by John Meaney
Kadir looked at me for a long moment.
"I will have to think about that. "Um... If you give me your address, perhaps I can write to you when I have an answer."
"All right."
Kadir's intellectual honesty had impressed me, and while I didn't share his beliefs, you can't ignore Gödel's theorem, which as Uncle Isaak tried to tell me when I was young, stood the mathematical world on its head. There are always true statements that you can state but not deduce. Gödel proved that you cannot always prove the truth. Mathematicians have such twisty minds.
Kadir went back to his small tent, and ducked inside. The fire played and crackled, allowing me to drift. I'd never quite followed Gödel's logic, which meant I had to take the theorem on authority from those who were better mathematicians, putting me too close to Kadir's position for my liking.
Fern sat down beside me, and everything else slipped from my mind.
"Hi, Dr Wolf." She held out her hand. "I've been hoping we could chat."
The touch of her smooth, work-hardened skin was electric. Shaking hands, the resonance was astounding.
"You're Fern Avni, right?" Her colleagues, on the other side of the flames, were paying no particular attention, but circumspection is a habit. "I'm interested in your group's thinking about the northern highlands. You think the Bronze Age people came here centuries earlier than the standard theory, right?"
"Pretty much." Fern lowered her voice. "My cousin Melissa said someone would come to chat."
Her file mentioned no cousins. 'Melissa' was the woman who had interviewed Fern at the University of Bonn, and written a good appraisal.
"You told Melissa there might be documents here. Documents of interest."
Fern glanced towards Kadir's tent. "They're not... ready yet."
"All right."
She was untrained, giving away her unconscious reactions to anyone able to read them. I was here partly to assess her potential, partly to act as courier for the intelligence documents, whatever they might be. Something she was handing over on her own initiative.
Beyond the fire, her colleagues moved away, discussing the next morning's dig.
"There are strange things happening in Baghdad." Fern leaned closer, as if flirting. "Local communists are being assassinated. Wooing the sheikhdom of Kuwait, even though Brigadier Kassem detests its independence. Your friend Kadir met last week with one of Kassem's key officers, a man called Saddam Hussein."
I wasn't sure how to process this information. At least in Palestine, the few Jews in Jerusalem are left in peace, and Christians are welcome to visit Nazareth. The rest of the region is a mystery. Zeev is the expert, but they'd sent me.
"Didn't the Iraqi royal family die when Kassem took over?"
"Yeah, that's right." Fern picked up some sand, let it flow through her fingers. "Two years back. No one knows exactly how. I think Kadir's trying to get a handle on republican intentions towards Kuwait and the Kurds."
"Is this important?"
"The other OPEC members want stability. But look... Did Kadir say anything about Moscow?"
"He mentioned studying there."
"Hmm." She glanced again in the direction of Kadir's tent. "Do you trust him?"
For a potential recruit, Fern revealed little nervousness. Nor was she overexcited. Her eyes were wide and dark, with the fire behind her.
Stay focused.
But she was athletically lovely in a way that was overwhelming.
"Look," she continued. "If you want New Jerusalem to maintain its relationship with Iraq, you'd better hope that Kassem's hawks don't get their way. They have their own agenda, and it's not like Jordan's or Egypt's. The rest of the Arab world might love us now, but these guys are different."
"World politics is beyond my scope."
Zeev had told me stories of his time as a Hagonah commando in Palestine. In the 1930s there had been hard-pitched fighting in Jerusalem's streets. To say that the Arab world loved us these days was going a bit far, but they allowed coexistence.
"Really?" Fern pulled a water bottle from her belt. "I thought you and Kadir were talking about the nature of the universe. How wide a scope can you get?" She unstoppered the bottle, took a sip, then offered the bottle. "Want some?"
Perhaps she should see something of the techniques a katsa can employ.
"Kadir has the documents," I said. "They're in his tent right now."
Fern gave a tiny flinch. She lowered the water bottle to the sand.
