Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [56]
Rich Cromwell said everyone in the country knew. Did Valerie know as well? She never let on that she did. Had some bitch made a sly inference at a cocktail party? Had Natasha herself let Val know obliquely by being overly sweet and patronizing? After all, it wasn’t a state secret, only delicious gossip.
Val had come to Israel, done her best, loved him hard. She didn’t deserve another humiliation. He wanted to leave Natasha. He tried, really tried. Each time he tried they ended up in a wilder reunion. This was a sweet moment in his life he would never know again. He didn’t have the strength or the real desire to walk away.
GIDEON PULLED up panting at a tiny corner café where Mrs. Mandel greeted him. He opened the soft-drink cooler. No ice.
“The ice truck was mobilized,” she said, “so was my Harry. I’m closing down until this thing is over with.”
Gideon unsnapped and slowly drank a soft-drink concoction. Satisfied no one else was around, he went to the wall phone and dialed Rich Cromwell’s private number.
“Hello.”
“Hi. This is your old gyrene buddy.”
“Anything we should get together on?” Rich asked.
“No, no new information. Just checking in.”
“I’m glad you did. We’re calling for the evacuation of all Americans.”
Sweat streaked from Gideon’s forehead into his eyes. He wiped it but he stung from the salt. Keep your head, he said to himself. He sipped the soft drink to moisten his dry mouth so he could speak.
“When’s this going to happen?” he asked shakily.
“Starting tonight. We’re flying over some transport from the Rhine-Main base in Germany. They’re already en route. Embassy, consulate, missions, and Point Four personnel are being jerked out of the country. Otherwise, a destroyer is on the way to Haifa to take out civilians working here and tourists. That might take a couple of days.”
“Holy shit.”
“Planes are due in around ten or eleven tonight. Get your family to the airport. I’ll see that they get on tonight. Otherwise, it might be a Chinese fire drill.”
“I don’t know ...” Gideon mumbled.
“This isn’t coming through as a request, Gideon. It’s orders. Eisenhower is pissed. P-I-S-S-E-D. If you stay, you’re on your own and you could run into some real problems.”
“How about my dog?” Gideon said for no reason.
“I don’t think so. Look, got to run. Get to Lydda by nine o’clock and look me up.”
The line went dead.
GIDEON STRIPPED OFF his shorts and shirt and stood under the cold outdoor shower for a short eternity hoping the water would suddenly give him strange powers. He wrapped a towel about his waist and walked toward the cottage as though it were his last mile.
“Hi, baby, where are the kids?”
“Playing with the Ben Josephs.”
Val turned from the sink and saw him. He was ashen. “You shouldn’t run in this heat,” she said.
He averted her stare, went to the fridge, and devoured another bottle of soda pop. “I just talked to Cromwell,” he whispered.
“Sorry, honey, I can’t hear you.” Val turned off the faucets and wiped her hands. “What did you say?”
“I said, I talked to Cromwell. Val, we’ve been ordered to evacuate.”
It didn’t register. “Evacuate? Where, how, when? Is this part of some kind of maneuvers?”
“It’s not maneuvers. We’ve been ordered to evacuate the country.”
Val was horror-stricken. She uttered a little peep and gripped the sink to steady herself. Gideon sank to the table, his head lowered, his eyes on the aggregate floor studying the designs abstractedly. He looked up slowly. She was over him.
“Where? When?”
“Tonight. Probably someplace in Europe. Planes are on the way from Germany.”
She appealed to him with her eyes. “Please tell me it’s a bad joke,” she was trying to say. He shrugged. “We don’t have to go,” Gideon