Planned Coincidence: A Thrilling Suspense Novel (International Mystery & Crime)

by Dana Arama

  “Look at you…” The way Oded said those words made it clear he appreciated my look. “You came back to life looking like you’re twenty.”

  He put his coffee down and leaned across to kiss my cheek. I recognized some new wrinkles under his stubble.

  “Oh, come on.” I laughed quietly. “Twenty times two and then some, Oded.”

  “No, really, I swear. There’s something about you. You look fresh. Young.”

  “And you, sir, are exceptionally poetic. You are still working in surveillance, right?”

  He sat down in front of me and pulled up another chair to put his feet on. “Go on, laugh your heart out. It’s better than hours of sobbing. Anyway, enough with the nonsense, you look like a new person. Which brings up the question: what can I do for you today?”

  “I want to place a ‘for hire’ listing in the newspaper, and I need you to screen the replies. Narrow it down to three or four applicants and I’ll take it from there.”

  “Applicants for what? What depth of screening are you looking for? Information verification via phone call and a background check?”

  “Exactly. So the ad should read something like: ‘Looking to hire a personal trainer. Former military service in an elite combat unit is required. Long-term contract. Option for live-in arrangements.’ There will be no mention of my name, of course.”

  Oded stared at me. The puzzled look in his eyes quickly turned into a concerned one. You could almost hear the gears in his brain moving, processing the information. “Is there some kind of new development you’re concerned about? Are you looking for a bodyguard?”

  I laughed. “No, no, nothing of the sort. Quite the opposite, in fact; it’s because I want to go out into the world again. I feel a need…” I paused for a moment, weighing my words carefully, “… a need to make sure I stay out of trouble. I’m devising a ‘stay out of trouble plan,’” I playfully claimed. The smile I got back assured me I had managed to get it across exactly the way I meant to.

  Every passing moment made it clearer for me. Now I had a theme for the future interviews. It was also clear that I’d need to develop some acting skills to make it work. I couldn’t very well tell every hopeful young candidate for the job that he would need to train me until I was capable of making my dreams come true, horrid as they were. It was my only salvation.

  Oded took a sip of coffee and pulled a tiny screen out of his bag.

  “What’s that?” I didn’t attempt to hide my curiosity. I did hide my panic, though. I still had no idea how much of a stranger I would be to this new world outside my home.

  “This is an iPad - a new, expensive toy that pretty much does everything, apart from pour me a beer.” He spoke like a proud father. “I think we should get you a few of these gadgets, as well.”

  “Yeah, right. Really. Don’t you know I’m an extreme technophobe?”

  “This doesn’t change the fact that you need an updated cell phone - one that has a calendar and takes away the hassle of carrying a diary.” His dismissive look toward my appointment book lying open on the table left no doubt: I would need to overcome my phobia about catching up with progress.

  With a few strokes on his screen - literally - he had a well-written ad on its way to the proper section of Israel’s major newspaper publications. “The ad will be published this coming Friday. I believe that, within a week, I’ll have a few names to give you. I’ll also get a rep from one of the cell phone carriers to personally help you upgrade your device to an iPhone.”

  “Efficient as always. Thank you so much, my darling.”

  “Any other criteria you wish to add to the screening process?”

  “I’ll let you know by Thursday if anything comes up.”

  Oded left, but his scent lingered; the wonderful smell of a promising beginning coming to life. I took a deep breath, feeling ready for the next phase. I decided to take it slow, make sure I found the right person to train me; one who could bring life to that inspiration I got from watching the soldier hanging in midair from the chopper.

  The next day, a friendly cell phone rep showed up at my door, leaving me with a new and revolutionary device. He called it “4th Generation,” which brought up an ironic notion in my mind: at last, I’ll have a next generation. “This is the most sought after device on the market, available only to VIP customers,” he assured me. “It will change your life completely.” He had no idea how accurate he was about how I felt. As soon as he left, I set this new and much desired toy aside, taking a rain check on getting acquainted with my new best friend.

