Abigail – The Avenging Agent: The agent appears again (31 page)

“Sure, but what’s the connection?”

“I was one of the two hostages and…”

“What?!” Karma yelled, sharply swerving
to the right of the road and almost driving onto the sidewalk, as he brought the
car to a screeching stop.

“Were you captured by the terrorist organization?” 
He screamed.  “Was it you, they said was buried in a cave and escaped in the mountains
of Lebanon?”

She nodded her head and saw how excited
he was and then, realized what a fatal mistake she had just made.

She suddenly remembered that she was
operating under an alias and looked very different from that other person. 
Everyone knew that the former hostage had been killed by a professional
assassin and when Karma stared at her, she was stricken with horror.

Everything began to float before her
eyes:  the tombstone with her name engraved on it over an empty grave, the
disguises and the efforts to forget the ‘deceased’ Abigail.  She shrunk back in
her seat, stared at him and a chill grabbed at her heart.

She immediately sought a way out of the
story because she realized that she had just made the mistake of her life.  She
thought of saying, ‘I was joking,’ or perhaps burst out laughing and say, ‘just
pulling your leg,’ but she couldn’t get a word out of her mouth.  Suddenly a
thought flashed through her mind and she said:

“The truth is that the hostage was
Abigail Ben Nun and, if you heard about it, she was murdered.”

“Right, I did hear about it and, after
all, your name is Naima,” and he took a deep breath. “I was shocked when you
said you were the hostage.  What’s come over you!?”

“Listen, Karma, I want to be candid with
my future husband even if it’s going to be a ‘disillusion’ of marriage.”  She
smiled at him but within herself she was raging and her soul trembled.

“So, why did you say earlier that you…?”

“Okay, the truth is that I am Naima, a
Bedouin from the ‘Ka’abiah’ tribe and, for a while, I really did pretend to be
Abigail Ben Nun – until she was assassinated.  Now, there is no necessity for
that and I have gone back to being a Bedouin – without any cover story.”

He smiled as he said:  “You frightened
me, don’t do it again.”

“I wanted to see how you would react,”
she said and immediately added:

“Wait, I also want to know about you and
what you did before.”  Now Karma was scared.  He hadn’t expected this and tried
to evade the question by turning the key in the car’s ignition and continue driving,
but Abigail rested her hand on his hand.  Having no choice, he leaned back and
began to speak of himself in the distant rather than the recent past.

“I also have a story,” he said.  “It
appears I was found in the sand, in my dead mother’s arms, trying to suckle
from her breast.  They say we were almost entirely buried in the sand, wrapped
in the shreds of her clothing.”

He turned on the pale interior lights of
the car because he was curious to see her reaction.

“What?!  So the story about your father
marrying your mother in a…”

“It’s all true.  But listen.  Sallah had
returned my mother to her parents before I was born when she was already
pregnant with me.  I was told that when she escaped to the fields, during the
battle with the rebels, she was killed holding me, the infant, in her arms.”

Even in the faint light, he could see
Abigail grow pale and he smiled with satisfaction, at having succeeded in causing
her grief after her story.  She was silent and he continued his story.

“They brought me to be nursed by my
adoptive mother, Nazim and Nana Kahit raised me.  I was entranced by the
stories she told me in the Kurdish tents.”

“Ah, so are you a genuine Kurd?”

He nodded.

“It would be interesting to know what unique
connection would be formed between a Kurd and a Bedouin. What would the
children born of the relationship be called?” he wondered and suddenly Abigail
burst into tears and shook like a leaf in the wind.
 
Karma was scared and said at once:

“Oh, my dearest Naima, I was teasing, I
apologize.  I didn’t mean what I said.  Calm down, you’re shaking all over.”

He leaned over and embraced her and the
steering wheel pressed against his ribs and hurt him.  He groaned and heard her
laughing.  She nestled her head against his chest, her body stopped trembling
and her muscles relaxed.  He believed that he had soothed her with his remarks
but didn’t realize that she had calmed down momentarily from the tension of
having blurted out information that broke her cover and revealed her previous
identity.

In the days that followed, they went
everywhere together and were almost inseparable.

“Let’s take a stroll outside till it
gets dark.”

Abigail smiled.  These days had brought
her more joy than she could recall ever having.  She turned around to look at
him, her gaze stopping on his large amber-colored eyes and thought how lucky
she was to have won him.

