The Pure (28 page)

‘Remember the British SIS?’ said Uzi suddenly. ‘The locks they asked us to test?’

‘Yeah, I was the one who drafted the report telling them the locks were impregnable.’ They both laughed, and Avner opened two fresh bottles of beer. Then their smiles faded.

‘The Office is only working for their own interests,’ Anver continued. ‘They’re not interested in anyone else. They’re not even interested in their own country. Just in war, money and sex.’

‘We were bastards,’ said Uzi, still thinking about the locks. ‘Bastards like the rest of them. And some of us are still bastards. Just in a different way.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Avner. ‘But soon you’ll be a hero bastard.’

‘A hero bastard,’ Uzi repeated. ‘Old school Mossad, eh?’

‘Old school Mossad.’

‘Cheers.’

By the time Uzi got up to go, twelve empty beer bottles sat on the floor. They weren’t drunk, but they weren’t entirely sober, either. Uzi felt a little unstable on his fee and he was already dehydrated. He slipped his R9 back into his waistband, and in the doorway the two men embraced for the last time.

‘Remember this,’ said Avner. ‘I’m not going to write it down. [email protected]. Six months, then you can reach me there. We’ll see how things have panned out.’

‘Sure,’ said Uzi. He descended a few stairs, then looked back. ‘Here’s hoping this fucking plan works.’

Avner walked down after him and took him by the elbow. ‘I know you won’t listen to me but I’ve got to say this one last time. If you must stick with that Liberty woman, at least persuade her to give up the business now. You have the money. Get the fuck out of the country. You have a passport in the slick I made you, you have plenty of money, you have everything you need. Take it, take her, and get out of here. Before it’s too late.’

Uzi grinned. ‘It’s never too late, Herr Gruber,’ he said. He turned his back, went down the stairs and jogged off unsteadily into the darkness.

By the time Uzi got back to Home House, it was late and the night staff was on duty. A party was taking place in the downstairs bar, and crowds of revellers were milling about in the foyer. Uzi, out of breath and sweaty, in running gear, attracted some glances, but the staff knew he was with Liberty. He was untouchable. He went up the ornate staircase to his room, finding that the jog had sobered him up.

In his room, he closed the door and stood listening to the muffled sounds of the party below. He was Uzi. He was Uzi, and he was rich. Just like that, he was rich. He had been calling on all his discipline to stop himself thinking about how he might spend the money, the sort of lifestyle he could buy. All that could wait. He didn’t want to get carried away, he didn’t want to lose himself; his life was in danger, and it would remain that way until his final breath.

His chest was still heaving from the exertion of the run, and he waited for his breathing to settle. He felt meditative, peaceful, perhaps on account of the endorphins. Tiredness was nowhere near him; these days he rarely went to bed before three. He logged on to the Internet and checked his balance; it was there. The money was there. It felt like a dream. On a whim, he decided to have a soak in the jacuzzi. He had never used one before but knew they were supposed to be beneficial after exercise. Normally he would have turned on the television as a matter of habit, but tonight he didn’t feel like it. He put his R9 in a drawer, peeled off his sodden clothes and flexed his muscles, stretching. He was already starting to stiffen up. In the bathroom he started to run the water, letting the steam float up around his face. When the bath was full he lowered himself in – it was almost too hot to bear – and turned on the jets. The bubbles reminded him of countless diving operations. He lay back in the near-scalding heat.

You got so lost in the struggle, he thought, you got so lost in the fight. In Israel everyone was struggling: this faction against that, this ideology against the other, races and peoples, tribes and brothers. Everything was enflamed by religion. He had never been inclined towards the spiritual himself, had never been able to understand how people could take superstitious claptrap seriously. But they did; and where he came from, it mattered. The influence of religious groups on the country was deep-seated, with little separation between church and state. The rabbis even gave pep talks before troops went into battle; Uzi had always resented that. They who had no knowledge of sacrifice; they who – on account of their ‘beliefs’ – were exempt from service themselves.

