Watching nubile majorettes cavort despite a chill breeze on their naked arms and legs, Maury Everett faced his personal dilemma for the hundredth time since his appointment. Newsmen dubbed their solution `disinvolvement.' You have a job and you assume its risks. If you are government, you stay in your own bailiwick and off the toes of other bureaucrats. If you are business, and most explicitly media business, you rise or fall chiefly on informal contacts—and in newsgathering, you do not interfere with the news event. You do not divulge sources for two reasons. The legal reason is backed by the Supreme Court, and the selfish reason is that fingering a contact is professional suicide.
If Everett somehow interrupted the impending show after its careful leakage to ENG people by some unknown malcontent, his sources would evaporate instantly, permanently. Freedom of reportage, even when irresponsible, was a fundamental function of American media. John Rooker called it surveillance. Everett called it hellish.
The Portacam man had shifted position to a second-landing fire escape next to the synagogue. A thorough pro, he was taking footage of the parade so that, whatever happened, he would be able to salvage some sort of story. Everett saw that all of the floats featured the same general theme: athletics. Lumbering beyond him was a float honoring the 1980 Olympics winners, a crudely animated statue labeled `Uri' waving three gold medals. That would be Yossuf Uri, Israel's surprise middle-distance runner. The hulking mannikin beside it represented the Soviet weights man, whose heart had later failed under the demands placed upon it by too many kilos of steroid-induced muscle tissue.
The casual connection of death with the float display goaded Everett's mind toward a casual inference, but he froze for too many seconds while the details linked in his head. A synagogue on the corner, an Israeli hero approaching it, and a vague tipoff by a terrorist naming the intersection. No matter how little the ENG people knew, Maurice Everett clawed his way to a terrible conclusion.
Later, he could regain an uneasy sleep whenever he awoke streaming with the perspiration of guilt—for he had vaulted the horns of his dilemma. "Stop," he bawled, and knew that his voice was hopelessly lost in the general clamor. Everett sprinted between bystanders, knocked a beldame sprawling, caromed into the side of another float. He was still on his feet, still shouting for attention, when the great torso of Yossuf Uri came abreast of the synagogue and disappeared in a blinding flash. A wall of air tossed Everett halfway across the street.
* * *
How Jewish can you get? The stable manager fingered the crisp twenty-dollar bill, smiling down at the signature. "I've saddled up a perty spirited mare, Mr. Rabbinowitz," he said, taking in the wistful smile, the olive skin, the dark hypnotic eyes. "Sure that's what you want?"
"Precisely," the little man said, and paced out to the corral. He mounted the mare quickly, gracefully, and cantered her out along the rim of the arroyo. The stableman watched him, puzzled. He was certain he had seen Rabbinowitz before. As the figure dipped below his horizon in the afternoon sun, the stableman laughed. Meticulous silken dress and manner had made the illusion even better, a youthful cosmetic version of a man more character than actor. "George Raft," he murmured, satisfied.
The mare was no filly, but she had Arabian lines. The rider held her at a gallop, imagining that he was in Iraq and not California. He savored the earthy scents of this, a small pleasure he could justify in terms of security. No one, he felt certain, would bug a bridle trail. Presently he came in view of San Jose rooftops and at that moment—precisely—knew that he was being watched.
He made an elaborate show of patting the mare's neck, leaning first to one side and then the other, scanning—without seeming to—every mass of shrub cover within reasonable pistol shot. Nothing. His heels pressured the mare. She was already plunging ahead when he heard the girl cry out behind him. He had passed her without sensing her? Most disturbing.
He wheeled the mare and returned, erasing his frownlines for the girl. She was clapping now, a jet-haired comely thing, slender-boned, with the lustrous eyes of a drugged fawn. "Ayyy, que guapo," she laughed aloud, showing a pink tongue between dazzling teeth. The gold cross at her throat, the peasant blouse: a latina.
He misjudged her in two ways: "You like the mare?"
"The combination," she answered, growing more serious. Her hands were clearly in sight and he did not see how she could hide a deadly weapon while showing so much youthful flesh. But still—Now she stroked the mare's nose, looking up at him. He liked that. "Like music," she said, and waited.
The formula should not have surprised him so. "Music by Sedaka?"
"Imsh'allah," she said. How convenient that a popular composer's name should also, in several related tongues, mean 'gift.' Well, this one would give. Her stealth and cover identity had been, if anything, better than his own. He did not admit to irritation in his response.
He complimented Talith in her deception, dismounting, walking with her to a tree-shaded declivity. The mare tethered, they sat, and now her slight advantage in height disappeared.
"Curious," he began, "how my appetites are whetted by a job well-done." They spoke English and then Arabic, softly, warmly, and when he remounted it was not on the mare. He forced into her immediately, a pain she ignored in her joy to serve. He coupled like a ferret, grinning fiercely, his need unsullied by affection, and Talith knew that she would not be required to simulate orgasm. She extended her tonguetip between her teeth, her own grin lewd in his face, and reached down to find him. She began to contrive for him that redoubled rapture, a Florentine. His restraint was no match for this and, in moments, he was spent.
Presently they drew apart. The girl combed her hair with impatient fingers. "You have seen the media coverage of the Pueblo operation this morning?"
"There was no time for that," he yawned. "I nearly missed my flight to San Jose. But I did hear a bulletin. Did Fat'ah obtain suitable coverage?"
She nodded gravely. "Hakim will be pleased."
"Of that, I am certain." Their great bituminous eyes locked for a moment before, toying with her, he persisted. "But Hakim must have a media center. You are prepared?"
"Prepared? When I hailed you," she riposted, "did you or did you not think I was a local chicana?"
Echoes of repugnance clashed like scimitars behind his quiet words. "You are clever, you are willing. I speak of greater things than—" and paused after using a grossly sexist Bedouin term for his recent use of her. He saw her pupils expand. Pleasure or pain? "I must know whether you have the site, the men, and the equipment Fat'ah requires."
"I cannot say. My instructions are to provide only for the leader himself. He may not arrive, as you know. Or he may." She shrugged.
"You are clever. But you are prepared for Hakim Arif?"
"We are Fat'ah."
"And who am I?" He removed his left small finger at the last joint, replaced the prosthetic tip while she regained her composure. "In our telephone arrangements I spoke to you as 'Rabbinowitz'."
"But I thought you would first send—sire, you are Hakim Arif," she murmured, seeming to grow smaller.
"So I am. And angry at continued small talk, and impatient for my media. We have another demonstration to plan, depending on the results we see from this morning's work. You have provided for me, you say? Then show me, Talith."