The Dead Sea Deception

by Adam Blake

  The photo. And the phone. You have new messages, said Mr Snow. You have new messages from your dead wife.

  He found the phone again and pressed the voicemail key.

  Kennedy’s voice. ‘Leo, there’s something I have to tell you …’

  ‘When the messages had all played out, Tillman sat in silence on the bed, staring at the furious red gashes on his arms.

  Kennedy’s message and Rebecca’s smile roiled behind his eyes: not ink now, but oil and water. Oil and water didn’t mix.

  Kennedy said that Michael Brand was the changing symbol of something that endured. Not a man but a mask that any man could wear and then throw aside.

  Through the words on the photo, Michael Brand had said, Come and find me.

  Tillman got up, on legs that trembled a little, and began, slowly, methodically, to do a number of things that needed to be done.

  He found the speed-loader and put it back in the duffle bag where he carried all the weaponry and ammo that weren’t on his person at a given time.

  He checked that there were indeed six bullets in the Unica. He’d been so far away for so long that he couldn’t be entirely sure without verifying by eye. He was thinking that he might live after all, and so it mattered again that the gun was in working order.

  He showered – he stank like something dead – and shaved off what might be a month’s growth of beard.

  He left the rented room for the first time in however long it was, found a cheap restaurant and ate until he was no longer hungry. It didn’t take long: the ravenous appetite he felt when he sat down turned out to be one easily sated by a few crumbs. His hand shook a little as he ate. He’d have to rebuild his strength, but that was a practical problem and he knew how to go about it.

  Back in the room, he read the Gassan files that Kennedy had sent him, and familiarised himself with what she’d learned about the Judas tribe.

  Last of all, he picked up the phone again and placed a call.

  ‘Leo!’

  ‘Hoe gaat het met jou, Benny?’

  ‘Could be better, could be worse. It’s not like you to keep the same number for so long, Leo. You’re still in Britain? How did things go there? Did you manage to get some face time with Mr Brand?’

  ‘Not yet, Benny. But maybe soon. Maybe very soon.’

  ‘Well, that’s maybe good news, then.’ Vermeulens’ tone was cautious.

  ‘In the meantime, I was hoping you could do me a favour.’

  ‘This I had guessed, Leo.’

  Tillman found he was ashamed. ‘On the far side of this,’ he said, ‘if it turns out I’m still alive, I’ll make it up to you, Benny. I’m close to … something. Something big. But I’ve got to travel again, and Suzie – Insurance – isn’t selling to me right now. I think if you offered to buy on my behalf, she might make an exception.’

  ‘What was it you wanted?’

  ‘Basic package. A passport, to my spec. Credit card in the same name with a couple of thousand ready to draw. Legend and supporting papers good enough to stand up to more than one glance.’

  ‘That’s not a small favour, Leo.’

  ‘I’m good for the money. I can pay upfront by a wire transfer from the Dominican account.’

  ‘I don’t think about the money. I think about my job.’

  ‘Nobody ever gets to know.’

  ‘From you, perhaps, nobody ever gets to know. You can’t make the same guarantees for anybody else.’ A silence fell between them. Tillman didn’t push: he knew there was nothing he could say that would influence Vermeulens’ decision, and he didn’t want to twist the man’s arm any further than he already had just by asking.

  ‘Something big,’ Vermeulens said at last. ‘Big enough that this might be over finally, for you? Or only big in being a station on the way to something bigger?’

  Tillman thought about the gun, and the first bullet in the gun. ‘It will be over,’ he said. ‘One way or another, this will finish it.’

  ‘Then I’ll do what I can. Stay by the phone, Leo.’

  ‘Thanks, Benny.’

  ‘Remember what you owe me is nothing. But this … perhaps this is the last nothing.’

  53

  In Ginat’Dania, there were no seasons. Every day was like every other day, untouched by tempest, changeless as God’s countenance: a piece of eternity, fallen into the fallen world but still perfect, still miraculous.

