Obsession (Year of Fire) Read online

  An employee knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” Al-Saud invited.

  “Sir, Lieutenant Dragosi sent me to tell you that the men are ready.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Lieutenant Dragosi, one of the experts who was in charge of the training camp on Fergusson Island, was planning to instruct a group of young men in the art of descending from a helicopter on a rope later that day. He then planned to take them to the mountainous part of the island and teach them the technique of rappelling, which could be used to climb down very steep mountains or buildings. The technique also involved a rope, with the speed of the descent controlled entirely with the legs.

  Diana came in without knocking. She was wearing military brown-and-green fatigues, black boots and a khaki hat.

  “Eliah, the operator says that your call to Paris is ready.”

  They left the office together and headed over to the other part of the barracks, where the communications center was located. The contrast between the climate-controlled environment in the office and the heat outside was breathtaking. The temperature became unbearable in the early hours of the afternoon; humidity thickened the air, the wind stopped blowing and the distinctive smell of the jungle grew more pungent, sticking to bodies and objects. Just the same, Al-Saud had no reason to complain. Mercure’s partnership with the Papua New Guinea government had been very beneficial for them. Not only was the business legally based in the country, to avoid taxes and possible contractual lawsuits, but for a risible annual fee they also rented a large piece of land on this island; they had set up their training center and weapons warehouse on the ruins of a base that had seen heavy use during the Second World War. Mercure Inc. signed its first major contract with the Papua New Guinea government thanks to Michael Thorton’s contacts. For thirty-six million dollars, the business had been contracted to eliminate a rebel group, which had been achieved earlier than planned. It had been a resounding success, and they were still reaping its benefits in the form of a grateful government.

  The communications center was equipped with several satellite telephones, satellite dishes, short- and long-wave radios and as much technology as Alamán could get his hands on in order to stay in touch with his troops on missions all over the world. The operator passed him the satellite phone, which was similar to a cordless but had a thicker antenna. Al-Saud glanced at his Breitling Emergency watch, which displayed both local and French time. It was five in the morning in France, as the country was ten hours behind Papua New Guinea. The call had woken Medes. He regretted it, but he was anxious and wanted to know how she was doing. He spoke to him in Arabic.

  “Medes.”

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “I’m sorry for waking you.”

  “No problem, sir.”

  “Tell me what news you have.”

  “Nothing new. The young ladies went to the Healing Hands headquarters until noon, then they went to the same language institute they went to yesterday and then they went back to the apartment on Rue Toullier, around nine o’ clock at night.”

  “Nothing regarding the owner of the BMW?”

  “Nothing, sir. As I said yesterday, I reviewed the photographs I took on January first at Charles de Gaulle and the license plate is correct. Your friend Edmé de Florian confirmed that that vehicle belongs to René Sampler.”

  “Stay close to them. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  He left the communications center in the direction of the runway where they kept the UH-60, a small helicopter made by Sikorsky, better known as a Black Hawk. The noise of the rotors slicing through the air deafened him. He put on his helmet and climbed into the aircraft. Diana jumped up after him. The men weren’t surprised; they were used to including her in their exercises. It didn’t occur to anyone to give her preferential treatment or to make the tests easier for her; she had already shown that she was better than most of them. Some of them had tried to get clever with her and had ended up with a boot on their necks. Although they hardly saw them say anything to each other and they never touched, or even smiled, the men presumed that Al-Saud and Diana were lovers.

  Al-Saud exchanged a few words with Lieutenant Dragosi before ordering the pilot to take off. The noise of the helicopter drowned out all other sounds, except the one echoing around his head. Matilde, Matilde. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before—this total loss of concentration was completely new to him. Beads of sweat soaked the shirt under his military outfit, more sweat dampened his forehead and got in his eyes, his feet throbbed inside his boots, but nothing bothered him like Matilde. He took off his Ray-Ban Clippers, wiped his forehead with the back of a hand wrapped in a handkerchief and replaced the sunglasses. He squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to remember.

