by L. T. Ryan
He didn’t have a chance to dwell on it. As the plastic bag slipped over his head, Goldmann gasped, sucking the thin plastic film toward the back of his throat. His body convulsed and his vision began to blur.
He envisioned his death and the desecration of his body. It was different than he thought it would be. More welcoming.
Then Nikitin yanked the bag from his head.
Thick, delicious air filled Goldmann’s lungs. The sensation consumed him, and he wondered if that was what it felt like to be born.
“What are you waiting for?” Goldmann panted. “Do it already.”
Nikitin said nothing.
Since Goldmann was removed from the trunk and carried into the abandoned industrial building, Nikitin had not uttered a single word. There would be questions, but not by him.
Goldmann wasn’t stupid. Far from it. His intellect was the reason he was able to elude Sokolov and his dog for the past two years. He knew why Nikitin was keeping him alive. Just as he knew who the approaching footsteps belonged to.
Sokolov had arrived.
Nikitin straightened his posture as the footsteps crescendoed and stopped behind Goldmann.
“I trust you’ve made our guest comfortable,” Sokolov said.
“Very comfortable,” Nikitin replied.
To Goldmann’s ears, their gruff voices and thick Russian accents were almost identical. If Nikitin wasn’t standing in Goldmann’s line of sight, he would have sworn Nikitin was talking to himself.
Sokolov circled around Goldmann and peered down at him.
Goldmann met his gaze. They even look the same, he thought.
Although older and less grizzled, Sokolov had the same hulking stature, jagged jaw, and piercing gray eyes as his ward.
“I’m hurt,” Sokolov said. “You never said goodbye.”
Nikitin smiled, displaying a row of chipped teeth.
Sokolov leaned forward. “You should know, your family was very upset with you. Your own wife cursed you as she took her last breath.”
“That’s a lie,” Goldmann said.
“Maybe, maybe not.” Sokolov pulled several creased photographs from his pocket and held each to Goldmann’s face, in succession. “Look at her face. Even separated from her body, you can see the anger. This anger was for you.”
Goldmann swallowed hard and tried to fight the tears. The images of his dismembered wife and children were worse than he imagined. But he forced himself to look.
For two years he tried to prepare himself for the moment when he would come face to face with their deaths. All the while, resisting the urge to blame himself. He knew if he fled, Sokolov would kill them. But he also knew that if he returned, Sokolov would kill them and him.
Sokolov tossed the photos on Goldmann’s lap and grabbed his jaw, pressing his cheeks into his bottom teeth. “Now. Where are my diamonds?”
“I don’t know,” Goldmann said.
Sokolov let go and nodded to Nikitin, who swooped in with a wide hook to Goldmann’s nose.
Blood exploded onto his face and lap, spattering the pictures.
“If you want to live, you will give me better answer than this,” Sokolov said.
“You think I’m an idiot? I know you’re going to kill me no matter what I say.”
“Don’t get me wrong mister Adam Goldmann, I will cut off your hands and your feet. You must suffer, yes? But I will make sure you live. All you have to do is tell me where are my diamonds.”
“I told you,” Goldmann said, “I don’t know.”
Sokolov shook his head and motioned to Nikitin once more.
Nikitin made a show of unsheathing a slender fillet knife and slowly walked behind Goldmann. With his left hand, Nikitin grabbed the top of Goldmann’s ear and pulled outward.
“Wait, wait,” Goldmann pleaded. “It’s true, I was going to run off with the stones. Okay, I did run off with the stones. At least, I thought so. But when I opened the case, it was empty.”
Sokolov laughed. “This is bullshit story.” He shifted his gaze to Nikitin.
“No, no, wait!”
Nikitin brought the knife down with incredible speed. In a flash, Goldmann could feel the searing pain and the warm blood pooling on his shoulder and running down his left arm. Goldmann wailed.
“Sixty million dollars,” Sokolov yelled. Droplets of saliva freckled Goldmann’s face. “You will tell me where they are. Or you will know pain.”
Nikitin reached over Goldmann and handed Sokolov the floppy slice of flesh and cartilage. Sokolov tossed it onto Goldmann’s lap.
“I swear it.” Goldmann shook his head vigorously to avoid passing out. “Someone switched out the case after I left Israel. I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t have any contact with anyone except for my security detail. It must have been one of them.”
“What are their names?” Sokolov asked.
“I don’t know.” Goldmann winced as the words left his mouth. He had come to learn that Sokolov was not fond of them.
“Take his other ear,” Sokolov ordered.
Goldmann twisted in the chair. “Please— “
“And then it will be your eyes and then your balls,” Sokolov growled. “We can do this all day, yes?”
“Look,” Goldmann said. “I hired the team through Techyon. I don’t remember all their names. One of them was a woman. Her name was Haeli. I don’t know if that was her real name. That’s all I remember. You’ve gotta believe me. You know I have no reason to lie.”
“Shhhh,” Sokolov put his finger to Goldmann’s lips, then patted him on the head. “I know.”
Sokolov walked around Goldmann. His even-tempo footsteps receded the way they came. Without a break in his stride, Goldmann could hear Sokolov call out from the distance.
