The hot water scalded his back and legs, but Ravid remained under the shower. It wasn’t an act of purification but just the opposite: the outer layer of his skin needed to be hardened; the epidermis needed to be deadened so it could survive. Only by singeing his body could he make himself impervious to the filth of Meles and his ilk.
In the car, Ravid had come close to strangling the Muslim madman. The only weapons he had were his hands, but the impulse to do so had been nearly too strong to resist. He kept reminding himself that he had not exercised or trained in nearly two years, that he had lost some weight and muscle in that time, and that he might not be able to finish the terrorist, who was himself in good shape. His instincts argued against his logic, suggesting that he might use his teeth and his knees and legs and feet, every ounce of his strength, and if he did this, surely he could not lose. Twice he had been almost ready to give in, but the car had stopped and the chance lost.
It was not his job to kill Meles; quite the opposite, in fact. If he struck he would most likely ruin everything. Tischler would not forgive him.
Ravid knew all of this, but these things did not influence him. He cared little for what Tischler thought. If he struck, Tischler and the others would be irrelevant; even if he succeeded, the terrorist’s bodyguards would kill him on the spot.
As the water went from scalding to lukewarm, Ravid fantasized about letting his instincts win and saw himself struggling with Meles. In his daydream, he killed the terrorist. Then, as the bodyguards killed him — a quick and merciful shot through the head — he realized he was not satisfied. He’d been cheated, he thought, of any real revenge for his wife and child’s deaths.
Was that the real reason he had hesitated? The death of one man, however despicable a murderer he might be, would not sufficiently quench his thirst for justice.
Not justice. Revenge. There was no such thing as justice. God, if He existed, provided justice. He did not exist, and therefore there was no justice, just brute emotion.
Ravid wavered as the water turned cold. Perhaps he would have felt relieved after all. Perhaps his muscles had atrophied and he simply didn’t want to admit it. His stomach, once taut, hung toward the ground.
He turned off the water and got out of the tub. Drying himself, he thought of Khazaal, the Iraqi murderer, and the jokes he had made about Jews.
“Oh yes, the Jews,” Ravid had replied, speaking as a closeted terrorist himself. “What can we say about them?”
Khazaal had brought jewels with him from Iraq as part of a complex arrangement brokered by Meles and others to furnish the Iraqi resistance with a catastrophic attack on the new government. Among the stops they had made today was one to a jeweler who might estimate their worth. Ravid had arranged the meeting. Even though he had not seen the jewels — they were kept in a small briefcase — he knew from the jeweler that they were worth two or perhaps three million dollars.
Would that much money fund revenge?
Ravid wasn’t sure. It would surely buy serious weapons — Khazaal was proof — but it was a matter of buying the right weapons. How would they be used? Where? Would killing a hundred, a thousand, a million Muslims satisfy him?
The question was too difficult to face. Instead, Ravid considered how he might get the jewels. Stealing them would require killing the bodyguards: impossible, as the theft would immediately he noticed. Better to switch them somehow.
Impossible. There wasn’t enough time now. And besides, he was watched too carefully. If he got the jewels, he would never be able to use them.
Ravid tried to put the idea out of his mind as he finished dressing, but it remained with him. It was comforting in an odd way, an abstract problem to occupy his mind, a theoretical danger to divert him from the great peril his mission here posed. It distracted him as well from the thirst that kept creeping into his mouth, the desire simmering in the distance of every thought and emotion. He wanted a drink nearly as much as he wanted revenge, possibly more, definitely more, as hard as he tried to banish the idea. He defeated the desire a dozen times a day, but always it was there, sneaking back, whispering from a distant room. Thinking of the jewels and Khazaal helped push it away.
By the time he was ready to leave the rented apartment for a round of late-night visits to the local cafes, Ravid had come up with several different plans to swap the jewels just before the Israeli action began, and even knew where he might find the substitutes.
His fantasies died with the first step he took from his house. Two Arabs were watching from across the street. He pretended not to notice, continuing toward the main boulevard a block away. These were almost certainly Meles’s men and thus not difficult to lose, but his best course was to let them follow; they would report back to their master exactly what he wanted them to say. He ground the molars in his mouth together and pushed his gaze toward the pavement, narrowing his world to the small space before him as he walked.
19
Corrine was not shocked to find her plane met by a Mossad officer when she landed. She acted as if she expected no less and kept her lawyer face on as she was led, without explanation, down to the secure conference room once again. This time it was empty. Corrine stared at the wall, her expression as blank as she could possibly make it, until Tischler came in and closed the door.
“Fazel al-Qiam,” she said.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Tischler.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have time to play chess this morning, Mr. Tischler,” she said. “I realize that you have a great number of obligations, which surely explains why you don’t return my calls. I, too, am busy. I’ve stopped on my way to Baghdad because some of our people tripped over Fazel al-Qiam in Latakia. After he tripped over me here and in Lebanon. What exactly is going on, Mr. Tischler?”
Tischler remained silent. She smelled the same hint of shaving lotion that she had on their first meeting, but now it seemed part of an act, too contrived, as if he thought he could impress her by dressing nicely and keeping every strand of hair in place. He wore a nice watch and a handsome ring on his pinkie, along with a thick wedding band: all props, she thought, to help put her off.
“It might have been helpful if you had informed us that you were in Latakia,” she added. “You knew we’d end up there.”
“I really wouldn’t want to get into a discussion of operations,” said Tischler.
“I hope for your sake that al-Qiam is not a double agent,” she said. “We’ve heard rumors that he is better known as Aaron Ravid.”
Tischler said nothing. Corrine waited a moment, then pushed back the chair and went to the door. He remained at his seat as she left the room.
This was the way she had to act from now on, she told herself: harder than the people she was dealing with. Otherwise they were going to treat her like a pushover. And if they thought that, her own people were in jeopardy.
Corrine was in the lobby heading for the exit when one of the plain-clothes guards stopped her.
“I believe you left something behind downstairs,” said the man.
“No, I don’t think that’s true,” she said.
“I’m told it is.”
The man smirked, and if the patronizing tone in his voice hadn’t sealed her decision, that did. She smiled at him and then patted his elbow. “Afraid not, thank you. Mr. Tischler knows how to contact me… if he wants.”
The pat was a bit over the top, but if she was going to play the hard-nosed bitch it would be better to be so obvious that no one missed the point. Corrine walked to her car and told her driver to take her to the airport, where
