The Twisted Wire

by Richard Falkirk

  Outside the office Ralston said to himself: ‘And you don’t want the call overheard.’ He smiled for the first time that morning.

  From a tousled bed in an apartment just off the Kings Road, Chelsea, Helen Bartlett observed Ahmed Heykal preparing to dress. It was, she thought, a slow, exhibitionist process. His body was very brown and muscular, very hirsute; his felt cap of hair was undisturbed although they had just finished making love. She thought suddenly of the frailer body of her husband and was immediately disgusted by her infidelity. But she knew from experience that subsequent attentions from Ahmed would quickly dispel the disgust.

  However, momentarily, contrition prevailed. She remembered meeting Bartlett ten years ago at a cocktail party when he had been attending a geological conference in New York. He was the sort of man who inadvertently attracted women: they always wanted to straighten his tie, remove the ballpoint pen from his breast pocket; then show him the city and later their apartments. It was only during the permanent relationship of marriage that his forgetfulness and untidiness became an irritation rather than an attraction. And since he had achieved worldwide recognition in his profession they had become more remote from each other, she often staying in the town apartment while he worked in his study in Sussex. But, she thought, he was nice; she wouldn’t like to think of him coming to any harm in Israel.

  ‘Ahmed,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’

  He was standing naked selecting a suit from a wardrobe like a miniature men’s outfitters. In the long mirror she could see the front of Ahmed’s body and, behind it, her own pale face framed with gossamer blonde hair.

  ‘Tom won’t come to any harm, will he?’

  ‘Why should he?’ Ahmed chose a diplomatic grey lightweight and turned his attention to his ties.

  ‘I don’t know. You seemed rather excited about what I told you.’

  ‘Not excited. Just interested.’

  ‘You promise me nothing will happen to him?’

  Ahmed selected a blue silk Christian Dior and moved to the dressing table to look for socks. ‘I promise you, my dear.’

  She sank back in the pillows and regarded his broad back thickened at the waist by his London cost-of-living allowance, ‘Why were you so interested?’

  He chose a pair of black socks and returned to the bed. ‘It’s nothing for you to worry about my dear,’ he said. Helen Bartlett decided that she was glad that Ahmed had not put any clothes on. Almost immediately the disgust and contrition evaporated.

  FIVE

  It was 7 a.m. when Bartlett awoke. A Khamsin was blowing from the south; the morning light was orange and the window was rimed with dust from the desert. Undeterred, elderly and middle-aged American tourists were performing their exercises on the beach in front of the hotel.

  Bartlett avoided the raw delights of a Jewish breakfast by telephoning for hard-boiled eggs. He lay in bed and glanced at the Jerusalem Post. Moshe Dayan had reported to the Cabinet on security; Mrs Golda Meir was flying to Washington to ask for more arms to balance the Russian aid flowing into the Arab countries.

  At the Lag Ba’Omer celebrations at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai two hundred people had been treated for insect bites, two more had suffered heart attacks, dozens of children had been lost, twenty pickpockets had been arrested and the beggars had departed with ‘bulging pockets’. But, according to the reporter, ‘the spirit of merry-making was not to be dimmed’.

  On the Israeli-held bank of the Suez Canal an Irish captain in the United Nations had been wounded when his Jeep hit a Chinese mine. The UN’s task, Bartlett thought, was probably the most abortive in its history. On the front page there were two more photographs of Israeli soldiers killed at Kantara.

  He switched on the radio. There had already been an artillery duel that morning 85 kilometres away on the Jordanian cease-fire line north of Jericho, and Israeli jets had attacked a radar installation across the River Jordan from Beit Shean.

  On the beach outside the hotel two youths started up with bats and balls and the Americans came in for breakfast lightly coated with Khamsin dust.

  Bartlett took a shower and shaved carefully with his old razor and moulting badger-hair brush. As he shaved he considered the events of the past two days. Fear, excitement and determination to confound his pursuers fused into a single emotion. But why was anyone pursuing him? He decided to report to the police after the trip to the Dead Sea.

