The Devil's Breath (31 page)

McVeigh nodded slowly, thinking of the hut in the darkness, the ladder in the trees, beginning to understand. ‘What does he look like, this Moshe?’

‘He’s got a beard. He’s big. Your age.’

‘Works in the orchards?’

‘Sometimes.’ She nodded. ‘But mostly he works with the chickens. In the chickenhouse.’

‘What does he do there?’

‘He looks after them. He’s in charge. Every Monday he kills three hundred.’ She made a small, neat strangling movement with her hands. ‘He’s done it for years. It’s a horrible job. They go to a place near Tel Aviv. He drives them there. In the truck.’

‘How often?’

‘Every week. I told you. Every Monday.’

‘Every Monday he goes to Tel Aviv?’ McVeigh frowned, counting the days backwards. He’d arrived at the kibbutz on a Tuesday. Monday he’d been in Tel Aviv. Monday night, he’d been in Cela’s flat. Monday, Moshe went to Tel Aviv. He
looked at Cela, and Cela laughed, a soft laugh, shaking her head. ‘You think Moshe was in my flat?’ she said.

McVeigh shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘But you think he might have been there? Wrecked it?’

‘Yes.’

She shook her head slowly, her hand still on the photo, picking it up, slipping it into the pocket of her shirt.

‘No,’ she said softly. ‘Moshe didn’t wreck my flat.’

*

The old man, Abu Yussuf, was still trying to decide when the boy came back to the apartment. He came up the tenement stairs without a sound, no kick at the door, no tuneless whistle. He padded silently along the hall and stood at the kitchen door. The old man was sitting at the table, staring at nothing. He looked up. The boy was carrying a holdall. Since the fight, he’d been much quieter, more watchful, less crazy. Now he took the car keys from the pocket of his jeans and tossed them on to the table.

‘We have a job,’ he said in Arabic. ‘This afternoon.’

‘What?’

‘We need the car. You’ll drive. I’m coming with you.’

‘Where?’ The old man looked alarmed, his reverie broken, his decision unmade. It would be too late now, too late to obey his instincts, to get away from this terrible place. ‘Where?’ he said again.

The boy didn’t answer, but glanced at his watch.

‘Have you eaten?’

‘No.’

‘Then eat.’ He picked up the keys again and returned them to his pocket. ‘We’ll go in ten minutes.’

*

Telemann dressed carefully to meet the Arab, Mahmood Assali.

Late afternoon, he’d taken a cab to the shopping centre in Bad Godesburg. He’d found a small, discreet clothing store and bought a couple of new shirts and a jacket. The jacket was dark blue, a conservative cut, a style much favoured by the diplomatic crowd. With the jacket he chose a silk tie, red and gold stripes on a blue background, not loud. In the mirror in the
hotel bedroom the effect was perfect: the envoy from Washington, dressed for an evening’s quiet negotiation, briefed to initiate the series of conversations that would doubtless save New York. For those critical few seconds in the lobby, downstairs, Assali would buy it. No question.

Telemann sat on the bed and stooped to lace his shoes, checking his watch as he did so. For a brief moment the dial of the big Rolex swam out of focus, and he found himself shaking it in irritation, as if the problem was some mechanical glitch. Blinking rapidly, he looked again. Six-twenty. Time to move out.

He got up and left the room, locking the door behind him. Downstairs the lobby was busier than he’d expected, three couples checking in, a party of some kind, one of the men arguing with the receptionist about the room rate. Telemann stood by the lift for a moment, watching them, trying to work out whether they were genuine guests or part of the Mossad sting. The lobby was big, a wide, carpeted area with the reception desk built into a shallow alcove to one side. There were armchairs and low tables around the walls, and tall double doors at the rear, opening into a big ante-room. Beyond, through another set of doors, was the dining-room, handsome, vaulted, with big picture windows and spectacular views of the Rhine. Telemann had already booked a table for five, a precaution in case Blum let the Arab get as far as the reception desk. Even now he wasn’t sure the way the thing would go. Whether they’d take Assali here, in the lobby, the moment he walked in. Or whether it would be later, with the man a little more at his ease, off guard, Telemann at his side, a conversation under way.

