The devils shepherd, p.13
The Devil's Shepherd, page 13
He and Baum stood beside the forward galley of the Alitalia jet, stretching their legs in the bulkhead space of the emergency exit. Ten rows back in coach class, Niki Hašek sat in the window spot of their triplet seats. Her head was propped on a pillow against the scratched Plexiglas, but her eyes were open and she stared down at the Egyptian Eastern Desert as if wishing she had brought along a parachute. For the first time in the process of escorting her, Eckstein and Baum could finally relax, for she had nowhere to flee.
The past evening and half-day in Rome, rather than a respite between legs of the mission and the flight to Addis Ababa, had instead turned to a depressing vigil for the two intelligence officers. With Francie, Serge, and Gerard already making their separate ways back to Tel Aviv, Eckstein and Baum were left to entertain their Czech jewel. Yet she behaved more like prisoner than princess, despite the spacious suite booked at the Ambasciatori and the generous offer of a shopping spree, new wardrobe and accessories, if you wish, “on the House of David.”
Eckstein loved the Italian capital, its stones and statues and scents and atmosphere of La Dolce Vita, and he was willing to escort Niki through any distractions that might snap her from her gloom. But she was having none of it.
Granted they had arrived at Fiumicino close to midnight and thoroughly spent, having made the last leg once more aboard the white “MSF” jet, in which they had scrubbed down in the cramped lavatory and reverted back to “civilians.” Trudging at last into the hotel lobby, Baum proffered his Hans-Dieter Schmidt German passport and a similarly forged document denoting Niki as his daughter, Nicole. Eckstein had again assumed the role of Anthony Hearthstone and a yawning clerk flipped through the little booklets.
“Schmidt, Schmidt, and Hearthstone.” He jotted their particulars in a ledger. “Are you a law firm?”
“No,” said Baum. “A dysfunctional family.”
Only Eckstein smiled, while Niki perused the lobby as if searching for a rathole and the clerk solemnly nodded, apparently regretting that he had pried.
The suite itself was vast and luxurious, its expense only approved for reasons of security, in that the trio would not be separated by unattached rooms. There was a comfortable salon, kitchenette, three bedrooms, and a wide verandah overlooking the city. Yet even though Niki had just escaped from a posting in hell, she was utterly unreactive to these surroundings. She exhibited no diminishing of her tension, and immediately sat down before the large television, still wearing her coat, feeding blankly from a bowl of mixed nuts and watching a rerun of the Eurovision song festival.
Eckstein and Baum conferred quietly in the kitchen as they broke open a pair of “blond” lagers.
“What’s up with her?” Eckstein murmured in German.
Benni shrugged and took a long swig of beer. “Post-traumatic stress?”
“Unsinn. Nonsense,” Eckstein scoffed. “She’s got a first-class escort and all expenses paid to a rendezvous with the love of her life. She should be dancing around here barefoot and guzzling champagne.”
Baum glanced over at Niki, who seemed to have consumed all the nuts and was now onto her fingernails.
“That’s the fairytale version,” he said. “Don’t expect her to turn from a shellshocked bug into a carefree butterfly within six hours. She’ll come around.”
Eckstein also stole a glance at her. He shook his head.
“Something’s off. I’m sleeping near the door.”
“Suit yourself,” said Baum. “I’m going straight from the Jacuzzi to the pillow.” He dropped the empty beer bottle into a wastebasket. “Don’t wake me unless she turns into a vampire.”
Baum walked to Niki, patted her shoulder, and went off to bed, while Eckstein perused the salon, selected a divan, and manhandled it until its back was pushed up against the entrance door. When Niki noticed his strange mime, she stood up and watched him suspiciously.
“For security,” Eckstein lied as he punched up a pillow and looked around for a blanket.
“Do you expect the Russians to come for me here?” She folded her arms.
“No more than I expect a visit from the Pope. Just a precaution. Standard procedure.”
Yet Niki was not a newcomer to the ways of intelligence professionals. She lifted her nose at him, picked up her valise, stalked off to an empty bedroom, and slammed the door.
