Judas Country

by Gavin Lyall

  They weren’t. Not with my last radio likely to blow at any moment.

  ‘Whiskey Zulu, unless you declare a full emergency do not repeat not attempt to land at Ben Gurion International. Divert to Jerusalem; weather there is still in visual limits.’

  The aircraft heaved like a sick stomach and hit a patch of hail that clammered on the roof like road drills. A ball almost ping-pong size broke on the screen, jammed in the wiper and dissolved slowly.

  ‘I suppose so.’ I said, trying to sound reluctant. ‘Will you notify Nicosia?’

  ‘Wilco, Whiskey Zulu. Maintain 148 and we’ll turn you on the beacon for Jerusalem. Go and crack up on their runway.’

  ‘Repeat, please?’

  ‘Shalom.’

  Four minutes later I swam into vivid calm sunshine just fifteen miles from the eternal city. And the best thing was, I hadn’t even suggested the idea myself.

  Chapter 28

  I reached the King David at two o’clock, which happened also to be the middle of a thunderstorm, possibly one I’d already met personally. I walked straight through the big lobby and up the corridor to the bar and just stood there, dripping on to the polished floor. Ken stood up from the gloom, looking pleasantly dry on the outside.

  ‘Where’s the aeroplane?’

  I jerked my head and sprayed water over an approaching waiter. ‘Where you wanted it. Whisky sour, please.’

  I took off my jacket and hung it over the back of the chair. The bar had an air-conditioned chill and my shirt was wet as well. The hell with it. I put the jacket back on and sat down.

  ‘Could be worse,’ Ken said. ‘You could be flying in this stuff.’

  ‘I was. Where d’you think this front was, an hour and a half ago?’

  ‘How did you swing it?’

  ‘Sabotaged the ILS and took off for Nicosia. Decided I couldn’t penetrate and by then Ben Gurion was clamped for anything but an instrument approach … so they diverted me here.’

  ‘Neat. Could you have penetrated?’

  ‘I’m not sure I could.’

  His eyebrows lifted a fraction. I’d wanted to tell him, somebody who’d understand, more of what it had been like. But no need. He’d know.

  ‘It must have been slightly intrepid.’ He knew, all right.

  ‘Just moderately slightly.’

  The waiter put down my whisky sour and I took a gulp and the flight was just an entry in my log-book.

  But – ‘One thing, Ken. I may have screwed up the whole idea. I managed to louse up most of the avionics; they probably won’t even let us take off until we’ve got a lot of it replaced.’ I’d ordered some replacements, but I could hear Kapotas’s blood-pressure bubbling at 200 miles.

  He didn’t seem worried. ‘No rush. Once we’ve got the sword, we can pick our own time to get it out. A grounded aeroplane that’s opened up a bit, you visiting it twice a day – that’s a nice cover for getting something on board. Did you have any trouble at the airport?’

  Apart from landing on a downhill runway without brakes? ‘No, it just took an hour to get a customs man up to clear me out.’

  ‘You weren’t followed?’

  ‘No. But it’s no secret that I’m here. A bit of hurry—’

  ‘Sure. What happened to Jehangir yesterday?’

  ‘I may have killed him.’

  ‘Christ … Well, it couldn’t happen to a nastier guy. But what about a comeback from Cyprus?’

  ‘It all happened airside and he had a private aeroplane so I pushed him in and …’ Should I say he’d taken the champagne boxes as well? I wasn’t too proud of letting them go. And Ken would start rhubarbing about ‘capital’ again. He might even be right. So I said: ‘What were you doing in Acre last night?’

  He stiffened. ‘Who said that?’

  ‘We got picked up by a cop in Tel Aviv last night. He works for the Antiquities Department. Ken, it was a trap.’

  ‘Of course it was. They were behind me from the start – that’s why I went to Acre, where Bruno was digging. Always give the client what he suspects, anyway. They’re probably ripping that town apart looking for buried treasure.’

  ‘And you. How did you get away?’

  ‘Got up early and caught a train. Have you any idea what time the trains get up in this country?’

  ‘Well … they’ll soon know I’m in Jerusalem and they could guess about you. Anyway, if I was looking for Cavitt and Case I’d put a man in the bar of the King David and forget the rest of the country.’

