by E. L. Pini
A firecracker exploded near Anna’s feet. Both girls backed away in alarm. Wild laughter erupted around them.
“Let’s tie the whores up!” Five boys and a girl rushed them. Anna stepped in front of Francesca and grabbed the boy closest to her. Her hands were on his throat; she was squeezing as hard as she could—he grew pale, gurgling. The other boys pounced on her and slammed her to the ground. Francesca took advantage of the distraction and fled. One of the boys yelled—“Run, Jewish Putana, run—you’re next.” Four boys struggled to hold Anna down, one for each limb.
“Open your legs!” ordered their leader, Günter.
Anna spat, but it landed on her face and they all howled in laughter.
Charlotta towered above her. “Do that again, whore.”
Anna didn’t respond, and Charlotta kicked her in the stomach. “I told you to spit again… never mind. I’ll get you wet myself.” She lifted her skirt and urinated on Anna.
“Bravo!” cried the boys.
“Flip her over!” commanded Günter.
The boys released her momentarily to turn her on her stomach. The fat one covered her mouth with his hand, and Anna realized that now was the time to bite down as hard as she could. She placed her teeth around his hand but couldn’t provide them with any strength. Her muscles no longer obeyed her. The fat boy knocked her away easily. Anna stared at the floor, astonished, trying to understand what was cutting into her flesh, as if the floor was covered in a million glass shards. White-hot pain sliced into her, and she didn’t respond. Later, when her Auntie Hannah wiped her face and took off her shirt, she cried, “What happened, my Annuchka? Who did this to you?”
But Anna could not answer.
16.
The boiling water cleansed every inch of her. Anna used a hard brush, scrubbing red tracks into the white skin. She rinsed, then scrubbed herself raw again, soap, boiling water, rinse. She threw back her cognac and re-brushed her teeth. It’s better than I thought, she convinced herself. Husam will give me back my passport and laptop, and I’ll be on my merry way, no drama. Avner’s told me more than once that he’ll get me out of here the second I get uncomfortable. Once I buy that ultrasound, I’ll talk UNICEF into relocating me. This desert is giving me wrinkles. They have plenty of helpless refugee children in Germany.
I won’t exactly miss it when I’m gone, she thought and realized that she would in fact miss Abdu. And she would miss Imad, her cruel and exotic prince. He should come in a compact version, she giggled inwardly, so I could fold him up in a suitcase and only take him out when I feel like it.
She looked at her watch. Staff meeting in fifteen minutes. The desert sun was already harsh and cruel, and the blinding glow reflecting from the white dunes made it clear—there would be no refuge here, no mercy, for anyone.
She approached Imad’s office, suddenly noticing a low mechanical hum, and low grunts, gasps of pain. It was getting louder. She thought she recognized the voice, and when she stood at the door, she was certain it was indeed Dr. Patrice grunting behind it.
There was no hesitation. She opened the door. Patrice was tied to a chair, covered in blood, groaning. Husam was holding an electric drill. Much of Patrice’s blood covered him as well.
“What are you doing here? Fuck off!”
A thin mist clouded her vision. Flashes of light whirled around her, dizzying. Husam twisted into a huge, cyclopean beast, bending over Patrice, sneering, about to sink its claws into him. More flashes, and Francesca’s image rose from Patrice’s body, crying, her clothes torn.
Anna didn’t reply. She took a step toward Husam, hoping he attacked first. She had always been better with a defensive stance than with an all-out attack. Husam reached out with his right arm to block her. He failed to predict how quickly she would react. She batted his arm away and aimed a brutal kick at his testicles. Husam dropped the drill, recoiling in pain. Anna crouched down and snapped back up like a spring, the palm of her hand slamming against his chin, along with every bit of her upward inertia. Husam doubled over, breathing heavily. Anna knew that he would tell no one—especially Imad—how he was defeated by a woman.
She released Patrice from his ties and draped one of his arms over her shoulder, supporting him.
“Where are my laptop and passport?” she asked Husam gently, as if she were speaking to one of her patients.