"And you're planning to steal them," I added, "but haven't managed it yet."
After a moment, Fern let out a breath. "Is mind-reading part of what you do?"
"Kind of. The fun part."
"And anyone can learn to do it?"
Firelight danced across her face.
"Maybe not anyone," I told her. "But you? You're a natural."
She leaned across and kissed me on the cheek. It felt like lightning.
"Thank you," she whispered.
That was when Kadir yelled in his tent.
We found him arching back in agony, arms and legs thrashing, spilling equipment to either side. I saw a water bottle like the one Fern had used, lying on the groundsheet. A florid-faced professor called Bercholt had been closest, and was already trying to hold down Kadir by the shoulders. But Kadir was writhing, bucking him off.
"Get the medical kit!" Bercholt yelled at me. "Hurry!"
"I don't—"
But Fern, behind me, was already sprinting for the largest tent. One of the older archaeologists, name of Kamil, was searching the sand outside. He came into the tent, cursing in Turkish
"What is it?" I didn't understand why he was ignoring the thrashing Kadir. "What are you looking for?"
"Scorpions." Kamil grunted. "They've gone."
"My God."
Kadir's teeth were bared as he bent backwards, tendons standing out on his neck, shaking with unbearable stress as every muscle clenched, every nerve activated. His body was fighting itself. There was a dull sickening crack as one of his bones broke, snapped by his own muscular contractions.
"Here." Fern's torso was heaving as she stumbled back inside the tent. "Take... it...."
I grabbed the medical kit from her hands and ripped the catches open, spinning the case round for Bercholt to pick what he needed: I'd not yet been trained in desert survival.
"What do you need?" I said.
"This first." Bercholt pulled out a vial. "Barbiturate, to relax. Help me."
Ripping open a packet of needles, I screwed one onto a syringe and handed it over. Bercholt filled it from the vial and got ready to inject.
"All right." I threw myself across Kadir's chest in a side hold, using my body weight to pin his bucking torso. His skin was slick with sweat. "Hurry."
Bercholt jabbed the needle in.
After a while, the thrashing lessened, and I pushed myself off Kadir. It took several endless minutes for him to calm right down, then his eyelids fluttered. He dropped deep into coma.
Fern and Kamil had a second syringe ready.
"What's that?"
"Scorpion serum," said Kamil. "Anti-venom."
They pushed the needle into Kadir's side, and depressed the plunger. The liquid disappeared into Kadir's body. We looked at each other, Bercholt and Fern and Kamil and myself. Now we had nothing to do, because it was the unconscious Kadir who needed to get to work, to allow the serum to help him, to heal himself.
Fight it.
I tried to force my thoughts, my will, inside Kadir's mind.
Fight back.
If you want to call it a prayer, that's up to you.
But Kadir died.
It took several hours, but Bercholt knew within minutes by Kadir's failure to respond: the drugs were prolonging the process of death, no more. At some point vital organs shut down, and Kadir's breathing became harsh and painful, stopping for long periods. Then there was a final exhalation and a pause that went on forever.
I hope you find your
paradise.
The desert called me and I walked into it.
After some hours, I stopped. Cold sand stretched away beneath my feet. Above me hung the infinite blackness of the universe: never-ending vacuum and the tiniest dots that are vast, distant nuclear-powered stars, part of some cosmic evolution so far beyond us we can pick up only hints, like a bacterium vibrating while an orchestra performs Bach or Handel.
Dawn cracked the eastern sky, jade and gold. It was time to return.
The next day we packed Kadir's corpse and despatched the makeshift coffin, formed from equipment crates, on the back of a truck. It bounced as the truck drove off.
In the evening, with the sun low, I sat on an outcrop of rocks, thinking. Then a faint scratching sounded. I turned back a flat stone. Underneath was a black scorpion, encrusted with some disease or parasites – except that the lice-sized things were babies, a dozen newborn scorpions, carried by their mother. She scuttled away, knowing I could stamp her and her babies into oblivion.
