Obsession (Year of Fire) Page 19

  On the pretext of showing her a family photo, Sofía took Matilde’s arm and led her to a separate room, with bookshelves and a wood-burning stove. Céline watched them go, making no effort to conceal the disdain in her light-blue eyes. The curse of Matilde had followed her to Paris, where she was the queen, where she had won Sofía’s heart and was loved and spoiled by her. She wouldn’t let Matilde take away Sofía’s love, as she had that of her father, her aunt Enriqueta and her grandmother Celia. It hadn’t gone unnoticed that Eliah’s parents were friendly, almost affectionate toward her.

  “Careful not to bite your tongue; you’d choke on your own poison,” Juana whispered at her provocatively.

  “Shut up, you dirty Indian.”

  Sofía picked up a picture frame and showed Matilde a photo of a group of black people surrounding a nun, in a tropical setting.

  “This is Amélie,” Sofía said proudly.

  “Aunt Enriqueta told me that she was a nun,” Matilde remembered.

  “Enriqueta talked about me and my children?”

  “Very little. Where was this photo taken?”

  “In the Congo, in a very dangerous, conflict-ridden area called Kivu. Nando and I pray for her safety every day.”

  Matilde looked up from the frame and stared at her aunt.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m stupefied. Juana and I are traveling to Bukavu in a few months, it’s the capital of South Kivu.” Sofía’s eyes filled with tears. “Just as I told you the last time we were here, we’re going with Healing Hands.”

  “This can’t be a coincidence!” the woman said excitedly. “As soon as I saw you I knew something special would happen between us. And now you say that you’ll be close to my Amélie. You have to get in touch! You two can be friends when you get out there, she’ll be able to help you. I’ll write down her e-mail address for you!”

  Sofía scribbled it on a piece of paper and handed it to Matilde on their way back to the living room, where she announced the good news to the group. Céline couldn’t understand all the admiration directed at Juana and Matilde—So what if they were pediatricians, off to the Congo to pick the fleas off a bunch of black people?—and she flounced out of her aunt’s house, a place where she had always been the center of attention, with her fame, her glamour and beauty. When she got outside, she called Eliah. Of course, the call went straight to the answering machine.

  Claude Masséna found a photograph of Dr. Moshé Bouchiki at a biotechnology symposium in Brussels, in ’95, and sent it to Al-Saud’s phone.

  After three days in Ness-Ziona, Diana and Al-Saud knew the scientist’s routines. He was surprised that Bouchiki had aged so much in just a few years, although, as Diana pointed out, he looked more run-down than older, with bags under his eyes, deep wrinkles and a bitter grimace. They suspected that Mossad was watching him, so they moved carefully. A conversation Diana had with Bouchiki’s doorman—in a stroke of luck it turned out that he was a Jew from Sarajevo—had made it clear that Yarón Gobi and Bouchiki had been more than friends.

  Al-Saud went into the bar where the man always stopped to have a whiskey, sometimes two, after finishing his working day at the Institute of Biological Research. He sat at the bar, next to the stool where the scientist always sat. He was wearing headphones connected to a small recorder and, although he wasn’t listening to music, he tapped his fingers on the bar and shook his knee up and down. Diana’s voice came in through the tiny microphone hidden in the right headphone.

  “Bouchiki’s about to come in. He’s going toward you. The katsa following him hasn’t gotten out of his car. Wait, now he’s getting out.”

  Bouchiki sat down to Al-Saud’s right and said something in Hebrew to the waiter, who spoke to him familiarly and served him the drink.

  “The katsa has just entered and is sitting at the table at five o’clock.” After a silence, she added, “He’s pretending to read a newspaper.”

  Once the waiter had gone off toward the kitchen, Al-Saud, still tapping and jiggling his knee, whispered in English, “Don’t move, don’t look at me, don’t change your expression. Don’t do anything. Just listen to me.” He waited a few seconds to make sure that Bouchiki was paying attention. “I want to talk to you about Dr. Gobi. I know the truth and I’m not one of them.”

