“OK,” I said, “but first things first.” I looked around the room. As far as I could tell we were alone, though I assumed every word was being listened to elsewhere. “Who’s ‘we,’ exactly?”
“My name is Talia,” she said. “I’m with the Shabak.” She smoked her cigarette.
“Internal security. Of course. I bet you have a badge, too, that says, Trust me, I’m a secret agent, right?”
“Right.” She took a cell phone out of her jacket pocket and tapped in a string of digits. I heard the phone click at the other end as the call connected.
“Hal-lo? Ken, rega.”
She handed me the phone. I pressed it to my ear, and listened.
“Hi, buddy.” It was Ezra. Clear as a bell.
“Seriously?”
“Trust me. This lady will keep you alive. She’s on the side of the angels.”
“Really?”
“Really. And why are you messing around with that bullshit Grach, eh? Ask her for something proper. That pistol’s gonna get you fucked up.” He pronounced “bullshit” bool-sheet, which made him sound simultaneously sinister and slightly absurd. It was no coincidence he got on with the Glaswegian Jack Nazzar so well. Everything each of them said sounded like either a joke or a threat. I pitied the fool who couldn’t work out which.
“OK,” I said. “Thanks. I’ll bear that in mind.”
“Tov. I have another surprise for you as well. It’s a really good one. I promise you’ll like it.”
“Oh . . . What’s that?”
“You’ll find out. Take care, buddy.”
The line went dead. I handed the phone back to my interlocutor.
“How exactly did Rachel go missing?”
“She vanished.” Talia took the phone from me and our fingers touched briefly. “Exactly.”
“But I called the faculty,” I said, “and there was a newspaper report. She was quoted by Haaretz three days ago.” As soon as I’d said it, I realized how naive I sounded. Her face remained impassive. “Ah.” The penny dropped. “That was you, wasn’t it?” She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m guessing that was an Israeli in Paris, too. He cut quite a dash in that police uniform. I’m sorry about that.”
“If you say so.”
“Or maybe Mossad went for the AKs and kaffiyehs so you could blame it on your neighbors?”
“What the other departments do,” she said, tilting her head, “or who they get to do it, is their affair.”
We sat in silence, breathing in the gray smoke, wondering if, when, to breathe out secrets. I counted a full minute and stubbed out the Marlboro in the heavy glass ashtray between us.
“Well, this is awkward.”
“But forgivable. You would not be the first operator to get in trouble for, uh, personal reasons. It happens.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “It’s not awkward for me. Not at all. Unfortunate, maybe. But not awkward.” I drew another cigarette from the pack. “For you, though, this is a grade-A disaster.” I tore another match free of the little booklet, folded the yellow cover back on itself, pinched the match head between the cardboard and the striker and withdrew it smartly. It flared at my fingertips. “A top Israeli scientist goes missing. Her father is assassinated. And the Shabak, the ‘Invisible Shield,’ the defender of the nation, is reduced to fishing, casting clickbait blind into the media?” I lit the tobacco, pulled down the smoke, and dropped the still-burning match into the ashtray. “And all you’ve managed to catch is one pissed-off Paddy. That’s awkward. No?”
She drew her lips tight across her teeth and then lit another cigarette herself.
“I thought you were the fisherman, Mr. McLean,” she replied through the haze of smoke, “with the hundred-dollar hook?” I shrugged. “Lo.” She waved her hand in front of her, dispersing the smoke, and with it any suggestion the Israelis might be compromised. “Lo. What is, uh, awkward is that the day before Professor Levy disappeared she sent her colleague—her closest, most trusted colleague—on an errand.” She paused to gauge my reaction. “A routine errand that took him from Tel Aviv to Russia. But then, and most definitely on a forged passport, he traveled from Russia to the United Kingdom, where he arrived on the thirtieth of December.”
“Is that a fact?” I smiled at her. “But really, now, wouldn’t you say that was also your problem?”
“No,” she replied. “I wouldn’t.” She unlocked the cell phone I’d used to speak to Ezra and slid it back across the table toward me. “I would say it was one hundred percent our problem.”
I rested my cigarette on the edge of the ashtray and picked up the phone. A single photograph filled the screen. It was a mid-shot of a smiling man and woman, standing arms entwined, each holding in their free hand a slice of what looked like an apple. I separated my thumb and forefinger across the screen and zoomed in. Rachel stood on the left, eyes downcast above her smile, trying to avoid the lens. A length of silver-striped black hair had fallen against her cheek. In the background, the unmistakable entrance to the building I was sitting in. The balding man on Rachel’s right grinned at the camera, leaning forward as if sharing a joke with the photographer. Six-four, a hundred and seventy pounds and in good shape for his age. I recognized him immediately.
“The guy on the left,” I asked, “who is he?”
“Stein. Amos Stein. Senior lecturer here in applied mathematics.”
“Israeli?”
“Of course. His father survived the Shoah. He’s been with the faculty since the late seventies.”
The last—and only—time I’d seen him, his skin was turning black and the back of his head was missing. It was, without doubt, “Chappie Connor”—who was, without doubt, not Chappie Connor. I looked at the date stamp: 20/09/2017—Rosh Hashanah the year before.
