Authors: Russell Blake
The last car he’d owned was a Citroen. It had lasted him eighteen years, which had convinced him that only the French knew how to build a decent car. Yet another one of his oddities, given what he knew about their reliability. But he was too old to change now, at sixty-two.
He carefully fastened his seatbelt and shook out a cigarette from the ever-present package he carried. His lungs felt like they were half-filled with molten lead much of the time, but it was another habit he had no interest in breaking. Sometimes the very things that destroyed a man were also those he would miss most when the grim reaper came. The damage had already been done. No point in quitting now.
Eli lit the filterless tobacco tube and blew a noxious cloud of smoke out his window, then shifted into reverse, backing the car out of its stall.
Another long day.
A shit day. In a shit year.
The sun was setting as he pulled onto the artery that led to his modest community. Elijah lived in a simple home with few creature comforts. His wife, God rest her soul, had died a decade before from a heart attack that had killed her before the pan she’d been holding hit the ground, and since then, he’d seen no reason to waste money on frivolities like new furniture or any decorations more recent than 1980s era. In a way, his Spartan life gave him a greater sense of control.
It wouldn’t be long now. Another year and he’d retire, and then lie on the beach somewhere while scantily clad young things brought him cocktails. Far from Israel. Maybe the Black Sea. He’d heard good things about the Black Sea. Varna. Odessa. It was a big world, where even an old man could indulge his appetites if he had the right kind of money.
It was dark by the time he made it through the dense evening traffic and neared his neighborhood. As he turned onto his street, a tire popped and the misshapen rubber began thumping against the wheel arch.
“Damn it,” he muttered to himself as he pulled the shimmying car to a halt by the curb.
Eli stubbed out the cigarette and put the transmission in park, then opened his door to inspect the damage. He had a spare, but wasn’t looking forward to having to change it at night in his business suit. If he didn’t ruin his clothes, he would probably hurt his back or cut his hand, knowing his luck.
Even in the dim light, he could see that the tire was history, flat as a board, its sidewalls mangled.
He would call the towing company. He had their number in his briefcase. There was no reason for him to get into roadside maintenance at this late stage of the game. Eli had never been good with mechanical things. That wasn’t going to turn around now.
A car rolled up behind him as he was surveying the damage. Turning to face it, he shielded his eyes against the bright glare as it eased to a stop.
The door opened, and he heard a female.
“Are you okay? Do you need some help?”
“No…I got a flat. Probably all the construction around here. The damned workers drop nails and screws everywhere off the backs of their trucks, and then people like me pay the price.”
“A flat? Do you need me to help you with it?” the beautiful young woman asked as she approached. The night wasn’t looking so bad after all, he thought as he studied the way her jeans formed to her hips. He realized he was staring and lowered his eyes, trying not to be too obvious.
“I could never–”
A blow he never saw coming struck his spine, sending a jolt of pain through his lower back with a shock. He gasped, fighting to stay upright. An arm wrapped around his neck, and a stinking rag clamped tightly over his nose and mouth.
Eli tried to struggle, but within a few seconds, everything got blurry, his knees buckled, and he was out.
~ ~ ~
When Eli regained consciousness, he was sitting on a hard wooden chair in a dark, empty room with his hands bound behind his back. He coughed and slowly opened his eyes all the way. Something in the corner moved, and he turned his head towards it.
“Eli Cohen. My, what a bad boy you’ve been.”
The voice was female, evenly-modulated, calm. The woman by the car.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“I’m one of the members of the team you sold down the river. One of the people who was condemned to death by your treachery.”
“I don’t understand. I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he protested, coughing again.
“Let’s not waste each other’s time, Eli. I know who you are, I know what you do with the Mossad, and I know that you’ve sold information to a Russian by the name of Mikhail Grigenko.”
“Mossad? What, are you crazy? I’m not with the Mossad. Where did you get that idea? Is this a robbery or something? I don’t have a lot of money, but–”
She stepped forward and slapped his face.
