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After a moment of observing him, the Babylonian said, “You only go OCD when you’re extremely agitated.”
The Colonel froze, pulling his fingers away from the implements.
“Don’t deny it,” the Babylonian said. “I know you too well.”
“And I know you,” Ben David said, turning back to face him. “You’ve never failed at a commission.”
“That’s not, strictly speaking, true.”
“But only you and I know that.”
The Babylonian nodded. “True enough.”
Ben David took a step toward the other. “The thing is, Rebeka has become tangled up with Jason Bourne.”
“Ah,” the Babylonian said. “Dani Amit didn’t inform me of that complication.”
“He doesn’t know.”
The Babylonian eyed Ben David for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell him?”
“Bourne is none of his fucking business.”
“In other words,” the Babylonian said, “Bourne is your business.”
Ben David took another step toward the assassin. “And now he’s yours, as well.”
“Which is why you brought me here.”
“As soon as I learned about the commission.”
“Yes,” the Babylonian said. “How exactly did you find out about it? So far as I know, only Dani Amit and the Director know.”
A slow smile spread across Colonel Ben David’s face. “It’s better this way,” he said, “for all of us.”
The Babylonian seemed to accept this. “So it’s Bourne you want.”
“Yes.”
“And Rebeka?”
“What about her?” Colonel Ben David said sharply.
“I know how you feel—”
“Keep your eye on what’s important. You cannot give Dani Amit the slightest reason to suspect you. You must fulfill your commission.”
The Babylonian looked on with some sympathy. “This can’t be easy for you.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Ben David snapped. “I’m perfectly fine.”
“And we’re on schedule.”
“To the dot.”
The Babylonian nodded. “I’ll be off then.”
“That would be wise.”
After the assassin was gone, Colonel Ben David stood staring at himself in the mirror. Then he strode over, picked up his straight razor, and threw it. The mirror shattered and, with it, Ben David’s reflection.
4
The man, big, burly, and round-shouldered, resembled a bear. Clad in a bespoke sharkskin suit that cost more than the yearly salaries of many of his minions, he stood in the sun-splashed Place de la Concorde. The ceaseless clamor of tourists sounded to him like the hammering of a flock of woodpeckers. The endless spiral of traffic surrounding the cement island on which he stood was like death, speeding by always a little out of reach, until the moment when it ran over you, pounding you into the cobbles before speeding onward. He thought of the wasted days of his youth, before he had found himself, before he had discovered how to work his inner strength; time wasted, and now gone forever.
The Place de la Concorde was a favorite meeting place of his when he was in Paris because of its proximity to death, both present and past. It was the place where the guillotine had sliced off the head of Marie Antoinette, among many others, guilty and innocent alike, during France’s notorious Reign of Terror. He liked the sound of that phrase, Règne de la Terreur, in any language.
His head turned and he saw her striding across the wide street on impossibly long legs as the light turned, favoring her. She came hidden within a cloud of tourists, seeing him, but totally ignoring him until she was on the far side of the 3,300-year-old Egyptian obelisk glorifying the reign of Rameses II. Given to France by Mehmet Ali, the Ottoman viceroy in 1829, it had originally marked the entrance to the Temple of Luxor. As such, it was a remarkable historical treasure. The man thought about this as the crowds of tourists ebbed and flowed around it without giving it more than a cursory glance. Every day now the history of the world was being lost, plowed under by the mountains of digital effluvia venting off the Internet, scanned by growing millions on their smartphones or iPads. The lives of Britney Spears, Angelina Jolie, and Jennifer Aniston were of more interest to the new masses than were those of Marcel Proust, Richard Wagner, or Victor Hugo, if they even knew who these august personages were.
The man resisted the urge to spit, instead smiling as he slipped through the throngs to the west side of the obelisk where Martha Christiana stood, hands in the pockets of her avant black-and-red L’Wren Scott swing coat, beneath which a deep plum suede pencil skirt from the same designer showed off the shapely lower half of her body. She did not turn when she felt his presence at her left shoulder, but tilted her head in his direction.