  It had been five years since Kuutma had last been home. He stood out now, like a stranger, and as he walked up the grand alley to the Em Hadderek, all eyes flicked round to stare at him. At his aberrantly dark skin. At his gait, his movements, the expressions that crossed his face. All were wrong in gross or subtle ways, and since he was clearly not a woman, he could not be of the Kelim: the wrongness marked him out as one thing, and one thing only. Everyone he passed bowed to him, or saluted him, or murmured the ‘Ha ana mashadr’ – ‘We sent you out’ – as he passed, touching his shoulders lightly with the fingers of their right hands. Kuutma took this as his due and kept on walking.

  But just as they saw his strangeness, he saw theirs: he felt the raw tension in the air, a mood of expectation, half-fearful and half-enthralled. Kuutma didn’t like it. It betokened change, here in this place that was immune to change. It troubled him and it reproached him.

  From the Em Hadderek he turned left, past the farm sheds and the animal pens, the shops of Talitha, then the place of gathering. Just beyond was the Sima, where the elders met. Kuutma walked directly to its door, where four men of huge girth and slab-solid muscle stood. He saluted them with the ritual words. ‘Ashna reb nim t’khupand am at pent ahwar’: I have returned to the house from which I set forth.

  They gave the proper answer, speaking all in unison, with solemn formality. ‘Besiyata Dishmaya’: with the help of Heaven.

  ‘I need to speak with them,’ Kuutma said, lapsing into English, the linguistic switch a finessing move, in a sense, reminding the guardians of where he had come from and what he’d done. It made it very difficult for them to say no. Still, they couldn’t have him intrude on the elders without being announced first, and so one went into the Sima while the others stood to attention before Kuutma, in a heavy silence, until their comrade returned and indicated to him that he should go inside.

  None of the guards came with him, but two more were standing just inside as he entered, and they fell into step to either side of him. Kuutma went to the Kad Sima, the debating chamber. The vast space was empty apart from the three elders sitting on the dais at its centre.

  Kuutma’s honour guard waited at the threshold of the room: they had not been summoned. Kuutma himself genuflected, making the sign of the noose, then walked down the steps to the centre of the room.

  The three stern men, two ancient and one still young, watched him come. They did not smile to see him, but they accepted his obeisance with curt answering nods. By tradition, they were known as the Ruakh, the Sheh and the Yedimah: in the language that preceded even the true tongue, these names signified the Oak, the Ash and the Seed of That Which is to Be. Only the last role, that of the Yedimah, could be filled by a man younger than sixty years of age.

  The Ruakh spoke first, as tradition required. ‘Kuutma,’ he said, his voice high and a little querulous with extreme age. ‘You’ve struggled against tremendous difficulties. Truly, tremendous difficulties.’ That seemed to be the limit of what he wanted to say. He glanced left and right at his two yokemates, inviting either of them to take up the reins.

  ‘Unparalleled difficulties,’ the Sheh agreed, dry and caustic. ‘Never in our history have two threats of such magnitude come side by side. Perhaps, Kuutma, that is why you have failed to acquit yourself with your usual thoroughness and attention to detail. Things have been done badly. Things have been done late. Some things have not been done at all, and still need to be looked to.’

  Kuutma had no alternative but to bow before the three and accept the censure. Feeling a tremor in some part of himself tha
t could not physically shake – his soul, perhaps – Kuutma knelt.

  ‘Revered ones,’ he said, his eyes on the ground, ‘I carried out my duties as well as I was able. If that was not enough, your servant humbly begs pardon.’

  ‘The scholars in England,’ the Sheh allowed, ‘were dealt with expeditiously. And yet, as it transpires, you left loose ends even there. The man, Tillman, you neglected until he became a canker. The American was killed in a way that guaranteed scrutiny. An entire plane brought down, and hundreds killed! Most unforgivably, the woman – the police sergeant, from London – has now been allowed to put these things together. When she went to the United States, it should have been obvious to you at once that her death outweighed all other tasks then depending upon you. You should have killed her yourself, not trusted the task to the youngest and least experienced of your Elohim.’

  Still kneeling, Kuutma allowed himself to look up into the face of his accuser.

