Judas Country

'Whiskey Zulu, stand by.'

By now I was heading roughly 145 and for the moment the vertical currents weren't too bad. It was like being dragged downstairs on your bottom, but no worse than that. And I was going out a lot faster than I'd come in; now I'd got a major component of the wind behind me, and my ground speed must have gone up a good eighty knots. – Tel Aviv came back. 'Whiskey Zulu, are you getting a useful reading on your ADF?'

'Negative.'

'Whiskey Zulu, steer 148 degrees, maintain 7,000 feet until overhead Bravo Golf November beacon. Change to Ben Gurion Approach, 120.5.'

'Whiskey Zulu.' They'd bring me over the airport, turn me around so I could let down in the holding pattern on the coastline, then back in a sweeping plunge for the runway.

'Ben Gurion Approach, Whiskey Zulu. What is your latest actual?'

'Whiskey Zulu, stand by.' Was it as bad beneath as I wanted it?

'Whiskey Zulu: wind 280 gusting 50 knots, visibility 300 metres in heavy rain, two octas six hundred feet, eight octas eight hundred feet. Understand you may suffer total electrical failure any time.'

'Something like that.'

'Understand you have no brakes. Is your marker receiver okay?'

'Don't know. Haven't been over any markers recently.'

'Whiskey Zulu, stand by.'

I knew what was worrying them. Me, too. The weather on the deck was as bad as I'd hoped for: just possible for an ILS approach but still dicey. I could come below cloud safely on a timed descent from the outer marker, but I'd still be going exactly the wrong way. Then I'd have to do a procedure turn at 500 feet in 300 metres visibility and an erratic strong wind to find the runway again. I was prepared to try.

They weren't. Not with my last radio likely to blow at any moment.

'Whiskey Zulu, unless you declare a full emergency do not repeat not attempt to land at Ben Gurion International. Divert to Jerusalem; weather there is still in visual limits.'

The aircraft heaved like a sick stomach and hit a patch of hail that clammered on the roof like road drills. A ball almost ping-pong size broke on the screen, jammed in the wiper and dissolved slowly.

'I suppose so.' I said, trying to sound reluctant. 'Will you notify Nicosia?'

'Wilco, Whiskey Zulu. Maintain 148 and we'll turn you on the beacon for Jerusalem. Go and crack up ontheir runway.'

'Repeat, please?'

'Shalom.'

Four minutes later I swam into vivid calm sunshine just fifteen miles from the eternal city. And the best thing was, I hadn't even suggested the idea myself.

28

I reached the King David at two o'clock, which happened also to be the middle of a thunderstorm, possibly one I'd already met personally. I walked straight through the big lobby and up the corridor to the bar and just stood there, dripping on to the polished floor. Ken stood up from the gloom, looking pleasantly dry on the outside.

'Where's the aeroplane?'

I jerked my head and sprayed water over an approaching waiter. 'Where you wanted it. Whisky sour, please.'

I took off my jacket and hung it over the back of the chair. The bar had an air-conditioned chill and my shirt was wet as well. The hell with it. I put the jacket back on and sat down.

'Could be worse,' Ken said. 'You could be flying in this stuff.'

'I was. Where d'you think this front was, an hour and a half ago?'

'How did you swing it?'

'Sabotaged the ILS and took off for Nicosia. Decided I couldn't penetrate and by then Ben Gurion was clamped for anything but an instrument approach… so they diverted me here.'

'Neat. Could you have penetrated?'

'I'm not sure I could.'

His eyebrows lifted a fraction. I'd wanted to tell him, somebody who'd understand, more of what it had been like. But no need. He'd know.

'It must have been slightly intrepid.' He knew, all right.

'Just moderately slightly.'

The waiter put down my whisky sour and 1 took a gulp and the flight was just an entry in my log-book.

But – 'One thing, Ken. I may have screwed up the whole idea. I managed to louse up most of the avionics; they probably won't even let us take off until we've got a lot of it replaced.' I'd ordered some replacements, but I could hear Kapotas's blood-pressure bubbling at 200 miles.

He didn't seem worried. 'No rush. Once we've got the sword, we can pick our own time to get it out A grounded aeroplane that's opened up a bit, you visiting it twice a day – that's a nice cover for getting something on board. Did you have any trouble at the airport?'

Apart from landing on a downhill runway without brakes? 'No, it just took an hour to get a customs man up to clear me out.'

'You weren't followed?'

'No. But it's no secret that I'm here. A bit of hurry-'

'Sure. What happened to Jehangir yesterday?'

'I may have killed him.'

'Christ… Well, it couldn't happen to a nastier guy. But what about a comeback from Cyprus?'

'It all happened airside and he had a private aeroplane so I pushed him in and…' Should I say he'd taken the champagne boxes as well? I wasn't too proud of letting them go. And Ken would start rhubarbing about 'capital' again. He might even be right. So I said: 'What were you doing in Acre last night?'

He stiffened. 'Who said that?'

'We got picked up by a cop in Tel Aviv last night. He works for the Antiquities Department. Ken, itwas a trap.'

'Of course it was. They were behind me from the start -that's why I went to Acre, where Brtjno was digging. Always give the client what he suspects, anyway. They're probably ripping that town apart looking for buried treasure.'

'And you. How did you get away?'

'Got up early and caught a train. Have you any idea what time the trains get up in this country?'

'Well… they'll soon know I'm in Jerusalem and they could guess about you. Anyway, if I was looking for Cavitt and Case I'd put a man in the bar of the King David and forget the rest of the country.'

He looked around quickly. Only a dim yellow light came in through the Olde Englyshe windows behind him, and they hadn't turned on the main lights. But nobody seemed to be bending an ear at us. Thejest of the crop seemed to be normal tubby tourists.

Ken relaxed and grinned. "They don't know usthat well. Anyway, Israeli cops can't afford to drink here.'

'Neither can we. After this one, let's get operational. Have you really got a deal?'

'I spent an hour with Gadulla before I rang you today. We've got a deal.'

'Let's get started on it, then.'

'Look, nothing much can happen before night.'

'We can get spotted, that's what can happen. It's a small country, Ken. The cops know each other. The word gets around fast.'

Thunder ripped the invisible sky and didn't even shake the drink in my glass. Just sound and fury; harmless.

Ken nodded at the ceiling. 'In this clag?'

"That's all right. I'm wet already.'

*

No taxis, of course, and the half mile to the Jaffa Gate had stretched in the rain to a good mile-and-a-half. But behind us, beyond the weird great sultan's palace of the YMCA, the sky was clearing to a copper-sulphate blue. The front was almost through.

We moved at an Olympic walk, the rain bouncing up around our ankles.

'Great idea,' Ken said in a sodden voice. 'Now we can plead not guilty by reason of pneumonia.'

'It's all in the mind. Did Gadulla mention anything about a letter from the Prof?'

'He was expecting one, all right. So it existed.'

'You didn't say what had happened to it?'

'Why complicate things? He probably hasn't heard of Papa getting dead and wouldn't connect it up anyway. If he likes to think the letter never got written…' He took his hands out of his pockets to shrug more expressively, then hastily stuffed them back.

Then there was the City ahead of us, the squat grey-gold walls and ramparts reflected and exaggerated in the shapes of the thunderheads above. At least the rain had flattened the dust that usually blows in your eyes at that corner.