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you know—very bad.”
    â€œProbably.”
    â€œNot to be trusted.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œActually, the little bastard’s a menace.”
    â€œBut he’s good at it, isn’t he?”
    â€œAt what?” Baker-Bates said.
    â€œAt finding people. If you weren’t afraid that he might turn up Oppenheimer before you do, then you wouldn’t be romancing me.”
    Baker-Bates sighed. “And I thought I was just being rather nice.”
    â€œYou are. You’re paying for the beer.”
    Again, Baker-Bates nodded slowly as he stared at Jackson. “You haven’t been in Germany since the war, have you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIt’s a little murky there now. A bit unsettled. You might even say it’s a bit like Palestine. No one’s sure what’s going to happen, what with the Russians and all. Some feel it could go one way, some another. But if the Oppenheimer heir decides to take out the wrong chap, it could send up the balloon. So that’s why we’re looking for him—that and the fact that we damned well don’t want him in Palestine either. But we and the Irgun aren’t the only ones looking for him, of course. So are your people. But even more interesting, so are the Bolshies.”
    â€œWhy’s that so interesting?”
    This time when Baker-Bates smiled, he showed some teeth. They were slightly gray.
    â€œWhy? Because, dear boy, they probably want to hire him.”
    With that he rose, started toward the door, paused, and turned back. “You might tell the rotten little dwarf that. It just might scare him off.”
    â€œIt won’t scare him,” Jackson said.
    â€œNo, but tell him anyway.”
    â€œAll right,” Jackson said. “I will.”
    Leah Oppenheimer entered the dark hotel sitting room and switched on a lamp. Her father, still seated in the same chair, smiled. “It’s grown quite dark, hasn’t it?”
    â€œPerhaps another cigar.”
    She again went over to the box, took one out, and lit it for him. He took several puffs and smiled again in what he thought was his daughter’s direction. He was only slightly off.
    â€œI’ve been sitting here thinking,” he said.
    â€œAbout Kurt?”
    â€œYes, about him. But mostly about being German. I’m rather an anachronism, you know, although our Zionist friends think I’m worse than that. They think I’m somewhere between a fool and a traitor.”
    â€œWe’ve been over all this before, Father.”
    â€œYes, we have, haven’t we? But young Mr. Jackson started me thinking again. I will always be a Jew, of course. And I will always be a German. I’m too old to change, even if I wished to. One does not shed one’s nationality like a suit of old clothes. But you and Kurt are young. There is no reason why either of you should follow my example.”
    â€œYou know my feelings.”
    â€œDo I really?” he asked, and puffed on his cigar again. “Well, I suppose I do. But we don’t know Kurt’s, do we?”
    â€œHe was never a Zionist.”
    Oppenheimer’s mouth twisted itself into a wry smile. “No; his peculiar politics precluded that. But no matter. Our responsibility is to find him before the authorities do. Do you really think he’s quite mad?”
    Leah Oppenheimer replied with a shrug, but then realized that her father couldn’t see it. “I don’t know,” she said. “We’ve been over it so many times, I no longer know what to think.”
    â€œIf the British or American authorities find him before Jackson and Ploscaru do, they will simply lock him away. If they don’t hang him.”
    Concern seemed almost to ripple over Leah Oppenheimer’s face. “They couldn’t,” she said. “He’s—well, he’s ill.”
    â€œIs he?”
    â€œHe must be.”
    â€œNevertheless, we have to consider it