I had liked Kadir.
But I left her undisturbed, the lone mother with her brood. Finally I returned to camp, entered my tent, checked the interior of my sleeping-bag, then zipped myself inside and went to sleep. By dawn I was awake, feeling the need to run, not having trained the day before. The ground was partway between sand and gravel, with an odd silver-blue sheen as turquoise dawn streaked the East. The clean air was easy to breathe. My rhythm was smooth.
Soon other footsteps were crunching in time like some delayed echo. I slowed, letting her draw closer. Then she was alongside, and we continued, matching speed.
"Hi."
"Hi, Fern."
"You mind—?"
"No. Let's run."
Without words, the sounds of our breathing in unison, we ran a long arcing loop into the open desert, ending back at the camp some ninety minutes later. We slowed to a walk, clothes dark with sweat, allowing our hearts to slow, our breathing to normalize.
Fern stopped to stretch, and I did likewise.
"You're fit enough," I told her.
"Thank you."
The physical entrance requirements would be no problem.
"You want to go out in the desert a little way tonight?" I asked. "Watch the stars?"
The camp had come to life. Bercholt and others were making breakfast or checking tools. Fern had a day's work ahead.
"Yes," she said quietly. "I'd like that."
What happened that night went far beyond anything I intended. Sitting on the cooling ground, we began by staring up at the vastness, saying nothing as time stretched out.
Then Fern said: "I've got something here."
In the moonlight, her khaki clothes glowed silver-grey. She pulled her shirt from her waistband, pulled out a thin folder, and handed it to me.
"What's in it?"
"Kassem's plans for a military coup. The Ba'athists are thorough."
So this was what Kadir had died for.
Fern continued with the undressing, unbuttoning her shirt and spreading it on the sand. In a second, my own shirt was off. Then we each pulled the other close, our skins were together and the world was on fire as we kissed,. Every touch of my hands, my fingertips, causing her to moan as urgency overtook us. Our remaining clothes came apart and I was inside her, we were together riding to the stars beneath a desert night, the universe exploding as we were one and she cried out while novas flared. The cosmos died and was reborn.
Then we kissed, so gently.
"My God," she said.
"Yes."
Her eyes seemed huge, deeper than the night sky.
I should have told her that I loved her. Thinking back, I often play the scene that way, the way it would have gone if I had half a brain. But the words that came were automatic and without restraint.
"Was it really scorpion venom you used?"
Still inside her, I felt her contract internally.
"No."
We breathed, not speaking for a while.
Then: "What was in Kadir's water bottle? Besides water."
"Strychnine," she said.
"Shit."
I slipped from her and lay back, one hand on her flat stomach. She was so beautiful
"The symptoms" – she cupped her breasts as though to hide them – "are identical to a scorpion bite."
Wonderful.
"Excellent attention to technical detail."
Scorpions are arachnids. Many female spiders kill their lovers after mating.
"I'm glad I passed your test." Bitterness laced her voice. She rolled to a sitting position. "The documents are important."
She was pulling on her shirt.
"Listen, I—"
What was I supposed to say?
"Excuse me."
"What? Sorry." I was lying on her discarded shorts. "There."
"Thank you."
She tugged them on. I looked for my trousers.
We dressed and returned to camp without a word.
The next day I left for Baghdad, carrying the documents. Within Fern's earshot, I said I hoped to return the next morning. She gave what might have been the tiniest of nods without looking my way. There was truck going to fetch supplies, and I hitched a ride, getting off at the city outskirts, making my way to a crowded café.
My contact was drinking thick dark coffee. Zeev looked Arabic, with gentle eyes. He'd trained me when I was a neophyte, as Fern was to become.
I told him about Kadir's death.
"It's important that no one performs an autopsy. That they think it was a scorpion."
We were silent as the café owner placed sweet rolls beside my coffee.
