by Andy Maslen
Yes, how am I? He took a while to compose a message that would keep Britta on high alert without worrying her unduly.
Good. Had a run in with her. I’m fine, too. Can you talk?
Britta must have been holding her phone. The reply was instantaneous.
Run in? Don’t hide stuff from me, Wolfe. Can’t talk.
OK, he tapped out. She blew up my car, but pulled me clear. Cuts and bruises but I really am OK. Just be safe, yes?
Another buzz.
Sorry about your car. You can get another one. Something sensible. JOKE!! You be safe too, ja? Love you, gotta go. xx
Gabriel had read in a Sunday paper that the text most commonly sent by men was a single letter. He used it now.
K
He called Eli’s number. It was answered on the first ring.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice.
“Oh. Uh, is Eli there? Please?”
Allies
WHATEVER Gabriel had been expecting, it wasn’t laughter.
“It’s pronounced Ellie, not E-lie. Don wrong-footed you, I’m afraid. He has that annoying playful streak, doesn’t he?”
“Sorry. Yes, you could say that. I’m home now if you want to come round.”
“Give me fifteen minutes. I need to pack and check out. Pear Tree Cottage, right?”
Gabriel emptied the teapot and made a fresh brew, with twice the amount of tea.
Fourteen minutes and thirty seconds later, he heard the scrunch of feet on the gravel outside the kitchen door. He looked up from the screen of his MacBook.
Beyond the glass was a young woman wearing a dark-green waxed jacket over jeans and hiking boots. Dark, reddish-brown, wavy hair loose around her jawline. Large, grey-green eyes, rimmed with kohl. Tanned skin. Wide, smiling mouth. She waved.
Gabriel stood, went to the door, and admitted his visitor.
“You must be Eli,” he said. “Sorry about the mix-up before.”
She shook his hand, then held him by shoulders and kissed him twice on the cheeks. She smelled of sandalwood and lemons. Shampoo, he thought. Or shower gel.
“Don’t worry about it. I get it a lot. I think Don enjoys it. He sent me to Russia with a minister last month. The poor guy couldn’t keep his eyes off me.”
She was standing with her hands on her hips. Gabriel’s gaze slipped involuntarily to her chest and, hurriedly, back up to her eyes.
“Come in,” he said, noticing the smile playing at the corners of her mouth, “I’ve made some tea.”
“Excellent,” she said, taking off the jacket and arranging it on the back of one of Gabriel’s pine kitchen chairs. “I haven’t had a brew since breakfast.”
“A brew?”
Her eyes widened. “What? That’s what you call it, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I mean, in the army, we did. But I didn’t know the Israelis did, too.”
She nodded and switched the smile back to full power, miming applause. “Very good! Was it my looks or my name?”
He shrugged. “Both, I suppose. Your name, how do you say it?”
“Shock-at,” she said.
“So, Eli Schochat. A Jewish name. Hebraized. From Reznick, or Schechter?”
“Reznick. The Hebrew word for changing your name to a Hebrew name is l’avret. My family came from Poland originally. My grandfather escaped the Holocaust by three months. Took our family to Spain first, then the US, and finally, Palestine. Your scholarship is very impressive, by the way.”
“Thank you. I spent some time fighting alongside an IDF unit in the nineties. My partner there, Amit Meron, spent some time teaching me a few words. She was a linguist like me.”
She took a sip of the tea. “Mm. Good. How come you ended up working for The Department?”
“I was going to ask you the same question.”
She grinned. “But I asked you first.”
“I served under Don in the SAS. Then he recruited me a couple of years ago. It seemed natural to go back to taking his orders. Plus I was working in advertising, which was doing my head in.”
Eli laughed. “Oh, yeah. They’re all, like, ‘Buy this cream and have eternal youth.’ Such bullshit.”
Gabriel felt an instant liking for this woman. No nonsense. No small talk.
“So come on then,” he said. “What’s your story?”
She leaned back in her chair and laced her fingers together behind her head.
