Blood Flag: A Paul Madriani Novel (7 page)

“What does that mean?” says Owen.

“I’m not sure if anyone actually sent her.”

“Are you telling us she went out there on her own?” says Noland.

“No. Not exactly. You had to know Sofia. She was a self-starter. If something needed to be done, she did it. She didn’t ask. It was one of the things I liked about her. You didn’t have to sit there and tell her what to do. But . . .”

“But what?” says Owen.

“Like every other good thing in life, it had its downsides. There was always the risk that she might take on more than she could handle.”

“Did she?” asks Noland.

I think about it for a moment. “Nothing serious. Couple of times. Little things I don’t even remember now. Occasionally I’d keep an eye on her. But she was learning fast. And I am gonna miss her.”

“But you say you didn’t send her out to the house to get the dog?”

“I knew she was going out, if that’s what you mean. I told her to be careful.”

“Why would you say that?” asks Noland.

I think about it for a second and then I lie. “Because she’d put in a long day at the office. She was probably tired. I didn’t want to see her get into an accident.”

A politician might call this spin, but I know better. Traffic was the least of my concerns. I was worried she might get tangled up with the city PD and their search of Brauer’s house, overextend herself, and get into trouble. But the bigger reason for cautioning her was probably embedded in my subconscious. It was never stated when I said goodbye to Sofia and she walked out of the office and disappeared down that path. But it looms large in my mind at this moment: the burglary, the one Emma told us about during her interview in the office. If there were people breaking into her house looking for the package, the small box, the key, and the piece of paper she described as an ID, then I should have known better. We all sat here and listened to her, Harry and I, and Sofia. We all heard it. But Harry was gone when Sofia left. I was the one who was here. I should have stopped her. Why the hell did I let her go? The answer comes bouncing back almost immediately. Because of the dog. If it had been anything else at that house we would have left it until this morning. It was a job for Herman, and then maybe only if he was packing heat. I wonder if Sofia thought about it. I will never know.

NINE

I
n a way it would be much easier if the cops determine without any question that Sofia was killed in some other place and for some other reason, that she never made it to Brauer’s house. I know it sounds selfish but I would sleep easier at night if I was sure that the hand of fate had intervened to lift me off the hook of guilt.

“Can I ask how she died?” I ask Owen.

“The medical examiner’s still out there with the body,” says Noland. “We don’t know yet.”

“Did you see her?” I look directly at Owen.

He glances up at me and nods.

“Then you must have some idea. What did your eyes tell you? Bullet wounds? Stab wounds? Blunt trauma?”

“Ligature marks around the throat, signs of cyanosis around the face, some swelling,” he says.

Sofia was strangled.

“Like I say, we won’t know for sure until the ME produces a report,” says Noland. “Where were you Friday night?” he asks.

Finally we get down to cases, clearing suspects, looking for alibis. “Is that when she was killed?” I ask.

“Answer my question,” says Noland.

“We’re not sure,” says Owen. “The two girls she lived with said she never came home Friday night. They didn’t see her Saturday or Sunday. No sign of her or her car around the apartment all weekend. According to them, the last time they saw her was Friday morning when she left for work.”

“Sounds like you’ve narrowed it down then.”

“Unless somebody snatched her and held her captive, in which case they could have killed her anytime over the weekend,” says Noland. “Which brings us back to the question, where were you Friday night?” he says.

“My girlfriend and I went to dinner and then took in a show. We had reservations for dinner at six. The name of the restaurant is on my calendar if you want to check. I’m sure I have a copy of the credit card receipt. We saw a movie. My girlfriend got the tickets on Fandango, paid for them with her credit card. I’m sure you can check that as well.”

“What did you see?” says Owen.

“Latest James Bond installment.” I give them the name of the theater and the location.

“What time did you get home?” he asks.

“I think it was about eleven thirty.”

“Did you go home alone or did you get lucky?” he says.

“I’m always lucky. We live together,” I tell him. “Going on five years now.”

