Spies Lie Series Box Set

by D S Kane

  He found the chief geek once more, and pointed to the computer terminals lining one wall. “Can I use the facilities?” Jon flashed his student ID, with the computer sticker and registration for last semester attached.

  “Your sticker’s expired, you know. And it doesn’t cover this computer system.”

  Jon nodded. “My fiancée is a student and she’s missing. I need to figure out what happened to her. Please. Help me.”

  The chief geek shrugged and walked him to a terminal. “Sure. But I’ll have to operate the system. You can’t touch.”

  Jon nodded. He watched the techno-weenie’s fingers fly over the keyboard to search for Lisa’s records within the university. He relaxed when the geek pulled up a screen showing she had indeed been a student.

  Jon smiled at the geek. “My name’s Jon. Thanks for helping.”

  The geek nodded and held out his hand. “Watson.” He pointed to the bottom of the next screen.

  “Aha! See this?”

  At the bottom of the screen, Jon read that Lisa Gabriel hadn’t been enrolled for the last three semesters. His stomach roiled. Reflected in the glass walls of the nano-lab, he saw his face grow red. He watched Watson punch the buttons on the keyboard harder, faster, Googling her name. Nothing.

  Watson keyed his password and scanned the administrator’s screen. He shook his head. “Sorry, man. Looks as if she never had user rights here. At least not in the past year.” He logged off the terminal and regarded Jon with new suspicion. “You have to leave now.”

  Jon felt as if someone had started wiping away her existence but hadn’t yet finished. A new set of equations began forming in his head. Disturbing ones.

  He took the stairs up two at a time and ran out into the street, slipping on an icy puddle just as he approached the stairs of the university library. He hit the sidewalk and bloodied his hands. Rising as fast as he could, he shook the pain from his hands and pulled his expired student ID from his pocket. He pushed the ID into the card reader at the hall inside the entryway. It still worked. He passed into the lobby.

  The international newspapers were online in the basement. He stopped at the loo to wash the blood off his hands. Then down the stairs, where he occupied a cubicle. He called up the web pages of Israeli newspapers for events that might have involved her. Dizzy, he feared what he’d find.

  The Jerusalem Post reported heightened security measures due to failing peace talks with their Arab neighbors, upcoming elections, and reports of suicide bombers. His fingers froze over the keyboard as he scanned for her name.

  His jaw dropped. She was listed as the first victim—ever—of a terrorist bombing in Herzliyya. No! His plans, their future together, all vanished in a blink. He smothered a screaming curse. The breath left him in a gasp.

  He couldn’t move. He felt abandoned again, but this was more intense than losing his parents.

  This time, he’d lost his future. She was gone from him forever.

  Someone had engineered her death. Someone who killed Israelis. He wanted justice for Lisa. But, the more he thought about his desire, the more he realized he had no contacts and no killing skills to achieve it. He sat, seething, thinking what he would do if he could find the person who’d created the bomb that blew up her car.

  He didn’t know how long he’d been there, but when he left the library, he felt raw and numb, as if his knowledge of her death had frozen him to the moment. The cold winter winds beat into him with every step.

  Soon he felt nothing but rage. He was incapable of mathematics or logic.

  Jon staggered down the street into the Marble Arch tube stop and rode back to his apartment. He’d expected them to become old and gray together, living long lives, enjoying the exploits of their grandchildren. But the rest of her life had expended itself so abruptly.

  He walked up the three flights of the tenement in a trance, his vision narrowed and his hearing dulled. On his floor, two of the hallway lights were out. He was too tired to care.

  How could he live without Lisa?

  As he unlocked the door to his rooms, a bearded man with short-cropped white hair emerged from the darkened staircase above him and called his name.

  He opened the door and gaped at the approaching stranger, who was dressed in a dark suit and white shirt, tieless. “Yes?”

  The man stared back at him, running icy blue eyes over Jon, head to toe. “I knew the woman you call ‘Lisa Gabriel.’ We worked together.”