In her worst nightmares, she didn’t imagine
that this man, whom she loved, had a wife and two sweet little daughters.  Had
she known this – there was no way that she would agree to attach herself to an
existing family – and this was what Karma feared.

It was still daylight, but the sun no
longer provided warmth.  Abigail loosened her chignon and let her shiny brown
hair fall heavily on her shoulders.  In moments of levity, she entertained the
possibility of tempting fate, stop coloring her hair and allow it to return to
its original light shade.  But, she immediately rejected the idea, knowing that
she would once more resemble the figure the murderer had been sent to kill;
Abigail Ben Nun, which might prove very dangerous.

She wakened at dawn, pulled the rolled
canvas out of her backpack, spread it out and gazed at the painted figures of
her family.  She leaned over it and Touched on her painted figure of her mother,
asking for her blessing.  She told her painting that a man she loved had come
into her life, and then she heard a light knock at the door.  Abigail quickly
rolled up the painting and slipped it back in her backpack.
She opened
a crack in the door, It was Karma.

“Would you like to join the group going
to Bushehr?” she asked him the first question that entered her mind at the
moment.

Abigail knew that the Kaukab was on her
heels, trying to hunt her down. But she also knew she had to continue with her
mission in the guise of a tourist guide, which gave her the cover she needed
for her assignments.

“No, I don’t think so,” he replied and
she sighed with relief because she remembered that it was also a tour on which
she had planned to do some clandestine investigating.

Abigail touched the small Flash-drive
that had remained pressed between her breasts and reconstructed the
conversation that took place in room 202 at the ‘Chai Huneh’ pension.  She
recalled the argument that preceded the murder of the three men, regarding
security and she intended reaching that exact place today, the facility at
“Lashkar Abad.” This was where experiments to separate isotopes and enrich
uranium with lasers were being carried out.  She planned to tour there with the
group and casually find out whether guard dogs were kept there or whether the
facility at Bushehr really was closed, as Emir had said at that meeting.

*
* *

            The
next morning she traveled to the place that interested her and asked the bus
driver to continue through the sands that was not on their route and had no
road.  She knew that close to the fence there was a reactor site and ignored
the stares of amazement from the driver.

            “I
don’t think we will be able to reach that place,” the driver claimed, “but, we
will do as you wish.”

            He drove onto the sandy
trail and stopped close to the barbed wire fence that stretched into the
distance.  Abigail asked him to open the bus door and disembarked before
everyone.

Two long fences stretched around the
place, which really did look deserted.  Abigail stood behind the exterior barbed-wire
fence which was rolled like a relaxed spring and touched the metal spikes.  She
tried to estimate the distance between the two rows of fencing and wondered
whether it was worthwhile trying to get between them.  There was no signpost or
guard so she signaled to the driver to let all the tourists off the bus.

In the distance, a cloud of dust
appeared and soon, a rider on horseback approached them. He reined in his horse
and stopped and surveyed them from above as he made a sign telling them to
withdraw.  His expression was frozen and threatening but, no one moved.  The
rider pulled the reins tightly and his horse stamped and swung its long mane. 
His hand strayed to the rifle on his shoulder and Abigail raised her voice
immediately.

“Stop everyone; the man is agitated, so,
let’s move on because it’s not worth insisting as there isn’t that much to see
here.”

When they got back on the bus, Abigail thought
about the mounted guard.  She also believed that she had discovered that the
place was being secured but decided to try a different approach.

They ascended on the paved and
signposted road to the next tourist site, where two buses were parked in the shade
of a sparse row of trees.  Groups of people stood near one of the buses and to
her surprise, Abigail recognized their dark-skinned guide, Lutfi, the person
she had replaced on his wedding day.  He also remembered Abigail and approached
her with an outstretched arm to greet her.

“First of all, congratulations are due
to you,” Abigail said as she shook his hand.

“By the way, how was that trip to the Great
Tabriz Market?”

“Oh, it was really disappointing!  The
whole region was being dug up and excavated all the way up to the ‘Imam Mosque’
and no one was allowed in.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, soldiers held us up many miles
before we reached the Bazaar and informed us that the whole region was closed
and we were forbidden to enter.”

“Why?  Did they explain what caused
blockade?”

“They said that a new electricity
network was being laid to replace the old one that had collapsed.  Huge cables
lay on the ground and I presume they were preparing to bury them underground.”

