by Rose Fox
“Missing?!” he cried out.
“Yes, he fell off the ferry into the sea and apparently drowned in his car.”
“What?! When?! What does ‘apparently drowned’ mean?”
“When they pulled the car out of the water, he wasn’t inside.”
“Oh, so it’s possible that the man swam away, disappeared and may one day come to…”
“I wish.”
They were silent and Karim could not push away the thoughts that crept into his mind. He suppressed the voice in his head that said it was all in Allah’s hands and thanked him for allowing him the opportunity that had slipped from his grasp. Barak continued speaking to him and Karim shook off his thoughts.
“Karim Habibi (my friend), she regards you and your wife as close friends. Please convey this sad message to her.”
Karim mumbled in embarrassment:
“Yes, yes of course.”
At six in the morning, Abigail got off the plane at the Baku airport and joined the long line at the exit. A man, wearing a dark suit stood beside her and spoke in a familiar voice.
“At your service, Madam,” he said and raised his elbow, inviting her to take his arm. When she recognized Karim, the Ambassador, she smiled with pleasure.
“A’halan, (Hello), what are you doing here?” She asked with a smile and when he said:
“Welcome home, Madam Lucy,” she stiffened, really surprised.
“Where is Alice?” she asked as she looked around.
“Remind me, how long have you been away from home?” he asked with a reticent smile and his voice was restrained.
“What about you?! I’ve only been away for two weeks. I haven’t seen the two of you for ages.”
Behind the crowd, she saw Alice waving. But, she wasn’t smiling. She hadn’t been aware of the ring on her finger for a long time and it streamed heat into her hand, indicating her suppressed emotions.
“Is everything alright?” she asked and he tried to evade her question.
“There’s a café about fifty meters to the right,” he mentioned, signaling to Alice, and Abigail sensed something was going on.
A red cloth was spread on the table and an illuminated sign on the wall spread a red glow with the name of the place, “Café Urmia.”
Karim did not look directly into her eyes as he spoke.
“I am not a bearer of good tidings,” and Abigail regarded him calmly but inside she was seething.
“Sorry, my sweet, I received some information about Karma.”
“Karma, my husband?”
“Yes,” He paused for a second, “He has disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“His car slipped off the ferry,” he continued, but she did not react and Karim looked at her with concern and then peeked at Alice, his wife.
“Did they find his body?” she inquired and Karim shook his head.
He blew his nose into a tissue and beckoned to a waitress standing near them to come. She took the order and returned in a few minutes bearing a tray with three empty glasses, a steaming kettle of boiling water and small covered teapot. Karim poured the dark concentrate of tea into the glasses and filled them with boiling water and Abigail asked again:
“Did they find him?”
“No,” he replied and heard Abigail mutter:
“Then, he’s not dead yet,” and she stirred her tea absent-mindedly.
She raised the hot glass to her lips and screamed suddenly and dropped it. It shattered and the boiling liquid splashed all over. Karim and Alice jumped up in fright, pushed their chairs back and looked at the steam arising from the broken shards around them.
Abigail returned with them but stubbornly refused their invitation to stay with them. She wanted to go home, sit down and think things through.
How could Karma have dived into the sea in his car and not been able to extricate himself?
She felt quickening in her belly and laid her hand on it, and remembered that Karma still did not know that he was to become a father at long last. A bitter smile crossed her lips.
At home, Karim pondered. He still had hopes of romantic interest developing between them and wondered whether to go about it indirectly. He called to inform her that he would come to her home at ten o’clock and added that a devastating earthquake had struck Iran. Possibly, there would be changes in the date the operation would begin.
When he arrived, he looked into her eyes, expecting to see sorrow and pain in them, but that was not what he found there.
“I didn’t have a chance to tell Karma that I am pregnant,” she said and Karim was silent.
If he had hesitated to speak to her before, now he was sure that there was no point in even hinting at the possibility of deepening their relationship.
“Does the operation have a date yet?” she asked.
“I have no idea. I told you that the earthquake would probably change things,” he reminded her.
“Do you know that this is the first time I have no clear idea of what I am going to do?”
“In three words,” he announced. “You’re going to ‘save the world'.”
She looked at him and frowned, checking whether he was mocking her but his expression was serious.
“Why did you say that? Be more specific.”
“Okay. I know you only got back today, but I was asked to begin now, so we have no choice,” and he was still staring into her eyes, seeking something else.
“Yes, I hear. Why are you staring like that?
Karim shook his head.
“Okay. Let’s go back to the beginning, to something I am sure you know about and I mean the cooling system of the reactors.”
Abigail nodded.
‘Yes, its function is to prevent the heating of the core, so that it doesn’t melt in the tremendous heat.”
“I suppose you are also familiar with the whole process and the nuclear fuel,” and he stopped talking because he wasn’t sure she was listening to him.
