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But the Kol had promised to leave him alone for today, and he was going to make the most of it. He pressed his head into the pillow as deeply as he could and allowed his mind to drift. It didn’t take long for sleep to close in on him. That was when the nightmare came. He should have known it. Brussels, gleaming diplomatic Brussels. His hand stretching out before him like a pale trident. The cold slap of his palm against the girl’s sternum as he shoved her with all his strength. Her face, stretched by a languid terror as she fell in slow motion backwards into the road. Her hair flicking in ropes and tendrils against the night sky as her head hit the windscreen of an oncoming Mercedes; the snarl of acceleration, the flinging body, the black bonnet. The single cry. His first kill for the Office.

  At 3.30 p.m. he awoke again, and this time he got up. Music was playing somewhere, he could hear it coming through the floorboards. He took a strawberry mousse from the fridge, peeled the lid and spooned it into his mouth. Then he turned on his two televisions; they had to be used together, as one had no picture and the other had no sound. He parted the curtains and looked out into the summer’s afternoon, scratching his woolly head. A group of children were clustered around a smashed bus stop, kicking a lump of concrete. He closed the curtains again, lit another cigarette. Compulsively, he placed his foot against a leg of the coffee table and nudged it, feeling the weight; heavy, too heavy for a regular table. There was no sign it had been tampered with. His ‘slick’ was secure.

  In the bathroom, he unscrewed the showerhead and rattled it over the sink, then scraped at it a few times with a spoon. He’d read that dirty showers contain dangerous levels of mycobacterium avium, which if inhaled can rot the lungs. When satisfied, he dropped his cigarette butt sizzling in the toilet and had a cold shower. Snail-like, he slipped back into the shell of his clothes, shaking the moisture from his head.

  It was hot in the flat. Something about the quality of the heat made him think back to the summers of his youth. That summer when, at the age of fourteen, he had won the national junior shooting prize, scoring 197 out of 200 with an old Shtutser rifle. His parents told everyone about it; he had been the envy of the entire Gededei Noar Ivri, the Battalion of Hebrew Youth. The beginning of an illustrious career, he thought bitterly.

  The kill, the Brussels night, appeared in his mind; he blocked it out. He thought about the Hungarian girl. He had a headache. In the kitchen he swallowed an aspirin without water, then, finding the capsule still sharp in his oesophagus, filled a glass and drank. It was as if a furnace was raging inside him, and the water was turning to steam. He refilled the glass and took a key from a drawer. He was ravenous, his soul was hungry. Leaving the glass forgotten on the counter, he left the kitchen, unlocked the spare bedroom and entered.

  The room was filled with an unmoving, fragrant cloud, and the windows were blacked out. He could hear the hum of his small machines. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, a dozen wooden structures were revealed, like balsa wood wardrobes, their walls made of white sheets pinned up with thumbtacks. Concertina pipes looped lazily on to the ground and out the window. Carefully, he opened one of the boxes and dazzling light spilled out, blanching his face. He reached inside.

  The plants, set amongst reflective silver sheeting, were full and supple. He inspected the leaves closely, pinching and twisting them in his fingers: the white hairs had begun to turn reddish brown, almost ready to be harvested. Their roots were threaded into a bed of pebbles, through which a mechanical pump sent bursts of chemical solution. Hydroponic cultivation. Complicated but more efficient, and no soil needed. He spent a few minutes going from box to box like a zookeeper, checking the temperature and humidity gauges, then the extractor fans and pumps. He got some chemicals from the bathroom and replenished the plastic reservoir in the corner of the room, checking that the timer was running properly. Finally he opened the airing cupboard in the corner, took out some drying trays, divided a pile of desiccated buds into eighths, and bagged them up. Casting a final eye over everything, he left the room and locked the door behind him.

  He put on some aftershave, jeans and a linen jacket, turned off the televisions and went out, carrying his crop in a rucksack. Pickings would be rich tonight. One deal, one thousand pounds. But first there was the matter of that bastard Avner. He checked his phone and there was a text waiting, the first for days. It said: c u 4 ok? Reluctantly, he replied: ok.

