Scorpion's Advance (6 page)

'Your animals are dead,' said Ann
Veitch, leading the way to the isolation cages.

Anderson looked at the cold, stiff corpses of the two guinea pigs. They were lying on the floor of their cages, teeth bared in what was now becoming a familiar death mask.

'Incinerate them,' said Anderson.

He had his proof.

Two weeks passed, during which Ann Veitch was appointed to the vacant chief technician's post in the reopened animal house. Things were returning to some semblance of normality, but, when three weeks had gone by with still no word from Israel, Anderson's impatience bubbled over into irritability. 'What the hell are they doing?' he exploded to John Fearman.

'Maybe the drug company were slow in sending the
Galomycin,' suggested Fearman, saying the wrong thing.

'Are you kidding?' exclaimed an incredulous Anderson. 'That company must have ten million quid tied up in
Galomycin! They would have rented a bloody Concorde to get it there if necessary!'

'All right, all right,' snapped
Fearman, 'but for God's sake stop taking it out on me! You've become a pain in the arse!'

Anderson was struck dumb. It was the first time he had ever heard his even-tempered flatmate raise his voice. He stared out of the window, calming down in the icy silence and realizing that
Fearman was right. 'I apologize,' he said. 'Would three pints and a Chinese takeaway make amends?'

'You're on,' smiled
Fearman.

On the Thursday of the fourth week, Anderson received his long-awaited report from Tel Aviv. He was absolutely shattered when he read it. Strauss had carried out extensive animal tests using a variety of plasmid and
Galomycin combinations. All the animals had survived without showing the slightest ill-effects; doubling the Galomycin dosage had made no difference. He concluded that both the drug and the plasmid were quite, quite harmless.

Anderson cringed inwa
rdly with humiliation. He concentrated his gaze on the notepad in front of him and drew a series of concentric circles in the top right-hand corner while trying to maintain a suitably inscrutable expression.

'It appears that Dr Anderson's conclusions were perhaps a little precipitate,' said Lennox-Adams to the assembled meeting.

'There may indeed be more to it than was first thought . . . ' continued James Morton.

Anderson sensed that Lennox-Adams was enjoying it all, playing with him, circling him like a hyena round a wounded animal, darting in to strike home with key words . . . headstrong . . . inexperienced . . . mistaken. 'Now that Professor Strauss has demonstrated that this plasmid thing . . . ' Lennox-Adams made a dismissive gesture with his hand, 'is completely harmless . .
.’

'No, he hasn't,' said Kerr, attracting all eyes. 'What he has done is to come up with a different answer to Anderson.'

'Yes, but a man of Strauss's stature . .  '

'Can be mistaken like anyone else.'

'But surely in this case . . .'

In this case, Nigel, there are three people in the cemetery who don't think that Anderson was mistaken.'

There was absolute silence in the room. Mary Ryle shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

'Then what do you suggest, Dr Kerr?' asked Lennox-Adams in a cold, flat voice.

'I suggest that we send Dr Anderson to Tel Aviv so that he and Jacob Strauss can sort out this mess,' said Kerr.

'I hardly think that the Regional Health Board will look too kindly on that suggestion.'

'The drug company will pay.'

'Will you ask them?'

'I already have.'

Kerr grunted in response to Anderson's thanks for having defended him. 'You had better telex Strauss to see if it's all right with him.'

'Right away,' said Anderson, getting up.

'One thing,' said Kerr as Anderson reached the door. 'If it does turn out to be your mistake . . . Start looking for a locum in the Hebrides.'

Anderson had a reply to his telex on the following morning; Jacob Strauss agreed to the proposed collaboration. One week later, Anderson left for Tel Aviv.

Anderson looked down in response to the announcement from the First Officer and saw the lights of Tel Aviv appear in the blackness below; flight BA 576, London Heathrow to Ben Gurion International, was coming in to land. The journey had done nothing to modify his dislike of travelling, regarding it as he did as an endless monotony of queuing and waiting, and the Israel flight had been worse than most. Much more time had been taken up with security and baggage checks. Determined to avoid yet another queue, Anderson sat still till the other passengers had filed out. The company smile on the face of the stewardess changed to a real one when she heard the croak from Anderson's throat when he tried to speak; it had been a long time since he had said anything.

Anderson stood at the top of the steps and let the Israeli night surround him. God, it was hot. No longer protected by the cabin conditioning of the Lockheed Tri-Star, he felt the humid warmth creep into the space between his collar and his neck. Perspiration was trickling freely down his forehead by the time he had collected his baggage and cleared Customs. He walked out on to the concrete reception area which was now crowded with embracing groups of people as sons and lovers were welcomed home.

Anderson stopped and looked around, a gesture that immediately marked him out as a target for a competing horde of taxi drivers, who surrounded him, tugging at his arm and rhyming off a discordant chorus of destinations.

Throughout the pantomime, which strained his patience to the limit, Anderson
had been aware of a tall, bespectacled man hanging back beyond the edge of the group. A slight smile on his face said that he was enjoying the display. Anderson looked directly at him and the smile disappeared. The man approached and rasped something in Hebrew. The taxi drivers melted away.

