The Twisted Wire

by Richard Falkirk

‘He’s a bloody liar. Do I look mad?’

  The policeman shook his head. ‘Not really, sir. But perhaps he was trying to grab at you to show you something. These guides can be a nuisance like that.’

  ‘He was trying to steal my briefcase,’ Bartlett said. ‘What’s more, he’s got a gun inside his jacket.’

  The policeman’s hand strayed to his own gun. ‘Is that true?’ he said in Arabic.

  The Arab’s hands fawned.

  The policeman said: ‘He still says you’re crazy.’

  ‘Then search him.’

  The second policeman slapped the Arab’s body without any concessions to gentleness and rifled his pockets. ‘Nothing there,’ he said.

  ‘But there must be,’ Bartlett said.

  ‘Sorry sir, but there isn’t.’ The policeman and the Arab looked up at the sun in the hot blue sky.

  So did Bartlett. Was he going crazy? A persecution complex? A couple of minutes ago the Arab had been pointing a gun at him. Where was it? He looked up the road and saw the three children disappearing round the corner. ‘Forget it,’ he said.

  He walked with the policemen through a confusion of lanes. Past ruined synagogues and living churches. There was little evidence that they were in an occupied. city. Occasionally they saw other policemen and a few Israeli soldiers heavy with guns. But that was all. The preponderance of aliens among the Arabs were the tourists and the extreme Orthodox Jews, some with ginger hair and big fur hats.

  They passed a sign asserting VIRGIN MARY BORN HERE. The police left him at the corner of the Aqabat Darwish and the Via Dolorosa beside the Chapel of Flagellation near the Second Station of the Cross. He walked slowly towards the Third Station where Jesus fell for the first time. He stopped at a small hot café like a cave and ordered coffee. He permitted a boy to shine his shoes and searched the passing crowds for a smile like Nasser’s. He felt quite calm because he was becoming accustomed to his fugitive status.

  The coffee was thick and sweet. The boy’s enthusiastic polishing tickled his feet. He gave him a coin and thought how much he and Helen would have enjoyed sharing the experience of Jerusalem ten years ago. Before she had settled for the cocktail values of life in preference to the afternoon tea pleasures of being a geologist’s wife. Occasionally he missed her company; but not very often. these days; the infidelity had become too blatant.

  He paid for his coffee and glanced at his watch. It was midday. He would have to be getting back to the hotel. He picked up the briefcase which he had kept on the table and walked into the Via Dolorosa. near Our Lady of the Spasm. He was turning right towards the Church of St Veronica when the briefcase was wrenched from his hand. He caught. a glimpse of the Nasser-profile and gave chase.

  As he ran he realised that he was following the rest of the Stations of the Cross up the ascent to Calvary. The Arab paused on the corner of El Beiraq and glanced behind him. Bartlett gained ground and. shouted, ‘Stop, thief!’ A few people stopped and looked at him with surprise. But their reactions were too slow. The Arab plunged on along the Via Dolorosa towards the site of the Gate of Judgement where Jesus fell for the second time.

  Bartlett pushed and elbowed his way through the tourists, the pilgrims, the Arabs. Everyone seemed to be going in the opposite direction. Sweat poured down his face; his chest ached; his age called to him.

  He lost the Arab at the Eighth Station marked by a cross on the wall of the Greek Orthodox Convent of St Charalambos. It was also the end of the Via Dolorosa.

  He saw the Arab look behind him. Then the crowds closed between them. When he reached the Station there was no sign of the Arab. Bartlett knew it was hopeless.

  He walked back towards the Damascus Gate, stopping on the way for an orange mineral water and a cigarette. Before he realised it another boy was polishing one of his shoes again.

  In the mêlée outside the Damascus Gate he climbed into a cab and told the driver to take him to the hotel.

  The driver said: ‘You American?’

  Bartlett didn’t reply.

  A couple of minutes later they were at the hotel. The driver said: ‘That will be two dollars.’ Bartlett again replied without respect for the setting and gave him the equivalent of fifty cents.

  The geologists stood in groups in the foyer of the hotel gesticulating and talking in half a dozen languages.