It was all connected, wasn’t it? The Holocaust, his parents, himself, all the operations he had ever done, the son he had never known. The religion. The winds of history had swept through his land, his people, for years, and he had been drawn into it as inevitably as everyone else. His time, of course, would pass, and history would continue, a relentless juggernaut, raising other people to take his place; this was a war of attrition, a life of no escape, a dead-end hell. He knew that Operation Regime Change would make no real difference. Even if it succeeded in its objectives, it wouldn’t be long before history interfered, sucked up all hope and kick-started the chaos. He was under no illusions. Yet at the same time he knew he could not do nothing; as an Israeli, even doing nothing meant doing something.

Pink-skinned and warm, Uzi raised himself from the bath and put on a dressing gown, his hair glistening with moisture like steel wool. In the bedroom, he poured himself a large rum cocktail and lay on his bed. He opened his laptop again. Nothing on the Israeli news sites; the story hadn’t broken yet. He was rich. Suddenly he had a feeling that was familiar from his Navy days, the sense that he was sailing in the direction of rough weather, that storm clouds were gathering on the horizon. He put down the laptop and lay on his back for a few minutes. He felt drained and warm, like a freshly bled carcass. He considered rolling a spliff, but changed his mind and sipped his rum cocktail. Then, although he rarely received anything, he decided to check his email.

There was one new message, from ‘ORC4367’ – Avner. ORC stood for Operation Regime Change; 4367 was his combatant number backwards, and multiplied by two. It had been sent just twenty minutes earlier. Uzi hesitated, then opened it. It read:
See attached. It turned up in the end. A bit late, I know. You don’t need to thank me. See you in another life. ORC4367
.

There was an attachment. Uzi ran it through his de-encryption software, and opened it. His heart missed a beat. It was Liberty’s file. But there was something wrong. As soon as Uzi saw it, his eyes widened and his rum cocktail slipped through his fingers to the floor, spreading and seeping into the carpet. He gripped the laptop with both hands, hoping that his eyes were deceiving him, feeling like he was going to be sick.

At the top, as usual, was Liberty’s background information: date of birth, nationality, place of residence, physical description, languages spoken, threat category, known aliases, immediate family. Then there was the intel itself, compiled from various cables; at the end was a list of sources and the operatives who had provided it.

If Uzi had read through the document, he would have found that everything corroborated what he already knew. It was all there: her upbringing, her CIA career, her disaffection, the deaths of her family, her marriage to a Russian drug dealer, her relocation to the UK and reinvention as a dealer herself. But he read none of this. He didn’t need to. His eyes had travelled no further than the photograph. It was a simple head-and-shoulders shot in black and white, like a passport photo, certified as authentic by a Mossad stamp. The woman in it was dressed in American military uniform, and half-smiling in a pleasant sort of way; her face was a clean oval, with an aquiline nose and widely spaced eyes. Uzi stared at the photo, unable to breathe, feeling as if the air had been sucked out of his lungs by some elemental force. He did not recognise this person. At first glance she looked similar to the Liberty he knew; but the bone structure, the composition of the face, was different. And you couldn’t alter the composition of a face. If this woman was Liberty, the person he had fallen in love with – the person who had saved his life – was an imposter.

‘Kol,’ said Uzi. ‘Kol.’

There was a pause. Uzi could hear his own breath loud in his ears.

‘Uzi,’ came the voice in his head.

‘This can’t be happening.’

‘What can’t be happening, Uzi?’

‘The photograph on the file. It isn’t Liberty. The Office hasn’t updated their intel. They’ve missed it.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘No mistake.’

‘Mistake in London Station, perhaps. These things happen, even in the Office.’

‘And Liberty surely has spyware on my Internet connection. Before long she’ll know I have this file. If she doesn’t already.’

‘Don’t panic.’

‘I think this is the time, Kol. Everything rests on now . . .’

‘Just believe. Just believe.’

The door bleeped. He hadn’t called room service, and only one other person had a key card. Uzi sprang to his feet; before he could reach his R9, the door had opened. Liberty closed it carefully behind her and stood in front of him, holding a cigar. She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. He smelled expensive perfume.

‘Uzi,’ she said playfully, ‘I’m glad I caught you.’

Uzi felt himself pause for what felt like an age. The party was still going on downstairs; he could hear the muffled bass, the occasional bellow, burst of laughter. Anger was beginning to well up inside him, bitterness and fear and confusion. Liberty noticed the change in his manner at once.