  I passed the next week in deep soul searching. I needed to find courage and diminish my fear, and the only way to do it was to revisit the fear that past events generated in me: the tremor I felt when I’d just found out; the terror Dan felt, watching his only son tortured to death; Robbie’s agonizing fright, watching his father tormented, unable to help. Forgetting was an unattainable luxury. Upon taking the lives of my loved ones, Sergey wove the thread of his violence into the strands of my life, as if he was a medieval craftsman using fear as his loom and my guilt as the treadle hook. I had to experience fear without being paralyzed by it. How could I manage to think of Sergey - relive him - without shutting down? How could I make peace with the sensations in my heart and turn that treaty into my second skin?

  Fear, like joy, is built out of fragments of experience. I broke down my life into moments in time. These led to questions, but also held the answers. I forced myself to remember every moment I blocked away. Every facial expression, every hidden tattoo, and every look I exchanged with his bodyguards. It was a long and painful week of digging deep inside my soul. My lies, the choices I made - when would they stop tormenting me? Guilt no longer drove me to isolation; it encouraged me to make my next move on my life’s chessboard. Black pawns symbolized past encounters, and the white - well, the future in my game plan was not so white and pure.

  At night I cried my heart out, cleansing it. I longed for my parents’ comfort; it was a very long time since I felt that need. Then I thought: How will that help me? They would just add to the list of people I needed to hide my true feelings from. The tears uncovered who I really was - as if they were cutting through the deep layers of makeup I’d been putting on for many years now. It was apparent that I was going on a suicide mission. I had no fear. I had nothing to lose. I had nothing.

  Out of ten applicants who answered the ad, Oded picked three. He promised that those applicants would be able to teach me to protect myself. I wanted one who could teach me to attack. I set aside Sunday for interviews. I tried making a list of attributes that could help me distinguish between passive and aggressive, but I realized I was clueless. Oded gave me three folders, one for each applicant. The first was a former Special Forces soldier. The second was an ex-paratrooper from an elite airborne unit. The third was a former Navy SEAL. Thanks to Google, I enriched my knowledge about these three military units. Oded verified that none of the applicants had any criminal charges against them, a prerequisite I’d added at the very last moment.

  ***

  Sunday morning passed by quickly. At noon, I took the reports and read them again. I wanted to be ready as much as possible. After showering, I put on a neutral linen suit, which did not transmit excess femininity and did not radiate excessive effort.

  The first two interviews were over as soon as I opened the door and the candidates recognized my face. My story made me a well-known victim, and no one wanted to get involved with the Russian mafia. I did not blame them. I kept on with my questions in the most civilized manner possible, but their body language was already informing me of their decision.

  At seven in the evening, the last candidate rang. I glanced at the intercom screen again and at the documents I held. He looked older than the others, and also older than his photograph. I opened the gate and he stepped inside. The cameras continued to follow him, as did I. He looked around, surveying the yard as he approached the big wooden door. I looked at him and rememb
ered my honeymoon with Dan in the Far East. While we were at a well-protected observation point, we noticed a tiger making his way through the jungle, precise and alert to his surroundings. My third applicant reminded me of that tiger. I liked him already. I started to get excited, as if I was the one facing a job interview, hoping to please the interviewer. In my case, I was not really interested if he liked me or not. I wanted him to not turn down the job offer out of hand.

  I opened the door for him. At that exact moment, I turned on the yard spotlights and the front porch light. I knew a well-lit place was more welcoming. One moment, he was walking along the path, and the next, he was standing in the doorway. He reminded me of Sergey. In his blue polo shirt and baggy jeans, he seemed even larger than he really was. His shoulders were so broad that he seemed to fill the whole entrance. The similarity between the two of them made me pause at first. On second thought, I found it an advantage.

  I shook his outstretched hand. "Good evening, Guy. Come. Please come in. I'm Gabriella."

  "Nice to meet you," he replied, keeping it short and dry. He was not talkative. "You can call me Gabi," I added with a smile. I filled the silence with a positive message, so he would not run away.