  ‘I recommended thirteen years ago that Tillman be killed,’ he pointed out. ‘I was overruled, Elders, because your predecessors did not see him as a threat. His survival is the random factor that has bedevilled so many of our recent actions. The policewoman, for example, would have died had she not had Tillman with her. And the information Tillman brought allowed her to make the link to the operation in America.

  ‘As for the downing of Flight 124, I gave no such order. The agent I sent to deal with the American was told to kill him before he boarded the plane. He chose instead to destroy the plane and himself with it. It was madness.’

  The Yedimah spoke for the first time. ‘Perhaps your agent was inadequately briefed,’ he said, mildly – but underneath the reasonable tone Kuutma discerned an edge.

  ‘Nehor,’ Kuutma said. ‘Nehor Bar-Talmai. You will remember, Elders, that I asked you to recall him to Ginat’Dania five months ago. I said then that he was coping badly with being in the world, and that I felt his suitability as a Messenger needed to be re-examined.’

  ‘We remember,’ said the Yedimah. ‘We decided that with proper shepherding – proper guidance – he could grow into the role we had ordained for him. Clearly, at the end, he lacked that guidance. Had you given him more explicit and more practical instructions as to how to deal with the American clerk, he would not have improvised so desperately and made so disastrous a misjudgement. In the end, we believe, it must all come back to Kuutma – the Brand. That, after all, is the significance of the name. Kuutma’s will is a fire, and the marks he leaves on the minds of others are written there as with hot steel.’

  Kuutma knew as well as did the Yedimah that this was false etymology. He knew, too, that he could not win this argument: he could not even begin it. ‘Your servant begs pardon,’ he said again.

  The Sheh waved his hand in a vague and unconvincing benediction. ‘It is granted,’ he said. ‘Stand, Kuutma. We ask no penitence of you.’

  The Yedimah raised an eyebrow at this, as though the Sheh had overstepped the bounds of his authority. ‘We have, however,’ he murmured, ‘determined that this will be the last time you take the field as Kuutma. From now on, your skills will be deployed closer to home.’

  Kuutma let no emotion show on his face: he did not even stiffen. But something at once hot like a coal and sharp like a drawn wire ran through his brain. He felt as if he were becoming weightless. ‘Here in Ginat’Dania?’ he asked, so there could be no mistake.

  ‘In Ginat’Dania,’ said the Sheh. ‘But not here. We prepare for mapkanah.’

  It was true, then. Kuutma had known it as soon as he stepped through the gate and felt that tension in the air: the people were preparing to be gone from this place that was their home, and find a new home in a far distant place. This had not been done for two centuries, and then, as now, it was because the location of Ginat’Dania had been compromised. Underneath the pain, underneath the shame that was being heaped on him, Kuutma felt the stirring of a strange joy: the joy of things coming together as they finally must.

  ‘It is not for me to say,’ he murmured, his eyes cast down again.

  The Yedimah breathed through his nose, almost a sniff of indignation. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘It is not. Kuutma, there are those alive who may now know who we are and where we are. Their deaths will be procured, in due course, but as of now their deaths are not even a priority. We have gone beyond such concerns. First, before all else, we must protect the people.’

  Kuutma bared his teeth in a snarl, but kept his head bowed so that nobody would see it. ‘They have always been my care, Yedimah.’

  ‘We know it. And we know you must feel this as a reproach. Still, it must be done, and we must see it done. We look to your support in this, as in everything.’

  Kuutma stood. Strictly speaking, he ought to have waited for permission to rise, but this seemed to be a time when protocol bled away into the spaces between thoughts and words, words and deeds. He stared at the Yedimah for a long time in silence, and the Yedimah waited for him to speak. All of them, the Oak and the Ash and the Seed, waited on the words of the Brand.

  ‘With mapkanah comes maasat, the paying of the balance,’ Kuutma said, stating the obvious.

  The Ruakh nodded, once.

  ‘When?’ Kuutma demanded.

  ‘Two days from now,’ the Ruakh said.

  ‘So soon?’

  ‘So late,’ said the Yedimah, grimly.

  Kuutma made the sign of the noose, yielding the point. ‘I want to stay,’ he said. ‘To efface my failure, let me be the one to hold the scales and make sure the balance is paid. Grant me this, Elders, and I will give up my place as Kuutma with a light heart.’

