The Pure (38 page)

‘But it’s not that simple, is it?’ said Adam. ‘Uzi was more than just a mask. That’s why I was chosen.’

‘That’s true,’ said the Kol. ‘You have always been a troublemaker. We knew that you made controversial statements and thought too much for yourself. Ram Shalev even advised his MOIS controllers that you were the most likely operative to be turned. We knew all that. But this is the philosophy of the Tehorim: to take a seed from inside the operative’s psyche and nurture it to create a watertight cover, to grow a new person, and for the duration of the mission, to have the operative inhabit him. To believe in him.’

‘You never worried that I would go off the rails? That I would become Uzi and never return?’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

The Kol sighed. ‘Your psychological profile. We understand the depth of Israel’s hold on her children. For someone like you – the son of a war hero, the grandson of Zionist pioneers – to betray your country would be physically impossible, however politics sways you, whatever trauma you suffer. When Israel is in mortal danger, people like you are cleansed of any hesitation and fall four-square behind the State. This is the alchemy of a bloody history, the alchemy of nationhood. This is the alchemy of the Holy Land.’

‘Ram Shalev,’ said Adam dreamily. ‘Fucking Ram Shalev. I can see his face now.’

‘Don’t worry about Ram Shalev. The man was a traitor of the worst kind. Ex-Mossad operative – and MOIS agent. For years, he was the lynchpin in a network of Iranian spies that had been grafted into the Office’s power structure.’

‘I know that.’

‘But?’

‘I didn’t say but.’

‘The man deserved to die, Adam. By the time we discovered his identity, he had already given the Iranians intelligence on the whole of Operation Desert Rain. Apart from the target, that is. And he was trying like hell to find that out.’

‘I know.’

‘He had planned to tell WikiLeaks that the prime minister was going to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities to gain pre-election popularity points. He wanted to put us on the back foot, use the media to force us to postpone Operation Desert Rain, to allow the Iranians a little more time – just a little more time – in which they would try to develop the bomb. Ram Shalev was a hair’s breadth away from causing Israel’s destruction. The only thing he didn’t know was the target of Operation Desert Rain. And thanks to you, we fooled them.’

‘What makes a man turn like that against his own people?’ said Adam broodingly. ‘What’s the trigger?’

‘Come on, Adam, don’t be naive. You know what motivates people. With Shalev it was mainly money. Money and sex. And revenge, too, we think. Like everyone else.’

‘I killed him. I played a part in killing him. I’ve killed so many people.’

‘You should be proud – proud of the difficult tasks you’ve carried out for our homeland, and proud of the fact that you’re a moral enough man to worry about it.’ She leaned closer, and Adam saw her face half illuminated by the moonlight. ‘You’re not Uzi,’ she said softly. ‘You’re Colonel Adam Feldman. You were always were Colonel Adam Feldman. You’re a red-blooded Zionist. That’s the truth.’

He flicked another cigarette over the side of the yacht and watched it disappear in the blackness. His throat hurt, and his ear and shoulder were aching as if the microphone and receiver were coming alive inside him. He opened the glass case and took the dagger in his hands, holding it up in the moonlight.
Behold, the guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps
. The engraving was detailed and elegant, and the dagger itself was solid, well weighted, with a leather-bound handle. He rested on the railing again, weighing the knife in his hands. The Kol was saying something, but he was no longer listening. He wanted Leila. He had been trained for this, of course. He had been taught how to construct an alternative persona and then, when the mission was over, to allow the character’s psychology, fears, hopes, dreams, memories, to melt off him like a coating. But when he was Uzi, he had felt more genuinely himself. The Doctrine of the Status Quo – that had been his. It had only taken the creation of Uzi to bring it to fruition. Everything had been his, everything deep down had been his. He could not get rid of Uzi like a snake shedding its skin. Sometimes, he thought, a man has to act another role to find out his true identity.

He turned to the Kol. She was still speaking, gazing out into the blackness of the night.

‘We need to discuss your friend,’ she was saying. ‘The woman. It would be best if you could join in the interrogation. We could do a lot if you were involved.’

‘Where’s the sick bay?’ Adam interrupted.

‘Why?’