  He looked around quickly. Only a dim yellow light came in through the Olde Englyshe windows behind him, and they hadn’t turned on the main lights. But nobody seemed to be bending an ear at us. The rest of the crop seemed to be normal tubby tourists.

  Ken relaxed and grinned. ‘They don’t know us that well. Anyway, Israeli cops can’t afford to drink here.’

  ‘Neither can we. After this one, let’s get operational. Have you really got a deal?’

  ‘I spent an hour with Gadulla before I rang you today. We’ve got a deal.’

  ‘Let’s get started on it, then.’

  ‘Look, nothing much can happen before night.’

  ‘We can get spotted, that’s what can happen. It’s a small country, Ken. The cops know each other. The word gets around fast.’

  Thunder ripped the invisible sky and didn’t even shake the drink in my glass. Just sound and fury; harmless.

  Ken nodded at the ceiling. ‘In this clag?’

  ‘That’s all right. I’m wet already.’

  No taxis, of course, and the half mile to the Jaffa Gate had stretched in the rain to a good mile-and-a-half. But behind us, beyond the weird great sultan’s palace of the YMCA, the sky was clearing to a copper-sulphate blue. The front was almost through.

  We moved at an Olympic walk, the rain bouncing up around our ankles.

  ‘Great idea,’ Ken said in a sodden voice. ‘Now we can plead not guilty by reason of pneumonia.’

  ‘It’s all in the mind. Did Gadulla mention anything about a letter from the Prof?’

  ‘He was expecting one, all right. So it existed.’

  ‘You didn’t say what had happened to it?’

  ‘Why complicate things? He probably hasn’t heard of Papa getting dead and wouldn’t connect it up anyway. If he likes to think the letter never got written …’ He took his hands out of his pockets to shrug more expressively, then hastily stuffed them back.

  Then there was the City ahead of us, the squat grey-gold walls and ramparts reflected and exaggerated in the shapes of the thunderheads above. At least the rain had flattened the dust that usually blows in your eyes at that corner.

  We went in by the Jaffa Gate – really just a gap torn in the wall by some Turkish slob in the nineteenth century – and about that time, the rain cut off. Just like that.

  Ken said: ‘Just ten minutes and we could have got here without total baptism.’

  Around us, the sun was hatching out taxis, tourists – and a handful of khaki-uniformed coppers. Ken jerked his head. ‘Come on.’

  The Old City’s been around a long time, but once you’re inside, it doesn’t feel particularly old. Not like those tall quiet back streets in Florence or Venice. This is all too quick and busy, and the Holy Sepulchre itself, over Christ’s tomb, just beats Southend funfair but only just. King Richard didn’t miss much.

  But our part of town was the narrow jostling souks and alleys, sometimes covered with vaulted roofs and ventilation holes half blocked with weed so the sunlight comes down in pale green shafts into the blue smoke drifting from the metal-workers’ shops. Each shop a tall narrow cave stretching back into what could be primeval rock but is probably the brickwork of Suleiman the Magnificent or even Herod. So maybe the place does feel a bit old, when you stop and think. We weren’t stopping.

  We weaved through the crowd, banging our heads on baskets and dresses hung overhead, brushing off Arab boys shouting: ‘Hey, my friend, I am your guide …’ until I was properly
lost. As far as you can get lost in a place only half a mile square. Just Ken’s way of shaking off any tail.

  I found myself getting a close-up of a goatskin jacket hanging over a clothing shop while Ken scouted our back trail. Until then, the air had smelled of spices and coffee and that vegetable smell that rain brings out anywhere. Now the late goat had it all his own way.

  ‘Any bogeymen?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘So we can move on? – this jacket’s getting friendly.’

  ‘Tell it you’re engaged.’ He led the way around one more corner into a souk that was mostly metal and jewellery shops, with crumbling old boys sitting behind counters brazing brass pots with blow-lamps. Ken stopped at a cave lined with spearheads, pots, swords, helmets – most of them so obviously reproduction that the few aged pieces looked pretty good by contrast.

  A chirpy Arab boy in jeans and a V-neck sweater came forward to start his sales talk.

