“This is true.” Gold stared at Decker. “Sometimes people think they make it to a city of refuge. Sometimes they think they do, but they don’t. Because there is no city of refuge if the crime is purposeful. Nowhere on earth. Nowhere under God’s heaven. The person may think he—or she—is safe. But this is a falsehood.”

“Especially if the chaser is an expert sniper who can hit the head of a nail from five kilometers.”

Gold smiled. “You take good notes.”

“Not so hard to do,” Decker said. “Sneak into Syria using his expert knowledge of the Golan Heights and do a couple of pops.”

Gold said, “You think it would be easy, you do it.”

Decker said, “You must have loved Dalia very much. You spoke of her as one of your own just a moment ago.”

Gold rubbed his hands. “A long time ago, there was a little boy of five who escaped Nazis by skin of the teeth. The boy had parents, the boy had a brother. The boy was not taken by Nazis because he was hiding when they came to the door. They simply missed him. But the boy remembered very good the look on mother’s face when the Nazis took away family, especially part when they took away younger brother from the mother. It was terrible, you understand?”

Decker nodded.

“Good. I thought you would understand. I remember you tell me that you were in war for America, right?”

“Right.”

“See, I have a memory, too.”

“What happened to the little boy?”

“Somehow he made it through the war. He was very young so he doesn’t have much memory. But he made it. Then somehow he goes to Palestine and grows up into young man. And Palestine becomes Israel. Young man becomes an Israeli. At last, he has family of sorts. So many now had big family called Israel because so many lost all family in the war.”

Gold licked his lips.

“One day, the young man sees a list in the paper. There are many lists, he reads them all. But this is a very important list. It tells him he still has a mother. She did not die like father and the brother. She still lives. He feels joy in his heart. He finds mother.”

There was a pause.

“You cannot go backward,” Gold said. “The man sees mother but she is not the same. She is very scared. She never goes out of house. She has remarried a man very rich who is older than she. For protection. The young man is worried. He is worried that if he comes back to his mother’s life, her new husband may not want him. And the new husband may not want her. And the young man does not want to see mother in any more pain.