‘I just want to get rid of this mic, that’s all. Somebody was supposed to escort me down . . .’

‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Follow me.’

She led him down into the heart of the ship. He was feeling dizzy, despite the gentleness of the ocean beneath them. He rested on the handrail for support, and as he did so, with a single fluid movement, slipped the dagger into his pocket.

When Adam and the Kol approached the sick bay, he saw that a guard was posted outside the door. She’s still in there, thought Adam. Leila must be still in there. To his surprise, the Kol left him with the guard and disappeared down the corridor; with a courteous nod, he was allowed inside.

The medic who greeted him was a man in his early thirties, with rimless glasses that glinted in the light. Leila was nowhere to be seen; the medic shook Adam’s hand, murmured his congratulations and got on with the job without the need for instructions. They did not speak as he injected a local anaesthetic into Adam’s shoulder, made an incision with a scalpel, and pressed a pair of tweezers into the ‘cyst’. After a couple of attempts, he slid out a plastic chip about the size of a postage stamp. For months it had been sending audio information to Israel; everything that Adam heard, everything he said, had been transmitted directly to the Mossad in Tel Aviv. He stared at the bloodied chip lying on a surgical swab, like an amputated tongue. The medic sealed the wound.

‘Now the mic in my ear,’ said Adam.

‘Are you sure, Colonel? Perhaps it would be better to wait until we reach Israel.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s a more sensitive area, and a more complicated procedure. At sea, with the unpredictable movement of the ship . . .’

‘Just get it out of me. I want it out of me now.’

‘You’ve had it in there for months. What difference does a few more hours . . .’

‘It makes a difference to me. I almost became schizophrenic with this thing inside me.’

The medic hesitated. Then he sighed and began to fill a new hypodermic needle. ‘As you wish, Colonel.’

It took longer than Adam had expected, but with some effort he held himself firm. Finally the ear-mic, the mouthpiece of the Kol, lay on the swab as well. He had bandages on his ear as well as his shoulder, and both felt numb and fat.

‘The prisoner,’ Adam said, ‘the woman. Is she awake yet?’

‘Not yet,’ the medic replied. ‘She could be out for another half an hour or so.’

‘I’m part of the interrogation team. I’d like to examine her briefly before I go.’

‘Of course, Colonel.’

With no further questions Adam was led to a door, which the medic unlocked by passing his ID badge across a sensor. Inside, the lighting was dim. There, in a low bunk, lay Leila, lying on her back with her arms outstretched. She had been stripped of her wet clothes and – from what he could see under the blankets – dressed in military greens. Her left wrist was handcuffed to the bunk, and a drip-line snaked into her right arm.

Adam, his heart beating like a time bomb, leaned over her and, with gentle fingertips, lifted one eyelid, then the other. For a moment, he felt her breath brushing his hand.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘She’s still under. You’ve treated her for hypothermia, I suppose?’

‘Her notes are here,’ said the medic, passing Adam a buff folder. ‘We’ve warmed her up and put her on a high-energy drip. She’s responding well.’

‘How soon until we can start interrogating her?’ said Adam, flicking through the notes.

‘As soon as she wakes up. She’ll be woozy, but not in danger. Not in terms of her health, anyway.’ He smiled slightly.

Adam handed back the file, nodded, turned to go; but then, in one fluid movement, snatched the dagger from his pocket and shoved the medic against the wall, holding the blade to his throat, clamping his hand over his mouth. The man’s breath bulged against his palm.

‘One word,’ snarled Adam, ‘and I open your veins. Understand?’

The medic, wide-eyed, nodded. Adam released his hand from his mouth and grabbed his collar. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘you’re going to unlock those handcuffs. Do it now.’

‘No,’ said the medic, ‘I can’t open it. I don’t have the key.’

Adam, noticing the man’s eyes darting up and to the left – the classic sign of deception – pressed the dagger into his neck until it broke the skin. The man winced and made a noise like a startled animal. A thread of his blood slipped on to the blade and wound into the letters of the engraving:
The guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps
. Adam pulled back the dagger.