“Started my military service on my eighteenth birthday. Volunteered for combat missions and did three years. Then I applied to the Mista’arvim. Your buddy Amit tell you about them?” He shook his head. “Special Forces. Counterterrorism. Finding and killing those bastards knifing Jewish kids on their way to school, or rocketing hospitals. Three years there, then I got a call from a quietly spoken man called Yehudi Na’vretz. He was a deputy chief at Mossad. He asked me if I would like to serve my country at the highest level a soldier could without going into politics. I said yes. He recruited me for Kidon.”
“Tip of the spear,” Gabriel said.
“Exactly. The sharp end. We were dealing with the most-wanted terrorists. I went all over. Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, even the US once. Then, after completing my ninth mission for Director Na’vretz, he called me to his office. This was January last year. There was another man with him. That man was Don Webster. He was recruiting for The Department. Which is funny. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because Mossad translates literally as The Institute. So I went from The Institute to The Department. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?”
Gabriel smiled. Smart, dangerous, attractive and with a sense of irony.
“You took the job. Obviously.”
“Obviously. And here I am.”
“So you’re what, twenty-six? Twenty-seven?”
“Twenty-six. You?”
“Born in 1980. So a bit older than you.”
She laughed. “Fuck! You’re an old man. No wonder Don thought you needed somebody to look after you! On that subject, I brought some stuff with me. It’s in the boot of my car. I’m parked up the street. OK to bring it in?”
Gabriel nodded, then watched as she spun round and left at a quick march, her boots loud on the shingle outside the door.
Five minutes later, he heard her car pull in off the road and park next to his garage. His garage that he wouldn’t be needing anytime soon except for storing garden tools. Well, he could always find some time to try out a few new cars. This, situation, was more important.
Eli knocked twice on the window and beckoned him outside. He joined her at the back of her car, a metallic charcoal Audi RS6 estate.
“Nice,” he said.
“He is, isn’t he? Four-point-two V8, twin turbo. Goes like stink.”
“He?” Gabriel asked, smiling. In his mind, cars were always female. Sexist, he supposed.
“Naturally. He’s called Moshe.”
“After Moshe Dayan, right? Defence Minister in the Six-Day War.”
“Yes, very good. He’s a hero of mine. So what do you call your car?” she asked, pointing at the garage.
“I did call her Kali, after the Indian goddess. Very fierce. But she’s history now, I’m afraid. What’s left is in an evidence garage somewhere, being inspected by explosives experts from the police.”
“What happened?” Eli said, her hand resting on the tailgate but not opening it.
“The woman who shot my friend, her name is Sasha Beck. She shot the tyre out with some sort of explosive pistol round. The car flipped. She pulled me free then blew her to fuck with a man-portable anti-tank weapon.”
Eli frowned, creasing thin lines in that smooth, tanned forehead. “Or in this case, woman-portable. OK, so it’s good I’m here. Let’s see what I’ve brought you.”
She pulled the tailgate open. As it reached the top of its travel, Gabriel peered inside the cavernous load space. The rear seats were folded forwards and the floor was taken up with several olive-green can
vas bundles.
“If those are what I think they are, let’s get them inside first. The police have been showing a lot of interest in me since Julia’s death, and I’d hate for them to get wind of who I really am.”
She smiled. “Ooh, Gabriel Wolfe, the big, bad, black-ops guy living right under their noses. That would make for some interesting canteen gossip, wouldn’t it?”
He grinned. “Something like that.”
They each grabbed a bundle and took them into the house. A second trip saw all the lumpy packages safely inside and laid on the floor of the kitchen. With the Audi locked, they went back inside.
“Just like Christmas,” Gabriel said, squatting to unwrap the canvas from one of the longer bundles.
She cleared her throat loudly. “Christmas? Wrong time of year. Plus I’m a good Jewish girl.”
She was smiling as she said this, and her eyes creased at their outer corners.
“Sorry. Hanukkah. Better?”
“Much. Though as it’s April, Pesach would be more appropriate. There!” she said, pulling back the flap of canvas on her own bundle just as Gabriel did the same to his.
