Headhunters (7 page)

“I did what you said,” Shavit said.

“I know you did. And I’m here. It worked.”

“I have so many questions…” He paused, unable to hide the perplexed expression, before he shook his head and dismissed it. “But, no, they can wait. You have had a long day of travel, I think.”

“Quite long.”

“You are tired and hungry and I leave you on my doorstep.” He tutted with theatrical gusto. “Please,
habib
. You must come inside.”

Bachman followed him down a hallway and through the house to the kitchen. The rooms were airy, with vast windows that admitted the fading light and allowed views of the spectacular vista outside. The decor was modern and sleek, with expensively minimal pieces of furniture. Shavit led the way up a flight of stairs to the dual kitchen and dining room on the top floor. The sea was visible through the wide windows and Bachman went over to look out. There was a balcony outside and, below that, a series of terraces descending in tiers until they ended down at the water’s edge.

“My housekeeper has left for the day,” Shavit said apologetically. “But I still cook. You remember? I was not so bad, no?”

“You don’t have to cook for me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Avi. Of course I will cook for you.”

He went to the fridge, opened the door and took out a plate with a large steak covered with cling film. Meir put the plate on the counter and unhooked a frying pan from a rack on the wall.

“Meir, you don’t have to—”

He hushed him with a wave of his hand. “Medium rare?”

He stopped protesting. “Yes, thank you.”

The old man poured a little oil into the pan and rested it over a lit burner. Bachman watched him as he worked. Shavit had aged since Bachman had seen him last. He had been vigorous before, still visiting Tel Aviv’s Gordon-Frishman beach every morning to run along the sand and then swim in the ocean. Time had not been kind. He was more shrivelled than Bachman remembered him. His skull seemed to have shrunk, leaving his skin to drape over it in loose flaps and folds. His ears had sprouted clumps of hair and he peered through spectacles that he had not needed before. He was wizened in stature, too, all that vitality replaced with a hesitant shambling as he traversed the space between the hob, the central island and the refrigerator.

Meir Shavit had been Bachman’s commanding officer when he had been a commando in the Israeli Defense Force. That was before he had been reassigned to the Mossad, when he was learning his trade. He had overseen his training and then they had worked together in some of the most dangerous places in the world. Powerful bonds could be forged in those crucibles and Shavit was his oldest friend. No, he corrected himself: he was his
only
friend. There were no others.

The room was soon filled with the smell of cooked meat. Shavit took a plate of Dauphinoise potatoes from the refrigerator, peeled away the cling film, reheated them in a microwave and then put them, together with the cooked steak, onto a plate. There was a large modern dining table in the kitchen and the old man collected cutlery and made a place for Bachman to sit.

“You eat,” he said. “We talk afterwards.”

Bachman finished the meal quickly. He was hungry and the meat and potatoes were delicious. Meir Shavit sat opposite him and watched with a look that Bachman knew was paternal as he worked his way through the plate. He said nothing, letting him eat in peace, and, when he was done, he collected the plate, deposited it in the dishwasher and suggested that they retire to his study for a drink and a smoke. Bachman was tired—he would have been very happy to go to bed and deal with all of this in the morning—but he couldn’t string his old friend along like that. He knew that Shavit would have questions. A lot of questions. He owed him answers to at least some of them.

Shavit led the way to a large study. The windows were huge and fitted on runners so that they could be slid to the side. They were open now, and a gentle evening breeze brought the suggestion of dampness and the smell of brine into the room. The murmur of the waves faded in and out, in and out, and Bachman became even more aware of his fatigue.

The muted light from a lantern outside filtered through the window. The old man flicked on a desk lamp and a standard lamp and then went across to a shelf that held bottles and glasses. He took down two shot glasses, collected a bottle of whiskey, opened it and poured out two generous measures. He handed one to Bachman, collected two cigars from a humidor on the desk and then led the way to two leather armchairs that had been arranged before a fireplace. The embers were red and glowing, and a book had been left open across the arm of one of the chairs. Shavit had been relaxing here when Bachman had arrived.