  3

  When Uzi arrived at the café in Primrose Hill, Avner Golan was waiting for him, sitting at a table in the corner, nursing a latte in a glass. Uzi hated the sight of a latte in a glass. Whoever thought of a latte in a glass should be shot. He was feeling jumpy. It was dangerous to arrive at a meeting point when your contact was already there. On operations, if you arrived and your contact was there waiting, you cancelled the meeting. It was forbidden even to go to the bathroom and leave your contact at the table, for who knows what they could be doing in your absence? But he fought his instinct. This was Avner, he reminded himself, just Avner. Granted, a bastard through and through, but one of the few people that could, to some extent, be trusted.

  Uzi knew that under his arms and in the centre of his back were ovals of darkness. He didn’t care. He gave Avner a cursory comrade’s embrace and sat down, taking out a packet of cigarettes.

  ‘Ah, my brother. You’re still wearing your old clothes,’ said Avner – for some reason he was speaking in French – taking the corner of Uzi’s jacket in his fingers. ‘Paranoid as ever.’

  Uzi snatched his jacket away. Sewn into the corners were little lead weights, making it possible to swing it open with a twist of the body and draw your weapon in a single movement. They had both perfected the movement years ago in training: swing draw, swing draw, swing draw. (The famous ‘Israeli draw’, where the sidearm was snatched from the holster with an empty cartridge and racked at the same time, was slower. For the Office, it had to be quick: swing draw.)

  ‘This jacket suits me fine,’ said Uzi, replying also in French. ‘You’re the one who won’t speak on the phone. Who always wants to meet in four eyes.’

  ‘Meet in four eyes? You’re still using the jargon, my brother. It’s over for you now, don’t you get it? You’ve quit. Now you’ve got to let it go.’

  ‘A man can’t let go of himself. You know that.’

  ‘A man can, Adam. A man can let go of his old self.’

  ‘Uzi. Call me Uzi.’

  ‘You’re embarrassed to use the name your mother gave you?’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘We can’t play those games any more, I’m telling you. This is real life.’

  There was a pause as they both, instinctively, scanned the room, with practised casualness.

  ‘You look well, Avner.’

  ‘I am well. Wish I could say the same about you.’

  ‘You could,’ said Uzi testily.

  ‘Your French is as good as ever.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks.’

  ‘I thought French would be nice for today. A creative language.’

  Uzi shrugged and fingered his cigarette packet. Avner’s iPhone bleeped.

  ‘Why can’t you stop using these children’s toys?’ said Uzi. ‘With you it’s always Apple this, Apple that. Always the latest one.’

  ‘I’ve ordered you a double espresso,’ said Avner.

  ‘Do you have a light?’

  ‘This is England, remember?’

  ‘Shit.’

  Uzi, riled and hot, put away his cigarettes. The waitress arrived with his coffee. She was surly, beautiful, with a pencil in her hair. Uzi imagined her in an army uniform; she glanced at him and looked away. He stirred a sugar cube in, drank it in a single draught. It burned his tongue and he liked that. Steadied, he turned back to his companion.

  Avner Golan had the air and physique of a paratrooper. His prominent nose and teeth, coupled with his rather narrow face, gave him a deceptive air of friendliness. He and Uzi had joined the Office in the same cohort; fifteen people were recruited every three years, if
enough good candidates could be found (for each of the fifteen, five thousand had been rejected). Seven of their contemporaries had failed the final tests for one reason or another; two had been assigned to the Shiklut department, as audio intel analysts; two, Uzi and Avner, had become Katsas, operational in the field; and rumour had it that Golding, the most religious of the group, had become a Kidon – an assassin.

  ‘We’re brothers, Adam,’ said Avner. ‘You should come and work with me. I’m running a business now.’

  ‘You’re no longer shovelling shit for London Station?’

  ‘Sure, I’m still doing that. But the money stinks, and I’ve got debts. So on the side I have a legitimate business.’

  ‘Legitimate,’ Uzi repeated sardonically. ‘Sure. You’ve been a bastard ever since I’ve known you.’

  ‘What about you? Are you still making money how I think you’re making money?’ asked Avner.

  ‘Very little changes,’ said Uzi, ‘even when everything’s different.’

