But at a certain point
Carlisle also sees it and reaches for his shoulder holster. The worker beside the driver raises the pistol and points it at the back of the driver’s head. The driver is oblivious. Can’t see the gun pointed at him. The worker takes his time leveling it, getting it just right, making sure the bullet he’s about to fire goes where he wants it to go.
you must decide
The gun slides out of Carlisle’s holster, an expert thumb flips the safety, and he’s raising it. There’s a sound I’ve heard before, hammer on metal, the sound of a pistol with a silencer firing. It’s not Carlisle’s. It’s the worker’s. I catch it just in time to see the aftermath, to see the fan of blood and the body of the driver crumple to the ground.
what you really know
Carlisle raises his pistol and catches the cop by surprise. She’s quick, though, and has her own pistol out before Carlisle can fire. Without thought, without being ordered to, my hand travels forward, traversing the space between my side and Carlisle’s gun in no measurable time. I twist the pistol, and his wrist gives way like paper. The gun is now in my hand.
to be true.
I fire the pistol into Carlisle’s body eight times. I fire the pistol into Carlisle’s body until the slide is back and there are no more bullets. I am deaf from the gunshots and do not hear the window break or the voice of the cop as she pulls me from the car.
I am on the ground, semiconscious, staring at the cop’s face. She is studying me, checking me for holes, and though I can’t hear her words, I recognize her face as Yael’s.
The workers pick me up, one on each limb just as the Prague cops did outside the casino. They carry me to the panel van. Doors close. Wheels roll. We’re on the move.
*
Two hours later, just across the German border, Gwendolyn Bloom dies in the living room of a little farmhouse. One of the men from the van hands me the passport I’d abandoned at Yael’s studio in Paris. Just as he instructs, I pull it apart, placing each page into the fire burning in the stone hearth. I watch my death, silent and detached, waiting until one page burns up completely before putting the next one in. I save the page with my picture and name on it for last. It takes a long time to catch, but finally the photo of Gwendolyn Bloom blisters and curls and rolls back on itself and becomes black ash.
Just as I finish stirring the remains of the passport with the blackened end of an iron poker, Yael—the woman called Yael—enters through the front door.
She’s driven separately, in the police car—to get rid of it, the men told me—and pulled off somewhere a few kilometers before the border. Yael’s uniform is gone now, replaced by jeans and a tight sweater.
As she enters, I rush to her, wrapping her in my arms, holding her tightly. She smells of gasoline and fire. Yael gives me a quick squeeze in return, then slips out of the embrace.
“Is he okay? Is my father okay?” I gasp. “Yael, goddammit, tell me.”
She says a few words to the men in Hebrew, and they disappear into the kitchen, leaving us alone. She sits on the couch before the fireplace and pats the seat next to her.
“He’ll be fine,” she says. “Physically, he’ll be fine.”
I rock forward, let out a relieved gasp. “Is he—in Israel?”
“A private clinic here in Europe. Under a different name. That’s all I can say.”
“So I can see him. Soon.”
Yael shrugs. “A few weeks, I should think. The wound was worse than they thought, but he’s doing well.”
One of the men comes out of the kitchen carrying two mugs of tea. He sets them on the table in front of us and leaves. Yael reaches for hers and takes a sip. “The boys, they gave you your things, from Carlisle’s vehicle? Backpack, clothing?”
“They did.”
“And did you do what they said, burn the passport?”
“Yes,” I say. “But Sofia’s wasn’t there.”
Yael nods. “That’s all right. She’s dead anyway.”
We watch the fire a moment; I even manage to drink a little of my tea. I could stay like this for a long time. Awash in heat from the fire and my gratitude.
“We worked together once. Your father and I,” Yael volunteers suddenly. “He’s a good man.”
I close my eyes and remember her story from the restaurant in Paris. About the man she fell in love with in Budapest. Married, she’d said. And from the intelligence service of another country. When I open my eyes again, she’s looking at me, and I wonder if she knows what I was thinking. “But that’s not the only reason you rescued him,” I say. “What did you tell me once? About interests being aligned?”
“He got himself in trouble,” she says. “So Tel Aviv offered him a trade.”
“What trade?”
“Information in exchange for a way out.” She pulls the tea bag from the mug, circling the string around her finger. “A new life abroad. All he has to do is tell us what he knows.”
“About the accounts?”
“About everything.”
Become a spy for Israel, she means. Well, the American government sold him out first, so let the flag-wavers denounce him because I sure as hell won’t. But it can’t be the only way. “We can go back,” I offer. “We can tell the CIA what happened. How it was Carlisle after the money, not my dad.”
Yael is quiet for so long I wonder if she heard me. But then she places a hand on my forearm and smiles gently. “Sometimes I forget you’re only seventeen,” she says.
“Eighteen. I’m eighteen now.” I pull my arm away. “You believe that it was Carlisle who set my dad up, don’t you? You believe that my dad would never steal, right?”
Her eyes, the cold operative’s eyes, are filled with pity. Then she shrugs. “It doesn’t really matter what any of us believe, does it?” she says. “The truth is whatever the man holding the gun says it is.”
I rise to my feet so quickly my vision goes black for a moment and I think I might faint. Yael leaps up, takes my arm, keeps me upright.
“I have to go back,” I say. “There’s my aunt Georgina. And Bela and Lili. I need to see them. And someone else. A friend.”
“Terrance?” Yael says.
I close my eyes, almost embarrassed. “Yes,” I whisper.
She pulls me into a close hug. Once more, gasoline and fire. “It can’t happen,” she says.
“Just a phone call,” I say.
“Not even a phone call,” she says. “Nothing. No contact.”
“For how long?” I ask.
“For always,” she says.
At first, I think Yael is trembling, but then I realize it’s me.
There’s an inquisitive tap on the door that leads from the kitchen and one of the men enters. He hands Yael an envelope, and she in turn hands it to me.
I know what it is before even opening it. I can tell from the weight. From the shape. I tilt the envelope, and a new passport slides into my hand, still warm.