Scorpion's Advance (15 page)

Anderson gazed down on the lights of Jerusalem, the floodlit walls of the Old City, the Dome of the Rock. He stood speechless at the sight.
Mirit let him enjoy it in silence for a while before she said, 'Did you ever see anything as beautiful?'

Anderson looked at her and said, 'Yes.' He leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips.
Mirit put her hand up to his face and ran her fingertips down his cheek gently before placing her hand softly against his chest. 'Neil, there can be no future in it.'

'But you will see me again?'

'Yes, but . . .'

'No
buts. Yes will do.'

Mirit
laughed and they kissed again before Mirit said, 'It's time. We have to go.'

Anderson's last view of Jerusalem was of
Mirit waving as the red Volvo bus pulled out of the station at the start of the journey down through the hills of Judaea. Once again the bus was unpleasantly crowded, and with nothing to be seen from the windows in the blackness Anderson shut his eyes and did his best to re-kindle visions of the day. By the time his fellow passengers had fought their way through the exit door he decided that he had had enough of communal transport and took a cab back to Einstein. The dampness round his collar, if nothing else, told him that he was back in Tel Aviv.

A knock on Anderson's door came just after eleven. It was Miles
Langman; he held two beers in his hand.

'Feel like a jaw?'

Anderson's earlier suspicions about Langman came back in a sudden flood. This 'talk on the roof business was just too . . . what was the word? . . . contrived. More like an interview than a chat. But there again it could be his imagination, paranoia even. 'OK.'

'So what did Klein's lady have to say?' asked
Langman.

'Not a lot. Someone threw her off the city wall. She's dead.'

'You're not serious!'

The surprise seemed genuine enough, thought Anderson. 'I'm serious. She was murdered. I saw it happen.'

'Poor kid. Do you think this had anything to do with the Klein affair?'

Anderson got the feeling again. It wasn't his imagination,
dammit. Langman was pumping him. 'Who knows?'

'So you are no further forward?'

Anderson embarked on a lie. 'I wouldn't say that. Shula Ron's mother gave me a notebook that Martin Klein left at the house. I think it's going to tell me what he was up to.'

'Haven't you read it?'

'It's in some kind of code. I'll have to work on it.'

'That's great. Need any help?'

‘I’ll let you know.'

Next morning, before he left for the lab, Anderson took two pieces of adhesive tape and stuck them unobtrusively between the top of the door and its frame. He had thrown
Langman the bait, now all he needed was a bite indicator.

At the lab Myra greeted him with the news that all the test animals were alive. She told him as soon as he walked through the door.
There was now no doubt that Colomycin was safe to use in the presence of the plasmid and could therefore be used to eliminate the risk from possible carriers. Anderson telexed the news to John Kerr at the medical school back home with his customary brevity: 'COLOMYCIN CURES PLASMID SAFELY'. Some six hours later he was to receive an even briefer reply. It said, 'AGREED'. Kerr had obviously been conducting his own experiments along similar lines and had reached the same conclusion.

Anderson had to stall on the subject of when he would be returning home when Strauss and Myra asked him. Two days before and he would have been on the next flight out of Ben-Gurion but things had changed. Now his only desire was to be with
Mirit. He put off telling Strauss about Shula Ron for as long as possible, but finally had to reveal all when Myra asked openly about his trip to Jerusalem. They were shocked. Strauss sat down in his chair as if his knees had given way.

The telephone rang, and Myra and Anderson returned to the lab while Strauss took his call.

  'Neil?' Myra began, but Anderson interrupted.

 
'You're going to ask me if there's a connection between the Klein gene and Shula Ron's death, right?' Myra nodded. 'I don't know, Myra, I just don't know.'

Myra wasn't satisfied. She said, 'But if there is a connection, surely it means that Cohen and Klein weren't the only ones involved?'

'Yes,' said Anderson flatly.

'But who?'

'I don't know who. I don't know where. I don't know how. I don't even know
what
was done. With one exception, I haven't found out a single, damned thing!'

'Who or what was the "exception"?'

Anderson told her about the inquisitive American in the university apartments who seemed to ask an awful lot of questions about the Klein affair for a researcher in Talmudic law.

'Maybe he's just a friendly guy.'

'Probably,' said Anderson, 'in fact, considering my success rate as a detective you're almost certainly right.'

The tape was broken on the door when Anderson got back.
Langman had been in the apartment looking for the notebook bait! Just what the hell was he all about? Anderson quelled his initial impulse to rush downstairs and have it out with him. All he needed to do was deny it and then what? asked the voice of reason. He'd have to play it much more coolly, but what to do first, that was the problem. He lay down on the bed and thought it through. Well, Mr Langman, he concluded, if you are a researcher in Talmudic law ... my grandmother is an Apache.

What did he know about him
? Only what Langman had told him himself, and that didn't count. He was American, of that there could be little doubt. His clothes, his speech, his mannerisms, all testified to that. Maybe that was the factor that would give him an edge. As an alien, Langman would have had to register with the Israeli authorities. He could hardly have registered as a researcher in Talmudic law without having papers to prove it in some way. It would be very interesting to know just what was written on Langman's registration papers. But who could tell him? The police? Hardly likely. After yesterday's experience they'd probably open up his head wound if he as much as asked them the time. Mirit! She might be able to find out. After all, a captain in the army must have access to such information, mustn't she? Anderson had to admit to himself that what he knew about such matters could be comfortably accommodated on the back of a Tel Aviv bus ticket and still leave enough room for the names and addresses of the passengers. But he could ask Mirit. In fact, if he got a move on he could ask her that same evening.

