Bull’s car passed by on its way to Tappuzi’s office.
Mandelbaum Gate was a minute away. Sanani drove through the three checkpoints while Elie returned the hesitant salutes of the Israeli, Jordanian, and UN guards, all of whom must have wondered about the unfamiliar UN general being driven in Bull’s Jeep moments after it had gone the other way.
As they approached the Old City walls, Elie saw the Arab merchants pushing their carts away from the market. The wailing sirens on the Jewish side of the city must have freaked them out. Sanani kept pressing the horn, but the road was crowded with slow-moving traffic. Elie put his hand on the soldier’s arm. “Calm down. Your friend can wait another few minutes. He’s in no danger.”
L emmy regained consciousness just as the door flew open. A dark-skinned UN officer entered, followed by two soldiers. “What’s the meaning of this?”
With difficulty, Lemmy stood up, his legs wobbly.
The officer walked around him, examining his backside.
“Who are you?” His English was spoken with an Indian accent, just like Sanani.
Lemmy didn’t answer.
“We will find out!” The officer beckoned the two soldiers.
“Search him!”
Lemmy clenched his fists, ready for a fight, but a sudden cramp in his lower leg caused him to bend over and grunt in pain. He reached behind his back, feeling for the Mauser.
“Looking for this?” The UN officer held up the Mauser. He put on silver-framed reading glasses and peered at the gun. “ Deutschland Uber Alles.” He looked at Lemmy. “What is this? Are you German?”
Nodding, Lemmy tried to estimate whether he could snatch it from him and aim properly before the three of them acted. The Mauser was always cocked and ready to fire with a quick release of the safety, but they were three and he was alone. Chances were poor, even if the gun was still loaded, which was in doubt. Whoever had found it in the courtyard might have disarmed it.
“You’re not a member of the United Nations staff, correct?”
Lemmy nodded.
“Then take off our uniform!” He pointed the Mauser at what was left of the khaki UN shirt. “Now!”
With effort, he unbuttoned the shirt and took it off.
“You are a saboteur! A spy!” The Indian UN officer pointed at the door. “We’ll hand you over to the Jordanians!” He gestured to his subordinates, who stepped toward Lemmy.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Get out!” The officer held the door open.
“My name is Wilhelm Horch,” Lemmy lied. “I work for the Bundesnachrichtendienst — the West German secret service.”
“The BND?” The Indian officer seemed taken aback.
“Yes! The BND!”
“Who is your commanding officer?”
“I report directly to General Reinhard Gehlen.”
“Really? Gehlen? Wasn’t he a Nazi commandant during the war?”
Lemmy shrugged.
“Then surely he wouldn’t employ a Jew, right?”
“ Ich nicht ein Juden! ”
“Let’s check.” The Indian officer motioned to the two soldiers, and they pulled down Lemmy’s pants, exposing his circumcision.
E lie sat next to Sanani, controlling his impatience as the Jeep slowly advanced at the pedestrian pace of the merchants and their carts. Finally, at the next roundabout, Sanani was able to speed ahead.
They approached the roadblock at the intersection with Jericho Road. Elie pulled the UN blue cap down to his eyebrows. “Don’t stop.”
The Jordanian soldiers stepped into the road, blocking it.
“Drive,” Elie said. “They won’t shoot at a UN vehicle.”
Sanani slowed, rolled down his window, and waved. One Jordanian lifted his hand while his partner aimed a machine gun.
Sanani kept going at a slow pace and stuck his head out the window. “ Ahlan Wa’Sahalan! ”
The Jordanians didn’t move aside, and Sanani had to hit the brakes. They approached the Jeep, one on each side.
“Let him come to your window,” Elie said. “When he’s close enough, open your door fast and hit him as hard as you can.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Do as I say!”
The Jordanians came closer. Elie’s window was down, and he held up a blank piece of paper he had found on the floor of the car. Meanwhile, his right hand unsheathed the shoykhet blade. “Here,” Elie said, “my credentials.”
The Jordanian came to the window and extended his hand to take the paper.
P ulling up his pants, Lemmy took a step back. “You can’t do this! The Jordanians will kill me!”
“That,” the UN officer yelled, “is between you and His Majesty’s troops. Out! ”
The two soldiers positioned themselves behind Lemmy, and the Indian officer led the way. They left the room and marched down a long hallway, passing a dining room that still smelled of fried eggs. The lobby let them out to the courtyard, where UN personnel ran back and forth with buckets of water.
The fire had spread to a field of thorns and tumbleweed beyond the reach of the hoses. The smoke was overwhelming, and flecks of ash drifted in the air. Lemmy was shocked to see the enormous radar reflector resting in the courtyard, its massive center hinge pointing up, mangled as if it had been torn out of its housing.
The officer headed to the main gate. When they were two-thirds of the way across the courtyard, Lemmy saw a Jordanian army truck arrive at the gate, the open box filled with soldiers in camouflage uniform. A Jordanian officer stepped down from the cabin.
The UN officer ordered the gate opened and exchanged salutes with the Jordanian. “This man,” he said, pointing at Lemmy, “is an Israeli spy.” He held up the burnt remnant of the UN shirt Lemmy had worn.
The Jordanian officer yelled something in Arabic, and the soldiers started jumping off the back of the truck. Two of them grabbed Lemmy by the arms and marched him toward the side of the road, where a telephone pole waited as an ideal place of execution. Meanwhile the soldiers lined up with their rifles.
T he Jordanian sentry’s hand entered through Elie’s window, reaching for the paper. Making like he was handing it to him, Elie instead grabbed his hand and ordered Sanani, “Hit your guy now!”
Sanani’s door flew open, followed by a loud bang.
Elie pulled the Jordanian’s hand downward, bringing him closer to the window, and jabbed the blade upward at the Arab’s exposed neck, right under the chin, into the brainstem. He opened the car door and used it to shove away the sentry, who collapsed, no longer in control of his limbs.
With the dripping blade pointed at the ground, Elie got out of the Jeep and walked around the hood. He found Sanani locked in a wrestling match, the Jordanian on top, his hands clasping Sanani’s throat. Elie rested his hand lightly on the back of the soldier’s head, searched with his thumb for the soft spot just under the cranium, and slipped the blade in with little effort, all the way to the handle, its tip emerging through the gaping mouth.
Sanani’s eyes popped wide as he watched his opponent fall sideways onto the road. “What the hell!”
“Let’s go.” Elie wiped the blade on the dead soldier’s pants and sheathed it. Up the road, where they had come from a moment earlier, a few merchants lifted their long robes and gave chase, yelling in Arabic.
Sanani drove forward, between the two corpses. “We’re being pursued by a mob,” he said in a tremulous voice as he glanced at the rearview mirror.
“Make the turn and go fast. It’s too far for them to catch up.”
He pressed the pedal all the way, and the Jeep raced up the hill.
Four minutes later, they cleared the crest and saw Government House engulfed in smoke. On the right, Antenna Hill was burning. A Jordanian army truck stood by the gate.
“Not good!” Sanani slowed down.