Wordlessly, he indicated Imad’s desk. Anna collected her things and shuffled outside, the injured Patrice leaning on her, toward the treatment rooms.
When she finished cleaning and dressing his wounds, she dialed Francesca. Her fingers shook.
“I need a vacation. White snow, a Mahler concert.”
It was Code B. A request for extraction.
17.
Froyke struggled to stand as I walked into his sparsely furnished office. I hurried over and hugged him. He was so pale, it made no sense—that the healthy tan gained by decades of kibbutz and Flotilla 13 sun would be so easily wiped away by the pallor of this fucking disease. I knew that both Bella and the DM had tried to get him to take some time off, and that he’d refused.
“Of all people,” he said with a weary smile, “it was my little doctor who convinced me to get back to my normal routine as soon as possible.”
He went on to tell me that he received the director’s approval for my “Pissed-Off Saudis” proposal and even handled Abrasha’s auction bid with the MOD. So far, so good.
“Talk!” he said, leaning back in his chair. Few people can listen like Froyke. His eyes were shut, and you could almost think he was sleeping—that is, until he opened them and read you like an open book. He realized that my main concern was Anna’s use of Code B—specifically B, which signified nothing urgent, nothing serious—just a request to get ready. It was possible that she used it, and not Code C, just to stop us from engaging in an urgent extraction that could blow our cover and harm our info on future convoys.
I told him everything I knew about Anna and Imad, focusing on my concerns that after the next convoy was neutralized, heads in Shabwah would roll. And it was easier when the head belonged to a foreigner. I recalled the profiler who’d worked Anna’s case. She’d characterized two primary aspects of Anna’s personality: a deep and uncontrollable urge to stand beside whomever it was she saw as an underdog, and a strong desire to bring satisfaction to those she loved, and who loved her. I wondered how this would affect things. Froyke took a deep breath and trained his gaze on me.
“The director refused to approve the operation. And before you say anything—he’s right. Consider the cost-effectiveness… he’s right, Ehrlich. This asset has already been milked for all it’s worth, and this extraction you’re planning… I can’t tell if it’s more expensive or more dangerous.”
I got up.
“Ehrlich, sit,” he ordered, his hand making a “down, boy” gesture. “Sit. Down. I know what you’re planning. Go up to the office, grab that little bureaucrat by the balls and wring his neck like a chicken.”
“That sounds more or less accurate.”
“Be quiet. I’m approving a B-level extraction for you.”
“Boss, there’s no need for you to get involved—”
“I assume you got Abrasha to see to the rescue chopper,” he added.
“What…? How—?”
A tired grin stretched his lips. “I’ve told you before, kiddo, any jackass can put two and two together. You’ve already decided you’re going to get her, no matter what I said. You’re not running this extraction on a camel, or a damn jeep. You didn’t request a helicopter to Yemen, but you did ask me to arrange that auction for Abrasha. Fair enough, I know Jule. Hell of a pilot. Best there is.”
18.
Over the past couple of days, Luigi had settled into the offices of the Rome-based power company, from where he began a series of random power outages in the solar farm array in Shabwah—outages th
at lasted as long as Luigi wanted them to. The idea had been conceived and implemented by Digital Albert. The Shabwah hospital spiraled into chaos. A constant stream of angry calls from both the UNICEF logistics chief and the hospital director, Dr. Anna von Stroop.
Luigi guaranteed that a team of engineers would be arriving in two weeks, but he would try to push it up, and asked if they could land the helicopter at the hospital. Anna received Imad’s approval for the helicopter. Husam would assist her in marking the landing pad. A reserve team led by Ran would arrive at Djibouti in separate flights and hang back near the passage to Hadhramaut unless they were needed. All that was left was flight plans for Luigi and me.
One of the unbreakable rules I insisted on including in our combat doctrine involved approach through hostile territory. An Israeli agent is less likely to arrive from an Arab country on an Arab plane. Therefore, in order to arrive at Rome as the CEO of the Italian Green Energy Systems, I first flew from Tel Aviv to Vienna. This flight went smoothly—I winked at the bald, earring-adorned guy who checked my boarding pass, and slipped into an available seat in business class. In Vienna, in a facility run by the local Mossad branch, I switched identities. My new documents identified me as Dr. King Schultz, like the German bounty hunter from Tarantino’s Django Unchained. I assumed Nora was responsible.