  Beneath the perplexity and excitement there was another emotion. He identified it while he was dressing: it concerned Raquel Rabinovitz. The emotion was vague – affectionate, almost paternal. Paternal? He looked at himself in the wardrobe mirror and thought: ‘Bartlett, you’re a bloody liar.’

  He picked up his camera and joined his group in the hotel foyer.

  The geologists were assigned to five minibus sheruts visiting different destinations so that if the Arabs opened fire the world would not instantaneously be deprived of all its geological brainpower. As Bartlett had anticipated Everett was assigned to the same sherut as himself. Bartlett sat down abruptly and pulled down a geologist he had met in Los Angeles on to the seat beside him. Everett sat in front of them.

  The guide was a young American immigrant named Samuel who had brought his southern drawl with him. He was dark and angular and dedicated.

  ‘I must warn you folks,’ he said, ‘that there is a very slight element of danger in this trip. But only very slight, I assure you. There has been shooting around the Dead Sea in the past. But it’s usually been early in the morning. As you may have heard on the radio our jets strafed the Arabs across the Jordan River early this morning so it’s my guess that there won’t be any more trouble today. Still, if there’s any of you who would like to opt out now’s your chance.’

  No one moved. In any case, Bartlett thought, you could hardly be expected to publicly affirm cowardice.

  As they passed through the apartment-block suburbs of Tel Aviv, Everett turned and said: ‘We’ll talk a little later, Bartlett.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Bartlett said.

  ‘When we stop,’ Everett said.

  ‘I expect so,’ Bartlett said.

  The American geologist whose name was Wheeler said: ‘When I met you in Los Angeles I never guessed we’d meet here. You’re an authority on these parts, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not an authority. I’ve been in the Sinai before. That’s all.’

  Just outside Tel Aviv the sherut stopped at a road block. Police glanced inside and waved the driver on.

  Samuel said: ‘Sorry folks – a necessary precaution these days, I guess.’

  They drove past rusting fleets of captured lorries, past orange groves and fields of sunflowers. The flat countryside began to dip and climb. Pine and cypress and green hills stepped with terraces as old as the Bible. Beside the road they saw old-fashioned armoured cars wrecked and abandoned during the 1948 war. Then new Jerusalem materialised – a wall of apartment blocks.

  ‘The most disappointing first view in the world,’ Bartlett said.

  Wheeler said: ‘At least it’s not divided any more. The old and the new city, I mean. At least it’s all ours.’

  Bartlett looked at Wheeler in surprise. He was a middle-aged man who wore loneliness like an old and familiar coat. ‘Are you Jewish then?’ Bartlett said.

  Wheeler nodded. ‘I never thought I’d be able to visit the old city of Jerusalem.’

  Everett turned round. ‘I understand you’re all touring the old city tomorrow when you move base from Tel Aviv.’

  Bartlett said: ‘And you’re coming with us?’

  Everett’s smile was a seal of friendship. ‘Sure thing,’ he said. ‘I’m real glad I managed to hitch a lift with you guys.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure,’ Wheeler said. Bartlett remembered the ruthlessness and said nothing.

  The sherut edged round. the walls of the old city and headed towards Jericho. The countryside harshened. Obelisks, pyramids and cubes of brown and white rock sculptured and scoured
by wind and sand. A few Bedouin tents like brown aphides in the distance.

  Samuel said: ‘It was down this road, folks, that the Arabs retreated after the Six Day War.’ Two Israeli half-tracks mounted with machine guns crunched up the winding road; Samuel waved and the dusty, goggled soldiers waved back.

  The sherut stopped behind a small hotel on the shores of the Dead Sea. The air was as dead as the sea; no wind, no birdsong.

  ‘Kind of spooky, isn’t it, folks?’ Samuel said. ‘But you see those hills over there? He pointed across the thick water at the limestone defences of Jordan. ‘There’s as many guns in those hills as St Peter’s fish in the Sea of Galilee.’ He grinned proudly and pointed behind them at the brown battlements of the Israeli-occupied hills – the Wilderness of Sudan. ‘But I reckon there’s a darn sight more there.’

