Three Envelopes

by Nir Hezroni

  The Organization allowed her to study whatever she wanted, and she grabbed at the chance to focus on her passion—psychology. After breezing through the classic material that most universities offered, she earned degrees in developmental, social, cognitive, clinical, and personality psychology, as well as neuropsychology and psychophysics. Then she completed The Organization’s internal courses and developed a curriculum for The Organization, such as the macro-cultural psychology of human development and psychoanalytic prediction.

  By the time she turned eighteen, she was already in charge of The Organization’s Personality and Psychopathology Division, which handled the profiling of targets and world leaders and predicted the future behavior of individuals and the masses. The army tried to recruit her for one its elite projects, but The Organization wouldn’t hear of it. Following a bitter battle, both sides eventually decided to ask her what she preferred. She chose The Organization.

  10483 fascinated her. She received his file after his death for the purpose of preparing a behavioral profile and submitted a detailed report to the European Operations Division, but she was still missing several pieces of the puzzle. The notebook now waiting for her was a treasure trove.

  She soaped herself in the shower under the stream of cold water and broke into a loud and discordant rendition of the chorus to “The Scientist” by Coldplay.

  February 7th 2006

  “Emily!”

  “What, Mom?”

  “What did I ask you to do?”

  “I’m doing my homework.”

  “No, what did I ask you to do before then?”

  “Don’t remember…”

  “Something to do with your shoes, which are lying in the living room.”

  “Ugh.”

  “No ughs, please. Just put them away. And if you’re on your way to the living room, check if my white wool hat is hanging by the front door.”

  “What, you’re going away again?” Emily and Taylor both popped their heads out of the doors to their bedrooms.

  “Yes, sweeties. But for a very short time only. I’ll be back by the weekend.”

  “But, Mom. You know that tomorrow is the open lesson for parents at my jazz dance school! You promised you’d come!” Emily fixed her mother with an angry glare.

  “Dad will go with you. He’ll film it all and I’ll watch when I get back. Don’t worry.”

  “Dad will just sit there with his head buried in the emails on his phone.”

  “He promised me he wouldn’t.”

  “Mom,” Taylor tugged on the end of her shirt, “are you going to bring me a giraffe like last time?”

  “Something even better! But it’s a secret. You’ll see when I get back.”

  “Yay!!!” he exclaimed as he started jumping up and down on the bed.

  “I found the hat!” Emily returned to the bedroom. “It was behind the sofa in the living room.”

  “Thanks, sweetie.”

  Carmit threw her hat into her backpack and closed it. That’s it. Everything’s ready. Her flight will depart at night.

  MORNING. FEBRUARY 2006

  My plane lands in Frankfurt. I have a 3.5-hour layover before my connection to Buenos Aires. I buy a backpack and fill it with equipment I acquire at a duty-free travel gear store. A wool hat, jacket, gloves, hiking boots, a colorful sweater, a camera with a large lens, a scarf, eating utensils, and clothes.

  I go into the disabled bathroom and change into the clothes I just bought. I put the clothes I was wearing into a bag and throw them in the trash.

  This time I’m traveling with more than a small bag. I now have a large backpack, too, which I check for the flight to Buenos Aires. The stewardess informs me that my bag will go straight through to Bariloche and there’s no need for me to collect it before the connecting flight.

  During the flight I read through the material I saved on my laptop about Instituto Balseiro and Bariloche.

  There’s no train service to Bariloche. I rule out killing the target by means of a train crash. Too bad, as it’s actually pretty simple to arrange one. You only have to hack into the train company’s main control system and divert one of the tracks.

  There’s no subway either, so I rule out a plan to get into the subway tunnel with gas tanks and open them in the middle of the tunnel so that the gas explodes when the train passes through and sparks fly from its electrified tracks.

  I’ll have to study the target and think of something.

  If my target doesn’t have security detail, I can arrange an electrocution in the bath.

  I board the plane to Bariloche. It’s a 2-hour flight.

  I land in Bariloche at night and retrieve my backpack from the baggage carousel. I don’t take a random suitcase this time, so as not to carry too much. I take a cab to my hotel and go to bed.

  February 10th 2006

  It was three thirty in the morning and Carmit was sitting on the bed in the hotel room at the Hotel Premier in Bariloche. 10483 lay on the bed next to her, sound asleep and hooked up to her standard equipment. Headphones, glasses, electrodes, and an inhalator.

  The blue lights flickered and Carmit put on her protective orange goggles. She was concerned they weren’t offering her sufficient protection, but there was nothing she could do about it in the meantime. When she got home she’d conduct a little research and find a new protective measure. She didn’t trust The Organization on such matters. Clenched tightly between her lips was an air regulator like that of a scuba diver. It was connected to a small filter. She made sure not to breathe through her nose.

  Getting into the room posed no problem this time, too. The South Americans are much more open when it comes to providing information than their brothers are in the North. It took Carmit just a few minutes to get her target’s room number and the name he was using.

