LITMIR.BIZ

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with the fact that when Salem had needed him, he had run.

      Still, he hesitated. Even with nothing to go home to, no job, no future, he still hesitated to commit to the Authority.

      Zahirah held up the clearest photo of the slut Saida disporting herself with the gold cup. “Rashid, listen to me, please. This Saida—she has left the country. Yes, we know that. She has gone to Cyprus—perhaps Crete; I’ll know in an hour. I think she has many of these items. I think she intends to sell them on the black market.

      He raised his hands. “What would you have me do?” he asked.

      Zahirah smiled broadly, showing most of her white, even teeth. “You have a clean Israeli passport. You speak English. You know Saida. We want you to help us find her and bring her back.”

      That sounded so appealing that Rashid answered her smile with his own. Excitement began to rise within him. “I think I could do that.”

      Zahirah began to make piles of documents atop the photos. She pressed a buzzer under her desk and in answer a young man appeared at her door. She waved to him.

      “This is Ali, your keeper. You have much to learn. You will have to leave tonight. The colonel will want to see you before you go.”

      Ali wasn’t much older than Rashid—Salem’s age, in fact. He smiled at Rashid, who looked down at the ground to hide his confusion. Then he smiled a little in return.

      Ten minutes later, he was learning to use a cell phone for clandestine communications. And he had chosen a side.

      Washington

      Spinner’s new status was symbolized by a message that was waiting on his computer in the morning. It had been routed to him by name—major development, to be a name and not the generic “Screener”—and included the information’s source, also a first for Spinner. The information had come from “Habakkuk,” who was passing information from “Deborah.”

       Deborah/Habakkuk/Routing

       Subj: American officer detained by Mossad

       US Naval intelligence officer Alan Craik was detained yesterday by, supposedly, Mossad officers. Cause may be his involvement in illicit investigation of death of Palestinian terrorist named Salem Qatib. Craik released last evening unharmed but feathers very ruffled. Release the result of efforts by his wife, Rose Siciliano Craik, also naval officer and also possible intelligence agent (Ass’t Attaché, Bahrain). Real reason for their presence in Israel not known. Evidence here of US condemnation of Israel for Craik detention. Question: why so much attention to death of one terrorist?

      Spinner frowned at this. He read it again, and then again. He knew who Alan and Rose Craik were because Craik had served on the Fifth Fleet staff in Bahrain. What made him frown was the apparently private knowledge that the source had of the Craiks—“feathers very ruffled… Release the result of efforts by his wife…” How did somebody know that? And yet know at the same time about the demarche? (“Evidence here of condemnation of Israel…”)

      Spinner wrote a note on a memo pad and clipped it to the message. The note said, “Who is Deborah?”

      And it occurred to him—the stirring of, perhaps, an instinct for intelligence, and the reason that the CIA insists on vetting all agent reports before they are disseminated—that Deborah wrote reports that revealed too much of himself. Or was it herself?

       Tel Aviv

      The Craiks were taking Miriam Gurion to lunch. They had wanted to take the Peretzes, too, but Bea had said that she couldn’t make it, and Abe had called back to apologize and say that Bea “was busy advising Likud on how to be Jewish,” and he had explained a bit lamely that in fact she was busy all the time with things he didn’t understand. “Maybe she’s found a younger guy, who knows?” The upshot of his call was that Rose was embarrassed and asked him to come to lunch, anyway.

      Now they were sitting at a table in a crowded room in what Miriam said was the best Yemeni-Ethiopian restaurant in Tel Aviv. “Noisy, but the food’s worth it,” she had said. And she was right. It was definitely noisy, and the food was definitely great.

      Alan felt awkward, bellowing the details of his detention over the bellows that surrounded them, trying to keep his rage from bursting out, but the other three kept shooting questions at him as they all forked down spicy lentils, ground lamb with fennel, cold mashed tomatoes with cumin and hot peppers. He told them of the capture, the hours in a room, the sudden release.

      “So what about the dead guy?” Abe shouted.

      “Not here,” Miriam said.

      Alan shrugged. “Later,” he said to Abe.

      When they were stuffed and groaning and happy, Miriam led them down the street to a shabby café and took them to a table at the back. “Cop place,” she said. “You know, when cops take a break?”

      “I think we call it ‘cooping,’” Abe said. He had to explain to her what a coop was.

      She said, “Well, this is a coop. A cop coop.” She laughed, a big laugh that surprised Alan, who had seen only her serious side. “Okay,” she said to him when black coffee and a plate of tiny cakes had appeared, “talk about the dead man Qatib. But talk quietly.”

      After Alan, with interpolations by Miriam, had explained who Qatib had been and why Mike Dukas had asked him to do the supposedly routine closeout, Abe said, “I don’t get it.”

      “Neither do we, darling. None of it hangs together.”

      “Mossad doesn’t do such things.” Abe seemed embarrassed. “As a rule. I mean—no offense, Mrs Gurion, but you know how these things work.” Miriam was making noises like a revving engine. “Well, you know what I mean—they’d need a big reason to do something like this.”

      “Not to mention snatching my husband off the street,” Rose said.

      “That is because he is so handsome, darling,” Miriam said, patting Rose’s hand.

      “They never said I was handsome,” Alan muttered.

      “What did they say?”

      “Everything they said was so stupid, I couldn’t believe it was happening. I really had a hard time believing they were Mossad.” He rubbed his chin, felt the beginning of stubble. “But they were.”

      “Of course they were!” Miriam’s eyes widened and narrowed quickly. “Because now they are on me. Yesterday morning, I was on the case, good; yesterday four p.m., I am off the case; this morning, I am on the case again. Why? First, Mossad calls TLV police, get that woman off the case. Then Mossad calls TLV, oh we’re so sorry, we were wrong, do put that nice lady on the case. Why? Because you scared them.” She gestured toward Alan with a coffee spoon, then looked at Abe. “You say you need a big reason for all this. No. I say there is no big reason. I say they were stupid people doing a stupid thing.” She gave a sudden, rather girlish grin. “That is what I tell the very pleasant man who calls me from your friends in Naples.”

      “Dukas?”

      “No. Mister Triffler. You know Mister Triffler?”

      They smiled. Abe examined his fingers, gave her a sly look. “Okay, they were stupid. But why did they kill Qatib?”

      “Because that is most stupid of all! We have to live with the Palestinians, whatever happens—interrogations must not kill.” She put her chin up, said almost defiantly, “The Supreme Court of Israel ruled in 1999 that torture is illegal.”

      “Al said the dead man had been beaten.”

      “Yes, badly, badly. But beating, I don’t know—if he died of beating, do you think Mossad

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