The Righteous Spy

  THE

  RIGHTEOUS

  SPY

  MERLE NYGATE

  VERVE BOOKS

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  To | DN and WG | Always

  PART 1 – THE CHOSEN

  1 | Palestinian Territories – Present Day

  2 | Tel Aviv, Israel – The Same Day

  3 | King Solomon Street, Tel Aviv – Ten Minutes Later

  4 | The Office, Tel Aviv – Thirty Minutes Later

  5 | The Office, Tel Aviv – Thirty Minutes Later

  6 | Old Street, London – A Week Later

  7 | Palestinian Territories – Two Weeks Later

  8 | Swiss Cottage, London – The Same Day

  9 | Thames End Village, Surrey – Later that Day

  10 | The Israeli Embassy, Palace Gardens, London – The Next Day

  11 | Thames End Village Station, Surrey – The Next Day

  12 | Heathrow Airport, London – Two Days Later

  13 | M40 Motorway – Four Days Later

  14 | The Six Horseshoes Pub, Cheltenham – The Next Day

  15 | West Kensington, London – The Next Day

  16 | West Kensington, London – Thirty Seconds Later

  17 | M25 Motorway – Two Days Later

  18 | Summertown, Oxford – The Next Day

  19 | Summertown, Oxford – Nine Hours Later

  Part 2 – THE RIGHTEOUS

  20 | Watlingford Public School, Oxfordshire – One Week Later

  21 | Herzylia, Israel – The Same Time

  22 | The Israeli Embassy, Palace Gardens, London – The Next Day

  23 | Paddington, London – Three Days Later

  24 | Birmingham, Three Days Later

  25 | M40 Motorway – The Same Day

  26 | Thames End Village, Surrey – Same Day

  27 | Pall Mall, London – The Next Day

  28 | The Israeli Embassy, Palace Gardens, London – Fifteen Minutes Later

  29 | Watlingford Public School, Oxfordshire – The Next Day

  30 | Bayswater, London – The Next Day

  31 | West London – The Same Evening

  32 | Westbourne Grove, London – The Next Day

  33 | Stall Street, Bath – Two Days Later

  34 | Abingdon, Oxfordshire – The Next Day

  Part 3 – THE DELUDED

  35 | The Israeli Embassy, Palace Gardens, London – The Next Day

  36 | The Six Horseshoes Pub, Cheltenham – The Next Day

  37 | M40 Motorway – One Hour Later

  38 | The Israeli Embassy, Palace Gardens, London – Three Hours Later

  39 | Marylebone High Street, London – The Next Day

  40 | Watlingford Public School, Oxfordshire – Three Hours Later

  41 | Watlingford Public School, Oxfordshire – The Same Evening

  42 | M40 Motorway – The Next Day

  43 | West Hampstead, London – The Next Day

  44 | Hyde Park Corner, London – Five Minutes Later

  45 | St John’s Wood, London – Five Hours Later

  46 | Hanway Street, London – One Hour Later

  47 | All Saints Road, Cheltenham – Early Next Morning

  Part 4 – THE DEATH

  48 | Watlingford Public School, Oxfordshire, Classroom, The Next Day

  49 | Watlingford Public School, Oxfordshire – At The Same Time

  50 | Watlingford Public School, Oxfordshire – One Hour Later

  51 | Watlingford Public School, Oxfordshire – The Next Day

  52 | The Ironworkers Pub, Cowley, Oxfordshire – The Next Day

  53 | The Ironworkers Pub, Cowley, Oxfordshire – Continuous

  54 | The Israeli Embassy, Palace Gardens, London – The Next Day

  55 | Watlingford Public School, Oxfordshire – The Next Day

  56 | Watlingford Public School, Oxfordshire – The Same Day

  57 | RAF Fairborough, Oxfordshire – Ten Minutes Later

  58 | RAF Fairborough, Oxfordshire – Five Minutes Later

  59 | RAF Fairborough, Oxfordshire – Three Minutes Later

  60 | RAF Fairborough, Oxfordshire – 11 Minutes Later

  61 | RAF Fairborough, Oxfordshire – Three Minutes Later

  62 | RAF Fairborough, Oxfordshire – Five Minutes Later

  63 | Techno Zone, RAF Fairborough – Three Minutes Later

  64 | Techno Zone, RAF Fairborough – The Same Time

  65 | The Aviation Club, RAF Fairborough – Two Minutes Later

  66 | Techno Zone, RAF Fairborough – Ten Seconds Later

  67 | The Aviation Club, RAF Fairborough – Three Seconds Later

  68 | RAF Fairborough, Exhibitors’ Caravan Site – 10 Minutes Later

  69 | Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv – A Month Later

  70 | Thames End Village, Surrey – Two Weeks Later

