The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(16)
“Why didn’t you finish the job? When Freshwater was in the hospital? Send someone in disguised as a doctor? What happened to your friends in Kidon?”
Hebrew for spear, Kidon was the agency’s secretive elite division, tasked with eliminating the most dangerous enemies of the State of Israel. Kidon operated as an autonomous unit with Mossad, and the very mention invoked fear across the Middle East. Kidon’s members ventured deep into enemy territory to place bombs in terrorists’ mobile phones or the headrests of their car seats; shot Syrian generals lazing on their beachside terraces from tiny boats a mile out to sea; stuck miniature mines on the side of cars carrying Iranian nuclear scientists before vanishing into the Tehran traffic on motorbikes.
Eli turned to Yael and placed his finger on her lips. “Mo … Yael, sshhhh. We don’t say that word. Especially in public places.”
She opened her mouth wider. The tip of her tongue flicked against the tip of his finger. He slid his finger farther inside her mouth and closed his eyes for a second. Yael bit down, feeling bone under the soft skin.
Eli gasped in pain and yanked his hand away. In a single, swift move, he reached inside his jacket, took out a Beretta .22, and jammed the muzzle into Yael’s right side, his hand still covered by the blue fabric.
She looked around the park. Eli’s team had all moved nearer. A male operative stood on both ends of the long, curved bench, the third positioned in front, ten yards or so away. The two tattooed women sat on the opposite side of the open space. The middle-aged woman in the pink jacket was still walking around with her phone clamped to her ear.
Yael laughed. “Put it away, Eli. You aren’t going to shoot me.”
“How do you know?”
Yael dropped her hand onto his thigh. “Because you can’t. And because I’m no use to you dead.” She leaned closer. She had an instinctive sixth sense that told her what other people were thinking, feeling, hoping, fearing. She knew every microsign indicating whether someone was lying or telling the truth: the subtle alterations in their breathing, the pitch of their voice, their pulse. When they were lying or dissimulating, everyone had a tell. Eli had been trained to cover his, of course. But she knew him better than anyone else, and under pressure he still looked his interlocutor in the eye for a fraction of a second too long, as if to prove he had nothing to hide. It was time to take control of this conversation. To use what she had now understood.
The three male operatives started walking quickly toward the bench. Eli held his left hand up. They stopped, but watched intently.
She continued talking, her hand still resting on Eli’s thigh, feeling the charge of his desire run through him. “So now that Freshwater is still alive, how are you going to start this war?”
Eli closed his eyes for a second before he spoke. Yael felt the pressure of the gun ease by a fraction. “What war?” he asked.
“Plan A, poisoning Freshwater, did not work. Plan B is war between America and Iran, which will wreck the peace process for good. The war that will keep the hard-liners in Israel and their Iranian opposites in power for a generation. They may hate each, but they share a common interest.”
He slid the gun barrel down Yael’s side, tracing the line of her rib cage. “Where do you get these fantasies from?”
“These are not fantasies. They are facts.” A memory flashed into her mind, of the news ticker on the taxi television. “My God. That was you, and your Iranian friends, wasn’t it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The car bomb in DC. That’s the start of plan B.” She turned to look at him.
He stared at her, unblinking, for a fraction of a second too long. “Let’s go. We can discuss this back in Tel Aviv.”
“Eli,” she said, her voice soft now, the undercurrent of sadness tangible. “Leave it. It’s over. You, me. Israel. Everything. It’s over.”
Eli sat back and exhaled slowly. “Yael, let me put aside my personal feelings here. We spent thousands of man-hours training you. You were one of the best ever. Top of your class. You remember your nickname? The Magician. Then you left, making everyone very pissed, at least until we placed you.”
She sat up. “Placed me? What does that mean? I got my job on my own.”
Eli laughed and put his left hand on Yael’s arm, still holding the Beretta against her with his right. “Of course you did. With just a tiny bit of help. You have had your adventures. But now it’s payback time.”
Yael shook his arm off hers. “Listen to me, Eli, and listen hard. I am not coming back to Tel Aviv.”
“Not even for a couple of days?”
“I am done with that life.”
“But that life is not done with you.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ll give you a couple of days to think about things. Meanwhile, I have some photographs and a little film that might help you make up your mind.” Eli gestured to the operative sitting at the end of the long curved bench. He stood up, walked over, and handed Eli an iPhone.
Eli passed the phone to Yael with his left hand. A video clip played, featuring a woman wearing the long sleeved blouse and ankle-length skirt of the religiously observant. She was darker and younger than Yael, but they shared the same physique and fine-boned beauty. Standing in the courtyard of a red-roofed villa, under harsh, bright sunlight, she was surrounded by children laughing and shouting.