by David Khara
“Me either,” I add laconically.
“I’ll leave you to your fantasies. Shortly afterward, I rocked up at a high-end beach house near Miami to meet a guy named Robert Delmar, a middle-aged American whose French parents had moved to Florida in the early seventies. Our checks on their son, a property developer with a small empire of beachfront buildings, came up blank. His father, however, provoked a frothing message from our intel department. Christian Delmar was a leading Vichy official in occupied France. Like many real or supposed collaborators, he held important positions in French post-war administrations, retiring in 1968 and emigrating to the States two years later. For the next decade, he was a consultant for a South American country specializing in the transfer of advanced technology. According to Bob, his father was an unscrupulous, cynical, manipulative bastard. The kid was born with a silver spoon in his mouth but struck out on his own to break free of his father’s overbearing influence.”
“He told you all that under duress?” Buffy asks with a disarming smile.
“Would you feel better if I told you our interview was cordial and friendly?” Eytan replies, teasing.
“Besides playing the shrink, did you find out anything?” For once, I’m the pragmatist.
“More than I ever expected. Hear me out. In 1985, Christian Delmar had a stroke that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Bob looked after him. His mother had died two years earlier. The old man held on another twenty years and died in 2009 at the ripe old age of one hundred and three, much to the relief of his son. Bob seemed trustworthy. I told him that his father was suspected of trafficking in classified information. His reaction was beyond my wildest dreams. He took me into his dad’s office, which had been kept intact. It was Ali Baba’s cave! The old man collected Third Reich memorabilia. The room was packed with flags, photos and reports, including the plans for some of the concentration camps.”
“Nice.” I feel a shiver running down my spine.
“You said it. But I know enough regular collectors to be sure that it wasn’t just stuff gleaned here and there to feed some kind of sick fascination. Most often, it doesn’t go much further than plates and silverware engraved with SS symbols. Sometimes things take a morbid turn. For example, a couple years ago, I came across a sicko who collected notepads and lampshades made of human skin. But in this case it looked more like a systematic analysis of the Nazis’ industrial methods, techniques and innovations. Bob was good enough to let me explore. I spent a whole night in there going through Christian Delmar’s personal notebooks. Two things in particular caught my attention. The first was an account in one of the notebooks of a visit to Landsberg Prison in 1924. Bonus question. Who was incarcerated there at that time?”
“I’d be inclined to say…Adolf Hitler?” Jackie gave a little top-of-the-class grin. “Exactly. Delmar and another guy—the notes referred to him as A.E.—met with the future führer to deliver a message from a mysterious consortium offering to help Hitler in his quest for power. You can imagine what a discovery like that means to Mossad.”
“You’re saying a secret organization helped the Nazis set the planet ablaze. You seriously believe that?” I’m dumbstruck.
“The question isn’t whether I believe it or not. Even the most absurd lead must be investigated until it is proven true or false. On an assignment like this, acting on supposition is the surest way of screwing up.”
“I see. And the second thing?”
“Delmar kept records of his transactions with various suppliers of his relics. The last entry mentioned my British acquaintance and, more important, the nature of the acquisition—a box that had belonged to Heinrich Himmler. There were scribbled notes all over the page. The old man’s writing was impossible to decipher. It turned out the purchase had been made for a third party. Glancing through his records, I saw a similar entry. This time, it was for a key bought from a Canadian named Stewart, the guy who ran into Himmler just after his arrest. Again, the purchase was for the same third party.”
“And the third party’s name? Just trying to stay awake.”
“Corbin.” I’m not sleepy now.
“Dad?” My whole body feels like ten thousand volts are shooting through it.
“He features in Delmar’s records under the name Jeremy Dean. Our intelligence department soon uncovered his true identity. If your father was Lieutenant General Daniel J. Corbin, ex-U.S. Air Force, who joined the CIA in 1986, abandoning wife and child in the process, then, yes, it was Dad.”
“But my father wasn’t some fanatical Nazi. At least, he wasn’t when I knew him.” I feel as sick as when I’m standing in front of my DB9 in the parking garage. I want to puke.