“But you’re not married,” says Noland.

“Is that all right with you?”

“Absolutely,” he says. “That way there’s no marital privilege. She can be compelled to testify against you. What’s your girlfriend’s name?”

I give them Joselyn’s name, the fact that she’s a lawyer but doesn’t work for the firm, and some background on the Gideon Foundation, where she’s employed. “You seem to be working the theory of the jealous or jilted lover,” I say. “Can I ask why?”

“You saw the girl. She was a looker,” says Noland. “She have any boyfriends?”

“She was a sweet kid,” I tell him. “She was trying to work her way to law school.”

“Then she couldn’t have been that sweet,” says Noland.

“Cut it out, Jer.” Owen shoots him a look. “Do you know if she was seeing anyone steady?”

“I don’t know. She had her share of dates. Who they were, I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t pry into her private life. You might check with her roommates.”

“How did they get on, your Joselyn and Sofia?” Noland is relentless.

“I could tell you that Joselyn liked her, but that would be a lie.” He sits up in the chair and looks at me. “
Liked
is too mild a word. They bonded the minute they met. Birds of a feather, I suspect. They had a lot in common. They were both smart. Both of them came up the hard way. Poor families, worked hard. Joselyn is a lawyer. Sofia wanted to be one. They were supposed to go out to dinner tonight. Joselyn had a surprise she wanted to share with her. I’m afraid Joselyn might call before she comes by. If she does, I’m not sure I can take the call. I don’t want to have to tell her over the phone . . .” My voice starts to crack as it trails off.

“I understand.” Owen, his immense frame sitting in the chair, his head hung low, looks at me like a bear.

“What was this surprise?” says Noland.

“What difference does it make now?”

“I’d like to know.”

“You’re not going to like it.” Given his attitude toward lawyers.

“Humor me.”

“Joselyn was going to tell Sofia that she and I were willing to spring for a three-year scholarship, a full ride through law school, anyplace Sofia was accepted.”

“And you agreed to this?”

“Yeah.”

“What would something like that cost?” he asks.

“I don’t have any idea.”

“Then how did you know you could afford it?”

“I hate to break this to you, but money is not a problem,” I tell him.

“You must either have a thriving practice or you just bought your own printing press?”

“Something like that.”

As I sit there bantering with him, my mind turns over the constant question: How am I going to tell Joselyn that Sofia is gone, that she will never see her again?

“So what you’re telling us is everybody loved Sofia?” says Noland. “Someone musta had a problem with her.”

“You had to know her,” I say.

“Sorry I missed the chance.”

“So am I.” I look past him to the couch against the wall and think to myself, It was only three days ago she sat there fidgeting with her phone, fiercely independent, competent and confident, perhaps to the point of foolishness. We’ll never know. I can still see her, the ghost of Sofia, her gaze riveted on the tiny screen in her hand, the lost little girl struggling to get out, striving to grow, but now frozen forever in time.

TEN

L
ike the country it served, the headquarters of the Mossad, Israel’s principal intelligence agency, was small. It consisted of a collection of modern high-rise buildings, dark obelisks, each connected to the other like modules on a space station. It was located in an agricultural area of orchards and farm fields south of the city of Tel Aviv, not far from the Mediterranean coast.

The agency itself was highly compartmentalized. Many of its functions and units operated from outstations spread throughout the country as well as abroad. Operational personnel from these outliers seldom mixed with people from headquarters. Israel didn’t possess a Cheyenne Mountain, so dispersion was the standing rule. It not only facilitated mission secrecy; it also made it far more difficult for an enemy to destroy or completely blind Israel’s intelligence apparatus with a single devastating blow to one central facility.

The lights often burned late at night and into the wee hours at the offices atop the warehouse on the old quay at Haifa Harbor. It was more than fifty miles north of Tel Aviv. Above the docks, the company’s name in faded black paint was sprawled across the rust on the corrugated metal on the side of the building. Right to left in Hebrew it read: “Yamat and Co. International Traders.”