“You may kill him now.”
3
Haeli tossed her knapsack into the backseat of the white Mercedes sedan and climbed in after it.
“Marhaba,” the driver said, “where do you like to go?”
Haeli glanced at the taxi license, displayed on the dashboard. Yusuf ibn Ibrahim.
“Yigal Alon Street, Tel Aviv,” she said. “I don’t know the address, but I’ll show you where when we get close.”
Of course, she did. She knew it well. But that was nobody’s business but her own.
Yusuf nodded. “I can give you flat rate. Two hundred twenty. Is this good?”
Haeli did the math in her head. Two hundred and twenty Israeli Shekels would be about sixty-five dollars, maybe a little more.
The main highway, Route 1, was notoriously congested during the daytime hours. The trip could take thirty minutes to an hour.
Two twenty was probably a good deal. Not to mention, there was always room for negotiation. After all, only tourists accepted the first offer. But the money was of no concern. What she needed was flexibility.
“Just run the meter,” she said.
Yusuf smiled and pressed a button to start the meter running. He jerked the wheel, forcing the front end of the Mercedes between two other cabs waiting in line to exit the taxi stand.
Ben Gurion International Airport was as busy as Haeli had ever seen it. And she had seen it a lot. It was the gateway to countless missions and assignments. At the moment, however, there was only one mission on her mind.
“What’s your name?” Yusuf asked.
Haeli had to think for a second. “Allison.”
She had chosen to use the alias by a highly advanced, scientific method—it was the first passport she happened to pull out of her stash. In retrospect, she wished she had chosen a different one. She didn’t like the name Allison Gaudet, though she wasn’t sure why.
If she could have, she would have brought documentation for several different aliases. But getting caught with passports, licenses, birth certificates, and credit cards under multiple names would have been a huge red flag. Haeli was well acquainted with the security apparatus in Israel. It wasn’t to be trifled with.
“You are visi
ting?” Yusuf asked.
“Yep. Just visiting,” Haeli kept her answers curt. She didn’t want to be rude, but she hoped the short answers would dissuade the man from asking any more questions. She was in no mood for small talk. Any conversation, no matter how trivial, would require more brain power than she was willing to devote. The backstory she had devised during the flight was still thin. It was something she would need to rectify before it became critical.
Yusuf merged onto Route 1. The traffic was not as heavy as she’d expected. But she knew that would change as they got closer to the city.
Haeli settled herself in for the ride and gazed out the window. Past the concrete barriers lining either side of the highway, there was only sky. In this area, none of the homes or structures along the flat landscape rose high enough to be visible over walls.
Ah, the walls.
Israel loved its walls. It was the land of gates and barriers and partitions. Most notably, the enormous one that delineated the border of the West Bank, of course. But that wasn’t all. In the city, residential properties often looked like fortresses, with high fences and heavy iron gates. Especially in wealthier sections. Parking lots, driveways, parks. All secured with concrete stanchions or spike strips or high-tech surveillance systems.
It was no wonder. The Tel Aviv district, like many other places in Israel, had been the target of terrorists for decades. Haeli remembered a time when rocket attacks, launched at the city from the Gaza Strip, just forty miles away, were a daily occurrence. Suicide bombers on buses, bars, and beaches. Just a normal Tuesday.
But the people of Israel were extraordinarily resilient. For most, the ever-present danger faded into the background of daily life. And it was no different for Haeli.
Since she was a young girl, she had never felt that her home was unsafe. But then again, she wasn’t the average child.
Growing up in a paramilitary facility, she was shielded from the outside world for much of her youth. Shielded, but not sheltered. Her experience was more demanding than the outside world could have ever been. All of it had been about control. Controlling her fear. Controlling her body. Controlling her world.
By the time she was a teenager, she could kill a grown man with her bare hands. Not only in theory, but in practice. Lots of practice. With rigorous daily training and relentless evaluation, she would be forced to prove it over and over again. It didn’t take long before she started to realize that the outside world should be more afraid of her than she was of it.
“There she is,” Yusuf said.
In the distance, skyscrapers of varying heights bristled out of the horizon. The skyline of Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan was a comforting sight.
Since fleeing Israel more than a year ago, she had never felt like she fit in. Especially in the United States. But here, it was different. Here, she didn’t feel like an imposter.
As the jagged skyline loomed larger, she found herself wishing she had spent more time appreciating the place. As an adult, she had been all business, rarely taking a moment to dip her toes into the Mediterranean or explore the rich history of the place.
Raised without religion, the significance of the holy sites never had the same draw they did to the rest of the population, Jews and Palestinians alike. But there was something to be said about the power of such antiquity, even from a secular point of view.
In different circumstances, she might have entertained a bit of soul searching. But not now. It wasn’t that kind of homecoming.
“Get off here,” Haeli said.
“Here?” Yusuf glanced over his shoulder, then back at the road. “It’s better to—“
“I know. Just get off here.”
Yusuf took the exit.
Haeli directed him to turn right onto Lehi Road. A green wire fence ran along the median, separating the eastbound and westbound lanes.
