Abigail – The Avenging Agent: The agent appears again (20 page)

“How’s he doing?” he asked without
mentioning his name, knowing that they understood who he was referring to.

Michael made a “so, so” gesture with his
fingers and quietly add:

“You did the right thing by getting away
without connecting yourself to him and without being noticed.”

Timmy pulled a chair from the adjacent
table and sat down beside them.  He spread the page out on the table and in the
minutes that followed they discussed how to use it.  A few minutes later,
Michael nodded to the waitress for the bill and after he had paid, Tim got up
and hissed:

“We will meet at the Blue” and then he
left.  Michael muttered:

“We will meet there and don’t forget
that your nickname is ‘Noodle,'” and he also left the place.

Karma stared at him and wondered how
Michael knew the nickname that had stuck to him, so long ago, at the tavern of Hamis
the Kurd.  He couldn’t remember having told anyone about it, either.

The “Blue-Bay” was located on the street
close to the “McDonalds” restaurant that they departed from separately, one
after the other.  Karma realized that this was another method to shake off potential
surveillance.

It was a small hotel, no different from
many others in the area.  Its distinctive feature was the color blue.  The
lights softly illuminated everything with a pale blue hue. 

Timmy sat below an impressive antiqued
gilt-framed oil painting and Karma approached his table.  As soon as he sat
down, Timmy continued talking as if he hadn’t stopped talking while they moved
to a new location.

“It’s clear that this code is temporary
and will be replaced with a new one when you reach the area,” he said as he
beckoned to the waiter.

“Aha.”

Timmy extended his arm to shake hands
with him and when he held his hand, he felt a device pressing the palm of his
hand.  Timmy explained quietly:

“This device will also be exchanged from
time to time to prevent eavesdropping on your calls.”

“Does Lucy also have one like this?”

“Perhaps.”  He observed Karma and
noticed him trembling and said:

“You’ll be fine, I’m sure. By the way,
she’s called Naima.”

“How will I get to her?  Is she waiting
for me? Does she know I’m coming?” Karma let loose a string of questions and
was still not at ease.

“Without planning, you will join one of
her groups and sign up for a trip as an innocent tourist.”

“I see.”                       

 “Trust
her, she’s very professional.  You can learn much from her.”

            Two
days later he boarded a plane.  He memorized the temporary address where he
would stay in Azerbaijan and reminded himself that his final plan was to get to
Iran, where ‘Lucy’ the tourist guide operated.

* *
*

“Forgive me, Ma’am, someone left a
message asking you to contact him today.” The clerk at the curved counter
called out to Abigail.  She called immediately and listened to what was said.

“Tomorrow at eight o’clock in the
morning, a group will await you at the train station near the cable car.  I
will also be there.”  Said the voice, without giving his name.

When she put down the receiver, she
thought that she now knew two things:  Firstly, at long last the action was
beginning, and secondly, at long last she was no longer alone. 

She was curious to discover who the man was,
but the following day, there was not the slightest hint of anyone who would
justify a guess.

Eight couples waited for her on what was
the second day of their tour.  She had spent the first day with them on the
frozen lakes of the Tatra Mountains and at Tatranska Lomnica, a beautiful small
resort town, and the capital of the High Tatra Mountains.  When she arrived,
she heard two women conversing nearby. They were talking in a familiar language,
in Hebrew.

“Listen, it’s beautiful here! I never
imagined it would be so magnificent.”

“Yes, look at the hotels, the shops, and
the view – they are straight out of the movies!”

A trace of a smile rose to Abigail’s lips,
but she turned away, hiding that she understood them and took care not to
reveal the fact.

When they proceeded to the cableway, she
was worried by the dark clouds gathering above.  The pallid sun appeared to be
losing its battle and was about to disappear. But, when they got off the cable
cars, the sun had come out again and Abigail decided to regard the cold winds
as a fleeting inconvenience.

“Brrr, it’s cold here,” a tall man
remarked as he bent down to avoid the branches blowing in the wind.  Abigail
thought he looked familiar and assumed that he probably only resembled someone
else.

The wind grew stronger and the branches
around them blew wildly and whipped them as they walked.  An hour later, heavy
drops of rain began falling and Abigail gathered them all together under the
huge branches of the conifers, which didn’t offer much protection. 

“I suggest we shorten the route. 
Instead of continuing along these winding paths, we can take a shorter route and
walk straight down the slope to the track below.”

The people gathered round and looked in
the direction she was pointing and voiced their doubts.  The incline seemed
dangerously steep to them and Abigail decided to slide down and examine it for
herself.  She slid down the wet, muddy sand of the slope that joined the
trails, getting caught by wet bushes on her way.  When she landed on the lower track,
she understood that it was unsuitable and even dangerous.

“No, no, don’t come down!  Stop, don’t
do what I did!”  She yelled and waved her hands to stop them.  Confused, the
people halted.  Two of them were already on the stony terrain and were trying
to make their way back to the upper footpath.  A man from the group put out his
arm to help pull them to the top, and then, quickly slid down the slope and
came to a halt beside Abigail.

“May I help you, Ma’am?” she heard him
ask politely.

When she looked into his eyes, she
recalled that she had seen their unique honey color in another group she had
taken touring.  He yanked her sleeve and turned her chin with his finger to
another trail she hadn’t seen before.  Abigail was astounded because she knew
it wasn’t the accepted custom to touch a woman in public.

“Excuse me, Sir, who are you?” she
inquired and almost asked ‘Why are you interfering with my business’?  But, the
question just didn’t come out of her mouth.

“I thought you needed help.  Sorry,
Naima, I was mistaken.” He said, and saw how her eyes grew round in surprise. 

