Authors: Russell Blake
Maya slipped into the civilian clothes and adjusted her blouse, then pulled on her running shoes. She stood and did a pirouette, arms extended.
“Well? What do you think?”
“I think I wish I filled out that outfit like you do.”
Nava drove into Tel Aviv, and Maya realized just how far out of town their mystery base was. Twenty-five minutes later, Nava shut off the engine outside a baby blue building with a neon sign above the entrance that featured a prancing pony. The parking lot was three-quarters full, the vehicles mostly economy cars and older SUVs.
“What is this place?” Maya asked, eyeing the surroundings.
“It’s just a low-key bar that has live music Thursdays and Fridays. Nothing trendy, just cold beer and a mediocre band.”
When they pushed through the door, amplified acoustic guitars welcomed them. A trio of scruffy young men in their mid-twenties on a postage-stamp stage were doing their best imitation of MTV unplugged. Their harmonies were surprisingly good, and Maya decided she liked the place, even if it was more crowded than she would have preferred. Nava spotted an opening at the long bar and took Maya’s hand, leading her to the gap with the authority of a mother hen. They sat on the hardwood stools and studied a blackboard with the names of two dozen beers handwritten on it, and Nava signaled to the bartender, a voluptuous twenty-something brunette wearing a Harley T-shirt and jeans that could have been airbrushed on.
“What do you want, Maya?” Nava asked.
“What are you having?”
“Probably just a Goldstar.”
Maya nodded. “That’s fine. I’m not a big drinker.”
The woman took their order and brought them two frosty bottles. Nava slid some shekels across the bar top, and the young woman disappeared with the money, off to attend to other patrons. Nava held her beer up in a toast.
“Congratulations on making it this far. The others didn’t. You’re now in rarefied air, young lady.”
Maya clinked the neck of her bottle against Nava’s and smiled. “I’m looking forward to the rest. I’m enjoying myself. I like to learn, and a lot of it is really fascinating.”
“Which is why you’re doing so well. Most would view it as an ordeal.”
Maya took a pull on her drink and set it down. “Not me. I look forward to every new lesson.”
Nava glanced around. “Well, enjoy your night out. Tomorrow’s a return to reality.”
“I really appreciate your inviting me. It’s a nice break.”
They listened to the music, nursing their beers as the rowdy crowd swelled with new arrivals. A tall, muscular man with a crew cut slid in next to Maya and tried chatting her up, but she was having none of it, and after a few minutes his tone got annoyed.
“What, you think you’re too good to talk to the likes of me?” he demanded, his friendly demeanor taking an ominous tone, the alcohol on his breath slightly sour.
“No. I’m not looking for company or a new friend. Don’t take it personally,” Maya said, keeping her words soft, trying to extricate herself.
“Yeah, I should have known you were here with your girlfriend. I guess I don’t need to ask who’s on top.”
Maya returned her attention to Nava, who was talking to a woman ordering a drink next to her. The man grabbed Maya’s arm and squeezed. “I’m talking to you. It’s rude to ignore someone who’s talking to you.”
Maya inclined her head toward the man. “If you don’t let go of me, I’m going to break every bone in your hand,” she said and smiled for the first time, her green eyes flashing in the subdued light.
The thug increased his grip. Nava sensed that something was wrong and was turning toward the man when Maya pushed back from the bar and shook off his hand. Her stool crashed backward onto the floor, and the band stopped playing.
“I told you. Take your hands off me. That was your one warning,” Maya said. Another man wearing a black leather jacket approached them and set his beer on the bar before grabbing the one hassling Maya.
“Come on, man. We can’t afford any trouble. She’s not worth it,” he warned.
Maya’s assailant eyed the door, where two bouncers were making their way through the throng. “You’re right. Who needs these stuck-up bitches, anyway? I was just being friendly. Screw ’em.”
