We got to the first stop, just across from the final stop. We saw the bus turn round the corner and come toward us.
“The bus is coming. Let’s check it out,” I suggested to Reuven and pulled him behind another tree.
The bus arrived and stopped. The driver got out. Attached to the post near the stop was a travel log, with a large analog clock locked in a little glass box hanging above. Standing with his back to us, the driver used the pen tied to the timetable with a jute string to write his bus number and the time he would next be setting out. This was the opportunity we were waiting for.
“Follow me,” I whispered to Reuven. Nimbly, we jumped into the bus through its open front door and then ran, hunched over, down its length, searching all the seats to the right and the left and behind them. The bus was absolutely empty. There was no spy in it.
“He’s not here. Let’s go,” I whispered to Reuven.
“The driver is coming! Quick! Hide!” Reuven pointed toward the driver, who had turned around and was climbing up the bus’s stairs. We crouched down and hid behind the back seats, cramped and trembling. I was afraid the driver would see us in his mirror and report us to the police.
The driver got comfortable in his seat, lit a cigarette and blew clouds of gray smoke out the open window. Then he started the bus, closed the front door and headed toward the next stop.
The bus got to the next stop, which was directly across from the one where the spy had gotten on. The driver tossed his lit cigarette butt through the window and opened the front door. People got in and sat down in the seats in front of us. Nobody noticed us. Now it would be easier. We slid over, sat down behind a woman of large dimensions and waited for our chance. The bus continued down Etzel Street. It stopped at the corner of Eilat Street, just before the right turn toward the Ramat Gan fire department. I was sitting on the left side. Through the window I saw some large army trucks near a military encampment erected opposite the Yeshurun School. A barbed-wire fence surrounded small khaki-colored pup tents that had been set up around a circular central space. In the center of the camp was a tall flagpole, and on it, slightly drooping, fluttered our flag: the blue-and-white Israeli flag with the Star of David in the center. At one end of the camp was a large tent set up with wooden tables and giant pots. This was probably the dining room and kitchen. A large water tank on wheels stood at the side of the tent, and next to that, some huge garbage bins.
I stared with curiosity. An army base in our neighborhood? This was something new! I saw soldiers walking around among the small tents. A bored-looking guard, his head drooping and his big rifle resting on his shoulder, sat staring at the ground. Then I saw him! There was not even the least shadow of a doubt. The same gray pants, black coat, and strange fedora. The spy who had escaped from us was frantically rummaging in the garbage cans. He took something out, stuffed it with the dexterity of a magician under his black coat and hurried to get away from there.
“Reuven! Reuven!” I tried to whisper to him to look, but he was looking the other way and by now the bus had come to Negba Street and the base had disappeared behind us.
More people boarded the bus at the next stop. It continued its way along Negba Street and then turned right into HaRoeh Street. At the next stop, someone rang the bell, and the driver opened the back door. This was the opportunity we’d been waiting for. We pushed aside the people standing in front of us and fled from the bus.
“I saw him!” I yelled to Reuven once we were out of the bus. “The spy was in the army base and stole something out of their trash bins.”
“What was it?” Reuven asked.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t see.”
“Probably some secret documents,” concluded Reuven.
“Secret documents? In the trash?” I couldn’t hide my disgust.
“Sure. In the trash,” said Reuven.
“But you’re supposed to burn confidential documents,” I said.
“Not always. Sometimes people are lazy, or they make a mistake and throw a letter or a draft of a document into the trash,” explained Reuven. “Every novice detective knows it’s always a good bet to start looking in trash cans.” Well, I hadn’t known that, but I supposed he was right.
“But how could it be him? We saw him get on the bus at that stop. There’s no way he could have managed to get here so quickly. Maybe you were mistaken?” Reuven suggested.
“What are you trying to suggest? That I can’t remember a face?” I was one hundred percent certain I wasn’t wrong. I had to find an explanation for how the spy had managed to get to the stop before the bus had. He didn’t look like the champion Israeli runner of the year. In fact, he could barely walk.
My mind worked frantically. For a moment, I thought perhaps the spy had disguised himself as one of the old ladies while on the bus. I immediately ruled this out because when he got on the bus he hadn’t been carrying a bag in which he could have hidden any clothes. Then I thought, maybe he had gotten off the bus somewhere between stops, but ruled that out too because drivers are forbidden to stop anywhere except at actual bus stops.
Suddenly it dawned on me. There was only one place he could possibly have gotten off. I felt the same satisfaction I get when I solve a complicated math problem.
“Reuven, do you know why he didn’t get off the bus at the end of the line?” I asked.
“Why?”
“Because only people who are in the bus get off at the end of the line.” I emphasized the word “in” and Reuven understood instantly. It was no wonder we were soul buddies. He smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Ouch!” he screamed in pain. I guess he had forgotten about that bump on his forehead.
“I get it! We saw him getting on at the front, but he didn’t stay on the bus. He immediately got off at the back door, at the same stop. He fooled us like we were rookies,” said Reuven.
“Let’s run back,” I said.
“Why? There’s no way we’ll catch up to him!” Reuven said.
“To dry off,” I said. “Like the race in Alice in Wonderland.”
We ran side by side in silence, wet and muddy and trying to warm up. We didn’t have anything to say. The ease with which that spy had tricked us enraged me, and I was furious at how stupid I’d been. Suddenly I understood that this was a very clever, wily opponent we were dealing with, and he couldn’t be underestimated. We were not characters in a story where you know that the good guys always win in the end, and the question is only when and how. It was totally possible that our spy didn’t accept the role we had cast him in without his knowledge—to be our quarry. Maybe we were the bad guys and he was the good guy from his point of view. In the real world, nobody could be sure that this wouldn’t end badly for us. After all, we were just a couple of kids.
The elusive, mysterious image of the man in the black coat drifted in front of my eyes: a thin man with a faded black fedora on his head and black-framed glasses on his nose. At first glance, he wouldn’t seem any different from the neighborhood grocer, tailor, or shoemaker. But I knew a good spy would blend into his environment. Suddenly I remembered who he reminded me of: that Nazi murderer Adolf Eichmann. A picture of him in the glass booth at his trial had appeared in all the papers. I shivered in fear.