The group at the reception desk resolved their problems and headed for the lift. Two other businessmen concluded a conversation by the door and walked towards the bar around the corner. The lobby, quite suddenly, was empty. Telemann settled briefly into a chair beside the lift, consulting his watch. Six twenty-eight. He frowned, checking it again. Blum was leaving it late, later than good sense would allow. He looked round, wondering if he’d missed something, whether the stake-out was subtler than he’d expected. The man had said at least four
operatives, men and women, some of them resident in the hotel. The lift began to whirr, and Telemann glanced up at the indicator board, unwinding from the fifth floor, smiling to himself, the nerve of these guys, their confidence, the sheer class of their choreography. He checked his watch again, the lift doors beginning to open. Six twenty-nine. Less than sixty seconds to run.

Telemann got up, standing aside, knowing the rules, lateral separation. His back to the lift, he heard the doors close. He counted a slow five, his hands in his pockets, studying a print on the wall. The print showed an Alpine scene, three guys in funny hats stalking a distant stag. Berchtesgaden, he thought grimly, remembering the Arab’s chuckle on the telephone. He began to turn round, knowing how important it was to get the geography right, who was standing where, arcs of fire, dead zones, and as he did so, the lift doors opened again, permitting a second woman to join the guest already waiting impatiently by the entrance to the ante-room. They were both in their mid-seventies. They began to argue in animated German. They disappeared towards the dining-room.

Telemann blinked, turning round again, his attention drawn to a movement in the street outside. A car had drawn up, a big BMW. Two men got out, one from the front, one from the back, and Telemann knew at once that they were bodyguards, the way they moved, purposeful, alert, the speed with which they had the kerbside back door open and the path to the hotel covered. Telemann began to cross the lobby, realizing that for some reason the plan had aborted. The lobby was empty. The Israelis hadn’t showed.

A third man was on the pavement now, short, stocky, a gleaming brown scalp visible beneath thinning hair. He was wearing a dark suit, the jacket open, and he was in the act of securing the middle button when Telemann heard the first shot. There was a blur of movement, the two bodyguards abruptly armed, guns in hands, one crouching behind the car, the other dragging the Arab into cover. Telemann, at the door now, stared down at him. He was barely 5 metres away, sprawled by the car. Blood was pumping from a hole in his chest and there
were bone splinters and brain tissue where his left eye had once been. Telemann stared at him, amazed, wondering vaguely why he hadn’t heard the second shot, a spectator at a play he no longer understood. He heard voices behind him, someone shouting in German, and then he was pushed roughly aside, just another guest, a small, neat American, halfway to his knees, not knowing quite what to do. He turned to go, looking up, dimly recognizing the shape of the face before him, the blond hair drawn tightly back, the Hermes scarf knotted at the side of the neck, the hand outstretched.

‘
Komm
,’ Inge said. ‘
Komm doch mit
.’

*

Abu Yussuf drove north up the valley to the Hudson River, keeping the ancient Oldsmobile to a steady 45 m.p.h. in the slow lane of the big Interstate. The traffic, early afternoon, was light, cars mostly, plus the occasional truck heading up towards Albany.

The boy sat beside the old man, a map on his knee, one finger keeping a tally of the junctions as they sped by. An hour out of Newark he’d barely said a word, and the old man still had no idea where they were going. The best he’d been able to coax from the boy was a shrug and a sour smile. They’d be back before dark, he’d said, and then they’d celebrate.

Past Poughkeepsie, near Kingston, the boy unzipped one of the pockets on the side of the holdall and produced a piece of paper. He peered at it, his lips forming the words. Then he looked up, checking out the next junction indicator board, and tapped the old man on the arm. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Next exit.’

The old man did what he was told, indicating right and following the long curve of blacktop off the Interstate. At the foot of the exit road there was another cluster of signs. One of them read ‘Catskill Forest Preserve’.

‘There,’ the boy said again, pleased with himself. ‘Go right.’

The old man hauled the car on to the narrow country road. Ahead, he could see mountains. There were trees everywhere, crowding down to the road, some of them already scorched with the first chills of autumn. It was very quiet, the odd house, the occasional smallholding, and as the road began to climb, the
window still down, the old man could smell the damp, resinous breath of the forest.

