Agent on a Mission

by Rose Fox

  This, perhaps, was what saved the infant’s life.

  The door opened easily with the turn of the key. Latifah entered the apartment and locked the door behind her, but before she could turn round, the doorbell rang. It appeared that someone had arrived almost at the same time as she had or was waiting for her there even before she arrived. Latifah peeped through the spyglass in the door and saw a short dark-haired woman with slanted eyes. It was Modang, the Korean woman who worked these days on behalf of Shimon.

  “Latifah, open the door. Shimon, the policeman, sent me in his place.” She said quietly, in Arabic.

  The young girl had hardly finished turning the key when the door handle was pressed down from outside and the women pushed her way in like an arrow in flight. She locked the door with Latifah’s key, which was still in the lock and Latifah’s heart began to race in fright.

  “Listen to me, my girl, call your sister and ask her to come here,” Modang ordered. She had a snapshot of Abigail and saw that the young girl in front of her bore no resemblance to Abigail, at all.

  “Who are you, I don’t know you,” the girl sobbed.

  “Do what I asked, child, and nothing will happen to you.”

  “I will only speak to the policemen who called me,” Latifah said and noticed that the woman wore black gloves on her hands.

  She trembled like a leaf in the wind, but there was no way she would call Abigail because she feared Abigail would be angry with her for making arrangements behind her back. At this moment she was more afraid of her sister, Naima, than of the woman facing her.

  Suddenly, Latifah ran to the door and tried to turn the key in order to escape from the apartment but the woman hit her hand hard. She cried out in pain and held her hurt hand.

  “Don’t try and be smart! And that’s just the beginning, if you don’t call your sister right now,” the woman threatened.

  Latifah ran to the window and tried to open it, but the gloved woman was right behind her. She was really fast and her blows were hard and painful. Latifah began throwing chairs and other items at the woman to keep her at a distance from her, trying all the time to get to the locked door.

  It was early evening and most of the neighbors were home in their apartments. Amazingly, no one seemed to pay attention to the sounds of furniture being dragged on the floor or stamping footsteps that rang out in apartment three on the second floor in the very heart of Tel Aviv.

  The terrified girl battled courageously against the athletic woman, who had been well-trained in this type of combat yet had difficulty defeating her. When Modang realized she would not be able to catch Latifah, she pulled a cord out of her glove that was attached to a shining metal star. She threw it in the direction of Latifah’s neck. The cord wrapped round her neck. Latifah raised her hand to her neck and tried to release herself from the cord. Choking sounds came out of her mouth, and she opened her mouth wide, trying to get air into her lungs. Another sharp pull on the cord, broke her neck and she sank down on the floor where she had been standing. The next blow from the broken leg of a chair was one that Latifah could no longer feel.

  Within seconds, the woman came out of the door, taking the keys to the apartment with her as she locked it from outside.

  In the bedroom next to Abigail’s bed lay a small triangular shard of metal that had broken off the star attached to the cord of death.

  * * *

  The telephone purred and vibrated and Abigail pulled it out of her bra and answered.

  “Hi, Abigail, it’s me, Adam.”

  “Hello Adam,” she said, keeping it short.

  “The test is on its way and I believe the true answer will come in a few days.”

  “I understand, I’m waiting and thank you.” She answered as drily as she could.

  She had just returned from the funeral of her sister, Latifah, and nothing else interested her. The police had not found a single clue that could reveal who had met her younger sister. Abigail also tried to understand why her sister had come to her home without letting her know and since there were no signs of breaking and entering, she presumed that Latifah had opened the door to someone she apparently knew.

  The police allowed Abigail access to material evidence and testimonies surrounding the death of her sister and she called a friend who was a police investigator.

  “Hi, Michal, are you busy?”

  “No, it’s fine. This work never ends, whatever the hour.”

  “I wanted to know if you got my sister’s phone call list.”

  “Honey, I don’t think I can speak freely on the phone. Try and come to the station tomorrow and we’ll check.”

  Earlier, Abigail had listened to her voice mail. Rina, Netty and Michal left messages of condolence and there were also two unidentified calls. Abigail assumed that these were attempts made by the person, who broke in, to check if she was at home.

  She dialed the 166 service number and waited.

  “Hello Ma’am, Aline speaking, how can I help you?

  “Hello Aline, this is Abigail Ben-Nun. I need caller details for the last month.”

  “I made a note of that. The details will be sent with your next phone bill.”

  “I received two calls from unidentified sources and I need details on them.”

  “That won’t be possible, Ma’am.”

  “Even if the request is signed by an attorney?”

  “In such a case, the information is released to the attorney.” Aline replied.

  Abigail glanced around, searching again and again for a clue about what had happened to her sister, Latifah. She sat crying out loud to herself. “Oh dear God, what use could a thirteen-year old girl have been to them?”

  It was clear that her sister’s connection to her led the murderer to use any and all means. Suddenly she noticed a sparkly triangular-shaped object lying near the wooden leg of her bed. She bent down and picked it up. It was a sliver of metal. Abigail laid it on the table and examined it. She knew that a team of investigators from the Department of Criminal Identification had gone over her apartment with a magnifying glass and wondered if the piece of metal may have been part of one of a policeman’s insignia that could have fallen from his cap. She put it in her bag and left her home.