Dr. Schulz boarded Libyan Airlines flight 545 from Vienna to Tripoli, in a gray suit, a sky-blue shirt, and a red tie.
“As for the shoes—you should probably try them on and buy them yourself,” said Johnny, the logistics guy from the Vienna branch. “I recommend Guccis. Soft like a glove. You won’t feel them, even in… coach,” he added, avoiding my gaze.
The one hundred and eighty seats crammed into the old Russian Tupolev airliner were spectacularly small, as if designed for the bony asses of Libyan punks and skinny Italians. My knees were fully implanted into the back of the seat in front of me. The poor guy sitting there fidgeted uncomfortably through the entire flight. At some point, he miserably turned around, intending to say something, but turned back upon glancing the two hundred and forty-five sweaty pounds squeezed in behind him. The slipped discs in my back were screaming. I swallowed my pain, wishing strange, excruciating deaths upon the Russian flight engineers and the mustached Libyan flight attendants.
We landed at Tripoli, Libya, where I spent the two hours of connection time fighting off flies, no-see-ums and militant mosquitos. I boarded Air Italy’s 269 to Rome, bitten, stung and drenched in sweat. I sat with Bruno at the lounge in Rome for a few minutes, and once Luigi got there, we left for Djibouti, to meet Jule and fly to Shabwah.
If Bella were around, I thought to myself, this whole ordeal would be considerably more convenient. Bella had flown off to New York for her granddaughter’s birth and abandoned me to the mercy of the system: according to the DM’s orders, all flights, without exception, would be flown in economy class. This was unfit for humans in general, but especially for me and my four discs (which had apparently slipped sometime during my days jumping out of planes with a hundred pounds of platoon gear in my leg bag).
I thought to myself that next time the old hag went on vacation, the Mossad should probably go on hiatus. Bella, who had seen three directors come and go during her reign, had the secret power to upgrade any flight to business class for free. But this boon (and many others) were enjoyed only by a handful: the DM, Froyke, and most of all—yours truly. For some reason, I’d always been her clear favorite. Anyone else—rookies and veterans alike—was politely and smilingly abandoned to the mercies of their respective departments. According to hallway gossip, which had never been corroborated or refuted, in olden times, Bella served as a Kidon fighter—racking up a higher kill count than any other fighter in the Mossad.
The wheels of the aircraft hit the runway with a light jolt. I bolted out of my seat, stretched my legs and stood by the hatch, ready to escape as soon as it opened. The plane came to a full stop. Enthusiastic applause ensued. I barely stopped myself from bowing to the morons.
19.
Bruno spotted me the second I left the plane. He arranged quick passage and an empty, secure room provided by the airport administration.
After we extracted Anna, I’d have to partner with the Pissed-Off Saudis and get their approval to send in our planes and blast Shabwah camp off the face of the earth. This required that I convince said Saudis that the source of all their trouble was the same as ours—Shabwah.
“Are you still in touch with that Italian Al Jazeera reporter?” I asked Bruno.
“Affirmative.”
“Good,” I said and laid out the plan. The Saudis were pissed at Al-Qaeda, for obvious reasons—getting an explosive past the lauded security of their Royal Ministry of the Interior, turning it into smoldering ruins, killing and wounding dozens.
“I need another tiny pinch of international humiliation.”
“Consider it done,” said Bruno, who understood perfectly. In a deep, official-sounding voice, he said: “A major source in Israeli intelligence claims that the latest series of Al-Qaeda bombings in Rome and Saudi Arabia originated with an Al-Qaeda branch in Shabwah, Hadhramaut.”
“Not an Israeli source. Anything but an Israeli source.”
Bruno nodded. “You know Prince bin Nayef? He’s their head of intelligence, and he absolutely adores O’Driscoll. If O’Driscoll vouches for you, consider bin Nayef on board.” He smiled, adding, “Just get O’Dri to be your best man.”