“Sit, Avi,” he said.

“I’m sorry if I surprised you.”

Shavit waved it off. “Not at all. But you must tell me what happened. Where have you been? I hear nothing for years and then I hear you are in prison.”

He leaned back in the chair, trying to relax the bunched muscles that were tight across his shoulders. It was a long story, and he was exhausted, but he was going to have to tell it sometime. It might as well be now, with a glass of whiskey in his hand.

HE STARTED with the aftermath of the explosion that they had engineered to fake his own death. Shavit knew of the events that had necessitated that course of action: Bachman’s illicit relationship with Lila Arson, a Palestinian girl he had met in the West Bank town of Hebron. Shavit had been open minded when Bachman had explained that he was in love with the girl, as he had known that he would be. Shavit was a fierce warrior, but he was also a pragmatist and he had long advocated a dialogue with the Arabs rather than round after round of pointless wars. It was Shavit who had suggested that they would have to leave the country and make a life for themselves elsewhere. He had told Bachman that the relationship would have seen them both assassinated had it ever come to the attention of Victor Blum.

And Bachman knew that he was right.

Shavit had helped him to formulate the plan.

He had helped obscure the truth when he had triggered the bomb in Cairo. Bachman knew that the agency would question his death, but he only needed to create enough doubt that a full investigation would be rendered unnecessary. Bachman had given Lila instructions to leave her apartment, providing her with false papers and enough money to buy a flight and get clear. He had intended to tell Shavit where they were going, but the old man had insisted that he must not know. The Mossad knew that the two men were close. If Shavit really did not know where Bachman was headed, there was no way he could betray him under questioning.

After they had collected their new identities in Paris, they had gone to the United States. When Shavit asked him how they had supported themselves, he had answered with frank honesty. The admission that he had worked as a hit man did not faze him in the slightest. He nodded sagely and suggested that it made sense. Bachman had a very particular, and very lucrative, set of talents. What else was he going to do?

Bachman told him about New Orleans. He paused for a moment, taking a sip of the whiskey in the hope that it might disguise the thickening in his voice.

“There is a man,” he said. “His name is Milton. I was asked to take him out. I didn’t know it was Milton, not until I got to New Orleans. If I had known, maybe I wouldn’t have taken the job. Maybe…” He swallowed another mouthful of whiskey and looked away for a moment, settling himself.

“Do I know him?”

“No. He used to work for the British government. He was a cleaner. Like me. He was good, too. You remember the hit on the Iranians? The reactor? He was on that team. It was us, the CIA, and him. He impressed me then. Very cold. Very clinical.” He paused again. “It turns out that he was out of the game, just like I was. I don’t know what happened to him, some kind of breakdown, but he was out. Just wandering. He ended up in New Orleans helping a woman who was interfering with my client’s plans. They paid me to kill him. It didn’t go down so well, though. Milton saw me coming. So I took this woman’s brother, took him out into the bayou so the woman would back off, pull Milton back, but he found me. Took me by surprise. He attacked us. He killed Lila.”

The old man’s mouth fell open. “I’m sorry, Avi.”

Bachman did not feel sorrow. He had never felt sorrow. That would come, in time, but there had been no space for any other emotion than the burning rage that had consumed him since that day.

Shavit reached across and laid his withered hand over Bachman’s.

Bachman grimaced, angry with himself for showing weakness, and pulled his hand away. “I swore that I would kill him. We fought, I had him beat, but the woman he was working for distracted me and he hit me in the head with a crank. Put me down. When I woke up, Milton had handed me over to the police. They were preparing for a trial. They wanted to kill me. But that’s not going to happen, Meir. Not while Milton is still out there, still breathing. It’s not going to happen. He has to pay.”

