by Dana Haynes
The girl’s first thought was to flee. She felt Asher tense, ready to bolt. He reached back blindly for her hand. She switched the spade knife to her left and took his dry palm.
“Which side wins?” Asher asked the tall woman.
“My side. My name is Hannah Goldman. You are … Asher? And?”
The girl took a shy step behind her brother.
“Daria, I believe you said.” The tall woman smiled. “Daria, it is. Such a lovely name.”
* * *
“Daria? Daria?”
Daria Gibron dragged herself up from the grasp of anesthesia. She blinked in the too-bright light. The first face she saw was familiar. She tried speaking, despite being intubated.
She mouthed the name, Asher?
“John.” The swimming, half-formed face before her smiled. “John Broom.”
Thirty-five
Germany
Daria recovered.
Interestingly, it was at the best and closest medical facility Major Theo James could whistle up: Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Interestingly because that’s where the FBI had taken her the first time she’d been injured while fighting with Asher Sahar.
Her treatment, such as it was, consisted of keeping her on oxygen for five days, balancing her fluids, pushing the electrolytes, and keeping an eye out for secondary infections. After that, the medical regimen relied on prayer and dumb luck.
On the sixth day, she was informed that CIA analyst John Broom had been infected with Pegasus-B. By her. His treatment lasted half as long because he was asymptomatic when the treatment began. He was up and walking about before Daria was fully awake. He visited her every day. They didn’t tell her right away that the World Health Organization had coordinated responses to two outbreaks of a novel influenza. The French Ministry of Health handled three cases in Lyon, France, while the Italian Ministry of Health reacted to seven cases in Milan, Italy.
The cases ended after that and the health ministries relaxed. It would be months before anyone realized that all of the victims had the genetic markers of Ashkenazim, or the Jews of Central Europe.
On the seventh day in the hospital, she was well enough to realize he was keeping other secrets from her.
“Best tell me. You know I’ll find out anyway.”
John sat on the edge of her bed, one foot on the floor and one knee up by her side. “Asher Sahar shot FBI Agent Ray Calabrese.”
Daria stared at him, blinking rapidly but otherwise appearing unemotional.
“He’s alive. He’s facing, I don’t know, six or seven months of physical therapy. I’ll set up a Skype call for you this afternoon. He really wants to talk to you. If that’s okay.”
It explained why Ray hadn’t been part of the rescue in Milan. And hadn’t been in touch.
“Thank you. And Asher?”
“Medics on the scene said you probably severed his spine when you jumped him. There was no way to tell at the cathedral how bad the spinal injuries were.”
Daria absorbed this, the skin around her eyes shrunken and mottled darkly.
“Here’s the thing, though: an Israeli Army medical team arrived and took him into custody. But when we tried to follow up, guess what: the Israelis don’t have any record of a medical team being dispatched to Milan. The CIA hasn’t been able to locate him.”
A soft smile skittered over her pale, cracked lips. “And you shan’t.”
“Oh, I’m not CIA anymore. Didn’t I tell you?”
Daria reached up and touched his arm. “Oh. They gave you the sack?”
“No. I took a job with a senator. Well, I will. As soon as they let me leave the base, anyway. But hey, I got this back for you…”
John held out a spade-shaped sandwich of leather, with an eighth of an inch of air showing between the identical pieces. They connected at a broken hinge.
“Oh.” Daria took the empty sheath in both hands and turned it over. It had fit into her palm so many times, for so many years. It had almost been part of her.
“My dad knows a guy who sharpens knives. I could get it fixed for you.”
Daria smiled her thanks, then tossed the sheath into the bedside rubbish bin. “Thank you. No.”
“I understand.” John had been there and knew where the broken blade had ended up. “There’s this, too.” He handed her an antique straight razor. Its handle was steel and was embossed with a symbol from Spain and the word Sevilla. Daria took it, pressed her thumb against the tang. The six-inch blade snikked free of the handle.
John said, “It looks old.”
“World War I, I imagine. Thank you.”