  I made way for him, but he focused on the family photos on the wall. I felt my heart sink. Dan and Robbie’s faces had become well known.

  "I’m guessing the training’s for him?" His eyes were focused to the picture of Robbie’s picture in ski clothes, raising a glass and smiling happily. I kept my eye on the picture, which lived in my memory as if we had taken this holiday yesterday. The photo next to it was taken from that holiday, too. Dan and Robbie stood head to head, arms around each other. The two men had struck a pose for the camera, for me. I went along on this vacation as the photographer. Typically, on ski vacations, I preferred to focus on the hot chocolate and the camera.

  I anticipated all his responses except for this one. I studied his face, but he was serious. He demonstrated absolutely no recognition. Where had he been for the last three years?

  "No." I hesitated for a moment. "He doesn’t need training. The training’s for me." I looked at him confidently, studying his responses carefully.

  "You?" He turned sharply and looked at me in surprise. "I was sure it would be for a teenager who wants to practice for the commando units tests. The age of the guy in the picture seems to fit."

  I closed the door, allowing myself a brief moment of recovery in front of it. I turned back to him and I made sure to smile, but sadness was welling up in me again. After all, my son should have been doing his military service now. He might even have been able to get into one of those units he could have been accepted to.

  “Would you have a problem training me?" I forced the smile to stay on my face, as part of the positive message I decided to portray.

  "I don’t think it’d be a problem... assuming that you have no health issues."

  "I have no such problems." Others yes, but these, no I silently added.

  "Let's hear some details - what kind of training do you want? Fitness training? Survival? Offensive and defensive training? What exactly?"

  We were still standing in the foyer, and he was already proving himself versatile and to the point. I wanted to regain control of the conversation. "Let's have a drink and I'll try to answer you. Would you like something hot? Alcoholic? Soft?"

  He ran his big hand over his short cropped hair. "Got a beer?" He offered a hint of a smile, but it was enough to break the ice.

  "Come through to the kitchen. I'm sure we'll find something." On our way through the living room to Esther’s kingdom, I had a few minutes to organize my thoughts.

  The refrigerator contained a few bottles of beer. I could not remember if they were a relic from a bygone era or a sign of the recovery that happened in the last few days. I counted on Esther for this. I let him check out the selection and we sat on either side of the counter. From this distance, I could smell him. I was not sure I was ready for a masculine presence to be so close. I flinched from this invasion of my personal space. Something inside me screamed for a touch of alcohol, but I settled for a cup of cold coffee.

  "Let's go back to my question, okay? What do you want?" He sipped his beer and waited patiently for my answer.

  I stared at a point somewhere on the wall, and I considered my words very carefully. "I want a coach to bring me back into really good shape. I want unorthodox training. I'm tired of the boring type.” I remembered the conversation with Oded, and I pulled the subject in the direction I wanted. "You mentioned defensive and offensive… I like the sound of that. What does that mean exactly?"

  "It means learning Krav Maga, the Israeli form of hand to hand combat, or any other form of hand to hand combat. Offensive means that you’ll maybe have to go through practical target attack training and operational driving, but these are not really related to fitness.”

  I smiled. "Sounds like a real experience." This young man was exactly what I had hoped for. The heaviness I had felt at the beginning of the day began to lift.

  "Can I ask a personal question?”

  "Sure," I said with fake confidence. Here it comes, I thought, questions about the case. Think positive. Answer positively, I repeated to myself like a promising mantra. Casually, I stood up and took out toasted almonds from the closet. I also added salted peanuts to the bowl. I always found it easier to hide my feelings whenever I had my back to the questioner.

  "Why don’t you take on a private fitness trainer and another trainer to teach you shooting; people who specialize in what they practice?"

  The question that was not asked gave me great relief, more than I expected. This time, I knew, the smile reached my eyes. I placed the bowl on the counter. "I don’t want a lot of people walking around my house. And speaking of my home, I offered live-in accommodations. Would you want to live here?”

  I thought I saw a glimpse of a smile. “I responded because of that offer. I'm looking for a place to stay.”

