The Final Reckoning

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

‘This is the second mistake my aides would warn me about.’ He paused to turn around and face them. 'I say “would” because, of course, they know nothing of this. Not the real reason. I have kept it from them, the way I have kept it from everyone. My family, my friends. My country. My aides – the team out there – think only what I have told them: that you hold information that compromises the security of our country.

‘The problem is, I don't know if that's true or not.’ He cocked his head to one side, a gesture designed to show he was about to correct himself. ‘Of course, I know that you know nothing that directly threatens Israeli security. But I don't know if you know something else. Something that threatens me. And therefore threatens my country.’

Tom felt a wave of exhaustion coming over him. ‘What are you talking about?’

'I knew Gershon Matzkin was still alive. I'd always known it. I'd been keeping an eye on him: I had people who could do that for me. And I waited. I waited for the day I'd hear he had been hospitalized, or had fallen ill. But the day never came. I thought about it more often than I like to admit. I'm not proud of this. Maybe a few days would go by when I didn't think about it. But never as much as a week. Especially in the last few years, when he was the last one left.

‘Aron, the leader, he died long ago. Such a strong man, such a hero. He didn't even reach seventy. What's his name – Steiner – he lost his mind years ago. I knew he couldn't hurt me. But Gershon was still fit. He still had everything up here.’ He tapped the side of his head. 'I hope I don't offend you, Dr Merton, if I tell you that I was, in a way, waiting for your father to die. Not out of cruelty, please don't misunderstand me. Out of worry. Out of an old man's anxiety. I needed relief, you see. I needed to know that I had outlived him. I have spent all these years needing to live in a world where no one knew our secret but me. Because then it wouldn't be a secret any more, would it? The memory would have gone. I would be free.

‘But not while Gershon was alive. Not while he carried our story in his head. And then Monday happened. I was here, in New York, for the General Assembly. And I hear that name, on the local cable news. “A British man has been killed on the steps of the UN. He has been identified as Gerald Merton.” Can you imagine what was going through my mind? My hands were trembling.’ He held up his right hand, giving it an exaggerated wobble. 'I wondered who would want Gershon dead. They were saying it was an accident, but I didn't believe it. Gershon always took care of himself. All those killings – I'm sorry, those executions – and never once did he let anyone get near him. Others from DIN were not so skilful, but Gershon was different. It's not an accident that he lived the longest. He was the best.

‘But then I began to get queasy. Why was he in New York? Could he have started,’ he paused, unsure what word to use, ‘work again? Who could he possibly be after? He must have known I would be here. Was it me he wanted to see? And then my hands trembled some more. Had Gershon come to New York to kill me?’

Tom wanted to interrupt, to ask what motive Gershon Matzkin would possibly have had to murder the President of the State of Israel, a fellow Jew, a comrade, it seemed, from the secret crusade that was DIN. But he bit his lip: this torrent of words from the old man would eventually explain everything. He just had to let it gush out.

‘You see-’ He was about to speak but stopped himself, giving a smile that was as brief as a wince. ‘But this is to take the greatest risk of all. This is often how it is in politics. The only way of preventing a revelation is to make the revelation yourself. But maybe this is crazy.’

‘What's crazy?’ It was Tom, his voice no longer confrontational. The same voice he had used when counselling very senior members of the UN bureaucracy, including the Secretary-General. Outsiders had no idea of the extent to which aides to the highest ranking politicians served as counsellors, surrogate spouses, paid best friends.

‘What I'm about to do. Having worked so hard to ensure you don't have a certain item of information, I'm about to give it to you. But I can see no other way.’

‘No other way of doing what?’ Tom felt as if he was hitting his stride now.

‘Of being sure there's no other evidence. If it's just you, your word based on what you hear from me now, today, then it's nothing. I will deny it and the press will learn that you are simply not credible witnesses – for reasons I don't think we need to repeat. But I need to know if there's something else. This is what I have always needed to know. Every day any member of DIN was alive, I needed to know it. Now that Gershon is gone, I want this thing to be over. I want to sleep for more than three hours at night.’

‘So you need to ask us what we know.’

The old man nodded.

‘OK,’ Rebecca said. ‘Ask.’

The President examined his fingernails which, Tom couldn't help but notice, were in perfect condition. And it wasn't just his nails. His suit hung impeccably; the shirt was pressed exactly. How this elegant statesman, welcomed into every chancellery in Europe, must have hated the notion of a stain, hovering somewhere in the great ‘out there’, waiting to spill all over his reputation.

At last he spoke, the reluctance making the slightest downward twist to his lips. ‘What do you know about Tochnit Aleph?’