“I’m Karma,” she heard him say.  But his
back was turned to her, as he made his way back to the others. 

The rain stopped, a cold wind blew and sprayed
the raindrops from the wet branches on them.  Abigail stopped and turned to the
people.

“Listen, the next five minutes are going
to be very wet but, believe me, what follows later will make it all
worthwhile.  We will go from here to one of Nature’s great wonders and it would
be a pity to miss it.”

The trail wound upwards and when they
reached the peak, a blue reservoir appeared below them, a magical lake
surrounded by a mountain range.  The people were dumbfounded for a second and
then cried out in wonderment.

“Good God, it‘s as if someone poured it
from above!  It’s like a giant well!  How is it contained in that hollow?”

The man with the amber eyes stood beside
her and declared:

            “Yes, it really was worth
it.”

            The truth was that Abigail
had dragged the people to the hollow filled with water from the lake because
she remembered that the village of the disabled, which Aisha told her about,
was in this region. She wanted to reach it and find the path leading to the unusual
waterfall, and she stood there looking around but couldn’t find it. 

“Are you hungry?  Would you like to take
a short break?”  She asked.

She led her group to a nearby clearing.
The terrain was transected and furrowed, and she explained that the soil was
chalky and the rare rainfall in the region created dugouts, tunnels, and
hollows and split the land round it in a unique way.

“Sit wherever you wish and rest for an
hour,” she suggested. 

When they began walking between the
crannies and the openings to the tunnels, she hurried away from there and went
to look for the trail that turned northwards and discovered it after a minute’s
walk.

The winding path ascended briefly,
followed by a gradual descent.  She continued walking for a minute or two and
then heard the sound of falling water but was unable to see the waterfall.  The
dark place where she stood was shaded by huge tall-topped trees.  When she
stopped and listened, she heard parrots shrieking and the screams of animals.

‘This is a real jungle,'
she said to herself but she decided to stop there and committed the place to
memory before she turned back to join her group.

On their way back she glanced from time
to time at the man, who had impressed her and decided to approach him at the
end of the day.  But, after they all dispersed, he also disappeared from sight.

Back in her room, she thought of what
had happened that day again and remembered his eyes and how he had pulled her
sleeve and touched her face.  Questions about him gave her no respite and when
she undressed and got into the shower, she did not understand what was
happening to her.

Thoughts of him aroused her desire for
his touch.  He had awakened her dormant yearning and longing for love and when
she stood in the shower, she imagined she was standing beside him, under the
water that prickled her back.  She laughed to herself as she imagined how she
would look beside him, her dark skin beside the paler color of his. Then she
soaped and scrubbed her body hard until it hurt and gradually made the water
cooler to slow the blood coursing wildly in her veins until it ran completely
cold.  She remained standing like that in the shower to calm and cool her
thoughts, as she caressed and stroked herself, imagining that her hands were his.

She continued thinking of him till she
fell asleep.  She tried to guess why he had pulled her clothes and allowed
himself to touch her and mused that she would like to look into his
amber-colored eyes again.

The truth was that all Karma knew about
Abigail, was only what the Organization had told him, her nickname and that she
worked as a tourist guide.  Yesterday, he suddenly recalled where he knew her
from.  He thought that she was the woman he met more than six years ago in the
Nevada Desert, at San’s home, when he was still a recruit in the ranks of the ‘Mujahedin-e-Khalq.' 
It was difficult to forget her unique greenish eyes.

Abigail woke up later than usual the
next day.  Her head hurt and her nose was blocked and runny and she had to wipe
it all the time.  Possibly, the icy shower she had taken to cool off her
thoughts also caused her to catch a cold.  After sneezing several more times,
she decided to remain in her room for the day. Then she realized she had no one
who could cancel the day’s tour or lead it in her place.

A knock on the door interrupted her
thoughts
and she called out weakly:

“Just a minute.”

She wrapped herself in a gown and when
she dragged herself to the door, it flashed through her mind that she was alone
in the room.  She stopped at once behind the closed door and asked quietly:

“Min Hada?”  (Who is it?)

“It’s me, Karma,” she heard and her lips
opened in surprise.  The stone in the ring on her finger grew greener till it
turned bottle green and was proof of her excitement.

“Karma, Ana mari’d, (I’m ill),” she told
him and rested her forehead on the door. “I won’t be able to lead the group
today.”

A slight smile glimmered across her face
as she thought that the cause of her illness was now standing behind the door
that separated them.  Suddenly, without thinking, she turned the doorknob and
peeped at the man through the narrow opening.  She knew that here, a man would
not enter a woman’s room.  However, something about his appearance, perhaps his
expression, caused her to widen the opening and allow him in.  She glanced, at
once, down the corridor to check if someone had noticed, but there was not a
soul to be seen.

In the room, there was a chair and an
armchair and Abigail stood behind the armchair and patted its upholstered back,
inviting Karma to sit down but, he remained standing.  He hesitated whether he
should mention recalling yesterday that they had met before.

“Who are you?” she asked, and
immediately added, “Why did you interfere yesterday during the tour?”

“I was worried about you, Lucy.”

Karma saw how her eyes suddenly lighted
up and a smile crossed her lovely lips.

“Starting tomorrow, you will prepare for
the assignment,” he informed her, and when she still did not react, he wondered
whether she had heard him, and he heard her saying:

“Yes, I have already received the link
regarding the assignment.”

“No, there’s been a change.  I will
replace you on the tour and the day after tomorrow, you will go out for
training with regard to your assignment in the Persian Gulf.”

“Oh,
really?”

*
* *