“Who said anything about fanatics? Your father didn’t leave his family so he could get his kicks from a pent-up passion for fascism. Let me tell you the rest of the story, and you’ll see. Bob allowed me to take anything I wanted, so I transmitted the information to my department head in Tel Aviv. The special relationship between the CIA and Mossad meant the answers came through fast, provoking more questions. Daniel joined the Agency on some kind of undercover assignment that necessitated a protection program.”
“In plain English, please.”
“Your father was a CIA undercover agent. He considered his mission sufficiently important to leave you and your mother. Undercover agents receive special treatment with regard to posting and reporting. If they think it necessary, they can disappear for one, five or even ten years and resurface only when it is possible or urgent to act. You find them in drug cartels, terrorist organizations and so on. It’s not an easy sacrifice to make. Often, they can’t reintegrate into society. Of course, it’s impossible to know what organization Daniel was infiltrating or hoping to infiltrate. However, our contacts informed us of a problem with your dad’s handler.”
“His handler?”
Jackie chimes in, quoting from Espionage 101. “That’s what we call the operative to whom the undercover agent transmits information. What was the problem?”
“Let’s just say, heaps of cash coming in, heaps of data on Corbin going out. Get the picture?” Eytan grins smugly. The guy likes sounding off. I want to know more, but Jackie beats me to the draw.
“The handler sold his agent?”
“Not only that. I asked the Yanks to be allowed to clean up the problem in return for a detailed report on what I found out and a promise to be discreet. The guy’s name was William Pettygrow. I winged it by making contact with him in a hunters’ bar near Langley. After a few beers, I told him I’d be interested in anything on your father. He didn’t even act surprised and told me a woman had already bought some information from him the week before. Two months before he retired, he thought putting together a little nest egg by selling intel on an insignificant agent wouldn’t get him into any trouble. Eventually, he told me of a message from Bernard Dean to your father, confirming that a safe-deposit box in Switzerland had been leased. Corbin never received the message.”
“And Pettygrow?”
“For a reason I can’t fathom, his attitude toward me became distinctly frosty. The previous buyer must have warned him off. Now he’s compost for conifers somewhere in Virginia. I can’t tell you where—it depends on the prevailing winds. That’s all I know.”
CHAPTER 27
Somewhere between Zurich and Zaventem, 11:30 p.m.
Another nicotine break. To my surprise, Eytan smokes one with me. He claims to be an occasional smoker, cigars mostly. I look at him—huge, well-built, good-looking—and wonder what he was like as a boy. How does a kid grow up to be an assassin? How does he take the step from regular human being to cold-blooded killing machine? His angular features give no insight into the boy he once was. And yet, in this deserted and desolate rest stop in the middle of nowhere, I glimpse fragility. He lets the mask slip, and I like that.
Jackie gets out of the car, yawns and stretches languorously. She sees us and smiles. I glow. A big mitt grasps my shoulder.
“Sh
e’s a beautiful woman. Funny and smart.”
The remark catches me off guard, but I guess it was supposed to. Anyway, in the wasteland of my life, Eytan is the closest I have to a friend right now. So I forget my usual defense mechanisms and fess up. “I think she’s wonderful.”
Eytan savors every drag of the cigarette, blowing smoke high in the sky. He turns to me and smiles. “She fights well, she’s brave, but she has a cruel lack of experience.”
“I don’t care!” My outraged tone makes him laugh, affectionately almost. He leans closer and whispers, “Jay, I know how you feel.”
“You have somebody?” He flicks his butt away, stares into space, then heads over to Jackie. I won’t get an answer to my question.
Eytan decided it was Jackie’s turn to drive while he rode shotgun. All Jeremy could do was sprawl in the comfortable backseat and slip into an agitated sleep.
As the road raced by beneath their wheels, the Israeli veteran grilled the CIA apprentice on combat techniques and protection protocols. A full-on oral exam. While Jackie answered confidently without missing a beat, Eytan sensed sweat beading on his brow. As discreetly as possible, he slipped his shaking hands into his pockets. “Jackie, pull over at the next gas station, will you?”
