf of a sandy beach.
It will be two minutes, and he has been gone that long. Ten paces ahead of him there was a low wall that had been built as a flower box around the apartment block. It was knee high, a double brick wall with the cavity filled with dry yellow earth and precariously sustaining the life of a few wizened oleander bushes.
Peter dived head first over the wall, breaking his fall with shoulder and forearm, and rolling back hard under the protection of the low wall.
Above his head were the large windows of the ground floor apartments. Lying on his side, peering up at them, Peter saw the reflection of the parked Mercedes as though in a mirror.
He covered his ears with the palms of both hands. The Mercedes was only fifty feet away. He watched it in the glass, his body braced,
his mouth wide open to absorb blast shock in his sinuses.
The Mercedes erupted. It seemed to open quite sedately, like one of those time-elapse movies of a rose blooming.
The shining metal spread and distorted like grotesque black petals, and bright white flame shot through it that was all Peter saw, for the row of apartment windows disappeared, blown away in a million glittering shards by the blast wave, leaving the windows gaping like the toothless mouths of old decrepit men, and at the same moment the blast smashed into Peter.
Even though it was muted by the thick wall of the flower box, it crushed him, seemed to drive in his ribs, and the air whooshed from his lungs. The fearsome din of the explosion clamoured in his head,
filling his skull with little bright chips of rainbow light.
He thought he must have lost consciousness for a moment, then there was the patter of falling debris raining down around him and something struck him a painful blow in the small of his back. It spurred him.
He dragged himself to his feet, struggling to refill his empty lungs. He knew he had to get away before the security forces arrived,
or he could expect intensive interrogation which would certainly disclose the fact that he was not Sir Steven.
He started to run. The street was still deserted, although he could hear the beginning of the uproar which must follow. The cries of anguish and of fear.
He reached the corner and stopped running. He walked quickly to the next alley behind an apartment block. There were no street lights and he paused in the shadows. By now a dozen figures shouting questions and conjecture were hurrying towards the smoke and dust of the explosion.
Peter recovered his breath and dusted down his blazer and slacks,
waiting until the confusion and shouting were at their peak. Then he walked quietly away.
On the main road he joined a short queue at the bus stop. The bus dropped him off in the Jaffa Road.
He found a cafe opposite the bus stop and went through into the men’s room. He was unmarked, but pale and strained; his hands still shook from the shock of the blast as he combed his hair.
He went back into the cafe, found a corner seat and ordered falafel and pitta bread with coffee.
He sat there for half an hour, considering his next move, If Magda
Altmann is not Caliph-he repeated the conundrum which he had solved just in time to save his life.
Magda Altmann is not Caliph! He knew it then with utter certainty. Cactus Flower had tried to stop Sir Steven Stride reaching
Caliph with his denunciation. Therefore Magda had told him the truth.
His relief flooded his body with a great warm glow and his first instinct was to telephone her at the Mossad number she had given him.
Then he saw the danger. Cactus Flower was Mossad. He dared not go near her not yet.
What must he do then? And he knew the answer without having to search for it. He must do what he had come to do. He must find
Caliph, and the only fragile thread he had to follow was the trail that
Caliph had laid for him.
He left the cafe and found a taxi at the rank on the corner, “David Hotel, “Peter said, and sank back in the seat.
At least I know the danger of Cactus Flower now, he thought grimly. I won’t walk into the next one blind.
Peter took one glance around the room that had been reserved for him. It was in the back of the hotel and across the road the tall bell tower of the YMCA.
made a fine stance from which a sniper could command the two windows.
“I ordered a suite,” Peter snapped at the reception clerk who had led him up.
“I’m sorry, Sir Steven.” The man was immediately flustered.
“There must have been a mistake.” Another glance around the room and
Peter had noted half a dozen sites at which Cactus Flower might have laid another explosive charge to back