  His visitor had a foreign accent. It sounded similar to Lisa’s. Israeli. Filled with confusion, Jon flipped the light switch and pointed toward two threadbare armchairs in the suite’s common room. He sat in one. “Who are you?”

  The older man examined the other chair with obvious distaste but lowered himself into its seat. Leaning forward, he asked Jon, “How well did you know your fiancée?”

  Jon felt his face get hot. “Who the hell are you?” When the older man remained quiet, Jon shook his head. As the silence continued, he felt obliged to speak. “She told me she was born in Tel Aviv and came to London to earn her master’s degree. And that she’d accepted an internship at the nano-lab, intending to stay until I finished my MBA.” His hair fell into his eyes. He swept it away, feeling his eyes grow moist. “Well? Who are you?”

  The older man took a deep breath and nodded. “Your fiancée’s real name was Aviva Bushovsky. Lisa Gabriel died two years ago. Aviva took over her identity for us. One of our yaholim hacked her identity records into the university’s computers, but after her death we had him hack them back out. She was one of ours. A bat leveyha—”

  Jon’s gut lurched as if he was in a plummeting elevator with a broken cable. “A what? Who the bloody fuck are you?” His voice echoed through the room.

  “My name is Yigdal Ben-Levy. I work for the Israeli government. We taught your fiancée to perform covert work. She started out as one of our sayanim. A helper. We trained her to be a—”

  Jon raised a hand to emphasize his confusion, but Ben-Levy continued. “Yes. A spy. She would have told you everything, had she lived to marry you. I came here to tell you. I owe you that much. We have a suspect in custody now. Of course, he denied constructing and planting the bomb, but we have enough evidence to believe he was a cutout, the tool of a bomb maker. Our suspect resisted arrest and was shot by Israeli IDF. He’s in a coma now. We expect he’ll regain conscious, and I intend to interrogate him. I’ll find the name of the bomb maker responsible for her death.”

  Ben-Levy seemed to be waiting for a response but Jon remained shocked and silent. “We sent Aviva to fetch you. To recruit you. But when she fell in love with you, I needed to see her, to determine her state of mind. She wasn’t supposed to marry you. Just arrange for you to come back with her. But your involvement with her changed the plan. Things got complicated. A phone call just wouldn’t do. I asked to see her before she told you any secrets. At the time I was too involved with other activities to spend time traveling. So, I sent for her.”

  Jon leaned forward and brushed a stray lock of hair out of his eyes. “You sent for her? Then tell me. Why are you really here now?”

  The older man shrugged. “There are things about yourself no one ever told you. You aren’t who you think you are. I came here to ask you for the help your parents provided us before they died.”

  Jon felt muddy-minded. All the mathematical formulas he could conjure were useless to him now. He grabbed his head with both hands, and shook it to clear it. Suddenly, everything made sense. He remembered small inconsistencies in his parents’ behavior, and corresponding ones with Lisa. Their secrecy when discussing things around him, and the men who’d visited the night his parents died. The times Lisa said she needed to call her mother, arguments she had on the phone and refused to discuss with him, and a lack of stories about her friends.

  He knew now he hadn’t really known her, and felt stupid at not being able to see the significance of these events before now. Anger welled in him for her lies.

 
But in moments he felt once more his love for her. The ache was enormous, replacing his anger with a desire to seek justice for her. He now knew how to gain it. He blurted out the single obvious thing he could think of. “Why? Why me?”

  The white-haired man nodded. “I also knew your parents. Their deaths were no accident.”

  Chapter Six

  Jon Sommers’s apartment,26 Thames Street, London

  May 31, 11:16 p.m.

  Bile rose in Jon’s throat. “What did you say?”

  “Patience.”

  Jon’s hands shook. “Patience my ass. You’re a bloody liar. My parents died in a car accident.” He remembered how, at first, he felt lost and alone, but later he’d grown to hate them for their absence. He shook his head. How could their deaths not be an accident? Then he remembered his sitter’s accent. Just like Lisa’s, and just like Ben-Levy’s.

  Ben-Levy stared at Jon. “We met, you and I, once before. The night your parents were murdered.”