  This time she took the room adjacent to her target. She opened the cover of the air-conditioning duct in her room and slowly and carefully slid a thin flexible tube to the vent of the adjacent room. When she heard her target get into bed, she turned on the inhalator, which pumped an anesthetic gas into the room. That’s why she’s using the filter now. She needs to remain awake.

  She recalled how surprised she had been when they summoned her to a meeting with the head of the Brain Engineering Department at The Organization after she returned from her studies. There had been no such department when she’d left. They’d set up an entire department based on her idea and hadn’t even told her about it.

  He showed her the brain mapping they’d been carrying out on sleeping subjects. The light-sensitive protein compound they’d developed was called the “sauce.”

  They hadn’t concerned themselves with trying to repair blindness or deafness—instead they’d gone for altering behavioral patterns and personalities, the assimilation of precise traits.

  “We call this transformation,” he said. “As opposed to something simple like manipulation or playing with the senses, this requires actually programming areas of the brain. We had to incorporate pulses of blue light of various wavelengths together with text. It’s a different league altogether than what you were studying.”

  He tried to talk her into joining him, but she’d already begun toying with the idea of quitting The Organization during the course of her studies abroad. At the same time, she already knew too much. She’d have to skip the country and start all over again. They wouldn’t be able to risk her being out there with all that knowledge.

  She told him she’d consider it favorably.

  The softly spoken text continued to play through the headphones, and Carmit retrieved another energy bar from her backpack and started gnawing on it. She’d never tried listening to the text, which was always sent to her as an encrypted file along with the conversion file that controlled the blue lights.

  It’s easy to alter behavior. It’s harder to instill insight. The client creates the methodology. She merely implements.

  Still chewing on the snack, she flipped thro
ugh the pages of a notebook she’d found in the room—a journal her target was writing. She carefully avoided mixing up the order of the pages attached to the notebook and returned it to the exact place it had been when she finished reading. She momentarily entertained the thought of copying the notebook and sending it to her client. That would undoubtedly shake him up a little. “Fuck ’em,” she decided in the end.

  Carmit stroked 10483’s head, which was fixed in place between two rolled-up towels.

  Sleep, sweetie.

  It’s okay.

  Not long to go now.

  Everything will pass.

  It’ll be all over and you’ll feel wonderful.

  It’s okay.

  They want you to live.

  NIGHT. FEBRUARY 2006

  I put the bags from the supermarket on the counter and turn on the light. He’s sitting motionless on the sofa and pointing a gun at me. It’s the first time anyone’s pointed a weapon at me, aside from the machine gunner who released a burst of rounds above my head during a company drill in basic training, but that was unintentional because he didn’t see me. Now, it’s intentional.

  I see a flash of light in front of me and feel the bullet pass through me and pierce a hole in my heart. It doesn’t hurt. I look down at my shirt to see a hole on the left side and a bloodstain that starts to spread through the fabric.

  I’m walking on the balcony 2 weeks after my son is born. I want to get a better grip on the bundle in my arms and he slips out of the blanket, head first. He falls from a height of just over 1 meter, but it all happens in slow motion and seems to take forever. I see his head approaching the floor. 30 centimeters, 20, 10.

  I’m wading through a shallow pool. My feet are bare and I’m wearing shorts. Black clouds cover the sky; the pool is full of large orange fish. They’re covered in black and white spots. They’re swimming all around me, rubbing against my legs, splashing water with random movements. I stop in the middle of the pool, and the walls retreat until they disappear completely. I have no idea which direction to take.

  I’m on the roof of my building. I have a key to the elevator control room. I stand next to the low fence around the roof and look down 8 floors to the ground. I climb onto the fence and try to maintain my balance. I start walking slowly along it. My palms are sweaty. I trip and fall in an endless descent. I’m lying on the asphalt. A snake approaches me. I’m unable to move. The snake climbs onto me and slithers up my body until it reaches my throat.

  I’m walking through the streets of Geneva. I’m looking for the store where I once purchased equipment. Everyone’s looking at me. Children are pointing at me. I notice that I’m not dressed. I run and look for a place to hide in one of the stores, but all the doors slam shut and I’m left on the street. People are gathering around me. Pointing at me.

  “When did it start?”

  “It’s been several weeks now. I don’t know what to do. I can’t shake these dreams; I feel like I’m losing my mind completely. I’m exhausted when I wake in the morning.”

  “So about a month, let’s say?”

  “Yes, something like that. What can I do to make it stop?”

  “Just a moment, I have something for you.”

  “What?”

  “Here, take these, thirty-five pills at a time.” The doctor gives me a box of pills. There’s a picture of a black skull on the lid of the box.