  ‘You’re small fry, Adam. You’ve become small fry.’

  ‘That’s all I want right now. Small money. Nothing big.’

  ‘I’ll get some off you before you leave,’ said Avner.

  ‘Thirty pounds for an eighth.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ Avner dug with a long-handled spoon into the bottom of the glass and slipped some froth between his lips. ‘You wouldn’t ask me for money, brother.’

  Uzi shrugged.

  ‘No wonder you’ve still got the jacket weights,’ said Avner, dismissively. ‘I’m being serious. Come and work for me.’

  ‘I already have a day job,’ said Uzi.

  ‘As what?’

  ‘Protection operative.’

  ‘Security guard?’

  ‘Protection operative.’

  ‘What’s behind the front?’ said Avner suspiciously.

  ‘I told you, it’s a day job. Just a day job.’

  ‘Bullshit. Who do you guard?’

  ‘Schools, synagogues,’ said Uzi wearily. ‘You know the sort of thing.’

  ‘Like I said, security guard.’

  ‘Like I said, protection operative.’

  ‘Life in the fast lane.’ Avner snorted, finished his coffee, and sat back. ‘I don’t like to see you in a mess, Adam.’

  ‘I don’t like to see you at all,’ said Uzi, eating a sugar cube.

  ‘You’re like a horse,’ said Avner, ‘the way you eat sugar. It’s like a horse.’

  They fell silent. Uzi picked up his coffee cup, saw that it was empty, put it down again. He was still feeling jumpy, he needed a cigarette. Come on, Avner, he thought, enough with the small talk. But Avner wasn’t ready. Not yet.

  ‘How’s that girl?’ said Uzi for something to say.

  ‘She does the job,’ Avner replied. ‘What about you? Getting much action?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Uzi.

  ‘I should set you up. I know lots of girls.’

  ‘Matchmaker, matchmaker.’

  ‘That waitress, for example. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice her,’ said Avner. ‘She’s got a reputation. She’ll suck your cock. All you’ve got to do is walk up to her and put it in her mouth.’

  ‘Fuck you, Avner,’ said Uzi, ‘you just want me to get it bitten off. I’m going outside for a smoke. Stay here if you want.’

  He got up from his chair and left the café, ignoring Avner’s remarks. Once in the street he felt a desperate anger arise from nowhere. Whatever Avner was going to say, why didn’t he just come out and say it? All this beating about the bush. Uzi fumbled with his cigarettes. He was enraged, he needed to let fly. What a load of shit. It was always the same with Avner. He had known that meeting him would be a mistake. But in a perverse way, he thirsted for the anger, the resentments, the hatred. They reminded him of home.

  He smoked the cigarette as his temper smouldered. His ear began to itch again, and he passed his hand over his face in frustration.

  ‘Uzi.’

  ‘What do you want? You said you would leave me alone today,’ he mumbled, trying not to look as if he was talking to himself.

  ‘I think we should discuss Avner Golan.’ It was the older voice this time. He hadn’t heard the Kol sounding so old in a while.

  ‘Look, I can handle this myself, OK? I’m not a baby. I don’t need you.’

  ‘I’m your friend, Uzi.’

  ‘I don’t need you. Not today.’

  The voice paused, thinking. ‘OK,’ it said at last.

  ‘Too fucking right.’

  ‘Believe in yourself.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever.’

  Uzi shook his head as if to rid it of all remnants of the Kol. Through the window of the café, Avner could be seen chatting to the waitress, making movements with his hands as if he was describing a watermelon. A group of teenagers walked past, looking ridiculous in impossibly tight jeans, asymmetric haircuts, Ray-Bans. They were children. Everyone in England was a child. Nobody knew what real life was about. He finished his cigarette and, fortified, went back into the café. Avner dismissed the waitress charmingly and turned back to him.

  ‘Better?’ said Avner.

  Uzi shrugged. ‘No worse.’

  ‘I haven’t ordered you another espresso.’

  ‘I didn’t expect you to.’

  This time, Uzi let the silence hang.

  ‘Right,’ said Avner at last, ‘let’s get down to some tachless.’

  The Hebrew word clashed with the French and Uzi glanced around the café.

