The Israel Bond Omnibus (16 page)

He patted Goshen’s back fondly. Good old Monroe! A man couldn’t have a better pal. He’d have to get Goshen laid again sometime.

“After all, Iz,” Goshen said. “Times have changed. This bastard can’t make the world go
sieg heil
any more.”

The Israeli looked up quickly. “What did you say?”

“I said, he can’t make the whole world go
sieg heil
any more.”

“That’s it!” Bond nearly jumped off the park bench. For the first time in days Goshen saw that cruel, darkly handsome face light up. “You’re cracking, Oy Oy Seven.”

“Like hell, Monroe, but you just gave me the world’s greatest idea.” He whispered heatedly into Goshen’s conch shell of an ear. Goshen nodded.

“It’s crazy, but it might make it. I’ll fill M. in on the bit, pronto! You get down to Eilat!”

Now the MBG’s petrol pedal was jammed down to the floor and Bond, a sharp new Robert Hall Westerfield suit on his back, was racing to Eilat, the frontier-like boomtown at Israel’s southernmost tip.

Beersheva, Shivta, Avdat, Mitspe Ramon sped by, then a long stretch of desert, today’s nothingness that could tomorrow be bursting with green shrubs and Greenbergs, he thought wistfully—if I can keep Israel free!

A sign: “Eilat.” Nestling on the shores of the Red Sea, where thousands of years ago a hard-hearted Pharoah and his minions had perished by a miracle as they pursued the Children of Israel into its waters. Are there any more wondrous works in that bag, Sir?, Bond asked looking skyward, seeking some message, some sign. He saw one: “DRINK COCA-COLA”—in Hebrew. The skywriting pilot (unless he was an Israeli) probably was going stark, raving mad flying the plane from right to left.

On the outskirts of Eilat, he pulled off the road, changed into a laborer’s uniform, affixed a moustache, and got back into the MBG. Her tank read “empty,” but Bond’s was full; he had sensibly downed four quarts of Gallo on the way. True to HaLavi’s word, the MBG roared anew and he continued on. I’ll have to come out with my own brand of petrol, he quipped. With a motto: “Puts a Pish in Your Pishtons!” I’ve got my celebrated wit back, the secret agent laughed with boyish merriment. Things will be all right!

M. had arranged a new temporary cover role as a laborer with Gillespie-O’Day-Dameron, an American company which had been granted a concession to drill for oil offshore. Herby Zoster, the beefy, pimply-faced straw boss assigned him the task of hauling supplies to the company barge. It would be an ideal spot from which to keep an eye on the large Arab dhow, whose sails could be seen faintly a few miles away on the calm waters.

He lit a Raleigh, an eager-for-action sentinel in the sun, which was all a-sizzle. Bond paid it no mind. Why should a Jewish boy fear anything named Old Sol?

A shifty-eyed Arab sidled up to him and whispered with a licentious mouth: “Monsieur, would you like to purchase some interesting American postcards,” his voice dropped confidentially, “with dirty zipcodes?”

For a second Bond felt like smashing the filthy beggar. But— wait! Could this man be one of ours? Agent D.? Or one of theirs? He’d find out. “The prune in the spoon sings a Frank Loesser tune.”

“But the man who must hum will find rum in the drum.”

“Who are you?”

Whipping off his headdress, the Arab said, “Shalom, Oy Oy Seven!”

“My God! Zvi! What’s up?”

“Nothing as yet. But I want to tell you that M. has okayed the use of the three hundred young pioneers you requested. They’ll be down here in a few hours, dressed just the way you want ‘em.”

“Good,” Bond said. “Meanwhile, take this knife.”

“Why, Bond?”

“It’s a salad knife. I want you to keep your eyes peeled at all times.”

Zvi laughed uproariously and disappeared.

Now Bond was apprehensive. The days had slipped by, one after another—a logical sequence of which he fully approved. But now it was the day before Passover and he had seen or heard nothing. No visitors to or from the dhow. Could that advertised meeting be a red herring, too? All he had seen was a happy-go-lucky dolphin skimming through the sea, doing flip-flops.

It was now in the afternoon as he stood on the deserted beach. The sun was at its zenith; the clouds at their Motorola. Then he saw it. A cabin cruiser heading toward the distant dhow. He caught a glimpse of a huge dark head. Macaroon! Then Saxon! The same brown woolen suit. It could be no other. And—Loxfinger! Sitting in a camp chair with a pith helmet atop his dome as the others fanned him with large palm leaves.

For another hour he watched, waited. Then three more hours. It was beginning to darken. Apparently the principals were going to talk for a long time.

The dolphin he’d seen earlier sliced through the sea, leaving a smooth wake behind it, and swallowed a bright red and white angelfish as it neared the shore.

