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.
Although Yosevitz was divided by the conflicting calls of Communism and Zionism there was no division in his mind when he considered the business of espionage and assassination. Only total efficiency was acceptable; if one agent was suspect then a whole network could collapse. And Hamid the Arab was suspect.
Yosevitz walked down the Nablus Road past the YMCA. The Walled City lay behind him. His cheap, pointed shoes looked very precise in the moonlight, his walk feline and deliberate. If he had been in charge of the operation he would not have worked with the Arabs. But his masters in Kensington and Moscow had insisted that the Arabs be consulted. Particularly the guerrillas who were now more powerful in the Middle East than kings or presidents. After all, they had said, it is their war. But what they had really meant was: We mustn’t let them think we’re trying to operate independently because we might lose their trust – and our footing in the Middle East. In other words: We must not let the Chinese in as we did in Tanzania.
As he approached the block where Hamid the Arab was waiting for him he was stopped by two patrolling Israeli policemen.
‘Shalom,’ they said.
‘Shalom,’ he said.
‘Are you a tourist?’
‘Not really – I’m here for the geological conference.’ He spoke in Hebrew.
They both nodded. One of them said: ‘You speak very good Hebrew. Perhaps you should stay in Israel. Do you like it here?’
Yosevitz said: ‘Very much.’ He answered immediately, spontaneously, truthfully.
They smiled. They reminded him of friendly New York cops on the beat. Or friendly Moscow militiamen when the frost was not too hard.
One of the policemen said: ‘There has been a bit of trouble inside the Old City tonight. Nothing very serious. A grenade near the Western Wall. We’re checking everyone who seems to be heading away from the walled city.’ He looked as apologetic as a policeman ever can. ‘Do you have any papers with you?’
Yosevitz smiled and inwardly applauded Israeli efficiency. ‘My passport,’ he said. ‘And a few other credentials. I’m staying at the Intercontinental if you want to check me out.’
They checked his passport and the senior of the two said: ‘That won’t be necessary. Happy digging, Mr Yosevitz.’
Hamid the Arab stubbed out the loosely rolled cylinder of hashish he had been smoking to help him forget the undignified events of the morning and listened with restraint strengthened by the marijuana to the wrath of Matthew Yosevitz.
Yosevitz said: ‘Why did you interfere? Tell me that, Hamid. Why?’
Hamid said: ‘It seemed the obvious thing to do. I should have thought that you would have organised something similar.’ He regarded a tray loaded with rice and mutton without enthusiasm and offered it to Yosevitz.
Yosevitz removed the tray from the small table in the apartment occupied by an Arab civil servant. ‘Did you act on your own initiative?’
‘I did what I knew was right.’ Hamid gave a benign, drugged smile. ‘You were not there so someone had to act.’
‘There are more sophisticated ways of tackling such matters. It seems to me that we are working against each other.’
‘I do not think so.’ Hamid split a matchstick and began to pick his teeth. ‘But you must understand my position.’
‘What position?’ Yosevitz stared angrily at the features of the Arab stupefied by hashish. First an incompetent Arab, now a drugged one. ‘Why did you snatch that briefcase, Hamid?’
‘Will you take a smoke?’
‘Of that stuff? You must be crazy.’
Hamid shrugged. ‘So I will tell you about “my position”. The fact is that although I do not think we are working against each other I do not feel happy about our partnership.’
‘And why is that, Hamid?’
‘I have already told you once – because you are a Jew.’
Yosevitz took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and polished them. In other circumstances Hamid would have been dead by now. Executed for disobedience, insubordination and incompetence. Better a corpse than a liability. He polished the lenses thoroughly and put his spectacles on again. Finally he said: ‘I do not think they would like to hear in Amman that you have jeopardised the supply of Soviet arms by disobeying Kremlin orders.’
Hamid frowned hazily. ‘They would not,’ he said. ‘But why a Jew to help defeat the Jews?’
‘Don’t bother yourself with the answer,’ Yosevitz said. ‘Now, where are the contents of the briefcase?’
Hamid carefully rolled another cigarette. His tigerish features, sleepy with marijuana, were apprehensive. ‘The briefcase was empty,’ he said.
Five minutes later Yosevitz lit a mentholated American cigarette and relaxed. The recriminations were over, his anger had spent itself: Hamid had bungled the snatch so comprehensively that he had firmly established his secondary role in their uneasy partnership. ‘You realise, of course, that you have scared Bartlett off?’ he said.
‘It seems to me that he had already been scared off. Otherwise he would not have emptied his briefcase.’
‘That does not necessarily follow. He probably took the briefcase into the Old City to go shopping. The fact remains that the only certain way of getting this information is to capture Bartlett himself and extract it from him. After that we can perhaps get the papers.’
‘And how do you propose to do that?’
‘I shall need the help of some of your colleagues across the border.’ Regrettable, Yosevitz thought, but unavoidable. ‘Bartlett is going on a tour tomorrow with the Israeli girl Rabinovitz. I have taken the precaution of discovering where they are going.’
On the way back to the hotel Yosevitz again met the two Israeli policemen.
‘Shalom,’ he said.
‘Shalom, shalom,’ they said.