  Bouchiki handled it well; he sipped his whiskey casually.

  “I’ll wait for you tonight on the terrace of your building at eleven at night.”

  Bouchiki assented with a movement of the eyelids. Al-Saud drained the last of his mineral water and left the bar. As he passed the katsa, he softly sang a few stanzas of “Comfortably Numb,” by Pink Floyd.

  After nine o’ clock at night, this residential neighborhood in Ness-Ziona had a desolate look. Al-Saud, wearing a black Lycra suit, pulled on a balaclava and, over that, his night-vision goggles with image-enhancing technology; his surroundings suddenly went green. He adjusted the microphone next to his mouth.

  “Anything new?” he asked Diana, who was camouflaged in the foliage of an oak tree, opposite Bouchiki’s building.

  “Nothing. The van is still parked in the same spot.” She focused her binoculars and confirmed, “There are no suspicious movements.”

  Al-Saud studied Bouchiki’s building across the complex’s dark courtyard from the terrace of an adjacent construction site. He looked down and checked the crossbow in his hand. Fortunately, he had brought it with him from Fergusson Island, where they used it to train new recruits. He couldn’t miss, he had just one shot at this. He aimed and fired the titanium arrow, which embedded itself in the masonry. He tied the end of the steel wire around a concrete column and adjusted it until he had a secure line to Bouchiki’s building. He put on steel chain-mail gloves and, over these, a covering for his fingers, a type of polyurethane mitten that allowed them as much flexibility as possible while still providing protection. He sat on the edge of the half-finished building with his legs dangling in the air, took the cable in both hands and dropped into space. In a smooth movement, he lifted up his legs until they were coiled around the wire. He worked his way across the courtyard. It took just over fifteen minutes to get to the roof of Bouchiki’s building. Worked up by his exertions and the tension in his body, he closed his eyes and practiced a few breathing exercises. Then he sat down to wait, hidden behind the support frame for the water tank.

  Al-Saud checked his Breitling Emergency. Bouchiki appeared a few minutes before eleven. The nocturnal breeze transmitted the scientist’s alcoholic scent. He watched him light a cigarette and drag hard, as though his life depended on it. He emerged slowly; dressed the way he was, it was almost impossible to see him.

  “Bouchiki.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Someone interested in exposing the truth about El Al flight 2681. Which is why I need your help.”

  “What have I got to do with that flight?”

  “Yarón Gobi was on that flight, your friend. He died in the accident. And you know that. That stuff about treason and exile in Libya was a complete lie. They discredited him to cover themselves.”

  “They stained his memory!” the scientist said angrily. “They dragged his good name through the mud. And they turned my life into a hell. I’m under constant surveillance. They…they know that Yarón and I…”

  “That you were lovers.”

  Al-Saud saw Bouchiki trying to make him out in the shadows.

  “I’m under constant surveillance,” he insisted.

  “I know. Your house is very likely filled with cameras and microphones. That’s why I wanted to meet you here.”

  “I can’t do anything. What do you want?”

  “What was the plane carrying when it crashed into Bijlmer?”

  Bouchiki puffed twice more on his cigarette, seemingly coming to a decision. Finally, he answered, “The components to manufacture various nerve agents.”

  “For example?”

  “Tabun, soman, sarin…the list is long. One drop of these
agents on your skin and you’re dead in minutes.”

  “Which was what happened to Khaled Meshaal in Amman last year.” Al-Saud referred to a high-level director in the Palestinian party Hamas. “Except Meshaal didn’t die.”

  The man nodded as he inhaled deeply.

  “Mossad injected a few drops of VX behind his ear. VX is highly lethal in liquid form.”

  “The Institute of Biological Research got him the antidote?”