“Really? Could they be developing some
internet games websites?”  She laughed.

“You know, you could be right.  It seems
to me that the things are indeed connected to the internet and computer
networking matters.”

Lutfi
gazed at Abigail’s
face, silently admiring her stunning beauty.

“What about you?  You seem to be working
non-stop without a moment’s rest.  They say that you lead a lot of tours in the
Azerbaijan region.  Is that so?”

“Yes, one has to make a living.”

“Very nice, but persistant rumors are going
around about a budding relationship with another exceptional guide, a man we
both know, called Karma.” Abigail blushed to the roots of her hair but admitted
at once:

“Indeed, it’s true.”

“In that case, listen, my beautiful
friend, I have a gift for the two of you.   I am inviting you on a new
excursion to Tabriz, at my expense, of course, to the very same Palace and the Mosque
of the Imam that you were prevented from reaching.  You may, of course,
disembark with everyone and go shopping at the Grand Bazaar,” and then he
added:  “But, of course, the shopping will be at your own expense.”

“It’s a deal,” she exclaimed, and they
shook hands again.

*
* *   

            The last
week began with a surprise.  Two entirely different radio transmissions were
received on Karma’s radio.

            When
he went out to the street on Monday morning, someone in the crowd rubbed up
against him and shoved a crumpled piece of paper into his hand.  Karma heard
him mutter the words: ‘Sun-Moon-Heaven’ and the words “eight in the morning.”

            Initially,
he was scared.  Then he continued walking as he grasped the paper he received
in his fist.  He understood that the man was muttering the transmission code
and had mentioned the time that the contact would take place.  Later, it went
through his mind that even when he thought he was alone – someone was always
there; behind him.  He didn’t know whether this idea encouraged or frightened
him.

            He
did not tell Abigail anything about this.

            The
next morning, Karma locked the door, drew the curtains over the windows and
pulled a transmitter out of his briefcase.  He prepared to broadcast and tuned
it to short-wave, then pulled out the decryption page that had been handed to
him and placed it before him as he straightened out the wrinkles in the paper. Numbers
and letters were randomly listed on the page and they would serve as a code to
decipher the text.  Once more, he adjusted the radio dials to a particular
frequency on shortwave and waited.

            It
was 7:45, a quarter of an hour before the scheduled broadcast and he went out
of the house.

            Cars
drove on the street and people went about their business and no one paid
attention to him.  He tiptoed around the building and when he was sure that the
area was clean, he went back to his room.

            As
soon as he locked the door he heard a metallic voice, which said
‘Sun-Moon-Heaven’ and some other signals.  He deciphered the sounds according
to the key and read the decoded sentence.

“Give
Lucy back up when she inserts the virus in the tunnel.”

            Karma
stared at the words and wondered to what kind of support it referred and into
what tunnel she would be introducing the bug.  Karma studied the words again,
memorized them and then destroyed the document.  Again he pondered what to do
with the information he had received and supposed that the matter would eventually
become apparent. 

Almost
a week later, when he was in his room at the pension, transmission signals were
heard again.  This time, when he deciphered the message, he understood the
assignment.

“The target – Bushehr.

Photograph the building
with the antenna,

Collect samples of sand
at Natanz.

 Pass
them on to Michael.”

            “Sand
samples?”

            He
directed his question to the page and understood that he was participating in
collecting intelligence and began to get organized.  Meanwhile, the page with
the key to the code was still on the table when a knock at the door was heard.

            “Min
hada?” (Who is it?)

            “Ana
Mary,” (It’s me, Mary).

            It
was the maid he was familiar with.  He opened the door and it never occurred to
him for a second that this woman, who changed the sheets and dusted the cracked
mirror in the room, had caught sight of the page on the table.  Even before he
turned around, she pulled it and shoved it quickly into her blouse and
continued hovering around the room she had come to clean.

Karma grabbed the handle of his
briefcase and surveyed the room to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind before
he left and went out to the corridor.  The only thing that occupied his mind at
that moment was to prepare food for the journey because he didn’t want to have
to stop at restaurants or rest stops on the way.

            He
entered the dining room and looked around the tables, but he was too excited to
eat and was not able to put a morsel in his mouth, not even toast, which he was
fond of.  Green cans of beverage stood on a long shelf and Karma thought they
might be useful to him in two ways. He could drink their contents and later, he
could urinate in the empty cans if he were not free to get out of his car.

