But he didn’t mind. In fact, the silence was a welcome respite, a chance for him to digest his thoughts. Honey was now in official hands. He couldn’t get her face off his mind, the plaintive way she had looked at him as she was led away by a gentlelooking Israeli policewoman. Honey’s expression had been agony and anguish. And though anguish wasn’t a viable excuse for murder, he sincerely hoped that things might work out for her. Then Rina had called him, describing her conversation with Gil Yalom. He recalled the crack in her voice as she recounted how the teenager had cried in her arms.

Too much pain. So let Kreisman take his time with his damn sandwich. The sgan nitzav gave a final swallow and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

“I got word to be nice to you. That isn’t easy for me. Especially because I don’t fully trust you.”

Decker waited.

“Actually someone called from the prime minister’s office. Some bigwig wants to thank you publicly.”

“You can take my place.”

“Fuck you, Decker. I don’t need to ride the coattails of your glory.”

“Kreisman, I’m not interested in glory. All I want is to collect my suspects, go back home, and sleep for a day.”

“Well, if you’re looking for Milligan or Ibrahim Khouri or Gamal Shabazz, you can stop. They’re gone. However, our detectives did pick up some interesting information from some of the residents of the town.”

“People actually talked to you?”

“We have ways and I don’t mean physical ways.” Kreisman rubbed his thumb against his fingertips. “Works like a charm.”

“Who’s Donald?”

“Donald Haas. He isn’t a Black Muslim, but he is a South African black and a very radical one at that. He’s far left of the ANC and has been responsible for the deaths of at least a dozen people. Some were white, but some were moderate blacks who publicly opposed Haas’s known philosophy of white extermination. The guy did ten years in jail, got sprung shortly after they liberated Nelson Mandela.”

“And what’s the connection between him and Kate Milligan?”

“Pussy connection. They were lovers.”

“Longtime lovers?”

“Who knows? Guess Haas had no problem justifying his inconsistency. A fuck is a fuck. What I don’t get is why a woman like Milligan would go for him? What could she see in him?”

Decker thought about what Rina had told him. How Milligan had slept with Yalom—a Jew whom she probably despised—to get what she wanted. “Maybe she saw a pit bull who could implement her plans.”

“That could be.”