  71 | Queen’s Park, London – Two Weeks Later

  72 | The Travellers Club – Next Day

  73 | Queen’s Park, London – A Week Later

  Author’s Notes

  Book Club Questions

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  To

  DN and WG

  Always

  PART 1 – THE CHOSEN

  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

  1 Corinthians 1:27

  For you are a people holy to the Lord your God and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

  Psalm 50:15

  This day have I perfected your religion for you and completed My favour upon you and have chosen for you Islam as your religion.

  Quran 5:3

  1

  Palestinian Territories – Present Day

  Soon.

  I know it’ll be soon because when we finished prayers this morning Abu Muhunnad’s eyes were shiny; and I don’t think it was irritation caused by dust and the wind that blows sand from the south.

  It was not as if it was anything he said, I just had the sense that he wasn’t listening when I told him about my fast, at least not as intently as he usually does. I was describing the verse I’m reading and instead of commenting, he just nodded. That’s when I saw his eyes glitter with tears.

  I’m okay. Really, I am.

  I wanted to say that to Abu Muhunnad this morning. I wanted him to know and be certain that I am truly filled with joy and grateful for the opportunity, inshallah. It’s as if everything I’ve done in my twenty-seven years has led me to this point, this place, this precise moment in time where, finally, I am going to make a difference.

  2

  Tel Aviv, Israel – The Same Day

  Seventy kilometres away – as the drone flies – Eli Amiram made his way to the bus stop for his morning commute. Even though he’d strolled only a short distance, from apartment to bus stop, by the time Eli arrived at the shelter he was sweating. His shirt grazed his damp neck and he could smell shower soap, deodorant and his own perspiration. The middle of May and at 7am, the temperature was already hitting 28 degrees. But the heat in isolation was nothing. Humidity was the killer; the wet, dense air that trapped him in its steaming strait-jacket. Eli leaned against the side of the metal bus shelter and narrowed his eyes. He tried to imagine grey London streets underfoot, grey clouds above and what it might feel like to inhale, if only for a second, cool air that hadn’t been artificially refrigerated. It was too bad Gal had driven north to see her mother. Otherwise, he’d have been in the car looking out, not on the street, sweating like an animal.

  Half a metre away a woman was shrieking into her cell phone. Eli closed his eyes. He stroked the top of his shaved head and fel
t the new growth on his skull. He supposed it could have been worse; at least the Khamsim was over. As far as Eli was concerned, a hard blue sky and 90 per cent humidity was a distinct improvement.

  After a few more seconds of being bombarded by the woman’s conversation Eli opened his eyes to assess the source of the voice. What he saw was a fleshy face with faded blonde hair brushed back into a bun. He knew the type. The pitch of the woman’s voice was bad enough, but her heavily accented Hebrew set Eli’s teeth on edge. It was like listening to Stockhausen’s Helicopter String Quartet.

  The bus screeched to a halt and Eli peeled his back away from the bus shelter and let the grandmother lumber ahead of him. Hauling herself aboard she found a seat halfway down the aisle. Eli made his way to an empty seat at the back of the bus; it was well away from the grandmother but next to a dati. Sliding down, Eli glanced over at the grey side burns, wispy beard and pallid skin.

  The bus jolted forward and Eli’s head jerked back against the headrest. He felt a finger nudging his ribs. Turning, Eli caught a blast of a gastric disorder from the man’s mouth.

  ‘You speak English?’ the old man said with an American accent. ‘Or Yiddish?’ His tone was peremptory and he didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Is this Rosh Pinna Street? Is this the corner of Rosh Pinna and Ariel?’

