“You’ve been lost in thought,” she said with a smile. “Tell me,” she asked, “who sent you to find me? The Mossad? Or Aharon Levin, in one of his bouts of paranoia?”
“The director of the Mossad approached Aharon, and he suggested that I find you. He thought you might listen to me. He wasn’t surprised to learn you were out of the country. And he believes you’re tied to the killings. And I don’t have to tell you that his gut feelings are usually accurate. You know that he rarely misses the target.”
“Stop admiring that old man. He got things wrong just as much as he got things right. And I’m not convinced the years have been good to him. He used to be determined and ruthless. But he didn’t dare to go all the way in the Cobra affair, as he should have, as was called for. There truly was no other way. And he didn’t have the balls to finish the job. So I suggest you stop looking up to him. You’re not a kid anymore, Michael. You’re a man in his fifties. It’s time to stand on your own two feet. Go home and report to him that you found me, and that I’m fine, and that I’ve moved on. Your world no longer interests me.”
Despite the calm, collected manner in which she spoke, her measured tone, the relaxed expression on her face, Michael doubted her last statement. He knew her. He didn’t believe that she was fine, just as he didn’t believe that she had moved on. Despite the composure she was showing, she appeared caught up in something and was troubled. He noticed the shadow that passed fleetingly through her eyes. He could see something in her now that reminded him of a defiant teenage girl, compensating for her anxieties and insecurities with a display of a mixture of coldness and audacity. And that’s exactly what made him want to protect her. To shield her from herself. He had the sense that she had gone too far.
“Do you want to go up to the room?” he asked.
“Yes. And I’d like to ask you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“I want you to sleep in the bed with me. To hold me. We won’t do anything. I’m exhausted anyway. But I want you to be right up close to me. Is it okay for me to ask?”
He hesitated for a moment. “Sure, let’s go,” he said.
59
When he woke the following morning, Ya’ara was still fast asleep. Her arm was draped across his chest, and he gently moved it aside. Her soft hair lay over her face. She looks like a little girl, he thought, almost drowning in the T-shirt and sweatpants he had given her. When he returned from the shower, she opened one eye and smiled at him sweetly. “I’m going to sleep a little longer, okay?” she said.
“I’ll ask them to send breakfast up to the room.”
“Just like in my hotel,” Ya’ara said after she was up, her mouth full with a bite of croissant, strawberry jam smeared across her upper lip.
“How did you manage to end up in a dump like that?” Michael asked, pouring orange juice into her glass.
“It was the first place I saw.”
“Doesn’t suit you.”
“You know I get by anywhere. But that one was probably over the top. What a shithole.” She noticed his gaze, and cleaned the jam off her lips with her tongue.
“Who’s the Arab guy you were with at Blackwell’s?” Michael asked. She smiled to herself. Yes, Sayid could certainly appear to be an Arab student, thin, a little tormented, a dreamy and intelligent look in his eyes. “Ah, he’s my sister’s son.” Michael knew she wasn’t answering him seriously. It didn’t fit, not in terms of the young man’s age, and not in terms of his appearance.
What Michael didn’t know was that Ya’ara’s sister had disappeared at the age of sixteen, and was never found. He knew that every individual carries a heavy burden on his or her shoulders, but despite the fact that he had known Ya’ara for so many years, he was unaware of that crucial event, which remained a bleeding wound in her soul. And had he found out then what he hadn’t known for all that time, his heart would have agonized over his blindness. He had read through Ya’ara’s personal dossier at some point in the distant past, but the story of the disappearance of her sister was tucked away in the classified section of her file. Their working relationship, accompanied by mutual affection, didn’t bring down the walls Ya’ara had erected around herself. Ya’ara’s inner smile turned now into a stinging grimace. She hadn’t said the word “sister” since telling her cadets the story of Tatiana’s disappearance, at their first meeting in Western Galilee. And suddenly, unintentionally, for no other reason but to lightheartedly evade Michael’s questions, the word “sister” had come out of her mouth. She hated herself for it.
Michael decided not to press her. He couldn’t decide whether to believe her claim to have no ties to the two assassinations, but she hadn’t offered any explanation for her presence in Oxford. “You have beautiful feet,” he said to her, his eyes on her bare toes.
“They’re more frozen than beautiful, feel,” she said, lifting her left leg and resting her foot on his knee. He clutched her foot in both hands. She dipped the croissant into her coffee and popped the pastry into her mouth. Take it easy, Michael, he said to himself. And felt like a fool.
“I want to sleep a little more,” Ya’ara said. “And then I need to move on. Would you like to join me?”
“Where are you going?”
“To Liverpool. I’d like you to come. Can you? I’m asking nicely.”
He nodded. He needed more time with her, it made no difference where they spent it. She released her foot from his grasp and went back to bed. Curled up under the thick blanket, with her eyes closed, she reminded him again of a young girl. “Wake me at eleven-thirty, okay?” she asked, her knees tucked up to her tummy, her figure almost hidden in the large bed. “Watch over me, okay?” she said, her words coming in a whisper this time.
