Declare

signature’s last name— Maly.
    Hale widened his eyes at Philby.
    “I was supposed to get that in ’37, from an old friend, a Soviet agent I had… doubled, and was running in England. An inheritance, last-wishes type of thing. I only got it tonight, and even so I had to take it off of a dead man.”
    “And it is what?”
    “It’s the true Eucharist, the guide to it, anyway; it’s the reason Stalin purged the GRU in ’37—what you’d have called the Razvedupr, during your Paris days. Did you know that even the GRU cooks and lavatory attendants were killed, in that purge? The illegals in Europe had stumbled on a discovery, learned it from the Communist Polish Jews who had fled to Palestine, in the 1920s, and run the undercover Unity network there. At first it was just a—well, you must have stumbled across it—a sort of beat, or cadence, used in telegraphy, to project signals better. But the illegals eventually discovered that this sort of cadence could evoke peculiar aid in all sorts of situations. Eventually this man”—he reached forward to tap the rolled envelope—“discovered how it could be used to—if used in a certain symbiosis—prevent death.”
    At the word death the shelter shook with a hard gust of shotgunning rain.
    “Yes!” Philby shouted at the roof. To Hale, he went on, “You know the amomon plant—your Kurds must have told you about it.”
    Hale turned up one palm. “Remind me.”
    “It’s what my father searched for in the Rub’ al-Khali desert, what Lawrence found and chose to die rather than use; it’s—well, it’s the way to avoid the ‘truth to be found on the unknown shore,’ be sure that you won’t ‘without seeking find.’ Stop anyone from establishing the truth about you, hmm? Evade the”—the corners of his lips turned down ironically—“ ‘the wrath of God.’ ”
    “Not die , you mean,” said Hale. “Directions are in that envelope.”
    “Your position is gone, you do know that, don’t you? You’re out of a job, old son; so why bother acting skeptical now? Yes, in this envelope! It’s… it’s partly a crude musical score, I’m told, and partly a recipe, for the preparation and awakening of the angel that slumbers in the thistle.” He smiled. “You were brought up a Catholic—evade the Last Judgment, husband your precious sins— live forever, without the necessity of a resurrection!”
    “And you’re willing to gamble that against”—Hale paused to gulp some more of the Scotch—“just for an unobstructed way with Elena.”
    Philby opened his mouth as if in a laugh, but if there was any sound it was too soft for Hale to hear over the drumming of the rain. “I’m confident I’ll get this again,” Philby said, “if not entry to immortality on a higher level of access. You’ll never see it again, that’s certain.”
    And no djinn died on the mountain tonight, Hale thought dully. There will be no poisoned honey for the Kurds next spring, and I won’t be bringing Elena to the village of Siamand Barakat Khan. But I might be able, back in the Nafud or Summan regions of the desert outside Kuwait, to find and kill a djinn; and then the following spring take a party of the Mutair out to look for blooming thistles …
    Live forever, evade the wrath of God.
    The taste of khaki, and blood…
    He shuddered. “Deal,” he said.
    Thunder broke in vast syllables across the sky outside, and Hale remembered that Philby had said his reference to King Solomon had summoned witnesses. And it occurred to him that Philby was not so much playing here to gain something as to make Hale “cast lots” for Elena, betray his love of her. Philby was supposed to be a master at getting Soviet agents to defect—was he playing here simply to get Hale to damn his own soul?
    But the cards were already spinning out across the blanket, two down and one up. Hale was showing a three, and his hole cards proved to be a pair of nines. Not a bad start toward the high hand.
    Philby’s showing card was an Ace—good either way.
    “We’re both already all-in,” said Philby in a voice like rocks rubbing together. “No further betting.” He dealt two more cards face-up—Hale got a seven; Philby got a four, and was looking good so far for making the low hand.
    Philby’s eyes were as empty as glass. “She’s staying in Dogubayezit,” he groaned as he flipped out two more cards. Hale got a ten, no help, and Philby got a six, looking very good for the low hand.