“Just like home,” Eckstein muttered. Then he brushed his teeth in the kitchen, switched off the lights and the television, curled up at his post, and immediately fell asleep.
Sometime in the night, a cold breeze flicked his eyelashes. He was instantly awake, and as is the habit of all overly trained combat soldiers, he groped for the weapon that had been his bedmate for years. Yet finding no cool frame of rifle or pistol steel, he realized where he was and lay still.
The glass doors to the verandah were open, the heavy brocade curtains drifting like medieval capes above the carpet. He rose and tiptoed to the doors in a sweatshirt and boxers, and for a moment, he just watched.
Niki stood at the iron balustrade, her small head hanging, her elbows on the railing. A cold wind twisted the smoke from a cigarette. She wore only a long blue T-shirt and she was barefoot. Twenty stories below, the predawn street lamps of Rome glittered like fireflies, and in the distance a crescent moon revealed the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.
When she lifted her head and placed one foot on the lower railing, Eckstein cleared his throat. She started a bit, but she did not turn as he came out on the verandah and took up a place by her side, but not too close. He leaned on the balustrade, yet did not look at her.
“It’s a beautiful city,” he said. “One of the best on Europe.”
Niki sniffed, and peripherally he saw her wipe her cheek with her fingers.
“I could not sleep,” she whispered.
“I understand,” he said.
“You do not understand.”
Eckstein waited a moment, his silence an admission that of course he was ignorant of her private plight. He sighed.
“Sometimes, Niki, life can change very quickly. Too quickly to swallow. New beginnings are hard.”
“Life.” She almost spat the word. “It is ending, not beginning.”
He looked at her, and suddenly a chill shot through his spine. The blue T-shirt had a large emblem on its front, a red and gold shield, and the cartoon title Supergirl embossed in glitter. It struck him that had he woken a minute later she might have decided to “fly.”
“Look, Niki,” he said, but he did not try to touch her as she tossed her cigarette from the verandah, folded her arms over her chest, and shivered. “I don’t know anything about you. But I do know that you’ve had a very hard time, survived in a terrible place where your friends died and you never knew when it might be your turn. I’ve been to that place, more than once, and it can do awful things to your mind.”
She stared at him, eyes wide and glistening, her expression telling nothing. He stepped away from the rail and beckoned her with a hand.
“Come. I’ll make you a stiff drink, and tomorrow it will all look different.”
She took a long breath, slowly shook her head, and walked back into the suite. Eckstein found a bottle of Chivas in the bar, mixed two large tumblers with some ice water, and handed her a glass.
“Tomorrow,” he toasted as he raised his drink and sipped. Without stopping for a breath, Niki downed her scotch as if it was Orangina, set the empty glass on a counter, and looked at him.
“You are right,” she said, and for a moment Eckstein imbued himself with the talents of Freud, until she added, “you don’t know anything about me.”
With that, she walked off to bed.
Eckstein poured the rest of his drink into the sink and put up a pot of espresso. Then he sat on his perch and smoked an entire pack of Rothmanns, unable to decode the mystery of Niki Hašek even as the sun came up . . .
Shortly after breakfast—a sumptuous room service affair delivered to the glum trio on a silver handcart—Benni Baum reluctantly dressed for a visit to the Israeli Embassy, where he would conduct a brief conversation with Ben-Zion via secure transmission. While Niki showered, Eckstein briefed his partner on the strange nocturnal habits of Czech defectors. She suddenly emerged from the bathroom and Baum’s expression of grave concern turned instantly to jolly uncle.
“I have some errands, Nikita,” he said. “But you can do whatever suits you. Go on a shopping spree, take in a museum. Perhaps your fiancé would appreciate some fine Italian sport shirts!”
Niki stood there, her head and small frame wrapped in white towels, a silent, miniature Cleopatra.
Baum patted Eckstein’s shoulder and muttered as he headed for the door, “Don’t let her out of your sight.”