It was quite close to Bond now, rolling its hilariously squinted eyes at him, that perpetually sly grin to be found on all members of its species, causing him to forget his grim mission for the moment.

“Looks like you’re having—you should pardon the expression—a whale of a time, big fella,” Bond called to the dolphin. I’ll start talking to trees next, he mused.

In the next second he was stunned as though from a mighty clout on the head.

Out of the mouth of the dolphin, in perfect Yiddish, came: “Putz! I heard all about you with the bad jokes. Enough, already! You think I can spend all damn day rolling my eyes at you? You want I should be picked up for soliciting? Or get astigmatism? I am Agent D.!”

And Duddy spun and swirled off.

Bond, using his Nippo, spent the balance of the night contacting M., Goshen, the Defense Ministry. Monroe’s news was encouraging:

“Iz, three American nuclear subs, the Hazel Bishop, the Allen Funt and the Martin Luther King, will be lying off the Mediterranean coast, each carrying sixteen missiles, Polaris tipped with Lavoris. No reason an H-bomb can’t smell kissing sweet. They’ll be launched if necessary. That’s a promise from the tall Westerner I spoke to an hour ago. In addition, an entire SAC wing will fly—very ostentatiously—over the entire Middle East. That’ll give any would-be aggressors some second thoughts. Twenty thousand marines, gyrenes and saltines will be airlifted here by an armada of jet transports, cargo planes, B-56’s, 47’s, 36’s, 29’s, 17’s, Cessnas, Fokkers, Spads, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade balloons, the Spirit of St. Louis ... anything we can get in the air. In addition, I hear that one division from Fort Bragg is trained to stick big, feathery wings into wax molds on their shoulders and fly that way. If they don’t go too close to the sun they’ve a chance of making it.”

“Great!” enthused Bond.

“There’s more. An hour before the ceremony each of the Arab embassies in the U.S. will get a note from our State Department, informing them we know all about Loxfinger’s identity and that we will not hesitate to intervene militarily, if need be, to preserve freedom, peace, tranquility, and our oil holdings in the Middle East. I am personally going to contact the two Arabs at the ceremony and inform them we’re hip to the plan. They’ll cop out, don’t worry, when they learn it’s in their best interests to do so. We’ll promise the Arabs we won’t reveal their part in the plot if they disassociate themselves from Der Führer—publicly.”

“Then there’s nothing left but to wait. See you tomorrow, Monroe.”

“I’ll be there, Iz, in disguise. Good luck!”

With a little time to kill, Bond wandered into a cafe where they were staging a Passover Seder. It touched him to see these big, brawling veteran frontiersmen of Israel singing the songs of Pesach and eating matzoh, the unleavened bread, with unleavened margarine, charoses, karpas, and the other traditional foods of the Seder plate. He sang the songs he had learned as a child, “Adeer Hu,” “Had Gad Yoh,” and “Eliyohu Hanovee.” Since he was the youngest there, they insisted that he ask the famous Four Questions, beginning with “Wherefore is this night different from all other nights?” It was only something that could happen in Eretz Israel, a secret agent licensed to kill stammering the Feer Kashes as older men listened intently and graded his efforts. “Better you should be a Unitarian,” said one oldtimer.

The day of the war dawned bright and clear.

To symbolize the fact that the Arabs, too, were prepared to meet the once hated Jewish state half way, the ceremony was to be held virtually on the line that divides Eilat from its Jordanian neighbor town, Aqaba, from which the gulf derives its name.

Indeed, the rites would start in Jordanian territory, the first time in Israeli history that its officials would be recognized on Arab soil. Workmen from both nations were putting the finishing touches on a large reviewing stand, and facilities for the press and TV. The latter would carry the momentous program via Lady Bird satellite to all nations of the world. The major networks had agreed on a pool coverage with Walter Cronkite, who spoke all languages and understood all things, as the anchorman. Dignitaries from all the world would attend, except for Red China, which in a blistering radio attack had berated the Arabs for attempting a modus vivendi with “the tool of Western imperialism, Israel.” They had threatened to cut off shipments of mah-jongg sets, already forbidden to Israel, to the Arabs as well.

As the time approached and various officials began to take their seats in the stand, an American Dixieland group, the Canal Street Bordello Band, serenaded the ever swelling crowd with music carefully selected to give each side equal representation, alternating “The Sheik of Araby” with “Bei mir bist du schoen.”

In the offices of Gillespie-O’Day-Dameron, straw boss Zoster told his workers, “As far as I’m concerned this is just another working day. I don’t give a damn what them wild-eyed Yids and Ay-rabs is up to. Now,” and he bent over a geological map, “Dr. Huer feels there’s an excellent chance of a rich deposit of oil-bearing shale right about here,” and he indicated a point offshore on the Israeli side. “We plant the stuff here ’n here ’n here ...”