Scorpion's Advance (18 page)

Anderson could hardly believe his ears. Strauss had caught him rifling through his personal belongings and yet here he was seeing things from his point of view. The man was incredible. A saint.

'Or a very clever sinner,' said Mirit, when Anderson told her of his awful day. He had telephoned her as soon as he had left the medical school and told her that he was coming up to Jerusalem for tea and sympathy.

'Please,
Mirit, no more. As far as I'm concerned, Jacob Strauss is clean. If he is guilty then I don't want to live in this world any more.'

'All right,' she smiled, 'we'll leave your old professor out of this, but I was right about Cohen . . .'

'Let's talk about something else, for God's sake.' He took her in his arms.

'Religion?' suggested
Mirit.

'No.'

'Politics?'

'No.' Anderson nuzzled her ear. She giggled.

The weather?'

'No.' Anderson dug his fingers into her buttocks and pressed her body to him till she couldn't fail to notice his erection.

'Couldn't possibly be ... that.' Mirit giggled.

'Oh yes, it could,' said Anderson, starting to lift her dress by walking his fingertips on her buttocks.

'Do you want to go to bed?'

'No,' said Anderson, having raised her dress to waist level and slipping his hands inside her panties.
‘I want you right here . . . and now.'

They showered together and then sat on the balcony above the garden, holding hands and sipping cold orange juice. There was no need to speak. Each knew how the other felt, making words an unnecessary and primitive extra form of communication. They went inside when the sun started to go down. 'What shall we do this evening?' said Anderson.

Mirit looked guilty. ‘I’m afraid I know exactly what we'll be doing this evening. I have to return to the base. I'll drop you off in Tel Aviv.'

Anderson was bitterly disappointed. 'I thought you were on leave,' he protested.

'I've been recalled,' said Mirit.

Anderson kissed her long and hard when she let him out in Einstein. 'Take care, my lady,' he said.

'You too,' said Mirit.

Anderson climbed the stairs, sorting out his apartment key from the bunch by the dim stair lighting which barely seemed to exceed forty watts at the best of times. He had reached the second top flat when one of the stray cats that roamed the city screeched and flew past him down the stairs. He smiled, but then froze as he realized that something must have alarmed it
, something or someone. He paused at the foot of the last flight and looked up into the gloom. It seemed quiet enough. Maybe a squabble with another cat on the roof had caused the commotion, but then again, maybe it hadn't.

Anderson was afraid; he didn't know what to do, so he did nothing but stand absolutely motionless, staring up at the landing outside his front door, waiting. But for what? Then he saw what. There was someone up there, hiding round the corner in the darkness. He had grown impatient in the silence and was edging out to take a look at the stairs. Anderson saw the gun first. It was being held at head height and was pointing at the ceiling as its owner inched forward.

The sight of it was enough for Anderson. He took to his heels and hurtled back down the stairs as fast as his legs could carry him. The clatter of feet behind said that he was being pursued. He burst out of the front door to find the lawn deserted. Shit! Any other time it would be full of bloody folk singers.

The sound of rushing feet behind him spurred him into running blindly out the gate into Einstein. There was a bus approaching the stop some thirty metres below him so he made that his target and managed to leap on to the bottom step as the driver was about to press the hydraulic door lever. Looking back through the rear window he could see a man in a light tan suit standing outside the apartment block on the pavement. He was looking after the bus and had his right hand inside his jacket as if holding his armpit, but Anderson knew differently. Just before they
turned left at the foot of Einstein his heart sank. He saw a car pull up and pick up the man in the light suit. He would be able to follow the bus!

There were only four other passengers aboard. Anderson asked, 'Does anyone speak English?' Blank
stares. He moved forward and squatted beside the driver, 'Speak English?'

'No English,' said the driver.

Christ! thought Anderson. Ninety per cent of the population speak English and I draw five blanks. He moved back up the aisle, attracting anxious stares from the passengers who clearly thought that he was mad. He could see the widely spaced headlights of the car that was tucked in behind them as they hurtled towards town at customary breakneck speed.

As they slowed to meet the busy intersection with
Dizengoff Street, Anderson saw that he had to act so he yelled to the driver to let him off but got nothing more than a sideways glance. He lunged forward and kicked the door lever himself before leaping out and running into the crowd that thronged the street. With a chameleon-like urge to merge, Anderson weaved in and out like a crochet hook for about a hundred metres before he dared to look back.

There was no sign of the light suit. Anderson realized that he was breathing heavily and attracting looks from the strolling crowds who paraded up and down
Dizengoff in the evening to no particular purpose. He consciously controlled himself and sought refuge in the shadows of a shop doorway. He pretended to light a cigarette but didn't take his eyes off the street.