“He is most definitely,” she concluded, “not Irish.”
I stared at her impassively. It was the first time I’d been debriefed by two different intelligence agencies for the assassination of a target I hadn’t killed.
“I didn’t kill him,” I said. “I shot him, but I didn’t kill him. He was already dead.”
“And why did you do that?”
“Because I was ordered to.”
The woman reached out and retrieved the cell phone from me.
“Who gave the order?”
“OK,” I said, lowering my voice, “write this down.” She picked up the phone, poised to take dictation. “Mike-India-Charlie-Kilo-Echo-Yankee, uh, Mike-Oscar-Uniform-Sierra-Echo.”
She put the phone down again. “Tell me,” she sighed, “was that the same rat who ordered you to shoot Jacob Levy?”
“Ah, you see, that’s the problem with rats,” I said. “I don’t like them. But I don’t want to fuck them, either.”
She was still angling for the connection between the hit in the cottage and Doc’s murder. “But you did kill him,” she continued. “Ken?”
I kept my mouth shut. Connecting me to Doc’s death was pure speculation on her behalf. It had worked, too. There I was, after all. But as for why I was there? They weren’t getting that for free. They couldn’t know how I knew Rachel, and I wanted to keep it that way. I didn’t know how Talia was getting her information. Maybe the Shabak had a tap on Lukov’s phone. Maybe he’d sold her our conversation. Whatever the case, Talia had eased my conscience. According to her account, Rachel went missing before Doc Levy had been killed. His death hadn’t put her at risk; unwittingly or not, she might have endangered him.
“And the note?” Talia asked, breaking the silence. “The hundred-dollar bill?”
“It’s in a safe place,” I said. By which I meant that it was folded up in my jeans.
“We offer a very good rate against the shekel.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
She crushed out her half-smoked cigarette and nudged the heavy white plasti
c bag an inch closer to me. I took the pistol out. It was a compact SIG M11-A1 with customized polymer grips and a fifteen-round magazine—a military version of the P229 I carried out of preference. Ezra had briefed her well. I eased the slide back a fraction. The chamber was clear. I dropped the clip: 9mm NATO ball.
“Take these, too,” she said, pushing the cigarettes toward me. “I quit.”
I stuck the handgun in my belt, stuffed the Marlboros and matches into my pocket.
“How will I find you?” I asked. “If I feel like rat fucking.”
“Look in the phone book,” she said. “You’ll find us under S.” I made to leave. “Oh, one more thing, before you go. A word of advice, if I may?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“In this country, following orders is considered poor justification for murder.”
22
Goldstar, please. Unfiltered.”
The barman nodded and tipped a frosted glass beneath a tap set high above the counter. I sat on the barstool and stared at my hands. If it was true that you were only ever as good as your last job, I was screwed. I rolled my shoulders and stretched my thigh. The bullet wounds weren’t improving. At least the bar was halfway decent—for a hotel joint, anyway. A gentle breeze was blowing. One of the three pairs of French windows leading to a decked terrace that overlooked the sea had been left open. Waiters serving guests who wanted to smoke traipsed in and out. Sodium-lit clouds peppered the sky beyond the glass. My bedroom window had the same view, one floor higher up.
I closed my eyes and tried to bring Rachel’s face into focus, but all I could see was the half smile of the Shabak agent. When I opened them again the glass of beer sat perspiring in front of me. I ran my index finger from the rim to the foot and then gripped it, gulping it down in one long draft.
Going up against the GRU was not good news. As far as intelligence agencies went, it was the envy of the Western world—blessed with an exceptional degree of autonomy and unquestioned, unbudgeted financing—but with this caveat: so powerful was it that not even the Russian president himself could ever really be sure if it prospered owing to his magnanimity, or he to its mercy.
So far it seemed that Avilov had tried hard not to kill me. I couldn’t count on that continuing. GRU operatives were masters of applying extreme, targeted violence in order to achieve their aims—even at their own personal cost. I wasn’t unknown to them, either. Our paths had crossed on countless jobs in the past. So far I’d come off on top. And I wasn’t keen on a grudge match.
“So what the fuck,” I said to myself out loud, after sucking the foam off my upper lip, “are you going to do now?”
“Buy me a drink?” came the reply from directly behind me.
I froze.
It’s not possible.
I turned slowly on the stool, right hand drifting behind my back toward the SIG as I did so. But apparently it was all too possible. Standing before me was the irrepressible turbaned bundle of misplaced enthusiasm that was Bhavneet Singh. I had to give it to him, I had not seen that coming.
“Baaz,” I asked him, half laughing despite myself, “what are you doing here?” He smiled broadly. I was lost for words for a moment. “How are you even here?”
“I caught a plane from Charles de Gaulle after you left. EasyJet. Simple, really.”
“You followed me? Here? From Paris?”
“Of course. We’re partners, right?”
“Yeah. No. But . . . we’ve been through this. In detail.”
There was a duffel bag at his feet and his skin had the sheen of someone sweating out the grease of a cheap airline meal. He must have just arrived from the airport. I rubbed my face and smelled the alcohol on my breath. I regretted the beer and immediately wanted another.