BACHMAN SLEPT well that night. The windows were open, letting in the cool zephyr that rose up from the sea and the sound of the waves as they broke against the rocks below. It was the most comfortable bed he had lain on for months, since he and Lila had left their New York apartment for the trip south to Louisiana. He thought of their apartment as he lay with his fingers laced beneath his head and his eyes closed, and the memories of his dead wife flowed back again. He indulged himself for a moment, remembering her face, concerned, as he always was, that he would eventually forget what she looked like and be unable to recall her beauty. He felt his mood start to darken and he caught himself. He didn’t need to feel his anger to be energised.

Shavit was waiting for him in the kitchen.

“It is a pleasant morning. Shall we have breakfast on the terrace?”

Shavit opened a set of French doors to the balcony and led the way outside. To the rear of the house was the series of tiers that led down to the water. They followed steps from the balcony down to the first terrace, and then another set that had been cut into the rock, descending all the way to the foot of the cliff, where they passed a collection of jasmine and lemon trees from which emanated the cheerful chirruping of cicadas. There was an extensive covered terrace that, combined with an adjoining decked area, provided al fresco dining and relaxation space. The tide was tamed by a rocky outcrop that effectively provided a natural lagoon. The water within its ambit was still and, although it was a crystal blue, it was deep, too. There was a jetty at the end of the deck that reached out ten metres into the water. A rowing boat was moored to a post at the end of it, its fibreglass hull rattling against the pilings as it was gently buffeted by the current. There was a table and two chairs on the deck.

They sat down and, as if she had been watching, a middle-aged woman came down the steps with a tray of food and a jug of orange juice. Shavit introduced her as Mrs. Grgec, his housekeeper. The woman brushed a covering of fallen blossoms from the table so that she could set down plates of scrambled egg and toast. She poured them two glasses of orange juice, noting that it was freshly squeezed, before she set off back up to the house again.

“The food here is exceptional,” he said. “The fish is superb. Shrimp, octopus, oysters. Wonderful wines.” The old man started to wax lyrical, explaining how Italian cooking influenced the local cuisine, how risotto became
rizot
and prosciutto became
prsut
. Bachman remembered that his old mentor had always been motivated by his stomach, and that some things never changed. He let him talk, though, drinking his juice and enjoying the cooling breeze that hushed in off the sea.

“What do you think of it all?” Shavit said, encompassing his estate with a sweep of his arm.

“It’s very impressive,” he replied. “And I never thought I’d see you with a housekeeper.”

“The private security business was lucrative,” Shavit explained.

“Is that what happened after the army?”

“I quit a year after you left. I set up on my own. Western companies pay well to be safe in the Middle East. I hired ex-soldiers, people like you. We could charge a small fortune for personal security services. The company outgrew me in the end. I sold it to Manage Risk. Have you heard of them?”

“Of course,” Bachman said. Manage Risk was an American multinational that was more like a private army than a security company.

“They paid me several million dollars. I’ve been living off that ever since. I have no children. No wife. No dependants. This life suits me very well.”

“Why here?”

“Why not? I visited when I was a boy. I’ve always liked it. I get to swim in the sea every morning; I eat and drink very well. It is peaceful. I am not disturbed.”

There was a pause. Bachman looked out at the water. “The files?” he asked.

“They are safe,” he said. “Away from here.”

“Where?”

“In a safe deposit box. It is safe.”

“Meir,” Bachman said, looking his old friend in the eye, “you can’t go to get it now, not unless we mean to use it. I can’t say for sure that I wasn’t followed here. There will be
sayanim
. Agents. I was careful, but I’m just one man.”

Shavit shook his head. “You would have been followed. But that’s fine. They will not move against me.”

“They’ll know you’re my fallback, now. That makes you a target.”

“Perhaps. But they’ll know that the consequences of going against you will be the same if they go against me. They don’t know where the files are. For all they know, they could be ready to be sent to a newspaper. And I’m just an old man. What are they really going to do?”

“I just want you to be careful.”

“Always.”

“We will have a procedure,” Bachman said. “I will call you every day between eleven in the morning and one in the afternoon. If I do not call, release half of the files. Save the rest. They will protect you.”

Shavit nodded. He took a sip of orange juice and wiped his thin, bloodless lips with his napkin. “What’s next?”