Headhunters

Chapter Eight

Avi Bachman had never been to the Adriatic coast before. He looked down from the plane as they circled for landing, deciding that the landscape was one of the most spectacular that he had ever seen. They traversed glassy bays, craggy bluffs, hidden coves and beaches, vineyards, olive groves, and forests of cypress and pine. It was wild and dramatic, the gathering darkness gradually prickling as the lights of Dubrovnik and the surrounding towns and villages were lit.

Bachman was tired. He had been travelling for the last three days and it was beginning to catch up with him. They had driven him west from Baton Rouge, following I-10 for eleven hours. They had passed through Beaumont, changed vehicles outside Houston and then swung to the southwest. They crossed the Mexican border at Laredo. That was the moment when he had been the most anxious. The breakout had made the national news and it was obvious that they would have circulated his details to the nearby airports. The border, though? The constant stream of traffic meant that it should have been easier to sneak across. He had hidden in the trunk of the car for the hour it took to approach the crossing and then get over it and, as it happened, the scrutiny they received was minimal. He had stepped out of the trunk as soon as they were five miles inside the border. The fresh air was a boon after the stuffy interior, rendered all the sweeter by the fact that he was breathing it in as a free man.

They drove on to Monterrey. The Rabins said that they were going to investigate a possible sighting of Milton and that it would be better if they travelled separately. Bachman was fine with that. He wouldn’t have wanted them to travel with him in any event. He bought a ticket on an Aeromexico flight, changed planes at Mexico City and then, finally, managed a little sleep as he crossed the Atlantic to London. From there, he changed again to a third plane for the flight to Croatia. Bachman had travelled alone. He had no interest in a chaperone, and, although he knew that the Mossad would pick him up again as soon as he landed, it was pleasant to think, as he reclined in his first-class bed, that he had a little privacy for the first time in months.

The plane landed and the passengers — a mixture of tourists and business people — disembarked. Bachman passed through immigration and, since he had no luggage, continued quickly through the terminal and took a taxi from the rank outside.

“Yes, sir?” the driver said.

“Villa Sheherezade, please.”

He settled back in the car and gazed out the windows as the driver began the twenty-kilometre transit from the airport. Bachman knew the history. This had been a rough area for years, torn apart by wars and political strife, but, since the end of Milosevic and the outbreak of peace, it had been allowed to develop and take advantage of the bountiful natural advantages with which it had been bestowed.

Dubrovnik still bore the badges of its recent travails. As they passed through the centre, he saw the pockmarks of mortar fire against ancient walls and remembered that the Old Town, garlanded but not protected by its years of history, had been shelled during a long and damaging siege.

The driver spoke good English and he kept up a running commentary as they drove, despite Bachman’s silence. The man was a proud Croat, he said, and the Dalmatian coast was destined to become one of the most popular and exclusive destinations in the Mediterranean region. He said that the Croatians had learned the lessons of those places, and would defend their town’s heritage even as they marketed it as a new destination. Bachman looked out the window and did not share the man’s optimism. The Old Town was gradually succumbing to capitalism. The menus outside the taverns were translated into English, German and Italian, and high-end boutiques had taken over the medieval lanes.

The driver tried once more to engage him in conversation, but he wasn’t interested and kept quiet. In the end, the man took the hint and they drove the rest of the way with just the radio as a soundtrack.

Villa Sheherezade was ten miles to the south of the city. Bachman observed the road behind the taxi very carefully and, as they passed into the countryside, the traffic grew less busy until there were no other cars within visible distance. It was impossible to be sure, but Bachman was reasonably confident that they were not being followed. He had made it plain to the Rabins that he would treat surveillance as a breach of his agreement with Victor Blum. He was sure that the Mossad would have had someone on the flight with him, and perhaps a sayan waiting to pick him up at the airport, but, as the traffic thinned out it became more difficult for a tail to remain undetected. They could have called his bluff, of course, but it didn’t look like they had. They knew he had unfinished business with Milton, and that he would need their help. Perhaps they were ready to trust that his desire to revenge himself was enough to prevent him from disappearing for a second time. That would have been a reasonable assumption. Bachman had no intention of going dark, at least not yet.

The villa was reached by way of a private road that turned off the main route and sliced a path through a copse of trees. The road twisted for the final third of a mile until it ran along the edge of a steep cliff with a precipitous drop to the wave-pounded rocks below.