  An ancient and theatrical Arab asked them to pose with a live camel that looked as if it had been stuffed beside a notice which said: WORLD’S LOWEST POINT. 394 MTRS. (1291 FT.) BELOW SEA LEVEL.

  Samuel said: ‘You can have a swim, folks, if you want to. I reckon it’s going to be quiet for the time being. But don’t swim out too far. Just remember that the cease-fire line runs down the middle of this here sea.’

  In the changing room Everett said: ‘There’s no point in dodging any more, Bartlett. We have to talk.’ It was an order from the man behind the friendly mask.

  ‘In here?’

  Everett looked around at the geologists changing. ‘No, we’ll swim away from the rest of these guys.’ He stripped down to a pair of tartan boxer trunks; Bartlett noted hard muscles beneath freckled skin. He decided not to examine his own torso in the mirror.

  They walked to the edge of the sea and tested the oily water with their toes.

  Samuel said: ‘I don’t have to tell you folks not to get this stuff in your eyes. I guess you know more about these things than I do.’

  They all waded out and suspended themselves in the water. Rolled themselves in a ball, lay out with hands behind their heads – the experts on the world’s crust besporting themselves at its nadir.

  Everett said: ‘Come on, Bartlett, we’ll swim out a bit.’

  ‘All right,’ Bartlett said. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

  ‘You know what all this is about, of course.’

  ‘I have no idea. All I know is that you’ve been following me and I was shot at yesterday.’

  ‘The hell you were. Where was that?’

  ‘Up by the River Yarkon when all the bonfires were burning.’

  ‘Any idea who took a shot at you?’

  ‘I think it was the Pole who was sitting beside you in the plane. But I can’t be sure.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Everett said. ‘The Pole. He’s supposed to be one of you guys. A geologist.’ He stopped swimming and floated upright like a seahorse. ‘A good front. That’s how the Russians work. They give a man his front when he’s still a kid.’

  ‘The Russians?’

  ‘Sure, the Russians. He might be a Polish Jew but, just as sure as there are Jordanian guns trained on us at this moment, he’s a Soviet agent.’

  ‘What on earth is this all about?’ Bartlett peered across the motionless water towards the break in the shoreline where the River Jordan entered the lake.

  ‘According to a message I received this morning you overheard a certain telephone call the day before yesterday. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bartlett said. ‘I overheard the President of the United States.’ It sounded so incongruous that he laughed and swallowed a mouthful of liquid salt.

  ‘And you still don’t know what this is all about?’

  ‘Not a clue,’ Bartlett said.

  Everett frowned. ‘You’re one of three things,’ he said. ‘You’re either a liar, a Communist, or incredibly naïve.’

  ‘I’m going back to the shore,’ Bartlett said.

  ‘Okay, okay – you’re none of those things.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you are,’ Bartlett said. ‘But whatever it is you’re not a diplomat.’

  ‘Okay, so my manners aren’t so good. But I guess you’d better know what this is all about. Didn’t you get the gist of any of the conversation you overheard?’

  ‘Not really.’ How could you explain that you had been expecting to hear the voice of your unfaithful wife and that you had been overcome by an attack of hay fever?

  ‘I suppose it’s possible because you didn’t overhear the conversation the day before.’

  ‘I don’t listen to all the President’s private conversations.’

  ‘The fact of the matter is that you can play a pretty important role in ironing out the Middle East crisis.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Bartlett said.

  ‘And bring a lot of prestige to the United …’ He stopped himself. ‘To the West.’

  ‘How?’

  Wheeler splashed up behind them. He was trying to do the crawl; the result was ludicrous because his body stayed on the surface of the water. ‘Hallo there,’ he said. He had already got the water in his myopic eyes and they were turning from pink to red.

  Everett said: ‘Do you mind leaving us alone for a couple of minutes, Mr Wheeler? We’ve got something rather important to discuss.’

  Wheeler looked surprised and hurt. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I was just trying out the crawl. I’ve wanted to do it all my life but I usually sink.’

  ‘I’ll join you in a minute,’ Bartlett said.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Wheeler said, rubbing more salt in his eyes.