  On Sunday night, after he had heard her say Roy’s name over the phone, his pride wounded by being stood up, he had left Paris to take care of some business on the Fergusson base. He had needed to get some space, to get away from her. He was starting to act like an idiot. It hadn’t helped at all. Her image had followed him to this remote Pacific island. When Medes had told him on Tuesday that the young ladies, Mr. Shiloah Moses and René Sampler, the owner of the BMW who had picked them up from Charles de Gaulle, had gone to the Galeries Lafayette and that Mr. Sampler had spent a fortune on clothes and shoes for the young blonde lady, he thought he was going to lose it. That son of a bitch was buying Matilde clothes. A red mist descended.

  “Diana, tell the telephone operator to get Mr. Moses at the George V! Right now!” His shouted order surprised the employees, because he never raised his voice.

  The operator had taken some time to reach Shiloah.

  “What are you talking about, Eliah? What René Sampler? The man who went with us to the Galeries Lafayette yesterday was named Ezequiel, a very nice Argentinean fellow.”

  “Is he Matilde’s boyfriend?”

  “I wouldn’t say so. They seemed to have a more fraternal bond. How do you know all this?”

  “Your bodyguards told me,” he had lied.

  Besides one soldier twisting his ankle, the training mission went off without a hitch. They came back dirty, sweating and exhausted. All Al-Saud could think about was jumping into a Jeep and driving a few miles away to get to a clearing where a waterfall fell into a cool small pond hidden behind a curtain of tropical plants. The operator stuck his head out of the window of the communications center.

  “Sir, there’s a call for you from Paris. Shiloah Moses.”

  He immediately thought of Matilde, and a lump formed in his throat. He tossed his helmet to Diana and ran the last few feet.

  “Shiloah. It’s Eliah. What happened?”

  “Hello, mon frère. How are you? A little calmer than yesterday?”

  “Yes, yes. What’s going on?”

  “I just spoke to my friend in Tel Aviv, the manager at El Al.”

  “What phone are you calling me from?” Al-Saud worried.

  “Mike’s phone in the George V offices, he told me it was a secure line.”

  “Yes, it is. Continue.”

  “You were right, there was a fourth man on Flight 2681. It was very tough for my friend to get the information. Anyway, it was impossible for him to find out who it was. The case is shut tight and padlocked, and my friend was afraid to continue the investigation.”

  “I understand. Thank you, brother.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “I’m still not sure. How are the preparations for the convention going?”

  “Extremely well. My assistants and lawyers are busy finalizing all the details.”

  He wanted to ask him about Matilde, but his pride stayed the impulse. They said good-bye. Al-Saud walked over to the room where the radio was kept and closed the door. He looked at the time in Paris. He needed to reach Vladimir Chevrikov. Luckily, he found him at home.

  “Lefortovo, it’s Horse of Fire, switch to a secure UHF band.”

  That Vladimir had chose
n for his nom de guerre the prison where he had been tortured and confined for years was an indication of his complex personality. Eliah Al-Saud respected him to degree he accorded to few others, not only for the fact that he was a master forger, but also for his peerless network of connections and information. Vladimir seemed to know what went on behind scenes in the politics of the majority of countries across the world.

  “Ready,” Chevrikov said. “We’re clear to speak.”

  “Do you remember the El Al plane that crashed in Amsterdam two years ago?” The Russian did. “El Al’s spokesmen and the Schiphol authorities reported that there were only three passengers. It turns out that there was a fourth.” After a silence, Al-Saud made his request: “I need you to contact Yaakov Merari. He can give us the name of that fourth passenger. It’s very important.”

  Yaakov Merari was an undercover Mossad agent in Damascus. Chevrikov would occasionally blackmail him to obtain free, first-rate information. Vladimir didn’t just threaten to reveal his identity to the Syrian Secret Service, the cruelest in the Middle East, but also to denounce him to the Mossad authorities, because Merari had spent years collecting significant sums from his government to pay a Syrian informant who didn’t really exist. Vladimir knew this because Merari had occasionally asked him to draw up documentation to support the false reports that he handed in to Mossad.

  “If anyone can get us the name of the fourth passenger,” Chevrikov promised, “it’s dear old Yaakov.”

  Of course, Vladimir Chevrikov’s involvement wasn’t free.

  “The same fee in the usual manner?” Al-Saud asked.

