Free The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré

biggest and noblest boat he had set eyes on, so black with Jewish heads that when he boarded it, he stole a stocking cap and wore it till they had cleared harbour. But they needed him, fair hair or none at all. On the deck in small groups, the leaders were giving lessons in how to shoot with stolen Lee-Enfield rifles. Haifa was still two days away, and Kurtz's war had just begun.
    The plane was circling to land. He felt it bank, and watched as it crossed the Wall. He had only hand luggage, but security was tight on account of the terrorists, so formalities took quite a time.
    Shimon Litvak was waiting in the car park in an inferior Ford. He had flown from Holland after two days spent looking at the mess in Leyden. Like Kurtz, he did not feel he had a right to sleep.
    "The book bomb was delivered by a girl," he said as soon as Kurtz had clambered in. "Shapely brunette. Jeans. The hotel porter assumed she was from the university, convinced himself she arrived and left by bicycle. Speculative, but I believe him partly. Somebody else again says she was brought to the hotel on a motorbike. A party ribbon round the parcel and ‘Happy birthday, Mordecai' on the label. A plan, a transport, a bomb, and a girl, what's new?"
    "Explosive?"
    "Russian plastic, shreds of wrapping, nothing traceable."
    "Any trademark?"
    "One neat twist of surplus red circuit wire, made into a dummy."
    Kurtz glanced at him sharply.
    "No surplus wire," Litvak confessed. "Carbonised fragments, yes. But no identifiable wire."
    "No clothespeg either?" said Kurtz.
    "This time he preferred a mousetrap. A sweet little kitchen mousetrap." He started the engine.
    "He used mousetraps too," said Kurtz.
    "He used mousetraps, clothespegs, old Bedouin blankets, untraceable explosives, cheap one-handed watches, and cheap girls. And he's the absolute lousiest bomb maker bar none, even for an Arab," said Litvak, who hated inefficiency almost as much as he hated the enemy who was guilty of it. "How long did he give you?"
    Kurtz affected not to understand."Give me? Who gave me?"
    "What's your licence? A month? Two months? What's the deal?"
    But Kurtz was not always inclined to precision in his replies. "The deal is that a lot of people in Jerusalem would prefer to charge the windmills of Lebanon rather than fight the enemy with their heads."
    "Can the Rook hold them off? Can you?"
    Kurtz lapsed into an unaccustomed quiet from which Litvak was disinclined to rouse him. In the middle of West Berlin there is no darkness, at the edges no light. They were heading for the light.
    "You paid Gadi a big compliment," Litvak observed suddenly, with a sideways look at his master. "Coming to his town like this. A journey from you to him is like a homage."
    "It's not his town," said Kurtz equably. "He borrowed it. He has a grant, a trade to learn, a second life to make. That is the only reason Gadi is in Berlin."
    "And he can bear to live in such a trash heap? Even for a new career? After Jerusalem, he can come here!"
    Kurtz did not answer the question directly, nor did Litvak expect him to. "Gadi has made his contribution, Shimon. No man made a better, according to his ability. He fought hard in hard places, most of them behind the lines. Why should he not remake himself? He is entitled to his peace."
    But Litvak was not trained to abandon his battles inconclusively. "So why disturb it? Why resurrect what is finished with? If he is making a new beginning, so leave him to make it."
    "Because he is the middle ground, Shimon." Litvak turned swiftly to him for enlightenment, but Kurtz's face was in shadow. "Because he has the reluctance that can make the bridge. Because he ponders."
    They passed the memorial church and proceeded between the icy fires of the Kurfürstendamm, then returned to the menacing stillness of the city's dark outlands.
    "So what name is he using these days?" Kurtz enquired, with an indulgent smile to his voice. "Tell me how he calls himself."
    "Becker," said Litvak