by Ellis Shuman
“You have to understand something, Ayala,” Boaz continued. “Uncovering the bomber’s identity is one thing. The name given at the briefing was not his real name. Not only that. I find it highly unlikely the terrorist was American, but one day we’ll uncover the truth. Far more important at this stage is the urgency to determine the extent of Hezbollah’s network in Bulgaria. If such a network exists, we must act to destroy it now, before it is more firmly established. We cannot let Bulgaria, our ally, become a breeding ground for additional attacks in the future. That is why it is crucial to learn who assisted Hezbollah locally in preparations for the Burgas terror attack.”
Ayala sighed, knowing that uncovering the terrorist infrastructure in Bulgaria had been her assignment, an assignment clearly defined, an assignment she had fucked up. This was not the open-and-shut case she had imagined solving on her field trip with the Bulgarian detective. How far the Istanbul-bound train had taken her off track! Boaz was disappointed in her performance and she felt a need to apologize, but he didn’t give her the chance.
“In Israel, the video is all over the news,” he informed her.
“What video?”
“The footage showing the bomber walking into the Burgas terminal. It leaked to the media. It’s on all the newscasts. Channel One, Channel Two, Channel Ten—they’re showing it over and over. We have to solve this case quickly. There’s a lot of pressure from the higher-ups,” he said.
In her mind, Ayala saw the grainy imagery of the tall thin man wearing a baseball cap, carrying a bulky pack on his back. The black sunglasses, the casual movements. The bomber didn’t seem to have a care in the world. He was pure evil. A murderer. Ayala knew she would be thinking about that video for a long time. She feared the footage would form terrifying nightmares that would keep her awake at night.
Maybe it was a good thing the video from the terminal’s CCTV was being shown to the public. The more people who viewed the film, the more likely someone would come forward to assist them in tracking the movements of the bomber and his accomplices. The clues were out there. The team just needed to find them.
“You know what the worst thing is about this?” Ayala said.
“About what?”
“We’re almost in Turkey, and the car is back in Plovdiv. We have to take the train north tomorrow morning to retrieve the car. It was a mistake to come here, a waste of time.”
“Ayala, wait there. I’ll drive down in the morning and pick you up. We’ll discuss the case in person. I can’t allow you to . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“B’emet?”
“Of course. Tell me something. Do you trust this guy you’re with, this Boyko?”
“He’s arrogant, self-centered and sexist, a real pain in the ass sometimes, but why wouldn’t I trust him? I can’t believe I’m defending him! But, he is focused on this case. We both want the same result—to bring the criminals to justice. Isn’t that what it’s all about?”
“Okay, just asking. I’ll see you in the morning. Stay at your hotel.”
“L’hitraot,” she replied as the line disconnected. She glanced at the small screen. Her phone was still charging.
* * *
“This is all they had. I’m sorry.”
“Well, it won’t do!”
“I will sleep on the floor. You can trust me. I will not do anything unfitting for a gentleman.”
He tried to sound sincere. Was it his fault the hotel at the border only had one vacant room? He had spoken to the manager while she remained in the deserted station hall, charging her phone. He had argued with the man, to no avail. Only one room—that was all there was.
“Ayala, it’s the middle of the night,” he said, waiting for her to follow him into the small room. “What did you expect? That there would be a Hilton hotel on the Turkish border with a two-room suite reserved for us?”
“We shouldn’t have boarded the train,” she complained as she crossed the threshold. She collapsed onto the room’s sole lounge chair and closed her eyes. “I’ll sleep here,” she whispered.
“No you won’t! You get the bed. You need a good night’s sleep. We continue our investigation tomorrow and you must be rested.”
“What point is there in that? The suspects have already crossed into Turkey. They must have taken an earlier train.”
“Or the information we got was not the correct information. There are more leads to follow, more things to check out. Surely you know that.”
She sat with her eyes closed, not bothering to respond. After a few minutes of silence, he wondered if she had fallen asleep. She wasn’t, he realized, when she got up to go into the small bathroom.
“You didn’t arrange for toothpaste, by any chance?” she asked.
“No, they were all out.”
She said something but he couldn’t make out her words. He sat down on the uncomfortable lounge chair, waiting for his turn. The bedroom was dimly lit; the walls were barren. A single, rectangular window, a table so tiny it was hardly fit for use. The bed appeared lumpy and uninviting, but that depended on what purpose the bed would serve.
Ayala came out of the bathroom and stretched out, fully clothed. She turned over, clearly intending to sleep like that.
“Do you not want to get under the covers?”
“Can you turn off the light?”
“Okay.” The room went dark and he headed into the bathroom, fumbling for the light switch.
Minutes later he came back, leaving the bathroom light on so that he could see his way. He sat down on the edge of the bed to take off his shoes, accidentally bumping into Ayala’s foot.
“Watch it!”
“Sorry.”
He grabbed the pillow from the lounge chair and placed it at the foot of the bed.
“Aren’t you going to turn off that light?”
“Aren’t you going to stop talking?” he responded.