  Ken said: ‘Gadulla’s expecting us. Cavitt – and my friend.’

  The kid gave a smile of recognition and scuttled back into the shop.

  We eased in a couple of steps off the street and waited. Opposite was a barber’s with a glassed-in front. The Old City supports more barbers than an Army training camp, but everybody still seems covered in hair. Just another economic factor I’ll never grasp.

  A quiet gritty voice said: ‘Ahlan, ahlan …’ and we turned round.

  Why had I expected an old man? – because the Prof had been? – because of the antiques angle? This one was tall, lean and several years younger than us. Dressed in a slim, coarse gallabiya, jacket and red-and-white check head-dress tied with black silk. A thin triangular face you might have called hawklike if the hawk hadn’t flown into high ground some time and bent its beak, the bend exaggerated by the symmetrical little moustache beneath. But the eyes were dark and calm.

  He touched Ken on both shoulders in a ceremonial embrace, bowed to me. ‘It is a pleasure, Mr Case. Please come through.’ He held back an old smoke-stained curtain and we went down the cave and around a rack of modern shelving holding rows of ‘antiques’ and into a back chamber the size of a cell. I looked quickly at Ken, but perhaps even his dreams had forgotten by now.

  ‘Coffee, perhaps?’ Gadulla offered. ‘Please sit down.’

  Ken took off his jacket and shook it, then shivered. I knew how he felt.

  Gadulla said: ‘Of course …’ and yanked a one-bar electric fire from under the low round table that held a telephone and small spirit stove.

  Chapter 29

  A few minutes later we were sitting half-naked on chairs shaped like camel saddles and our clothes were turning the little room into a steam bath. There were no windows – just a couple of doors – and a single lamp in a beaded shade, and when you’d been there a while, the time of day stopped mattering. The room had been built without sun or stars; a place for quiet secrets.

  ‘Is there a back door?’ Ken asked.

  ‘Perhaps fifty.’ Gadulla gestured at two doors. ‘If you have the keys – and the friends. The whole street is so much connected, above and below.’

  ‘Fine. Is the sword here?’

  ‘It will be. Did you bring the plane with no trouble?’

  I nodded. ‘No trouble.’

  ‘How good.’ He walked to the front of the shop and called something to the boy. I got up and turned my half-toasted trousers around.

  From the rough-plastered walls, and Gadulla himself, you couldn’t guess whether the man was waiting for the soup kitchen to call or the armed guards to haul out the day’s takings. His robe was plain wool cloth, his jacket grey pin-stripe– old but well-cut – the head-dress clean.

  He cameback. ‘The lad is bringing coffee. But I forgot—’ he reached below the table and put up a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label. ‘Perhaps you would like some of this?’

  Ken glanced at me. ‘Maybe a short – just to balance the wet on the outside.’

  Gadulla poured two careful shots into décorated glasses. ‘I hope it is good. I was rather strictly raised; I am one of your Coca-Cola Muslims.

  We sipped, and Ken had been right: it just hadn’t matched that electric fire sizzling in my shins.

  After the second sip, Ken said: ‘It wasn’t till I got talking to some Arabs in Beit Oren that I knew strict Muslims don’t really disapprove of alcohol – they just won’t touch it in this life. In Paradise they’re going to sit around all day smashed out of their knickers. Have I got that right?’

  Gadulla said inscrutably: ‘It is not quite that simple.’ He looked at me. ‘I believe you first saw Professor Spohr dead?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Did he leave a note? – any letters?’

  ‘Not that I saw. But he rang you, didn’t he? – what did he say then?’

  He thought about it. While he did, the boy came in with a tray of coffee from the local café. Gadulla handed round the tiny cups. ‘Later I will make my own, but now, this is quicker.’

  The boy grinned and went away.

  ‘Bruno – the Professor – said he would send instructions, but I could expect to sell the sword half and half with somebody from elsewhere.’ He looked calmly at Ken.

  ‘Beirut?’ I suggested.

  ‘He said no names on the telephone.’

  Ken asked: Did he sound as if he was going to kill himself?

  ‘A terrible question. Now … now I think yes. That he was saying goodbye.’

