“And Ya’ara?”
“She stayed on in Providence. I spoke to her early this morning. Before my run. She’s hanging around there for a while. She didn’t say exactly why, and it’s never really a good idea to say too much over the phone anyway. But there’s still something she wants to do there.”
He inserted a green capsule into the machine and continued: “Amir is working his ass off at school, waiting for us to rescue him and summon him to work. And Aslan is killing me, pestering and pestering, wanting to know when this whole thing is going to end, because he needs to arrange some rafting trip down the Amazon or something like that.”
“When is it going to end really? What do you think?” Adi touched the pendant on the chain around her neck.
“From the little I got from Aharon, I think we’re getting close. He didn’t want to elaborate on the phone. And that’s just the way he is, too, you know, a man of mystery. He has his ways. Anyway, based on what Bill Pemberton has told us, Julian Hart, who they believe to be a Russian intelligence officer living deep undercover in the United States, could be Brian, Cobra’s handler. And it appears that Hart was summoned suddenly by his handlers a few days ago and has now disappeared. A sign that we’ve stirred the pot, and things are starting to happen. And I’m telling you, if Brian did go abroad all of a sudden, there’s a very good chance that Cobra has done the same, presumably to meet with him. Perhaps they sense we’re onto something.”
“How could they know?”
“Via Katrina perhaps. They may have found out that we met with her, and that she said something to us about Cobra. It seems a bit of a stretch, but it’s possible. I don’t know how efficient they are, but don’t forget they have a tradition of investigations and surveillance operations dating back to 1917. They know the job. I asked Ya’ara to call Katrina, as a personal gesture of sorts, a follow-up to her visit as Galina, Igor’s daughter. But no one’s answering there. Ya’ara tried contacting her at various times of the day. Either Katrina’s gone on holiday, to her granddaughter, perhaps, or they’ve already got their hands on her and know we’re on the chase. Let’s complete the table and see if we learn anything we don’t yet know.”
They moved to the room in which Adi was working. Michael settled into the armchair in the corner of the room, closed his eyes, and tried to figure out how instead of working on the law office he wanted to open he was now caught up in this Aharon Levin–orchestrated adventure. As always.
Adi worked diligently and quickly. Michael marveled at her skills. He could see the serious look on her face, her focused eyes. An almost imperceptible bluish vein throbbed in her forehead.
“Let’s see,” she said to herself and him, some twenty minutes later. “Let’s see what we’ve come up with.”
Michael got up from the armchair and stood behind her.
“It’ll be easier if you sit next to me,” Adi said. “Pull up a chair. There you go, here. I’m cross-referencing based on the few particulars we have on Cobra,” she explained. “Remember—and it’s important—that Cobra may not appear in the table at all. He could be someone we haven’t even thought of but, insofar as the Russians are concerned, who still warrants the title of top-level agent in terms of his access to information. It’s their definition, after all, not ours. In any event, based on the way this country works, there could very well be people with access to the most important secrets even if they’re not official cogs in the system.”
Michael was familiar with Adi’s prudence and remained silent. And as she typed he saw the tables changing before his eyes.
“Here we go,” she said. “Look! We have five results!”
Michael moved closer and looked at the monitor. Staring back at him were five names, and five role descriptions: the industry and trade minister, the deputy director of the Defense Ministry’s political-security division, the prime minister’s political strategy advisor, the head of the Shin Bet’s counterintelligence wing, and the chief of the IDF’s Northern Command headquarters. Those were the five, out of a pool of hundreds of officeholders with access to sensitive state secrets, who matched the criteria Adi had determined for the purpose of cross-checking the data—date of birth between 1/15 and 2/15, between the years 1950 and 1960, and a trip abroad in 1989 at some point between 3/20 and 4/5.
Michael reminded himself to heed Adi’s words of caution. Yes, there was a good chance Cobra wasn’t even on the list of names that were included in the database. But a thrill of excitement coursed through him nevertheless. He affectionately caressed Adi’s head, as if he was ruffling the hair of a small child, and said, “Wow, Adi. This is wonderful. We’re close, sweetheart, we’re close. I can feel it!”
He then called Amir. He heard the sound of passionate conversation and Amir yelling, “Hello, hello!” Amir must have stepped away from the group because suddenly he could hear him. “Hi, sorry. We’re on a break. You know what these youngsters are like, savages. What’s going on?”
