The English Teacher (31 page)

“No,” said Ehud.

“I found the letters,” she said.

Ehud said nothing.

“I found other things too.” Rachel was speaking in a low voice, in Hebrew, and Ehud could barely hear her. “He knew everything. I
don't know how, but he knew everything. I found press clippings about our operations, even interviews with the chief of the Mossad, the Strauss investigation, and the leaks. You wrote to him and you didn't tell me.”

“I wanted to protect you.”

“Protect me? Who from? From my father? You wrote to him and told him the truth, and you told me to lie. You forced me to lie to my father, and you forced him to pretend he didn't know anything.”

“You don't understand.”

“I understand perfectly. You exploited me, and you made him turn his back on me and think he was doing me a favor. He knew I wasn't teaching English somewhere in Africa, and I was so angry with him all the time. He was looking out for me, and all those years I thought he wanted nothing to do with me.”

“All this was before.” Ehud was sure that if he let her carry on, he might yet succeed in changing her mind, as before. “So I came here for what is still possible, for what still remains.”

She adjusted her robe and picked up the clothes she had prepared. “Give me a moment,” she said, and turned toward the bathroom, with a sidelong glance at the ancient key, still there in the hotel door lock.

S
HE WAS QUICKER AND
MORE DETERMINED
than him, that was all. When she came out, in baggy pants and a soft buttoned blouse, he was watching her and not her left hand. She whipped the key from the lock and before he had time to move from his chair, she was out of the door and locking it from the outside, leaving him trapped inside.

What was she planning? Where was she going? The questions were overshadowed by the urgent practical need to get out of there, at once. He moved to the window, discovered it was impossible to
open, and was panicked to see the lights of the parked vehicles switching on, and the middle-aged couple hurriedly leaving the balcony of the adjacent hotel. Again he tried to open the door, without success. He pulled out his phone, and when the team commander answered, told him there was no choice and they must take the next step.

He phoned the concierge, promised him money if he came immediately, and had to wait two precious minutes before the door was opened from outside. The concierge took his twenty dollars and disappeared. Ehud didn't wait for the elevator but raced down the stairs from the third floor, gasping for breath.

He didn't hear the commander giving the final order, nor did he see the doctor in the backseat preparing the injection that would incapacitate Rachel. “An overdose, I'
m afraid,
” the doctor will say when he stands with Rachel at the airport check-in, and the local authorities will be glad to have this problem off their hands and will let them board. A few hours later she'll be in Europe, and from there to home, for interrogation and whatever else awaits her.

The hour was late and the street almost empty. Rachel walked briskly. Even when it was all over Ehud didn't know what she was thinking. Perhaps she'd decided to go to Rashid's apartment, perhaps she just wanted to get away from Ehud and from any more conversation with him, or transfer to another hotel and cover her traces, or perhaps she had something completely different in mind. The team commander, ordering his driver to hit the road, wasn't interested in the possibilities. The phone conversation with Ehud was enough for him, and in front of him was a moving target who needed to be overtaken, grabbed quickly before she had time to react, bundled into the car, overpowered with the help of the combatant sitting in the backseat—and then the doctor could do his job. One injection, and she's theirs.

He knew it was too late to drive slowly to approach her, and it would be dangerous to get out and pursue her on foot. She's on the run, and if she spots them she could dodge into one of the hotels on the avenue, and there will be nothing they can do about it. All that's left is the fast and aggressive option. He unfastened his seat belt, as did the combatant behind him. The driver engaged a lower gear and picked up speed to catch up with Rachel, then stopped with full brakes to startle her so that the commander and the combatant could get out and overpower her.

The driver said later, in the course of the inquiry, he saw Rachel turn back toward them, as if she heard the sound of the engine. He also said that although his attention was focused on the road and the light traffic and the single vehicle he needed to overtake, he saw her quickening her pace, and then for some obscure reason she went off the sidewalk and into the street and broke into a run. The team commander said the same thing. As for the other details, there was no difference of opinion.

The driver accelerated, passed the vehicle that was holding him up, and bore down on Rachel at speed, engine roaring under the strain, as she ran down the road with a lightness they all remembered. She didn't stop, and someone said she even ran faster. When she suddenly veered into the middle of the road and started crossing to the other side, it was too late to stop. The heavy Toyota Land Cruiser hit Rachel and tossed her to the side of the road like a rag doll (in the words of the driver, subsequently cleared of any blame), and her head struck a lamppost. They stopped beside her only for a moment, as they did in exercises back home, just long enough for the doctor to put two fingers to her carotid artery and return to the car without a word. They weren't allowed any association with bodies, and there was no point anyway. Corpses can't talk. The car roared off.
Another hit-and-run. Who cares if a tourist gets killed crossing a dangerous road?

Ehud arrived too late. The text that he received was unequivocal: Get out at once. He didn't do this, and he refused to explain his motives when he was back at home, after making arrangements—breaking every rule in the book—to have Rachel flown to Europe and buried beside her mother, in London.

All this came later.

Now he was just in time to see the vehicle receding as per the operational instructions and the backup car doing a U-turn. They signaled to him to climb aboard and he waved them on. Knowing the chain of command and knowing they weren't allowed to wait around, they drove away.

Ehud stopped running; there was no need to hurry now, Rachel lay inert in the road like a knife whose blade is almost returned to its place. A small crowd began to gather and he heard the sound of an ambulance approaching.

He knelt down beside Rachel and took her body in his arms. He looked into her face and into her eyes, green and wide open. Suddenly she moved (later they told him this was a common phenomenon) and the expression on her face changed, as if she were waiting for something. And he saw a smile, or perhaps he only imagined
it.

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