'Dr Anderson?' enquired the man, without smiling. 'I am
Arieh Cohen, one of Professor Strauss's colleagues. He asked me to meet you.'

The fact that Cohen did not smile convinced Anderson that he had been, right in thinking that Cohen had hung back deliberately. It had been on the cards that there might be some resentment in the Israeli lab to an outsider questioning their results. He wondered if Cohen's hostility might be general. If it was? Well, he was no schoolgirl; he could take any shit they cared to throw, do his job and then get out.

The Volvo pulled out on to the highway and Anderson tugged at his collar as the heat of the night began to stifle him. Incredibly, the car heater seemed to be on. Anderson put his hand in front of the grille in disbelief.

‘
I'm afraid the ventilation system is faulty,' said Cohen.

Anderson did not know whether to believe him or not. He wound down the passenger window without the nicety of asking first and took deep breaths of the warm breeze. Fearing a complete breakdown in relations between them, Anderson
tried to feign some semblance of normality. 'Forgive me, I'll just have to take off my jacket.' He smiled.

'That would be the intelligent thing to do,' said Cohen coldly.

Anderson ignored the jibe. ‘Is it always this hot?' he asked.

‘I
n Tel Aviv, yes. It's the humidity that's bothering you, not the heat. You'll get used to it.'

‘I
f you say so.'

The drive into Tel Aviv took fifteen minutes. Cohen did not say much so Anderson just took in the road signs as they flashed by and was suddenly aware of being in the
Holy Land. The names on the boards made him think of days gone by, cold mornings in the school hall in Dumfries with infant voices raised in programmed praise. That 'Green Hill' was no longer so far away, it was thirty-seven kilometres east at the last intersection.

As they entered the outskirts of Tel Aviv, Cohen explained that Professor Strauss had arranged for him to stay in university accommodation, conveniently near the university itself. The students, he said, were still on vacation so it would be relatively quiet and he would have an apartment to himself.

'Sounds fine,' said Anderson.

'It's rather basic.'

They were now deep in Tel Aviv traffic and moving slowly.

'The university is on the north side of the city,' said Cohen, 'perhaps you would care for a cold drink before we go up there?'

Anderson, who was becoming more and more conscious of the stifling heat now that they were caught up in traffic, readily agreed. Cohen turned off the main street and twisted in and out of a maze of side streets before they reached the waterfront and the slightest suggestion of a cool breeze flirted with Anderson's cheek.

'
Atarim Square,' announced Cohen, as they walked towards a brightly lit area full of bars and cafes. 'Tourist Tel Aviv, tourist tastes, tourist prices.'

Anderson was sure an insult had been intended but for the moment thoughts of cold beer took precedence over everything else. They found a table by the sea wall overlooking the yacht
marina and ordered drinks; Anderson asked for beer, Cohen had orange juice.

'You don't drink beer, Dr Cohen?' asked Anderson.

'I don't touch alcohol.'

Anderson could see that the prospect of fun-filled nights with Cohen in downtown Tel Aviv should be filed under 'remote'. He asked a few polite questions and received polite but curt answers in reply, so, deciding that he was running in mud, he did not launch any more initiatives and drank his beer in silence.

'Shall we go?' asked Cohen, eyeing his watch. Anderson nodded.

The car picked up speed as they left the town traffic and headed towards the northern suburb of
Ramat Aviv. Anderson paid scant attention until they slowed and turned off into a broad, tree-lined avenue marked 'Einstein'.

The university is at the top of Einstein,' said Cohen, 'and this . . . ' he continued as they turned right into a wide compound surrounded by high concrete buildings, 'is where you will be staying.'

Anderson was told that he was to have the roof apartment in the French Building, each block having been named after countries whose governments had been sympathetic to the establishment of the Israeli state, and who had backed up their sympathy with hard cash. The term 'apartment', as it turned out, referred to a single room furnished with the bare necessities of civilized life, a small bed, a table, a chair, a cooking stove and a sink. It did, however, have a toilet and shower cabin and it was the prospect of a shower that held Anderson's complete attention.

As he put down his bags, two large cockroaches scuttled across the floor forcing him to make an involuntary sound of disgust. He looked at Cohen and saw the amusement in his eyes.

'Stand on them,' said Cohen, turning to go. 'Someone will come for you in the morning.'

The door clicked shut and Anderson tore at his clothes in his haste to get into the shower. He turned his face up to the sprinkler head like an Inca sun
worshipper, letting the water cascade over him, bringing freedom, albeit temporarily, from the cloying heat of the Tel Aviv night. He turned the regulator to 'cold' and surveyed his feet for a few minutes till his body temperature had cooled. Feeling better, he wrapped a towel round his waist and padded over to the bed where he lay down and looked up at the white, featureless ceiling until the day stopped swirling inside his head and sleep invaded his tired mind.