He had to find a policeman. It was as simple as that. There was no time for anything more sophisticated, not that he could think of anything anyway. He would walk up to the first policeman he saw and tell him that a man was trying to kill him. It didn't matter if he thought that he was crazy just as long as he stuck with him, put some kind of authority between him and that bloody gun.

Anderson ventured cautiously out on to the street, trying to adopt the same ambling pace as the Israeli crowds but all the time looking for a uniform. A police vehicle passed by on the other side of the street with its occupants lazily surveying the crowd, but Anderson could see that he had no chance of attracting their attention without bowling half a dozen people over and running out in front of the traffic. He watched it pass by as a survivor in a life raft might view a ship that hadn't seen him.

By now, Anderson had been exposed for a quarter of a mile. Something made him look up. There, on a pedestrian bridge, was the man. He was looking directly at him! A bus swerved and braked as Anderson dashed across the road and dived into the gloom of a side
street. He was aware of passing an illuminated sandstone house with a plaque proclaiming it to have been the home of David Ben-Gurion, but Anderson passed it in an Olympic sprint. He ran until his legs began to lose co-ordination, making him feel like a new-born foal. He turned off into a dark lane and pressed himself to the wall behind a stone arch, taking in great gulps of air. It was quiet, very still and very quiet.

He
listened for footsteps but couldn't hear any. All he heard was the chirruping of insects in some nearby bushes and then the sound of a car engine. It was barely ticking over. He saw the car slide past the end of the lane, its two occupants looking out of the windows. One was the man in the light suit. He pressed himself even closer to the wall. He couldn't hear the engine any more but couldn't be sure it hadn't just stopped.

Anderson ran off along the lane, knowing it to be too narrow for a car to follow. He turned left at the end and headed in the direction he hoped would take him to the shore. Ten minutes later he found himself in
Atarim Square, mingling with the tourists and still trying to find a policeman. He had a vague recollection that there was some kind of police station near the tourist information centre at the foot of some wide steps leading down to the marina promenade. He got to the top of them and stopped. Standing at the foot was the gunman, a grin on his face. Anderson spun round but didn't start running. Behind him was a man in sunglasses whom he realized had been the driver of the car.

Without pausing to think, Anderson vaulted over the side rail and dropped ten feet to the promenade below. He'd never have done it if he'd thought about it but, with both ankles amazingly intact, he ran off round the marina basin with the two men hot on his trail. Time was running
out for him and he knew it. There were only two exits from the basin, apart from the front which demanded a boat. The two men could cover them both. He was considering a desperate attempt to steal a boat when he caught sight of his
deus ex machina.
There was a police launch in the basin, and it was manned.

Anderson flew out of the gangway calling for help. Two policemen stood up to meet him. 'Do you speak English?' Anderson gasped.

'Of course,' said the policeman.

'These men—' he pointed behind him. 'They're trying to kill me!'

Both policemen drew their pistols. One of them levelled his at the light-suited man who had stopped some thirty metres back. He slowly raised his hands and the policeman walked towards him. 'Be careful! There are two,' cautioned Anderson. The second policeman started looking around for the driver. Anderson watched from the side of the launch as his pursuer was searched. He saw the policeman take his gun and open up his wallet. There was a brief conversation before all three came back to the launch.

Anderson watched in disbelief as one of the policemen handed the gun back to the man and stepped back on board the launch. 'What the bloody . . . !'

'This way,' said the man, pointing the weapon at Anderson, who turned in appeal to the police. They turned their backs.

Anderson got in the car as directed and was joined in the back by the man with the gun, as the driver pulled out into the traffic. He'd stopped protesting. There was no point.

'You're a hard man to talk to, Dr Anderson,' said his captor.

Anderson didn't reply. He was thinking of Mirit and St Thomas's and the farm in Dumfries, all the things that he wouldn't see again. The car turned into Einstein and stopped at the gate to the university apartments. 'Let's go back to your place,' said the man. Anderson got out and looked up, his insides turning to water as he realized that they might throw him off the roof. He looked at the dusty pavement and saw himself lying there like a rag doll. 'Move it!'

The man in the tan suit stopped at the second top landing and motioned to the driver to go ahead. He drew his pistol and did as he was bid, sidling silently up to the top and checking out the roof passages. 'OK,' he said.

'Now where is it?' said light-suit as they entered Anderson's apartment.

'Where is what?'

'Klein's notebook, asshole!'

'I've no idea,' said Anderson.

'Don't give me that shit. We know you've got it.'

'I don't have it.'

Then you gave it to somebody else.'

'No. I never had it in the first place.'

'You told Miles Langman different.'

'Who are you?' asked Anderson, puzzled at how he could have known that.

'J. D. Dexter. I'm an American,' the man said, fumbling in his inside pocket for something.

'Really,' said Anderson. 'With your manners you could have passed for an Israeli.'