The boy was back in the map again, a different one this time, bigger scale. He looked up constantly, at each fresh bend in the road, frowning with concentration as his finger kept pace with the car. Finally, half an hour from the Interstate, he told the old man to stop. The old man pulled on to the side of the road and turned off the engine. They’d crested one range of mountains already and were down in the valley again, big, broad-leafed trees, sunshine pooling on the road. It was very quiet, an occasional whisper of wind, the distant whine of a passenger jet, miles above, en route to Canada. Ahead, the road ran downhill for perhaps a quarter of a mile before a gentle left-hand bend. The boy looked at his watch, then picked up the bag and put it on his lap. For the first time, the old man realized he was nervous.

‘What now?’ he said. ‘What do you want me to do?’

The boy glanced across at him. He didn’t seem to have heard the question. His breath was coming in tiny, shallow gulps, like an athlete preparing for a race. The old man put the question again, and the boy grunted, opening the bag. The old man looked at the bag. Inside, he could see apples and an aerosol. Beneath was a gas mask, the one he’d seen the boy wearing in the garage, and something else, a garment of some kind, olive green, tightly rolled.

The boy looked at him again. ‘Drive round the corner,’ he said. ‘You’ll find a track on the left. We go up the track. Into the trees. Stop when I tell you.’

The old man nodded, compliant as ever, starting the engine and easing the big car on to the road. He found the track at once, hard, rutted earth beneath a thin layer of fallen leaves, and he took the car out of automatic, keeping it in second gear, taking it easy, not wanting to wreck his brand-new plumbing on a tree root or an outcrop of rock. A hundred metres into the trees, the road was invisible behind them. The boy told him to stop and turn the car round. He did so, an awkward manoeuvre, the Oldsmobile pointing downhill again, the engine off.

The boy nodded, saying nothing, getting out and standing
motionless beside the car. For a full minute he stayed there, listening, then he gestured for the old man to join him. ‘Give me the keys,’ he said.

The old man got out of the car, handing him the keys. The boy nodded up the track. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘I’ll follow.’

The old man walked up the track, trying not to look back, trying to hide his own nervousness. Apples, he thought, why apples? At the top of the rise he stopped. Below him, through the trees, was a white picket fence. Beyond the fence was a big paddock, acres of lush grass. There were horses in the paddock, heads down, cropping the grass. He looked at them for a moment, knowing at once they were thoroughbreds. There were four of them in all, and he watched as one of them looked up and snorted and shook his head, making off across the paddock, an easy canter, a joy to watch. The old man marvelled at them, a reminder of the horses he’d looked after back home. He turned round, his finger pointing through the trees, wanting to share the spectacle.

The boy was behind him. His face was invisible behind the gas mask, and he was standing on one leg, pulling on the garment from the holdall. The old man stared at it. He’d never seen anything like it in his life. It was one-piece, gathered at the ankles and the wrists with tight elastic cuffs. There was a hood as well. The boy, quite anonymous now, pulled the hood up over his head, tightening the draw-strings round the black rubber mask, a perfect seal. Bending to the bag again, he produced a pair of rubber bootees and some gloves. The bootees laced around his ankle. The gloves reached halfway up his forearms. Flexing his fingers, he squatted by the bag, feeling inside. Out came the aerosol and the apples. The aerosol was plain, and he handled it gently, at arm’s-length, gesturing the old man over.

The old man shook his head, not wanting to move, knowing now that he was in the presence of evil. The boy walked towards him. His voice came through the filter on the side of the gas mask, distorted, a conversation from a nightmare, another world, another planet.

‘Stay here,’he said.

‘What?’

‘Stay here.’ The boy pointed at his feet. ‘Don’t move.’

‘Why? What are you going to do?’

The boy ignored him, walking slowly down through the trees, the apples in one hand, the aerosol in the other, held a little away from his body, like a brush dripping paint. At the fence, he stopped. The horses had seen him already. They were young and curious. They loped towards him, stamping and whinnying in nervous excitement, this strange green figure with the rubber face, one hand outstretched, the apples on offer.

The first of the horses, the bravest, nuzzled his hand, worrying the apples, the upper lip going back, the big teeth digging in. The other horses gathered round, huge brown eyes, one apple left, the other hand coming up, the hand with the aerosol. The old man began to run down through the trees but the boy was already at work with the aerosol, a steady spray of droplets, point-blank range. The old man stopped, seeing the first horse begin to stagger, feeling the vomit rising in his own throat, pure revulsion, the deliberateness of it, wholly wanton. Another horse went down, its legs kicking in the air, then a third, before the boy turned away, leaving the aerosol by the fence, running back up the hill towards the old man, his breath rasping noisily through the filter.