  Everett said: ‘I’m sorry, Mr Wheeler.’

  The words were spoken by the naïve and completely spurious Everett. They were also the last words ever to be spoken by either Everett the ingenious or Everett the devious.

  In the Jordanian hills Bartlett noticed a tiny puff of grey smoke. Ahead of him a line of splashes appeared on the water and subsided. Fractionally later he heard the shots. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘they’re shooting at us.’

  Everett didn’t reply. Behind Bartlett the other geologists were floundering towards the shore and Samuel was shouting at them on the stony beach. Beside him Everett floated in water dyed red by the blood pouring from a wound in his chest.

  Bartlett swam up to him. But there was no pulse, no hope. On his friendly face there was an expression of mild surprise and his eyes were open just below the surface of the water. Involuntarily Bartlett put this hand on the tough stubble of Everett’s hair.

  Faintly he heard Samuel’s voice. ‘For God’s sake get back here you two. The bastards are shooting at us.’

  About fifty yards in front of him another clutch of bullets plucked the water like hailstones. He let go of Everett’s body. Beneath him he felt a deep salty current. Everett’s body moved away and turned over so that he looked as if he were peering at the sea bed through goggles.

  ‘Come back, for God’s sake.’ Samuel’s shout whispered across the dead air above the Dead Sea.

  On shore near the border a saloon car started up and accelerated towards Jerusalem in a ball of dust.

  Bartlett started to swim after Everett’s body but the current was pulling it swiftly from him. By the time Bartlett reached the beach it had crossed the cease-fire line. At least, he thought, it would never sink.

  SIX

  In his second-floor room in the Dan Hotel the Polish Jew, Matthew Yosevitz, dismantled the rifle with the telescopic sights given to him in Jaffa by agents of El Fatah and ordered a pot of tea with lemon.

  Then he lay down on the bed, stared out across the placid sea draped with orange Khamsin dust and considered his predicament.

  He was twenty-seven years of age, a qualified geologist. with a growing international reputation, a trained assassin, an up-and-coming officer in the KGB, and a member of the Communist Party. But he was also a Jew and therein lay his predicament.

  At the age of seven Yosevitz, whose parents had been killed in the war, had been taken from Warsaw to Moscow. There he was brought
up as a Russian and a Communist. By the age of seventeen all traces of Semitism had ostensibly been expunged: he was a young Communist zealot and a fledgling member of the secret police. There was no treachery involved: it was merely that Communism was all he knew.

  After aptitude tests held in the vaults of Lubyanka police headquarters opposite a toy shop in Moscow, Yosevitz was sent back to Warsaw to study geology and renew contacts with the Jewish community.

  By these methods Communist agents were introduced into Israel as immigrants afire with Zionism. Each was schooled in the attitudes to present to the Israeli screening officers. When the immigrants had satisfied the Israeli security machine the Soviets assumed that they had established an agent in Israel. And that, Yosevitz now knew, was where the Soviets could well be making a considerable error of judgement.

  When he arrived in Israel, Yosevitz phlegmatically resolved to carry out the bidding of his KGB colonel in Warsaw. The obstacles did not appear formidable – a pleasant but ingenuous English geologist, a known American agent, and probably an Israeli operator somewhere around. But even as he drove from Lod airport to Tel Aviv the instincts of Judaism began to awake – a heritage that could never be completely erased by any modern ideology; a heritage that suddenly germinated and blossomed on its own soil.

  Yosevitz found he wanted to share the aloneness and swagger of the Israelis – but you couldn’t completely discard beliefs assimilated for twenty years. He wanted to help protect his land – but he had been briefed to undermine its protection. He was a Communist and a Jew. In other words, he thought, drawing the curtains across the orange afternoon, I am a dual personality, a schizophrenic.

  A waiter brought the tea. A tough-looking man in his thirties with a handsome hawkish face. He didn’t look like a waiter.

  Yosevitz said: ‘Just a minute.’

  The waiter stopped at the door.

  ‘How long have you worked here as a waiter?’

  ‘Not very long, sir. I’m just helping out. Several of the staff have had to go on reserve duty in the Army.’