London Twist

Fatima didn’t answer.

“Why did you come to Bora Bora, if you thought I was French intelligence?”

Fatima looked at her. “Why do you think?”

“You didn’t believe them?”

“I didn’t want to.”

The comment stung. Delilah pushed the feeling away.

Fatima took her hands. “Whoever you are, please. Imran is my last brother. Please.”

Delilah pulled her hands free. “Don’t you see? It was him or you.”

“No, don’t you see? It’s going to be both of us! I can’t just—”

“You knew those men were coming tonight?”

Fatima shook her head violently. “No. I swear. They must have… I don’t know. They must have known I didn’t listen to them. They don’t trust me, and I think sometimes they watch me. Maybe they were watching my flat tonight. They saw you come and you never left.”

They were silent for a long moment. Fatima said, “Do you believe me?”

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything.”

Fatima took her hands again. “Do you believe me?”

Delilah looked into her imploring eyes. God, she was so beautiful.

“I want to,” she said.

Fatima nodded. Her mouth opened as though to speak.

Delilah placed her fingertips against Fatima’s lips. “But I don’t.”

Fatima made a small sound, a tiny gasp or whimper. Delilah turned away and picked up the cotton sweater she’d been wearing.

“Wait,” Fatima said. “Don’t you understand? What are my people going to think? They already don’t trust me. I kept seeing you even after they told me not to. They know you were here tonight, and the two men they sent for you are found dead or missing… they’ll think I was part of a setup!”

“It doesn’t matter what they think. It’s not my concern.”

“How can you say that?” Fatima said, a tremor in her voice.

Delilah pulled on her sweater and paused. She had to think. Her emotions were running her behavior now, she knew that. Think.

If it was true Fatima hadn’t known about those men… she might be in trouble. Bad trouble. She said her people didn’t trust her. Based on Delilah’s own experience, that wasn’t so hard to believe. And if they really thought she was in some way working with Delilah…

She suddenly realized that what had begun as a straightforward access operation might inadvertently have become more akin to a defection.

“I can’t help you, Fatima. My people can, but I can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if you’re in danger, there are people who can protect you. In exchange for your cooperation.”

“In exchange for my cooperation… what are you talking about? Going to your embassy?”

“Or to MI6, yes.” Delilah knew cooperation with France or England would be easier to swallow — assuming Fatima could swallow it all — than with Israel. So the access op had now become a false flag, as well.

“That’s insane. I can’t do that, I have a life! And do you really expect I’m going to help you murder my brother? My mother and father’s son?”

“I can’t help your brother. I can only help you.”

“Yes, you can. Call them off. Please. Delilah, please!”

Delilah paused, thinking, hating herself for even considering it. “Would he come in?”

Fatima clapped a hand over her mouth as though she might be sick. “Oh, my God. This was a setup. This whole thing. Every bit of it.”

Delilah had the horrible sense that everything around her was moving again, that she couldn’t track it all, couldn’t manage it. “No,” she said. “That’s not true.”

Fatima sat heavily on the bed and put her head in her hands. “Of course it’s true. And I was too stupid to see it. Too… God, I was too infatuated with you. Oh my God, Imran. It’s my fault. It’s my fault.”

She started crying. Delilah watched her, feeling paralyzed. All she had to do was give Fatima a phone number and go. She’d be done. She’d be out.

Instead, she sat next to her. “Fatima,” she said. “Look at me. Please.”

Fatima didn’t move. Delilah took her hands and eased them away from her face. She reached for her chin and turned her head so they were looking at each other.

“I was sent to find a way to access your laptop. Because your brother is helping to plan horrific attacks. Do you want other people to endure what you and your family have suffered?”

“Of course I don’t. But it’s not my choice. It’s the choice they impose on us. It’s the only way to make it stop.”

“I don’t want to believe that.”

“Then call them off! Don’t let them kill Imran!”

Delilah didn’t answer.