  Bartlett found Wheeler and said: ‘What the hell’s going on?’

  Wheeler said: ‘Apparently about half of the delegates went to some Arab restaurant last night and they’ve all got dysentery.’ He smiled. ‘Serves them right – they should have eaten Kosher.’

  ‘And what’s going to happen?’

  ‘They’re postponing the conference for a couple of days. Anyone who wants to can go home. But I’m staying – I like it here.’

  ‘So do I,’ Bartlett said. ‘With certain reservations.’

  ‘Are you going to stay?’

  ‘Naturally,’ Bartlett said.

  While they were talking Bartlett was paged. There was a phone call for him and it was Raquel. ‘Good news, I hear,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean good news? They’ve postponed the conference for two days.’

  ‘I know. That’s what I mean. I’ve got to go into the Golan Heights for two days. Now you will be able to come with me.’

  Pleasure leaped inside him as it had in the days when he had looked forward to a weekend with Helen. ‘How did you know that the conference had been postponed?’

  ‘It was on the radio. Apparently a lot of you learned gentlemen have gone down with stomach trouble. You haven’t caught it, have you?’

  ‘I nearly caught lead poisoning in old Jerusalem this morning.’

  ‘How was that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘One of your jokes, perhaps?

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said.

  ‘Then I shall come round to your hotel later today. Shalom.’

  ‘Shalom, shalom,’ he said.

  He found Wheeler in the bar having a drink with the Polish Jew Matthew Yosevitz. Yosevitz said: ‘Good afternoon, Mr Bartlett. You left the party very quickly last night. It wasn’t the complaint that our colleagues are suffering from, was it?’

  Bartlett shook his head.

  ‘That was a very pretty girl you were dancing with.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bartlett said. ‘She is very pretty.’

  ‘Israeli?’

  ‘She’s not Arab.’ He looked into the pale eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles. ‘I had quite a morning this morning.’

  ‘Really? What happened?’

  ‘An Arab stole my briefcase in the Old City.’

  Yosevitz turned abruptly and knocked his glass of vodka off the bar. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘How very distressing for you.’

  NINE

  The draught beer was good and cold and frothy – on sale, Dean Ralston decided, for the benefit of dissolute foreigners. Beside him at the sidewalk café of Ibn Gvirol an Air Force pilot wearing expensive green sunglasses talked earnestly to a soldier girl with a ponytail. They were both eating ice cream and drinking orange squash.

  Ralston wiped a pencil moustache of froth from his lip and applied his mind to his assignment. Being a professional he decided first to consider his private misgivings and then file them away until the job was finished. That was the way he had worked in Saigon when his cover had been the same – magazine photographer. Instinctively his hand reached for the two 35-millimetre cameras hanging on the chair.

  The girl with the ponytail smiled at him and he took her picture. The pilot did not appear to share her pleasure.

  Ralston returned to his misgiving. The United States whole-heartedly backed Israel; admired their fortitude and their aggressive efficiency. But did that mean he could work in close co-operation with the Israeli secret service? Did it hell.

  Ralston, who had once been a Chicago policeman and had spent the rest of his life trying not to look like one, lit a cigar and ordered another beer.

&
nbsp; The misgivings had first been alerted during his last session with the Ambassador in London.

  ‘Everett was shot dead this morning,’ the Ambassador had said. ‘You know about that, of course.’

  Ralston nodded. ‘I heard about an hour ago. Poor bastard. He has a wife and two kids in London. He was due back in Washington in a couple of months.’

  ‘I am aware of that,’ the Ambassador said. ‘Everything possible is being done for them. I am deeply grieved by the whole affair.’

  He looked it, Ralston thought. His pouched face was very weary. ‘What the hell are we going to do?’ Ralston said.

  ‘You usually tell me what we’re going to do in circumstances like this,’ the Ambassador said.

  ‘But on this occasion you are going to tell me. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ said the Ambassador. ‘This affair is being conducted at a higher level than usual.’

  ‘Has the President been on the wire again?’

  The Ambassador poured himself a glass of water. ‘This morning.’

  ‘He must have called from his bed,’ Ralston said.

