by Matthew Dunn
I turned to her. “Where is he?”
“I buried him. Our nearest town.” She pulled up one leg of her jogging pants to reveal her calf, which showed patches of stress-induced exzema. She scratched an area that was already raw. “We had a service. Family, of course. Some of Roger’s, from Germany. That was so kind of them to come this far. They haven’t got much cash. And some of his colleagues from the team and the Agency.” She stopped scratching as she saw that I was looking at her. “It all happened so fast. I couldn’t get hold of you.”
Because I was fishing in Scotland and had turned my phone off. I felt like shit.
“You want a cup of tea?” she asked as she walked to the kitchen.
“That would be kind.” I wondered if it would be rude of me to collect the dirty plates that had clearly been left in here after a family meal the night before, probably because Katy had broken her rule to eat at the table in order to distract the boys in front of a movie. Afterward, she didn’t have the energy to clear up. To hell with it, I thought, and gathered up the plates.
I entered the kitchen, placed the stack of china onto a surface, ran a sink of hot water, and, without asking her permission, started washing the dishes. “The Agency’s branding Roger as an officer who went rogue. Actually, it’s saying he lost his mind. I don’t like that assessment. I want to believe that Roger had another reason for killing his colleagues.”
“Why . . .” Katy was trying not to cry again. “Why does everyone assume he shot the English, French, and Israeli guys first? Maybe they shot him. He retaliated in defense.”
I hated what next came out of my mouth, even though it was the truth. “Your husband opened fire first.”
Katy was visibly angry as she slammed a mug next to the kettle. “The other people who came here didn’t give me details about the gunfight. Maybe they don’t know for sure that Roger opened fire first.”
I hesitated, wondering if I should tell her what I knew. She had to know, I decided. “Roger was shot in the head. Only the head. The three other men were shot in the chest and abdomen.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“The others were mortally wounded but stayed alive long enough to fire their guns at your husband. Roger died instantly. It would have been impossible for Roger to return fire after he’d been hit.”
“Maybe they fired first and missed. Roger fired back and hit them. They returned fire and killed him.”
I felt truly sorry for her as I said, “There were four men in a tiny room. All of them were highly trained marksmen. A blind man who’d never fired a gun before couldn’t have missed hitting Roger somewhere on his body. These are the facts. They’re not in dispute and can’t be.”
“But he called me from Beirut the day before he died!” Her hand was shaking as she sprinkled loose tea into a pot. “He said it was a little weird working with three other nationalities, but bizarrely they all jelled. Got along. Laughed together. Talked of inviting us wives to a barbecue once their job was over.”
“Men who get along can still turn on each other if the need arises. Did he tell you what he was doing there? Beirut?”
“Oh, come on, Will.”
Of course, she didn’t know. Wasn’t allowed to. But I wasn’t bound by those rules anymore. “He was listening in on terrorists. Hamas. His work in Lebanon was vital.”
“Enough to get him killed!” She put her head in her hands. “I just don’t get it. How could he do this?”
“It’s not the how but rather the why that we need to establish.”
As she poured tea, she said, “What difference does it make? He’s gone.”
I stacked the last dish in the draining rack. “Ascertaining Roger’s motive will explain everything.”
She tried to lift a mug but had to put it back on the counter, for fear of spilling its contents. “We’ll never know.”
I placed my hand on hers. “I’ve been tasked to find out.”
She stared at me, her expression quizzical. “But you’re out of the task force.”
“And that’s why they want to use me to investigate what happened. I’m totally deniable.”
Was there a momentary expression of hope on her face? It appeared so. But no doubt that was quickly replaced by hostility. “And what happens if you find out Roger went insane? Or worse, that he was corrupt?”
I embraced the woman who’d been so dear to me, whose heart was now torn to pieces. I whispered in her ear, “If I find out anything negative about Roger—anything—I will bury it. I promise.”
I took the mugs of tea into the living room and we drank in silence, images of Roger watching over us. When I finished my tea, I said, “I’d like to speak to the twins. I’ve brought them something.”
Katy nodded.
I walked into the backyard.
The boys were still on their swings, motionless and silent. Like their father, they had jet-black hair and cute dimples. Today, their eyes were bloodshot. “Hello, sir,” they said in near unison. Their voices were grave and meek.
I got on my knees, my suit trousers quickly sodden from the dew on the grass, and held their hands. Quietly, I said, “No need to call me sir. Did you have breakfast?”
“Yes,” said Billy.
“Mommy made us waffles,” added Tom.
“And what did you have for dinner last night?” I asked.
“Mommy made us gravy, fries, vegetables, and steak.”
I smiled. “In that order?”
They nodded, no smiles.
“That was a good meal. Your mommy loves you very much.”
“Yes,” they replied.
“And she will always love you. But she needs your help.” I carefully squeezed their hands.
“How?” asked Tom.
My smile was still on my face. I dearly hoped it looked warm and reassuring to the boys. “Keep your rooms tidy. Help Mommy wash the dishes each evening. Do your homework. Remind her that you need a bath every two days. Tell her all the time that you love her.”
