“You can believe me, because I’ll prove...prove all I’ve said is true.” Scott began to move away from the table. He felt unsteady as he walked slowly over to the sideboard, bent down to pull open the bottom drawer and after some rummaging around removed a small leather case with the initials “S.B.” printed in gold on the top right-hand corner. He smiled a triumphant smile and turned back. He attempted to steady himself by resting one hand on the sideboard. He looked towards the blurred figure of the woman he loved, but could no longer see the desperate look on her face. He tried to remember how much he had already told her and how much she still needed to know.
“Oh, my darling, what have I done?” she said, her eyes now pleading.
“Nothing, it’s all been my fault,” said Scott. “But we’ll have the rest of our lives to laugh about it. That, by the way, was a proposal. Feeble, I agree, but I couldn’t love you any more than I do. You must surely realize that,” he added as he tried to take a pace towards her. She stood staring at him helplessly as he lurched forward before attempting to take a second step. Then he tried again, but this time he stumbled and collapsed across the table, finally landing with a thud on the floor at her feet.
“I can’t blame you if you don’t feel the same way as...” were his final words, as the leather case burst open, disgorging its contents all around a body that was suddenly still.
Hannah fell on her knees and took his head in her hands. She began to sob uncontrollably. “I love you, of course I love you, Simon. But why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me the truth?”
Her eyes rested on a small photo lodged between his fingers. She snatched it from his grasp. Written on the back were the words “Katherine Bradley — Summer ’66.” It must have been his mother. She grabbed the passport that lay by the side of his head and quickly turned the pages, trying to read through her tears. Male. Date of birth: 11/7/56. Profession: University Professor. She turned another page and a photo from Paris Match fell out. She stared at herself modeling an Ungaro suit from the spring collection of 1990.
“No, no. Don’t let it be true,” Hannah said as she lifted him back into her arms. “Let it be just more lies.”
And then her eyes settled on the envelope simply addressed “Hannah.” She lowered his body gently to the ground, picked up the envelope and ripped it open.
“No!” she screamed, “No!” almost unable to read his words through her tears.
“Please, God, no,” she wept as her head fell on his chest. “I love you too, Simon, I love you so much.”
“No, no, no...” Hannah cried as she bent down to kiss him. She suddenly leaped up and rushed over to the phone. She dialed 17 and screamed, “Please God, let one pill not be enough. Answer, answer, answer!” she shrieked at the phone as the doors of Scott’s apartment flew open. Hannah turned to see Kratz and another man whom she didn’t recognize come bursting in.
She dropped the phone on the floor and ran towards them, throwing herself at Kratz and knocking him to the ground.
“You bastard, you bastard!” she screamed. “You made me kill the only person I ever really loved! I hope you rot in hell!” she said as her fists pumped down into his face.
The unknown man moved quickly across and threw Hannah to one side, before the two of them picked up Scott’s limp body and carried him out of the room.
Hannah lay in the corner, weeping.
An hour passed, maybe two, before she crawled back to the table, opened her bag and removed the second pill.
Chapter Eighteen
“White House.”
“Mr. Butterworth, please.”
There was a long silence. “I don’t show anyone by that name, sir. Just a moment and I’ll put you through to Personnel.”
The Archivist waited patiently, made aware as each second passed that the new telephone system ordered by the Clinton administration was clearly overdue.
“Personnel office,” said a female voice. “How can I help you?”
“I’m trying to locate Mr. Rex Butterworth, Special Assistant to the President.”
“Who’s calling?”
“Marshall, Calder Marshall, Archivist.”
“Of—?”
“Of the United States of America.”
There was another long silence.
“The name Butterworth rings no bells with me, sir, but I’m sure you realize there are more than forty Special and Deputy Assistants to the President.”
“No, I didn’t realize,” admitted Marshall. There followed another long silence.
“According to our records,” said the female voice, “he seems to have returned to the Department of Commerce. He was a Schedule A — just here on temporary assignment.”
“Would you have a number where I might reach him?”
“No, I don’t. But if you call the department locator at the Commerce Department, I’m sure they will find him for you.”
“Thank you for your help.”
“Glad to have been of assistance, sir.”
Hannah could never recall how long she had lain huddled up in the corner of Simon’s room. She couldn’t think of him as Scott, she would always think of him as Simon. An hour, possibly two. Time no longer had any relevance for her. She could remember crawling back to the center of the room, avoiding overturned chairs and tables that would have looked more appropriate in a nightclub that had just experienced a drunken brawl.
She removed the pill from her bag and flushed it down the toilet, the automatic action of any well-drilled agent. She then began to search among the debris for any photographs she could find and, of course, the letter addressed simply to “Hannah.” She stuffed these few mementoes into her bag and tried, with the help of a fallen chair, to get back on her feet.
Later that night she lay in her bed at the embassy, staring up at the blank white ceiling, unable to recall her journey back, the route she had taken or even if she had climbed the fire escape or entered by the front door. She wondered how many nights it would be before she managed to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. How much time would have to pass before he wasn’t her every other thought?
She knew Mossad would want to take her out, hide her, protect her — as they saw it — until the French police had completed their investigation. Governments would have their diplomatic arms twisted up their diplomatic backs. The Americans would expect a lot in return for killing one of their agents, but eventually a bargain would be struck. Hannah Kopec, Simon Rosenthal and Professor Scott Bradley would become closed files. For all three of them were numbers: interchangeable, dispensable and, of course, replaceable.
She wondered what they would do with his body, the body of the man she loved. An honorable but anonymous grave, she suspected. They would argue that it must be in the interest of the greater good. Wherever they buried him, she knew they would never allow her to find his grave.
She wouldn’t have dropped the pill in the coffee in the first place if Kratz hadn’t talked again and again of the thirty-nine Scuds that had landed on the people of Israel, and in particular of the one which had killed her mother, her brother and her sister.
She might even have drawn back at the last moment if they hadn’t threatened to carry out the job themselves, should she refuse. They promised her that if that was the case, it would be a far more unpleasant death.
Just as Hannah was about to take the first pill out of her bag, she had asked Simon for some sugar, one last lifeline. Why hadn’t he grabbed at it? Why didn’t he question her, tease her about her weight, do anything that would have made her have second thoughts? But then why, why had he waited so long to tell her the truth?