“The moment we assumed responsibility for the relationship with you, Alon, the responsibility to offer you a quiet and safe place in the event of your exposure became ours, too. Ours and no one else’s. And the only place where we can ensure your security is with us. Security and a good life and people who appreciate you. That’s what I’m offering you now. You’ll be a hero, Alon. But you must understand that we are serious. We need to act immediately. Trust us, just as you have trusted us all these years. We’ve never let you down. You know that. The sums of money deposited for you over the years—they’ll also help you to acclimatize. Not that you’ll need the money. We won’t let you down now either, now that it’s time to decide quickly and take action.”
“Listen to me, Brian,” Alon said quietly, almost in a whisper, dead tired all of a sudden. “I’m getting up and leaving now. I need some alone time. Quiet time. You can’t drop something like this on me and expect me to simply accept it, without questioning myself. You’ve been like a big brother to me for so many years, and now I don’t know who you are. You can’t even imagine the danger you’ve put me in. I’m not a piece in a game. You, and your partners, if any part of your story is actually true, have treated me like a puppet on a string. What a cliché. Who do you think you are?” He raised his voice. “I’m a personal senior advisor to the prime minister, not some pathetic informer! I meet with presidents and heads of state! I’m authorized to read documents from the Mossad and Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet and the Atomic Energy Commission. You can’t treat me like some kind of pawn, someone of insignificance that can be moved from one place to another like a package.”
Brian put his hand on Cobra’s arm, but the latter pulled it away as if he’d been burned. “Alon, Alon, I understand you. I understand your emotional turmoil. Being a covert fighter for so long isn’t easy. Yes, you’re right, you need some time to yourself. You need some quiet. We’ll accompany you to your hotel. Have a good night’s sleep. We’ll see each other tomorrow. We’ll talk. You’ll see things differently. You’re dear to me like a little brother. I won’t let anything happen to you. No one will touch you, Alon. Come, come let’s go.” He stood up and Cobra did the same, swaying a little, clutching his arm. Night had fallen. A chill was blowing onto the shore from the lake. They started walking. At a distance of a few dozen meters the pair of bodyguards set out in their wake.
47
Alon was sitting on a chair on the small balcony of his room, which overlooked the black waters of the lake. He had left the room in darkness and had wrapped himself in his coat. Wisps of smoke rose from the cigar in his hand, a Punch Double Corona, which glowed a dull orange. He sat there and thought.
Again he could picture the young man, filled with conviction, who had rung at the door of the U.S. embassy in Rome all those years ago. Sometimes he recognized him, remembered who he was. He recalled his unbridled ambition, his deep-seated desire to go as far and as deep as possible, all the way into hidden, smoke-filled rooms that required presenting a tag or ID before the security guards would allow you in. And no less so, Alon recalled his fear of poverty. He saw his mother sitting at the small table in the kitchen, bent over a notebook, doing the math with a sharpened pencil, counting out the meager pile of banknotes and coins, counting and making notes, carefully slipping the money into the various compartments of her wallet. He felt a yearning for his father, whom he barely remembered. His hatred of the uncles who’d visit them on the rare occasion and disappear into his mother’s bedroom, until they stopped coming altogether. The thing that had saved him already back then was his unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Everything interested him—dates, details, names, well-known sayings by famous people, verses that begged quoting, algebraic formulas, programming languages. He remembered the initial battery of tests for the Israeli naval commanders course, the second testing phase, the excitement when the course started, the sense of disaster and shame when he was dropped, his insistence on embarking on an officers’ course nevertheless, the white uniform, the gold insignia of his rank, the small base he commanded. And despite his success, he remained envious of anyone who was better looking, smarter, richer.
He thought again about Martin. One night, and he still a young man at the time, they finished off an entire bottle of vodka together, while eating Beluga caviar with a soup spoon from a large tin. Martin looked very pleased with himself when morning broke—not a drop left in the bottle, the tin shiny and empty, the two of them drunk and kings of the world. That night, as if to shed a heavy load off his chest, he told Martin about Israel’s strategic energy reserves, the quantities of oil and gas in the underground reservoirs, and the rationale underlying the calculation of those reserves, how many days Israel could survive without support and provisions from the outside. He was serving at the time as the young and brilliant aide to the minister of energy and infrastructure, and the minister, a former general, gray-haired, a long scar running from his right eye down to his chin, said to him back then, You see, Alon, someone here needs to be serious, and the seriousness starts here with us. We’ll hold out for as long as we have to, and we’ll have the courage and the perseverance and the patience, and if we’re pushed into a corner we’ll take everyone with us. Get it? I don’t mean another Masada, or Bar Kokhba revolt, or like Saul falling on his sword. I’m talking about the end of the world. And he told Martin not only about the reserves, but about everything else the minister had said to him, too. And Martin sought his advice, asked for his opinion, asked if he didn’t think the numbers had been intentionally exaggerated, and if the minister’s sentiments weren’t somewhat grandiose, and how it all fitted in with his perception of the geostrategic reality. And Alon, who had yet to sink into the embracing fog of the vodka, talked and talked, and Martin allowed himself to take out a small notepad and write some things down, so as not to forget, and rest a strong, fatherly hand on his shoulder.
Vodka and caviar? Alon asked himself, staring into the blackness of the lake. Just like any good old American, right? But Martin was the last person you’d think was a Soviet secret agent. His openness, humor, no-holds-barred criticism, the scope of his education, his range of knowledge, his love of baseball, for fuck’s sake, the perfect English, with that unique New England accent. Alon had always felt, even if he didn’t really know for sure, that he had a good grasp of Martin. He was a good American, he was willing to bet that he collected baseball cards as a kid. Martin, after all, was an avid admirer of American literature, and would even quote entire lines from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass when the mood took him. How could he have known? He couldn’t have been from the KGB. Alon tried to figure out where it had all gone wrong. Perhaps the transition to the KGB occurred only with Brian? But Brian was a professor and the son of a professor from a prestigious East Coast university. That is, if he wasn’t a CIA officer. But it was the same Brian who was now offering him refuge in Russia. Something here didn’t make sense at all. He had a throbbing pain in his temples and the acid again rose from his stomach and burned through his chest and throat. He inhaled again and the cigar only made things worse.
48
HERALDS INN, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, MARCH 2013
It was early evening and Ya’ara was overcome once again by that familiar sense of discomfort, that nagging boredom, that yearning to do something, to be outside, to breathe in fresh air, anything but remain closed up in a standard hotel room, with its wall-to-wall carpeting and a double bed and small desk and an armchair in the corner and a television with nothing on except the incessant drivel of CNN and Fox and ABC and a million other equally tedious stations. She picked up her book again, an old Somerset Maugham novel, and laid it down again a few minutes later. The small, tightly packed letters danced before her eyes. Spying is waiting, apparently, but it drives you crazy sometimes. Waiting, waiting, waiting. For how long? When was something going to happen already? She lay down on the bed, her one bare foot hanging over the edge of the mattress. She stretched and drew her left hand across her breasts. Her other hand slipped into her panties, indifferently stroking the small mound, the mound of Venus, feeling its sweet softness over the hard bone. She could feel the familiar wetness, but she didn’t want to continue. Not alone. She got off the bed and took a shower. She then dressed herself in a pretty, light-colored outfit, put on her pearl necklace, and went down to the bar.