“It’s good to see you, my friend,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”
“Too long, chérie.”
Her full lips curved slightly in her Mona Lisa smile. “Now you flatter me.”
He barked a laugh. “There’s no need.”
He was right: she was a strikingly beautiful woman, dark-haired, dark-eyed, Latin in both features and temperament. She could be fiery as well as feisty. In any case, she knew who she was. She was her own woman, which he admired, all the while attempting to tame her. So far, he had not succeeded, for which a part of him was grateful. Martha would not have been half as useful to him if he had managed to break her spirit. Often, in his infrequent idle moments, he found himself wondering why she kept coming back to him. He had nothing on her; besides, she was no one to be coerced—he had found that out on their second meeting. He turned his mind away from that dark time to the pressing matter that necessitated today’s meeting.
Martha was leaning back against the massive obelisk, legs crossed at her tiny ankles. Her Louboutins glittered richly.
“When I was young,” he said, “I used to believe in the concept of reward, as if life were fair and predetermined, as if life couldn’t put undreamed-of and unacceptable obstacles in my path. So what happened? I failed, again and again. I failed until my head hurt and I realized that I had been fooling myself. I knew nothing about life.”
He shook out a cigarette, offered her one, then took one himself. He lit them both, first hers, then his. When he leaned in, he smelled her perfume, which held notes of citrus and cinnamon. Something deep inside him quivered. Cinnamon, especially, presented a special erotic note for him. Many intimate associations flooded his mind before he clamped down on them. Standing up straight, he filled his lungs with nicotine as a way of distancing himself from the past while he spoke.
“I realized that life was trying to guide me,” he continued, “to teach me the lessons I would need in order not only to survive, but to prosper. I realized that I would have to shed my pride, I would have to embrace the unacceptable obstacles, to find the way through them, rather than turning away from them. Because the path to success—anyone’s success, not only mine—lies through them.”
Martha Christiana listened to him silently, solemnly, following every word. He liked that about her. She was not so self-involved that she failed to hear what was important. This quality alone separated her from the masses. She was like him.
“Every time the unacceptable is accepted, there is a change,” she said finally. “Change or die, that is the central thesis we both absorbed, isn’t it? And as the changes add up, a certain metamorphosis occurs. And, suddenly, we are different.”
“More different than we ever thought we’d be.”
She nodded, her gaze fixed on the rows of horse chestnuts flanking the wide, perfectly straight Champs. “And now here we are, once again waiting for the shadows to fall.”
“On the contrary,” he said, “we are the shadows.”
Martha Christiana chuckled, nodding. “Indeed.”
They smoked silently, companionably, for several minutes while the crush of people and traffic ebbed and flowed around them. In the distance, down the Champs, he could see
the Arc de Triomph, shimmering like Martha’s Louboutins.
At length, he dropped his cigarette butt and ground it under his heel. “You have a car?”
“Standing by, as usual.”
“Good.” He nodded, then licked his lips. “I’ve got a problem.”
He always began the business end of their conversations in the same way. The ritualistic opening calming him. He always had problems, but he rarely called on Martha Christiana to solve them. He hoarded her special talents for the problems he felt certain no one else could handle.
“Male or female?” asked Martha Christiana.
He slipped a photo out of an inner pocket and handed it over.
“Ah, what a handsome devil!” Her lips curled up. “I could go for this one.”
“Right.” He laughed as he handed over a USB thumb drive. “All the relevant information on the target is on here, though I know you like to do your own digging.”
“On occasion. I like to hit all the notes, even the trivial ones.” She looked over at him. “And where is this Don Fernando Hererra currently residing?”
“He’s on the move.” He showed bits of his teeth, the color of ivory mah-jongg tiles. “He’s searching for me.”
