The grenades’ destructive power was contained by the thick walls, but the resultant panic made a shambles of the marketplace. Fleeing bystanders toppled the charcoal cooking brazier in front of a food vendor’s stall; the accident went unnoticed in the confusion. The scattered coals began to smolder in their nests of straw and sawdust and soon tendrils of blinding, acrid smoke were winding through the catacombs.
A pair of bodies lay where the twin explosions had flung them. A wounded man wandered in shock; others managed to stagger outside and lay sprawled in the narrow thoroughfare, moaning and crying. The explosions caved in part of the roof. Frenetic would-be rescuers shouted contradictory orders as they tried to dig out the crumbled masonry and toppled timbers.
The rug merchant across the way was one of those who hurried to lend a hand. He was unharmed except for the ringing in his ears.
The British police soon arrived, but there was little they could do except step gingerly about the rubble. The vaults of the marketplace could not accommodate motor vehicles. The ambulances idled an eighth of a mile away. Those too badly injured to walk would have to be loaded onto stretchers and carried up twisting passages out into the open.
“Who saw what happened?” one of the policemen bawled in Arabic. “Who has information about this mess?” He rocked on his heels, his thumbs hooked into his pistol belt. “Come on,” he shouted, “how do you expect us to catch the bloody Jews if you won’t help us?”
The rug merchant timidly approached the officer. He tugged at the policeman’s khaki sleeve. “He was not a Jew,” the rug merchant murmured after he’d garnered the officer’s attention. “He was an Englishman.”
“What’s that? English, you say?” The policeman chewed on the ends of his mustache as he thought it over. Just the other day his sergeant had lectured them on the possibility that certain British, sympathetic to the Zionists, might throw in with them. That sort of thing was certainly not unheard of. Why, Captain Orde Wingate of British Intelligence had thrown in with that Haganah lot, teaching the Yids things they had no business knowing. It was a short leap from advising the Yids to an active role in their operations.
“Perhaps you’d better tell me about it.” The officer pulled out a leather-bound notebook and a stub of pencil. “Start with a description.” He licked the point and began to write as the merchant spoke.
“Blond hair and blue eyes, handsome, very tall and well built.”
An Arab in suit, tie and fez listened as the merchant stammered his description of the attacker. He was seated on the cobblestones some yards away with his back against an overturned table. Directly in his line of vision was a severed arm in the blood-slick gutter. The hand lay palm up, the fingers curled. The Arab wished someone would take it away or at the very least cover it.
He had no need to eavesdrop on the rug merchant’s description. He quite well remembered what the attacker looked like; he’d taken a good long look at him just before entering the coffeehouse. The fellow’s haunting looks had lured him to the coffeehouse window for a second glimpse, and that saved the Arab’s life. His black eyes and the attacker’s blue ones locked for a moment; he saw the grenades clutched in the man’s hands.
The Arab did not utter one word of warning to the others in the coffeehouse; to create a panic might have blocked his escape route. He made a beeline for the side entrance, just reaching the threshold as the grenades exploded. The blasts hurled him against the opposite stone wall of the narrow alley, giving him a sound jolt. He’d fell to his knees, tearing holes in his trousers as he grazed his skull against stone. He blacked out for a moment, and when he came to, he felt dizzy. He crawled out to the street and sat down on the curb to rest against the salvaged table. He was unharmed except for a slight bump on his head. In a few minutes his dizziness would recede and he could be on his way.
Another Arab dressed in a long striped caftan and billowy trousers quietly seated himself next to the one in European garb. This newcomer’s name was Assiya; he had within the folds of his garment a pistol and a knife. He was ready to use either to protect the man beside him, who was his master.
“Forgive me,” Assiya murmured. “I was in position, watching as I was instructed.” As he spoke he looked straight ahead and hardly moved his lips. If any of the British policemen glanced their way the officers would have seen two mute, shocked victims of the attack.
“I saw him,” Assiya continued, “but I never suspected him; he was English.”
“He wasn’t.”
“Not English?” Assiya wondered if his master was injured worse than he seemed. “I tried to get a shot at him as he attacked, but there were too many people blocking my aim. Afterward I considered pursuing him, but I thought my place was here with you.”
The other man nodded. “The others are all dead?”
“All dead.”
“I would have died as well if I’d not recognized the attacker.”
“You know him?” For the first time Assiya glanced in his master’s direction.
The suited man smiled. I know his blond hair and blue eyes, he thought, I know his face. Oh, it’s finer-featured, the nose less aquiline, the lips thinner, but of course the mother is Anglo, and that would cut the father’s Slavic blood. “I killed his father,” he said. “Don’t be fooled by his looks. He’s a Jew, all right.”
“Jibarn Ahmed, you are incredible.” Assiya breathed, so overcome with awe that he forgot himself so far as to call one of Fawzi Kaukaji’s operatives by his real name.
“Yes, he is a Jew. I want you to go over to that policeman and corroborate the rug vendor’s description—it is quite accurate. Only say that the attacker was not Anglo but a Jew. Say his name is Kolesnikoff, first name—” Jibarn Ahmed searched his memory—“Herschel. Tell the British policeman he wants a Jew named Herschel Kolesnikoff.”
“The authorities will want to know how I came by this information.”
“No. They will be so relieved that it was not one of their own that they will ask no questions. Assiya, you realize that after you testify at the Jew’s hearing you will be known to the British and accordingly of no further use to us.”
“I understand.”
“You know what must become of a man who leaves our services?”
“Do not worry,” Assiya assured him. “I long to receive my hero’s welcome in Paradise and take my place at Allah’s side. The day I send this Jew to his death will be the day I willingly embrace my own.”
“Assiya, will it be necessary for me to send someone to escort you to Paradise?”
“No. I will take myself there.”
Jibarn Ahmed nodded, satisfied. “Allah be with you, Assiya. Now do as I’ve told you.”
He sat awhile longer, listening as Assiya told the British officer his piece. Oh, how exquisite it was going to be! The British would surely hang the Jew responsible for such carnage. Herschel Kolesnikoff, Jibarn thought, the only sour notes are that your attack was so successful—my best operatives are dead—and that I cannot remain in Jerusalem to see you hang.
Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, had succeeded in joining clans into the Arab High Committee. An important meeting was taking place in Beruit in just seventy-two hours’ time. Nazi representatives would be there; the Mufti had promised Hitler Arab support in exchange for German arms. Jibarn Ahmed had been accorded the high honor of signing the secret alliance on behalf of Fawzi Kaukaji.
“Well, now we’ve got the bastard dead to rights, don’t we?” the British officer chuckled as Assiya finished his story. As the policeman continued jotting down the rug merchant’s and Assiya’s particulars, the Arab bodyguard turned for a farewell glimpse of his master, but Eagle Owl had already vanished.