  “That’s right. When the Jordanian police caught the Mossad agents, King Hussein apparently called Netanyahu in a rage, demanding the antidote. We make both the poison and the antidote at the institute. We got it to him in a few hours, saving Meshaal’s life.”

  “Why do you make these agents?”

  “We don’t ask those kinds of questions at the Institute.”

  “Who provides the components for the gases?”

  “Two laboratories, one in America and the other in Argentina. The last shipment, which Yarón was supposed to monitor and protect, was provided by the one in Argentina.”

  “Blahetter Chemicals?”

  “I see you’re informed.”

  “Do they have an inventory or any other record of these ingredients?”

  “Of course, in detail.”

  “Could you get copies of those documents?”

  “I repeat, I’ve been under constant surveillance for the last two years. At the institute they even watch me when I go to the bathroom.”

  “In your everyday work, do you come into contact with these documents?”

  “Yes, but they won’t let me photocopy it.”

  “You won’t have to. Come closer, Bouchiki. I have to show you something.” Al-Saud emerged from the shadows; the balaclava hid his face. “This is a pen, but if you press this switch, the nib is replaced with a camera. Every time you press the button, it will take a photograph.”

  “Sounds easy. What would I get in exchange for risking my neck? Who are you?”

  “I’m the man offering to clear Gobi’s name. But more than that, I can offer you a sizable sum of money and a new identity.”

  Now that he had gotten closer, Eliah could see the anxiety in the man’s movements. He was like a desperate, cornered animal who had resorted to drink to numb his pain.

  “Why did you report Gobi’s disappearance when you knew he was on the plane that crashed into Bijlmer?”

  “They made me.”

  “Mossad?”

  “They didn’t do me the courtesy of introducing themselves. They just threatened me and told me what to do. How much money is on offer for these photographs?”

  “Five hundred thousand dollars.”

  Bouchiki let out a forced laugh.

  “Five hundred thousand is what you’ll have to give me in advance just to take the photographs. Without that, I won’t lift a finger. The total ought to be about three million.”

  “One,” Al-Saud haggled. “Five hundred thousand now and the rest on completion of the work.”

  “Five hundred thousand now,” the scientist agreed, “and one million on completion of the work.”

  Suddenly, Bouchiki’s inebriated, run-down appearance had transformed; he now looked alert and clear-minded.

  “Fine. As soon as we ascertain the validity of the photographs, a million dollars will be sent to a numbered account at the Credit Suisse Bank in Geneva. Plus we’ll give you a passport with a new identity and a driver’s license.” He gave him the pen and repeated the instructions.

  “In twenty days I’m going to Cairo for a seminar on nanotechnology at the Hotel Semiramis Intercontinental,” Bouchiki informed him. “As I’ve kept my mouth shut and met their demands for two years, they approved this trip.”

  “They’ll still be watching you.”

  “Yes, but in a different city, in the middle of a symposium with five hundred scientists. The handoff will be easier in a hotel full of people than in Ness-Ziona.”

  “That’s where we’ll do it, then.”

  “Another thing: you’ll be in charge of getting me out of Cairo and to the Caribbean.”

  “You can count on it.”

  Bouchiki suddenly frowned and his face returned to its previous, shadowy expression; Al-Saud worried that he had changed his mind.

  “How can I trust you? How can I be sure that you’ve deposited the money? And if you do deposit it, how do I know that you won’t take the funds back later?”

  “Dr. Bouchiki, within three days, use someone else’s IP address—your friend the waiter from the bar’s, for example—and find the phone number for Credit Suisse in Geneva on the Internet. Call that number from an untapped phone and ask for Filippo Maréchal. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, I could use my colleague’s telephone. I know his password.”