  ‘Perhaps. He is very disturbed about the whole business. As you know he was as anxious as hell about this guy Bartlett. Then he heard that his top priority wire had been intercepted. That didn’t please him any. Now this poor bastard Everett has gotten himself killed.’

  Ralston said: ‘The Israelis are saying he was killed by gunfire from the Jordanian hills. My people don’t believe that.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ the Ambassador said. This morning he was drinking his water as if it were wine – sipping it meditatively. ‘My guess is that he was knocked off by an Arab marksman inside Israel. Or even a Soviet agent.’

  ‘Or perhaps they were aiming for Bartlett,’ Ralston said.

  ‘I could believe that if it had been an Arab sniper. But not a KGB man.’ He paused. ‘What beats me is why your department didn’t manage to get at Bartlett while he was still in this country.’

  Ralston said: ‘Because we thought we’d have a nice long cosy chat with him on the aircraft and at Tel Aviv airport. We didn’t anticipate that the Soviets would have tapped the President’s line and got an agent on the plane as well.’

  ‘It’s one hell of a mess,’ the Ambassador said.

  ‘Yes,’ Ralston said. He walked to the window and gazed down at Grosvenor Square. The sunshine had condensed into rain. The rain had proved too much for a small group of love-not-war demonstrators outside and they had dispersed. He lit a cigarette and waited for the inevitable.

  The Ambassador said: ‘You asked what we were going to do.’

  Ralston said: ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘We’re sending you to Israel,’ the Ambassador said. ‘On this afternoon’s plane.’

  ‘I figured you were going to say that,’ Ralston said.

  ‘You don’t object?’

  ‘Not in the slightest. In any case it’s not in my contract to object. But it is the first time I’ve been given orders by an Ambassador.’

  ‘I indicated to you the level at which we’re operating. I have consulted your boss. He said you were the man for the job.’

  ‘That’s very complimentary,’ Ralston said.

  ‘Because you are a bachelor,’ the Ambassador said. He swallowed the last of his vintage water.

  ‘Okay,’ Ralston said. ‘So no one cares if I get killed.’

  The Ambassador relented slightly. ‘He also said you were a very good operator.’ He fingered the small wad of flesh under his chin. ‘I should have thought perhaps you looked a bit too much like a policeman.’

  Ralston sighed. ‘That is my great strength,’ he said. ‘I look so much like a cop no one believes it could be true.’

  ‘Okay,’ the Ambassador said. ‘You’ve convinced me. Now a few words of caution. When you get to Israel you are not to have anything to do with the Israeli secret service. Do you understand?’

  ‘Sure I understand. But why? I figured we were supposed to be on the same side.’

  ‘We are,’ the Ambassador said. ‘At different levels.’

  ‘These levels,’ Ralston said. ‘All they mean is that we don’t level with anyone.’

  The Ambassador said: ‘It’s as simple as this, Ralston. The four powers are trying to hammer out a solution to the Middle East crisis. If we can get this dope from Bartlett we’ll be able to negotiate from a position of strength. It will be great for American prestige and ultimately it will be to the advantage of the Israelis. But at the moment they won’t see it that way. They want to hammer out their own solution with the Arabs.’

  Ralston said: ‘I sometimes think there wouldn’t be any goddamn intrigue in the East if it wasn’t for the West.’

  The Ambassador said: ‘The only compensating factor is that the Russians will be just as anxious to get the dope for themselves ahead of the Arabs for the same reasons. And I suspect they’ll have screwed that up letting the Arabs in on the secret.’

  ‘That,’ Ralston said, ‘is a great consolation. All I’ve got to do is to get to Bartlett before the Arabs, the Russians, and the Israelis.’

  ‘That’s all,’ the Ambassador said. He stood up and looked at Ralston doubtfully. ‘You really do look like a cop,’ he said.

  ‘Sure,’ Ralston said. ‘Before catching the plane at Heathrow I’ll check in at the precinct.’

  The Ambassador smiled for the first time that morning. ‘Good luck, officer,’ he said.

  Ralston paid for his drinks, winked at the girl with the ponytail and walked down Ibn Gvirol towards Malkei Israel Square where he had left his hired Cortina.