  ‘Next stop,’ Eli said.

  ‘You’ll tell me when we get there?’

  ‘Of course, it’ll be a pleasure.’ Aware that he’d used the right idiom Eli was still irritated with himself because he always struggled with the precision and physical placement of an English accent. The focus wasn’t around the lips and vestibule of the mouth like French, neither was it located near the hard palate and throat like Arabic. It sat somewhere around the middle, just before the soft palate and it bugged him that he hadn’t got it. Even after years of study.

  Five minutes later, when Eli was still trying to select an appropriate expression to practise on the American, they were at Rosh Pinna Street. Eli stood to let the man out.

  ‘Take your time, sir,’ Eli said. ‘There’s no rush, no rush at all.’ Shit. He’d done it again. Rolled the ‘r’. As he sat down, Eli grimaced trying to achieve the oral position for a non-rolling ‘r’.

  That was when he noticed a new passenger, a woman, step into the body of the bus.

  Eli stared. In dark blue jeans and flowing green top, skeletal shoulders sat atop a lumpy waist and an ugly hat shaded her face. But it wasn’t the absence of any aesthetic that made the base of Eli’s neck prick as if an elastic band had flicked against his flesh; it was her expression – she was terrified.

  Eli glanced across the aisle at a soldier to see if his combat receptors had kicked in but the kid was more interested in the horse-faced girl by his side. No back-up there.

  Up ahead, the woman was hauling a black and white shopping trolley down the aisle. Judging by her strained expression the load was heavy. Eli stood up to get a better look at her.

  Was she ill?

  Beneath heavy make-up the woman was pouring sweat. She was drenched. A slick of moisture dewed her upper lip and the armpits of the blouse were almost black. Okay, it was hot outside and okay, she’d dragged a loaded shopping trolley to the bus stop, but there was something wrong with her. Between thick eyebrows there was a deep frown crease and her eyes flicked around the bus, not settling, not making contact.

  Eli reached into his pocket for his cell phone. He glanced down and fingered the button to call the emergency services. Was he over-reacting? Up ahead he saw the woman’s lips were moving and her hand was clenched around the handle of the shopper.

  She’d found a seat. Right in the middle of the bus. Right where a device would cause the maximum damage. She sat down and Eli got a good view of her back and the narrow profile of her shoulders atop the billowing green top. Her waist was out of proportion to the rest of her body and she was holding on to that damn shopper as if her future depended on it.

  ‘Slicha, excuse me,’ Eli slid out from his seat and shoved aside a kid standing in the aisle reading his phone.

  Ahead, the woman was still clutching the shopper and positioning it with both hands. Not one. Struggling to keep it upright. Eli was two metres away from her and closing in when a man, an office worker in a white shirt, stepped into the aisle and blocked Eli’s way. In one hand he had a paper cup of coffee and he was reaching to take a linen jacket off the seat hook with the other. Using the flat of his hand against the man’s chest, Eli pushed him back into his seat. The coffee went flying as the office worker lost his balance and fell on top of another man reading a newspaper.

  ‘What the fuck!’

  Eli didn’t look back.

  The bus grunted to a halt and the brakes squealed. The doors hissed open. Eli reached the woman and wrenched the shopper from her grip. He glimpsed the fear in her eyes. Behind him people stood about to get off. Eli blocked them. He ripped open the Velcro cover of the shopper and dove inside. He pulled out a nightdress and a toilet bag and tossed them across the floor of the bus where they skittered under the seats.

  ‘What’s going on? What’s happening, why can’t we get off?’ Sharp and anxious voices. Voices close to panic. Meanwhile, Eli plunged his hand deeper into the shopper again and again but found only softness; no wire, no block, no bomb. In his peripheral vision Eli saw the soldier boy holding back the passengers.

  ‘What’s happening? Is there something wrong?’ Eli heard from the crowd of commuters.

  ‘Bitachon, security,’ Eli said. ‘Everything’s under control.’

  Now on his feet Eli dragged off the woman’s hat. Tear tracks striated the make-up on her face.

  ‘Are you out of your mind? What do you think you’re doing?’

  That voice, that awful accent, it was the grandmother sitting right next to the girl Eli had just assaulted.