60
The intercity train raced northward at a speed of two hundred kilometers an hour. Ya’ara was very quiet and Michael sat next to her, in silence, too, sipping the tepid coffee he had purchased from the refreshments cart pushed by a young girl who, despite her tender years, appeared drained, tired of life. Ya’ara was glad he had joined her; she didn’t want to be alone and preferred knowing where he was rather than having him follow her.
She had plans to meet up in Liverpool with Ann and Helena, and she still hadn’t figured out what she was going to tell Michael. But she knew she’d manage. Michael wasn’t a real threat. Yes, she had been taken aback when he told her that Anjam Badawi was an MI5 asset, but it didn’t cause her to doubt herself. She had no way of knowing about Badawi when they were formulating their plan to kill him. She asked herself if she would have changed her decision had she known he was a British source, and didn’t know what to say. She acknowledged the damage done inadvertently to British intelligence as a result of his assassination, and admitted that had she known in advance, she probably would have let him slip and moved on to the next piece of filth on the list. But what happened wasn’t her idea. She was given a free hand in all matters relating to the planning and execution of the operations, but the list was passed on to her by the prime minister, in the convoluted manner they had arranged ahead of time.
I wonder, she thought, how the prime minister selects the targets he’s given me. He must receive material from Military Intelligence and the Mossad, by way of his military secretary. Osama Hamdan wasn’t on the list of names she had received. He was at the top of her private list. A savage beast who had killed her mother’s good friend without a second thought, without a moment’s hesitation. She had decided that as the commander of a secret team of cadets, she deserved that bonus.
The relationship between her mother and Yael had been one of the basic facts of life to Ya’ara. The two women came from very different worlds—her mother was a new immigrant from Siberia who lived in the suburbs of Haifa, and Yael Ziv was a third-generation Israeli, from a plush home on the summit of Mount Carmel. Their mutual love for literature brought them together. Ya’ara didn’t know how they had met, and when she did ask, her mother evaded the question. But the in
itial contact was made, and Yael, who used to host a literary club gathering at her home, invited Ya’ara’s mother to join them, to speak about the Russian books she loved so much, to read extracts from them, if only for them to hear the melodic beauty of the Russian language rolling off her tongue, and to read and get to know the books of the Israeli authors whom the club members would discuss in all earnestness, with excitement but also fiery criticism.
Her mother used to invite her to tag along, and Ya’ara did, but only occasionally, both drawn to and repelled by the well-to-do and educated world she was exposed to, a world that projected self-confidence and quiet arrogance. The relationship between the two women blossomed into a profound and quiet friendship. They shared the kind of closeness that exists between sisters. And when her mother fell ill, Yael more than anyone else was there for her, holding her hand after a long day of treatments, bringing over a pot of meat soup on Saturday mornings, faithfully on the other end of the line for a long and quiet phone call. But Hamdan’s assassination wasn’t only personal revenge.
As Ya’ara understood things, his killing conformed with the prime minister’s perception that rampant Islamic terror could only be defeated by means of a hard-fought and bloody war, from close quarters, with continuing and relentless violence, without balking, in order to surprise, to catch the enemy unawares, to rattle his confidence and sense of security, and to sow fear in his heart. And carrying out a hit on a murderer inside a prisoner-transport vehicle was exactly the kind of move a strategy like that called for.
That was why she wasn’t moved by Michael’s shock. There’ll be many more such killings to come, she promised him silently. And the organization that sent you should be aware of that, too. She knew she couldn’t triumph alone. Combating such madness required a global campaign. A campaign in which the Mossad would also have a role to play. And even that wouldn’t be enough. Military forces would have to emerge victorious in the battles that take place on the ground, in the vast deserts now controlled by the fighters of the Islamic caliphate. But she and her people could be the catalyst for the campaign, the wild and dangerous variable that shows the way, like a tornado that wreaks havoc along its path.
She thought about the young girl who had been killed in the Badawi operation. She regretted her death but refused to wallow in sadness. She wasn’t Aslan. Sometimes even little girls have to die for causes greater than themselves. After all, it was impossible to bring her back to life, and as far as she was concerned, forgoing Badawi’s assassination would have been too high a price to pay for the purpose of saving her.
Where was her God when it was time to protect the life of a young girl? she thought defiantly. She felt like a drawn sword in a continuing campaign. She herself was the spark. And her serene outward appearance served her, as always, as a shield. Who would imagine that the light-eyed, fair-haired woman with the map of Europe spread out in front of her was planning her next operations? No, no one knew what she had in mind. Certainly not Michael, whose suspicions had already drifted off to sleep, with the sight of a bare foot leaving him unable to think straight. She rested her head on Michael’s shoulder and allowed her eyes to close. The train continued northward, the landscape flashing by on both sides in a blur.
61
LIVERPOOL, FEBRUARY 2015
They both woke at the same time, their faces almost touching, the soft thick blanket covering them to their necks, the dreams of the night yet to fade completely from their memories, their soft hair spread across the pillows. Ann smiled and Helena gently caressed her face. Ann’s fingertips weren’t slow to respond and trailed along the line of Helena’s thigh, pausing at the delicate join between her upper leg and calf.