  I run out without closing the door behind me. The air is filled with the smell of something burning. I turn around and see the orange-red flames of a fire moving toward me. I try to run but I fall. One leg is simply no longer there. In its place is an old stump with suture markings around it. The fire is coming closer. I’m surrounded by black smoke. I remember the smell of gunpowder from the company drills during basic training, the smell left behind by a shell fired from a tank, the smell of a phosphorus grenade, the smell of charred flesh. The smell of war. Barbed-wire fences.

  I crawl under the fence and it scratches me. The thing chasing me is formless. The sand becomes increasingly boggy and I get stuck with my head between 2 wooden planks and cannot move. I look up and see the blade of a guillotine falling fast.

  I sit up in bed.

  The blanket covering me is drenched in sweat.

  I cast it aside and go to the bathroom.

  Darkness. Night.

  I flush the toilet and the water fills the bowl and begins to spill over the sides. A stream of murky water rises up and begins to fill the bathroom. I turn toward the door and start to walk out. Glancing back for a moment I see that the floor is covered in a large pool of blood.

  I sit up in bed.

  I reach for the notebook that I placed on the nightstand.

  The doctor told me to record the contents of my dreams the moment I wake up.

  It’s easier that way for me to remember what I went through during the night.

  I can’t take it anymore.

  I write in the notebook: “Again it’s the dream that begins with the man with the gun in the chair who shoots me.”

  I close the notebook.

  Something doesn’t feel right.

  I reach for the notebook again and open it to last page.

  The text I wrote a few seconds ago is gone.

  “You will die tonight,” it reads instead.

  I throw the notebook aside.

  A tooth falls out of my mouth.

  I hear voices. There’s someone else in the house.

  The smell of something burning again.

  I’ve lost something and I don’t know what it is. I need to remember what I lost.

  I’m in a cave.

  I feel intense sorrow.

  A loved one has died.

  “No!”

  “No!”

  “Enough!”

  The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

  He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

  “Wake up.”

  “Enough!”

  “You’re having nightmares again.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Come, I’ll make you something to drink.”

  She sits next to me and caresses my head.

  The loud whistle of a kettle is coming from the kitchen.

  And the smell of something burning.

  I wake at –4:30. I’m lying on the bed at Hotel Premier. It’s strange. I usually wake up earlier.

  The bed is drenched in sweat.

  I sense that there’s someone else in the room.

  I go to the shower.

  There’s no one there.

  And there’s no one in my room either.

  My eyes hurt. I remove a can of 7 Up from the minibar, close my eyes and press the can to my face.

  I write in my notebook and go back to sleep.

  MORNING. FEBRUARY 2006

  I go for a walk along Avenida Ezequiel Bustillo. The institution is at number 9500. A cool wind dispels the morning mist and the sun reflects off the blue waters of the lake, the banks of which are decked with trees. It’s a good day to die.

  The institution’s students and faculty members begin to show up, getting out of their cars and hurrying inside. I recognize my target immediately. He’s the only individual under armed guard. Heavy guard.

  They may have heard about the first target I killed and they aren’t taking any chances. The targets must be linked to one another. 4 armed bodyguards surround my target. They’re alert. There’s no getting close to him.

  I take some pictures of the lake and go for a walk in the city. I pass by the institution’s parking lot on the way. Sitting in the target’s car is a bodyguard with his eyes peeled. I won’t be able to booby-trap the car. His home, too, must be guarded.

  I
walk through the city. I’m carrying the backpack. I learn my way around the streets and buildings, take some scenic photographs and check out possible escape routes. After lunch I rent a closed van and park it at the side of the road at the bottom of Avenida Bustillo.

  Cars pass by.

  I wait for my target’s car and see it leaving the institution as darkness begins to fall. I follow it at a safe distance.

  My target lives in a single-family detached home surrounded by a high fence. There are cameras set up at all angles and alert guards surround the house. It looks like a military base.

  The car drives in and a large iron gate slides back into place. It’s impenetrable.

  I monitor the target from afar for several days and reveal a point of weakness. My target goes for a 30-minute run in the park between the institution and the lake every afternoon. His bodyguards run with him, but they are vulnerable there. They’re out in the open.

  I walk through the park and check it out. The children’s play facilities, the metal sprinklers, the walking trails, the lawns.

  I draw up a shopping list. I don’t send the list to The Organization so that the mole there won’t get word of my plans. I already have the money to buy whatever I need.

  I go into a large hardware store. I buy binoculars, several kinds of plastic pipes and pipe connectors, tools for fashioning screw joints for metal piping, pipe-cutting tools, and a small generator.

  I buy the most powerful water pump they have in the store. I explain to the shop assistant that I want to build myself a big raft and sail on the lake, and that I’m putting together an engine that will draw water from the lake and spray it out behind the raft in order to propel the craft forward. The shop assistant looks at me and says in English, “The lake is very deep and the water is cold. Careful you don’t drown.” Addressing the shop assistant next to him in Spanish, he says, “This clown will find himself riding that pump at the bottom of the lake,” and they both smile at me. I smile back at them.