“It takes intelligence to stay alive in this game.”

There was a slight silence and then she sighed. “Don’t you ever feel like giving it up?”

He shrugged and said lightly, “Only when it’s four o’clock in the morning and I can’t sleep. Sometimes I lie in the dark with a cigarette and listen to the wind rattling the window frames and I feel alone and completely cut off from the rest of humanity.”

There was a dead, somber quality in his voice, and she reached across quickly and took one of his hands. “And can you find no one to share that loneliness?”

“A woman, you mean?” He laughed. “Now, what could I ever offer a woman? Long unexplained absences without even a letter to comfort her?” There was a sudden pity in her eyes, and he leaned across and gently covered her hand with his. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Anna,” he said. “Don’t ever feel sorry for me.”

Her eyes closed and tears beaded the dark eyelashes. He got to his feet, suddenly angry, and said brutally, “Keep your sorrow for yourself, you’ll need it. I’m a professional and work against professionals. Men like me obey one law only – the job must come first.”

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “And don’t you think that I live by that law just as fully?”

He pulled her up from the chair. “Don’t make me laugh,” he said. “You and Hardt are dedicated souls, amateurs playing with fire.” She tried to look away, and he forced her chin up with one hand. “Could you be ruthless – really ruthless, I mean? Could you leave Hardt to lie with a bullet in his leg and run on to save yourself?”

Something very like horror appeared in her eyes, and he said gently, “I’ve had to do that on several occasions, Anna.”

She turned her face into his shoulder, and he held her close. “Why didn’t you stay back in Israel where you belong?”

She raised her head and looked up into his face and she was no longer crying. “It’s because I wanted to stay that I had to come.” She pulled him over to the couch and they sat down. “As a small girl, I lived on a kibbutz near Migdal. There was a hill I used to climb. From the top, I could look out over the Sea of Galilee. It was very beautiful, but beauty, like everything else in life, must be paid for. Can you understand that?”