Bachman surveyed the property and concluded that Meir Shavit had done well for himself since he had left the army. The villa was nestled in a small depression amid a stack of steep cliffs that were themselves topped with lush greenery. It was three storeys tall, sleekly modern, and constructed from glass and the same stone that formed the cliffs. It overlooked a wide gravel parking area. A Jaguar was parked next to the house and there was a top-of-the-range Land Rover Discovery alongside that. A path snaked through beautifully tended gardens and led around the side of the house to, Bachman presumed, the cliff edge and the sea. He saw a large picture window on each of the second and third floors. A grand residence like this, in such an expensive part of the world, must have cost several million pounds.

His old commanding officer had done very well indeed.

Bachman paid the driver, waited until he had driven back to the road, and crunched across the gravel to knock on the door. He waited for a minute, self-consciously turning to look back down the access road, half expecting to see that he was observed.

He heard footsteps approaching across a wooden floor. The door opened. Shavit stood in the doorway and gazed out into the gloom. His expression changed from one of irritated enquiry to one of open-mouthed shock.

“Avi?”

“Yes, Meir. It’s me.”

The old man reached up and placed a leathery hand on Bachman’s cheek. “Avi,” he said, “you are out.”

“I am.”

“I thought I would never see you again.”

“Don’t be so foolish,” Bachman said, allowing himself a warm smile. “I always planned to come and visit.”

“But it has been…”

“Too long.”

“Ten years?”

“A little more.”

They had spoken several times, most recently when Bachman had called Shavit from Angola. That had been only a brief conversation, necessarily so because he knew that they were being eavesdropped on by the prison authorities, and just long enough for him to provide the code word that Shavit needed in order to activate Bachman’s failsafe. Upon receipt of the code, the old man had agreed to send copies of the files Bachman had given him to Victor Blum in Tel Aviv so that his threat could be demonstrated.

“I did what you said,” Shavit said.

“I know you did. And I’m here. It worked.”

“I have so many questions…” He paused, unable to hide the perplexed expression, before he shook his head and dismissed it. “But, no, they can wait. You have had a long day of travel, I think.”

“Quite long.”

“You are tired and hungry and I leave you on my doorstep.” He tutted with theatrical gusto. “Please, habib. You must come inside.”

Bachman followed him down a hallway and through the house to the kitchen. The rooms were airy, with vast windows that admitted the fading light and allowed views of the spectacular vista outside. The decor was modern and sleek, with expensively minimal pieces of furniture. Shavit led the way up a flight of stairs to the dual kitchen and dining room on the top floor. The sea was visible through the wide windows and Bachman went over to look out. There was a balcony outside and, below that, a series of terraces descending in tiers until they ended down at the water’s edge.

“My housekeeper has left for the day,” Shavit said apologetically. “But I still cook. You remember? I was not so bad, no?”

“You don’t have to cook for me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Avi. Of course I will cook for you.”

He went to the fridge, opened the door and took out a plate with a large steak covered with cling film. Meir put the plate on the counter and unhooked a frying pan from a rack on the wall.

“Meir, you don’t have to—”

He hushed him with a wave of his hand. “Medium rare?”

He stopped protesting. “Yes, thank you.”

The old man poured a little oil into the pan and rested it over a lit burner. Bachman watched him as he worked. Shavit had aged since Bachman had seen him last. He had been vigorous before, still visiting Tel Aviv’s Gordon-Frishman beach every morning to run along the sand and then swim in the ocean. Time had not been kind. He was more shrivelled than Bachman remembered him. His skull seemed to have shrunk, leaving his skin to drape over it in loose flaps and folds. His ears had sprouted clumps of hair and he peered through spectacles that he had not needed before. He was wizened in stature, too, all that vitality replaced with a hesitant shambling as he traversed the space between the hob, the central island and the refrigerator.

Meir Shavit had been Bachman’s commanding officer when he had been a commando in the Israeli Defense Force. That was before he had been reassigned to the Mossad, when he was learning his trade. He had overseen his training and then they had worked together in some of the most dangerous places in the world. Powerful bonds could be forged in those crucibles and Shavit was his oldest friend. No, he corrected himself: he was his only friend. There were no others.

The room was soon filled with the smell of cooked meat. Shavit took a plate of Dauphinoise potatoes from the refrigerator, peeled away the cling film, reheated them in a microwave and then put them, together with the cooked steak, onto a plate. There was a large modern dining table in the kitchen and the old man collected cutlery and made a place for Bachman to sit.

“You eat,” he said. “We talk afterwards.”

Bachman finished the meal quickly. He was hungry and the meat and potatoes were delicious. Meir Shavit sat opposite him and watched with a look that Bachman knew was paternal as he worked his way through the plate. He said nothing, letting him eat in peace, and, when he was done, he collected the plate, deposited it in the dishwasher and suggested that they retire to his study for a drink and a smoke. Bachman was tired — he would have been very happy to go to bed and deal with all of this in the morning — but he couldn’t string his old friend along like that. He knew that Shavit would have questions. A lot of questions. He owed him answers to at least some of them.