He flicked the light switch off and lay down on the hard, unaccommodating floor. He couldn’t hear her breathing. Clearly, she was not yet asleep. Was she thinking about him? Didn’t she find it exciting to be in a hotel room with a handsome stranger? He was getting aroused by the thought of her lying on the bed, just a short distance from his head. Her skin was so dark. What color was it exactly? Cinnamon! That’s what came to mind.
“This floor is quite hard,” he whispered. Had she heard him? Would she take the hint? “You know, that bed is big enough for both of us.”
Still she didn’t reply.
“I would not do anything. Honestly! You would be on your side and I would be on my side. We both need to get a good night’s sleep.”
No response came from the bed.
“We could snuggle together. To keep warm, of course.” The second these words slipped out of his mouth, Boyko regretted them.
“You are full of it!” Ayala barked at him, shifting around on the bed. “Can’t you keep this professional? We’re two investigators, investigating the most serious of terrorist attacks, and all you want to do is get into my panties.”
“I never said that!”
“You are such a chauvinist pig. I saw you staring at me all day long with lust in your eyes. Well, mister big shot, you can keep your pants tightly tied because the only place you’re sleeping tonight is on the floor. I don’t care how hard and uncomfortable that might be.”
“Think about it. Our sleeping together would greatly improve Bulgarian-Israeli relations,” he joked, but she was not laughing. “We’d be doing a service to both of our countries if I got into the bed with you.”
“You better shut the fuck up. I need to sleep.” Her voice trailed off.
And that was when the room’s only window exploded. The glass shattered; jagged projectiles flew in all directions. Outside, the rapid gunfire of an automatic weapon. Bullets slammed into the wall above the bed, sweeping from left to right in a deadly arc. Lying on the floor, Boyko slid under the bed for cover. There was no indication whether the Israeli woman lying on the
bed above him was still alive.
12
“Are you all right? Ayala?”
Was she all right? She shuddered at her memories of the attack, unable to shake the sensation of being showered with glass fragments, the tiny, razor-sharp bits landing all over her face, her arms, her legs. In her mind, the bullets continued to splatter into the wooden wall behind the bed, inches above her head. Though the gunfire lasted for only a few seconds, it seemed to take place in slow motion, as if time had frozen. Boyko had shouted something. What was it? “Stay down!” was his command. She recalled rolling across the bed and falling to the floor at his side. A piece of cold metal pressed between them. Boyko was armed! Why hadn’t she noticed that before?
She shivered as the scene replayed itself in her mind. She remembered Boyko easing forward, crawling around the bed and edging toward the shattered remains of the window. Shards of broken glass were everywhere. “Do not move,” he whispered. In the aftermath of the gunfire’s sharpness, the silence in the room was deafening, frightening. Her ears rang with echoes of the unexpected outburst. Was the barrage of bullets a prelude to a more serious assault? Were the gunmen about to storm the door? Ayala’s heart beat rapidly, resonating audibly in her chest. She feared that its feverish beating would give their position away.
Boyko cautiously raised his head to scan the surroundings. No one was there; their assailants were gone. He placed his gun back in its hidden holster.
“They’re gone,” he said. “It’s okay now.”
But she had remained prone on the floor, trembling. She gasped for breath, closed her eyes and tried to ignore the staccato of gunfire in her head, the pounding of bullets. The shower of glass. The certain death that she had somehow managed to escape.
“It’s okay now,” Boyko repeated softly. He continued to stare out the shattered window. “It’s over,” he said.
It took some time before her breathing returned to normal. Someone was talking to her, asking her a question. The terrible scene in her mind faded out. She opened her eyes.
“Ayala, are you all right?”
“What? Boaz, when did you get here?” she asked in Hebrew, gladly accepting the bottle of water he offered her.
“I came as quickly as I could,” he said. “Moshe and Eyal are here as well. They’re talking with the Bulgarian police in the room, checking the evidence.”
“We were on the train,” Ayala said. Her arms were bleeding in several places, but nothing serious. A small sliver of glass had lodged in her ear; a larger piece was trapped in her hair. She brushed herself off and sat up straight on the hard pavement. She was outside, somewhere; it wasn’t clear where. She dropped the wool blanket from her shoulders. Who had given her that? When did she leave the room? She wasn’t certain what had transpired in the aftermath of the gunfire.
“It was all a wild goose chase,” she said, feeling a need to explain. “We ran after these two men, but they turned out to be Turkish workers on their way home. I was furious with Boyko. He led me far away from where we should have been. And now it turns out we were on the right track the entire time.”
“What do you mean?” Boaz asked her. He seemed confused.
“The terrorists. They shot up our hotel room. They knew we were there.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Didn’t you see the room? The bullets hit the wall over my head; the glass shattered everywhere.”
“Yes, I saw that. But I do not think this was perpetrated by terrorists.”
“Of course it was Hezbollah! We followed their trail and they attacked us.”
“This is not how Hezbollah operates,” he said, shaking his head. “Shooting up a hotel room? It’s not their modus operandi. Hezbollah does not shoot at people. Hezbollah bombs people and makes sure they are dead.”
“You weren’t in that room; you don’t know what it was like!” Ayala argued, grimacing at a sudden pain in her shoulder. “
“Calm down. Here, drink some more water.”