The man’s friend guided him toward the exit. They were met halfway by the bouncers, who escorted them the remainder of the way. A young man with longish hair and three days’ growth of beard picked up the stool and placed it next to Maya, who thanked him before taking her seat. The band resumed its strumming, and the buzz of tension in the air quickly melted away. Maya took another drink of her beer and realized that her heart rate had remained completely normal during the conflict.
“What was that all about?” Nava whispered.
“A guy who’d had too much to drink and couldn’t take no for an answer.”
An hour later and two more beers consumed, Nava yawned and glanced at her watch. “You about ready? Tomorrow will be here at six in the morning, as always.”
“Yeah. I’m good.”
“I’m going to the bathroom. See you outside?”
“Sure.” The bar was now full, voices shouting to be heard over the music, the gathering young and filled with possibility as the night really kicked into gear. Maya considered the sea of faces as she eased through the packed bodies. She felt no kinship with these innocents, who were comfortably oblivious to the world, their focus tonight on finding someone to pair off with, and if not, to numb themselves with enough alcohol to blunt the sting of failure. They were nothing more than children in adult bodies, their challenges trivial compared to what she faced every day, the world a safe playground designed for their amusement, not the deadly swamp she knew it to be.
In the parking lot the night air was cool as she exited into the dark. The bar had been a welcome diversion from her usual routine, and she was grateful to Nava for taking her off the base.
A meaty hand reached from behind and clapped hard over Maya’s mouth, preventing her from screaming as the other held a knife against her chest. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the friend of the thug from the bar leering at her from a few feet away, a tire iron swinging menacingly as he smirked from the shadows.
“Give me any trouble and I’ll cut your throat,” her assailant hissed, his breath in her ear hot and pungent.
“Get her in the car. Hurry,” the tire iron wielder said, and the thug’s grip on her tightened as he manhandled her to a nearby van.
Maya slammed her head backward, crushing his nose. His hold on her weakened for a critical instant, and she pivoted and drove her elbow into his jaw, causing it to snap shut with an audible pop. She followed through with a knee to the groin, putting all her power into the blow, but the man didn’t go down. Instead, he rabbit-punched her in the ribs and parried with the switchblade, but she was already in motion, fighting through the pain as she delivered a brutal kick to his abdomen.
The wind went out of him with an
oof
. She barely dodged the swinging tire iron as the second man rushed her. The rough surface grazed her shoulder as she blocked the blow and brought her elbow down on his arm and then followed through with a stiff-fingered jab to the nerve meridian in the hollow of his neck. The metal rod clanged against the asphalt as he dropped it and tumbled forward, the strike having had its intended effect, short-circuiting his responses as effectively as switching off a light.
Maya returned her attention to the man with the knife, and she was preparing to deliver a kick that would shatter his wrist when a familiar voice called from the van.
“Maya. Enough. Stop, now.”
She peered into the darkened interior. Gurion sat inside, a wan smile on his wrinkled face. He held up his hands and clapped them together softly in muffled applause. Nava came running from the bar entrance and stopped at her side. Maya stared at the two men moaning on the ground, and then eyed Gurion.
“I should have known. This was all a setup,” she said.
Nava nodded. “I’m sorry, but yes, it was. It’s one thing to spar under controlled conditions, another to have to perform after a few drinks in a real-world situation.”
“Needless to say, you did well,” Gurion said. “Now get out of here. I’ll help these boys up. Although it looks like at least one of them is going to need medical attention.”
“He’s lucky I didn’t kill him. I opted for nonlethal force, obviously.”
Gurion grunted. “Obviously. Now move. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, do we?”
Nava led Maya to the car in silence, and once they were underway, she turned to Maya and considered her profile.
“That was impressive. I think you might have a talent for this line of work.” Nava paused. “But don’t get cocky. Never get cocky. There’s always someone who’s better than you. Just remember that, if you remember anything, and your odds of survival will increase exponentially. Never assume your adversary isn’t at least as good as you are, and respect the time he’s invested in training much like yours. If you make it into the field, which it looks like you will, keep that in mind. There’s always someone better.”