Lying before them were two Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles. Each was equipped with a compact torch mounted under the barrel, and a ZF 3 × 4 degree dual optical sight on the ridged Picatinny rail screwed to the top of the receiver. Khaki slings completed the accessories.
They unwrapped the smaller bundles. Gabriel whistled his appreciation. In front of him were two spare 30-round magazines for the G36s, and eight fibreboard cartons of 5.56mm NATO ammunition, fifty rounds to a carton. Altogether, they had over 400 rounds. Eli pointed down at the hoard in front of her. Two semi-automatic pistols and more ammunition, this time 9 x 19mm Parabellum hollow point rounds. She handed one of the pistols to Gabriel.
“SIG Sauer P226. Your favourite, right? Don was most specific on this point when he sent me down to see the armourer.”
“That’s right. Don always wanted me to use a Glock, but he never pushed it. We could pretty much choose our own loadouts. Yours is nice, too. What is it?” He knew exactly what it was. Had identified it from his mental database of infantry weapons as soon as it came free of its wrappings, but he felt he’d done enough showing off for one day.”
She picked it up and turned it this way and that in her hand before aiming at the ceiling light.
“Jericho 941. AKA Baby Eagle. Israel Weapon Industries. Based on the Czech CZ 75. Very reliable. A real man-stopper.”
“Or woman.” He couldn’t resist the jibe.
“Or woman.”
“What’s it chambered for?”
“Forty-five ACP. I’ve got suppressors too, look.”
Two stubby black cylinders nestled alongside the boxes of ammunition.
Gabriel pointed at the remaining bundle.
“What’s in that one?”
She smiled. “You’ll love it.”
Tipping off the Trafficker
WHILE Gabriel and Eli were examining their weapons, Sasha Beck was en route to her next destination. Sitting behind the wheel of her Aston Martin as she powered northwest from Salisbury, she made a call.
The voice on the other end was rough, male, with an accent part eastern Mediterranean, part Russian. “Who is this?”
“It doesn’t matter, darling. But I’m a friend. There’s a woman painting pictures up the road from your little lockup there on Bagleys Lane. She’s an MI5 agent, gathering intelligence on your operation. Her name is Britta Falskog. Pick her up for me and keep her safe and there’s a quarter of a million pounds in it for you.”
“What the fuck is this? Who are you?”
“OK, look. I don’t have time for all this. You are Dmitri Torossian. Born in Yerevan in 1971 to Tigran and Milena Torossian. You are currently, and I stress currently, a high-ranking member of Sev Artsivnery – the Black Eagles – Armenia’s most dangerous criminal organisation. Gor Baghdasar, your boss, is a personal friend of mine and he gave me your details. Now, you have an artist to catch, yes?”
She hung up. Smiled. Well, Gabriel, darling. That should put the cat among the pigeons.
Eli opened the package, spreading the flaps of canvas left and right. Two bayonets lay side by side. Their edges caught the light and glinted wickedly. “Just in case we need to be completely silent.”
Gabriel surveyed the materiel Eli had brought with her. He approved. Now at least the odds were evened up in terms of weaponry. Sasha had a long and a short. So did he. Plus, he had a partner, whereas he was certain Sasha would be working alone. He began to imagine a scenario where they’d draw on each other like old-time cowboys in the centre of a western town. Eli interrupted his train of thought.
“I’ve got more ammunition in the car. Beneath the boot floor. Oh, and these.”
She reached up to her jacket and fished out two pieces of plastic from an inside pocket, handing one to Gabriel. They were virtually featureless white rectangles. Just a coat of arms and a phone number. A landline phone number with a +44 for the UK.
Any curious, or startled, police officer apprehending a tooled-up Department operative anywhere in the world would be asked to call the number. On doing so, they would be greeted by a polite receptionist – the phone was staffed around the clock every day of the year – and asked for the name of the operative and their own warrant or ID number. They would be instructed to end the call and wait for a call back. Within five minutes, a member of staff from their own headquarters would call them and, again politely, request that they allow Mr X or Miss Y to continue about their lawful business. They would further be informed that to talk to anyone about what they had seen would be to invite instant dismissal, without pension, and with criminal proceedings. It worked every time.
