“And Logan could never forgive Angela?” I asked.
"I don’t know. I cannot say for sure,” Rami replied.
"And that crooked minister Elroy,” asked Laure. “Whose side was he on?”
"On both sides,” Rami said, and I appreciated his candor. “There have always been shitty people, and there always will be. They have not yet made enough mistakes, he and his friends back home. You have been our good luck charm all through the past year. We were fortunate that you sat on them from the beginning and were able to pass on to us what you did.” He did not specify any further.
That woke me up all the way. So Laure had been the most successful agent here. In all the difficult moments, she had done the right thing. That meant I was finally meeting Freddy. Laure, who was smarter than the bodel, than Giora, than me.
"How did you transmit information?” I asked her, stunned.
"With the medical reports of my rehabilitation, to the Ministry of Defense, using Nurit at the consulate. Nurit had no idea, and no one dreamed of looking for them in the diplomatic mail,” Laure explained.
"And the whole story of Freddy and Jay?”
"We had to create a diversion to protect her. Jay had no chance of getting to Freddy; we guarded her with all our might. She in turn also guarded you quite a bit,” Rami said.
"But Jay was killed?”
Rami did not respond, and I understand that the moment Jay’s fate was decided was a year ago. The moment Laure was recruited.
Laure tried to hold my hand, but I pulled it away quickly. I wasn’t ready yet.
"The story ends here, neat and elegant.” Rami kept his smile at full intensity.
I felt my headache start to pound away again. Barkat had also talked about an elegant conclusion.
"Thank you,” I said, in a weak voice, to the head of the GSS, relieved that I was no longer attacked by the strange desire to call him Dad.
“A few more visitors and that’s it,” Almog said, just as Yehezkel Gelber and Arnie Logan entered the room. The man who fell asleep under the tanning lamp. Nothing made sense anymore. I did not want to see Logan. I was starting to regret not shoving him in with the occupants of the tanker.
"You’ve become an important person,” added Almog.
Gelber, a flesh-heavy man with small, suspicious eyes, was a worm in my book. He greeted me with polite precision.
"Why is he here?” I asked.
"Who?” asked Almog.
"Him!” I tried to point at Logan. “He’s with them.”
"You did the right thing,” Gelber declared without anyone asking him. “You just have to end it.” More talk of the end..
"We need Giora,” said Rami.
"His family needs him,” I said.
"Mickey, let’s get this over with,” said Almog. “You remember the first time we met. I have to trust you. We have the people who call the shots right here. We must have Giora. Where is he now?”
In two hours, the Laure would depart from Galveston. The general cargo ship held in its belly a tanker truck with three bodies and six nuclear warheads. When they reached the Gulf of Mexico, the tanker would be thrown into the sea. Three miles down, there would be no possibility of discovering anything. Maybe those around me would understand that.
If Logan hadn’t been present, I might have already told them everything.
"Why would I tell you?” I was trying to stall for time.
"It’s your duty,” murmured Gelber. Elroy’s man. Everyone’s man.
Logan cheerfully told me, “It would be worth your while.”
“You!” I groaned. I didn’t want to know how he managed to remain everybody’s friend.
“Klein Aerospace knows how to compensate helpful people,” he told me.
“Of course,” I replied.
“How’s this? You heal up and go back to the consulate, until the end of the year. Then you sign a three-year contract at Klein Aerospace, at an annual salary of one hundred fifty thousand dollars. Not bad for someone fresh out of Rice.”
I tried to see the faces of others. Dorothy had already left. Laure was pale. The others all had nervous half-smiles frozen on their faces. They were now all partners in the same plan. Giora’s head was the price for closing the warhead case.
"I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said slowly.
"Ahhh!” moaned Logan. “You know full well. There’s no need to put on a show. We are approaching the end now, and there’s no time for games. You want to earn a lot of money, and fast. Here’s your chance.”
"It’s good for everyone,” said Almog.
"I have no idea.”
"It’s the right move,” Gelber said.
"Let’s get this over with,” Rami added with a smile.
"Your brother called,” Laure said quietly, and the three men turned on her with hostility.
"Dubi? What did he want?”
"He asked how you are, said it’s important for him to talk to you.”
"Can you get a hold of him?”
"Can’t it wait?” Gelber asked apprehensively. He would’ve avoided this meeting in its entirety, if only he could have.
In the meantime, Laure showed up with a cordless phone. After two attempts, I heard Dubi on the line, “Wild man, are you trying to scare us again?”
“Eventually, you’ll get used to it,” I said and waited to hear what he had to say.
“I'm retiring. Markovsky Pencils is all yours.”
"What?!” I thought I had misheard him. “What happened?” It was hard for me to digest the news.
"I’ve had enough. I’m done. I want to fly again. It’s time for you to take the controls.”