Martha Christiana raised her eyebrows. “He doesn’t look like a killer.”
“He isn’t.”
“Then what does he want? And why do you want him terminated?”
He sighed. “He wants everything. Don Fernando wants to extract something from me far more precious than my life.”
Now Martha Christiana turned to him fully, her face full of concern. “What would that be, guapo?”
“My legacy.” He puffed air out of his mouth. “He wants to take everything I have, everything I ever will have, away from me.”
“I will not let him.”
He smiled like beaten brass and touched the back of her hand as lightly as the brush of a butterfly’s wing. “Martha, when you are finished, I will have someone come fetch you. There is a very special commission I need you for.”
Martha Christiana returned his smile as she pushed herself off the obelisk. “Don Fernando Hererra will be taken care of.”
He smiled. “I know he will.”
This thing with Bourne, this liaison,” Ze’ev said, “is fucking foolish, it isn’t worth it. It will be the death of you, Ben David will see to that.”
Rebeka clucked her tongue. “This is what you traveled all the way from Tel Aviv to tell me?”
“I’m trying to help you. Why can’t you see that?”
She narrowed her eyes against the glare of sunlight peeking through shredding clouds in the wake of the swiftly moving storm. They were tramping through the freshly fallen hillocks of white. Ahead of them, the water was a pearlescent gray, as if it were an extension of the steeply sloping shingle. They were walking, maybe in circles. It seemed like it, anyway. Small blue-roofed cottages dotted the landscape. Here and there, men could be seen uncovering walkways to their front doors. She wanted to get back to Sadelöga, but Ze’ev was making things difficult. She knew she had to find a way to turn his appearance to her advantage, and she had precious little time in which to do it.
“I’m trying to understand what you get out of it.”
He cracked his large knuckles. He wasn’t wearing gloves. His hands were as white as a corpse’s. Though stationed in Tel Aviv, Ze’ev was one of Colonel Ben David’s men. That, in and of itself, made him dangerous. But there were other reasons to be wary of him if what she had heard at Dahr El Ahmar could be trusted.
“Out of what?” he said.
“I’m willing to bet that your helping me won’t sit well with either Amit or the Director.”
He flexed his powder-white fingers. A show of strength or a warning? “Neither of them know, or will know.”
She regarded him with a hard, skeptical glance, and he sighed.
“All right, here’s the deal. Ilan Halevy has had it in for me ever since he’s risen in the ranks.” Ilan Halevy, the Babylonian.
“Why would that be?”
Ze’ev blew a breath out through his nose, a horse snorting under a too-tight rein. “I tried to get him sectioned out of Mossad. It was at the beginning of his career; he was a loose cannon, learned his lessons, then did everything his way, not Mossad’s way.”
“Turns out you were wrong.”
Ze’ev nodded. “He’s never let me forget it, either. He won’t be happy till he forces me out.”
“Ilan Halevy doesn’t know the meaning of the word happy.”
“Still…”
She nodded. “So, all right, the two of you hate each other’s guts. What does that have to do with me?”
“I want him to fail.”
“Not just fail.”
“No. I want him to fail spectacularly, a failure he cannot crawl out from under.”
Rebeka considered a moment. “You have a plan.”
The ghost of a smile made a brief appearance, then was gone.
“There’s no way to turn him back. You said so yourself.”
“Yes, that would be a complete waste of time. Instead, we lure him to Sadelöga.”
“And then what?”
“Then we’ll be waiting.”
The DC offices of Politics As Usual were on E Street NW. Soraya tried not to think as she rode up to the sixteenth floor along with a fistful of suits talking options, margin calls, and Forex strategies. She forced herself off as soon as the doors opened, striding right to the curving front banc formed of sheets of burl maple and stainless steel.
“Is Charles in?” she said to Marsha, the receptionist.
“He is, Ms. Moore,” Marsha said with a thoroughly professional smile. “Why don’t you have a seat while I call him.”
