Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

He didn’t fight the drug but went with the flow as it circulated in his bloodstream. His consciousness went off to the side somewhere. There was orchestral music interwoven with a thunderstorm. The bolts of lightning, vivid against an indigo background, were extraordinarily beautiful.

Then he was awake, aware of his surroundings, aware that the two men were speaking but unable to make sense of their conversation. When full acuity returned he gave no sign of it at first, hoping to overhear something of importance, but their conversation held nothing of interest to him. After a few minutes he stirred himself and opened his eyes.

“Well?” he demanded. “Did I tell you any vital secrets?”

The older one shook his head.

“I told you as much.”

“So you did. You’ll forgive our not taking your word, I hope.”

Anselmo laughed aloud. “You have humor, old one. It’s almost a pity we’re enemies. Tell me your name.”

“What does it matter?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Nahum Grodin.”

Anselmo repeated the name aloud. “When you captured me,” he said. “In that filthy Arab town.”

“Al-dhareesh.”

“Al-dhareesh. Yes. When I surrendered, you know, I thought for a long moment that you were going to gun me down. That wind that blew endlessly, and the moon glinting off your pistol, and something in the air. Something in the way you were standing. I thought you were going to shoot me.”

“I very nearly did.”

“Yes, so I thought.” Anselmo laughed suddenly. “And now you must wish that you did, eh? Hesitation, that’s what kills men, Grodin. Better the wrong choice than no choice at all. You should have shot me.”

“Yes.”

“Next time you’ll know better, Grodin.”

“Next time?”

“Oh, there will be a next time for us, old one. And next time you won’t hesitate to fire, but then next time I’ll know better than to surrender. Eh?”

“I almost shot you.”

“I sensed it.”

“Like a dog.”

“A dog?” Anselmo thought of the dogs in the Arab town, the one he’d disturbed when he opened the door, the whining one he’d killed. His hand remembered the feel of the animal’s skull and the brief tremor that passed through the beast when the long knife went home. It was difficult now to recall just why he had knifed the dog. He supposed he must have done it to prevent the animal’s whimpering from drawing attention, but was that really the reason? The act itself had been so reflexive that one could scarcely determine its motive.

As if it mattered.

Outside, the sunlightwas blinding. Gershon Meir took a pair of sunglasses from his breast pocket and put them on. Nahum Grodin squinted against the light. He never wore sunglasses and didn’t mind the glare. And the sun warmed his bones, eased the ache in his joints.

“The day after tomorrow,” Gershon Meir said. “I’ll be glad to see the last of him.”

“Will you?”

“Yes. I hate having to release him but sometimes I think I hate speaking with him even more.”

“I know what you mean.”

They walked through the streets in a comfortable silence. After a few blocks the younger man said, “I had the oddest feeling earlier. Just for a moment.”

“Oh?”

“When you gave him the pentothal. For an instant I was afraid you were going to kill him.”

“With pentothal?”

“I thought you might inject an air bubble into a vein. Anything along those lines. It would have been easy enough.”

“Perhaps. I don’t know that I’d be able to find a vein that easily, actually. I’m hardly a doctor. A subcutaneous injection of pentothal, that’s within my capabilities, but I might not be so good at squirting air into a vein. But do you think for a moment I’d be mad enough to kill him?”

“It was a feeling, not a thought.”

“I’d delight in killing him,” Grodin said. “But I’d hate to wipe out New York in the process.”

“They might not detonate the bomb just for Anselmo. They want to get the other prisoners out, and they want their other demands. If you told them Anselmo had died a natural death they might swallow it and pretend to believe it.”

“You think we should call their bluff that way?”

“No. They’re lunatics. Who knows what they might do?”

“Exactly,” Grodin said.

“It was just a feeling, that’s all.”

And a little further on: “Nahum? It’s a curious thing. When you and Anselmo talk I might as well not be in the room.”

“I don’t take your meaning, Gershon.”

“There’s a current that runs between the two of you. I feel utterly excluded from the company. The two of you, you seem to understand each other.”

“That’s interesting. You think I understand Anselmo? I don’t begin to understand him. You know, I didn’t expect to gain any real information from him while he was under the pentothal. But I did hope to get some insight into what motivated the man. And he gave me nothing. He likes to see blood spill, he likes loud noises. You know what Bakunin said?”

“I don’t even know who Bakunin was. A Russian?”

“A Russian. ‘The urge to destroy is a creative urge,’ that’s what he said. Perhaps the context in which he said it mitigates the line somewhat. I wouldn’t know. Anselmo is an embodiment of that philosophy. He only wishes to destroy. No. Gershon, I do not understand him.”

“But there is a sympathy between the two of you. I’m not putting it well, I know, but there is something.”

Grodin did not reply immediately. Finally he said, “The man says we’ll meet again. He’s wrong.”

Yet they mighthave met again on the day that Anselmo was released. Grodin and his assistant were on hand. They watched from a distance while the terrorist was escorted from his cell to an armored car for transport to the Syrian lines, and Grodin had been assigned to oversee security procedures lest some zealot shoot Anselmo down as he emerged from the prison. They followed the armored car in a vehicle of their own, Meir driving, Grodin at his side. The ceremony at the Syrian border, by means of which custody of Anselmo was transferred from his Israeli guards to a group of Palestinian commandos, was indescribably tense; nevertheless it was concluded without a hitch.

Just before he entered the waiting car, Anselmo turned for a last look across the border. His eyes darted around as if seeking a specific target. Then he thrust out his jaw and drew back his lips, baring his jagged teeth in a final hideous smile. He gave his head a toss and ducked down into the car. The door swung shut. Moments later the car sped toward Damascus.

“Quite a performance,” Gershon Meir said.

“He’s an actor. Everything is performance for him. His whole life is theater.”

“He was looking for you.”

“I think not.”

“He was looking for someone. For whom else would he look?”

Grodin gave his head an impatient shake. His assistant looked as though he would have liked to continue the conversation, but recognized the gesture and let it drop.

On the long drive back Nahum Grodin leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. It seemed to him that he dreamed without quite losing consciousness. After perhaps half an hour he opened his blue eyes and straightened up in his seat.

“Where is he now?” he wondered aloud. “Damascus? Or is his plane already in the air?”

“I’d guess he’s still on the ground.”

“No matter. How do you feel, Gershon? Letting such a one out of our hands? Forget revenge. Think of the ability he has to work with disparate groups of lunatics. He takes partisans of one mad cause and puts them to work on behalf of another equally insane movement. He coordinates the actions of extremists who have nothing else in common. And his touch is like nobody else’s. This latest devilment at the United Nations — it is almost impossible to believe that someone other than Anselmo planned it. In fact I would not be surprised to learn that he had hatched the concept some time ago to be held at the ready in the event that he should ever be captured.”