The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(17)
Yael’s stomach turned to ice.
Eli said, “Brave woman, living on an isolated settlement. Especially when her husband is away so often.”
She looked at the side of Eli’s head. Her heart was racing, her muscles tensed and ready for action. His scalp was covered with a faint black stubble. She clenched her right hand, feeling the nails push into her palm as her thumb locked the fingers into place. One swift jab, just above his ear, and Eli would topple sideways. Her left hand following instantly, a sideways hammer smashing into his nose. Or his throat. His thorax would crack and swell. Without an emergency tracheotomy he would die. A single second, that was all she needed. And a single second was about all she would have until the bodyguards, the fake lesbians, and the woman with the phone rushed her.
She controlled her breathing and let her hand slacken. “You just crossed a line, Eli.”
“Good. Because if anything happens to her, it will be your fault.”
“No, Eli. It will be your fault. And the whole world will know it.”
Eli frowned. “Meaning?”
Yael was outnumbered and outgunned. But she had other weapons. The one thing that Eli feared was publicity. In the age of social media, a single photograph linking him to the deaths of his enemies would be all that was needed to end his career in the shadows, which was the only place where he knew how to operate. “I want to show you something. It’s in my purse. Don’t worry, I’m not armed. Can I get it?”
Eli nodded. “Slowly.”
She reached inside her bag, took out her phone, and pressed several icons, one after another. “Before you try and grab this you should know that it will be a waste of your time. I have uploaded this file to a secure website. I need to log on to the website every day by midnight, with a coded password that changes every day, or this file gets sent out on Twitter.” Showing Eli the phone screen, his face peering out, she swiped and a list of names, dates, and places appeared.
He tried to grab the phone, but Yael pulled it away. The website and the password were a bluff, but the information in the file was real and, she knew, enough to unnerve him.
““Your world is shrinking, Eli. I don’t think you will be returning to London, Paris, Manila, S?o Paulo, or Berlin for some time. But nowadays everyone leaves a data trail. Even you. People are getting interested in you, Eli. Clever people who can put two and two together.”
Eli’s eyes glittered with fury. “I already told you in Zone, Yael. Your fantasies are dangerous. Very dangerous.”
She turned to face him again. “They are not fantasies, Eli. They are facts. These people died. You were there. And then you left, went somewhere else. Where more people died. When did you turn into a killer, Eli? Did it start that day in Gaza?”
*
She stands next to the boy, holding his hand, stroking his hair, calming him, as the bomb-disposal expert disconnects the vest. He places it to one side and orders the boy to undress. The boy looks at Yael; she nods, squeezes his hand.
The bomb-disposal expert swiftly checks the boy all over.
Sweat runs down her back and into her eyes. The previous month two soldiers had been killed here. The explosives had been inserted into the bomber’s rectum. By the time they had stripped him and seen the wire, it was too late.
The bomb-disposal expert stands back. He signals to the second man in the Jeep: The boy is clear.
*
Eli’s voice was cold. “That boy was wired. He would have blown us all to pieces. Or taken out a bus. Or a playground full of schoolchildren. Or a café. You remember Café Mizrahi on Shenken? We used to go there with Ilona. They reopened it. We can go back together. I’ll bring flowers and spread them around where they picked up what was left of her.”
Yael felt the anger and guilt rise up inside her. She dropped the phone back in her purse. “Do you think this is what she wanted, Eli? The boy didn’t kill anyone. He was a child. A mentally handicapped child who had no idea what he was doing. And his bomb did not go off. Because I did my job,” she said, her hands white as she gripped the slats of the park bench. “And then you did yours. Whatever that is.”
Eli slipped the gun back into his shoulder holster. “Today is Thursday. We are reasonable people. We understand that you need to clear your desk at work. Pack up your things. Say your goodbyes.” He reached inside his jacket pocket and handed a piece of paper to Yael. She unfolded the printed sheet. “You are lucky. Business class. Monday afternoon. Direct to Tel Aviv from JFK. I have to travel economy.”
Yael slowly tore the ticket into shreds, and let the breeze carry the scraps of paper away. Eli said nothing, only looked across the park and scratched the right side of his nose. She followed his gaze, watched the blond woman nod then press down on her phone screen.
“I’m sorry about your date.” He did not sound very sorry at all. “Especially after you made so much effort.” Eli stood up and retrieved another folded piece of paper and handed it to her. “This just arrived in Sami Boustani’s e-mail in-box.”
7
“Yael? Is that really you, Sis?” Noa’s voice was thick with sleep. “It’s four o’clock in the morning here. Are you OK?”
Yael glanced at her watch: it was just after nine. Israel was seven hours ahead. She pulled a face. “I’m so sorry. I completely forgot. I just wanted to hear your voice.” The voice of someone who simply loves me and isn’t trying to use, manipulate, or threaten me, she almost added.