  Jon’s jaw fell as he made the connection to man who walked through their door following the accident that night. This man’s white head of hair was gray then. “You! How were you connected to my parents?”

  The older man took a deep breath. “Your grandparents, Eve and Ivan Sommerstein, were released from Auschwitz at the end of the war and settled in Palestine near Lake Tiberius. They were Holocaust survivors and sought a way to provide security for our new country after its formation. They worked for the Mossad and had one son, Abel.”

  “But my father and mother weren’t Jewish. I’m not Jewish.”

  “Yes, you are. Your father and mother married in 1973 in Haifa. Their real names were Saul and Rebecca Sommerstein, but we gave them cover names when we asked them to resign from the IDF to enter Mossad. Abel Sommers was my best friend. We worked together for almost a decade in Israel. We gave him and Natasha new identities that established your parents as British for three generations.”

  Jon stared at him in shock. “My mum and dad were spies for Israel? I thought they worked for the British government in a trade delegation.” He shook his head. “This has to be a lie.”

  Ben-Levy took a deep breath. “Your mother was an electronics specialist. Your father was a deep-cover double, reporting to me. He infiltrated MI-6 and used a tool Natasha had developed to funnel intelligence to us, intel that saved Israel during the build-up to a nuclear attack from Syria that we prevented in 2003. Our country owes them its existence.”

  Jon frowned, recognizing the name of the British spy agency. “If your story is true, why didn’t they tell me any of this?”

  But as he said this, he thought of how his parents had always been protective of their privacy and quiet about their own lives. He’d been forbidden to enter the “library” room of their flat. The night of their death, after the group of men had entered and left, he’d run inside in a rage, yanking open desk drawers and pulling books off the shelves. Nothing significant except for two pieces of handwritten script in a language whose lettering he didn’t recognize. He’d watched from behind the couch when the sitter walked in and retrieved two handguns from the desk and placed them in a metal box. Could this man’s story be true?

  The white-haired man stroked his beard. “Abel and Natasha would have told you when you reached the age of thirteen. You would have been bar mitzvah then, a man. When they died, you were still too young. I couldn’t expect you to have the sense to understand the dangers you might face. To keep you safe, I kept this knowledge from you. Until now.”

  Jon’s brows furrowed. He sought escape, yet couldn’t move. He felt the muscles of his legs tighten. “I don’t believe they were murdered. I don’t believe any of this. It’s all lies.” He struggled to rise and paced the room, his fists clenched. He stopped and faced Ben-Levy. “Who could have wanted them dead?”

  Ben-Levy closed his eyes in thought. “After their last mission, the Syrians sent a Palestinian hit team to take revenge on both of them. They made it look like an accident, but I wasn’t convinced. Natasha had called with a repeater’s car plate. I had the Mossad conduct its own investigation. It showed that this was no accident.”

  Ben-Levy turned away and his voice grew softer. “We thought if we told you then, it would exacerbate the danger for you. Safer to wait until you were older. Instead, I had operatives watch over you, keeping you safe.”

  “You watched over me? That’s impossible. I would have known.”

  Ben-Levy smiled. “We’re good at surveillance.”

  “But why?”

  The old man smiled. “I owed you for your parents’ sacrifice and service to the state. The state funded the orphanage. I’d hoped you would have the same talents they had. Two generations of spies. You’re the third. Talents we could exploit for the good of Israel.”

  Jon’s legs wobbled and he struggled to his seat. New equations formed as his head fell back against the back of the chair. He tried ignoring them. “Bloody bullshit. Why are you telling me this? Why should I believe you?”

  Ben-Levy didn’t answer. He paced the room. As he drew closer to Jon, he stopped. “We set up the scholarships you earned.”

  Jon frowned. He stood and approached the older man. Inches separated them now. “I don’t believe anything you’ve said.”

  Yigdal Ben-Levy sighed. “What if I could prove everything?”

  “Go fuck yourself. I’m not Jewish. My parents never even visited Israel. None of this is true.” He realized he was shouting. Had his parents deceived him? As Lisa had? He felt dizzy and leaned against the chair.