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘what’s wrong?’ But instead of moving towards him, she began to back away. She was good – her intuition was very good. ‘What’s happened? Has something happened?’

‘What’s with the cigar?’ asked Uzi, playing for time.

‘Oh this? I just thought we could have a small celebration.’

‘Celebration of what?’

‘I just sold some more of your intel.’

‘Rewarding?’

‘Yes, very. And I – I bought you some new wheels. The keys are waiting for you downstairs at reception.’

The words hung in the air like a bad punchline. Uzi felt himself growing dark with rage. Liberty took another two steps back. He had no idea what should be done, but in a flash he knew how he should start. He lunged at Liberty and within seconds had pinned her to the floor, rolled her on to her stomach and twisted her arms behind her back. All the while she uttered not a single sound, and this made Uzi’s skin crawl. He took off his dressing-gown cord and used it to tie her hands; then he frisked her, found her revolver and lifted her on to the bed. Finally he sat on the armchair, panting, cradling her gun. Still neither of them had said a word.

A different expression had come over her face, one that he had seen only once before. Her eyes hardened, flicked around the room as if noting every detail. Her mouth was taut, her chin raised in a display of haughtiness. A tendril of hair hung loosely down her cheek.

Uzi broke the silence. ‘Simple question: who are you?’ His voice sounded too loud for the room.

‘What do you mean, who am I?’ she said carefully.

‘Come on, Liberty. We both know all the tricks, so save us both the hassle and tell me straight. How long did you think you could get away with it? Have you just been lying all this time?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.

Uzi, making an effort to restrain himself, turned the laptop to face her and pointed to the picture with the barrel of her gun.

‘Here we have exhibit one: the real Eve Klugman. AKA Liberty. This is a Mossad file. They don’t get these things wrong. But it’s not you, is it? It’s not you. So I return to my simple question: who the fuck are you?’

Liberty continued to stare impassively at the screen.

Uzi got to his feet. ‘I want answers, Liberty, or whatever your name is. I trusted you, I was falling in love with you. I need an answer.’

Liberty answered with a ferocity that took him aback, her black eyes flashing. ‘I loved you too. And, believe me, I still love you. I love you more than life itself.’

‘Stop! Who are you? Tell me. Tell me the truth.’

‘I am telling you the truth and I will tell you the truth. But first untie me. Untie me now. Now.’

‘Not until you tell me who you are.’

‘Nobody is who they seem, Adam Feldman. Untie me.’

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Untie me.’

‘So you can alert your goons?’

‘So I can have a conversation without feeling like a hostage. If I’d wanted to destroy you I could have done so before now. Untie me. You’ve got my weapon, haven’t you? Untie me. Untie me. Untie me.’

Her insistence swayed him; I have her weapon, he told himself, I am stronger than her, there is nothing to fear. As if hypnotised, he untied the dressing-gown cord and set her free. She sat there like a child, rubbing her wrists.

‘Now,’ said Uzi, raising the gun. ‘You have your freedom. So talk.’ He lit a cigarette; his fingers were trembling.

‘I am not Eve Klugman – not Liberty,’ she said. ‘I took the woman’s identity several years ago when she was killed, along with her family.’ The ghost of a smile flickered across her face and was gone. ‘My real name is Leila – Leila Shirazi. I am a Persian Jew.’

‘You weren’t in the CIA?’

‘No. I was never in the CIA.’

For the first time, Uzi thought he could hear the trace of an accent in her voice. He got to his feet and paced to the window and back again, rubbing his thumb along the side of the gun. Believe in yourself. Believe.

‘Who are you working for?’

The woman’s voice suddenly softened. ‘Uzi, I will tell you everything. Everything, I promise. But first I think we need a drink. Come on, there’s nothing to fear. We’re on the same side. We share the same principles. You know me well enough to know that.’

Uzi hesitated and took a long drag on his cigarette. Then he poured two gin and tonics at the drinks cabinet, handed her one and sat down, resting the gun on his lap. His anger was fading and a strange new feeling was emerging – a sense, almost, of triumph.