  ‘I had reason to believe –’ Eli tried to make his voice sound authoritative hoping that a firm tone would camouflage his cock-up.

  Her face was red and one of her dockworker’s arms was around the girl’s skinny shoulders.

  ‘Didn’t the good Lord give you eyes in your stupid big head? The girl’s sick, she’s going to the hospital and she’s frightened to death.’

  ‘Lady, we all have to be vigilant and aware of security at all times. D’you understand? Okay, I made a mistake, I apologise, but I was acting in the best interest of everybody.’

  There were rumblings from the other passengers. They were divided. Eli saw the man with a coffee stain across his white shirt; he nodded at Eli. He got it. He understood. But the grandmother didn’t.

  ‘What kind of idiot are you?’

  He hissed, ‘The kind of idiot who is trying to protect you from being blown to pieces. Do you have a problem with that?’

  ‘Maspeek, enough, please,’ whispered the girl through tears. ‘It’s okay, I’m okay.’

  ‘Lady, I’m sorry, I made a bad mistake,’ Eli grabbed a handful of clothes from the floor and dumped them on the girl’s lap. Then, since the soldier boy was still holding back the rest of the passengers, Eli scrambled down the steps on to the street.

  He walked the rest of the way to the Office.

  3

  King Solomon Street, Tel Aviv – Ten Minutes Later

  Eli stepped through a set of automatic doors into the blessed chill of the downtown mall. It was a relief. The incident on the bus was unfortunate but defensible. Eli strode past the small café where the gym bunnies hung out. As usual, he pulled in his gut. Next, he passed a branch of Bank Leumi and a small supermarket with a metal turnstile and cliffs of cut-price vodka. Finally, Eli reached the northwest corner of the mall and a scuffed metal door that bore no sign. As he did every office day, Eli curled his right hand around the vertical handle and contacted the fingertip recognition keypad. Hand in position he looked around the mall, checking to see if there was anyone nearby. It was unnecessary as there were cameras everywhere but it was procedure. It’s what you did; it’s what
you were trained to do.

  Periodically refurbished and updated, this particular Mossad facility was located in a building within another building. It had its own generators, electronics and water supplies, communications, cryptography and the rest of the technical tricks department. While Eli visually swept the mall, his vital signs were being monitored, fed into the computer system, compared to a set of algorithms and minutely measured to see whether he was unusually stressed or unusually unresponsive.

  The door clicked open and Eli slid into the first security section where he handed in his home cell phone to the staff behind the desk and had a further retinal identification check.

  As always, Eli was struck by how quiet it was when the door to the mall shut behind him. It wasn’t just a door – it was a boundary; like walking from the beach into the sea to take that first breath through the snorkel into another world. Here the atmosphere was sterile; the only colour was the lights from the bank of monitors against the white wall; the only sound, apart from human voices, was the hush and hum of electronics. Beyond the reinforced door, the mall shrieked with its discordant colours, tinny music and neon pleas to purchase.

  Eli assumed his easy, affable, professional face. The one he used in the field, when he didn’t want to share his thoughts.

  ‘Good morning one and all,’ Eli said.

  ‘Morning Eli,’ Ze’ev, a curly haired blond boy didn’t look up from the machine that was scanning Eli. ‘See the game last night? Disaster.’

  ‘There’s only one team worth talking about; Maccabi Tel Aviv is and always has been the best.’

  Ze’ev glanced away from the scanner to roll his eyes while a young woman stepped out from behind the desk and ran a second, hand scanner over Eli who stood with his legs apart and arms above his head.

  Pronounced clean, Eli made his way through two more double doors to the lift and the second-floor canteen.

  The canteen was modern with pale wood, stainless steel and deftly placed mirrors to give the illusion of light even though the space was enclosed by metres of blast-proof concrete. There were a few windows in Mossad’s central Tel Aviv building, but those were on the upper floors where department heads had their offices, not in the 24-hour canteen where everybody ate, from the cleaners to intelligence analysts to signal collectors, to the tech geeks, to the shrinks. The single canteen was a nod to the dim memory of kibbutz life where the cow-shed worker sat next to the nursery nurse who sat next to the kibbutz administrator.