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attention to what Mahmoud was doing, and concentrated my entire being on the
thought of Holmes and getting him back.
We slipped out of the back entrance to Rahel s inn into the stillness of a
Palestinian town at midnight. A third figure fell into place behind us as we
passed the back of a shop not Ali. I thought he carried a long rifle in his
arms.
The town did not take long to leave behind. Mahmoud marched ahead, his
swirling robes casting wild shadows in the bright light of the full moon. The
road stretched palely on ahead; the lights of Ram Allah dropped behind us, and
Mahmoud slowed his pace. When I was beside him he began to speak in English
again, that there might be no misunderstanding.
 There were three men in the ambush. The car slowed to climb the hill, and the
minor land-slide they had engineered across the road ensured that we should
slow even more. They shot the driver from the hill behind us and over our
right shoulder, and we went straight into a shallow ravine. Very neatly done.
 The driver was killed. You hit your head on the side of the car when we went
off the road. Ali pulled you out. I followed him into the rocks. We waited for
Holmes to come, but he did not, and when I went back for him, two men had him
in another motorcar that had been hidden around a bend in the road. The third
man was still above us with his rifle. An extremely good shot, he was. Had we
not left our equipment in Jericho, if I had my rifle, I should have gone after
him, but I did not. He shrugged, as close to an apology as he could come, and
I gave him the Arabic hand gesture that said maalesh.
 You know where these men went? I asked.
 Now I do. We have people in that area.
 Was he hurt? Holmes?
 There was no blood on the road, he said, a clear equivocation.
 Was he on his feet? I insisted.
 He walked to their car under his own power. They held a gun to his head.
 How did they do it? How did they know we would be there?
Mahmoud sighed deeply, a sound, I thought, of shame, but did not answer me
directly.  I ought never to have submitted to a driver. A car is big and noisy
and suited for conquerors in times of peace, not for scribes. I am a man who
goes about on foot, and leaving that path was a foolhardy act.
 Do you know why? Why the ambush, why Holmes, why
 Not yet, he interrupted grimly, and then, shifting to Arabic, said,  That is
enough of the foreign tongue. We will go quickly and in silence to the house
where he is being kept. If we are seen, we may have to kill. It is to be hoped
that the deaths will be few. I, myself, take no joy in death. I am not a
believer in the blood feud. If it is done correctly, there will be no killing,
but with so little time, it is difficult to lay careful plans, and things may
go wrong. I hope, at this time of the night and so soon after he was taken,
only a sleeping house will await us, and you will have no need to act. If the
house awakes, we may need you. Do you understand?
 I understand.
 Can I depend on you? he asked in English.
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
 To& ?
 & Kill, he finished the phrase. I felt his eyes on me, probing in the
moonlight. I stopped, and then I looked at him. His eyes were dark holes
surrounded by darkness.
 I don t know, I said finally.
To my surprise he nodded, in agreement or satisfaction I could not tell, and
began to walk again.
 You will tell me if you begin to feel ill, he ordered.
 My head hurts, I admitted.
 Of course.
That seemed to be the extent of his concerns. We walked perhaps four miles
altogether after leaving the town, with the rifle-bearing man trailing behind
us, until Mahmoud touched my elbow and led me off the road into an almost
imperceptible path through a thicket of some Palestinian cousin of the gorse,
all spine and grab. At the bottom of it was a tiny mud hut; in the hut we
found Ali. He greeted my arrival with a sour look.
 You brought him, then, he said to Mahmoud.
 She has earned the right, Mahmoud replied evenly. His deliberate use of the
feminine verb ending was reinforced by the optional pronoun, to force Ali into
a recognition of my identity, and my presence. The disgusted look on Ali s
face did not change, but he said no more, merely ladled us each a mug of soup
from the pot. It was hot and tasted of meat and onions, and I was quite
certain Ali had not cooked it.
 Thank you, Mahmoud, I said. When my cup was empty, Ali filled it again with
soup, laid a piece of flat bread on top, and carried it to the leather flap
that served as a door. He knelt down to put it on the stones outside, and came
back to the fire. A moment later we heard a faint scrape of shoe-leather on
stone as the man out there picked it up and returned to his guard. Ali took
out his knife and explored the point with his thumb.
 Ali, Mahmoud chided. Ali flung his hands wide.
 Good, he snarled.  Beautiful. He stood up, stabbed the knife back into his
belt, and began to kick dust over the coals.  I am infinitely happy. Let us
go. He snatched up a pack from the floor, grabbed a rifle from where it leant
against the wall, and pushed past us out the door flap. Mahmoud picked up the
second rifle and another pack and followed. I trailed in their wake, stumbling
awkwardly down the rock-strewn hillside, trying to keep the bobbing kuffiyah
ahead of me in sight.
I smelt the horses before I saw them. Five horses, all dark and each bearing
only the padded cloth that Arabs often use as a saddle. Ali and Mahmoud were
already mounted. Mahmoud threw me a set of reins, which I was relieved to find
were attached to a proper bridle rather than the plain halter many Arabs used,
and I struggled to mount the rangy horse (which laid his ears back and looked
as if he would rather bite me than carry me) without benefit of pommel or
block. The third man leapt without effort onto the back of one of the two
remaining horses and kicked it to the head of the small column. My own mount
determinedly followed his mates, with me in disarray on the saddle pad,
struggling to get my heel across his back.
Once upright, my eyes were drawn to the riderless horse behind Ali, and I was
struck by an illogical but powerful feeling of relief, as if the very presence
of a spare horse warranted the eventual addition of its missing rider. My
spirits rose a fraction.
We rode hard, at a pace across the uneven hillside that would have had me
quaking in terror under normal circumstances, but now seemed merely part and
parcel of the whole mad enterprise. An hour later the sky was lit with a
faraway flash, and a rumble soon blended with the beat of our cantering hoofs.
The storm stayed far to the north of us and added a nightmare quality to our
journey, dazzle followed by blindness, but even at that distance, the thunder
and the slight breeze served to conceal some of the noise we were making. A
passage I had laboriously translated from the small Koran Mahmoud had given me
ran through my mind:  It is He who causes the lightning to flash around you, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]