She used her other palm to slide the blade back into its handle. She slid it under her pillow. John pretended not to notice. Daria touched his knee gently. “I never thanked you properly for keeping me alive.”
“You know how you can thank me? At the cathedral, you mentioned an organization. The Club Sennacherib. CIA tells me they’ve scoured intelligence databases throughout the West. Nobody’s ever heard of them.”
Daria smiled and let her tongue venture around her parched, pale lips. “I was delirious.”
He smiled. “I looked it up. Sennacherib was an Assyrian king. Tried to lay siege to Jerusalem. Around 600 B.C. or so. His army was wiped out, overnight, without the Jews lifting a weapon. Lord Byron wrote about it. ‘And the might of the gentile, unsmote by the sword…’”
“‘Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.’”
She smiled through the fog of fatigue and nodded up at him. “You’re a nice man, Mr. Broom.”
“Who sprung Sahar from prison? Who bankrolled him? Who evaced him from the cathedral?”
She let her eyes flutter. “I’m feeling tired. I think I’ll sleep a little.”
John stood. “Okay. We should maybe talk later.”
She was asleep before he made it to the door.
John was as much a fan of physical comedy as the next guy. But he still was embarrassed to leave Daria’s room, stop by the commissary for a cup of coffee, walk to his private hospital room, step inside, see Khalid Belhadj standing there, and perform a textbook spit take.
Belhadj wore a shapeless olive jacket and thick trousers and sturdy boots. He was unshaven and an end parenthesis of hair, traced with gray, hung near his straight eyebrows. He leaned against the institutionally painted wall and folded his arms.
“Mr. Broom.”
They were on one of the largest U.S. military bases on Earth. John had seen dozens of closed circuit cameras and scores of army guards. Yet here stood the Syrian, looking just a little bored.
“Major Belhadj.”
They stood a moment. John used the back of his left hand to wipe coffee off his chin and his too-large, army-issue T-shirt.
“Tell me about golems, Mr. Broom.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Golems. Please.”
Thoughts pinballed off the inside of John’s skull as he nimbly cobbled together a rough understanding. “Ah … sure. Golems. In the Torah, they’re mythical beings made of clay. Brought to life by rabbis to protect the faithful. They appear in lots of literature, too. Frankenstein’s monster was a golem. You wanna, maybe, sit? Some coffee? There’s a vending machine?”
Belhadj’s blue-gray eyes hid all emotion. He waited, arms crossed.
“Golems were unalive, and, as such, unstoppable. But also uncontrollable. Eventually, their creators had to stop them. In one story, a rabbi wrote the Hebrew letters Alef, Mem, and Tev on the creature’s forehead.”
Belhadj said, “Alef, mem, tev. The Hebrew word emet: truth.”
“Yeah. To kill the creature, you erase the letter alef.”
Belhadj smiled. “Giving you met: death.”
“Yeah.”
Belhadj seemed to consider it.
John said, “There’s another legend among analysts in the CIA. The people on Operations side never bought into it. The legend is about a Group.”
Belhadj’s cheeks puffed out in a silent laugh. John wasn’t sur
e what to make of that.
“Tell me about this legend.”
John said, “Bunch of folks formed in the 1960s and ’70s. Industrialists throughout the world. Guys who wanted Israel to have a fighting chance. These guys knew conventional war wouldn’t be enough. Even conventionally unconventional war wouldn’t be enough. They needed to think outside the crazy.”
Belhadj studied him without moving.
“This Group? If there was a Group? They created really, really, really good spooks. Who could do what Israeli intelligence wouldn’t or couldn’t.”
John could taste fear flooding his nervous system. He willed the hand holding the coffee cup not to shake.
“The Group created golems?”
John said, “Well, like I say … it’s a legend.”
Belhadj said, “Emet and met. Truth…”
John said, “And death.”
Belhadj nodded. He unfolded his arms and stepped away from the wall. John felt his heart rate spiral up.
“Thank you, Mr. Broom.”