  ‘Relax,’ said Avner in Hebrew, ‘just take it easy. That’s no normal waitress. We’re safe here. If anyone followed you here, they’re not listening to what we’re saying now.’

  ‘You’re trying to fuck with my head.’

  ‘Here’s the deal,’ said Avner, dismissing Uzi’s anxiety with a sweeping motion of his hands. ‘The way I see it, we’re in the same boat.’

  ‘Really? How do you figure that?’

  ‘You’ve always been a head-in-the-clouds bastard, the only idealist I’ve ever met in the Office. Me, I’m like everyone else, just in it for the money. That’s why we always worked together so well. But right now, we’ve both been screwed by the powers that be. That’s all that matters.’

  Uzi scowled. ‘I quit because of the corruption. You were demoted because you crossed the wrong guy. That doesn’t put us in the same boat.’

  ‘Details, details,’ said Avner cheerfully. ‘The point is, you and I can make money together. And at the same time, do some good.’

  ‘Do some good?’

  ‘I have a proposal for you.’

  Uzi found himself already needing another cigarette. Avner picked up the signs; he waved the waitress over and ordered Uzi another espresso. They were silent until the coffee arrived. Then, as Uzi sipped, Avner spoke again. ‘Fact is, they fucked me. They demoted me to Bodel – a courier, for fuck’s sake – the sort of job that goes to someone fresh out of the army. Me, a Katsa, with all my experience. I’m a laughing stock. It’s humiliating.’

  ‘You can’t complain,’ said Uzi. ‘Using the Office’s surveillance equipment to blackmail the Johns on the Tel Baruch beach? You played the fucking fool.’

  ‘How was I to know the guy was a Shabak officer?’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘No, my brother, that’s not the point. You want to know the point? This is the point. I’m going to cut loose from the Office, but I’ve got a chance to make some big money first. Forty million dollars, my brother. Forty million. And I want you in on it. Sixty-forty.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘There’s an election coming up in the homeland.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I have friends in the opposition party. They want me to help . . . facilitate their victory.’

  ‘You have friends on the political left?’

  ‘Left-wing, right-wing, it’s all the same to me. Corrupt bastards, to a man. It’s a travesty, the state of our country. I just netw
ork, you know? I network.’ Avner smiled.

  Uzi raised his eyebrows. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Like I said, they’re offering us forty million dollars. We split it sixty-forty. My job will be to set everything up. I’ll do all the work. All you have to do is talk to WikiLeaks.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Operation Cinnamon.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Hear me out. If Operation Cinnamon hit the news, the prime minister would be impeached quicker than Richard Nixon. The right-wingers get voted out, the left-wingers get voted in. We get our forty million dollars. Game over.’

  Uzi shook his head. ‘You actually thought I would agree to this? You fucking idiot, Avner. Do I look suicidal to you?’

  Avner laid a hand on his arm. ‘Listen to me. The PM used the Office – used you – for his own ends. I know you’re burning up about it, and with good reason. Now is the time to redress the balance. You want to change the course of history? You want to stand up for peace? You want to get stinking fucking rich? Then this is how.’

  ‘Stand up for peace?’ said Uzi. ‘Leaking top secret information is standing up for peace?’

  ‘Getting rid of this government is standing up for peace. It would be to you, anyway. Helping the peaceniks. Isn’t that what you want these days? With your left-wing principles?’

  ‘I’m not about politics. I’m no left-winger. I’m just a soldier who knows that when the PM uses the secret services to kill his opponents, it’s time to get the hell out. I’m not a fucking crusader or anything. I don’t give a shit about the government.’

  Avner winced. ‘You need to look at the bigger picture,’ he said. ‘Do you want the government to bomb Iran?’

  ‘What do you think? Of course I don’t want them to bomb Iran.’

  ‘Well, then. The attack plans are already drawn up, my brother.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m telling you. Operation Desert Rain. A daredevil air strike to destroy Iran’s supposed nuclear materials – pinpoint and covert, not enough to spark a war. Or so the PM hopes. The voters will love it. A trumped-up target, a nighttime bombing raid, and there you have it: an election winner for our friends in the government.’