  He walked with long, measured strides, a tall man with big hands and big feet and a thoughtful face relieved by creases of humour at the corners of his mouth and eyes.

  He had almost filed his misgivings and would shortly be able to concentrate all his attention on the assignment. But the last doubt was the biggest – the political aspects of the mission. He wished he had not been told that prestige at the four-power conference table was at stake: he would have preferred to think that the motive was a simple desire to establish peace in the Middle East. However, he did not have to concern himself with the political undercurrents: if he succeeded in his mission then he might be instrumental in stopping the bloodshed.

  He sighed with relief. The misgiving file was closed for the time being.

  He admired the square with its fountains spraying water in geometric patterns and the plastic ball decorations hanging like lanterns. Then he climbed into the Cortina parked just off the square and headed for Jerusalem.

  At Ramla he gave a lift to two girl soldiers. If you were married, he thought, you could always tell your wife that you had given a lift to a couple of soldiers. Without specifying their sex.

  They were very shy and spoke bad English. Nor were they prime examples of Semitic beauty. It wasn’t until they were almost in Jerusalem that the girls started to talk with any animation. They were angry that coach drivers had been told not to stop for soldiers thumbing lifts. Soldiers who were only paid a few dollars a month relied on lifts, they said. Especially when they were serving in the desert.

  Conversation progressed inevitably to the crisis.

  ‘Do you think the Israelis should give up any of the territory they’ve captured?’ Ralston said.

  ‘Never’ said one girl.

  ‘Never,’ said her friend.

  ‘There’s not much hope of peace if everyone adopts that attitude.’

  One of the girls who was livelier than the other said: ‘There is not much hope of peace while the Arabs continue to shell us.’

  ‘Surely if the Israelis gave an indication that they were prepared to surrender some land there might be hope of a peaceful settlement?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the girl. ‘Could you speak a little slower?’

  Ralston repeated himself.

  The girl said: ‘You may be right. But the longer this shooting continues the less the chances are. Every day o
pinion is becoming harder.’

  ‘It’s a damn shame,’ Ralston said.

  ‘Then tell the Arabs to stop shooting at us.’ She paused. ‘What can you expect us Jews to do? Ask my friend here – her fiancé was killed only a week ago already.’

  Ralston half-turned towards the two girls in the back seat. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  The second girl began to cry.

  He dropped them at the junction of Yafo Road and Hansevi’im Street and drove on to the Intercontinental Hotel.

  At reception he noticed a man in a dark, East European-type suit writing a cable. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and looked vaguely familiar. The man looked up and stared at Ralston for a fraction of a second. Ralston wondered where he had seen him before. Vietnam? He doubted it: it was not a face that would have fitted into the Saigon spy circuit. Berlin perhaps. Or Vienna. He might be the KGB agent seeking the same information as himself; the embassy would confirm.

  Ralston noted Bartlett’s room number and went to the bar to see if he was among the drinkers there. He found him having a drink with an American. There was no mistaking him – dishevelled hair touched with grey. Kindly face etched with a few lines of obstinacy. He wore slacks and shirt which looked incongruous because men like Bartlett should always be wearing tweeds ballooning at the knees.

  Ralston thought: you poor, innocent son-of-a-bitch. Somewhere in the hotel there is undoubtedly a Soviet agent – probably the man in the gold-rimmed spectacles – gunning for you. Somewhere around there is an Arab trying to out-smart the Soviets to prove that there are situations they can handle without screwing them up. And there has to be an Israeli taking part because it is inconceivable that the organisation that clobbered Eichmann in South America and brought him back to the Promised Land could miss out on this one.

  That was three against one. Plus one Dean Ralston. Ralston sat down and crossed his long legs mounted on policeman’s feet. Four on to one was bad enough anywhere in the world. But in the Eternal City of Jerusalem the unfairness of it seemed to be magnified.

  TEN

  A scimitar moon hung over the city lacquering mosques, synagogues and churches with placid silver. The scene was eternally peaceful. But there was no peace in the heart of Matthew Yosevitz as he walked briskly in the direction of the American Colony Hotel outside the walled city to keep an appointment with Hamid the Arab.