“Listen, I need something urgently. Take a short break from your doctorate and call your friend at the Interior Ministry. By the way, the two of you have done a great job. Well done. Now give him these five names, and ask him to check if any one of them has left the country recently, in the last seven days. Okay?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Amir said, and he started writing down the names and ID numbers of the five suspects offered up by Adi’s table.
A wave of energy washed through Michael. And just as if he were traveling in a particularly fast car, he saw the road flash by under his feet, leaving a blurry trail in its wake, and a bright horizon up ahead.
51
Michael left the apartment and headed for the bar at Hotel Montefiore. It was early afternoon and the sun still caressed the street. On display at the entrance to the hotel stood a broad-rimmed ceramic bowl filled with pale lemons. Pieces of silverware gleamed in the pleasant dimness of the place. He ordered a double shot of Lagavulin. The drink’s strong, smoky aroma burned his nostrils and, as always, gave rise to a yearning for foreign and faraway lands. His thoughts carried him back two years. To AnaÏs. She had remained a constant fixture in his subconscious from the moment they met. As if she had taken up permanent residence there, just below the surface, rising to the top from time to time, flashing an enigmatic smile, disappearing for long stretches, her underlying presence accompanying him nevertheless, like music that only he could hear. To say he knew her would be a bit much, he told himself. He knew only what she chose to show him, after all. Highly professional. The best in the business. They met for the first time in Hamburg. It was a cold and gloomy evening, and he had sought refuge in the bar of the Hotel Atlantic. She was already sitting at the bar, a dark beauty, her skin a velvety deep brown, her eyes black, huge, her hair cropped very short. In her mid-thirties, he guessed. The ring on her right hand drew his attention. A large green stone, an emerald, perhaps, in an unpolished yellow gold setting. “That’s a beautiful ring,” he said to her, unable to restrain himself, and she responded, absentmindedly twisting the ring around her finger: “Thanks; a keepsake from the Old World. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, no less.” She spoke American English, he was sure of that, but he thought he detected a hint of a foreign accent, too.
From that moment onward he broke every rule in the book. He was on operational assignment at the time, a series of meetings with an agent who was in Hamburg as the chief mate of a Finnish ship that sailed regularly along the Europe–Eastern Mediterranean line. He had few opportunities to meet with the agent during the three days when the ship was docked at the city’s enormous port. And those meetings were devoted to final briefings ahead of a mission in Tripoli, to a tiresome evening at a shady nightclub on the Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s infamous red-light district, and to further instruction on the photographic equipment the agent would be using. The instruction itself was superfluous in light of the agent’s obvious high level of proficiency, but doing things methodically and by the book was an absolute must. And instead of remaining
focused on his agent, Michael’s head was constantly elsewhere. AnaÏs. AnaÏs. The lawyer from Chicago. He fell in love even with the unique name her father had insisted on giving her when she was born, in honor of the French writer he loved. By now Michael had identified the hint of a Czech accent that accompanied her sultry voice. Yes, she was born in Prague. She told him quite a lot about herself during those sweet, lazy hours they spent lying sleepily in the oversized bed in her room, between one bout of sex and the next, drinking black-red Barolo wine he purchased and smuggled into the hotel room. He told her about himself, too. About his work as a personal and discreet consultant to several business tycoons. He was a troubleshooter when necessary, a friend when needed, and he also told them the truth to their faces, that’s what they paid him to do. He didn’t tell her about the Mossad, of course. He didn’t tell her about his family, who were waiting for him back in Tel Aviv. But despite all the masks, he spoke about himself in a way he hadn’t with any other woman in a very long time. They both traveled frequently and arranged to meet again, if and when they happened to be going to the same part of the world at the same time. No, she said, Chicago wasn’t a good place to meet. Yes, she was still involved in a relationship that should have ended long ago, but it was complicated, and they’d just met, after all, so they should bide their time and allow various other things to run their course. If they ran into each other again, if fate brought them together once more, that would surely be a sign. Don’t look so serious, honey, she had said. Come, come here a minute.