Shavit led the way to a large study. The windows were huge and fitted on runners so that they could be slid to the side. They were open now, and a gentle evening breeze brought the suggestion of dampness and the smell of brine into the room. The murmur of the waves faded in and out, in and out, and Bachman became even more aware of his fatigue.

The muted light from a lantern outside filtered through the window. The old man flicked on a desk lamp and a standard lamp and then went across to a shelf that held bottles and glasses. He took down two shot glasses, collected a bottle of whiskey, opened it and poured out two generous measures. He handed one to Bachman, collected two cigars from a humidor on the desk and then led the way to two leather armchairs that had been arranged before a fireplace. The embers were red and glowing, and a book had been left open across the arm of one of the chairs. Shavit had been relaxing here when Bachman had arrived.

“Sit, Avi,” he said.

“I’m sorry if I surprised you.”

Shavit waved it off. “Not at all. But you must tell me what happened. Where have you been? I hear nothing for years and then I hear you are in prison.”

He leaned back in the chair, trying to relax the bunched muscles that were tight across his shoulders. It was a long story, and he was exhausted, but he was going to have to tell it sometime. It might as well be now, with a glass of whiskey in his hand.

He started with the aftermath of the explosion that they had engineered to fake his own death. Shavit knew of the events that had necessitated that course of action: Bachman’s illicit relationship with Lila Arson, a Palestinian girl he had met in the West Bank town of Hebron. Shavit had been open minded when Bachman had explained that he was in love with the girl, as he had known that he would be. Shavit was a fierce warrior, but he was also a pragmatist and he had long advocated a dialogue with the Arabs rather than round after round of pointless wars. It was Shavit who had suggested that they would have to leave the country and make a life for themselves elsewhere. He had told Bachman that the relationship would have seen them both assassinated had it ever come to the attention of Victor Blum.

And Bachman knew that he was right.

Shavit had helped him to formulate the plan.

He had helped obscure the truth when he had triggered the bomb in Cairo. Bachman knew that the agency would question his death, but he only needed to create enough doubt that a full investigation would be rendered unnecessary. Bachman had given Lila instructions to leave her apartment, providing her with false papers and enough money to buy a flight and get clear. He had intended to tell Shavit where they were going, but the old man had insisted that he must not know. The Mossad knew that the two men were close. If Shavit really did not know where Bachman was headed, there was no way he could betray him under questioning.

After they had collected their new identities in Paris, they had gone to the United States. When Shavit asked him how they had supported themselves, he had answered with frank honesty. The admission that he had worked as a hit man did not faze him in the slightest. He nodded sagely and suggested that it made sense. Bachman had a very particular, and very lucrative, set of talents. What else was he going to do?

Bachman told him about New Orleans. He paused for a moment, taking a sip of the whiskey in the hope that it might disguise the thickening in his voice.

“There is a man,” he said. “His name is Milton. I was asked to take him out. I didn’t know it was Milton, not until I got to New Orleans. If I had known, maybe I wouldn’t have taken the job. Maybe…” He swallowed another mouthful of whiskey and looked away for a moment, settling himself.

“Do I know him?”

“No. He used to work for the British government. He was a cleaner. Like me. He was good, too. You remember the hit on the Iranians? The reactor? He was on that team. It was us, the CIA, and him. He impressed me then. Very cold. Very clinical.” He paused again. “It turns out that he was out of the game, just like I was. I don’t know what happened to him, some kind of breakdown, but he was out. Just wandering. He ended up in New Orleans helping a woman who was interfering with my client’s plans. They paid me to kill him. It didn’t go down so well, though. Milton saw me coming. So I took this woman’s brother, took him out into the bayou so the woman would back off, pull Milton back, but he found me. Took me by surprise. He attacked us. He killed Lila.”

The old man’s mouth fell open. “I’m sorry, Avi.”

Bachman did not feel sorrow. He had never felt sorrow. That would come, in time, but there had been no space for any other emotion than the burning rage that had consumed him since that day.

Shavit reached across and laid his withered hand over Bachman’s.

Bachman grimaced, angry with himself for showing weakness, and pulled his hand away. “I swore that I would kill him. We fought, I had him beat, but the woman he was working for distracted me and he hit me in the head with a crank. Put me down. When I woke up, Milton had handed me over to the police. They were preparing for a trial. They wanted to kill me. But that’s not going to happen, Meir. Not while Milton is still out there, still breathing. It’s not going to happen. He has to pay.”