“But we just stopped,” she sighed. “You need the little boys’ room?”
“You could say that.”
Twenty or so miles up the road, the Lexus pulled off the highway, past the gas pumps, which were deserted so late at night and pulled up outside the cafeteria. Eytan leapt out and hurried inside.
Jackie couldn’t resist the temptation to shake Jeremy. He woke with a start, yelling, “Budding love!” He was handsome with a sense of humor that sometimes made her laugh and often didn’t. She had to admit, he was irresistible.
“Eytan’s making a pit stop. If you need to join him, go ahead. I’m going to call Bernard.”
Jeremy sat up and stretched. “Good, I want a word with him. I’ll take a leak afterward.”
Sometimes he wasn’t quite so irresistible. Jackie grabbed her cell phone and hit last-number redial. She turned the speakerphone on. After three rings, the phone picked up. “It’s me, sir. Things have been heating up. We’re on our way to Belgium. I’m using a stop to touch base and pass on the information Morg gave us.”
“Good evening, Jacqueline. Very kind of you to call.” Jackie and Jeremy looked at each other in surprise as a strange humming sound and a woman’s voice came out of the phone.
“Who are you?”
“You can call me Elena. I’m getting a slight echo, so I presume that other people are listening in. Jeremy Corbin or Eytan Morg or maybe both of them?”
“Put Bernard Dean on,” Jackie ordered with a tremor in her voice.
“I fear that’s impossible, sweetie. I lodged a bullet in the back of his head. Rest assured, he didn’t feel a thing. A quick, clean hit. Just like the one on Jeremy’s mother.”
Jackie stifled a scream. She froze in her seat, torn between stupor, anger and grief. Jeremy leaned closer. “Listen up, bitch. We’re gonna put an end to your dumbass project, and I’ll break your neck with my bare hands. But I won’t lie, it won’t be quick or clean.”
A burst of laughter came through the line. “Mister Corbin, this isn’t personal. It’s business. Anyway, I’d be curious to see you try. Trust me, you’ll soon get your chance. If you survive our next little skirmish, of course. Speaking of which, you shouldn’t stop so often. Your lead on our representatives diminishes by the minute.”
Jackie snapped out of it and hung up. A silent tear trickled down her face. She removed the SIM card from the cell phone and handed it to Jeremy. “Go get Eytan, and toss that down the toilet. Tell him to lose his card too.” Jeremy nodded and jumped out of the car to look for the giant.
Alone in the car, Jackie drew her gun and checked the clip. She was sure the humming she heard over the phone was the sound of airplane engines. As she was about to turn the key in the ignition, headlights lit up her rearview mirror.
I cut through the store, watched by the bovine eyes of the clerk slumped behind the counter, who’s shamelessly reading the big-tits special issue of a porn magazine. Apparently he isn’t expecting a busy night. The refined atmosphere is only heightened by Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” blasting from the loudspeakers. I walk past three coffee machines that have seen their last customers for the day.
I have to get my head together. Bernard’s death has frazzled my brain. I last saw my father more than twenty years ago. I visited my mother maybe ten times a year. Bernard was there for me every day. I really loved the guy. He was my true family.
A long hallway takes me past tables covered with remains left by the last visitors—plastic cups, breadcrumbs, sandwich wrappers. The doors at the rear of the vast room are padlocked with heavy chains. To my right is a hallway with signs on either side pointing to the men’s and ladies’ restrooms. All the lights are on. If gas stations at all the rest stops on the continent switched off just half of the lights in the hallways leading to their bathrooms, they’d save considerable energy and boost their bottom lines. Which would impact positively on their stock prices. Professional reflexes are hard to shake off. People never change.
The pale blue tiles are oppressive. The heady odor of toilet detergent assaults my nostrils. The only sound comes from water trickling down the porcelain of four urinals on the right-hand wall. The same number of mirrors and sinks are on the opposite wall. And facing the door are three closed stalls, the throne rooms. To be used only as a last resort and at your own peril.
“Eytan?” No response. I listen attentively for signs of plumbing work in progress. Nothing. I call his name again. Still no response. Needs must when the devil drives. I hunker down to peek under the doors. There’s no point yelling like an idiot if he’s not in there.