  "Excellent. Can I ask why?" I did not let the boundaries of good taste stop my curiosity. I was going to regain control of the conversation and know who I was going to live with in the near future.

  "My girlfriend." Now I realized his smile was actually an uncomfortable grimace. I knew he would have preferred not to have been asked. "She gave me an ultimatum. I live at her place right now.”

  ‘At her place’, not ‘with her’? “Okay. I hope not to pry too much in the future. It’s important that we know to watch our boundaries." I knew there was an atomic dust cloud above my head, much more toxic than his. I had a lot more to lose from making personal revelations.

  "Since the training won’t be all day, do you want me to train your son too? Or your husband?"

  Again I wondered where he’d been in the past years. It was only last year that I slipped out of the headlines. Could it be I’d changed so much during that time? "My son and my husband won’t be here during the training," I answered in a neutral tone.

  "You do realize that this training isn’t a matter of a week or two? This can last a long time.”

  "Let it last as long as necessary," I replied. I wanted to cut him off before he proceeded to ask about Dan and Robbie, all too aware that one day I would have to deal with those questions. Now it was time to talk money. I knew that there were not a lot of jobs like this on the market, and none with these incredible benefits. The start of the working relationship was only a matter of time. We decided that Guy would move his belongings into the guest suite over the weekend, and that next Sunday we would begin training.

  In theory, it all sounded really straightforward. What’s still bothering you? I asked myself. I knew exactly what it was: it was the constant voice that told me to leave it alone, let go, give it up - the voice that saw any daring move I made as a mistake. It was a survival instinct, and it was an impediment to my suicide mission.

  I closed the door behind him. I went into the bedroom and undressed hastily, as if the clothes were a part of th
e image that I had adopted and were destroying me inside. When I was completely naked, I stood in front of the air conditioner, which struggled to put out the fire in me. Shut up! I ordered the small voice. Let me get the tools, and then let me decide whether or not to use them!

  As if a stranger had pressed a button, I burst into tears.

  Chapter 7

  On Friday, Guy returned. He already had a different look in his eyes. He was not the man I had hired to teach me, free of all knowledge and familiarity. I felt that I had added another to the list of people I had deceived, even though I had only told him a slight distortion of the truth. I knew that if I wanted to regain his trust, I would have to work on it. Until then, we would proceed in a closed and reserved atmosphere. I was heartened by the fact that he came - he didn’t cancel, didn’t wimp out or flee. Despite the circumstances, even though he knew I was hiding something, he was willing to share his skills with me. Under the circumstances, it was more than satisfactory.

  I showed him to the guest suite and let him get excited about his new quarters. He unloaded his clothes into the large cabinet. They barely filled one shelf. Is he expecting to be employed only for a short period, and brought only essentials, I wondered, or are several pairs of pants, underwear and T-shirts his entire wardrobe?

  He pulled a laptop out of a square bag, plugged it in and immediately checked the internet. I gave him the password for the wireless connection, and he seemed pleased. Nothing like a cyber-relationship to feel at home anywhere.

  After the computer came the TV. He tuned in to CNN. Between surfing the web and the TV channels, he managed to unload his toiletries in the bathroom and came out looking excited about that part of the suite too.

  "Listen, this suite is basically an apartment.” He looked a lot less grumpy. I'd heard this phrase before, but in a completely different tone. That was when Dan's mother came to us to see the result of the renovation Dan and I had done. Although we received prior consent to build the house, which, in any case, was not hers anymore, it was hard for her to accept the changes. "This is an apartment in every respect," she said, only coming from her it sounded like a complaint. I remembered the look of disgust on her face. This was usually preceded by one of her venomous remarks. That day it was, "I don’t understand why or for whom you need it, unless you plan to bring in a Filipino on a regular basis, so you'd have more time to do - well, what do you do all day?” I could read between her lines: this was a terrible waste of money, all of these poor choices were probably mine, and if they weren’t, then how could I have failed to stop her son from making those mistakes?