“Good morning,” Ann whispered.
“Good morning.” Helena stretched, her hands now above her head. “It really is a good morning,” she added, rolling over and bringing her face up close to Ann’s, a huge smile on her lips.
“That was my first time with another woman,” Ann said. “Well, if we forget about that one clumsy night at boarding school. In any event, that doesn’t really count.”
“I’m sure my high school was very different,” Helena said.
“We’re not in high school now,” Ann responded. “I’m married and you have a boyfriend.”
“Yes, but I heard once that different rules apply when you’re overseas,” Helena remarked.
“As two people who came from abroad . . .” Ann started to say, but then fell silent.
Helena glanced at her sideways, wondering what Ann was thinking through their light chatter. She was painfully aware of her naked body. Ann had touched a place buried deep in her soul, a place made up of nothing but fragile truths.
“Okay, you may be right,” Ann concluded, brushing the blanket off herself. “Let’s not talk about it. Not yet, okay?” she said, looking at Helena imploringly now.
“Sure. Shhhhhhhh. No talking.” The silenced words were soon replaced by Helena’s arms reaching out and drawing Ann toward her.
• • •
In the late afternoon, at the café at the Tate Liverpool, the northern branch of the renowned London art museum, three women sat and stared at one another in silence. To an onlooker from the side, they might have appeared to be old friends. A keen-eyed observer would have been able to recognize the tension between them.
When Ya’ara told Michael she had to meet someone, he didn’t ask questions. He was still carrying a hint of Ya’ara’s scent, as if their shared slumber was imprinted on his person. He let her go, knowing that if he were to follow her himself, she’d have no trouble spotting him. Ya’ara left the hotel and headed to her meeting with Helena and Ann only after making sure she was alone.
• • •
For her part, she was pleased to see them. She viewed Ann and Helena as leading cadets on her team—quick, sharp, cosmopolitan. She was surprised by the cold reception she encountered from them. Offended, actually. She couldn’t work out where the tension in the air was coming from, but quickly gathered herself. It doesn’t suit you, she scolded herself, you’re their commander and they’re just cadets. Don’t be so sensitive.
“Even though it wasn’t a clean operation, and yes, despite the young girl who was killed,” she said to them, “your mission achieved its objective. All in all, you did great work.” She tried to read their faces.
Helena’s face was blank. Ann’s lower lip was trembling slightly. “How can you say that?” Helena asked, seemingly speaking for both of them. “An outcome like that means we didn’t plan things well enough. That you didn’t plan things well enough. We adopted a course of action that ended in disaster. We’ve just begun our training, and we’re relying on you. And look what happened!”
“What happened,” Ya’ara said quietly, voicing each syllable in a manner that clearly testified to her pent-up anger, “is that a hate-mongering preacher was liquidated. The world is a better place without him. Your planning of the operation was exemplary. What happened was unavoidable. Tragedies occur sometimes, but you have to move on from them. There’s no such thing as a sterile war.”
“Those are empty words,” Helena responded. “How many more tragedies are we going to encounter? Is that what awaits us?”
Ann lightly touched Helena’s hand, trying to quiet her.
“I’m not sure I’m suited to this business,” Helena continued, ignoring Ann’s touch. “I’m not sure it suits us.”
“Do you feel the same?” Ya’ara asked, focusing her gaze on Ann. She realized a new bond had formed between the two cadets, and she wasn’t convinced of its benefit to the cause.
Ann shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I don’t know. It’s normal for us to feel a little down, right? I need some time to take it all in. To lie low. To allow these two weeks to pass quietly.”
Ya’ara wondered if Ann was being evasive. From an operational perspective, the decision to keep the team in England was the right one, but from the moment she made the call
, she feared it could exact a heavy price. Ann and Helena were very green cadets, not experienced fighters. Sayid was in a similar position, despite appearing to be holding up pretty well. He was very pleased to see her when they met up, and seemed at ease and well-balanced. When she asked him about the death of the young girl, he gazed up into space but his words confirmed he was okay. These two weeks, cut off completely from the other cadets, could undoubtedly undermine the motivation of the two young women, their sense of duty, their willingness to cope with year after year of the never-ending seesaw between the elation that comes with the operations and the disheartenment that follows in its wake. And still, insofar as Helena was concerned at least, there was clearly something more. She showed Ya’ara a photograph on her phone of the young Yasmin wrapped in the arms of her father.
“See that?” she said. “That’s a living girl. That’s what she looked like when she was alive.” Ya’ara told her to turn off the phone and please calm down.
She didn’t know what else to say. After all, they weren’t children. They were dealing in matters of life and death; there was no room for unnecessary drama.
“Look,” she eventually said, her gaze shifting back and forth between Ann’s lowered eyes and Helena’s defiant expression, “this thing we’ve got ourselves into really is a serious and taxing affair. There’s a price to pay when you’re on the front line. It’s the real thing. And coping with it isn’t always easy. We’ll have a lot more time to talk about what happened, but our mission now, your mission now, is to deal with the coming days. To get through them peacefully and quietly, without making a fuss or falling apart.
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