“But I mean here,” I repeated. “Right here. How did you find me?”
“Talia,” he said. “At the airport.”
It was unlikely that the operator who’d intercepted me at Rachel’s office had also met Baaz at Ben Gurion—the times must almost certainly have overlapped. Either the Shabak had a better sense of humor than it was credited with, or that was how all its female agents introduced themselves.
“OK, well, for God’s sake, sit down. We look like a right pair.” He drew up the barstool next to me. “Actually, no,” I said, changing my mind. “Let’s go outside.” And then to the barman: “Another one of those please, and one for my friend here.”
“Tea, please,” Baaz corrected me. “I don’t drink.”
I raised my eyebrows at the barman in mock exasperation and he smiled back, offering to bring the drinks to our table.
“And a Johnnie Walker Black, too,” I added. “Actually, make it a double. Straight up.”
Outside, we settled into the linen-covered cushions that padded out the wooden patio furniture. Tel Aviv glimmered on either side of us, but dead ahead only sea and sky stretched to the horizon. Ships’ lights swayed on the black tide. Above, inbound aircraft slipped blinking between glowing clouds. The marina south of the hotel was full of boats but empty of people.
“So,” I asked, “who is Talia?”
“I don’t know, but she was hot,” he said so ingenuously that it was hard not to take him at face value. “She was waiting for me at immigration,” he added. “It was awesome. I didn’t have to wait in line or anything. She just took my passport and waved me through. She even got me a taxi.”
“A taxi?”
“A really nice one, with leather seats and blacked-out windows.”
“I see. And the, uh, taxi driver brought you here?”
“Yes. I didn’t even have to pay.”
“No,” I said, “you wouldn’t.”
“Was that”—he leaned in closer—“all part of, you know, government work?”
Was it possible for anyone to be so brilliant and so stupid? Every alarm bell that nearly three decades of experience had hardwired into me was going off simultaneously. And yet here he was, clever, infuriating and—for all I could gauge—entirely genuine.
“We’re just friends on holiday, OK?” I cautioned him.
He nodded. I looked around. The other guests looked like tourists and travelers. No self-respecting Israeli sits outside in January. A gay couple perched on the other side of the pool, talking discreetly over dinner. Two women shared a bottle of wine and a plate of mezze three tables to our left. A lone smoker sat by the railing, staring out to sea. He was clothed in an ill-fitting business suit and an air of regret. None of them looked like professional killers. But, then, we never do. And short of pulling the SIG on them, I was unlikely to find out if one, none or all of them worked for the Shabak, or whomever the two Talias took orders from—or guarded against.
The waiter put our drinks and a bowl of French fries glistening with salt flakes on the table between us. I turned back to Baaz.
“And if this Talia hadn’t found you, how were you going to find me?”
“At the university,” he said. “Obviously.”
“Of course,” I said. And then, raising my glass to him: “Well, sláinte. Here’s to you.”
“Khush raho,” he replied in Punjabi. Stay happy.
“Sure,” I said, “I’ll drink to that.” I downed the whisky and breathed out hard. “So, Baaz . . .” He looked at me, wide-eyed, expectant. “Partners work as a team. They look out for each other. Right?”
“Right.”
“And we talked about this, about you coming here. And you agreed not to. Right?”
“Right.”
“So what changed?” I took a long swallow of beer. “I need to understand this, Baaz, because I won’t be able to protect you at all if you don’t do as we agree.” He nodded again. “And I am thankful,” I said quickly, “for the money. I couldn’t have done this—gotten here, I mean—without you. But . . .” The situation was so preposterous I
didn’t even know what to say. I took another long hit on the Goldstar.
“But you’re scared I’m going to mess things up?”
“Yes. No. Fuck it, Baaz! I’m scared you’re going to get killed. Or worse.”
“Worse?” He laughed and drummed his fingers in the air, plugging away at his invisible keyboard. “There can’t be anything worse than being killed.”
I gave him a hard stare.
“You have a family. You might not like them very much at the moment, but they’re as much at risk as you are. How would you like to open the mail and find your auntie’s head in a box? Or your little sister’s fingers?” He looked away, ashamed. I pressed the point home. “Baaz, I have no idea who is fucking with me—with us—or why, exactly. But trust me, of all the options on the table, you should be praying to your God to get you as far away from me as possible, not booking a one-way ticket to hell on bloody easyJet.” His hands were shaking. He looked resolutely at the table. “OK, I’m sorry. That was harsh.” I didn’t want to lie to him, but there was no other choice. I couldn’t protect him from the Russians any more than I could protect him from myself. By following me, he’d given me an unenviable choice. “We’ll work it out. Don’t worry. It’ll be OK,” I lied. “But you need to start doing as I say, as we agreed. As partners. All right?” I bent my head low and to the side, forcing him to look at me. “Baaz?”
“OK,” he replied after a pause. “Agreed.”
“Cool, now drink up. We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.” He brightened up at the thought of going on some damned fool mission and took a sip of the tea. “Leave it,” I said. “I’ll order you dinner on room service.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t,” I said. “You’re paying, anyway.”
* * *
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