“I’m fine right here.”
Marsha gave her a brief nod as she dialed Charles’s extension. Even this close, Soraya could only hear an indistinct murmur. While she waited, she glanced around the reception area, even though she knew it well. Laminated plaques commemorating the online news agency’s Peabody- and Pulitzer-Prize–winning stories were everywhere in evidence. Her eye fell inevitably on the brilliant piece Charles had written two years ago, centering on a powerful but little-known Arab terrorist cell in Syria. Hardly surprising, since that was how he had come to her attention. She had called on him in order to appropriate at least some of his sources, with little result.
She sensed him then, as she always did, and her head came up, a smile on her full lips. He was tall and slender, with a crop of unruly and prematurely gray hair. He was, as usual, impeccably dressed in a midnight-blue suit, dove-gray shirt, and water-print tie in muted colors.
He beckoned to her as soon as he saw her, but there was something troubling in his smile that she couldn’t place and that sent a thread of disquiet through her. She began to question her decision. Part of her wanted to turn, enter the elevator, and never see him again.
Instead, she stepped forward and, with his hand lightly at the small of her back, walked with him down the hallway to his corner office. Just before she stepped inside, she saw the plaque affixed to the wall just to the right of the doorway: CHARLES THORNE, DEPUTY EDITOR IN CHIEF.
He closed the door behind him.
I need to get this over with as quickly as possible, she thought, before I lose my nerve. “Charles,” she said as she sat down.
“It’s fortuitous you came here just now.” He raised a hand, forestalling her, and carefully and deliberately drew the blinds. “Soraya, before you say anything—”
Oh, no, she thought. He’s going to give me the “I love my wife” thing. Not now, please not now.
“I have to tell you something in strictest confidence. Yes?”
Here we go. She swallowed hard. “Yes, of course.”
He took a deep breath and let it out with a kind of thin whistling sound. “We’re being investigated by the FBI.”
Her heart lurched in her chest. “We?”
“Polit
ics As Usual. Marchand.” The publisher. “Davidoff.” The editor in chief. “Me.”
“I…don’t understand.” Her pulse was beating an unpleasant tattoo in her temples. “What for?”
Charles ran a hand across his face. “Wiretapping—specifically victims of crimes, prominent celebrities, NYC police, some pols.” He hesitated, pain in his eyes. “Nine-eleven victims.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Sadly, I’m not.”
She felt hot, as if she had contracted a tropical fever. “But…is it true?”
“You and I have to…” He coughed, cleared his throat. “We have to go our separate ways.”
“But you—” She shook her head, her ears ringing. “How could you possibly—?”
“Not me, Soraya. I swear it wasn’t me.”
He’s not going to answer my question, she thought. He’s not going to tell me. And then, looking into his eyes, she heard his voice again: “We have to go our separate ways.”
Stumbling, she struck the backs of her knees on a chair and she sat down, quickly and hard.
“Soraya?”
She did not know what to say, did not even know what to think. She was struggling simply to breathe normally again. In the space of a heartbeat, her world had been turned upside down. They couldn’t separate, not now. It was unthinkable. All at once, she remembered a dinner she’d had with Delia the night after she had met Charles.
“Are you insane?” Delia had said, wide-eyed. “Charles Thorne? Seriously? Do you know who he’s married to?”
“I do,” Soraya had said. “Of course I do.”
“And still you…?” Delia had broken off in disbelief.
“We couldn’t help ourselves.”
“Of course you could help yourselves.” Delia was angry now. “You’re adults.”
“This is something that adults do, Dee. That’s why they call it—”
“Don’t,” Delia had said, holding her palms up toward her friend. “Dear God, don’t you dare say it.”
“It isn’t a one-night stand, if that makes a difference.”
“Of course it makes a difference,” Delia had said, a bit too loudly. Then she lowered her voice to a fierce whisper. “Dammit, Raya, the longer this goes on, the worse it becomes!”