  “That’ll be fine, old friend. It’s always a pleasure doing business with you.”

  An hour later, Eliah was standing on a rock, completely naked, surrendering to the waterfall’s energy. He wasn’t trying to resist thinking about Matilde anymore and, like the water, he allowed the memories to surge over him. Her innocence and apparent weakness goaded the Horse of Fire that dwelled within him. Matilde was a challenge, and Eliah couldn’t turn back now. He had to have her. It was in his nature.

  It had been a week since she had seen Eliah Al-Saud, and although she had been caught up in other things, she hadn’t been able to get him out of her head. That Saturday afternoon she went by the perfume stores in Galeries Lafayette to douse his handkerchief and her glove in A*Men again. She felt pathetic doing it, but couldn’t stop herself. She saw the black bottle next to others by Thierry Mugler and gravitated toward it. The clerk, who was helping another client, didn’t notice how avidly she depressed the plunger. The atomized perfume floated up around her and enveloped her. She closed her eyes and once more felt his embrace on her body. Eliah Al-Saud was vain and obstinate. “Why are you rejecting me? I can’t stand it.” The memory made her feel tenderly toward him: he did not countenance the possibility of a woman rejecting him, he was like a little boy with his heart set on a toy. If he knew how much she had thought about him and wanted him since the very first day, his arrogance would have known no limit. Her longing grew keener, leaving her powerless to resist. She had never felt something like this for a man. He exuded a kind of crude magnetism. Now she understood the passion that Juana and Jorge had shared.

  Juana, who was trying on Chanel sunglasses, caught her soaking the handkerchief in Al-Saud’s cologne. She smiled, accentuating the mischievousness in her dark eyes. Mat’s attempts to act as though she was over him were becoming amusing. Sometimes she wouldn’t be able to contain herself, coming out with apparently innocent comments such as, “It was so nice of Eliah to invite my cousin Fabrice to eat dinner with us!” or “Did you smell Francesca’s perfume?” or “Eliah really doesn’t drink any alcohol, does he? He didn’t even try any sake at the restaurant the other day” and “I wonder who that man who was trying to take pictures of Eliah was?” When Juana got home from her increasingly frequent outings with Shiloah, Mat would ask her, “Any news?” When she was feeling perverse, she would shrug and say, “Nope.”

  “Let’s go, Mat. Shiloah is coming to pick me up soon and I want to have time to get ready.”

  “You’re going out again?”

  “Yes, but don’t get any ideas. We find each other entertaining and that’s it. We’re both too complicated to get involved. Did you know he’s a widower? His wife died in Tel Aviv when a Hamas terrorist blew himself up in a pizzeria.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “I don’t think the poor guy can forget her. And I’m not going to compete with a ghost. A wife, even a child, I can handle, but not a ghost.”

  “A child neither,” Matilde retorted stubbornly and Juana stared at her. Her friend, this skinny little creature with the face of an angel, had an inner steeliness that came out occasionally, a steeliness that had scared off Eliah Al-Saud.

  “Do you want to come with us?” she asked, grimacing. “I think Snickers is coming too.” This was her nickname for Alamán Al-Saud, who had burst out laughing when Matilde explained that Juana was comparing him to a candy bar.

  “I’d rather stay home. I have to study for the mini-exam next Monday.”

  The week before they had met in the headquarters of Healing Hands at number six Rue Breguet, a few blocks from the Bastille, where, for three days, they took the course called Preparation for First Destination. Matilde had immediately felt at home, and, after taking in the philosophy, activities and the projects of the organization, she was experiencing a happiness that was only darkened by the memory of Eliah. She was born for this, helping those who needed it most; she had found her place in the world. Healing Hands provided the structure and the resources to give meaning to her life. She couldn’t wait to get into the field, as they referred to the destination.

  At the Healing Hands headquarters, they been given a letter of introduction to hand in at the Lycée des Langues Vivantes, which would authorize them to take a four-month intensive course, five days a week, from two thirty to six thirty in the evening. The institute was far from the Latin Quarter, on Rue Vitruve, and they had to take the subway there.

  “You already studied for the mini-exam on Monday,” Juana pointed out. “You know more than the teacher. Did you hear what I said, that Snickers is coming? This is your chance, you can ask him all the things you’ve been dying to find out about the stud.”