“Good thinking.”
“All that aside, you’d do well to establish a relationship with the man,” Bruno continued. “These royal families usually have several dozen princes. Trick is finding the right one to build a rapport with. Bin Nayef is a good pick.”
I called O’Driscoll, who readily agreed. “Expect a summons,” he said and hung up.
Bruno walked with me to the arrivals terminal, where Luigi was already waiting, wearing a driver’s uniform and an admiral’s hat. He held open the limo door, and I poured myself into the backseat. As I removed my shoes, I asked Luigi for a secure phone. He reached under his seat, retrieved a bag full of burner phones, and tossed me one.
“Hey, boss, you laughing at me again?!”
I never managed to keep from grinning when Luigi was around. Some people, rare people, are like that—the mere sight of them makes me smile. It was strongest with Eran, but I also felt it with Froyke, Bella, Verbin—granted, for them, it was a different sort of smile. Maybe gratitude, for the comfort and honesty that they radiated, allowing me a brief intermission from being constantly alert, on guard—a tension that accompanied me with the persistence of a shadow.
Luigi… Luigi was a child. Comforting. An explosion of innocent, youthful motivation, and a true joy he derived from simply being in the company of those he loved.
“I’m not laughing at you, Luigi. I swear.”
Luigi was a smallish guy, around five foot seven, but solid and compressed like a Bavarian sausage. In another life, he could have been the heavyweight champion of the world (for under six feet). His head, constantly tilted forward, gave the unsettling impression that at any time he might deliver a crushing head-butt to your face, follow up with a brutal kick to the balls, and then vault into the air and land on top of you—all while flashing that childish, charming grin of his. Imagine a sort of mischievous Bob Hoskins.
Luigi Levi Napolitano, born and raised in Milan, had volunteered to join the IDF around his seventeenth birthday on the explicit condition that he serve in the First Golani Brigade—one of the most highly decorated infantry units in the IDF. After his mandatory service was done, he’d applied to the Mossad cadet course but had been rejected due to “difficulties with adapting to teamwork and accepting authority.” On the Memorial Day for The Unit’s fallen, I ran into Boaz—an ex-soldier of mine, and the current commander of the Yamam counterterrorist police force. He told me about the “Italian punk” that had been
kicked from the Mossad exams and ended up as one of the Yamam’s finest fighters. The day after that, I met Luigi in Boaz’s office and decided to snatch him to myself. Some strong-arming with the head of human resources, subtle pressure from Froyke, a diplomatically blind eye from the DM and (possibly most of all) some cunning management on Bella’s behalf—and the punk was ours.
I dialed Nora on the burner phone. She had finished scanning the security footage from Rome—airport, bus and train stations. Albert had apparently managed to isolate a single frame from the Leonardo da Vinci Airport footage. In said frame was an Arab guy in a striped brown suit, a red keffiyeh, and agals with a golden fringe—all of which screamed “I’M AN ARAB.” Nora checked with her counterpart at Bruno’s Agenzia. They’d missed him too. Albert had run facial and body recognition in all available databases. Nada. They’d passed it along to the Europeans—nada. “Until,” she added after a pause, “we gave the file to your pal Ami, and… jackpot.”
“Get to the point.”
“This guy—his name’s Qawasameh, you asshole. You knew all along.”
“Ami noticed an unusually steep shahid grant… and did some digging,” I mumbled by way of apology.
“Whatevs,” said Nora. “Anyway, this Qawasameh is a terrorist from Balata camp. Did two years for membership in a hostile organization, then fled to Belgium. This much we got from Ami’s intel. Then we took it to the Belgians. Apparently they found him in some dusty old visual database, under a different name. About six months ago, he boarded a flight to Pakistan, and then poof—vanished.”
“Pakistan?”
“Yup.”
It made sense. Ever since Osama bin Laden, the caves of Pakistan and Afghanistan had become the cultural center in world jihad.
“Excellent,” I said. “And how did this fine gentleman get to Rome?”
“Through Frankfurt.”
