The Glory by Herman Wouk Read Free Book Online Page A

military attaché
     and the ambassador were winging all over the country as tolerable substitutes. That night Barak had to fly to Chicago to address
     a Zionist luncheon next day, and as he drove he was trying to work up some fresh angle for the talk, and to keep his thoughts
     from circling back to Emily Cunningham.
    What could he say in Chicago that was really new? By now he had a memorized act. Quick review of the victory, to smiles and
     applause; cautionary words about enemy infractions of the cease-fire, about soldiers manning the Suez Canal line getting killed,
     about terrorists infiltrating from Jordan to mine and booby-trap the kibbutz fields — not what American Jews wanted to hear,
     so make that part short; then the exciting windup picturing Jerusalem and the West Bank after Moshe Dayan opened the borders,
     Arabs pouring peacefully into Zion Square to gaze with wonder at the shopwindows, Israelis thronging through the Old City
     bazaars to haggle for bargains and taste exotic foods, or joyriding in hordes to Jericho and Hebron, singing “Jerusalem of
     Gold”; all leading up to his personal anecdote of the graybeard Jew in a fur hat and ear curls, walking beside him through
     the Old City in a stream of Israelis on the way to the Western Wall, joyously exclaiming,
“ MOSHIAKH’S TZEITEN !”
(“ MESSIANIC TIMES !”) He would certainly use that surefire finish again, however far he was from believing it.
    He found on his desk a garbled telephone message from one Leon Barkowe, something about a son in Israel whose car had been
     confiscated. It took Barak a moment to recollect those distant Berkowitz relatives in Long Island whom he had not seen or
     spoken to in years. Another major task for the military attaché! But family was family, and even if the name was now Barkowe,
     a Berkowitz was a Berkowitz. He was about to return the call when a buzz on his intercom summoned him to the ambassador.
    Abe Harman, a paunchy deathly pale man who sat in a perpetual slouch, and whose sleepy manner belied a razor-sharp alertness
     to every nuance of America-Israel relations, greeted him with a groan. “Always something. My wife’s down with a stomach flu,
     and she’s supposed to address a WIZO tea at the Mayflower this afternoon. She called me and said Nakhama should do it —”
    “Nakhama? Abe, Nakhama’s never made a speech here, her English isn’t that good. Anyway, she’s no speaker, forget it!”
    “Zev, I’ve already talked to Nakhama, and she jumped at it. Sorry, but at three hours’ notice I had little choice.” With a
     foxy side-glance Harman added, “Will the world go under if she isn’t a big hit? What did you accomplish at the Pentagon?”
    “In one word,
bopkess
[goat shit].”
    “Ah, so the goats are still grazing there.” Harman heavily nodded. “Expected. Still, you lodged our protest against the breach
     of contract. Americans believe in contracts, live by them. They’ll feel the pressure. So, you’re off to Chicago tonight? I’ve
     got a major misery here at the Shoreham. Speech to a thousand Conservative rabbis. You’re sure you don’t mind about Nakhama?”
    “Of course not. I’m surprised she’s doing it, that’s all.”
    “Zev, just when you think you have them figured out, they cross you up.”
    “Wisdom of Solomon, Ambassador,” said Barak, and he went back to his office, where he began a letter to Colonel Halliday about
     missile countermeasures. He had not gotten far when a coding clerk phoned him. “Sir, General Pasternak is calling on the scrambler.”
     It was like a red light flashing on an engine dial. Sam Pasternak, high in the Mossad and perhaps its secret head by now,
     had not used the secure telephone since the end of the war. Hurrying to the coding room, Barak shut himself into the soundproof
     booth, and Pasternak came through clearly.
    “Zev? We have a serious development here.” Deep solemn Pasternak tones, no trace of his usual irony. “I’m