The thunder of rain on the roof was redoubled, and the ground under the steel floor shook with an aftershock of the earthquake, or perhaps at the impact of a close lightning strike. Fleetingly Hale thought of the rough glass fulgurites he had found in the Rub’ al-Khali desert three months ago.
Philby had paused in his shuffling to stare speculatively at the curved, ribbed ceiling. “You’re insane,” he remarked in a conversational tone, “to invoke that name here, tonight. But you have, at least, summoned witnesses! No, we won’t split her. High hand wins her, and the low hand wins this.”
Holding the deck of cards in one hand, he reached with the other inside his robe, and then tossed out onto the blanket a thick roll of buff-colored paper.
Hale stared curiously at it-it appeared to be a manila envelope, tightly rolled up and tied with a ribbon. Red wax had been smeared across the ribbon and over an ink signature on the outside of the envelope, and the paper was speckled with half-dried red drops, blotted in spots with a dampness that must be recent rain.
From where he sat, Hale could read the signature’s last name-Maly.
Hale widened his eyes at Philby.
“I was supposed to get that in ’37, from an old friend, a Soviet agent I had…doubled, and was running in England. An inheritance, last-wishes type of thing. I only got it tonight, and even so I had to take it off of a dead man.”
“And it is what?”
“It’s the true Eucharist, the guide to it, anyway; it’s the reason Stalin purged the GRU in ’37-what you’d have called the Razvedupr, during your Paris days. Did you know that even the GRU cooks and lavatory attendants were killed, in that purge? The illegals in Europe had stumbled on a discovery, learned it from the Communist Polish Jews who had fled to Palestine, in the 1920s, and run the undercover Unity network there. At first it was just a-well, you must have stumbled across it-a sort of beat, or cadence, used in telegraphy, to project signals better. But the illegals eventually discovered that this sort of cadence could evoke peculiar aid in all sorts of situations. Eventually this man”-he reached forward to tap the rolled envelope-“discovered how it could be used to-if used in a certain symbiosis-prevent death.”
At the word death the shelter shook with a hard gust of shotgunning rain.
“Yes!” Philby shouted at the roof. To Hale, he went on, “You know the amomon plant-your Kurds must have told you about it.”
Hale turned up one palm. “Remind me.”
“It’s what my father searched for in the Rub’ al-Khali desert, what Lawrence found and chose to die rather than use; it’s-well, it’s the way to avoid the ‘truth to be found on the unknown shore,’ be sure that you won’t ‘without seeking find.’ Stop anyone from establishing the truth about you, hmm? Evade the”-the corners of his lips turned down ironically-“‘the wrath of God.’”
“Not die, you mean,” said Hale. “Directions are in that envelope.”
“Your position is gone, you do know that, don’t you? You’re out of a job, old son; so why bother acting skeptical now? Yes, in this envelope! It’s…it’s partly a crude musical score, I’m told, and partly a recipe, for the preparation and awakening of the angel that slumbers in the thistle.” He smiled. “You were brought up a Catholic-evade the Last Judgment, husband your precious sins-live forever, without the necessity of a resurrection!”
“And you’re willing to gamble that against”-Hale paused to gulp some more of the Scotch-“just for an unobstructed way with Elena.”
Philby opened his mouth as if in a laugh, but if there was any sound it was too soft for Hale to hear over the drumming of the rain. “I’m confident I’ll get this again,” Philby said, “if not entry to immortality on a higher level of access. You’ll never see it again, that’s certain.”
And no djinn died on the mountain tonight, Hale thought dully. There will be no poisoned honey for the Kurds next spring, and I won’t be bringing Elena to the village of Siamand Barakat Khan. But I might be able, back in the Nafud or Summan regions of the desert outside Kuwait, to find and kill a djinn; and then the following spring take a party of the Mutair out to look for blooming thistles…
Live forever, evade the wrath of God.
The taste of khaki, and blood…
He shuddered. “Deal,” he said.
Thunder broke in vast syllables across the sky outside, and Hale remembered that Philby had said his reference to King Solomon had summoned witnesses. And it occurred to him that Philby was not so much playing here to gain something as to make Hale “cast lots” for Elena, betray his love of her. Philby was supposed to be a master at getting Soviet agents to defect-was he playing here simply to get Hale to damn his own soul?
But the cards were already spinning out across the blanket, two down and one up. Hale was showing a three, and his hole cards proved to be a pair of nines. Not a bad start toward the high hand.
Philby’s showing card was an Ace-good either way.
“We’re both already all-in,” said Philby in a voice like rocks rubbing together. “No further betting.” He dealt two more cards face-up-Hale got a seven; Philby got a four, and was looking good so far for making the low hand.
Philby’s eyes were as empty as glass. “She’s staying in Dogubayezit,” he groaned as he flipped out two more cards. Hale got a ten, no help, and Philby got a six, looking very good for the low hand. “And she’s got her own room, at the quaintly styled Ararat Hotel! I’ve got my jeep here, I can drive us to town at dawn, and the holder of the high hand can sneak right up to her room then, hmm?” His stiff demeanor made the jocularity of his words grotesque.
Hale’s face chilled as he realized that Philby’s two hole cards might be Aces, giving him three of them. Philby might have a lock on the high hand.
What have I done, here? thought Hale, trying to will away the fog of alcohol. Will this game have real consequences? Am I giving her to Philby? Her, to Philby? With a sickness in the pit of his stomach he realized that he couldn’t back out of the hand now-he would simply be forfeiting the entire pot. And Philby had said there were witnesses. Hale remembered wondering if Philby was trying more to damn Hale’s soul here than to win; and he realized that Philby had lost his stutter in the last minute or so, as if another entity, a devil, was speaking through his lips.
“She doesn’t-Elena doesn’t-fancy you,” said Hale thickly.
Two more cards flipped out: Hale got a nine, giving him three of them now, and Philby got an eight. The rocking lamp flared and dimmed.
Philby’s voice was an echoing growclass="underline" “Do you think that will matter, after this?”
The bomb shelter shook with a gust of wind, or thunder, or an aftershock-the earth and sky seemed to be agreeing with Philby.
“Last card,” said Philby in a tone like the hollow crack of artillery; “down and dirty.” He dealt each of them a card face-down, and Hale picked his up from the shaking floor with trembling fingers. The welded seams of the shelter were creaking now as the little structure rocked in the wind like a boat on a turbulent sea.
Down and dirty. The whole bomb shelter was vibrating now.
Hale’s last card was another seven, giving him a full boat, nines over sevens. That was a good high hand-but Philby might conceivably have a better high hand, Aces-full, or even four Aces. If Hale declared high and then lost, he would lose the entire pot: Elena’s safety from Philby and the immortality, both. And even if he should choose to abandon Elena to Philby, and try for the immortality-declare low-Philby could easily have a better low hand than Hale’s terrible pair of sevens and could declare that way, and again win the whole pot.