Billy kicked his legs involuntarily. They hit my chest. “We love Mommy. We miss Daddy. We don’t know what to do.”
“I know.” I shuffled closer to them and put my hands on their shoulders. “Your daddy was the bravest and kindest man on earth. He was sometimes scared, like you. But he overcame his fear every day. And that was his greatest strength.”
I withdrew two things Roger had given me and I’d brought from my apartment in London. I placed one of them in Billy’s hands. “Your great-grandfather was given this for extreme bravery in battle. It is the Iron Cross, the best medal a German can get. Your daddy gave it to me after I saved his life.”
Billy weighed the medal in his hand. “What battle did my great-grandfather fight in?”
“He was a paratrooper in the Second World War. He got this for his actions in the Battle of the Bulge.”
“But Germans were bad then.”
I pointed at the medal. “Not ones who got that. They were the best of us all. And now it’s yours.”
In Tom’s hand, I placed another medal, this one the CIA’s coveted and rare Intelligence Star, awarded to Roger after he single-handedly rescued an asset who was in severe danger of being executed in Tripoli. I’d acquired it after Roger and I got drunk in Berlin and he’d bet me the medal in exchange for me running naked down Kurfürstendamm, the city’s famous shopping street, at 2 A.M. He handed me his medal at the end of the street and then ran with me, laughing because I was being pursued by cops. Roger never gave a damn about medals. Nor did I, for that matter—not that MI6 ever gave its officers medals; instead it liked to give peerages, and the queen was never going to give me one of them. But now I thought Roger’s family medals had some poignancy.
I said to Tom, “Men who get those put their lives at risk to save America.” As soon as the words exited my mouth, I silently cursed what I’d said.
But Tom held the medal high, watching it sparkle in the sunlight. “A piece of metal.”
&
nbsp; That was the sort of thing his dad would have said.
I replied, “It’s not what it is. It’s what it means. It’s priceless and can’t be bought in any shop in the world. It means your daddy was a hero.” I stood. “These are your medals now. They require you to be brave.”
They both started crying.
Billy said, shaking and red faced, “Medals are for grown-ups.”
I stepped forward and pulled them to me. I’d been stupid. Bloody medals. What was I thinking? I decided I’d ask Katy if I could stay the night in her spare bedroom, cook her family a nice meal, and help her with getting the boys to bed.
Two days before he’d died at the Somme, the English poet and soldier W. N. Hodgson had written a poem containing the line “Make me a man, O Lord.”
Perhaps I’d just tried to do that with the twins.
Dumb.
A catastrophe was soon to be unleashed in the Middle East, but right now I just had to make two boys remember they were only children.
TWENTY-ONE
The seawalls in Israel’s northwestern coastal city of Acre had been built by the Roman Catholic Church’s Crusaders in the twelfth century and were subsequently reinforced between 1750 and 1799 by the Arab rulers of Acre—well enough to survive Napoleon’s siege. On the walkway on top of the wall stood a handsome man of above-average height with the physique of an athlete. The man’s blond hair was long enough to cover part of his face as the balmy Mediterranean wind caught its strands and blew them out of place. He was leaning against the wall, looking at the azure waters of the sea, wearing a shirt and slacks. Female passersby gave the man, who looked twenty-five but was ten years older, admiring glances. He ignored them and pushed his hands against the wall, feeling the solidity of the fortification, absorbing its nine-hundred-year history defending the old city against army after army of invaders. It felt impenetrable; there were no signs of it having weakened since his numerous trips here as a child to learn about his homeland’s history, nor since he’d visited as an adult to conduct covert meetings.
Behind him, alfresco restaurants’ waiters were preparing for lunch by laying tables; glasses clinked as they were set in place; chicken and freshly caught fish were being grilled in kitchens; and steaming rice was being infused with saffron, chili, and cardamom. Seagulls hovered nearby, squawking at each other while poised to dive and pick up any food scraps that might soon become available. The sea air felt fresh against the man’s smooth, lightly tanned face. His blue eyes watched fishermen haul nets onto their boats while shouting at Jet Skiers to stay away from their vessels and get a life.
The man tried to gain a moment of solace away from his pain as he took in the sights, sounds, and smells of his favorite city. But this desire seemed a betrayal to the memory of his younger brother. As kids, they’d been best friends. As adults they had done everything together. Both went to Tel Aviv University, served three years in the Israeli Defense Forces, and—much to their father’s disgust, because he wanted them to return to civilian lives and become academics—both subsequently joined Israel’s top Special Forces unit, Sayeret Matkal, a unit that was directly modeled on Britain’s SAS. They’d spent six years in Matkal until they both refused to call in an air strike while behind enemy lines in Gaza, because the intended strike was too close to a children’s hospital. After they were court-martialed and thrown out of the unit, Mossad had snapped them up. The older brother remembered his younger sibling’s delight that they were once again going to work together. And he remembered his brother’s disappointment when he realized that serving in Mossad meant they might as well be working on different sides of the world.