  Ben-Levy shook his head. “As you wish. But, we will find her murderer. The bomb maker.”

  The what? Jon shook his head. He snarled, “How do I know you didn’t murder her?”

  Ben-Levy’s mouth opened. His face lit up, red. He sighed as he buttoned his overcoat, and retrieved a business card from his pocket. “If you change your mind, call me at this number.” He pulled a paperback book from his coat pocket and handed it to Jon. “You might also need this.”

  The book was an English-Hebrew dictionary and phrase book. Jon dropped it on the table. He scanned the card: “Yigdal Ben-Levy, Military Affairs Liaison.” The address listed was located in the subbasement of a building at 134 Hamenofim Street, Herzliyya, Israel. A phone number was listed on the bottom of the card. “When you call, ask for Mother. It’s my call sign.” The white-haired man rose and left him, closing the door behind him.

  Mother? Oh, shit! He’s the “mother” Lisa spoke about visiting in Tel Aviv! The proof of the equations he cobbled that instant were irrefutable.

  He ran to the loo and dry-heaved until he was unable to stand. His head connected the dots, reassembled the mathematics. Everything the old man said fit neatly. Jon’s hands shook hard as he ripped the card into pieces. He staggered to the kitchen and threw the scraps in the trash. “Crap, crap, crap!”

  Jon closed his eyes, concentrating on his memories of his father, a tall, strong man. His constant silence. His mother’s hectic schedule. He sat in the ratty chair, his mind swirling without direction. He imagined them talking to each other, becoming silent as he entered the living room of their flat. This had happened many times, with the surprise on their faces replaced by smiles.

  The old man had told him the truth.

  But, was his entire life a lie?

  A few minutes later, he fished the pieces of Ben-Levy’s card from the waste basket and reassembled them. When the card was Scotch-taped together, he dropped it in his pocket next to Lisa’s photograph. My entire life is a lie! What should I do?

  Chapter Seven

  Hyde Park, Marble Arch, London

  June 14, 1:17 p.m.

  Jon remained unnerved for two weeks following his meeting with the mysterious visitor. Wherever he went, he thought he was being followed.

  On this day, he was surprised by the warm, late spring weather, rare in London.

  To clear his head, he strolled toward Knightsbridge. Perfect weather, bright blue sky,
a slight breeze. Twenty degrees Celsius, and crowds filled the park. Couples on picnic blankets shared lunch. Others, like him, walked alone.

  Since Lisa’s death, he’d grown used to missing her. His dreams at night still included visions of her, running away from him.

  But during the days, he’d managed to devote his efforts toward preparing for his entry-level position in the money-transfer department of Dreitsbank.

  Once again, he saw it as his future. He’d spent the morning reading training manuals: letters of credit, documentary collections, and foreign exchange. Just over two weeks before his start date, there were four more instruction manuals to study.

  Jon took the shortcut from the city library across the park to his apartment, his backpack containing the four manuals and his notebook computer.

  As he neared the edge of the park, he saw a familiar woman in front of him. A willowy woman, with a single, thick braid of red hair swinging back and forth down her back to her waist. He picked up his pace and closed the distance. As he passed, he gazed at her, about to greet her. But it wasn’t her. She could have been Lisa’s twin. The breath left him, and he braced himself at a nearby concrete bird feeder.

  He’d never see Lisa again. He corrected himself. He had her photo in his pocket.

  He plucked it from his wallet and stared. He ached to caress her.

  Once again, he remembered when she’d asked him, “Why would someone as smart as you settle for being a banker? Why not choose to save the world?” He’d almost laughed then. But he’d forgotten his answer to her. And, still, the questions remained. Had she given her life for something important?

  There was nothing so important in the career he’d planned. And remembering his meeting with the man called “Mother,” he now doubted his purpose.

  He seemed to hear her voice. “Why not decide to do something more important? Save your people.” He jumped, turning around, looking for her.

  But there was no one nearby. He panicked. Am I going crazy?