  It was too painful to remain in the apartment where her sister Latifah had been murdered. She couldn’t stop crying and she decided to go and visit her family in the tribe’s encampment in the Negev.

  She went down to the street, looked at her car and wondered whether it was worth moving it from the parking place she had so much difficulty finding. Suddenly a cab appeared to help solve her dilemma. She hailed the cab, which turned right and slid up alongside her.

  “Hello, I want to go to the south, what can you offer me?

  “South? To Eilat?”

  “No Be’er Sheba.” Abigail rested her arm on the window and looked at the driver. His face was youthful but he was graying at the temples.

  “Be’er Sheba will cost you two hundred and ninety shekels or we can use the meter.”

  “How much?! No, thank you, that’s too much for me.” She straightened up to move away.

  “Wait, come here. How much is the trip from here to Be’er Sheba worth to you?”

  She bent down again to meet the driver’s eyes and said:

  “No more than one hundred and ninety shekels. I’m sorry, that’s what I’m offering.”

  “Add a little and let’s go.”

  He stretched across the seat beside him to reach the handle and open the door for Abigail.

  “Come on, Hop in.” he said patting the seat, “We’ll work it out.”

  The taxi set off for Be’er Sheba and probably saved Abigail’s life by doing so.

  About an hour later, a man in dark clothes sat on the sidewalk beside Abigail’s car. He lay down on the sidewalk and using a long pole he fixed something round and flat to the underside of the car. When the click of metal being fixed to metal was heard, he pulled out the pole, pressed on its
upper section and it slid down in sections and folded until all that remained in his hand was a small baton. His movements were brief and professional. The whole procedure took no longer than a minute or two.

  The man rose quickly, looked around and then took a step back. He moved on, holding the baton in his hand and stopped on the corner of Gordon and Dov Hoz Streets. Here, he leaned on the thick green bushes of a fence and looked back to where he had been. A second later, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and sent a short text message:

  Everything’s okay.”

  He added Shimon’s phone number and sent the message, not knowing that it was received on Shimon’s phone on an airplane on its way to Israel.

  * * *

  They travelled in silence for a long time and Abigail was thankful that she could doze on the way.

  “What’s your name?” he asked suddenly and she pursed her lips in disappointment, apprehensive of the conversation that was about to start.

  “Abigail,” she responded and he said:

  “I’m Dan,” and, until he stopped in Be’er Sheba, he said nothing more.

  About two hours later they reached the square of the Be’er Sheba Central Bus Station.

  When the taxi stopped, she opened her eyes and looked around.

  The cab driver wiped his forehead wearily.

  “We’ve arrived and I’m really tired,” he said.

  “What’s the problem? Can’t you go and get some refreshment at that buffet over there?” She smiled at him and held out two one hundred shekel bills.

  “Just a small question, Dan, are you returning to Tel-Aviv now?” she asked, still holding the folded bills.

  “That depends on whether you want to continue further. You said ‘South’ but there’s still a long way left to carry on going ‘South’,” he said jokingly. He looked at the banknotes and stretched out his hand to take them.

  “I have to go along the Arava road for a further twenty kilometers and from there, down a sandy road to my tent encampment,” she suggested, pulled out another fifty shekel note and added it to the first two notes

  “Fine, but clever Dan has a more tempting offer. What do you say to getting out of the car, stretching your legs and drinking something cold?”

  They refreshed themselves with some cold Schweppes, which the cab driver insisted on paying for.

  After travelling for a further half hour, the cab turned off the paved highway onto a bumpy sandy road. Over many kilometers, two strips of well-traversed stones marked the road in a sea of yellow sand. These stone lines had been formed by the wheels of many cars that travelled that same road over time.

  “That’s what I love about this work,” Dan said, “you never know what you’ll see or what surprises the day has in store for you.”

  The enormous expanses of sand met in a straight line with the blue sky and the driver attempted to keep exactly to the tire marks on the road. Behind them, clouds of orange dust rose in the air.

  What’s the name of the place we’re going to?”

  “It’s the encampment of the Ka’abiah tribe; my tribe.”

  “Your tribe? I thought you were a girl from Tel Aviv and if I’m not mistaken, I stopped for you on Gordon Street. You also don’t look; how should I put it…?”

  “I’m Bedouin, what’s there to do about it? There are lots of us who look like regular human beings.” She laughed and her dimples deepened in her tanned cheeks.

  “And what do you do for a living?” Dan asked and looked at her in amazement. It was almost unnecessary to move the steering wheel for it there was only sand for as far as they eye could see.

  “I’m a lawyer,” she replied.

  “Is that right? Remind me of your name again.”

  “I’m a lawyer and my name is Abigail Ben-Nun.”

