Tongues of Fire by Peter Abrahams Read Free Book Online Page A

he was told, and tried to keep his mouth shut unless he was sure what he had to say was what they wanted to hear. He didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, took no drugs, wasn’t queer.
    Because of all that Krebs didn’t understand why they had brought him to New York to ride herd on a ragged little mob of Israelis who sometimes threw Molotov cocktails into the offices of airlines they didn’t like. They had no money, no support, foreign or domestic, no safe base. It was a step backwards, and it worried him. He had thought they might send him to Islamabad, or even Warsaw. What had he done wrong? He had been over the past year fifty times, and he couldn’t think of a single mistake. He sometimes thought of asking Armbrister—“Look, Armbrister, just tell me what it is, I’ll make up for it”—but would never give Armbrister that pleasure. He would make up for it without knowing what it was. He would work harder, do more push-ups, learn another quick way of killing a man with his bare hands. He turned to the square green face of the computer screen on his desk.
    He was trying to match suspected terrorists with their previous lives in Israel. It was very difficult. Immigration had been very sloppy—they had just let them roll in wave after unsorted wave. Names were wrong, ages were wrong, they weren’t arranged by family or profession or even military rank, which should have been easy, since by the end almost the whole population was in uniform.
    Hunched over his desk, Krebs tapped questions on the plastic keys. After a short pause the screen flickered and gave its usual answer in square white letters: “Negative.” Krebs tapped more questions. Sometimes the screen fed him a scrap or two of information. He made short notes on a writing pad. Outside, the rain softened into snow. Krebs didn’t notice.
    The telephone rang. “Mr. Armbrister would like to see you in his office,” a woman said. It was Armbrister’s secretary. She had trouble with her r ’s. The way she pronounced Armbrister always reminded him of Elmer Fudd. Krebs thought Elmer Fudd was very funny; he still sometimes watched the cartoons on Saturday morning for half an hour or so, while he cooled down from his run, and Alice fixed his breakfast. Or didn’t.
    â€œRight now?” Krebs asked, but she had hung up.
    Krebs shut off the computer terminal. He made a symmetrical arrangement of his pens, pencils, and writing pads. From the bottom drawer of his desk he took out a small round mirror. He studied his reflection closely: to be sure that his short sandy hair was neatly parted, that his eyebrows, much thicker and darker, were straight, that the aviator-style glasses really did make his square face seem longer and thinner, that there were no bits of food between his teeth or blackheads on his nose. He was about to put the mirror away when he noticed one tiny hair poking out his right nostril. He gripped it between thumb and index finger and yanked, immediately feeling a sharp pain surprisingly deep in his nose. He examined the hair: It was easily an inch and a quarter in length, perhaps an inch and a half. There was no time to measure. He blew it into his paper shredder.
    Krebs locked his door and walked quickly to the end of the corridor. He ignored the elevator and took the stairs, climbing them two at a time—better for his legs and usually faster as well. He always used the stairs, except when he was with other people.
    In the outer office Armbrister’s secretary sat bent over a typewriter. Her limp black hair hung forward like blinders. “Go right in,” she said without looking up. Krebs paused for a moment to catch his breath, and entered Armbrister’s office.
    Armbrister was on the phone. He was listening carefully and writing notes on a piece of paper. With exaggerated fishlike movements of his face Armbrister mouthed something at him, probably “Hello. Sit