“Sure.”
Belhadj stepped past him and opened the room’s door.
“If they come,” the quiet man said, peering out into the empty hall, “and they will come, it’s to erase the Aleph.”
The men stood about ten inches apart, shoulder to shoulder, facing opposite directions.
John said, “Emet to met. Truth to death.”
Belhadj nodded.
“Can we stop them?”
Belhadj stepped out into the corridor. He held the doorknob, the door almost closed. “Should we?”
John didn’t hesitate. “Hell, yeah.”
Belhadj eased the door closed. “Good answer, Mr. Broom.”
* * *
It took the U.S., French, and Italian authorities some time to realize that there were any number of charges that could be brought against Daria Gibron, but to prosecute her would require the various intelligence agencies to look like perfect idiots. Ultimately, none of the agencies wanted to risk it.
When she could, Daria toured the secure medical building that served Ramstein, the sprawling home of the United States Air Forces in Europe and a major NATO installation. The place had a drab, dank 1950s institutional feel to it. She found the perfect spot to get away from the doctors and the nurses and the Western intelligence agencies who wanted to question her incessantly. It was an indoor swimming pool dedicated to physical therapy. Daria memorized the daily schedule on the door to figure out the quiet times to sneak away and hide.
* * *
It took two more days for her visitors to arrive.
Daria was in the physical therapy pool room. She sat in a wheelchair, equipped with thick, gripping rubber wheels for use around the pool. She wore a hospital gown that tied in the back, with a long, coarse blanket over her legs. She had watched the last twenty minutes of a water polo match played by U.S. Marines injured in Afghanistan, laughing as they splashed her and flirted madly with her. Once they had been helped back to their wing of the hospital, the acoustics changed, the echoes grew louder.
Daria arranged her wheelchair at the far end of the room, near the deep end of the pool, where she could catch the late-afternoon sunshine, feeling the warm, humid air cling to her bones and frame, nurturing her like a sauna. The blue cement floor was covered in half-inch-deep puddles of chlorinated water.
Daria never heard the pool room door open. “Daria. Darling.”
A thin woman in a conservative pearl-gray suit and elegant heels had entered. Behind her stood two men, both wearing Gortex winter coats that forgave a multitude of sins, including concealed weapons. Both men wore lanyards and United Nations ID cards.
Daria said, “Hannah. My God.”
Hannah Goldman smiled warmly. She wore a simple gold chain around her neck and no rings. She had to be seventy, Daria calculated. At least. Her hair was cut short and had turned a shiny silver.
The two blond men made sure the door to the indoor pool was locked, as Hannah stepped close, gingerly avoiding the larger puddles where she could.
Daria said, “Dee Jean d’Arc…?”
The older woman shook her head. “Daria, you are burned. It was a warning. At the New York airport, I think?”
Daria nodded.
“That Asher. Never one for obeying orders.”
“Asher warned me off?”
“He tried to, yes.” After all these decades, she retained a hint of her childhood Austrian accent. “He had argued for leaving you out of the whole plot. When that failed, he resorted to melodrama. We were furious!”
“Was he punished?”
Hannah Goldman laughed. “No. He acted out of kindness. And love. You are like my own children. I find it hard to stay angry with either of you.”
Hannah stepped within two meters of Daria’s wheelchair. The blond men stepped closer, too.
Their voices took on a hollow tone, affected by the body of water and the thick concrete walls. “We need to talk about the future.”
Daria said, “The first time you came for me … for me and Asher, in that alley in Rafah. Do you remember? You pretended then to know the future.”
Hannah Goldman said, “I did know the future, that day in Rafah. And I know it today. For our nation to have a future, it needs strategists like Asher and soldiers like you.”
Daria locked the brakes on her wheelchair. Inches to her left, the surface of the chlorinated pool gently bobbed, splintering sunlight. “The Group was a dreadful idea. Raising children, radicalizing us, weaponizing us. It was sociopathic.”