Maya nodded silently, her hand and ribs aching. She would take Nava’s advice to heart, though, along with another tidbit that perhaps wasn’t the intended one, but was vivid nonetheless: suspect everyone. Nothing could be taken at face value, and becoming complacent, if even for an instant, was a mistake.
The tires hummed on the asphalt as the car ate up the road, the flash of occasional oncoming headlights brightening Maya’s face before the interior darkened again. Even in a world where she’d had to be self-sufficient from childhood, she’d never felt more alone. Nobody could be trusted, and she would always assume an ulterior motive in the actions of others.
Because in the end, everyone was self-serving, and it was her job to figure out what their angle was before they could slip a blade between her ribs.
Same as it had always been.
Chapter 23
Maya packed her rucksack with the clothes she’d purchased on a shopping outing with Nava the prior day. Her three months of training had drawn to an end, and she’d passed with flying colors – as had only two of the original seventeen men who’d started the course. There had been no graduation ceremony, no party, just a few quiet words from Nava and Gurion, congratulating her and wishing her well, and then a photo shoot – numerous head shots that could be used to create identification documents, as well as full body shots in a variety of outfits, including several in skimpy dresses and high heels.
“It’s all routine. We need as many different looks as possible. Everything from virgin to streetwalker,” Nava had assured her.
After the session, a middle-aged man with leonine hair and deep worry lines etched into his weathered face had entered and introduced himself as Lev, her new superior officer, and informed Maya that she would be receiving details of her first mission as a Mossad operative within forty-eight hours. In the meantime, a small apartment had been leased for her in a middle-class neighborhood in Tel Aviv, which she could use as her own while in town – presumably between assignments. He’d given her a new identification and cover story: a student and part-time administrative assistant named Hadara Meyer. Maya was no more – her existence had been expunged from the records, her fingerprints deleted from the databases, any photographs purged. She was a ghost, existing in a shadow world of duplicity and subterfuge, amorphous as a wisp of smoke.
Maya carried her things out to a small white rental car and, after a final glance at what had been her home for the last ninety days, slipped behind the wheel and drove away, never to see the sad little group of buildings again. She had no idea what the future held, but she was now part of an elite group and had earned her place against all odds.
The apartment was tidy and simply furnished, the building anonymous, in an area inhabited by office workers and young families. Part of her new identity had consisted of a wallet with a wad of high-denomination bills and two credit cards, and she was advised that her monthly salary beginning immediately would be automatically deposited into an account that was separate from the operational one linked to the cards.
Lev had given her an orientation that lasted three hours, and by the time he was done, she understood that she would be unlikely to meet anyone further up the chain of command – Lev was the court of final appeals and had complete authority over her operational life and, as far as she was concerned, was the closest thing to God walking the planet.
She spent her day buying groceries and small items for the apartment, trying to make it a little homier, and she realized that for the first time since she was fourteen she had her own place – something she didn’t have to share with others. A part of her felt surreal and vaguely uncomfortable in a space that was all her own, where nobody had the right to come through whenever they wanted to inspect her possessions.
Maya unwrapped a screwdriver she’d purchased and removed all the electrical outlets, painstakingly inspecting them for listening devices, and then repeated the process with the overhead light fixtures, standing on a tall wooden stool. Only when she was finished did she allow herself to relax, satisfied that the place was clean. She had no reason to believe the Mossad cared about her personal life to the degree of placing surveillance equipment in the apartment, but her training had made an impression on her, and part of it was to take nothing for granted.
That night she made a simple meal and sat watching television, the doors locked, blinds closed, the screen flickering in the darkness with the sound barely on. She knew it was silly, that nobody was trying to get her and that she was safe, but still she had a trace buzz of unease, and when she finally went to sleep, she took a long bread knife from the kitchen and placed it on the nightstand next to her.
The next morning the cell phone Lev had given her as part of her kit rang as she was finishing her sit-ups, having completed her morning run earlier. She punched it to life, her face shiny from perspiration.