'Cut the shit!' He thrust an ID card under Anderson's nose. Anderson took in the American eagle and the initials CIA, but didn't bother with the rest. He looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. 'Sweet Jesus, what a disappointment. I felt sure it would be the KGB this time.'

'KGB? Where?' said the other man in alarm. 'What do you know about the KGB?'

'Christ, Hiram, it was a joke,' said Dexter.

'Limey bastard.'

'Scots bastard,' said Anderson. 'Surely the CIA can get something right.'

'Cool it!' said Dexter as tempers flared. 'Now look, Anderson, don't get the idea that we are the good guys all the time.'

'That thought never entered my head,' said Anderson drily.

'We'll kill you if we have to.' There was a little too much cold sincerity in the comment for Anderson's liking.

'Why?' he said quietly.

'We want that notebook.'

‘I don't have it. I never did. I made up the story to test Langman.'

'What test?'

Anderson told them of the trap he'd set for Miles Langman and how he had fallen for it and broken into his room.

'Smells like shit to me,' said the man in sunglasses.

'Your shoes,' said Anderson.

'What about them?'

'With those glasses on you probably stepped in some you couldn't see.'

'Bastard! I'll . . .’

'Cool it, Hiram!' said Dexter. He turned to Anderson and said, 'Miles Langman was murdered trying to get into your flat to get that book.'

'No, he wasn't,' said Anderson. 'He broke into my flat the day
before
he was murdered. He knew the book wasn't there. He wouldn't have been trying to break in again.'

Dexter thought for a moment. 'Shit! What a mess.'

'Amen,' said Anderson. 'Drink?'

'Please.'

Anderson turned to the man called Hiram to ask him the same.

'Not on duty.'

Dexter gave an embarrassed little shrug when Anderson looked at him. He poured two large measures of Scotch and asked, 'I don't suppose you'll tell me, but why was Miles Langman detailed to keep watch on me?'

'He wasn't,' said Dexter, 'he was on second-tier surveillance.' Seeing Anderson's blank look he continued. 'He was detailed to watch friends and relations of our prime target.'

'Who is?'

'I can't tell you that.'

'Well, that's that.'

Dexter thought for a moment before saying, 'Look, Doctor, you're an intelligent man. It must be perfectly obvious that there is a certain degree of
overlap in our interests. Perhaps we could collaborate?'

'What did you have in mind?'

'We need your expertise.'

'Like
Langman, only he didn't tell me,' said Anderson.

'If you like. You are here in Israel to investigate the origins of a plasmid that killed one of your medical students.'

'Yes.'

'We are investigating a man who may have constructed that plasmid, but we have no proof. Despite the fact that we have a man on the inside, our target hasn't put a foot wrong.'

'Where do I come in?'

'Our man has managed to lay his hands on the accounts for our target's organization. Could you tell just by looking at them if the place is conducting experiments in genetic manipulation?'

'It's possible.'

'Good. Now we're getting somewhere,' said Dexter. He said he would be back in the morning and that Anderson should get a good night's sleep. There would be no need to worry about attempts on his life. 'Hiram' would be acting as minder.

'A comfort,' said Anderson.

Mirit
arrived back at the Hadera base at eight o'clock and was told to report immediately to the commanding officer. Assuming some emergency she hurried across the dusty compound to his office but saw no signs of any undue activity on her way. She saw a jeep fitted with a light machine gun mounting go out of the gate but that was a routine patrol. The time on her watch said so.

‘I
expect you are wondering why you were recalled from leave,' said Colonel Aarons, stating the obvious.

‘I
had assumed some trouble.'

'No, no trouble, but this gentleman would like to have a word with you.' The unsmiling man standing beside Aarons nodded briefly and held out his ID card to
Mirit. She read the name, Moshe Viren, and noted the Israeli Intelligence Agency insignia.

'And what can I do for
Mossad?' said Mirit.

'If you'll excuse us, Colonel?'

'Of course,' said Aarons, getting up and leaving the room. So you carry that much weight, thought Mirit.

The intelligence man waited till the door had closed before speaking. 'Our colleagues in
the CIA informed us that they wished to interview an Israeli officer and told us something of what it was about.' He laboured the word 'something'. 'Not to put too fine a point on it, Captain, if the CIA are interested in something in Israel, so are we.'

'I understand.'

'We know, of course, of your association with the English doctor . . . Neil Anderson.'

'He's Scottish,'
Mirit interrupted, having adopted Anderson's reaction to the label 'English'. She felt silly and apologized.

The agent didn't mind; it told him a lot about the relationship. 'Captain, neither of us is a scientist but neither of us is stupid. Certain key words stand out in this affair, bacteria, genetic engineering, death. The CIA's interest only confirms the implication of these
words that some kind of biological weapon has been created. We want it. It is your duty as an Israeli officer . . .'