“Say something! Answer me!”

Still Delilah said nothing.

“Do you see how full of shit you are?” Fatima said, her voice breaking. “You fucking hypocrite. Just go. Get out.”

“Fatima… I don’t know how to stop all this. Maybe we can’t. Maybe you were right about what you said about the human need for revenge. But… everything that happened with you… it was real for me. I didn’t intend it, but it was.”

Fatima said nothing.

“In Bora Bora, I got your passcode. Don’t ask me how; I can’t tell you that. But at that point, the op was over. I had no reason to see you after. No… professional reason. I’m sorry. But this is true.”

Fatima started crying again. Delilah’s stomach clenched.

“You can’t stay here. I agree with you, you’re probably in danger. Come with me, and I’ll help you anyway I can.”

Fatima wiped the tears from one cheek, then the other, the movement quick, economical. She cleared her throat.

“No. Just go. I’ll be fine.”

“You won’t be fine. You’ll—”

“Just go.”

“Please, listen to me, I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Fatima smiled. “It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?”

Delilah tried to think of something to say. She couldn’t.

“Fatima, please—”

Fatima looked at her, her eyes dry now. When she spoke, her voice was neutral. Even cold.

“Get out of my flat, Delilah. Or whatever your name is.”

Delilah felt like she’d been punched. She stood, picked up her bag, and went to the door.

“I want to help you,” she said. “Please, call me. You have my number. Please, Fatima.”

No response.

She left, stumbling down the stairs and through the front entrance. The street was dark and deserted. The bodies were already gone.

She left London the next day, traveling to Rouen, where she would meet and brief her Mossad handler. She called Kent before boarding the train.

“I was hoping you would call,” he said. “Change your mind about our date? The laptop was a treasure trove, you know. They were very close to bringing off something huge, and we’ll be able to stop it now. I’d love to brief you in person.”

Nothing about what he’d seen in the flat. But she didn’t really care one way or the other. She briefed him on what happened after he had left.

“With what’s on the laptop,” he said, “I don’t know how much further use she would be. I doubt anyone would be all that interested in bringing her in. But I’ll try.”

“Try hard,” she said. “It would mean… a lot to me. If that means anything to you.”

“It might be a bit awkward, given the story I told about no one being in the flat when I went in.”

“Don’t be a selfish asshole,” she said, surprised by her own anger. “That was your screw-up. Don’t make someone else pay for it.”

There was a pause. He said, “Was there really a camera there?”

“How the hell should I know?”

He laughed. “I knew it. Well, almost knew. And almost doesn’t count, does it?”

She didn’t answer.

“You really came to… care about her, didn’t you?”

“Your powers of perception will never cease to astound me, Kent.”

She thought he would have some riposte for that, some knowing comment about what he’d seen at Fatima’s flat. Instead, he said, “You know, I was afraid something like that might happen between us. And by afraid, I mean hoping. I still am, if you really want to know.”

“Just help her, Kent, all right? She’s useful to you now. Useful alive.”

“I understand that. Or at least I’ll try to make it so, all right?”

“Thank you.”

“And… what about us?”

God, she thought, doesn’t he ever get tired?

“‘Us’?”

“Am I going to see you again?”

“I don’t know, Kent. I really have a lot to think about right now.”

“I understand that. I’m sorry this one turned out to have… a strong aftertaste. That happens sometimes. I’m just commiserating, not talking down to you, all right?”

She smiled. It was funny the way he was getting to know her.

“Yes. Thank you for that.”

“Call me if you like. I really would enjoy seeing you again. There are a lot of other good bars in London, you know. Hotels, too.”

“I don’t think I ever want to come to London again.”

“Well, I may know a place or two in Paris, as well. It would be a pleasure.”

“Goodbye, Kent. I have to go.” She clicked off.

In Rouen, it was just her handler. No Director and his cronies again. Not enough of a red-light district in Rouen, she supposed. But they all sent their warm regards and their effusive gratitude for her latest stunning success.

