“We’ll be big, all right,” another ruffian said. “And about time, too. The kikes will all burn in hell, but they act like cocks o’ the walk here. Been going on too damn long, anybody wants to know.”

“Won’t last forever,” said the first tough, the one with the helmet. “As soon as they lose it and we get it, everybody’s going to have to listen to us.”

After that, Anielewicz didn’t think they were going to knock over a bank any more. He knew how Nesseref had found out the explosive-metal bomb was here: he’d talked too damn much. He had no idea how these Poles had found out, but how they’d found out didn’t matter. That they’d found out did.

He finished the beer and slipped out of the tavern. The ruffians paid him no attention. They had no idea they’d said anything he might understand-or care about if he did. He looked like a Pole. If he knew what they were talking about, they’d figure he’d be cheering them on.

A lot of Poles would have cheered. The Lizards in Poland did lean toward the Jews. That was partly because the Jews had leaned toward them and against the Nazis in 1942. It was also because there were a lot more Poles than Jews; the Lizards got more benefit from supporting small faction against large than they would have the other way round.

Furthermore, Jews did not dream of an independent Poland strong enough to defy all its neighbors. Poles did. Anielewicz thought the dream a delusion even if the Poles got their hands on an explosive-metal bomb. They didn’t, for which he could hardly blame them-except that they wanted his bomb.

His legs groaned when he got back on the bicycle. He didn’t think the Polish nationalists could touch off the bomb even if they got it, but he didn’t want to find out. He wasn’t sure the Jews could touch it off, either. He didn’t want to find that out any more than the other. Pulling down the Philistines’ temple while he was in it had made Samson famous, but he never got to hear about it.

The shed in which the bomb was stored lay at, or rather just beyond, the northern edge of Glowno. Before the war, it had been attached to a livery stable. Livery stables, these days, were in no greater demand in Glowno than anywhere else. That part of town had taken damage in the fighting between the Nazis and the Poles, too, and then again in the fighting between the Nazis and the Lizards. Rubble and scrubby second growth surrounded the shed. There were only a couple of houses in the area, both owned by Jews. The Poles were just as glad the Jews had chosen an area where they didn’t draw attention to themselves.

Anielewicz swung off his bicycle as soon as the poplars and birches and bushy plants of whose names he wasn’t sure screened him from most of the town. “Good thing you did that,” somebody remarked, “or you’d have been mighty sorry you were ever born.”

That warning might have been in Yiddish, but Anielewicz had all he could do to keep from laughing out loud: it came straight from a U.S. Western film he’d watched the week before dubbed into Polish. He fought down the temptation to respond in kind. Instead, he said, “How many guards can we get in a hurry, Joshua? We’re about to be attacked.”

“Oy!” the unseen Jew said. “There’s Mottel and there’s me, and we can get Pinkhas, I guess. Benjamin and Yitzkhak would be around, but their cousin got hit by a bus in Warsaw, so they’re there.”

“Get everybody here, fast but quiet,” Mordechai ordered. “Who’s on the switch?” If that switch was tripped, the bomb would go up-if it could go up. Somebody always had to be ready to use it.

“You are, now,” Joshua answered. “You know the bomb better than anybody, and-” He broke off. He’d undoubtedly been about to say something like, and you’d have the nerve to do it. Anielewicz didn’t know if he would or not. One more thing he wasn’t anxious to discover by experiment. After a moment, Joshua asked, “How much time have we got?”

“I don’t know, not exactly,” Anielewicz answered. “I saw six Poles drinking in a tavern. I don’t know how long it’ll be before they do what they came to do. I don’t know if they have any friends along, either.”

“It would be nice if you did know a few things,” Joshua remarked.

Ignoring that, Anielewicz picked his way up the twisting path to the shed. The wooden building looked weathered and sad. The two locks on the door seemed to have seen better days. Anielewicz opened them in the right order. Had he unlocked the top one first, something unpleasant would have happened to him.

He went inside. It was dark and dusty in there; a cobweb caught in his hair. But the interior was very different from the exterior. Inside the rainand sun-faded timbers the shed showed the world was reinforced concrete thick enough to challenge medium artillery. It had firing slits for a German-made machine gun; the MG-42 was at least as good a weapon as any the Lizards manufactured.

Also keeping Anielewicz company was the big crate that housed the bomb. He wondered what those half-dozen Poles would do with it if they got it. Did they think they could put it in their back pocket and walk off with it? That would need to be a big, sturdy pocket, considering the size and weight of the thing.

He supposed he should have been glad the Lizards weren’t attacking. They would have known what they were doing, and would have come in overwhelming force. All the Poles knew was that the Jews had something they wanted. Back in the old days, that was all the Poles had needed to know. Things were different now, even if the nationalists hadn’t figured that out.

“A good gun battle will teach them,” Mordechai muttered under his breath. But that wasn’t the answer, either. With or without a gun battle, the bomb would have to leave Glowno now. That was obvious. One small hitch, though: how could it leave? Everyone would be watching the shed from now on.

Joshua came in, not through the door but up out of a tunnel that ran from somewhere in the middle of the rank second growth. “People are posted,” he said. “We’ll give them more than what they want.”

“Good,” Anielewicz said. Sudden decision crystallized in him. “You stay here. You can handle the detonator if you have to. I’m going to try to make sure you don’t have to.”

Before Joshua could protest, Anielewicz opened the door-it was very heavy, but well balanced and mounted on strong hinges, so it swung easily-and stepped outside again. He stooped and picked up a rather rusty large nail or small spike from the dirt by the shed. Smiling a little, he went down the track and waited.

After about half an hour, his patience was rewarded. Here came the Polish nationalists, all of them with weapons at the ready. Mordechai stepped out into the open where they could see him. He held up the nail or spike so the head and a little of the shank protruded from his fist. “Hello, boys,” he said in friendly tones. “If I drop this, the bomb goes off. That means you want to be careful where you point those guns, doesn’t it?”

One of the Poles crossed himself. Another one said, “Christ, it’s that bastard from the tavern. Damn him, he doesn’t look like a Jew!”

“Life is full of surprises,” Anielewicz said, still bland. “The last surprise you’ll ever get, though, is how high you’ll blow. If we Jews don’t keep the bomb, nobody gets it, and that’s a promise.”

If another band was heading for the shed from a different direction, none of this playacting would matter. But, by the way the Poles talked furiously among themselves, Anielewicz didn’t think that was so.

A tough shook a fist in his direction. “You damned Jews won’t keep this thing forever!”

“Maybe not,” Mordechai answered. He thought it all too likely, in fact. They’d have to move the bomb and hide it again, which wouldn’t be easy-it wasn’t the simplest thing either to move or to conceal. But if they didn’t, they’d face more raids, a stronger one from the Polish nationalists or one from the Lizards or the Nazis or even the Russians. He went on, “But we’ve got it now, and you won’t be the ones who get it away from us.”