Simantov

by Asaf Ashery

  They did all this pro bono, competing in a man’s world, against men’s laws, using men’s means, and step-by-step won reputation and results; but they also made enemies.

  Threats that began with letters and phone calls were soon translated into action. Punctured tires, rocks thrown through windows and scorpions in the mailbox were daily hazards. All of which meant new security measures, surveillance cameras everywhere and uniformed guards throughout the building. Security was restored.

  Tonight, a hailstorm was raging. It sounded like rocks hitting the building, but this time they were not thrown by humans. The wind whistled and ice balls pelted the windows.

  Hagar swiped her security pass and walked along the hallway to the elevator where the pass was needed again.

  She rode the elevator to the top floor, the upper parking lot.

  As was her wont, she made a friendly parting gesture to the watchful eye of the CCTV, climbed the four metal steps to the roof exit, and tried to remember if she’d parked close to the door.

  As soon as she opened the door, her plans blew away with the wind.

  A tall, blond security guard was standing there. He looked like a poster boy for men’s underwear, the kind that men wonder if they’ll ever buy and women hope they will.

  He was holding an extra large umbrella, which made Hagar appreciative of the care the management took to shield her from heaven’s wrath. He gave off a soothing scent of warm milk and cinnamon, a familiar scent but one that she doubted she’d ever be able to recapture. It was the smell of her simple, unpretentious childhood, when her mother was still sane and used the concoction to smooth her transition into slumber and dreams. A smell that spelled tranquility and protection, and that Barak would leave with her after a night of lovemaking. Now the source of it was smiling at her, flashing pearly white teeth, the smile of a predator.

  She seemed to recognize the smile, but there was no way it could belong to the original owner. Her bosses and his bosses forbade them to meet. Daughters of Lilith were not allowed to consort with Nephilim for fear of them forming private alliances and harboring unwelcome feelings toward their subordinates. There was no reciprocity between the two sides; the daughters of aristocracy were not supposed to have feelings for servants, however ancient and skillful they may be.

  She seemed to recognize him, despite the camouflage, but she was not sure. “Barak?”

  “No, but you’re getting warm.”

  The menace in his voice and the swiftness with which he positioned himself between her and the door left no room for doubt. She was stuck. Deep and hard. She had no doubt about what was happening to her.

  She considered her escape options; no way could she beat a Naphil in running, but if she could get to her car, maybe she could gain some time. She made a dash for it.

  The hail beat down on her; the pain penetrated through the tension and anxiety that gripped her ankles and slowed her down.

  She lifted her eyes, and through the grayish-white pre-dawn light she discerned a large bird of prey with a tremendous wingspan, circling above, like an airborne shark.

  With the hand that was not clutching her attaché case, she fumbled in her pants pocket for the car keys. She could hear the swooshing wind around her and realized she was running out of time.

  The sounds were not caused by the storm.

  When she was a few feet from the car, another Naphil materialized out of nowhere and blocked her passage. She turned around, only to encounter a third. She glanced behind her shoulder and saw his twin lunge at her. There was a rustling of wings, opening like the blades of a pocketknife; Hagar hurled her keys at the first Naphil and with a sickle-like motion threw her attaché case at the second. The case opened and by a stroke of luck, she was able to grab hold of the handle of a whip she always carried just in case, and cracked it in the air.

  She had wielded the whip a few times since leaving the ranch, but not as often as she was supposed to. She had been told that the whip was an amalgam of invocations, incantations, and charms that could scorch the Nephilim, repel the Sons of God, allowing you to control them. Sweet illusions. With luck, she’d be able to hold on a few more seconds, at most half a minute.

  The three attackers recoiled from the circle cleared by the swirling whip. It worked like a bug spray – driving away a swarm of lethal, dexterous dragonflies. Icy pellets still hit her, but Hagar tried to focus on her assailants, ignoring the pain. Her wrist flicked the whip swiftly, hoping to gain a few more seconds, enough for someone in the building to come to her rescue. She wondered how long she’d be able to fend them off, when her train of thought was suddenly derailed. One thing was absolutely clear, and it made her muscles contract in terror. She must come out of this battle alive, to pass this information to the other Sisters of the Order.

  They must be told that the covenant had been breached.

  A heavy shadow crept over her, then total darkness fell.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The hailstorm had damaged Yariv’s windshield wipers, which now squeaked and squealed across his field of vision. According to the radio, this time the ruckus was justified. This time there was a body, not just a teenager out to have a good time. The silence that surrounded the Shalvi case was disturbing. Not just because there was a gag order being aggressively enforced, but with no sign of the girl for three days, and no ransom demand, the silence was deafening. Yariv knew that if it were a kidnapping, and not just a kid running away from home, a note would have arrived by now.

  A policeman directed him through the barrier.

  “What’s behind all this mess?”

  “Crime scene.”

  Yariv crossed the makeshift barrier and encountered the familiar face of a law enforcer. Libby, Moscovitch’s young assistant, was waiting for him, her ponytail swaying as she glanced left and right in an attempt to get a broader sense of the situation.