She returned to Paris feeling listless, aimless. She wanted to call Fatima. Or Kent, just to know what was happening. But she didn’t.

Three days after she’d returned, she picked up a local paper and went for coffee and a croissant at Le Loir Dans La Théière, not far from her Marais apartment, a charming little place she had enjoyed many times with John. Now it felt haunted by his memory. She didn’t know whether she went there in spite of that, or because of it.

She was in luck — a window seat was open. She sat and opened the paper. On the front page was a story about an American drone strike in Pakistan. Seven militants killed. She thought of what Kent had said about the Americans’ kill metrics, and wondered how many of the dead had been civilians. Maybe all of them. No way to know. And she doubted anyone much cared, beyond the bereaved families.

She read the lede. The Americans were claiming one of the militants was the number-three man in al Qaeda. She smiled. Had there ever been an organization with more number-three men than AQ?

And then she saw a name. Imran Zaheer. Fatima’s brother.

She sighed and lowered her head. Ordinarily, at a moment like this she would feel exultant. The fruits of her labors, a dead terrorist and innumerable lives saved.

But not this time. This time she felt nothing but emptiness, and horror, and regret.

She turned the paper over. Just below the fold was a headline: Pakistani Activist Found Dead in London.

Delilah’s hand flew to her mouth and tears filled her eyes. Alongside the headline was a photograph of Fatima — one of the ones Delilah had used in her article. The magazine must sold rights to the newspaper. It was Delilah’s favorite of the bunch, showing Fatima’s face in three-quarters profile, lit up in that characteristic smile that had always carried with it some secret sadness. A sadness that now felt like prophecy.

She read further, fighting rising nausea and vertigo. It had happened in the Covent Garden flat. Raped, then strangled. She fought down the urge to vomit.

How, she thought, shaking her head and silently crying. How could someone do something like this?

She thought of the way Fatima had called them “my people.” My God, had there ever been a more horrible appellation than that?

And then an even more horrifying thought occurred to her. How did she know it had been Fatima’s people? How did she know it wasn’t MI6 and the Director, cleaning up loose ends, but doing so in such a way that for her it would look like something else?

Could her people do something so monstrous, so wholly evil? Could Kent?

She didn’t want to believe it. But she didn’t really know.

A waiter came by to take her order. She wiped her face and waved him off. She took a deep breath, composing herself, then got up and left.

She wandered unsteadily down to Rue de Rivoli. It was warm and sunny. Cars and bicyclists and delivery trucks went by. The sidewalk was crowded with pedestrians, talking, laughing, enjoying the day.

She walked and thought, her rage growing, incandescing.

She didn’t have to just accept this. There were people who could help her, everything off the books. Kent’s tradecraft wasn’t nearly enough to protect him. And even if it was, one phone call from her and he would come running, fixing himself in time and place.

And then she would find out what really happened. And she would do something about it.

She thought, Don’t become what you hate.

She stopped, suddenly crying again. What could she do to avenge Fatima? If that’s what she really wanted, it was her own life she should take. Had she never gone to London, had she gotten out of this horrible business long ago, as John was continually telling her she should, Fatima would still be alive, unhurt, her sad smile intact and radiant.

She had never so badly needed to talk to John. But she couldn’t. He had left.

She sank to her knees next to a taxi stand and sobbed.

She reminded herself of the attack she had averted, of the lives she had saved. It didn’t help. Those lives were an abstraction, a probability equation, an uncertainty. What was real was Fatima, and that Delilah had killed her.

She would never be able to remedy any of it. There was no rectification, no redemption. Only regret.

She went on crying for a long time. A few people asked if everything was all right. Mostly she was ignored.

Eventually, her tears were exhausted. She straightened and wandered unsteadily through Paris. After many hours, she made her way back to her apartment. She went to bed early. She didn’t sleep at all.