  He was holding the Yedimah’s gaze. So many things were hiding in the thicket of that sentence, unspoken, so many shy, skittish meanings. What would it be like if I failed to surrender my place? Or if I did it resentfully, unreconciled? He spoke no word of threat, but his eyes prophesied.

  ‘The systems are automatic,’ the Yedimah said. ‘It needs no one to be here.’

  ‘Can a machine deal justly with a man?’ Kuutma intoned, with austere savagery. ‘Can a switch or a lever answer, before God, and say, “This is the balance, this thing is rightly done”? Elders, when a thing becomes possible, it does not therefore become inevitable. Grant me this thing. Let me stay.’

  He waited them out.

  One by one, they bowed, the Yedimah last of all.

  ‘You will hold the scales, Kuutma. You will pay the balance.’

  He thanked them gravely. They accepted graciously.

  And then he went from that place, with a terrible hurt and a terrible hope warring in his breast. He was still Kuutma: until Ginat’Dania ended, and was reborn, he held his name in his hands.

  His name and one thing more.

  54

  It took Tillman a little longer to travel to Arizona than it would have taken anyone else. There were things that needed to be done before he could embark on that journey, and none could be skimped or compressed.

  First, he had to collect the documents that Benny Vermeulens had bought on his behalf. Insurance had asked for an insane fee – twenty times higher than she would normally have taken for a package like this – and she’d demanded payment up front. That wasn’t an issue: Tillman had emptied his various accounts and sent the money. But the arrangements for the hand-over were more problematic.

  Benny understood that Tillman wouldn’t provide an address or even turn up at a post office box to take receipt of the passport, the credit card and their attendant proofs. He knew, too, that Tillman would be concerned about how far he could trust his weight to the documents, given Insurance’s withdrawal of goodwill.

  Benny solved these problems by travelling to London himself on the false passport. He and Tillman were very similar in build, so all that was needed to produce a reasonable resemblance was hair dye and coloured contact lenses. He arranged to meet Tillman at Heathrow, in the Café Rouge in the departure area of Terminal 5. Tillman arrived first, ordered two double
espressos and sat with his hands folded in his lap and his gaze fixed on his hands, pondering imponderable things. When the chair opposite him creaked, he looked up.

  Benny slid a bulky envelope across the table. He was dressed in a suit of obviously expensive cut. Somehow it made him look less respectable and more dangerous than he’d ever looked in combat fatigues. Or maybe it was his physical impersonation of Tillman that was unsettling. ‘Here, Leo,’ he said. ‘Happy Christmas.’

  Leo took the package without examining its contents. Vermeulens had earned that trust a hundred times over. ‘It’s July,’ he pointed out.

  Benny shook his head. His jowled face was solemn. ‘December,’ he said. ‘Late December. The turning of the year, when nobody’s really sure whether or not the sun will come back.’

  Tillman smiled awkwardly. ‘I didn’t know you were a poet, Benny.’

  ‘I’m the least poetic man alive, Leo. I’m telling you what you already know. You’re going off to do battle against the forces of darkness and you don’t think you’ll be coming back. That’s the only reason you’re cutting yourself to the bone like this.’

  ‘The money? I can always get more money.’

  ‘I meant the tone of your voice when you called me. The look I see in your eye, now that I’m here. Leo, I was on the roster at Xe longer than you were. I’ve seen a lot of men kill themselves in a firefight because they thought it was their time to die. They behave in ways that are …’ he gestured ‘… unsustainable. They forget to watch their backs or secure an exit. They lower their guard because they think their guard is irrelevant.’

  ‘I’ve seen that, too,’ Tillman agreed. ‘But that’s not me, Benny. I’ll get in, I’ll do the job and then I’ll get out. Like always.’

  Benny laughed a funereal laugh. ‘And what’s the job?’

  Tillman didn’t answer.

  ‘Not the same,’ Benny said. ‘Not the same as what it was. Don’t bother to lie to me, Leo. This is a slash-and-burn mission, and the last thing you burn will be yourself. I hope it’s worth it.’