“Hans Busch!” The hard-faced man savored the pleasant wonder of having this man in his hands. “Mr. Hans Busch! You know, Mr. Busch, there used to be a story I heard some time ago when I was much younger; a story you probably know and laughed at years ago. About an old Jew with a big nose and a long beard, named Goldberg. This Goldberg goes to a judge and wants to change his name to O’Brien. The judge agrees and changes the old man’s name from Goldberg to O’Brien. Then, a week later, the old man is back to see the judge. This time he wants to change his name from O’Brien to Kelly. And the judge asks him why, and the old Jew says, ‘Well, every time people ask me my name and I say it’s O’Brien, they look at me funny and say, “What was it before?” ’ ” His tone was quite conversational, but the grip on Ari’s arm tightened slightly. “Let me ask you the same question, Mr. Busch. What was your name before it was Busch?”
The cold feeling of panic that Ari had forcefully contained during the first confused moments of the ride suddenly came flooding back. What was this? Who were these people? What did they want with him? How could they have known that Hans Busch was not his real name? Was everything to be lost again, now, at this point, when it was going so well? Why, he cried to himself in silent despair, why did I ever get so far ahead of Da Silva’s man who was following me?
“We’re talking to you, Mr. Busch,” Davi said gently, although there was nothing gentle about the heavy arm he placed over the back of the seat and about Ari’s thin neck. “It’s only polite to answer.”
“Who are you...?” Ari had trouble getting the words out; his voice broke, he forced the words again past the obstruction in his throat. “Who are you... and what do you want of me?”
Davi laughed. “Us? Who are we? We have lots of names. Which one would you want?” The smile faded, he looked at Ari coolly. “As far as you are concerned, you can think of us as the Bad Guys.”
Moises, the heavy-handed man holding Ari’s arm in the same tight grip, chuckled unpleasantly. “Who are we?
We’re some of the remnants you people failed to stuff into an oven some years ago. We’re a few that you overlooked. That was your mistake, and I’m afraid you’re going to pay for it!”
The driver leaned backwards, speaking over his shoulder. “You want to know who we are? I’ll tell you. We’re what you people call terrorists. But don’t worry about it. Some of our own people call us terrorists, too.” He laughed. “So if we are terrorists, prepare yourself for some terror, Mr. Busch!” He swung his attention back to his driving, chuckling at his own humor.
“We are going to kill you, Mr. Hans Busch,” Davi said quietly, conversationally. “We are going to take you out of the city, away from everything, and in the dark we are going to kill you. In the dark, out of the sight of people; in the dark, where things like you should be lulled, we are going to kill you!”
“But before we kill you, Mr. Busch,” said Moises, in the tone of one who insists on keeping to the agenda, “you are going to answer the question I asked you a while ago. Who are you, Mr. Busch?” He tightened his grip again, and turned to the others. “We can’t very well kill an absolute stranger, can we? It wouldn’t be polite.”
“Who are you people?” Ari whispered hoarsely, trying to see past the blank faces into the hidden identity of their minds and souls, his terror replaced by a nameless horror that this should be happening to him of all people.
“You may have heard of us by name,” Davi said lightly. “We call ourselves Maccabees, after another who got tired of being stepped upon. We are through being stepped upon, Mr. Busch; now we do the stepping. Tonight, we are going to step upon you.” He stared out of the car window as he spoke; they were rounding a curve above the ocean, dropping down toward the beach again. The rush of waves could be heard clearly.
“Avram,” Moises said, leaning forward again. “After we leave the Niemeyer, keep to the left. Then the first side road to the left after the golf club.” He turned to Ari, smiling grimly. “A nice quiet place; a lovers’ lane. Nobody will disturb us while we talk, because you see, Mr. Busch, before we kill you, we are going to find out exactly whom we are killing.”
Ari remained sunk in shocked silence, his mind numb. It could not possibly be! What frightful joke was this? What mad, impossible, macabre joke was this? His eyes blurred with tears; he wanted to speak but words would not come.
The car rolled on, the driver once again humming softly to himself. They left the highway and rocked slowly along a dirt road, turning to the right at the end to follow a mere path along the side of the ocean. The wheels squeaked quietly in the sand-filled tracks; darkened cars stood parked in the shadows on either side, their occupants locked in tight embrace. They drove slowly past the last of these; the car was nosed slightly off the path onto the sand of the beach; the lights flicked off, the motor sobbed once and stopped. There was a moment’s complete silence.
“All right, Busch,” Moises said, and his voice was the cold voice of doom, all expression withdrawn, the voice of the executioner. “Who are you? What was your name and position in the Nazi party? Who were you before you escaped the War Crimes trials?” His grip tightened inexorably, with the impersonal force of machine-jaws closing. Ari screamed, a thin scream that was cut off by Davi’s hand clamped quickly across his mouth. The pressure on his arm eased; the hand was withdrawn but held close, ready for instant application.
“Make no mistake, Busch,” Davi said in a low, fierce voice. “You are going to die whether you tell us or not; but first you will tell us!” His voice turned bitter. “We located Eichmann, and they made us turn him over! And we located you, Busch, but all we will turn over of you is your dead body! And your real name!” He looked at Ari with dead eyes, no emotion showing at all. “Who were you in Germany,
Busch?”
Avram spoke quietly from the front seat. “There’s a car coming along the beach.”
“Lovers.” Moises saw the two shadowy heads in the darkened car as it passed them. “They’ll park somewhere beyond us. They’ll be no problem.”
“They’re turning around.”
“So they’ll park back up the beach. They’ll still be no problem.”
The other car rumbled slowly back in their direction, hesitatingly, as if looking for a secluded spot. Moises returned his attention to the frozen figure at his side. His fingers reached inside his shirt and came out holding a sharp knife that glittered faintly in the moonlight.
“All right, Mr. Busch,” he said softly. “This is the last time we ask you...”
Chapter 10
When the taxi that picked Ari up swung across traffic, a battered cab behind it made the same turn. The driver of this second cab was busy talking to himself; from the street it must have appeared that he was repeating the retorts he should have thought of when he argued with his last passenger. Happier people on the street may have thought he was only singing to himself. Actually, he was speaking into a small microphone mounted in the horn ring of the car.
“A 1948 Chevrolet taxi, black,” he was saying. “Commercial license number 108-02-44. State of Guanabara. It has one taillight out. That’s for identification if I should lose them.” A small red light glowed on the dashboard; he flipped a switch.