Delilah went out early the next morning. She had no reason, nowhere special to go, she just needed to get out of her apartment, out of her head.

As she opened the heavy wooden exterior door, she looked out on the street, instinct honed by experience. A lone man, silhouetted by the slanting light of the morning sun, was walking toward her. It took her a moment to place him — she had never seen him in jeans and shirtsleeves. It was Kent.

He was already keying on the entrance to her apartment and noticed her immediately. He waved, keeping both hands in plain view.

She glanced left and right. She didn’t think she was in danger. If anyone was in danger, it was he. But the reflex asserted itself anyway.

She waited in the entrance until he had stopped several feet away. “Hello,” he said. “Apologies for the surprise.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

He offered a small smile. “The truth is, my tradecraft’s not really as bad as all that. When I care about something, anyway.”

“What do you want?”

“To tell you I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Delilah, it wasn’t us.”

“No? Why didn’t you protect her, then?”

“No one was interested. But I did call her myself regardless. I told her I was a friend of yours, and that we both wanted to protect her. She hung up on me.”

“I see.”

“I really am very sorry.”

“Why do you think I care?”

“About Fatima? Or about my being sorry?”

“About either.”

“Well, I think the answer to the first is what I saw at her flat.”

She said nothing, and he quickly added, “How you protected her, I mean.”

Still she said nothing.

“As for the second, I have no particular reason to think you care one way or the other. It’s just that… I’d be troubled to think you might believe I had anything to do with something so vile as what happened to Fatima.”

“You were going to kill her.”

“Yes. I’m afraid that’s part of what I do. Right now, I wish I had. It would have been better than what happened.”

She felt a surge of anger. “Don’t you fucking blame me for protecting her!”

“I don’t. I blame myself. It was my call, not yours. Anyway, I… admire you for what you did. After all, she was trying to set you up.”

“No.”

“But she knew those men were coming—”

“She didn’t know. She should have known. But she was trying not to. She didn’t want to face the implications of what she was involved in. Does that sound at all familiar?”

He didn’t answer.

She rubbed her temples. The sun was too bright. She felt the beginnings of a headache.

“Are you hungry?” he said.

“No.”

“Would you like to get something to eat anyway?”

“Why would I want that?”

“I think you need someone to talk to. Someone who understands.”

She thought of John. “The last time I was involved with someone who understood, it ended very badly.”

“Did it? Would it be selfish if I were to say I’m glad he’s not here?”

“Yes, it would be.”

“All right, I’m selfish then.”

A young mother with two small girls approached and then passed them, the children each holding one of the woman’s hands with one small hand of their own, and sipping what smelled like a chocolat chaud with the other. Delilah found the smell suddenly delicious. Maybe she was hungrier than she’d thought.

“If you had something to do with what happened to her, Kent, and I find out, nothing will protect you.”

“I believe you.”

“And if I believe you now, and I find out later you were lying to me, I will cut your heart out.”

“I realize you don’t mean that metaphorically.”

“No. I don’t.”

“I’m not lying to you, Delilah.”

She looked in his eyes. She believed him. She hoped she wasn’t being naïve. For her sake, and for his.

She sighed. “It’s never going to end, Kent. Never. Not while we perpetuate it.”

“I know.”

“Then why do you do it?”

He raised his arms, then dropped them helplessly to his sides. “I know we’re in a trap. A burning house, with all the doors and windows barred. I recognize it. But I don’t see a way out. All I can see is the possibility, very rarely and improbably, of small moments of… grace.”

“Is that what you’re offering me?”

He looked grave. “Actually, I was hoping you might offer it to me. I told you, I’m selfish that way.”

She gave him a small, reluctant smile. Maybe it would be good to talk. Or at least to not be alone. Maybe this was one of those small moments.

She didn’t really know. But it seemed a shame, not to at least try to find out.

“Buy me a chocolat chaud,” she said.

He nodded. “Let’s make it two.”