Hannah studied her sadly. One of the blond soldiers squatted and reached his hand into the pool, down to his first knuckles. He stirred the water.
“The CIA has declared you persona non grata, darling. You embarrassed them. That’s simply not done. You won’t be allowed back into the States. Not ever.”
Daria nodded solemnly. She expected as much.
“Israeli intelligence will leave you out in the cold. They know better than to defy us. France and Italy have their own reasons for wanting distance between you and themselves. The other Western powers will do as the CIA instructs. That leaves … who?”
Daria pondered the question. She adjusted the blanket over her legs. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Then come back to us. Israel’s darkest days lay ahead of her. Our purpose is to provide—”
“Golems.”
Hannah bristled. “Golems! Certainly not. Never. We—”
“Unstoppable monsters. Who, having performed their mission, run amok, and must be put down.”
Hannah looked resigned. And saddened. The kneeling soldier touched the pool water with his fingertips. His eyes darted to the wheelchair. The standing soldier gripped his holstered auto.
Hannah said, “I beg you to reconsider.”
Daria sighed. “It’s a bit late for that.”
She whisked away the blanket on her lap to reveal a coil of electrical wire. One end snaked around Daria’s waist behind the wheelchair and was plugged into the wall. The other end hung between her legs. She had peeled back the insulation, revealing copper wire that dangled an inch above the standing water.
Daria let it drop into the puddle.
The crouching soldier with his hand in the water convulsed without a sound. His muscles rigid, he fell, splashing into the pool.
The blond standing amid the swimmers’ puddles shuddered, frozen in place, keening a high-pitched scream muffled by his locked jaw. His knees buckled. Even down, he continued to spasm.
Hannah Goldman simply dropped like a stone.
Daria lifted the power cord out of the puddle, reached back and yanked the plug out of the wall socket. She rose from the rubber-wheeled chair, sneakers in the splashed water.
She knelt by Hannah and checked the woman’s pulse. It was weak but steady. There had been a better-than-even chance the brief electrocution would stop the older woman’s heart.
Daria moved to the soldier by Hannah’s side. She
removed his Glock, lifted his head out of the puddle, and yanked free his lanyard and faux-UN identification. Before standing, she shoved him into the pool to drown with his friend.
She paused a moment to touch Hannah’s cheek. The woman’s skin was dry and powdery. She breathed, her eyes darting beneath their thin, veined lids.
Daria stood and crossed to the pool room door. She tucked the Glock up under her T-shirt, by her spine. She hurried through the halls to an exit she had identified days earlier.
She found a BMW X5 suburban utility vehicle with good, German snow tires and United Nations plates, parked in a little-used alley behind the base laundry.
Khalid Belhadj met her halfway down the alley. He, too, wore a fake UN security lanyard. He looked fatigued.
He looked at his watch and sighed. “Be honest. You were making a speech.”
Daria held her forefinger and thumb a few millimeters apart: a little one.
She said, “I got your message. Through John Broom.”
“He’s not bad, that one.” That was one hell of a begrudging compliment for the Syrian to give a CIA analyst.
“The Group sent two soldiers inside for me. Only two. I’m insulted.”
“I took care of two more.” Belhadj nodded toward a Dumpster. Daria didn’t need to ask for details.
Belhadj tossed her keys. Daria peered down the alley at the BMW and noted paperwork on the dashboard that would get her through security.
Belhadj said, “What now?”
Daria tucked hair behind her ears. “The Group has blackballed me with every Western intelligence agency. I am, as they say, out in the cold. You?”
He shrugged. “Syria is in trouble. I head back to Damascus, make amends.”
“They’ll either promote you or shoot you.”
Belhadj nodded. “Or both.”
She said, “You know about the others now. What you called the Group.”
“Do I?” Belhadj gave his soundless laugh. “What do I know? What do I tell Syrian intelligence, when I don’t know who is Syrian intelligence from day to day? And what evidence would I have to give them.”
He paused a moment. His gray eyes raked the industrial buildings. He turned back to her. “You?”