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policeman in Haifa.
    “They didn’t beat me.”
    “Did they want to know where they can find Begin?”
    “No.” Grant lay back, arms behind his head, and blew smoke at the ceiling. “It wasn’t the usual goons. Some spook from London. Wasn’t interested in the Irgun—just wanted to dig up some ancient history.”
    “Did you tell him?”
    “I . . .”
    Even through the meter-thick walls they felt the explosion. The bunks rocked and dust rained down from the ceiling. Grant swung round and leaped to the floor, pulling the boy Ephraim with him. They crouched in the darkness. Shots rang out—first panicked and sporadic, then methodical and constant as the Bren guns started up.
    “They’re getting closer.” Holding Ephraim’s shoulder, Grant led him across the room until his hand felt the cold metal of the door—still locked. Flattening himself against the wall, he pushed Ephraim to the opposite side of the door frame.
    “Get ready—someone’s coming.”
     
    Lieutenant Cargill returned to his office and poured a long drink from the bottle he kept in his desk. He had met plenty of disagreeable men during the war, and afterward here in Palestine, but few who exuded the same calculated unpleasantness as his nameless visitor.
    A knock sounded at the door. Whisky slopped over the rim of the glass. Had the visitor forgotten something?
    “Engineer, sir. Come to repair the generator.”
    Cargill sighed with relief. “Come in.”
    The engineer was a small man, with wire-rimmed spectacles and an ill-fitting uniform that looked as though it had been cut down from a larger size.
    “Rather late to be mending the generator, isn’t it?” Cargill dabbed at the spilt whisky with his handkerchief. “Wouldn’t it be easier to wait for daylight?”
    The engineer shrugged. He seemed to be sweating profusely. “Orders, sir.” He was still walking toward Cargill, aholdall clutched in his left hand. “Now, sir, if you’ll just give me your keys.”
    “You don’t need my keys to get to the generator. You’ll find it . . .”
    Cargill looked up, to see the muzzle of a Luger hovering six inches from his nose. “
What the hell?
”
    “Your keys.”
    As the man stretched out his hand, the sleeve of his ill-fitting shirt rode up. Tattooed on his wrist, in a bruise-purple color that would never fade, ran a row of tiny numbers.
    “You will not be the first man I have watched die. Give me the keys.”
    Followed every inch of the way by the Luger, Cargill unclipped the ring of keys from his belt and laid them on the table. Then the engineer—
the Jew
, Cargill corrected himself—took a length of electrical wire from his holdall and tied Cargill’s wrists to the back of his chair and his ankles to the legs of the desk. Cargill bore the humiliations in stoic silence.
    “Those keys might unlock the cells, but they won’t get you through the front gates. You won’t just walk out with all your Irgun gangster friends trailing behind you.”
    “We will find a way.”
    The words were hardly out of his mouth when a massive explosion shook the castle to its very foundations. It must have been close by. Cargill rocked on his chair, couldn’t keep his balance and toppled over with a yelp of pain, his legs still tied to the desk. Through the dust and smoke that swirled around the room, he saw the Jew snatch the keys, then touch his cap in farewell.
    “
Shalom
.”
     
    The footsteps were closer now. There was a definite rhythm to them: approach, pause, approach, pause. With each pause, Grant could hear shouts and the clink of metal. Another burst of machine-gun fire from outside drowned the sounds for a moment; when it stopped there were keys jangling right outside the door. Grant tensed in the darkness. There was nohandle on the inside—all he could do was wait as the key slid into the lock, turned, clicked . . .
    “
Rak kakh
.”
    The door swung in, but the squeak of the hinges was drowned out by the squeal of delight from