After they’d stashed the weapons in a locked cupboard under his staircase, Eli announced she was going out for a run. He’d given her his spare room, and she emerged in running gear. Service in the IDF, then Israeli Special Forces and Mossad, not to mention her work for The Department, had honed what was obviously an athletic physique to begin with into a compact, tightly muscled fighting machine. Gabriel had seen all shapes and sizes of soldiers, from giant infanteers who could probably bend an AK-47 into a pretzel, to diminutive commandos who’d cheerfully take enemy fighters apart with their bare hands. Eli fell somewhere between the two. Five seven. Probably no more than nine stone, virtually all of it muscle. She had hips, yes, small, high breasts, and a cute rear end, but woe betide the man – or woman – who made an unauthorised move on her. He had a strong intuition that they’d end up drinking their food through a straw for a few months if they did.
That evening, after Gabriel had cooked lamb chops, slightly pink, French beans dressed in a mustard and caper sauce, and new potatoes, he poured them both another glass of the Barolo they’d been drinking with the food. They took the wine into the sitting room. He put some music on from the hard drive connected to his hi-fi: Oscar Petersen, playing “Night Train.” As the lazy, precise playing of the Canadian piano genius filled the room, Gabriel spoke.
“She left me a message. Engraved on the brass she used. ‘Fury is coming for you, Wolfe.’ And two kisses. I’ve been trying to figure it out. What do you think it means?”
Eli paused, and took a sip of her wine. He liked that. Too many people were ready with an instant opinion on any subject, an answer to any question, regardless of its complexity. Almost as if they’d just been waiting to be asked. He preferred people who thought first.
“Start at the back. Two kisses. Someone likes you. Who? The client?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. They’ve had my best friend killed, and they’ve destroyed my car. I don’t think they’re massive fans, to be honest.”
“Probably you’re right. So the assassin, then. Sasha Beck.”
“I think so. I’ve met her a couple of times before. She’s—” He stopped mid-sentence. What was she? A psychopath? But they didn’t have feelings, did they? Isn’t that
what all the books said? Or was that some garbage he’d picked up off Wikipedia? “She’s weird. She seems to find what she does amusing. Or maybe it’s life she finds amusing. I think she, I mean, I don’t know why, but she seems to—”
“Fuck me, Gabriel, you are beating around the bush, aren’t you? She fancies you, yes?”
“Yes. But that’s weird, isn’t it?”
“Why? You’re a very handsome man. Very sophisticated. You speak languages. You can cook. You know about different cultures.” She pressed her open hand to her chest as she said this. “Any woman, even a hit woman, would find you attractive. I know I do.”
Her gaze was frank, appraising. He blushed. He supposed if you’d grown up in a country besieged by enemies, and you’d served in one of the world’s toughest militaries, coyness probably wasn’t high on your list of attributes.
“I’m engaged, Eli. I can’t, you know. I mean, you’re very attractive, too. Gorgeous, actually. I may have had a tad too much to drink to be as articulate as I’d like, by the way.”
She leaned her head back and laughed. It was a full-throated sound of genuine good humour.
“Oh, you poor English boys and your good manners. Don’t worry, I’m not going to jump your bones. I was just telling the truth. So Sasha Beck fancies you. Maybe that could work in our favour. Now, the rest of the message. What was it again?”
“‘Fury is coming for you, Wolfe,’ with a comma after ‘you,’ by the way.”
“Your assassin is a precise woman. Goes with the territory, doesn’t it? I noticed all your books are organised alphabetically, fiction on the left, non-fiction on the right. And your kitchen cupboard would have a sergeant major in tears of joy. But it says, Wolfe. Not, Gabriel. Whoever told her to write that hates you, in my judgement. Sasha Beck herself would use your first name.”
“What about the main part? What does it mean? Obviously the client is mad at me, but it’s such an odd phrase.”