Moshe and Eyal joined them at the edge of the parking lot.
“No further leads,” Moshe said.
“We’re not sure the gunmen knew who they were targeting,” Eyal said. “Maybe they shot up the wrong room.”
Ayala stared at the two of them, and then at Boaz, looking for his support. “No, that doesn’t sound right,” she said. “They knew we were in there!”
“Was your companion possibly the target?” Moshe asked. “What is his name?”
“Boyko. Where is he? Is he okay?”
“He’s over there, talking to the police,” Moshe said. “There’s something strange about this shooting. As Boaz said, the attack doesn’t appear to be the work of terrorists. Ayala, did anyone follow you here? Was there anyone suspicious on the train?”
“I didn’t see anyone following us,” she said quietly, wrapping herself in the blanket again. “We were the ones doing the following. We raced through the carriages. No one could have been behind us. We weren’t followed!”
“I have a feeling this shooting is unrelated to our current investigation,” Eyal commented. “It’s either a random shooting, a gang-style execution gone wrong, or the shooters were intentionally targeting your partner, as Moshe suggested.”
“Or, Ayala herself was the target,” Moshe said. “We have to consider every possibility.”
“No! That can’t be!” Ayala responded.
“If you weren’t being followed, the shooters must have learned of your location in some other way,” Boaz said. “Did Detective Stanchev make any calls once you arrived at the hotel?”
“Boyko? He may have. I went into the bathroom. He might have called someone, but surely you don’t think his call alerted the gunmen?”
“If they were listening in on the call . . .” Eyal started to say.
“Where is Boyko?” Ayala asked a second time.
Boaz’s phone rang with an annoying discordant ringtone. Ayala realized with a start she didn’t know where her own phone was. It wasn’t in her pocket. Had she left it in the room? How had she managed to call Boaz? Her thoughts were foggy, confused. In her mind, bullets continued to strike the wall in rapid succession. That horrific sound echoed in her head so loudly that she raised her hands to cover her ears.
“It’s Tel Aviv,” Boaz said, turning to her. “They want to talk to you.”
Ayala took the phone and listened for several minutes, barely able to say anything in response to the one-sided conversation from overseas. She handed the phone back to Boaz, a puzzled look on her face.
“What is it?” he asked her. “Didn’t they want to hear your report, to inquire how you are?”
Ayala kept quiet, taking in what she had just heard and trying to make sense of it. “I have been ordered back to Israel,” she said. “They say it’s too dangerous for me here.”
And then, despite her training and her professionalism, despite the fact that she was working so hard to keep up with the men and prove her capabilities, she started to cry.
13
“We need to discuss the shooting,” Zhekov said, stepping out of his car to confront Boyko. “On tonight’s news you’ll hear the Israelis declaring that the incident near the Turkish border was yet another terrorist attack, that Hezbollah gunmen were firing at you. We both know this wasn’t the case at all. Isn’t that true, Boyko?”
Boyko stared at the senior police officer, but he couldn’t maintain eye contact with the man. How typical of Zhekov—not to express any concern at all for his health now, after the shooting, or ever for that matter. Hell, he was almost killed in there! His arms and legs were still bleeding from crawling over broken glass and he had yet to calm his rattled nerves. Nice of you to ask how I’m doing, Boyko muttered under his breath. You’re such a big shot whose only care in the world is how they present you on television. Shit!
Boyko stared at the pavement, seething in anger. Yet, he held back and didn’t respond to the commander. After all, he was assigned to the case and
Zhekov was his superior officer, whether he liked it or not.
“This was something else altogether, wasn’t it?”
“Do not jump to any conclusions,” Boyko said, speaking up for the first time. He was about to say more, but Zhekov cut him short.
“Your past has a habit of always catching up with you, doesn’t it, Boyko?”
“My past,” Boyko mouthed. He saw what was coming.
“There were incidents even when you were on the force with me. You cannot be on this investigation if other things keep interfering. I am asking SANS to reassign you.”
“Do not be ridiculous,” Boyko protested. “I have the experience, know which angles of the investigation to pursue. I can contribute to the team. You need my assistance!”
“I know you have the experience. The only thing I stated—and I think I stated it quite clearly—is that you will play no further part in the bombing investigation. Do you understand this? Or do I have to put it in writing?”
Arguing with Zhekov was pointless, Boyko thought. When the commander marched off, he crossed the parking lot to join a number of uniformed policemen who were discussing the shooting.
“Where are the Israelis?” Boyko demanded.
“They’ve already gone.”
The Israelis were gone. And he was off the case. Damn it! Where was Ayala?
He had not had a chance to explain what had happened, to apologize for putting her life in danger. She had nearly been killed and it was all his fault. As Zhekov had surmised, the gunfire had nothing to do with the bombing, nothing at all. He shouldn’t involve Ayala in his problems or expose her to the wrath of his enemies. It wasn’t right.
He would find Ayala in Burgas. He would talk to her, even if he was no longer assigned to the investigation. In the meantime, he had a more pressing problem.
Where was his car?