But Niki had no touristic intentions in mind, nor the urge to douse her internal turmoil with a credit card and shopping bags full of Armani. Instead, she asked Eckstein to take her to the Trevi Fountain, where she settled on a stone step to ponder her fate. Eckstein removed himself to a newspaper kiosk and read the Herald Tribune as he watched her. She came up with her journal and began to write, curiously using a hotel ballpoint rather than her ornate fountain pen. Flocks of pigeons pecked around her, tourists ran and laughed and clicked Minoltas at each other, but Niki remained as alone as a stranded earthling on Mars.
* * *
“Itzik didn’t even want me calling from inside the Embassy.” Benni described his morning conversation with the general as the jumbo jet banked and he reached out for a bulkhead. “Made me go out and cruise in the ambassador’s car and use the Tadiran.” He referred to a triplex mobile scrambler of Israeli manufacture.
“So? What crimes have we committed since yesterday?” Eytan asked.
Benni glanced around, reverting to a private code even though the conversation was in Bavarian German.
“He said the Magician made contact again. Must be worried that we won’t show up. Offered us an incentive.”
Eytan understood that Benni was referring to Jan Krumlov.
“What incentive?”
“A picture of the little creature with the muddy nose. Delivery upon our arrival.”
Eytan raised an eyebrow. Krumlov was prepared to turn over a photo of the mole? Before he was extracted to Israel?
“Makes no bloody sense at all.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Benni agreed.
“What the hell do we need him for if he gives us that?”
“Exactly.”
Just then the stewardess reappeared holding a pair of iced Bloody Marys.
“These are fresh, signori” she said with some pride as Baum and Eckstein took the drinks.
“But we are not so fresh,” said Baum.
“Although we try to be gentlemen,” Eckstein added. “Grazie mille.”
“Prego.” She smiled widely at Eckstein. Peripherally, he caught Benni rolling his eyes.
“Lunch will be served soon,” said the stewardess.
“We’ll drink up and sit.” Eckstein glanced at her name tag. “Sophia.”
“And what is your name?” she asked.
“Anthony.”
“A fine Italian name.”
“My grandparents were from Napoli.”
She looked surprised and terribly pleased, but another stewardess touched her elbow and she moved away.
“Napoli?” Baum mouthed as he frowned at his partner.
Eytan shrugged. “Munich. Napoli. Same neighborhood.” He sipped his drink, immediately flipping back to the subject at hand.
“A photograph? Now why would the fool hand over his ace?”
“Maybe it’s a partial,” Benni speculated. “Obscured, or only half a face.”
“Right,” Eytan scoffed. “Maybe it’s Lee Harvey Oswald’s head on the body of a Hizbollah, holding an RPG and a copy of Playboy.”
Benni laughed. This was the part of their work that kept sucking them back into the game, the impossible puzzles, the unsolved riddles, the Rubik’s Cubes of unmatched clues and faces and snippets of codes that when properly swung together gave these men a rush beyond adrenaline and orgasm.
Benni’s smile faded as he looked at his partner and remembered that these were the waning days of his career. After so many years at war, the adventures had begun to blend, too numerous to remember, some too unbelievable to accept as having actually transpired.
He had worked with hundreds of intelligence officers, yet this final partnership with Eckstein had been a near-perfect yin and yang. Yes, technically, he was the superior officer, but Benni’s ordered, methodical approach seemed to require Eytan’s impulsive instincts as catalyst now. It was more than colonel and major, not much less than father and son, yet Benni could never have worked this way with one of his own sons, ordered one of them to lay down his life if he had to. Still, it was inexplicable; they had done things for each other above and beyond. When Eytan had been wounded and nearly captured in Munich, Benni’s only reflex had been to personally extract him. When Benni’s Zodiac had been bullet-punctured and set afire, he went into the water nearly without a care, knowing that somehow Eytan’s hand would soon reach out for him, his younger smile chastising the old man. He felt something swell in his heart, but combat officers did not speak of such things.
“I’m going to miss it,” he said.
“No, you’re not.” Eytan jabbed the stem of his pipe at the colonel, who instinctively winced, given the implement’s dual purpose. “You’re going to go gentle into that good night. Just please don’t be one of those old pathetic hacks who hang around the office.”