  “I don’t want to know anything about Eliah.”

  “No, of course not. And I’m blonde with sky-blue eyes.”

  The Learjet 45—his favorite, the Gulfstream V, was in Le Bourget, where the mechanics were checking the repairs made in Buenos Aires—would take off from Fergusson Island shortly. Al-Saud settled into his seat and asked Diana to bring him the encrypted telephone. The young woman quickly reappeared and handed it to him. Eliah put his thumb on a digital reader. A scanner read his fingerprint and authorized him to place a secure call.

  “Allô?”

  “Lefortovo, Horse of Fire speaking. I got your message. What did you find out?”

  “I’ve got what you asked for, the name of the fourth passenger. Yarón Gobi. And here’s the most interesting part: he was an important scientist, employed by the Israeli Institution for Biological Research, in Ness-Ziona.”

  “You and I know he’s dead, but what do the official records say?”

  “One of Gobi’s friends, a colleague at the Institute, one Moshé Bouchiki, reported his disappearance. Weeks later, the newspapers said that he had sold secrets to the enemy for millions of dollars and that he had taken refuge in Libya. Interesting, no?”

  “Extremely. Do you have Bouchiki’s address?”

  “Write this down. It’s in Ness-Ziona, fifty-four Jabotinsky Street. His apartment is on the third floor.”

  “Thank you, Lefortovo. As always, your work is impeccable.”

  “Always at your service, boss.”

  It took Captain Paloméro some time to change the flight plan and get a new course. They wouldn’t fly to Charles de Gaulle in Paris but to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. To enter Israel he woul
d use the Italian passport that Vladimir Chevrikov had made him under the name Giovanni Albinoni.

  After the Learjet took off, Al-Saud settled comfortably into his armchair and planned the visit to Moshé Bouchiki. According to the GPS map, Ness-Ziona was a few miles south of Tel Aviv. He would rent a car at the airport and go straight to his objective. Once he had analyzed the best strategy to get to Bouchiki, he stretched out on the couch, put his hands behind his head and thought about the order he had given to Alamán and Peter Ramsay the day before: to put microphones and cameras in the apartment on Rue Toullier. It had been a difficult decision to make, but in view of the information supplied by the SIDE agent in Buenos Aires, he judged it imperative: the previous Monday, January 12, Roy Blahetter had boarded an Iberia flight in Ezeiza. Final destination: Paris.

  On Wednesday night, after French class, Matilde and Juana had dinner at Sofía’s house. Matilde’s heart raced when she ran into the Al-Saud patriarch in the living room, along with her sister Céline, who was laughing and at ease. Her hand shook as she reached out to greet Prince Kamal. Had her uncle Nando said prince?

  “Pay attention to the perfume she’s wearing,” she whispered to Juana, just before she said hello to Francesca.

  “Diorissimo,” was the answer. “It’s older than sin, but so exquisite. Pure jasmine. A classic. You’re not thinking about wearing it, are you?”

  “Why not?”

  “So that Eliah will smell your neck and be reminded of his mother?”

  Matilde’s features reddened.

  “Why would Eliah smell my neck? Anyway, he’s forgotten we exist.”

  Juana rolled her eyes and went to talk to Fabrice. The dinner was fairly relaxed in spite of Céline, whose attitude toward her younger sister became increasingly aggressive as she got into the Mosela Riesling. Matilde contemplated her and didn’t respond. Celia was so beautiful! You could see it at first glance. How tall was she? Five nine? Matilde was only five two. Though she had arrived at her aunt’s house proudly wearing one of the new outfits Ezequiel had bought for her the week before, she felt as though she was in rags when faced with her sister’s superlatively elegant dress with gray edges and blue buttons. Celia made sure that everyone knew that the outfit had been designed especially for her by Valentino. After lunch, when they were sitting comfortably in armchairs in the living room, she saw how avidly her sister chain-smoked and how her hand shook so much that she had trouble lining up the tips of her cigarettes with the flame of her lighter. “My poor sister,” she said to herself, feeling impotent in the knowledge that she would never be able to help her. The abyss between them was too great.