He walked behind the boy, placed his hands on his shoulders. "It's okay, son. Georgie didn't lead us to you. Matter of fact we backed into your little operation by mistake." He circled Zvi again, then sat down, looked hard at him, and shook his head. "We were after something else, but we found you." He shrugged. "Now we can't just let you go. Especially not after Hannah spilled."
Zvi studied him. "You're bluffing. She didn't say anything."
"Have it your way. But you know better. The women always squeal."
Another glare.
"It's true. They get lighter sentences, the courts are more disposed toward them. We point this out. Then, if they're smart, and most of them are, they do what they have to do. When the chips are down people always think about themselves."
"Bastard!"
"Don't be pissed at me, Zvi. I didn't do anything. I wasn't even looking for you. You trusted her, she squawked. Seems to me that's more your fault than mine." David shook his head again. "Georgie folded fast. Why shouldn't she? She knows Aaron doesn't give a damn about her, just uses her as something nice to fuck. Give Hannah credit. She cares for you but in the end she made the intelligent move. Now it's your turn. Are you bright enough to take it? I wonder if you are. I got odds from the other guys that you'll be the final hold-out, that, in the end, you'll be the one who burns…"
A half hour more of this kind of merciless talk and Zvi was trying desperately to hold back his tears.
"…maybe you can help us," David said. "You don't have to betray anyone. There's another abandoned house on the opposite slope. Bad stuff going on in there a couple of months ago. People coming and going, mostly late at night. Did you see anything? If you did, and you tell me about it…well, maybe, we can work a deal."
A pause while Zvi calculated. He spoke tentatively at first. "We thought they were cops."
"Really? Why?"
"I don't know. Aaron thought so. He said it was something about the way they moved."
"So?"
"So we laid low a while. We watched them."
"And?"
"We decided they weren't cops."
"So then what did you do?"
"We thought they might be a rival group using the place occasionally to do a trade."
"Did you go over there?"
"Aaron did. Got spooked too. Wanted us to move. But then…well, we decided to stick around. And after that they didn't come back."
David watched him. "There's something you're not telling me, Zvi."
"He followed them."
"Who?"
"Aaron."
"How?"
"On his scooter."
"Where?"
"To a private house."
David tried not to let his excitement show. "Which house?"
Zvi shrugged. "You'll have to ask him. He didn't say."
The simplest cleanest deals are always best. When David put it to Aaron, he let him know there'd be no compromise: "So far no one knows we've picked you up. We haven't contacted the Narc Unit and if you work with us we won't. The four of you go free. We never met you, we don't know you and, frankly, we don't ever want to see you again. Naturally we keep the pistols. In return you show us where you followed the people from that ruin across the gorge. That's it. Take it or leave it, tough guy. You got one minute to make up your mind…"
55 Lover of Zion Street. One of the best buildings on perhaps the best street in residential Jerusalem. David knew it well; it was just a block from his father's old house on Disraeli. He'd passed it hundreds of times when he was growing up.
An elegant, subdivided, four-story building with two entrances and an attached garage. An ornate wrought iron wall facing the street with a perfectly trimmed privet hedge behind. A gate for pedestrians and a second bigger one for cars. A small garden built around a mature jacaranda whose spreading branches cut the moonlight that fell upon carefully manicured beds of flowers.
He turned to Aaron. "So what did you see?"
"One guy got out, opened the gate. Then the other drove in the van. The first locked up again."
"How long did you wait?"
"About a minute."
They didn't see you?"
"My scooter's very quiet."
"That's it? Nothing else?"
Aaron shook his head.
David looked at him, reached out, grasped hold of his hair, pulled him close, and stared into his eyes. "Don't ever pack a pistol again." He pushed him away. Then Dov pulled him out of the car and shoved him from behind.
"Leave Jerusalem," David called after him. "Tell the others. You're finished here. All of you. We see you again we feed you to the narcs."
He had dropped Dov off at Gillo, was back now in Abu Tor cruising En Rogel Street, searching for a place to park. He found one up the block, locked the car, then walked back slowly toward number sixteen. It was 4 A.M.
He was aware, at last, of his exhaustion. He was filthy from the stake-out, sweaty from half a night spent in humid interrogation rooms. He'd been up twenty-four hours straight, talking with Peretz, crawling around a deserted Arab village, breaking down a gang of drug dealers, and now, finding his thinking scattered and slow, he longed for uninterrupted sleep.
He paused at the front door of his building trying to recall the combination. Three-three-five-something. He hesitated. The dogs…he didn't hear the neighborhood dogs which always barked when he came home late.
A squeaking sound, like a car door being opened. He had a bad feeling as he turned back toward the street. The cars all looked familiar, cars of people in his building and of neighbors who lived on either side. Then, when he noticed the boxlike silhouette of the large dark van parked on the other side, saw that its side panel door was open, realized he'd driven past it and then passed it again on foot just seconds before, he cursed and dove for the bushes beside the stoop. A second later there erupted the sounds of war.
Burp!-burp!-burp! Burp!-burp!-burp! Submachine-gun fire ripped across the front of number sixteen biting out little chips of stone. It ripped back again, lower this time, stitching the masonry just above his head. The dogs started to bark, all of them, at once. Chips fell on him as he drew his pistol and started firing back. Something hot touched his cheek. Wild barking. Another burst of fire. He saw sparks coming from the dark open back compartment of the van, then a figure crashing out headfirst onto the street. The panel door slammed shut. The engine started. The van peeled off toward the corner. It squealed as it turned left at the Ariel Hotel, then roared its way south along Hevron, fading finally until the only sound left was the desperate mad cacophony of the dogs.
Lights came on in the building next door. David heard windows being opened. When he glanced up at his own apartment, he saw the old lady who lived on the floor above leaning over her balcony staring down at him, worry and fascination on her face. It was a familiar expression; he'd seen it many times: fright and curiosity and also something else, that strange twist of the mouth that his father called "the guilty grimace of the survivor."
He pulled himself out of the shrubbery, went to the intercom, buzzed Anna, then touched his burning cheek. He licked his finger and tasted blood. A small piece of stone had cut his face.
"David! What happened?"
"An ambush. Don't worry, Anna. I'm fine. I really am. Please call Rafi for me. Ask him to come over and ask him to send a crew."
He walked slowly back into En Rogel Street toward the place where the van had been parked. He was looking for the figure he thought he'd seen crash out of the back of the van. In the shadow of another car he saw the form of a man lying face down on the pavement. He drew closer, observed large bloody tears in his shirt and that his hands were handcuffed behind his back. He studied him a while, then crouched and touched his neck. Stiff and cold. He turned him over. For a moment he didn't recognize him-features slack, face drained, the edge of anger gone, Peretz looked like any middle-aged Israeli male, eyes sad and woeful, who'd been dead for several hours.