Anderson signed the forms, paid with his Visa card, and took the keys to a dark-green Fiat
Mirafiore. It had taken less than half an hour since he had thought of going to Hadera and now here he was, heading north on the Haifa Highway in a rented car with the windows open to attract the warm Mediterranean breeze. Myra Freedman was right. In Israel, people did things.

Like a small western town before a gunfight,
Hadera seemed dead. Anderson slowed the Fiat to a snail's pace and crawled through the deserted streets lined with shuttered houses which allowed only the tiniest cracks of light to escape into the dust-filled air. He made for the bus station on the assumption that he'd surely find some sign of life there, someone to direct him to the military post. He was about to ask a group of bus drivers when he noticed two soldiers sitting on one of the station benches munching
falafels
. He asked them instead. One of them stood up and picked up the automatic weapon which had been propped against the bench. Oh Christ, here we go again, thought Anderson.

'Who are you?' asked the soldier. Anderson told him. 'Passport!' He handed it over. 'Why do you want to go there?'

'I want to see Captain Zimmerman.'

The questioner said something in Hebrew to his still seated, still munching companion. It got a toothy grin and a wad of wet crumbs fell out on to his trousers. 'OK,' said the soldier, putting dow
n his weapon and giving him directions.

The military post was outside
Hadera on the west side. Anderson found it without difficulty and parked the car some fifty metres from the entrance to avoid obstructing traffic while he made enquiries at the gatehouse. A warm wind was blowing. It made the blue and white Israeli flag above the entrance flutter in the night air. The same wind threw up sand into Anderson's face and made him pause by the fence to remove some from his eyes. As he stood there blinking he heard the sound of a car slowing down. The car, a dark blue Mercedes saloon, was leaving the base and had stopped at the gatehouse while the barrier was raised. The light from the open door illuminated the occupants. One was Mirit Zimmerman, the other was Miles Langman.

Anderson watched in utter desolation as the Mercedes roared off in a cloud of dust. Was everyone in this countr
y descended from Judas Iscariot, he wondered as anger and bitterness filled him. The Fiat's wheels snarled and scratched at the dirt as he put his foot down and headed for the Haifa Highway. He broke his journey at Herzliya and went down to the edge of the sea where he found himself alone on the moonlit beach. He threw stones into the water until his arm hurt, and then went on throwing. What possible involvement could Mirit have in the Klein affair? Surely to God she was who she'd said she was. But how did she know Langman? Anderson swore out loud as he concluded that there was nothing he could be certain of. He took off his clothes and swam naked in the sea till, nearing exhaustion, he returned to the shore and waited for the warm wind to dry him. He was back in Tel Aviv by midnight.

Next morning, as he walked through the university grounds, Anderson paused to listen to the sounds coming from the music school. It was quite beautiful. A solo pianist was playing Chopin as Chopin would have liked his music played. Not even the burning sun could make him move before the end of the piece. 'Bravo,' he said under his breath as the music stopped. He had made a decision in the last
four bars. The Israelis could have their Klein gene. He had had enough. He would clear away his things, sterilize every culture of the damned thing he could find and fly home in two days' time. Back home he would destroy all his own cultures as he had agreed to do and that would be his part over. No more sun, no more sweat and no more lies; it would be back to rain and reliability, pints of bitter with Fearman in The Angel, Chinese takeaways, nurses' parties. There would be no Mirit, of course, but he'd get over that in time . . . wouldn't he?

Anderson told Strauss of his decision and got permission to collect together all known sources of the plasmid containing the Klein gene. Shortly after three in the afternoon
, two trays of cultures were loaded into an autoclave in the sterilizer room. Anderson watched as the needle climbed to one hundred and thirty-one centigrade and knew that it wouldn't be that much longer till he was sipping gin and tonic aboard a British Airways Tri-Star.

Myra Freedman asked him to dinner on the spur of the moment, saying that he'd have to take potluck but that it would be nice if he could come and say goodbye to Sam. Anderson was happy to accept, knowing that it would be difficult to spend the entire evening brooding over
Mirit in Sam Freedman's company as he’d undoubtedly do if he were alone in his apartment.

True to form, the
Freedmans' hospitality made Anderson's impromptu farewell dinner flow along in a tide of good conversation and malt whisky. Anderson was sincere when he thanked Sam Freedman for a great evening and waved as the Mercedes drove off down Einstein at one in the morning. Anderson had drunk more than usual, thanks to recurrent thoughts of Mirit which he had blotted out immediately by draining his glass. Myra Freedman had made sure that it hadn't stayed empty for long, which had led to the slight unsteadiness he now felt as he climbed the stairs.

As he fumbled with the lock on his door, Anderson became aware that he wasn't alone. There was a figure out on the roof, a man's figure. He stopped wrestling with the keys and walked through the passage to the roof. It was
Langman! Good God, thought Anderson, not the 'beer on the roof bit. The notion died, and Anderson sobered up as if immersed in ice as he drew closer. Langman wasn't really standing up. He was being supported by the clothes line which had been wrapped tightly round his neck and reattached to the parapet. Langman's limp, dead body was suspended in the middle like a puppet at rest.

Anderson recoiled as he saw
Langman's eye move, but then realized that it was an impression given by a two-inch-long cockroach which had walked across the white of his eyeball on an inspection tour of the corpse. He turned and sought the support of the wall as he retched helplessly till his stomach was empty. Disgust was not the only feeling he had to cope with. Fear was there, fear such as he had never known before. It seemed that everyone he came into contact with in the Klein affair was being murdered and he didn't know why. Barely suppressed terror, ignorance of what was really going on, and the revulsion he felt at the sight of Langman's bloated features made a heady cocktail for Anderson to face in the black humidity of yet another Tel Aviv night. He rinsed his mouth out to clear away the taste of vomit and went down to telephone the police. It was going to be a long night.