Up the rickety metal staircase at the outside of the building, the company’s managing director, Uri Dahan, waited for his assistant, who was down in the bowels of the warehouse running an errand.

At fifty-two, Dahan looked every inch the harried businessman. He studied his reflection in the dark window overlooking the harbor. His once-thick black hair receded from his forehead like the tide pulling out ahead of a tsunami. The face peering at him out of the glass was etched with age lines on their way to becoming valleys. His two deep-set dark eyes resembled swirling black holes that could easily swallow any messenger bearing bad news. This was the only feature of his face he favored. At times a serious dose of intimidation was needed if you were going to get the job done. He paced the room and waited.

Dahan was a former fighter pilot and veteran of the Israeli Air Force who spoke three languages, including nearly perfect American English. He held an aeronautical engineering degree from the University of Colorado, and at one time attended the US Army’s War College at Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania. After his flying days ended, Uri joined the Aman, Israel’s military intelligence agency. Six years later he was recruited by the Mossad.

Now he was head of K, one of the principal outstations located in northern Israel. K Station functioned under Mossad’s “Collections Department.” As such, it was engaged in overseas espionage as well as counterterrorism. Though very few even within the Mossad knew where the station was located, and almost none knew the identity of its personnel, there were some who believed that it had connections with “Kidon,” part of the Mossad’s Caesarea branch.

Kidon was rumored to handle overseas “wet work,” foreign assassination whenever such was deemed necessary. Not much was known about the secretive unit or whether it even actually existed other than in name, which was bandied about in the spy press from time to time. Officially the Israeli government denied its existence or that they ever sanctioned assassinations. But then, of course, so did nearly every other government on the planet.

Dahan heard the elevator as it opened onto the hallway outside. Seconds later the door opened and Josef Tal, his assistant, came in. He was breathless, holding what appeared to be two pages in his hand, printouts from the code room downstairs.

“Did they find it?” Dahan’s dark eyes bore down on his young assistant.

Tal looked at him, grimaced, and then shook his head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“There was interference,” said Tal. “Someone else was there. According to the cable from Ari, our man was not alone.”

“What?”

“Someone in the house.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t say.” Tal glanced down at the pages in his hand. “All he says is that someone else got in the way. He doesn’t say who. But he says he thinks he knows where it might be.”

“I should hope so by now. He’s been there twice. He should have gotten it the first time,” said Dahan. “Instead he tore the place up and came out with nothing. Who hired this guy?”

“Ari.”

“One more time on his background?” said Dahan.

The man assigned to enter the house was a private contractor, not a Mossad agent. Intelligence agencies almost always used cutouts on dirty work, breaking and entering and pilfering things their handlers wanted. If the burglar got caught in the act, it was much less embarrassing for the country involved.

“We talked about it.”

“I know,” said Dahan. “Tell me again.”

“He’s former US military, navy, if I recall correctly. He does private security work when he can get it, which apparently isn’t often. He works cheap, but according to Ari seems to know his way around.”

“Yes, and he’s failed twice now,” said Dahan.

“And as we discussed previously, he has a record, one prior arrest for burglary, no convictions. He got off on a technicality when the evidence of the theft was suppressed due to a bad search.”

Uri nodded. “Yes, I remember.” It was the reason Dahan instructed Ari to hire the man. The Mossad had a source who worked at the California Department of Justice. The source had access to the department’s criminal records system. Not only was Ari able to make certain that the record of the arrest was in the database, but his source who worked in the department’s information technology unit verified that the date the information was entered into the system corresponded to the actual date of arrest. It was not something keyed in more recently as part of a burglary sting for a police officer working undercover.

The Mossad couldn’t afford to have Ari, who was attached to the Israeli consul’s office in Los Angeles, scooped up in a burglary sting.

“I warned you there would be others looking for it,” said Tal.

“Yes. Yes. I know,” said Dahan. He wondered who they were. “Was our man compromised in any way? Can anyone identify him?”