Rules of Betrayal

33

It was morning, and morning was when they did memorization games. Danni pulled a white cloth off the table and said, “Go.” Jonathan had ten seconds to look at and memorize as many of the objects on the four-foot-square table as possible. The first day she’d given him thirty seconds, the second day twenty. The amount of time he was allotted to observe and commit the items to memory kept decreasing while the number of items increased. Danni had a word for this method of training. She called it “elongating,” and said it meant pushing the envelope at both ends. Jonathan, ruled by his secret mantra to do everything better than anyone else, either before or to come, called it “bullshit” and struggled to increase his scores.

Ten seconds.

Jonathan regarded the assortment of dissimilar objects, registering each in turn, assigning it a letter or a numeral. C for candle. N for notepad. 1 for cell phone, because there was always a cell phone, therefore it was a constant. (The other constants were an alligator billfold, 2; a pair of sunglasses, 3; and a pack of breath mints, 4.) He estimated that there were twenty-five items on the table. Some were large and impossible to forget-a Colt. 45 pistol, for example. But he had learned that these were put there to obscure his recollection of the smaller, more important things. It was these items he sought out first and branded into his memory: a flash drive disguised as a pen; a slip of paper with a twelve-digit phone number. (“Concentrate on the last eight digits,” Danni instructed him. “We can figure out the country later.”) A photograph of three men and a woman. (Two of the men were swarthy, with heavy mustaches, the third bald, with a birthmark on his left cheek. The woman was red-haired, with sunglasses, and, oddly, topless.) A business card with Arabic script.

There were other assorted items, ranging from a flathead screwdriver to a ring of keys. And these his mind registered in a fleeting, once-over sweep.

“Time.”

Jonathan turned his back to the table, but not before Danni threw the cloth over the items, just in case he might have eyes in the back of his head.

The exercise was not over yet. To mimic real life as much as possible, Danni made him wait ten minutes to the second before he was permitted to recite the list he’d stored away. During that time, it was their practice to discuss the main stories taken from that morning’s edition of the Jerusalem Post. “Compartmentalization,” she called it. Carving up your mind into individual, hermetically sealed sections and putting a lock and label on each.

Today’s headlines were stolen from a world at war. The Israeli navy had boarded and seized a cargo ship under foreign flag in the eastern Mediterranean, which was carrying a devil’s arsenal of Iranian weaponry destined for Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon.

“Name the ship and the country of registry,” said Danni.

Jonathan had the reply at his fingertips. “Faring Rose. Norway.”

Riots had broken out again on the Temple Mount. More than two hundred policemen had been called to quell the violence.

“What’s everyone so damned mad about?” Danni asked.

“Access to the Temple Mount by Palestinians.”

“Who’s for or against?”

“People’s Party for…” Jonathan gave up. Israeli politics had always confused him. He found it no easier to follow now that he was in the country. “Next.”

The routine required that they stand face-to-face and maintain eye contact so that Jonathan could not engage in any mental gymnastics that might make recall easier. As Danni continued her tour of the headlines, Jonathan couldn’t help but notice a weariness tugging at her features. He’d read his share of similar stories and had become inured to them, yet the mournful cast to her eyes suggested that she’d lived them. He looked into those eyes and noticed the specks of green sprinkled on the blue irises. It was a warm morning, and she was dressed in shorts and a black tank top that matched the raven’s black of her hair. Her one concession to makeup was a coat of balm to heal her cracked lips. She smelled faintly of French perfume. For these observations his mind had no compartment, no lock or label. He experienced them wholly and without effort, even if he might have cared not to.

Danni continued. In Peshawar, on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, three car bombs had exploded simultaneously near a military base. It was a story to which Jonathan had paid special attention. “How many dead?” she asked.

“Sixty confirmed. Three hundred injured. Both figures are expected to rise.”

“Who took responsibility?”

“A Taliban warlord.”

“Name?”

“Sultan Haq. He claimed the bombing was in retaliation for the murder of his father. I was there in the cave when he was killed. I saw him die.”