“Yes, the nuclear fuel in the reactor is arranged in the form of rods,” she recited and suddenly began to hum the melody and the words that sounded like the chanted verses of a prayer.
Now, he feared that her tragedy had unbalanced her mind. It did not occur to him that what he was telling her reminded her of the ceremony in the street of the large market in ‘Suleiman Alley.' She could hear the singing in her head of the woman, who had held the doll-babies and threw them on the fire. Abigail sang:
“Our Lord lays them out like rods,
And the fire – pishpeshash – splits us.”
“Interesting,” he said and raised his brow. “May I continue?”
Her expression proved that she still wasn’t focused but, he continued speaking.
“Listen, Naima. The fission process is extremely lengthy and maintains its strength with the help of material in other rods,” he said and laughed. “Is there a song for that too?”
“Yes,” she said, “listen to this.”
“Our Savior receives our little friends –
And he – pssst – will stop and soothe us.”
“I have a suggestion,” he offered, “sing all the words you know because that chant is phrased a lot better than my explanations.”
“Really?”
“You just sang that the neutrons control and regulate the speed.”
“Oh, then wait a minute.” She sang to herself and tried to recall all the words.
“Ho our Lord, the further we infiltrate the lines of fire –
So is our strength determined.
The more our Lord pushes us, the closer to –
Then – Pouf!“
Karim laughed and tried to join in the refrain, noticed he was singing out of tune, but wanted to hear the words again, from the beginning.
“Let me comment on the last part you sang. You got a little carried away, because the further the control rods, which contain the neutrons, penetrate the spaces between the fuel rods – so the capacity of the react
or will be determined.”
“Ah, and let us suppose that all these rods are inserted into the spaces?”
“Well, then there will be a stoppage or the reactor will be extinguished.”
“I understand. It’s also important to know what substances are able to absorb the neutrons.”
“Boron and graphite,” he replied, “but, hey, just a minute, my dear lady, don’t even think of such an idea. There is no chance of entering and inserting the neutron rods to extinguish the reactor. Each reactor has special protection for its core.”
“What protection?”
“It is surrounded by a layer of lead and a thick layer of concrete.”
“Well, yes, I didn’t think you could enter through a door that can be unlocked with a key,” she laughed. Her smile revealed her snow white teeth, and Karim stared at her, mesmerized. She noticed it and stopped laughing at once.
“What’s the matter? What are you staring at like that and what are you thinking about now?”
Karim took a deep breath to cool his thoughts, conscious of the importance of his current job.
“Naima, their extensive protection is actually intended to secure the core from natural disasters, attacks or explosions, not from intrusions by people. I’m sure you realize that if such an attack to impermeability of the core occurs, it may release fuel substances and disperse radioactive material in the environment.”
“Hmm, now that makes the name of this operation entirely clear,” she stated. “Did you know that it is called “Water?”
“Yes, of course, and that’s logical because the cooling liquid here is the hero that participates in the process. The whole story depends on water.”
When he left, he reminded her to come in the evening to the “Sondor” Hotel, to continue their meeting on the subject. He was pleased that he had succeeded in restraining himself and didn’t get drawn into a conversation on his heart matters.
At home, Abigail listened to the radio and heard stories of survivors and reports of the earthquake damage. The newscaster named the bridges that had been made inaccessible and she listed them on a piece of paper. The epicenter of the quake was reported to be along the border with Iraq, in the narrow strips along the coast of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, and this caused her concern. She knew that she had to reach the shores of the Caspian Sea, which she heard, had shifting sands and unyielding waves that beat down on them.
She slept for two hours till evening and went into the town as the sun began to set. She hailed a cab and asked to be taken to the “Sondor” Hotel. When the taxi drew up opposite the dismal building, she looked out of the window at the building again and thought that she would never have imagined it was a hotel.
The dark unadorned lobby was almost empty and she thought it was more like a nightclub, of a kind that didn’t exist in this country. Karim sat at a bare brown wooden table and he also appeared to be seeing the place for the first time.
“They have almost no guests,” he remarked as she sat down.
“That must be why they arranged for us to talk here,” she replied.
She looked around and whispered:
“Until they change the furniture and the wallpaper, they will only see guests like us, who seem to be looking for a deserted rabbit hole like this.”
"It just interests me to know how a place becomes like this,” he said, and Abigail nodded toward the counter and said that the reasons were probably there.
A severe-faced woman, all in black, stood behind the counter. Her eyes were lowered and the muscles of her face looked as though they hadn’t stretched for a smile for a very long time. A scrawny man stood behind her. His large mustache hid his upper lip and he tottered around in his creased uniform as if he were intoxicated.
“I don’t think we can solve their problem, eh! What do you say, Madam?”