“The American companies too? Everything?”
"Everything. Even if I spend the next fifty years in the air, I’ll still have enough to live off of.”
"But you know I’m not coming back,” I said. “Mom left me nothing, so I have no interest in it.”
"You mean the will?”
I didn’t answer.
"You have exactly one-third of the business and the assets. I redistributed it.”
“But that wasn’t what she wanted.” My visitors followed the conversation without understanding anything.
"Listen up, wild man: she loved you. She adored you. I wish she had loved me as much. She told me before she died that she was going to bring you back to life. Get you out of your shell. Release you from your personal prison. She thought it was her fault. Most of the time she was just trying to win a drop of appreciation or attention from you. You thought she didn’t deserve it, and you reacted like a spoiled and lazy brat who was not willing to take responsibility. You know how to do that.”
Of course I knew; but I waited for the follow-up, not really digesting things. Then, suddenly, the constant and unbearable buzzing of the Liberators stopped. No more bombs falling toward their targets. Blessed silence took its place in my head.
“She thought that the will would force you to become a man. A real person. That you would come out of your shell. She asked me to take care of you and give you back your share. She gave me a limited amount of time for that purpose, and it expired two days ago. She knew she could trust me. So when are you coming back?”
"I don’t know,” I said and hung up.
This conversation could not have come at a better time. Now I could close the case quietly, I think to myself. I could hand Giora over, to rot in an American prison for the next twenty years. Everyone would be satisfied, and I would come out smelling like a rose. What was coming next looked better, from moment to moment. So she believed in me after all, I smiled to myself; she just wanted me to be a real person.
Laure took my hand and I squeezed back. A feeling of pleasant warmth passed through my body. I would probably always be willing to forgive her.
; "Time’s up,” said Rami. “Where is Giora?”
"I have no idea,” I replied.
64.
The GSS head sat next to the prime minister’s desk and looked up at the narrow windows. The military secretary and the stenographer sat on either side, blending in as usual with the room. A passel of pigeons was flying over the pagodalike Bank of Israel building. He was exhausted after a particularly endless cabinet meeting about the “mood” in the territories. Every minister had his own Palestinian contact, who knew how to tell him exactly what he wanted to hear. Any attempt to present an accurate and challenging picture, as it were, encountered raised eyebrows and nasty remarks about the “personal views” of the GSS head.
The prime minister backed him up as always, but now the PM’s body language was completely transparent. The PM respected the GSS head’s ability to manipulate his interlocutors almost as a matter of course, but he did not like it. As he led all the ministers down the garden path with smooth and convincing explanations, it was good for the cabinet meeting; but not now, in their personal meeting. The PM was well aware of little acts of payback and the settling of personal accounts, and yet he had a hard time tolerating them. Finally, the prime minister rose and stood by the window. The pain in his leg was bothering him.
"Your man Porat, I understand he’s going into the cooler for a long time now.”
“True,” the GSS head replied, knowing that the prime minister understood that now that Porat had arrived in the country on his own, and without any help, it would not be possible to extradite him to the Americans. Such things were not to be done.
"I saw him yesterday. He arrived on a flight from Panama via Nairobi. He asked to retire from the service,” the GSS head added.
"And the bodies of the officer and the manager that the US Coast Guard found were his work?”
“Not exactly. He actually made sure they didn’t disappear without a trace. I don’t know what would have been better. We’ll bury them, of course, with all due pomp and ceremony.”
There was a long silence in the room.
"And our local asset, what did you call him? Quill?”
"He manipulated us. It’s already been published in the newspaper. He was interviewed by a Yedioth reporter in New York. He did not say anything significant. His name is Markovsky.”
The military secretary thought at the time that Quill was actually the one that had prevented the scientific group in Houston from carrying out its satanic plan, but he said nothing. He was on track for a promotion to major general, and he did not intend to confront the GSS head right now.
"I know. Markovsky of the Pencils,” said the prime minister.
"Yeah. A spoiled kid. He made out the best. Probably on his way home. We’ll make sure the locals in Houston settle their accounts with him. They’re boiling with anger.”
The stenographer, who had known five previous GSS heads, thought that the interview with Yedioth gave Quill a kind of immunity from acts of vengeance like the GSS head was now alluding to, but of course she said nothing. If the FBI lay a finger on Markovsky, with the tacit consent of Israel, there would be a cry to high heaven. It would be a sticky situation, and everyone would rush to deny any involvement. She had seen such affairs explode, splattering shit in all directions.
The prime minister shot a quick glance at her, probably reading her mind. It was not for nothing that they had known each other for almost half a century. He turned to the GSS head with a shocked, reproachful look in his azure eyes. “Do not touch him. If he wants to return to Israel, let him return. Do not let anyone touch him. There’s no reason for it.”
The Consulate Conspiracy Page 31