'Don't tell me my duty,' interrupted
Mirit.

'Very well, Captain. Report to your commanding officer when you have completed your mission. You may return to your leave.'

Mirit walked back across the compound oblivious to the sand that was being whipped up into her face by the strengthening wind. So this was it. The conflict of interests that she had known must be on the cards somewhere ever since Anderson had declared his love for her and she for him. At worst she had thought that it might come to the point where she would have to say 'no' when Neil asked her to marry him, and try to explain why she felt that she couldn't settle down to be a doctor's wife in the leafy lanes of Surrey. But this, she hadn't foreseen.

For
Mirit, life hadn't been the same since she saw her father return from the western wall in 1967. Although only eight years old, she had realized just what Israel meant to her father and all those friends and relations with the strange, numbered tattoos on their inner arms. The tear-stained reminiscences, the missing members in her family and in those of her friends, the pain-lined faces of those who were old before their time, had all conspired to fill a young girl with a determination that she would grow up to do all she could to defend and preserve the state of Israel. But now this.

On the drive back,
Mirit tried to console herself with the thought that the conflict might never arise. Maybe the riddle of the Klein gene would never be solved. Maybe all the cultures had already been destroyed. But if they hadn't and she and Anderson found them? What then? An articulated lorry blasted on its horn as Mirit's concentration wandered and the Fiat strayed too far over the highway. She snatched the wheel back and thought of what might have been. Maybe death was preferable. She couldn't face Anderson. She drove back to Jerusalem and sat in the walled garden.

Dexter turned up at Anderson's apartment at ten in the morning. He carried a black document case which he handed over along with a small card which read: 'J. D. Dexter, Shipping Agent'. 'When you have an answer, ring me at that number,' he said. 'Hiram's coming off duty now but you won't be alone.'

'Thank you,' said Anderson, not quite sure if he meant it but supposing that he did. He made coffee and took it out on to the roof to begin work on the papers. When he opened the case he was alarmed at the thickness of the file, but when he flicked through it he saw that much of it was repetitive. The papers were the monthly accounts of a research lab for the last six months.

Anderson got his answer within fifteen minutes. It came from the list of chemicals ordered. Most of them were standard laboratory reagents but each month an order was placed with a small specialist company for 'restriction enzymes'. These could only be used for cutting open DNA molecules. Anderson searched the lists for the other tell
-tale order. There it was, an order to the same company placed some three months ago for 1,000 units of T4 ligase, the enzyme used for re-joining open DNA molecules after the insertion of foreign material. There was no doubt that the lab was engaged in DNA manipulation, gene cloning, genetic engineering, call it what you would. No doubt at all.

Mirit
arrived as he was sifting through the rest of the material. She stood quietly at the roof door, watching him, until, conscious that he was no longer alone, he looked up. His face broke into a huge smile. 'Mirit! What a lovely surprise.' Putting down the papers he gave her a big hug. 'A false alarm? You're back on leave?' he asked, willing her to say 'yes'.

'I'm back on leave,' said
Mirit.

‘There's nothing wrong, is there?' Anderson asked, thinking that he detected a note of reservation in her voice.

'No, nothing.'

Anderson told her of his visit from the CIA and of the chase that had taken them all over Tel Aviv.

'At least they didn't open your head wound again,' said Mirit.

‘I
think one of them is acting as guardian angel,' said Anderson.

'I know. I saw him.'

'You saw him?'

'Sure. Grey suit, button-down collar. They merge into the background like blood on snow.'

'How come your intelligence people allow the CIA to operate here?' asked Anderson.

Why did he ask that? Was there something behind the question,
Mirit wondered, or was it her imagination born of guilt? 'We have a special relationship with the United States,' she said.

'You too?' said Anderson, but didn't elaborate. He was wondering why
Mirit's eyes had avoided his when she answered the question.

'You have a long shopping list,' said
Mirit, looking at the papers. Anderson told her what the CIA had asked him to do.

'And is it the lab?' she asked.

'It could be. They are definitely in the gene business.'

'Which lab is it?'

'They wouldn't tell me.'

'Any clues in the accounts?'

'That's exactly what I'm looking for,' smiled Anderson. ‘I’ll get us some orange juice and we can both look.'

After twenty minutes or so, Anderson said, 'Have you ever heard of the Jan
Kouros Hospice?'

'No, why?'

'Every month this lab pays money to the Jan Kouros Hospice. There's no indication why.'

'Do you think it's important?'

‘I don't know. How can we find out about it?'

'I'll make some calls.'

Mirit went to use the phone while Anderson continued his audit. She returned ten minutes later. 'It's a charitable organization in the desert. It's a refuge for poor people suffering from incurable diseases.'