  “Abigail Ben-Nun, hey, Ben-Nun, sure! The one who got the prosecutor imprisoned for the murder he committed? Right? I can’t believe I’m actually meeting you.” The cab driver enthused and tapped his forehead,

  “Yes, that’s me,” she said, then thought to herself, ‘how come I’m enjoying every minute in this cab so much?’

  “A Bedouin! A Lawyer! That’s only possible in a country like ours,” Dan continued enthusing.

  “Sure, we live in a country with unlimited possibilities. Anything can happen.” She said and a mocking tone was clearly heard in her voice. The driver flashed a brief glance at her.

  “Wait, so how…?

  “Don’t get too excited,” she warned, "As a very young child, I was sent away from the tents to boarding school and the Bedouin head with Bedouin thoughts simply disappeared. My eyes saw many other things besides sand and camels.”

  Dan turned to look at her again.

  “But you don’t look like the people who live in the desert, neither your coloring nor your accent.”

  “Right and apparently that’s the reason I was kept away from the tent dwellers.”

  “I didn’t get that.”

  “It’s not important. The main thing is that I’m here.”

  “Wait, so if you’re a lawyer, may I ask you a legal question?”

  “Come, come, I’m thinking of getting close to the encampment now, to my mother and my home, not about work. Sorry, dear driver, this isn’t the time for legal questions.” She said.

  “That’s a pity, I’d like some professional advice,” he said disappointedly.

  Even before the tents, scattered over the wide remote area, where visible, bleating and braying animals and other unidentifiable sounds were heard in the distance.

  “We’ve arrived. Come, get out and enjoy our Bedouin hospitality,” Abigail said and opened the door.

  “I accept your invitation,” he said and added:

  “This is incredible! No one at my taxi rank is going to believe this.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The plane landed early in the morning and Naim led the two fair-haired women through the Israeli air terminal. When they reached the exit he pressed and then released a protruding bracket on his watch.

  A tall curly-haired young man raised a triangular yellow flag and approached them. It was Sharif. Naim embraced him pressed his cheek to his and patted his shoulder.

  “Am I free to go or are you joining us?” Naim asked in Arabic.

  “You’re free to go,” Sharif said.

  He made an almost imperceptible gesture with his hand and a shiny black Mercedes with darkened windows drew up beside them. Sharif opened the back door and directed the women to get in. He said:

  “Bye, see you, man,” and the next minute, the car left smoothly on its way.

  Naim stared after the departing car and pondered about the two lives that had been lost in this deal, the woman, who had died on the way and the mustached driver. He walked on his own to the line of taxicabs and turned to the man who appeared to be the cab dispatcher.

  “What do you charge to go to the south?”

  “That depends where, exactly."

  “About twenty kilometers after Be’er Sheba. I’m from a tribe in the Negev.”

  The dispatcher called one of the drivers and asked him:

  “Six hundred and eighty shekels.”

  “Thanks, but that’s a lot.” He waved his hand dismissively and began walking away.

  “Hey, wait, my friend! How much do you want to pay?” the cab driver called out and Naim turned round and offered:

  “Five hundred and fifty, five hundred and sixty, something like that, but that probably doesn’t suit to you.”

  “If you can make that six hundred and ten, we can make a deal. For you, six hundred.”

  Naim approached them. The driver pointed to a light-colored cab and invited Naim to get in.

  “Would you mind if we pick up another passenger if someone going in the same direction wants to join us?” the driver asked as he turned out of the line of waiting cabs.

  “If you must.”

  “I understand,” the driver smiled. “Good! Then it’
s just the two of us.”

  The traffic was slow and snarled up on the road out of the airport. The driver glanced at the rearview mirror for the third time. After the fourth time, he asked Naim, without taking his eyes off the road ahead,

  “The face of the guy driving behind us never leaves my rearview mirror. It’s interesting how much effort he’s making to stay close to us and just doesn’t give up,” the cab driver said. “Do you mind checking if you recognize him?”

  Naim looked in the side mirror, but it was difficult to discern the details of the driver behind them. “I mean that white Mazda is familiar but, perhaps I’m just imagining things. Here, another car has just overtaken him and he’s not fighting to get back into position behind us.”

  Naim grew tense. If his driver had noticed then perhaps someone really was following him. He smiled bitterly and wondered how he could have imagined he had finished the cursed mission and muttered:

  “It really looked too good to be true.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  “Nothing, nothing.” He hurriedly replied.

  Naim was still straining to see who was driving the white car that travelled behind them. Now, for example, it was following close on behind them again. He managed to distinguish only the last two digits on the yellow license plate, 10. The driver began talking to himself or, perhaps, to Naim:

  “Since I don’t feel comfortable being followed, let’s go out of our way a little and take the road to Petach Tikvah, and then we can get back on the route that’ll take us South.” He said, as he suddenly moved into the right line and stopped behind a long line of cars. They waited for the light to change and then he saw the driver of the white car also swerve right to wait in the same line, though not immediately after them.

  At this moment Naim managed to see the digits in the middle of the license plate, 010. He stretched his neck a bit more, but then the light changed to green. Making an on-the-spot decision, the driver turned the wheel sharply again and rejoined the line of cars he had been in before that was travelling straight ahead.