When he emailed her a few months later to tell her he was traveling to Delhi, she replied: You’re not going to believe this, but I’m going to be in Mumbai and Bangalore at the same time, and I’ll come see you in Delhi. We’ll get just one room this time, okay? He didn’t give a thought to the coincidence and delighted in the fact that destiny would have him see her again, and together in the same wonderful room at the Kempinski Hotel, no less. He postponed his return to Israel by two and a half days, and she managed to clear her calendar in Chicago, too. After all, I’m a senior partner, she said.
Come with me, she whispered to him on the second evening. I want to show you something. They set out in a small, cramped taxi in the direction of the airport and came to a quiet residential neighborhood, as quiet as anywhere in India could be. The neighborhood appeared dotted with luxurious homes. Groups of security guards and drivers and random loiterers stood at the gates to all the houses. Despite the magnificence of the structures, the streets themselves were dusty and filled with potholes. Dogs with their tails between their legs and scrawny cows roamed freely. The taxi stopped at a small commercial center that reminded Michael of remote shopping centers in development towns in Israel. AnaÏs forged a path for them among rickshaw drivers who were sitting around on small chairs, waiting for customers who might or might not show up, and made her way toward a locked iron door. She sent a WhatsApp message, received a number in response, and entered the digits into the keypad lock. The door swung open with a hiss and they climbed the dimly lit staircase to the second floor, where they were greeted politely by a young man. AnaÏs led the way in without a word. And the moment they entered he felt as if they had time-traveled to a different world. Antique leather armchairs, greenish in color, furnished the room. A large wooden ceiling fan spun lazily above them. Bottles of expensive beverages stood on one of the dressers that were inlaid with mother of pearl, and resting atop a low table like an old lion was a large humidor, made of polished red wood. Like a display case for expensive jewelry, its glass lid revealed an array of spectacular Cuban cigars. Covered with plush wallpaper adorned with intricate patterns, the room’s walls displayed black-and-white photographs of famous cigar smokers, from Che Guevara and Churchill to Sean Connery and Robert De Niro. A handsome young waiter quietly poured them each a shot of single malt Scotch. AnaÏs went over to the humidor and selected two cigars for them, Cohiba Siglo VIs. “You smoke cigars?” Michael asked, somewhat taken aback. “I do a whole lot of things you don’t know about,” she replied with smiling eyes, and Michael’s heart was gripped by a yearning still to come, a longing for AnaÏs even though she was sitting there right in front of him at the time. Sitting at the tables in the relatively small room were two pairs of men and another group, two men and a young woman. Everyone was speaking in soft tones. A cloud of bluish smoke filled the room. A sense of calm and lethargy spread through his limbs, and they spent several minutes puffing on their cigars without any desire or need to talk. Michael gazed at AnaÏs and was struck again by her beauty. In the dim light he could hardly see the scar alongside her left eye, which he had come to love and would sometimes gently caress, with their faces almost touching each other.
“I want you to meet someone,” she said to him. “After you told me about your consulting work, I thought the two of you may have some shared interests. Only if you want to, of course. He’s a childhood friend of mine who’s in Delhi for a few days, and he told me he could join us. He manages a huge investment fund in Atlanta. We represent some of his companies, and he’s someone special. Not your ordinary millionaire, if there is such a thing at all. But then again,” she added, “you aren’t just an ordinary guy either.”
Despite wanting to erase it, not only from his memory but also, and primarily, from the depths of his consciousness, Michael couldn’t forget the conversation he had that evening with Chris Bentham. Nothing, absolutely nothing could have performed that absolute delete that Michael so craved.
There was something amiss about the conversation, but it was impossible to pinpoint anything concrete. And Michael had certainly tried to do so in hindsight. They were speaking about business and about the world and about the craziness of India, and naturally Chris showed an interest in the Middle East and Israel, and its red-hot high-tech companies. And Michael asked questions, mostly to be polite and maintain his cover story, and showed an interest in Chris’s work, and without making any commitments they even broached the subject of meeting again, maybe even the following day, in Delhi, but if it didn’t work out then soon, perhaps, on one of Michael’s trips to Europe. And he’d be very welcome to visit of course if he ever got to Atlanta, but Europe was more or less a midpoint, so it would probably be the most convenient for them both. But it wasn’t all that noncommittal talk that was bothering Michael. What was really troubling him immensely, like a near-inaudible high-pitched shriek, the thing that seemed so strange to him, was the thought that he wasn’t hearing Chris but himself instead. Chris sounded exactly how he must have sounded during the hundreds of conversations he’d conducted over the years. That was how he had conversed, fishing for things from his objects, those individuals introduced to him in discreet bars, hotel conference rooms, aboard luxury yachts by Arab headhunters or beautiful women. Surely, he thought, Chris can’t be trying to recruit me, because that would mean that AnaÏs had initiated the contact with me precisely for the purpose of getting to this point in time. But I was the one to approach her, he thought. After all, she was already at the bar when I walked in. She couldn’t have known I’d be going to the bar at the Atlantic. Unless, unless they’ve followed me before and have seen that that’s where I go to seek refuge, to pass the time, to somewhat dull all the thoughts racing so chaotically through my mind. Surely not.