“Don’t lie to me. I know what you did – your betrayal of those who put their lives on the line for you. There’s no point in denying it. Denial will just piss me off, Eli, and believe me when I tell you that you don’t want to piss me off.”
He studied her face, and then his eyes widened.
“Ahh. So you recognize me. Which means you know what I am capable of. Are you afraid yet, Eli? You should be. Very afraid,” Jet warned.
“I told you I don’t know what–”
She slapped him again.
“You don’t get it, do you? You’re not going to make it out of this room unless you tell me what I need to know.”
David stepped out of the shadows. “Hello, Eli.”
The blood drained from Eli’s face. “You.”
“That’s right. So let’s not play any longer. I have some questions, and I need answers. You will answer the questions. If you aren’t cooperative, I’ll torture you until you’ll wish you had died ten times over. You know I’ll do it, so let’s make this simple. I know you betrayed the team. I know you had a hand in them being killed. I know Grigenko is behind it. My first question is, why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you betray them?”
Eli spat on the floor. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I swear I didn’t know he was going to sanction them…”
“Really? What did you think he would do? Send them flowers?”
Eli had nothing to say.
“My question stands. Why?”
Eli raised his head. “I’m not saying anything. You can’t do this, and you know it. You’re one of us. One of the good guys. This isn’t how we behave.”
David moved back behind Eli and picked something up, then turned back to Eli.
“You know what this is? Of course you do. This is a soldering iron. I just plugged it in. Within thirty seconds, it will get hot enough to light a cigarette. I’m going to start with your head and work my way down your torso. I’m not bluffing, and you’ll be very sorry if you decide to test me. Once I’m done with the iron, I’ll switch to using electricity, then acid. You know what I’m trained to do. Now I’m going to ask you one more time. Why did you betray the team? Why did you betray me?”
Eli gritted his teeth, refusing to speak.
David turned to Jet.
“Go watch out front and make sure that nobody is around. I don’t want to be interrupted.”
She nodded, and then paused, looking at Eli. “I guess next time I see you, you won’t have much of a face left. I wish I could say it was nice meeting you, Eli, but it wasn’t.”
She turned and walked to a door behind Eli. He heard it open and then slam shut. It echoed. They were in a large space – some kind of abandoned warehouse or industrial building.
“Don’t do this. There’s no coming back once you do this,” Eli pleaded in a quiet voice.
“That’s right. Just like there was no coming back from the hit squad that attacked me at one of the safe houses. Just like none of the team will come back from the dead.”
David moved closer to Eli.
“Last chance. Why?”
~ ~ ~
Jet returned to the room fifteen minutes later. The stink of burned flesh hung like a pall in the air, and David was leaning against the wall, sweating and breathing heavily. Eli’s head was resting on his chest, what remained of his mouth burbling incoherently.
“We should leave, David. It’s just a matter of time till they shut the town down and start searching every vehicle. You know there had to be a protocol for him to check in once he was settling in for the night. They’re sure to send someone around, and when they find his car…”
David looked up at her. “Okay. I’m finished with him, anyway. He told me everything I need to know.” He spat on Eli.
“What about him?”
“I’ll deal with it. Give me a minute. I’ll meet you by the car,” David said.
When he walked into the main section of the abandoned warehouse they’d commandeered for the interrogation, he looked grim. She studied his face before turning to the vehicle.
“Eli?”
“No longer with us.”
“That will save the Mossad the work of making him disappear, I suppose. There was no way he could have faced any sort of formal charges, was there?”
“Not a chance. He knew where far too many bodies were buried. This way is best. He won’t be talking to anyone about us, or helping the Russian any longer, and whenever someone finds him, the Mossad will keep it under wraps.”
“So now what?” she asked.
“We’ll need to get out of the country as soon as possible, but I don’t like our odds going through the border to Jordan on foot. Unlike Rani, I’m in databases, and for all I know, I’m already on a watch list because of the shooting at the safe house. And airports are obviously out. That means I’m going to need to make a few calls.”