            As
he left the dining room, Mary, the maid, came out of the elevator.  He saw her
but did not attach any importance to the fact that she hurried outside.  He
also did not notice a man in a dark suit, who got out of a car and stood at the
front of the pension.  She gave him the page and he stuffed four thousand rials
worth of banknotes into her hand.

            Karma’s
destination, the nuclear facility at Bushehr, was the place, where only the
first part of the uranium enrichment program was being carried out.  It was
located on the South Western coast.  Karma did not know that the story of the
site’s construction arose in the historic meeting between Abigail and Mas’habi. 
He also did not know that this was an assignment intended for Abigail but,
because of that meeting, the ‘Mossad’ hesitated and finally decided to transfer
the operation to him.

            At
midnight, the beep of an incoming message was heard.

“We
will meet at “Saharon,” near the antenna, tomorrow.”

         
It
was still dark when he departed, but these were the hours when the heat was
especially oppressive.  He soon found himself sweating profusely and his
clothes clung to his body as the perspiration ran down his back.  He looked out
for a place where it would be convenient to turn onto the shoulder of the road and
stop for a break, but there was none to be found.  It was a winding road and
his headlights illuminated rocks and cliffs that dropped sharply to the side of
the road.  Visibility along the way was limited to the distance from one curve
to the next.

Dawn broke in the distance and at the
next turning he noticed a clearing like a wide bay that extended into a sandy
area and he stopped his car there.

His stomach rumbled and Karma couldn’t
decide whether he was more tired than hungry, but his eyelids seemed weighted
down with lead.  He leaned back and succumbed to the draw of sleep.

He woke up after a few minutes, as
hungry as a wolf and remembered the sandwich that awaited him in his bag.  He
felt around in the bag and only then discovered that the brown wallet he always
moved from his briefcase to his bag was missing and he was concerned.  Right
away, he pulled the bag from the backseat and put it on his knees and fidgeted
around in its depths and, finally turned it over and emptied it out on the car
seat beside him.

Now, he found that the lucky chain that
he always carried with him was missing.  It was a thin leather thong threaded
with colored beads, one of which was engraved with a prayer for success that he
had found on one of his trips. 

He realized that he had taken the wrong
backpack in error.  His heart missed a beat because, in his wallet, he had left
two photographs – one of his daughters and another of his wife, Salima.
 
Loving words, inscribed on the back of them, bore a date in September.

Karma thought of phoning Abigail to
check whether the second backpack was at home, but he feared awakening a
sleeping bear and arousing her suspicions.  Moreover, he had left on an
assignment and he knew it was forbidden to make telephone contact.

“What will be – will be!”  He announced
in a loud voice and felt again how his stomach was rumbling with hunger.  Both
the sandwiches he had prepared had only been spread with butter but he was
hungry and wolfed them down in a few bites.

            He put his hand into the bag
again and it got caught in the mesh sleeve in which contained the camera with
its lens turned outwards.  He placed the tiny remote control in his left
pocket, from where he could operate it by pressing the button and take
photographs without revealing the camera.  He got out and placed the bag on the
roof of the car and, just for a trial run, he put his hand into the pocket and
pressed the button on the remote.  He heard the click of the camera taking the
shot and since he had no one to fear for the moment, he pressed it again and
again, enjoying the satisfaction the sounds gave him.

            Karma
was unaware that, at the same time, his camera had snapped pictures of two people
on the mountain.  They huddled under the trees in their sheltering shadow as
they observed what he was doing.  Of course, it also did not occur to them that
their presence was being recorded by the camera’s lens. Their worst nightmares
were coming true because their images were being documented and immortalized in
the ‘Mossad’s’ database.

            During
these minutes of rest,  perspiration cooled Karma’s body and he felt
comfortable and satisfied.  He got back in his car and continued driving along
the winding road to his destination – Bushehr.

            When
he reached the main road of the city, the sun was at its highest point. The
heat was really unbearable but then, he noticed the building with the antenna
in front of him and remembered that it was one of his targets.

            He
parked his car and got out.  While he walked, he pressed the remote control to
the camera in his pocket incessantly, photographing the building itself, the
figures entering it or standing nearby and he enjoyed listening to the clicks. 
He knew that interesting details of a kind that the human eye doesn’t discern
were being recorded now.

*
* *