Essentially, Chris wasn’t saying anything any other businessman wouldn’t have said. But the way in which he was speaking, his pace, the timing, the implied offers, the casual references to the riches that were just waiting for those who dared, the wonderful adventure just waiting for someone made of the right stuff, for the select few who had the power and energy to act and not simply wait for things to happen to them—that revealed more to Michael than anything else. The pain that coursed through his body was so real, so focused, that Michael looked down at the pure white shirt he was wearing to make sure he didn’t see a thin line of blood seeping through the fabric, spreading and becoming a sticky and disgusting stain. He could actually feel a sharp knife slicing in
to him. But he knew it was the pain of parting ways with AnaÏs that had yet to come, the pain of forgoing the leap he wouldn’t dare to make, a leap of devotion, reckless abandonment, and betrayal.
He so wanted to say to Chris, Yes, sure, we’ll meet in three or four weeks’ time, let’s set it up now. But only on condition that AnaÏs would be there, too. She had to remain in the picture. Had to. He wanted her so badly, in a way perhaps that he had never wanted any other woman before her, so passionately, so desperately. He was ready to lose himself in her, to drink in the velvety sweetness of her dark skin, to see her looking back at him with wide-open eyes, to sit together with her for hours without saying a word. Not for the first time, he imagined himself with her in a simple domestic setting. He knew he could spend all his life with her, but he knew that it wasn’t going to happen. He was so close to that line that should never be crossed. He had to block his ears to that false song of the Sirens. You can be such a fool, he said to himself. You’re such an idiot. And pathetic, for the most part. You’re at a dangerous age at which men do foolish things, but not as foolish as this. Really not like this.
And that’s how it ended. A polite farewell from Chris, and yes, yes. We’ll be in touch. Take care. You, too. And a final night with AnaÏs, together in the huge bed, with as much space between them as possible. He was feeling weak. Probably some Indian virus, he said. It’ll pass. Never mind. They would surely meet again. Soon. In the thick darkness that had descended on the room, the curtains remained closed. Not a drop of light from the Indian night found its way through them, and he could hear AnaÏs crying quietly—and when he reached out to her, large teardrops that trickled silently from her eyes collected in his hand.
52
ZURICH, MARCH 2013
Brian and Alon left the Bernhard & Sons antiquities store, which lay hidden, discreetly, along a narrow alleyway in the city’s Old Town. Alon liked stores like that—quiet, plentiful, unobtrusive, with the scent of fine tobaccos and polishing materials perfuming the air. It was a store for aficionados, not for the nouveau riche who were fooled by decorative designs. Concealed, yet modern and very effective lighting illuminated the beautiful items that filled the store with a bounty that had surely characterized the establishment when it first opened to the public in the mid-nineteenth century—in 1847, to be precise. Brian had disappeared earlier with the owner into a back room, probably to haggle over a small wooden statue from the Middle Ages that had caught his eye and wouldn’t let go. Brian would sometimes drag Alon along on his browsing and purchasing quests. He had a real passion for all things old and beautiful. His field of expertise, insofar as Alon had managed to learn over the years, was ancient manuscripts, but he had a good and loving eye—and sometimes even a covetous one—for objets d’art from various periods, and this wasn’t the first time Alon had seen him show an interest in a European piece from the thirteenth or fourteenth century. He had taught Alon what to look for in a piece, how to distinguish between a forgery and the genuine article, but Alon, despite having learned a thing or two, wasn’t able to match Brian’s discerning eye, and it had never before mattered to him. By the time they tightened their scarves and put on their gloves again, the temperature had plummeted below zero. And suddenly Brian appeared not only revitalized but also content and happy.
Traitor Page 22