To his left were the businesses that lined Crooms Hill Road. Among them, fifty yards ahead, was Dhalal’s smoke shop. To the right the configuration was similar — the backsides of small buildings, some with residences above. At this hour the businesses were all closed, except one at the very end which Slaton recalled was a restaurant. The alley was much darker than the street had been, only a few shafts of illumination straying from the flats above. To each side lay a shadowy assortment of trash cans, crates, and grungy boxes. Slaton heard a stereo playing soft jazz, and somewhere overhead two jagged voices, a man and a woman, were locked in a profane argument.
He reached the back of Dhalal’s shop and gauged his task. The building opposite was unlit and quiet. Unfortunately, Dhalal’s was not. A light shone brightly from the window of the owner’s second-floor flat, and Slaton could hear a television blaring a variety show. The fire escape was also a problem. It looked in worse shape than Slaton remembered, rusty and crooked. Strangely, something else came to mind — another fire escape, the one that had been by the window at Humphrey Hall. Slaton had spent hours looking past it as he tried to concentrate on The Excelsior Hotel. As he tried to spot the enemy. As he tried not to watch her. She had fallen asleep on the couch, her long limbs stretched languidly under a blanket, her lovely profile silhouetted in a soft, indirect light. It was a captivating, distracting picture. Until the two men had come. Then he’d woken her and brought her back to the nightmare of reality.
A loud voice echoed at the end of the alley, interrupting Slaton’s mental excursion. Backing into the shadows, he waited and listened for a full minute before deciding there was no threat. Slaton cursed under his breath. He studied the ladder, briefly wondered if there was any better way up. He felt exposed standing at the bottom of the fire escape.
With a good look to make sure no one had just entered the alley, he scrambled up the steps. The crusty metal framework creaked and groaned under his weight, flakes of rust sprinkling to the ground. He was making too much noise, but there was no turning back now. Sacrificing stealth for speed, he made it to the third floor in seconds. Fortunately, Dhalal had not discovered the open lock on the window. Moments later, Slaton was in with his package, closing the window behind. He fell to the floor and listened.
The television still blared from below. He heard voices outside, but soon realized it was only the argument flaring louder in the other building. He realized how incredibly stupid that had been. Why had he been in such a hurry? What if the window had been re-locked? Slaton lay still. He closed his eyes tightly, but the vision would not be pressed away. She was there, sitting on the beach, an inquisitive look on her face as she tried so hard to understand—
The television suddenly went silent in Dhalal’s flat. He heard rustling downstairs, then someone on the inside staircase. The soft, quick steps were receding, going down. Creaks as the front door of the shop opened, closed, and then a faint click as the lock tumbled into place. Shrivaras Dhalal was going out. Slaton remained motionless. What was happening? He’d lost focus and done a completely amateurish thing. It had to be the fatigue.
Slaton forced his mind to acquire order. He listened carefully for ten more minutes, then went to work. It might have been a simple task had it not been for the small confines of the attic. It was little more than a crawlspace, and he had to keep movement to a minimum as the business end of forty-year-old roofing nails scratched at him from above. It also didn’t help that he had to perform the entire job by illumination of a small pen light, held in his mouth. After forty minutes, though, the preparations were complete. Complete to give him the one chance he needed.
Ehud Zak looked out the window of the BBJ, Boeing’s 737 business jet derivative. The night sky was clear and the blinking lights that had been their escort of Israeli F-16s were no longer in sight. The aircraft had peeled off, he was told, back when they’d entered Italian airspace. Over the open Mediterranean you could never tell, but the Italians didn’t shoot down transiting heads of state.
The pilot announced that they were over central France, and Zak looked down to see a network of lights across an otherwise black void. It reminded him of a starry sky, except the lights were clumped together in bigger groups, impossibly dense constellations connected by spindly offshoots that must have been roads. He had never been to France, but he would go soon.
Zak settled into a huge leather chair and played with the buttons that made it move. The back tilted down, a leg rest moved up, and something bulged under his lower back. He chuckled. He’d been on the new state aircraft once before, having taken it to a funeral in India. It hadn’t been quite important enough for Jacobs himself to attend, and the Foreign Minister had been in South America, so the duty had fallen on Zak to convey official condolences. On that trip he’d traveled up front. Nice enough, but nothing better than a typical airline’s first-class section. The rest of his entourage was milling about there now, while he enjoyed the solitude of the Prime Minister’s suite that had previously been off-limits. Zak looked around appreciatively. He was surrounded by the finest in furniture, fittings, and accessories. Dark wood, royal colors, crystal fixtures. And in back, in an adjoining room, was a sleeping compartment with a huge bed, an entertainment system and mirrors everywhere. Zak delighted in the prospects.
A knock at the mahogany door interrupted his thoughts. “Enter,” he said loudly. He had meant the reply to be weighty and important, but it came off sounding imperious. No matter.
A steward marched in and directly replaced the warm coffee pot with a fresh, hot one. “Will there be anything else, sir?”
“No,” he said, “not now.” Zak suppressed a smile. That had been better. Dismissive, but keep the fellow on the hook.
The steward disappeared, and Zak again looked out the window. A huge area of lights was coming into view. It could only be Paris. Zak sat mesmerized and reflected on how far the merchant’s son had come. He wished his father could see him now, the bastard. He had gone and died four years ago, but even then the old goat had seen him rise to become a Knesset member, far above what anyone could have expected from the son of a second-rate peddler. The old man might have had money, but his son had acquired power, now more than ever.
Strangely enough, Zak and his father had been born with the same gifts. They had used them, however, in very different ways. His father had been the definitive trader. Imports or exports, textiles or condoms, whatever sold. Talk fast and think faster, that was the key. As a boy, Zak had watched and learned. Learned it was all right to buy out a struggling partner for pennies on the dollar, or foreclose on a competitor’s widow whose insurance had lapsed. It wasn’t being heartless. It was simply business. Send a check to the local homeless shelter and the conscience always came around. The trader’s son had shown great promise, and expectations were universal that he would carry on the family business, perhaps even exceeding the mercantile standards set by his elder.
Unfortunately, those dreams were dashed — as so often is the case for young men — by a woman. At nineteen Zak became infatuated with Iricha, a waitress at the Café DuBres. It was a romance both fast-paced and passionate, and after four weeks young Zak had gone to his family to declare enduring love for the woman. And to announce their intent to marry. His father gave no doubt that, in his eyes, the union was beneath consideration. Not only was Iricha a divorcée and ten years older than young Ehud, she was also Palestinian. Zak brought Iricha to meet his father, to prove what a wonderful wife and mother she might be, but the elder refused even to see her.