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“Luck!” Da Silva said with deep satisfaction. “Don’t slow down; not more than you are now. Pull past them and turn around and come back slowly. When we are just opposite them, cut the lights altogether and stop. Quickly!” He took the revolver from his pocket, gripping it loosely; his other hand held the flashlight. Wilson maneuvered the car about expertly, and started back. “Now!” Da Silva said almost viciously, and in one motion he was out of the car and had swung open the rear door of the other.

“Police,” he said briefly, coldly, flashing the light over the startled faces inside, in no way indicating the satisfaction he felt at seeing the white face of Ari wedged between the other two in the back seat. His revolver was conspicuous in his other hand; his voice was the hard voice of authority. “What’s going on here?”

There was a frozen silence. “Well?” Da Silva flicked the revolver up ominously.

“We were just talking,” said a heavy-set man sitting to Ari’s left, his hand still gripping Ari’s arm tightly. His voice was sullen; he tried to pull his head back from the glare of the flashlight, but Da Silva swung it up to follow the heavy face. “We were just talking. What’s wrong with that?”

“Talking about what?” Da Silva asked coldly. “The next bar you intend to hold up? Your next stick-up?” He waved his gun. “Out. All of you. Out. And don’t try to get cute.” He stepped back to allow the others to alight; in the widening area of his flashlight they could see Wilson sitting negligently in the seat of the other car, a revolver draped across the sill. They came out quietly, pushing Ari with them.

“All right,” Da Silva said. “Turn and lean against the car. And don’t move.” There was the sudden whining of a starter; lights flashed up as a pair of lovers decided that there was too much activity in these parts for proper concentration; Da Silva paid no attention.

“How do we know you’re police?” one of his captives began.

“Because I say so,” Da Silva said. He waved his revolver in their faces; they all hastily leaned against the side of the car, except Ari, who had not understood a word of the exchange but sensed that this was no time for talking. “You too,” Da Silva said, slamming Ari back against the fender.

He leaned over against the car side like the others, feeling Da Silva’s hands parting his pockets, running down his legs, his heart pounding. Over his shoulder he saw the same operation being repeated with the others. Another motor sprang into life as others in the vicinity decided to find more peaceful surroundings for their rendezvous. The headlights of the departing car swung briefly over the astounding scene of four men leaning over the side of a car while another with a revolver searched them, but there was no outcry, nor voiced complaint. There was only the sudden gunning of a motor as its driver decided to leave hurriedly.

Da Silva took a revolver from one man before him, and a large hunting knife from another. Stepping to the deserted car, he swung his flashlight about the interior, and then, leaning down, he picked a sharp dagger-type knife from its place of concealment between the floor mat and the base of the rear seat. He slipped the weapons into his jacket pocket and stepped back, breathing heavily.

“Just talking, eh?” he said in deep sarcasm. “Well, we’re all going back to town, back to the delegacia. Just to convince you all that I’m really a police officer! And there you’ll get all the chance you want to talk, I promise you!” He paused, staring at them coldly. “And just to see that there is no funny business, suppose we split you big talkers up!” He grasped Ari roughly by the arm, tossing him toward the car in which Wilson sat watching with interest. “The rest of you get into your car and drive ahead of us. Slow. Remember, I said slow! There will be a gun on you all the way. When we get to Leblon, stop your car and stay inside. The first time the door opens, somebody gets shot.” He looked at them icily. “Understand? All right; let’s go!”

He threw Ari roughly into the back seat of his car and climbed in behind. Wilson’s gun remained fixed on the others while they climbed back into their car with angry faces, turned the car about, and began the bumpy ride back to the highway. There was no attempt on the part of the leading car to speed or escape. At the highway they turned right, creeping toward the entrance to the Avenida Niemeyer. Where the road led up the spiraled rise to the Niemeyer, cut in rock. Da Silva leaned forward close to Wilson’s ear; he slowed momentarily, and the first car, still moving slowly, disappeared around the first curve of the ledged road. With a sharp swing, Wilson turned his car toward the fork that led over the pass and stamped heavily on the accelerator. In a minute they had sped into the hills.

Da Silva returned his revolver to the shoulder holster and threw the flashlight onto the front seat. “And now,” he said, leaning back comfortably and lighting a cigarette. “Just what in the devil was that?” He turned toward Ari, whose face was drained of color, and whose hands were trembling uncontrollably.

“They were going to kill me,” Ari whispered in a voice wound tight with hysteria; a crazy light flickered in his eyes. “They were going to kill me!”

“I doubt that,” Da Silva said calmly, attempting by his relaxed manner to ease the terror that lay so openly on the other’s face. He inhaled deeply and let the smoke waft gently from his nostrils. “I doubt that.”

“No. No! They were really going to kill me!” Ari looked numbed, as if he were going to cry without knowing exactly why. He looked down at his twisted hands, almost whispering to himself. “They were going to kill me!”

“Relax,” Da Silva said kindly. “Why should they want to kill you?”

Ari looked at him, his face twitching with emotion. “They were Jews,” he said miserably. “They were Jews! Israeli Jews.”

“What?”

Ari nodded. “Israeli Jews. They were going to kill me. Jews...!” His voice died away in the unfairness of it all.

Da Silva looked thoughtful. “That’s one thing we hadn’t counted on. You didn’t say anything?”

Hysteria took over. “What could I say? Do you think they would have believed anything I said? Me? They would believe me?” He twisted his fingers tightly together in shock, shaking his head drearily. “They wouldn’t believe me. They were going to kill me.”

“Well, they didn’t kill you,” Da Silva said, brutally trying to bring the little man out of his crisis of nerves. “And I doubt if they will try again!” He puffed calmly on the cigarette. “Did they ask any questions?”

“They wanted to know who I was.” He was almost sobbing. “They seemed to think I was somebody else... oh, not Ari Schoenberg, but somebody in the Nazi party. They were going to make me tell...” He looked up at Da Silva in blank-eyed wonder. “What could I have told them?”

Da Silva reached over and patted his shoulder tenderly. “It’s all over,” he said, smiling in a friendly fashion. “It’s all over. Don’t think about it. You’re safe. But,” he added slowly, watching Ari out of the corner of his eye, trying to gauge the proper subject to relieve the terror that lay waiting to explode in the other’s eyes, “it does look as if we had better move faster than we have. Mr. Busch seems to have more enemies than we counted on.” He looked at the little man shrewdly. “No contacts as yet?”

The startling blue eyes looked at him dumbly. “No what?”