Anderson woke just after five, with the rays of the morning sun streaming in through the slit window some eight feet up the wall and playing on his eyelids. Realizing that getting back to sleep would be impossible he got up, washed and pulled on a pair of shorts. The words 'roof apartment' sprang to mind. Did he really have access to the roof? He opened the door and looked left and right; the stairs down were to the right, but on the left was a small corridor which he followed and found led to the wide, flat roof of the French Building. The concrete surface, baked by a sun that was already very hot, threatened to burn the soles of his bare feet as he walked across to the parapet and looked over, following the broad sweep of Einstein down to the Mediterranean in one direction and up to the campus buildings of the university in the other.

Anderson returned to his room and looked through the cupboards - crockery, hardware . . . and food. Someone had stocked the cupboard above the sink with coffee, eggs and Syrian pitta bread. Another small cupboard turned out to be a fridge. It contained orange juice and milk. Anderson revised his hastily formed opinion of Israelis based on his experience with Cohen. He mellowed considerably over boiled eggs, toast and coffee.

When he had finished eating, Anderson took his chair out on to the roof and sat there with a second cup of coffee. He felt better with the food inside him and ready to face anything the day had to offer. As the sun climbed higher in the sky he moved his chair back into the shade of a water tower and used
the time in hand to reorient himself to the reasons for his visit.

Just before nine he heard laboured breathing coming from the stairs and turned to face the door. After what seemed to be an age the figure of an elderly man appeared in the entrance, obviously struggling for breath after the climb. He patted his chest as if in explanation for the delay before he spoke.

'Good morning. I am Jacob Strauss.'

Anderson ushered Strauss over to the chair he had been occupying and the old man sat down gratefully; he began to use his Panama hat as a fan and continued until he had sufficiently recovered to speak. He nodded to the stairs and said, 'To you some steps, to me . . . the
Eiger.'

Anderson smiled. So that was Jacob Strauss, a name which had appeared regularly throughout his student years in lectures and textbooks.
Not at all what he had expected, Strauss seemed to be a rather benevolent old gentleman, the sort you would find on park benches on summer afternoons, patting dogs and lifting their hats to passing mothers with prams.

Strauss outlined plans for the day. 'First, the damned paperwork . . . ' He made a gesture of annoyance with his hat. 'Then I show you my lab and we talk, yes?'

'Fine,' said Anderson.

Strauss's car, a very dusty Mercedes, was waved to a halt at the entrance to the university by an armed guard. Anderson thought that the guard seemed old and fat, but the gun he was carrying looked real enough. Strauss got out and approached the man who, in turn, saluted him. They had a short conversation in Hebrew, which Anderson guessed was about him, then he was asked to get out and his flight bag was searched.

'I hope you will forgive the impoliteness,' said Strauss as they drove on through the gates.

'Of course.'

Strauss listed the various buildings on the campus as they passed by on their way up a tree-lined avenue. They stopped at the administration building and spent half an hour on the 'damned paperwork' before proceeding to the medical school which turned out to be a multi-storey tower block.

The elevator rose silently and swiftly to the sixth floor where Strauss had his laboratory and where they were met by
a number of people wearing lab coats. He was introduced to everyone, although there seemed little hope of him remembering all, or indeed any, of the phonetically strange names.

'You already know Dr Cohen,' said Strauss.

'Yes, indeed.'

Cohen nodded curtly but did not smile.

Lastly, Anderson was introduced to a woman in her late twenties.

'And this is my right hand,' said Strauss, smiling broadly and putting his arm round the woman's shoulders. 'May I present my research assistant, Myra Freedman.'

Anderson shook hands with her and thought the wide smile genuine enough.

'It's a pleasure to meet you, Doctor,' said the woman.

Anderson was surprised at her American accent for, of all the people he had met so far, Myra Freedman would have been the one he would have picked out as looking typically Israeli. She was small and sallow-skinned with dark, curly hair that licked along her forehead and tumbled down on to her shoulders. She wore gold on both wrists and round her neck.

'You are an American?' said Anderson, betraying his surprise.

The wide mouth laughed, revealing well-cared-for teeth. 'Chicago,' said Myra. The telephone rang in Strauss's office and he excused himself, leaving Anderson and Myra alone.

'So what's an American doing here?' Anderson asked.

'I'm not an American any more,' insisted Myra with mock firmness.' As of two years ago I'm an Israeli. Sam and I thought it was time.'

The name rang a bell for Anderson. 'Sam Freedman? Not the research biochemist?'

The woman smiled. ‘The same.'

Anderson had started to say, 'But why should . . .' when he stopped himself. He was too late. Myra Freedman completed his question.

'Why should a top flight researcher like Sam give up everything and come to a backwater like Israel?'

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude.'

'Don't apologize, and don't think there haven't been times when I've asked myself the very same question, on days when it's a hundred and twenty degrees and one hundred per cent humidity and the air conditioning breaks down because there's a power cut and so on. But basically it's because we're Jewish and we both felt that supporting Israel with words just wasn't enough any more. Israel needs people, not just stateless, displaced people starting from scratch or running from some oppressive regime, but established, professional people, people who
want
to work here. These are the people who will give credence to Israeli science, medicine and the arts. These are the people who will provide the infrastructure for our future. Does that make sense?'