Middle door first. Bull’s-eye! Weird, though. He’s been in there at least two minutes, and his pants aren’t around his ankles. And he’s not answering me. Something’s up. I hope nothing’s happened to him. I head into the stall on the right, step up on the toilet and peer over the partition. For one fleeting moment, I’m scared this will get me a bullet between the eyes.
Eytan’s sitting on the can. I make a racket clambering up and keeping my balance, but he doesn’t budge an inch. In his left hand, he holds an empty syringe. He turns and looks up at me in painfully slow motion. My gaze collides with his. His pupils are dilated, his complexion is waxy, and his lips are blue. The sight of him makes my blood freeze. I topple off the toilet, nearly twisting my ankle. Before I bail, I dump Jackie’s SIM card in the john and pull the flush. Shit! Our lives depend on a junkie. I don’t hang around. He’s out of action for a while. Maybe Jackie will know what to do with the dope fiend. Problems are piling up so fast I can’t think. Everything’s slamming together in my head, and fear of a gruesome end overwhelms me. I head back. A move that saves my life.
In the big empty cafeteria, I hear two gunshots outside. Instinctively, I hunch over. Good thinking. The third gunshot blows the windows out of the back doors. Two goons like the ones who chased me in my building burst in, aiming their guns at me. No time to think twice. I dive through the shattered window, landing on the broken glass and asphalt as more shots ring out and sparks fly around me. I haul myself up and run like crazy for the trees bordering the rest stop. The shouts behind me convince me I’m being followed. Screw Eytan, he can look after himself. What a stupid idea to shoot up at a time like this!
Amid the chaos, another Aerosmith song, “Living on the Edge,” comes to me. A curious coincidence, but that just about sums it up.
CHAPTER 28
Jackie thanked her lucky stars and the landscape architects for insisting on leaving wooded areas around highway rest stops. The copse of trees behind the gas station was a welcome refuge from the three assholes intent on putting a bullet in her. Bent double, she picked her way through the trees, looking for the one offering the most protection. Fortu
nately, the three men weren’t toting automatics. They could have sprayed bullets into the woods at random and blown her away. But now a game of hide-and-seek was developing, and since she was a little girl that had always been one of Jackie’s favorite games.
She had two choices: keep moving and hope they would play into her hands or hide and wait for the chance to pick them off one by one. She squatted against a tree trunk to get her breathing under control and make her decision.
Jackie crawled through the undergrowth, relying on her size and speed to work in her favor if she ran into anybody. Flat on her belly, she spotted a foot and took careful aim. She fired twice. The man collapsed on the ground, screaming. At the very least, the bullets had broken his foot or, with a little luck, ripped his toes off. The wounded man’s screams gave Jackie a buzz. In the unlikely event that he survived tonight, the guy would be disabled for life. When the thirst for revenge grabs you, that knowledge can be very satisfying. Two more opponents to eliminate. Jackie concentrated hard.
The rustle of branches on suits gave Jackie precious clues to their whereabouts. Suddenly, twigs cracked behind her. She spun round, gun in both hands and fired, aiming by instinct. Alert, her muscles coiled, she spotted her second target. Short hair, square jaw, brown eyes, early thirties, good-looking. The gun he leveled at Jackie made him less attractive. As did the red stain spreading across his white shirt level with his solar plexus. He swayed for a few seconds, then toppled onto Jackie, who rolled just in time to avoid being crushed by two hundred pounds of dead meat. Another one down.
Damn floodlights! The parking lot is empty, and in the harsh light I’m a sitting duck. I run like mad, convinced that every step will be my last. I glance around to see if they’re closing on me. Strangely, there’s nobody there. Two gunshots ring out. The tables and stone stools for travelers to eat their ready-made meals are bordered by this charming copse of trees. In the daytime, kids chase each other, and dogs shit here gaily. But tonight, especially for me, the rest stop has become a shooting range. Seeing the muscular guy peering into the trees with his back to me, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jackie was somewhere in the undergrowth. Hopefully, she’s not wounded. Or worse.