Danni looked up sharply. “You know Haq?”

“That’s where I was before I came here.”

“Haq was a prisoner in Guantanamo,” said Danni with hatred. “You released the wrong man.”

“Looks like it.”

Danni went back to her paper. “And who supplied the explosives?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Jonathan. “Do you?”

“No, but it doesn’t matter. If it wasn’t Balfour, it was someone like him. Another cockroach that needs to be crushed. Balfour’s your focus. Let’s not forget why you’re here.”

Jonathan noted that his heart was beating faster, and he felt as if he’d taken a step closer to his target.

“Ready?” said Danni. “Begin.”

Still looking into her eyes, Jonathan recited the list of objects on the table. It ran to twenty-one items. He forgot only the fountain pen, the business card with Arabic script, and a tangerine. He also transposed the last two digits of the telephone number written on the slip of paper.

“Not bad,” said Danni. “Take five minutes, then we’re going back to the street. Maybe you can finally pick out someone who’s following you. I’m not optimistic.”

Jonathan spotted the first tail almost immediately. He was young and rangy with a mop of curly black hair and tattered jeans, and he was trying too hard to appear captivated by each store’s varied offerings. A sportsman might look closely at a display of fishing rods and boating equipment, but the same man could hardly be expected to find anything of interest in the fashion boutique next door. As proud as Jonathan was of having spotted the tail, he was prouder still of how he’d managed it. Looking around for ways to see behind him, Jonathan had caught the tail’s reflection in the window of a taxi stalled in the midday traffic. No look over his shoulder, no stopping to tie his shoe and glance surreptitiously behind him. Just a casual flick of the eyes to the taxi’s window-as clear as a mirror-and Jonathan had him. When Jonathan walked briskly, so did Curly Black Hair. When Jonathan slowed, his shadow slowed, too.

Number one down.

The time was half past twelve, and on this sunny afternoon, the Haifa waterfront was a hive of activity. Sidewalk cafes, curio boutiques, and thriving markets attracted a cross-section of the Israeli populace. Young, old, natives, Palestinians. It was a mix of ancient and modern, a slice of contemporary Israel. Danni knew how to pick her spots.

Jonathan passed the old clock tower as it rang the half-hour. On the corner, a bent vendor sold soft drinks and shawarmas from his cart. Jonathan bought a Coke, making conversation with the old man. As he did, he turned slowly and gazed up and down the street. Danni had instructed him to let his eyes do the walking, and Jonathan fought to keep his head still.

He picked out his second tail a block later. She was a thin middle-aged woman mirroring him on the opposite side of the street. She wore an orange smock and a straw sun hat, but they were camouflage. Five minutes earlier she’d been wearing a blue sweater and had her hair in a braid. It was her shoes that gave her away: clunky brown Mephisto hiking shoes that he’d picked up two blocks back.

He was learning.

Number two down.

He heard rather than saw the car approaching at speed to his rear. The engine revved high enough to hurt his ears, the noise growing louder each second. Still, he refused to yield to his curiosity. It was only when the black BMW nearly brushed against him that he jumped to one side and gave it his full attention.

The sedan pulled to the curb and the front door flew open. Danni jumped out and motioned for him to approach. Jonathan broke into a jog. “What is it?” he asked. “Did I do something wrong? It was the guy with curly hair and ripped-up jeans and the straggly lady in the straw hat.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Danni. “Get in.”

Jonathan was slow on the uptake. “But I got ’em,” he said proudly. “I actually figured out who was following me.”

“Congratulations,” said Danni, without joy. “Get in the back. We’re late.”

Jonathan climbed into the rear seat and Danni slid in next to him. “Late for what?” he asked. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

The car accelerated into traffic and Danni slapped a passport into his hand. “Change of plan. Things are moving faster than expected. We’re leaving the country.”

“When? I mean, where to?”

“The plane leaves in two hours,” said Danni, throwing up a tanned forearm and checking her watch. “Don’t worry. You’ll like where we’re going. It’s cold and there are mountains.”