It must be the katsa from Prague, Lepidopt thought. But how on earth did he track us here? The finger. They put something in the finger.
And when he had walked up to within a few paces of the car, he realized that he wouldn't need to ask for identification, for he recognized the old man — this was the instructor who had taken the young Halomot students into the desert north of Ramie in 1967, and summoned the Babylonian air devil Pazuzu, which had whirled ferociously around them but had at the same time been profoundly motionless.
Lepidopt wasn't reassured by the man's smile. "Every plan is a basis for change," he said gruffly. That was an old Mossad saying, reflecting the fluid nature of field operations. "New developments indicated—"
"And you can't rely on sevirut," the old man interrupted. Sevirut meant "probability," and after Israel's general staff had used the term to dismiss the likelihood of a surprise attack from Egypt and Syria in 1973 — a surprise attack that had occurred twenty-four hours later — Golda Meir had said she shuddered every time she heard the word.
Lepidopt thought of old Sam Glatzer, and Ernie Bozzaris, and Bozzaris's sayan detective in San Diego. There had been no evident probability that any of them would die. "True," he said, exhaling.
"You through here?" the old man asked, and when Lepidopt nodded, he said, "Let's look at the situation."
Lepidopt got into the backseat, and the katsa walked around to open the passenger-side door. "I understand you've got Einstein's machine," the katsa said as he folded himself into the seat and pulled the door closed, "but you don't know how to work it. I'm Aryeh Mishal, in case you don't remember the name from that day in the desert."
"Get us out of here, Bert," said Lepidopt, "the Bradleys can find their own way home."
He stretched his legs to the side and leaned his head back on the seat, heedless of disarranging his yarmulke-toupee. "And head for the Pico Kosher Deli, I'm starving." To the white-haired head in the front seat, he said, "That's right. The only living person who has worked the machine is now with the other team, whoever they are, and they've captured a source of mine. Two of our sayanim and one of our agents are dead. Altogether it has not been a — a textbook operation." He hefted Marrity's briefcase and set it down on the seat beside him. "We do have some letters Einstein wrote to his daughter. They might be helpful."
"I'll salvage what can be salvaged," said Mishal in a contented tone. "First I want you to—"
He was interrupted by the electronic buzz of the cellular phone. Only one person had the number to that phone, and Lepidopt straightened up and reached between the front seats to lift it out of its case.
He took a deep breath and then switched the telephone on. "Yes."
"You guys were too slow," came Frank Marrity's voice from the earpiece. "They've got my daughter now."
"Where are you now?"
"At the Roosevelt Hotel, in the lobby. They—"
"How did they find the two of you?" Lepidopt asked.
"I'm not sure — apparently my father — who isn't the—"
Lepidopt tensed when he heard fumbling at the other end of the line, but relaxed a little when a woman's voice came on.
"They've got his father's mummified head in a box," the woman said. "It's not quite dead, and it can point to Frank here via an electric Ouija board. We shouldn't stay here."
Marrity's voice came from farther away: "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Put him back on," said Lepidopt. A moment later he could hear heavy breathing. "Frank, who is she, the woman with you?"
"Her name's Charlotte something. She's the woman who tried to shoot me this morning, sunglasses, apparently she's changed sides. Listen, it's crazy to say my father's head is — 'not quite dead'! — in a box, tracking me."
A defector from the other side! thought Lepidopt. He covered the mouthpiece with his palm and whispered to Malk, "The Roosevelt Hotel, now." Lifting his hand away, he said, "Listen, Frank, we can save your daughter. We need to meet. We're only—"
"But that's crazy, isn't it? Daphne's kidnapped and I'm standing here with a crazy woman."
Lepidopt spoke carefully. "Have you experienced supernatural or paranormal events, in the last three days?"
"You know I have. You were there when that thing showed up on the TV last night."
"And you know something about Einstein, and your grandmother's shed. Has this Charlotte woman been involved in this stuff longer than you have? "
"Yes, obviously."
"Then just maybe she's not crazy. Reserve judgment. Will Charlotte talk with us?"
"She wants to, yes."
"Good. We're only ten minutes away — stay there in the lobby. It's public. Okay? Your daughter's life is at stake."
"Okay."
Lepidopt turned off the phone and leaned forward to put it back in its case. "That was the agent I thought had been captured. He's in the lobby at the Roosevelt with a woman who was on the opposing team. Apparently she's switched sides and wants to talk to us."
"All right," said Malk, hunched over the wheel.
"The opposing team," Lepidopt went on, "has — according to the woman — has my man's father's head in a box, and it can lead them to him."
"I can hide him from that," said Mishal, facing forward again. "You're going to have to buy a couple of bottles of whisky, Oren."
Lepidopt pressed his lips together. He remembered how whisky had been used in some of the demonstrations in his training.
"This agent," Mishal went on, "how did you recruit him?"
"I false-flagged him, told him I'm with the NSA. It was a hasty recruitment, but his daughter was about to invite a dybbuk into herself."
"A dybbuk." Lepidopt saw the white head nodding. "How would you guess you'll rate this agent in your eventual Tsiach report? Hardly blue and white, I imagine," the old man added with a chuckle.
Blue and white, the colors of Israel's flag, indicated an agent who was totally committed to the Israeli cause.
"I think he'll work out as a B," Lepidopt said. "Maybe a B minus. He initially lied to us about where he had stashed the Einstein letters, but all agents lie about something."
"And ideally they never find out they were agents," said Mishal. "But at least he imagines he's working for the NSA, albeit an NSA that foils dybbuks. Right?"
"That's right."
In the rearview mirror, Malk gave Lepidopt a sympathetic glance.
"I hope you remember," said Mishal mildly, "that you're — we're — operating outside normal channels here. We have no diplomatic immunity; if we're caught, we go to prison as spies."
"I'd like to know who they'd say we're spying on," said Lepidopt.
Mishal laughed. "I imagine impersonating an NSA officer would suffice to get you arrested. And then they'd look at your American passport. You've played very fast and loose here so far. I'm here to rein you in and save your mutinous hide."
Lepidopt nodded tiredly, though the old man couldn't see it, and he wondered what he might find suitable to eat in the Roosevelt bar. There wouldn't be any glat kosher sandwiches, for sure. Maybe celery and carrot sticks. A lot of them.
"He's actually Mossad," said Charlotte quietly, "not NSA." She held out her hand, and Marrity glanced at the glass-topped table so that she could see where her martini glass was. "Thanks," she said, reaching down and curling her fingers around the stem of it.
The Roosevelt Hotel lobby was enormous, with a second-floor balcony on all four sides and an ornate ceiling high overhead, and it echoed with talk and laughter and the rumble of wheeled luggage. Marrity and Charlotte were seated next to each other on a small tan couch that faced away from the Hollywood Boulevard entrance, not far from where a black stone statue of Charlie Chaplin sat on a bench for tourists to have their pictures taken with. Charlotte had said that with all these eyes moving around, she didn't need to put Marrity in a good vantage point.