  Against the ominous assembly of vehicles and patrol cars, Yariv found this sight amusing. Libby only had to look down to see a body covered in thick, white plastic.

  He went straight to it, knelt down, lifted the plastic sheet and recoiled at the sight. A young man whose face had been crushed either by a fall or by being pushed into the tarmac. His arms were awkwardly placed at his side, several ribs were sticking out of his chest, and his pelvis at an unnatural angle. Both shins were completely smashed.

  “Where’s Moscovitch?”

  “He went home. Something to do with his granddaughter. But I have all his notes.”

  “Shoot.”

  Libby cleared her throat and started reciting.

  “Nir Yavnieli, law student, twenty-four years old, former paratrooper, worked as security guard in the building for the last few months.”

  “Looks like this time his parachute didn’t open. What do you think happened?”

  “The way it looks at the moment, he either fell or was pushed off the roof. Maybe suicide.”

  It couldn’t have been suicide; the guy was a security guard. There are simpler ways to put an end to things when you carry a licensed firearm. The corpse looked as if someone had tried to actually plant it in the ground.

  “Who was the last person to see him?”

  Libby handed him a photo of a smiling woman in a business suit.

  Libby and Moscovitch had done a good job covering the scene.

  “Hagar Abizu, lawyer, thirty-three years old. Works in this building but disappeared from the rooftop parking lot. According to the security system, she swiped out at three forty-five. We have CCTV of her at the entrance to the roof. We’re looking for her, and an ‘all points’ has been issued.”

  Yariv took out his notebook and wrote down the name: Hagar Abizu. He underlined it twice.

  “Where’s her car?”

  “Still on the roof. The keys were found lying in the middle of the lot.”

  “She used another vehicle? Did she walk?”

  “Not according to the guard who works at the exit. On the video you can see h
er talking to someone at the entrance to the parking lot, but his image is very unclear.”

  “Is it this Yavnieli guy?”

  “Can’t tell. Crime Lab are working on it.”

  Yariv surveyed the building from the bottom up. There was a security camera over the entrance and another one above over the roof railing.

  “Any connection between him and the lawyer?”

  “We don’t know, but judging by her office and picture, she’s way out of his league.”

  “Maybe he came on too strong and she said no and oops… over the railing? Maybe someone else was there? What’s happening upstairs?”

  “The hail washed up the surface, but there’s signs of a struggle. We found her attaché case open on the floor, but her purse is there with money and credit cards. It doesn’t look like a robbery gone wrong”

  “Maybe she saw something that scared her. Does Abizu show up on any other security cameras?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll check.”

  “Later. Let’s go to the roof first.”

  When they reached the roof, Yariv had to control his labored breathing. He lit a cigarette. Something didn’t sound right. He took a drag and tuned out the rookie’s explanations.

  Sometimes work required just that; tune out, cut yourself off. Ignore the fact that people died here, and focus on what they left behind. Hints, traces, secrets, tiny details that might make a little more sense of the security guard’s death. While he was ruminating about how cases forced themselves on his consciousness and awakened his drowsy brain, Libby dragged him to the railing that surrounded the roof.

  Doron and his Plastic Squad were busy at work, and Crime Scene strips were stretched from the roof all the way down to where the corpse had been found. Doron, an airy plastic cap bouncing on his head, looked like a chef on the loose.

  He was holding two test tubes in his gloved hands, lifting them up to the morning sun. He ignored Libby and Yariv when they positioned themselves next to him, and continued to study the tubes.

  “What do the strips tell us?”

  “That it’s not the correct angle and that something’s wrong with this picture. The pathologist says the damage indicates the fall was from far higher than the roof.”

  Yariv looked over the railing; it was easier to see it from above. Judging by the angle of the cascading strips, the body was too far away from the building. Even if he had been pushed, and did not jump, the guard could not have reached such a distant point from where his aerial trajectory had begun.

  “Was he dragged downstairs?”

  “No sign of that. He fell, just not from this roof.”

  Yariv looked around. “Saving Grace” was the tallest structure in the area. A fall from any other building on the block would have resulted in a few broken bones, but not more.

  “What are you implying?”

  “That we don’t have a clue.”

  “Any signs of this Abizu woman being on the scene?”

  “No, no trace of her after she exits the upper parking lot.”

  “What’s your current theory?”

  “A chopper. The only thing that can whisk you off a roof like this.”

  “Chopper? In the storm we had last night? I hope your test tubes yield something more convincing. What do you think is in them?”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe DNA.”

  “From where?”

  “The lawyer’s attaché case and the most interesting thing we found here.”

  Doron lifted a sealed plastic bag containing a long leather whip with a handle like the head of a serpent.

  “If this was used in a struggle, there might be some DNA.”

  “Could it belong to the dead security guard? Something got out of control here?”

  “We’ll check. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Yariv didn’t like it when people told him how to do his job, but he always felt obliged to tell others how to do theirs.