The younger brother was put into the mainstream intelligence cadre, which meant the majority of his career would be spent operating out of overseas Israeli embassies. The older brother was singled out for something special. He was given extensive and unusual training in all aspects of espionage and paramilitary activities, made a full-time member of Mossad’s assassination unit Kidon, and deployed deep cover to different hostile locations around the world. He and his brother barely saw each other.
It was only recently that the assassin found out his younger brother had been sent on an urgent short posting to Beirut. And only a few days ago that he learned of his death.
Michael Stein checked his watch. Because of the nature of his cover, he wasn’t permitted to enter the Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv. When he was in Israel, Michael and his Mossad handler would meet in places like this. And they’d always be places of Michael’s choosing.
A man, one foot shorter than Michael and twenty years his senior, stood by his side. He was plump, bespectacled, and wearing an ill-fitting black suit. “Have your injuries healed from that thing you were doing in Mandalay?”
Michael nodded while keeping his eyes on the sea.
“I wasn’t due to redeploy you for another three weeks. I thought you could do with the time off. Why the need for this meeting?”
The assassin gave his handler the letter he’d received in his apartment that morning. “Read it carefully, then give it back to me.” Two minutes later, the single sheet was returned to his hand. “I don’t know who Thales is, have never heard of Cochrane, and have no idea how Thales established where I live.”
His handler replied, “The names mean nothing to me. But we’ll have them checked.”
With no warning, Michael started walking. His handler stayed by his side.
Both men were silent as Michael led them away from the seawall to an area that once contained the Templar fortress. They walked down steps to an entrance that had plaques outside proclaiming they were about to enter the Templar Tunnel. The tunnel had been discovered in 1994, and excavated so that it could be opened to the public. Over 350 yards long, carved in stone, the tunnel was used by the Knights Templar as a means to connect their fortress to the west and the port to the east. During the Crusades, men wearing chain mail and white tunics with red crosses would have walked along the tunnel using flames to light their route. Now, tourists used the tunnel, and it was tastefully illuminated by ground-level golden spot lamps.
But right now Michael and his handler were the only people in the tunnel. Nevertheless, they spoke in a near whisper as they walked along.
Michael said, “I want to find Cochrane.”
His handler stopped, then had to resume walking because Michael didn’t stop. “I can’t allow you to!”
“I can’t allow my brother to be made into a scapegoat because of what happened in Gray Site.” Michael’s voice remained calm as he added, “Whether this man Cochrane is on official or unofficial business, it appears to me that he’s trying to cover the ass of the CIA officer who shot my brother. That’s not going to happen.”
“It is, if I tell you to!”
“Really?”
His handler looked unsettled; either the heat in the tunnel or being in Michael’s presence was making him perspire. “You don’t know Thales or what his game is. You could be walking into a trap.”
“I don’t think so. Thales has no reason to bring me in on this other than to neutralize Cochrane. And Cochrane has no reason to be investigating Gray Site unless he’s trying to shift blame away from the CIA officer. I don’t care or need to know who Thales is or his agenda. He may well want Cochrane dead for another reason. So what?” They were now in a part of the tunnel covered with a barrel dome. Michael imagined knights running along this stretch, torches in one hand, unsheathed swords in the other as they rushed to confront Saladin’s encroaching forces. “All that matters to me is protecting my brother’s name.”
The handler gripped Michael’s arm, and this time the action was sufficient to make Michael pause in his stride. “Suppose your brother did try to disrupt coverage of the Hamas meeting. Suppose the CIA officer was right to open fire on him. How will you feel if that turns out to be the case? If Cochrane finds evidence that your brother acted inappropriately?”
“Inappropriately?” Michael smiled, another v
ain attempt to make his sorrow thaw, and removed his colleague’s hand. “I know my brother. He always acted appropriately.”
The handler was imploring as he said, “Maybe your brother thought he was acting in our country’s interests. He had doubt as to whether Hamas killed our ambassador. But he believed in our cause and desire to obliterate Hamas once and for all.”
With contempt, Michael replied, “Is that what your pals in the Knesset think? My brother did his job as he saw fit and the truth be damned?”
“They’re not my pals.”
Michael continued walking. “I don’t care about your politics. Or your war. I just want to kill any friends of my brother’s murderer.”
Michael’s handler struggled to keep pace with his assassin’s longer and more youthful limbs. “I need to deploy you soon back into the field.”
“But not yet.”
Exasperated, his handler asked, “What do you want from me?”
When they reached the end of the tunnel, Michael looked back down the barely illuminated channel. When it was built, the fortress had once been the last stand against the West’s perception of what embodied savagery and sacrilegious union. Since that building had fallen, nothing much had changed, thought Michael. In conflict, the brave, ignorant, and fearful stand shoulder to shoulder to survive. There is no righteousness when confronting death, only an overriding desire to put the knife in the enemy before he puts the sword in you. Michael’s brother might have fucked up. But at the end it didn’t matter. He was fighting.
Michael looked at his handler. “We have Cochrane’s false passport and credit card details. They can be tracked when he uses them. Have someone in headquarters do that for me and call or SMS me whenever Cochrane moves. I will take care of everything else.”
His handler responded, “You killed too many people last time.”
“I killed exactly enough.”
“You must stop. It is not good for you.”