'It is Ben-Ami!' cried the man from the Mossad, stopping the van, the tyres screeching and hurtling over the crevices in the badly paved road. 'Open the door!'
A small, slender man in blue jeans, a loose white cotton shirt and a ghotra over his head leaped inside, squeezing Yaakov into the seat. 'Keep driving,' he ordered. 'Slowly. There are no patrols out here and we have at least ten minutes before we might be stopped. Do you have a torch?' The Mossad driver reached down and brought up his flashlight. The intruder snapped it on, inspecting the human cargo behind and the one beside him. 'Good!' he exclaimed. 'You look like scum from the waterfront. If we're stopped, slur your Arabic and shout about your fornications, do you understand?'
'Amen,' said three voices. The fourth, Orange, was contrary. 'The Talmud insists on the truth,' he intoned. 'Find me a big-breasted houri and I may go along.'
'Shut up!' cried Yaakov, not amused.
'What has happened to bring you here?' asked the Mossad officer.
'Insanity,' answered the newcomer. 'One of our people in Washington got through an hour after you left Hebron. His information concerned an American. A congressman, no less. He's here and interfering—going under cover, can you believe it?'
'If it's true,' replied the driver, gripping the steering wheel, 'then every thought of incompetence I've ever entertained about the American intelligence community has blossomed to full flower. If he's caught, they'll be the pariahs of the civilized world. It is not a risk to be taken.'
'They've taken it. He's here.'
'Where?'
'We don't know.'
'What has it to do with MS?' objected Yaakov. 'One American. One fool. What are his credentials?'
'Considerable, I'm sorry to say,' answered Ben-Ami. 'And we are to give him what leverage we can.'
'What?' said the young leader from the Masada Brigade. 'Why?'
'Because, my colleague notwithstanding, Washington is fully aware of the risks, of the potentially tragic consequences, and therefore has cut him off. He's on his own. If he's captured there's no appeal to his government, for it won't acknowledge him, can't acknowledge him. He's acting as a private individual.'
'Then I must ask again,' insisted Yaakov. 'If the Americans won't touch him, why should we?'
'Because they never would have let him come here in the first place unless someone very highly placed thought he was on to something extraordinary.'
'But why us? We have our own work to do. I repeat, why us?
'Perhaps because we can—and they can't.'
'It's politically disastrous!' said the driver emphatically. 'Washington sets whatever it is in motion then walks away covering its collective ass and dumps it on us. That kind of policy decision must have been made by the Arabists in the State Department. We fail—which is to say, he fails while we're there with him—and whatever executions take place they blame it on the Jews! The Christ-killers did it again!'
'Correction,' interrupted Ben-Ami. 'Washington did not “dump” this on us because no one' in Washington has any idea we know about it. And if we do our jobs correctly, we won't be in evidence; we give only untraceable assistance, if it's needed.'
'You will not answer me!' shouted Yaakov. 'Why?'
'I did, but you weren't listening, young fellow; you have other things on your mind. I said that we do what we do because perhaps we can. Perhaps, no guarantees at all. There are two hundred and thirty-six human beings in that horrible place, suffering as we as a people know only too well. Among them is your father, one of the most valuable men in Israel. If this man, this congressman, has even a shadow of a solution we must do what we can, if only to prove him right or prove him wrong. First, however, we must find him.'
'Who is he?' asked the Mossad driver contemptuously. 'Does he have a name or did the Americans bury that also?'
'His name is Kendrick—’