“Well, what the hell am I going to do?”
“Go into business. Get rich. Write your memoirs.”
“For whom?” Benni demanded just a bit too loudly. Former Israeli intelligence officers did not write memoirs, unless the book had a specific tactical purpose and the army censors had been ordered to lay off.
“For the Ra’mach Hahistori.” Eytan used a Hebrew acronym for the IDF historian, who worked in a secure library at General Headquarters and collected classified narratives from all the military branches.
“Now there’s a literary graveyard.”
“All right. So, you’ll enjoy your kids,” Eytan suggested.
Benni had two sons, one an air force pilot and the other a paratroop officer. His daughter, Ruth, had recently returned to New York to finish a combined master’s–Ph.D. psychology program at Columbia University.
“Enjoy them?” Benni challenged. “They’ll avoid me like the plague.”
“Not Ruth,” said Eytan. “I’ll bet she comes home after school and joins the family business.”
“Over my dead body,” Benni growled, yet he suspected that Eytan was right and secretly wished it would be so. His beautiful daughter had been terribly wounded by his absences during her childhood, yet still she had served as an army field intelligence officer during her compulsory service. Soon afterward, a terrible rift had developed between them and she went off to America, but Benni had discovered that his genes were imbedded in her makeup. She was inexorably drawn to the dark profession, her graduate thesis an exploration of terrorist psychology, and during the recent hunt for German terrorist Martina Klump that fascination had nearly cost her her life.
“Oh, yes,” Eytan warned. “She’ll do it to you, all right. Pay you back in spades, with nasty tight smiles and innocent shrugs.”
Benni sighed. Eytan was correct again; they had both witnessed the tradition. The children of intelligence officers were raised in houses full of secrets, with fathers who were professional liars, who missed birthdays and graduations while they ran around the world playing a game whose details they never shared. Quite often their children would grow up and follow in their footsteps, if for no other reason than to exact vengeance. Nothing could balloon the pride of a retired intelligence officer more, or wound him as deeply, as having a child return from an intelligence course or a field mission and gleefully squelch his curiosity. “Don’t ask me a thing, Abba. I learned how to keep my mouth shut from you.”
“Exquisite torture,” Benni muttered.
“Count on it,” said Eytan.
“And Oren?” Benni reminded Eytan that he faced the same dangers with his own son. “You think he’ll be different?”
“Are you kidding? If Simona has her way, he’ll be a draft dodger and an accountant.”
Suddenly Sophia the stewardess was at Benni’s elbow, a small crease between her black eyebrows.
“Your daughter,” she said, and for a moment Benni wondered, then realized she was referring to Niki.
He and Eytan turned their attention to the rows of passengers. Between the bobbing heads of the European business travelers and the occasional Ethiopian, Niki was nowhere in sight. Her window seat was empty.
Sophia crooked a finger. Benni and Eytan set their drinks in the galley and followed her, squeezing past the rolling meal carts to the rear of the plane. There were four lavatories on their side of the aft section. Three of the folding doors were half open, while the fourth was locked, its IN USE panel glowing.
Sophia stood to one side, a look of pity on her face as Benni leaned one jug ear close to the door. Despite the heavy whine of the engines and the Babylonian chatter of the passengers, he could clearly hear Niki, coughing and vomiting violently into the chemical toilet.
He straightened up and smiled weakly at Sophia.
“The poor thing,” he said. “She gets airsick. Ever since she was a young girl.”
Sophia nodded sympathetically, then reached back into the aft galley, handed him a damp towlette, and slipped away.
Eytan looked at Benni, slowly shaking his head as the sounds of soft and miserable keening echoed from Niki’s hiding place.
Airsick.
The jumbo jet had not yet bounced in a single pocket of turbulence. The flight was as smooth as glass.
6
Addis Ababa
May 2
IT WAS NOT the distant rattle of gunfire that disturbed Eckstein. It was far away and sounded rather like a desultory woodpecker, and although he might have hoped for cheerier omens upon arrival at Bole International, after Sarajevo it was about as worrisome as a head cold to a cancer patient.