  “Perfect. As I said, Filippo Maréchal will be the official in charge of your account. Mention the day and month of Dr. Gobi’s birthday and give his first name, Yarón. Remember what I just told you. That will serve as a password until you change it to something else. Filippo will be one of the only people at the bank who knows that you are the person behind your account number. If you want to be even safer, you can close that account and open another; I’ll leave it up to you. Whatever you decide, Filippo will verify that we have deposited the first five hundred thousand and he’ll help you to change the password and the security questions. Filippo has worked at Credit Suisse for thirty years. He won’t stain his spotless career for a few cents. As for the remaining million, as soon as it’s deposited, you can call Filippo from the Intercontinental in Cairo and ask him for confirmation that the money has entered the account.”

  “In three days,” Bouchiki said, “when he confirms that the five hundred thousand has arrived in my account, I’ll start to act.”

  “The person who contacts you at the Intercontinental will say to you, ‘Diana and Artemis are the same goddess.’ Memorize it. Give the pen to that person. In the meantime, I suggest that you don’t speak to anyone and quit drinking. Drunks have loose tongues. In your case, Dr. Bouchiki, it could cost you your life.”

  An agent from the Aman, Israeli military intelligence, was getting ready to skim the report on general aviation movements—private and corporate planes—from the last five days at Ben Gurion Airport when a name jumped out at him: Mercure Inc. The plane, a Learjet 45, was licensed to Papua New Guinea.

  He picked up the phone and called the private line of his friend Ariel Bergman at The Hague. At a meeting a few days before in Tel Aviv, Bergman had told him about one Eliah Al-Saud, the manager of a private military business, Mercure Inc., whom they were monitoring because of some possible inquiries he was making into the Bijlmer disaster.

  “Bergman speaking.”

  “Ariel, it’s me. Meir Katván.”

  “How’s it going, Meir? What’s up at Ben Gurion?”

  “I think I have some juicy information for you. Five days ago a private jet landed at Ben Gurion, a Learjet 45, owned by Mercure Inc., the business you mentioned the other day in relation to the Bijlmer disaster. The license plate on the plane is P2-MIG.”

  “What country is the P2 code for?”

  “Papua New Guinea.”

  “That makes sense—Mercure is legally based in that country. Nonetheless, his headquarters are in Paris. Has the plane left Ben Gurion?”

  “Yes, yesterday at dawn, heading to Le Bourget, in Paris.”

  “Do you have a passenger manifest?”

  “Just two people, apart from the crew, of course. Giovanni Albinoni and Mariyana Huseinovic.”

  “I’ll send you a picture of Al-Saud and his partners. Can you review the security tapes from the airport and look for them among the passengers?”

  “Consider it done.”

  * * *

  * * *

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  * * *

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Juana. It’s Eliah.”

  “Stud! Are you back?”

 
“Yes, I’m in Paris.”

  “Hooray! We missed you,” she confessed in a childish voice.

  “Really?”

  “Oof, you don’t know how much! Your friend has been unbearable since you left. I’m happy you’re back. Maybe now she’ll give me a bit of peace.”

  Still smiling, Al-Saud asked, “Is she there?”

  “No. She went to the Healing Hands headquarters, at number six Rue Breguet. She told me that she’d be there until one thirty.”

  Eliah looked at the time and found that he was wearing his Breitling Emergency rather than the Rolex. He realized that in his hurry to see Matilde, he had forgotten to take it off; he only used it during military training and when he was flying planes. It was five past one. He had time.

  “Thanks, Juana.”

  “You’re welcome, stud! See you soon.”

  He parked opposite the building’s entrance, which bore with a marble plaque with the inscription Mains Qui Guérissent (Healing Hands). Breguet was a quiet, narrow street. He settled down to wait.

  Matilde smiled at Auguste Vanderhoeven reluctantly, trying to be nicer, because the Belgian doctor was being very friendly with her. Since the preparation meeting for the first destination, when Auguste had introduced himself as the person in charge of the surgeons for the Kivu project, he had answered all her questions very kindly. They had just spent the morning in the organization’s library researching a subject that interested both of them: the vaginal fistula, a condition that devastated many African women but about which little was known.