Grodin did not reply immediately. Finally he said, “The man says we’ll meet again. He’s wrong.”
Yet they might have met again on the day that Anselmo was released. Grodin and his assistant were on hand. They watched from a distance while the terrorist was escorted from his cell to an armored car for transport to the Syrian lines, and Grodin had been assigned to oversee security procedures lest some zealot shoot Anselmo down as he emerged from the prison. They followed the armored car in a vehicle of their own, Meir driving, Grodin at his side. The ceremony at the Syrian border, by means of which custody of Anselmo was transferred from his Israeli guards to a group of Palestinian commandos, was indescribably tense; nevertheless it was concluded without a hitch.
Just before he entered the waiting car, Anselmo turned for a last look across the border. His eyes darted around as if seeking a specific target. Then he thrust out his jaw and drew back his lips, baring his jagged teeth in a final hideous smile. He gave his head a toss and ducked down into the car. The door swung shut. Moments later the car sped toward Damascus.
“Quite a performance,” Gershon Meir said.
“He’s an actor. Everything is performance for him. His whole life is theater.”
“He was looking for you.”
“I think not.”
“He was looking for someone. For whom else would he look?”
Grodin gave his head an impatient shake. His assistant looked as though he would have liked to continue the conversation, but recognized the gesture and let it drop.
On the long drive back Nahum Grodin leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. It seemed to him that he dreamed without quite losing consciousness. After perhaps half an hour he opened his blue eyes and straightened up in his seat.
“Where is he now?” he wondered aloud. “Damascus? Or is his plane already in the air?”
“I’d guess he’s still on the ground.”
“No matter. How do you feel, Gershon? Letting such a one out of our hands? Forget revenge. Think of the ability he has to work with disparate groups of lunatics. He takes partisans of one mad cause and puts them to work on behalf of another equally insane movement. He coordinates the actions of extremists who have nothing else in common. And his touch is like nobody else’s. This latest devilment at the United Nations — it is almost impossible to believe that someone other than Anselmo planned it. In fact I would not be surprised to learn that he had hatched the concept some time ago to be held at the ready in the event that he should ever be captured.”
“I wonder if that could be true.”
“It’s not impossible, is it? And we had to let him go.”
“We’ll never have to do that again.”
“No,” Grodin agreed. “One good thing’s come of this. The new law is not perfect, God knows. Instant trials and speedy hangings are not what democracies ought to aspire to. But it is comforting to know that we will not be in this position again. Gershon?”
“Yes?”
“Stop the car, please. Pull off on the shoulder.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No. But there is something I’ve decided to tell you. Good, and turn off the engine. We’ll be here a few moments.” Grodin squeezed his eyes shut, put his hand to his forehead. Without opening his eyes he said, “Anselmo said he and I would meet again. I told you the other day that he was wrong.”
“I remember.”
“He’ll never return to Israel, you see. He’ll meet his friends, if one calls such people friends, and he’ll go wherever he has it in mind to go. And in two weeks or a month or possibly as much as two months he will experience a certain amount of nervousness. He may be mentally depressed, he may grow anxious and irritable. It’s quite possible that he’ll pay no attention to these signs because they may not be very much out of the ordinary. His life is disorganized, chaotic, enervating, so this state I’ve discussed may be no departure from the normal course of things.”
“I don’t understand, Nahum.”
“Then after a day or so these symptoms will be more pronounced,” Grodin went on. “He may run a fever. His appetite will wane. He’ll grow quite nervous. He may talk a great deal, might even become something of a chatterbox. You recall that he said he sleeps like a baby. Well, he may experience insomnia.
“Then after a couple of days things will take a turn for the worse.” Grodin took a pinseal billfold from his pocket, drew out an unfolded sheet of paper. “Here’s a description from a medical encyclopedia. ‘The agitation of the sufferer now becomes greatly increased and the countenance now exhibits anxiety and terror. There is marked embarrassment of the breathing, but the most striking and terrible features of this stage are the effects produced by attempts to swallow fluids. The patient suffers from thirst and desires eagerly to drink, but on making the effort is seized with a violent suffocative paroxysm which continues for several seconds and is succeeded by a feeling of intense alarm and distress. Indeed the very thought of drinking suffices to bring on a choking paroxysm, as does also the sound of running water.
“ ‘The patient is extremely sensitive to any kind of external impression — a bright light, a loud noise, a breath of cool air — anything of this sort may bring on a seizure. There also occur general convulsions and occasionally a condition of tetanic spasm. These various paroxysms increase in frequency and severity with the advance of the disease.’ ”
“Disease?” Gershon Meir frowned. “I don’t understand, Nahum. What disease? What are you driving at?”
Grodin went on reading. “ ‘The individual experiences alternate intervals of comparative quiet in which there is intense anxiety and more or less constant difficulty in respiration accompanied by a peculiar sonorous exhalation which has suggested the notion that the patient barks like a dog. In many instances—’ ”
“A dog!”
“ ‘In many instances there are intermittent fits of maniacal excitement. During all this stage of the disease the patient is tormented with a viscid secretion accumulating in his mouth. From dread of swallowing this he constantly spits about himself. He may also make snapping movements of the jaws as if attempting to bite. These are actually a manifestation of the spasmodic action which affects the muscles in general. There is no great amount of fever, but the patient will be constipated, his flow of urine will be diminished, and he will often feel sexual excitement.
“ ‘After two or three days of suffering of the most terrible description the patient succumbs, with death taking place either in a paroxysm of choking or from exhaustion. The duration of the disease from the first declaration of symptoms is generally from three to five days.’ ”
Grodin refolded the paper, returned it to his wallet. “Rabies,” he said quietly. “Hydrophobia. Its incubation period is less than a week in dogs and other lower mammals. In humans it generally takes a month to erupt. It works faster in small children, I understand. And if the bite is in the head or neck the incubation period is speeded up.”
“Can’t it be cured? I thought—”
“The Pasteur shots. A series of about a dozen painful injections. I believe the vaccine is introduced by a needle into the stomach. And there are other less arduous methods of vaccination if the particular strain of rabies virus can be determined. But they have to be employed immediately. Once the incubation period is complete, once the symptoms manifest themselves, then death is inevitable.”
“God.”
“By the time Anselmo has the slightest idea what’s wrong with him—”
“It will be too late.”
“Exactly,” Grodin said.