“Tonight?”
“No better time I can think of.”
David walked over to the roll-up door and pulled the chain, raising it five feet. Jet started the car and inched out with the headlights off, and David ducked under the door as it dropped shut.
“What did he tell you?” she asked as they moved towards the highway.
“He confirmed some things I suspected, and some others I didn’t. For him, it was all about money. He claims Grigenko’s people got in touch with him two years ago and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Millions of dollars for helping, or a bullet to the brain if he didn’t – not just for himself, but also for his daughter, who lives in New York. They seemed to know about the existence of the team, but not our identities. The payment was blood money to sell us out.”
They rode in silence for a minute, then Jet pointed to the road signs. “Where to?”
David thought about it. “Haifa. There are a lot of hotels where we can get a room and we won’t be bothered…and they’ll take cash.”
She took the road north.
“Eli swore that the only information he provided them was the identities of the team members who participated in the Algiers attack. So Rain wasn’t the Russians. It was just coincidental timing. Looks like the cell figured out it had a problem and decided to do something about it.”
The road rumbled beneath their tires as she changed lanes.
“Eli also said that we were too late. That the Mossad had gotten wind of something in Belize. It wasn’t specific, but I think we can guess it has to do with the oil find.”
“Did he say why the Mossad was involved in that?”
“He didn’t know. It’s possible that there are others on Grigenko’s payroll in the agency. I believe he told us everything he knew. But he did say one thing that’s disturbing. He told me just before you came in. Right before he lost consciousness for the last time.”
“What was it, David?”
He adjusted his position in an effort to get more comfortable in the cheap seat.
“Eli said that whatever was going on in Belize was already in play. That there was no stopping it now.”
Chapter 22
The staff at the Leonardo hotel in Haifa were professional and courteous, and within minutes, Jet had paid for a mini-suite on the seventh floor overlooking the sea. The bellboy waited patiently to escort her to the room while she walked to the bank of pay phones near the lobby restrooms and slipped David a room key and a small brochure with the room number scrawled on it. On the outskirts of town, they had stopped at a store to buy a calling card for him to use, and now David was deep in conversation, the telephone handset locked to his ear.
The room was lavish compared to the dumps she had been staying in, and she spent a few moments on the balcony, watching the distant lights of boats in the Mediterranean, before returning inside and closing the curtains. She quickly undressed and then moved into the bathroom, where she stood under the pulsing shower spray, savoring the warm stream of water on her skin. She was in the process of rinsing the floral shampoo out of her hair when she heard the room door close and David’s voice call out.
“I’m taking a shower,” she called, and then the bathroom door opened.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to intrude. I’m done downstairs, so let me know when you’re finished. I want to rinse off, too.”
She caught his glance darting at her nude reflection in the mirror even as he appeared to be averting his eyes.
“I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
She reluctantly turned off the water and then stepped out of the shower. After rummaging through the hotel hospitality kit, she brushed her teeth, then realized that she’d left her clothes in the other room. Fortunately, the towels were oversized, and after blotting her hair, she wrapped one around her torso and opened the door.
“It’s all yours,” she said.
David stripped off his shirt and went into the bathroom. The incision looked a lot better. He was definitely healing quickly.
Jet sat down at the desk near the window and appraised her reflection in the mirror: wet hair hanging in her face, bullet graze on her shoulder almost healed. She inspected the gash on her hand. It was time for those stitches to come out. More than time.
She stepped over to the bed and switched on the television, tuning in to the local news before turning off the beside lamp. The shootout in Tel Aviv was all over the airwaves, and it was being described, as was the gun battle at the safe house, as a terrorist attack. An earnest government spokesman droned on and on about recent agitation and an increase in violent rhetoric from Islamic fundamentalists, and finished with an outraged promise to track down the groups responsible for the reprehensible attacks and deal with them swiftly and unequivocally.