  “Make sure we get results.”

  Doron, who was taller than Yariv by a head, lowered his eyes and gave him a hangdog look.

  It was open, wide open. The lawyer could also be a victim; her body waiting to be found somewhere. But right now she was the only suspect. He hoped there had been somebody else on the roof last night. Especially because his only theory involved a dominatrix lawyer capable of dragging an ex-paratrooper to a helicopter and throwing him to his death. Something was decidedly wrong with this picture and a pattern was emerging. In one week, two cases with zero clues. He was missing something.

  Maybe the lawyer didn’t show up on the CCTV because she didn’t leave the building of her own free will, or leave by land? Maybe the security guard was just a victim of circumstance? Maybe her disappearance was the real story here?

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Athaliah went over the notes she had written during the deposition.

  The witness was precise in her testimony, as if she had been preparing for this her whole life and now that the moment had arrived, all the sluices were breached, allowing the words and data to gush forth. Her language was technical, as if she were describing a rare breed of bird discovered during migration season. She was trustworthy and apparently well rehearsed, and yet, through the cool, professional façade, terror lurked.

  It was the realization that her testimony might undermine The Order and perhaps put it to the greatest test of its existence that made her avoid discussing the implications and stick to the bare, cold, measurable facts.

  The witness drank the water with determination and self-confidence. She was not afraid to be caught in a lie; she knew that the dust sprinkled over the water would not hurt her.

  The Athaliah shifted her gaze to the frescoes.

  From the surrounding walls, seven pairs of eyes looked at her, eyes that were clever, penetrating, resolute, warm, honest and ruthless. Long hair in varying shades: braided sternly or flowing breezily according to the artist’s fancy. The Seven Maidens of the Order seemed to shield her against the moment of decision. Some were like protective mothers, others like vindictive predatory sisters, flapping their wings, waiting for the right moment to sink their talons into their prey, as soon as she slipped and made a mistake.

  In retrospect, the Athaliah concluded that the decision to summon The Order after the disappearance of the Judge’s daughter was the right one.

  A future member of The Order had vanished – always cause for concern, regardless of her age.

  If she determined that the tall blond man who had danced with Estie at the club was a Naphil, there would be grave consequences. They knew the boundaries. They were allowed to trifle with women, but not to hurt them, certainly not fool around with girls, let alone future members of The Order.

  Esther Aiello had not even been trained at the Ranch.

  With a long supple finger, the Athaliah pressed the intercom button. The buzz warned her secretary that her mistress was about to issue an order.

  “Judith, let the other one in.”

  Loyal Judith pressed the buzzer.

  The door opened and the second witness walked in. She bowed and opened her palms, and with a faint, tremulous voice recited the customary verse.

  “Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven.”

  The Athaliah almost smiled at the terror stricken witness.

  “Blessed above women shall you be, tent dweller, the watchwoman is asleep but her heart is awake.”

  The witness’ eyes lit up and her back straightened. Her voice became stronger and deeper.

  “Who is she that comes forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army with banners?”

  “Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice. Cause me to hear it.”

  The witness curtsied again, and the Athaliah motioned her to get up.


  “You may speak freely.”

  “I saw him. He was an angel, I mean, a Naphil. I am sure of that.”

  She spoke urgently and resolutely, unlike the previous witness who sounded rehearsed; she spoke like someone who knows the truth.

  “Does anyone know you are here?”

  “Only the daughters of The Order, the Athaliah.”

  The Athaliah examined her face, looking for a shadow of a doubt, a hint of a lie.

  “How did you get to see him?”

  “I lifted my head and there he was.”

  “Was it day or night?”

  “Night. In spite of the hail, I saw him. The street was lighted.”

  “There was no hail that night. We know this for a fact.”

  “There was hail, very strong. He flew in between the sheets of hail.”

  “Where did he come from? North or South?”

  “From the middle. The center of town. He dived from a relatively high building, holding a woman under him. Then he simply flew away and vanished.”

  “Are you sure it was a woman, not a girl?”

  “A woman, dressed in a business suit. She just dangled underneath, powerless. I am not sure if she was unconscious, sleeping or dead.”

  “Which night are you talking about?”

  “Last night, the Athaliah.”

  The pieces were starting to fall into place. The night of the hailstorm, the location and the description of the abduction. The Athaliah realized that she was not talking about Esther. There were others. The slight tremor she experienced lasted no more than a second. This was a different incident. A different Naphil, at a different place, on a different date. Hagar! Hagar was not kidnapped by a disgruntled client or by one of her many enemies: she was kidnapped because she belonged to The Order. Or maybe Barak was trying to get back with her? No. He wasn’t one of the brave among them, and he wasn’t that stupid. She had given him a very specific order.

  “Can you describe him to me?”

  “Over six feet tall. He kept his legs close together when he flew, as if he only had one leg, and he was very broad. His wingspan was almost nine feet. He flew through the hail, between houses and streets, flapping his wings, and when he reached above the rooftops he began to glide.”