“Aharon,” she said, “I’d like to speak to you for a moment, in private.”
62
TZAHALA, APRIL 2013
Alon Regev was sitting in the large leather armchair in the den of his home. The room was his private realm, frequented by no one but himself and the maid who came to their house three times a week. Not that his family members were prohibited from entering, but it was clear to everyone that the den was his alone. A large work desk, a comfortable antique leather armchair, an elegant humidor filled with Cuban cigars, a bookcase overflowing with volumes on strategy, security and philosophy, a sophisticated sound system, a small Jerusalem landscape painting by Anna Ticho, a marine navigation instrument from the eighteenth century, an ornate silver box.
Fauré’s Requiem played clearly and hauntingly over the expensive audio system he had installed in the room. Alon closed his eyes and wondered how he had ended up in his current position. Some two hours earlier, he had opened the real estate website and had clicked on several images of building lots, thus signaling to his handlers to put the escape plan into motion. Following confirmation that his request has been received, he’d have twenty-four hours in which to get to a deserted strip of coast south of Ashdod and board a dinghy. Stripped bare, like a criminal on the run, he would abscond from Israel, never to return. He would cut himself off from his entire family and become the subject of endless condemnation and humiliation. He recalled himself as a young man, at the end of high school, during his military service, his first year at university. Those days of innocence preceding his treason. Before he pressed on the intercom button of the U.S. embassy in Rome. Up until that moment, he had been talented, ambitious, and full of promise. But from that moment onward, he turned traitor. Days of innocence? He berated himself for fudging the reality. After all, the contempt he harbored for this tiny, pretentious, pathetic country wasn’t born that day in Rome. It had accompanied him for as long as he could remember himself. Ever since realizing that only by chance had he been tossed into this insignificant shithole at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. No, he didn’t want a dusty country, with arid mountains scattered with rocks and windswept trees, a densely packed and ugly coastline, a country of small and fanatic individuals, perspiring constantly in the heat and humidity. He wanted a big and expansive country, a country of wealth and unlimited horizons. A country of enlightened and strong people, a country with distinct seasons, filled in the fall with red-leaved trees and with a spring that burst forth green and intoxicating. A country that didn’t end after two hours of driving, but one that had no boundaries, that went on forever, that you could drive the length and breadth of for days on end, from one stormy ocean to the shores of another deep sea. A country with people of action who were healthy, strong, self-confident, clear thinkers. Not ones who were bent and buckled under the weight of two thousand years of wandering, humiliation, and exile. So where are these days of innocence that you’re talking about, he scolded himself. No one had ever accused him of being naïve. Until now, now that the dream had become a nightmare. He had turned out to be the biggest patsy of all. From being a devoted servant of the United States, he had become a contemptuous spy for the Soviet Union. When did it happen? Already at the start? Toward the end? Had he truly not sensed it? Was Brian—who wasn’t even Brian at all—the only thing he had left in this life? And a lot of money, which who knows if he’d be able to even use at all. And Na’ama. Would she join him? Alon knew that the love they once shared had long since become a distant memory, replaced by a partnership of sorts. He couldn’t imagine her asking to join him. He knew her too well. Na’ama would distance herself from him, say she didn’t know anything, express shock, and try to get her hands on as much as possible of the wealth he had accumulated by means of a combination of business skills and treason. He couldn’t bear to think about the children. Did Na’ama really not realize where all their wealth was coming from? Had she turned a blind eye? But turning a blind eye was tantamount to knowing, and who knows for how many years he had done the same thing.
He dozed off for a few minutes and awoke with a start. He was struggling to come to terms with the fact that everything in Israel was over for him. He was familiar with Moscow from his business activities, and knew you could live there like a king, provided you had sufficient money. And that he had. But what would he be there? Who would know him, who’d request his counsel, who would seek his company? He tried not to wallow in self-pity and reassured himself that he only needed to get through the coming days, the weeks ahead, and things would begin to fall into place. Brian would look after him. Brian and the huge organization behind him. They knew what he’d done for them. They wouldn’t let him sink. And Martin, perhaps they’d give Martin back to me. Maybe he could see him again. Now they could be friends, now that all those years of that secret war were behind them. He downed the shot of whisky he had poured for himself in one gulp, feeling the burning in his throat and the comforting warmth spreading in his chest. His eyes filled with tears, and he allowed them to wash over his face. He closed his eyes again and fell asleep. He’ll take a walk down Manne Street in the evening once again, just to see if they happened to have left a sign there for him.
63
TEL AVIV, APRIL 2013
“Listen, Aharon,” Ya’ara said to him after they had sat down in the other room and closed the door. “I think there’s only one way to end this affair. We both clearly know what can’t be allowed to happen. Cobra can’t be allowed to get away. The affair has to remain under wraps. Not only would it cause terrible embarrassment, but it would also undermine the trust between ourselves and our most important allies. If one of the Israeli prime minister’s closest aides can’t be trusted, then we can’t be trusted at all. No one else can be allowed into the loop. We have to remain the only ones in the know. And no investigation team from the Shin Bet either. And we also don’t have much time. I can sense it. So that means there’s only one way out. Cobra has to be thwarted.” She went quiet for a moment. “Forgive me,” she then continued. “I have to say it straight. Cobra has to be killed. There’s no other way.”
Aharon looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time.
“How old are you, Ya’ara? Remind me.”
“I’m thirty-three, but that has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. Let Aslan and me end this story right now.”
“Listen to me, Ya’ara,” Aharon said. “We need Cobra alive, not dead. I despise him no less than you do. But we have to clarify a certain matter with him and find out for certain if he’s passed on information regarding this matter to his handlers. It’s critical, a directive I received from the state president himself. So I don’t agree with your proposal. I have reservations about it for other reasons, too, but we’re not going to get into a philosophical debate right now. I am not going to sanction your proposed course of action.”
Ya’ara listened but her face remained expressionless.
“Did you understand what I just said?” Aharon asked.
“I understood very well. But you’re wrong.”
“Listen, Ya’ara. This isn’t a Godfather movie or the Wild West, and we aren’t a gang of outlaws or mobsters. And there’s a hierarchy here, too, even in our unofficial team.”
“Aharon, Cobra is going to get away. I know it. I know how he feels and what he is going to do. This is what I would do. I would act quickly, cut my losses and get the hell out of here. You always taught us to be one step in front of our adversaries. So we must act swiftly. This is what my instincts tell me to do. And all my field training and my field experience. I know the streets, Aharon. And I can imagine how Cobra feels now. He is surrounded, he is under imminent threat and he will try to flee. He is going to slip between our fingers if we don’t act now. Without hesitation. He will disappear, and all you’ve said is going to remain merely theoretical. We need to be very aggressive. We must act quickly and decisively. Perhaps,” she added contemplatively, without masking an element of audacity that was somewhat out of character, “perhaps you and Michael, who adores you, have lost it. Have gone soft.”