Fences and walls.
She directed him to take the next possible left and then rattled off a series of turn-by-turn directions that would snake them through narrow streets of the residential neighborhood.
Rows of small angular structures passed by her window. Each a variation of the last. A sea of cracked stucco and corrugated metal. It was almost imperceptible where one dwelling ended and the next began.
Had it always looked like this?
“You are not visiting,” Yusuf said. “You are from here, yes?”
The surprise in Yusuf’s voice amused her. She knew why he assumed she was a tourist. English had been her first and primary language. Her tutors had always been American, and her accent reflected it. Not that she couldn’t blend in if she needed to. As part of her schooling, she was required to achieve fluency in several other languages, including Hebrew and Arabic.
“Let’s just say I’m familiar with the area.” She left it at that.
They were close now. Two blocks from her intended destination. She took a deep breath.
Along the right side of the road was a pair of multi-story apartment buildings. In the courtyard between them, something that stood out in Haeli’s memory.
“Stop here.”
Yusuf stopped the car as abruptly as she had blurted the command.
“This is good. How much do I owe you?”
“Two hundred thirty-two.” Yusuf twisted his body to look at her. “See, flat rate is much better.”
Haeli handed over two hundred forty shekels, grabbed her bag, and stepped out without responding. Her attention remained fixed on the courtyard. Yusuf pulled away.
Behind a wrought iron fence, the faded colors of the plastic slide and swings stood out against the sand. A flood of memories washed over her, and tears welled in her eyes.
Standing there on the sidewalk, staring at the vacant little playground, it was as if she were nine years old again.
She remembered how, every weekend, she would beg her father to take her for a walk.
“One last time,” he would always say. Then they would walk to the market where he would buy her a sweet treat.
On every trip, they would pass by the playground. On the way there and on the way back. Every time, she would stop and ask if she could go in.
Maybe it was because it was such a foreign concept to her, or maybe it was an innate drive to play that exists in all children, but it called to her from beyond the fence. She could feel its draw, even now.
“This is private property. You don’t belong there,” he would say, as if reciting from a script. “Come. Let’s get you home.”
But this routine was not what triggered the emotional response. It was one particular memory, from one remarkable day.
Walking back from the market with a belly full of lemon wafers, Haeli stopped to look in on the playground. “Can I try it today?” she asked. Her father paused. She knew the answer. Then, the unexpected. He reached down, lifted her up, and lowered her on the other side of the fence.
“Come with me,” she said. And then, something even more unexpected. Something that had never happened before or since. Her father, the venerable Doctor Benjamin Becher, hopped over the fence, took her hand, and jogged to the playground.
For twenty minutes, they played. Swinging. Hanging from the monkey bars. She even got him to go down the slide. And they laughed. Goodness, they laughed. It was the only time she could recall hearing him so much as snicker. Most importantly, it was the only time in her life that she could remember him treating her like a child.
She hadn’t realized how impactful that afternoon had been on her. Even now she felt the urge to hop the fence and take a few swings. But there were important matters to attend to.
She pushed the past from her mind and moved toward the west. A few short minutes later, she had reached Yigal Alon Street.
There, right in front of her, was a massive building that sprawled for blocks. From the center of the squat compound was a soaring tower sheathed in tinted glass. At the top, six-foot-tall letters read: Techyon.
4
One Day Ago. Haeli dragged the ove
rstuffed suitcase behind her. The plastic wheels clattered as they ran along the textured concrete and skipped over the sidewalk’s contraction joints. The unstable cadence slowed as she reached the bottom of the staircase.
Home sweet home.
Haeli looked up at Blake’s townhouse. Not at any particular feature, but as a whole. As if she were seeing it for the first time.
Of course, that wasn’t the case. For the past several months, she had stayed overnight on a regular basis. Walked up the front stairs more times than she could count. But this was different. This felt monumental. She figured the least she could do was offer an extra moment of introspection. If for no other reason than to feel she had done something to commemorate the occasion when she looked back on it.
Haeli smiled to herself. She pushed the retractable handle until it disappeared into the suitcase and hoisted the bag off the ground.
She bound up the stairs, punched in the code and made her grand entrance to an empty foyer.
“Honey, I’m home,” she called out in her best Desi Arnaz.
She was aware Blake wasn’t there to answer, but she couldn’t help it. She was feeling playful, and she amused herself.
Haeli had no difficulty with that. Amusing herself was a skill she had mastered as a child. When she wasn’t training or studying, she was confined to her room. She had no toys to speak of, other than a chest full of puzzles, which she had already solved. She’d occupy herself by acting out scenarios. Personal little plays, performed only for a small audience of reflective glass.
Looking back on it, the hours of role playing were the foundation for her ability to manipulate people and blend into any environment. As early as five years old, she would put on accents, experiment with different vocal intonations, and practice subtle physical mannerisms to differentiate the characters in her fanciful stories. Most importantly, she learned to control her emotions.
She could be the damsel in distress if it suited her. Cry at the drop of a hat, if needed. But she could also suppress all emotion. And it was this skill that proved most useful of all.