‘I’m serious,’ he said, ‘release the handcuffs or I’ll bleed you like a pig.’ Panting, the medic stooped over Leila and freed her. Adam rolled the woman gently to the floor, handcuffed the medic to the bed in her place, and stuffed a handful of surgical swabs into his mouth. Then he freed Leila from the drip and dragged her into the other room. He knew that he didn’t have long.

Gritting his teeth, Adam stood behind the door and collected his thoughts. The dagger gleamed in the lights of the sick bay. He took three deep breaths then opened the door; in an instant he was behind the guard, holding the knife to his neck. He disarmed him, struck him three times with the handle of the dagger until he lay still. Then he pulled him into the sick bay, and bound and gagged him tightly. Rolling him over, he searched his pockets and found an electronic entry card, like that used in a hotel, but with the addition of a high-security digital chip. Fate was on his side, he thought; finally, fate was on his side. He pocketed the card, took the man’s gun and, with some effort on account of the numbness in his shoulder, hoisted Leila on to his shoulder. Then he padded quietly down the corridor, trying to regulate the rhythm of his breath.

Adam knew that the odds were stacked against him. He was on a vessel commanded by the Mossad, in waters dominated by the Syrians, with a lover who – until tonight – had worked for the MOIS. Even if he could get off the yacht, even if he could escape the clutches of the Mossad, MOIS and the Mukhabarat, even if he could find somewhere to hole up, he would still need to win Leila over to his position. She had chosen to take a chance with him rather than go to her death. She was brave; but that didn’t mean he had won her trust. Was her love for him strong enough to endure all this? He couldn’t be certain. He was surrounded by a universe of darkness, like a nightmare he had had once as a child – impenetrable darkness without end, stretching to the borders of imagination. The nightmare of death itself. Yet he knew this: now he was his own master, and from this moment on, for however long he had left on this earth, he would never again be enslaved.

With Leila over his shoulder, he climbed a shallow staircase and turned left along a corridor that he had noted on his way down to the sick bay. Three doors down was a door made of reinforced metal; through a porthole he could see an assortment of electronic equipment. Hoping against hope, he took the entry card from his pocket and slipped it into the slot. He held his breath. Nothing happened. Then, without warning, there was a low clunk and the door swung open. He entered and locked it behind him.

Machinery hummed all around. Adam set Leila down gently in a padded leather chair and set to work on the buttons and dials, bringing multiple screens to life, powering up complicated systems and preparing the equipment for action. He hadn’t seen such sophisticated maritime computers for a long time – not since his Navy days.

All was set. He took Leila in his arms, an unconscious Cordelia, and carried her down the passageway and into the airtight submarine launch chamber. The vessel lay in its docking bay, perfectly clean and in a state of constant preparedness. It was beautiful: dark grey in colour, as sleek as a bullet or a dolphin, as powerful and discreet a craft as he could have wished for. With some effort, he struggled up the ladder and strapped Leila into the passenger seat. She looked so perfect there, unconscious, peaceful, oblivious to the world, her mind resting in inaccessible spheres.

The world was closing in. Adam climbed into the cockpit, strapped himself in and sealed the sub. Then he punched in the commands and, with a sound like a hundred waterfalls, the chamber began to fill with water. This is it, he thought. This is it. Within minutes the waterline crept up the walls of the sub and over the top of the cockpit, sealing them in an underwater realm. Finally a hole opened before them, a dark circle leading out of the yacht and into the boundless depths. Adam glanced at Leila – still no sign of consciousness – and activated the engine. The submarine dislodged from its moorings and moved towards the circular hole, spraying a cloud of bubbles in its wake.

No doubt: he was in more danger now than he had ever been before. But as the sub fell from the yacht like a bomb and disappeared into the tarry ocean, Adam was filled with the sense that everything he needed – everything in the world – was contained within the walls of this little vessel. The noise of the engine filled the craft, making it feel peaceful somehow, riding the currents of the sea. It was quiet. Outside a shoal of glittering fish floated past like a cloud. He was in the eye of the storm; he was at peace. He took the dagger out of his pocket and placed it on the dashboard.

Suddenly Leila stirred and shifted in her seat. She opened her eyes woozily and looked around. Then her eyes widened and she looked across at Adam, as if trying to place him.

‘Uzi,’ she said, ‘where are we? I’m so tired.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘you’ve been drugged. But you’re safe now.’