She smiled because she liked the way he addressed her and the names he called her. Her dimples deepened in her cheeks and he looked at her longingly, musing again about raising the idea of her joining his family. Abigail noticed his piercing look and began talking to change the subject he was preoccupied with.
“I was thinking about what we discussed this morning and I suppose enormous quantities of water are used to cool and slow the operation of the reactors.” And he came to his senses.
“Certainly, but they use heavy water that absorbs fewer neutrons than that. Plain water is less efficient and absorbs more.”
“I understand that I will have a problem reaching that water.”
“Of course, I would also say that the chances of that happening are slight because the cooling fluid flows in a closed circuit within the reactor core and that water becomes radioactive and poisonous. So, they take every precaution to prevent it leaking from the contaminated loop.”
“Yes, that’s known as nuclear leakage,” she said, “but I am asking this. Let’s say that I make sure that there is a shortage of cooling fluid by preventing water from entering the system. What would happen?”
“Oho, in that case, the temperature would rise rapidly to the point that the core could melt.”
He put his hand into his kitbag, signaling with his eyes, and passed her a dark-colored fabric bag under the table.
“For your protection in the reactor,” he whispered.
She quickly dropped the bag into her satchel and snapped the buckle closed. It took only a matter of seconds, but her heart leaped when she suddenly saw the scrawny man with the mustache standing beside them. His lower lip was stretched into a professional smile.
“What would you like to drink?”
She was silent and when Karim ordered tea for both of them she received a sharp jolt, identifying negative energy, along her finger from her ring. Abigail wondered why.
This time, two glasses of cold water were added to the tray and when the waiter disappeared, Karim laughed.
“I remembered what happened with the boiling water at “Café Urmia,” he said and heard that Abigail was talking to him about the earthquake.
“I hope that there was no significant damage to the reactor there,” he remarked.
“I don’t understand, you hope the quake didn’t damage the reactor? But, isn’t that what I am going to do there, anyway?”
“Fine. We start with the assumption that the place was not flooded.” He said. “Because such a situation will refute what we know about it, and hence upset our plans.”
“Ah, I am curious about the water system that I am supposed to deal with…” and again saw that his lips were slightly parted and he was looking at her with desire.
“You aren’t listening to what I’m saying, what are you staring at?”
“To tell the truth, at you,” and Abigail blushed with embarrassment.
“I wanted to talk to you about your situation.” Then he immediately corrected himself. “I meant that you’re alone and I wanted to suggest that you come and live with us for the meanwhile.”
“No, no. It really doesn’t bother me. Everything is fine, but thanks.”
“I didn’t explain myself correctly,” He whispered, “I meant that you come and live with us, with Alice and me, just to try it out, at first.”
“To try out for what?”
He thought how he should tell her how he really felt and what came out was a confession that angered her.
“Naima, I desired you from the first moment I saw you when Alice presented you to me. I mean to say that I want to marry you.”
Abigail was shocked, she opened her mouth and closed it again and said at once:
“Karim, your wife is my best friend. There is no chance I will agree to take her place. What’s more she will never consent to your taking a second wife.”
“Whether she agrees or not, leave it to me,” he said, happy that for now he hadn’t heard any objection to the idea in principle, but then, he heard her say.
“I don’t believe you said that. You, you…!” She could barely catch her breath.
“What are you saying?!” Her eyes flashed and the blush on her cheeks intensified.
“I am saying that for now there is no way you can…” and he did not complete the sentence, but she heard the threat in his voice and fear crept into her thoughts.
Abigail knew that there was nothing much that could be done in Iran when a man desires a woman.
“Karim, there is a court and a Qadi and they pass judgment between us.”
“Is that so, do you know what you’re saying?" He laughed out loud.
She pushed her chair back and got up decisively.
“Where are you going?”
“Outside, to calm down, instead of sending you there,”
“Sit down, Madam, I suggest that we speak to Alice and only decide afterward.” He proposed.
Abigail rose and went outside. She didn’t see that the mustached man behind the counter went into the back room and sent a message, as he had been requested to do.
“The woman walked out and the man stayed alone.
I will let you know when he leaves.”
Aslan received this message and she marked it as the beginning of the operation.
From this moment moved off “Yellow Desert” operation of the Iranian intelligence network. It was launched and had been prepared some weeks earlier, on the day the two intelligence agents were killed in the Israeli desert.
The Iranians had registered success in recent weeks. They discovered and trapped eight ‘Mossad’ agents and today, they intended closing the list with Abigail and Karim.
Two were sent to Abigail’s home on the slopes of the Caucasus Mountains. Here, they set up an ambush, hiding for hours between the conifer trees and thick undergrowth, as they waited for the owner of the house to return. Another group consisting of four people went to the home of Karim and Alice, equipped with special weapons, but remembering the precise order to take them alive.
Meanwhile, Abigail strode along the darkened street. She looked around her and wondered how to stop Karim from harassing her.