  There was a long silence. Then Ken got up and eased himself back into his trousers. ‘Oooh, lovely. Like wading in hot cheese. I’ll tell you one thing. Bruno didn’t do it: make it easy for his loving daughter to inherit that sword.’

  The afternoon crawled by. The boy came with more coffee; Gadulla talked to a few customers beyond the curtain. But mostly we just sat and looked at the wall and listened to my stomach. Somewhere down the line, I’d forgotten to have lunch.

  ‘The kid could buy you a snack,’ Ken suggested

  ‘Like a couple of sheep’s-eyes? I prefer my own judgement.’

  ‘Once it gets dark we’ll go out and find a café.’

  We waited on.

  About five, Gadulla pulled down a metal blind over the front of the shop and padlocked it to steel hoops set in the floor. ‘Now would you care to see the roof?’

  It made a change. He unlocked one of the doors, led the way up steep, winding stone steps. At one landing there was a short dark corridor with two other doors and no sign of life but a yellow plastic bucket. We went on up. At the top, Gadulla unlocked another door and we walked out on to a small, flat, walled roof garden.

  Over behind the YMCA the sun was sliding down among a few scattered clouds trailing after the front. And away east, you could just see the distant ramparts of the storm, calm and white and incredibly detailed. Somewhere well over into Jordan.

  Gadulla clucked sympathetically at his rain-beaten potted plants, then waved a hand over the edge of the wall. ‘You see? This is just one more way out.’

  A maze of other flat roofs, all at different levels, rambled away on both sides. A little bit of athleticism and you could be a dozen houses away in a couple of minutes.

  ‘D’you live here?’ Ken asked.

  ‘Not usually. I have a house—’ he waved northwards ‘—with my workshops.’

  ‘Made any good antiques lately?’ I asked politely.

  He grinned his lopsided grin. ‘Is it fair that only one person should own something that is unique? I just help the spread of knowledge. But before I knew about the plane, I had an idea for taking the sword from the country. I would make a mould from it, then cast perhaps another forty – in metal with the same weight – and put a glass for the jewel and something for the crest and sell them to tourists. Very cheap, so I sold them quickly and they all left Israel in one or two weeks and the airport searchers got used to them. But the forty-first …’ He grinned again. He’d obviously have liked to do it just for the hell of it. />
  Ken smiled back, but not so widely. As we walked backdown the stairs, he muttered: ‘I think we’d better have Eleanor and Mitzi over for an expert opinion. I’m not sure I’d recognise a moulding.’

  I’d been thinking the same thing.

  By six it was dark enough. Gadulla led us out through one of his back doors: up one flight of steps, unlock a door, down a stone corridor, around a couple of corners, another door and we were at the head of some outside steps leading down into a narrow cul-de-sac of an alley.

  He showed us a bell-push beside the door. ‘An hour, perhaps? I will be here then.’

  By night, most of the Old City seems empty but not dead, only lurking. A few cafés are open, near the gates, and you get an occasional glint of light from a shuttered window, a whisper of music from TV or radio, the echo of somebody else’s footsteps around a corner. You find yourself walking quietly and listening hard.

  After a few turns we came out on to David Steps and up towards the brighter lights near the Jaffa Gate. We went into the first restaurant we saw, not too close to the gate.

  I ordered while Ken borrowed the phone. The place was a simple tourist joint making a 60-watt attempt to look like a nightclub. The cheery Arab host was the only staff on view, and at that time no more was needed. Just a family group at another table and a couple of soldiers drinking pop at the bar, Uzi sub-machine guns on the counter between them. I think there’s some regulation about you must go armed in Jerusalem.

  Ken came back. ‘I got Mitzi. Eleanor’s got there but she’s out at the moment. What did you order?’

  ‘Lamb and chips.’ The menu was basically tourist, with a few simple Arab dishes for those who wanted to boast they’d tasted real atmosphere.

  ‘Steak tomorrow.’ He sat down. ‘Mitzi should be able to tell if it’s real antique and it matches the description. That’s all we need: he hasn’t had time to cobble up a fake from genuine old parts.’

  ‘He’s had over a year.’

  ‘Until a few days ago he thought he was dealing with Bruno. He wouldn’t bother to try that on him.’

  It figured.