"Then I'll make sure," said Zeev, "that no one tests for strychnine."
"Bloody hell. Does everyone here know how to disguise a murder?"
Zeev gave a tiny shrug.
"I've got a present for you, my young friend."
"Pour moi?"
"An air ticket to London."
Pissing rain and freezing fog, after a blazing desert and a night of the most amazing love I'd ever experienced. And Fern expecting me back.
"When am I leaving?"
"Tonight," said Zeev. "You'd better get going now."
A horn blared outside and a gust of steam rose from the kitchen at the back. Zeev used the opportunity of twin distractions to slip me the envelope. There was no point in saying no, that I had to return to the desert. Or perhaps that is what I should have done, instead of acquiescing, ruining the moment when my life with Fern could have begun. Instead, I flew that evening on a Comet jet to Heathrow, occasionally remembering Kadir – when I wasn't lost in reveries of making love to Fern with only stars to watch.
But within two years, all Comets would be grounded because of their tendency to crash and burn, and my relationship with Fern would come near to following suit.
Waking from the dream, I felt cold. March sunlight glowed upon the floor, a far cry from Baghdad or the desert. Finally I was rested, and it was time to get back to fully active duty. There might be other things that Schröder could find for me to do, but the Black Path problem wasn't going away. The data from Poland might have been useful – no one had told me either way – and I'd certainly dealt with Zadok, but we needed to get a damned sight closer to wherever those bastards were building the bomb.
That was when the doorbell buzzed. I rolled to my feet, snagging my Beretta from the coffee table. From the window, I peeked down. My new flat was on the third floor.
Pinchas was outside.
Mission directors don't make home visits, but here he was. I buzzed him in, and opened my front door. He climbed quietly, given his bulk. (Remember how he moved in Hamburg, on the dock.) A red Thermos was in his hand.
"Undo the top, and take a sniff."
"All right. Come in."
Taking the flask, I unscrewed the top while heel-kicking the door shut. The aroma from the flask was dark and wonderful.
"Turkish," said Pinchas. "There's a café close to my plac
e. The owner filled it for me."
"You know about my coffee habit."
"Doesn't everyone?"
While I fetched mugs, he poked around at my iron dumbbells in the corner, the sawn-off broomstick between bookcases for chin-ups, then at the books.
"The housekeepers visited last night."
"I know, Wolf, or I wouldn't be here."
"All right."
There'd been four of them, not cleaning the carpets, but sweeping for bugs.
"Great coffee," I added.
"It'll stop you sleeping."
"I'm fully awake, thank you."
"And recovered?"
"For God's sake, Pinchas. Have you got something for me? Access to Black Path?"
"That's what I'm here to talk about."
EIGHTEEN:
BERLIN, March 1963
Pinchas had discarded his overcoat, and we were on our second coffee each when he said: "Have you enjoyed the last few months, sitting behind a desk?"
"Hardly."
We'd been running through what we knew of Black Path's logistical network. Pinchas had an impressive memory. Without printed reports and charts or a blackboard to draw on, he'd reconstructed their covert structure.
"What if you'd not recovered from your time behind the Curtain, Wolf? What would it be like, turning up at Berlin Central every single day, never to return to the field?"
"Look, it was cold and Zadok knew how to fight, but it's not as if—" I paused. "It's not me we're talking about, is it?"
"No." Pinchas put his cup down on the coffee table. "This is the week they decide on Moshe Boaz, whether to let him back in or wave bye-bye."
"You don't think they'll take him back."
"I'm afraid not." He stared out at the cold sunshine. "A kidon specialist doesn't take well to shuffling papers. You've not seen him?"
"No."
"I believe he's recovered pretty well, though I didn't really know him before."
Before Moshe cracked up.
"Still," continued Pinchas, "we might find a use for him."
"Oh, you fucking bastard."
Pinchas moved his mouth in something like a smile, but his eyes were hard as slate. "That's what they pay me to be."