Killing for the Company

‘Are you as stupid as you look, Cohen? Don’t you think the CIA will have every analyst in Langley examining this picture? SIS? People will believe anything of us, you know that. They’d be delighted to believe that one of our people set this whole thing up…’

Cohen blinked. It was true, he hadn’t really thought of it in those terms. He sat down again, removed his glasses for a second time and rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say, Ehud.’

‘Where can we find her?’

‘I don’t know.’ That, at least, he could say with some certainty.

‘You’re going to have to do a lot better than that, Ephraim.’ Blumenthal was sitting down again. A little tear of sweat was dripping down his forehead. ‘A lot better.’

Cohen had always known that Maya Bloom would come back to haunt him. As the years had passed, he’d managed to put her from his mind from time to time. But he always knew…

‘I don’t know where she is, Ehud,’ he said, a little meeker now.

Blumenthal stared at him for a full thirty seconds before talking again. His voice was quieter, almost conversational, as if his previous outburst had never happened. ‘You’d better give me something to go on, Ephraim.’

Cohen nodded. ‘Maya Bloom was the best kidon I ever knew,’ he said. ‘Too good, almost. Her parents were killed in a suicide bomb in Tel Aviv, and both she and her brother were identified to join Mossad quite young. The brother — I forget his name — died on operations in Iraq. I think that pushed her over the edge.’

‘That means she was close to the edge in the first place,’ Blumenthal observed.

Cohen inclined his head. ‘Perhaps,’ he conceded.

‘And you didn’t spot this? You didn’t think to report it to your superiors?’

Cohen stared into the middle distance. He thought back to those days, and remembered the foolish sexual fantasies he’d entertained about his kidon. ‘We all make mistakes,’ he said, ‘from time to time.’

‘I think you might find,’ Blumenthal said, ‘that some mistakes are more costly than others.’

The comment made Cohen snap. ‘The moment I realised she was a threat, I sent someone to take care of her. She killed him. It’s all in the file. I’ve heard nothing about her ever since. But I can tell you something for sure, Ehud.’

‘Then you better had.’

‘This…’ He tapped the picture that was still lying on his desk. ‘This doesn’t make sense. Maya Bloom was many things. Skilled. Dangerous. Unhinged. But she was loyal to Israel, Ehud. She was always loyal to Israel. Maya Bloom in league with Palestinian terrorists? I would sooner believe it of you yourself than of her. I can only assume she’s part of some crackpot plot to turn the West against the Palestinians.’

‘You’d better hope we find this woman, Ephraim, otherwise you might find yourself answering to less sympathetic members of the administration than myself.’ He stood up, brushed his lapels again and turned towards the exit. ‘I’ll let myself out,’ he said.

Blumenthal was just opening the door when Cohen spoke again.

‘Ehud,’ he said very quietly.

The politician turned. ‘What?’

‘You won’t find her, you know. I can absolutely promise you that you won’t find Maya Bloom. And if you do…’

He went silent.

‘What?’

Cohen remembered the brutalised body of the agent he’d sent to kill her. The guts spilled out all over the bed. The blood and the stink. The message she’d sent him, and which he had heeded. He wanted to say, ‘She’ll kill you,’ but he thought better of it.

‘ What? ’ Blumenthal demanded again.

Cohen shook his head and sighed deeply. ‘Nothing, Ehud,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all.’ And he watched with an expressionless face as the Rottweiler stormed out of the room, slamming the door noisily behind him.

TWENTY-ONE

Leaving Hereford had been far from straightforward. First there had been the meet and greet with the Royal Protection Squad at 07.00 hrs. Luke hardly heard anything the RPS boys said. He was just replaying last night’s conversation over and over again. Trying to make sense of it. Trying to work out what it meant.

I was with Chet Freeman the night he died… the night he was murdered.

Part of him thought the caller must have been a nutter, winding him up or playing some sick joke. But his phone was supplied by work. That meant it was encrypted. Impossible to trace and impossible to find the number if you didn’t know it already. Luke knew that he had to get out of camp and down to London.