The Medusa Stone

Tel Aviv, Israel

Danny Silver was twenty-three years old, an American by birth who had moved to the Jewish state with his parents when he was sixteen. He liked Israel well enough so long as he stayed in the country’s largest city. A few years ago, he’d tried kibbutz life for a summer and found the back-to-nature, communal living to be a bore. He liked the action of Tel Aviv with its late-night discos and cosmopolitan aura. Besides, being a bartender at one of the big hotels on the beach ensured he could get laid almost any night he wanted. American girls on break from college or spending time in Israel to discover their “Jewishness” were invariably fascinated by his stories, especially the ones he made up about his compulsory tour in the army.

But it was a Tuesday night, not yet eight, and the cocktail lounge was slow. His only customers were a group of Israeli businessmen in one corner and two old women from a New Jersey tour group near the bar’s entrance. Danny busied himself behind the long bar, polishing glasses that were already spotless and wiping down bottles that didn’t need to be cleaned. Sara, the waitress, stood casually at her station, one eye on her customers and the other on a college textbook. Danny really didn’t like her. She did nothing to hide her disdain for any Jew not born in Israel.

Screw her, he thought absently, unable to tear his eyes away from the perfect swell of her breasts under her white uniform blouse.

A crash from the lobby turned Danny away from Sara’s cleavage. An old guy had toppled a sign board in the lobby, sending it to the floor, but the fool didn’t stop to right it again. He charged into the bar like a Merkava battle tank, his hard eyes drilling through Danny to the display wall of liquor behind him.

The man resembled a scarecrow, thin and wrinkled. He looked almost comical, but there was nothing funny about his expression. Had the guy been Arab, Danny would have run for his life. But he was white, probably American, and certainly nuts. He rushed straight for the bar, heaving himself onto a stool with an explosive grunt. Hunching his shoulders like a vulture, he glared at Danny until the Israeli sauntered over to ask what he wanted.

“Drink.” American, for sure.

“What kind of a drink, sir?” What an idiot.

“Give me anything with alcohol or so help me Christ, I’ll tear you apart and get it myself.”

Normally, Danny would have laughed at him, but the customer spoke with such force that he believed the crazy old bastard would have tried it. “Sure thing, sir, anything you say.”

Danny poured a measure of brandy into a snifter, but before he could set the drink on the bar, the American lunged for the bottle. The man snapped off the speed pourer with a practiced twist and upended the bottle to his lips. Three swallows vanished in as many seconds before the geezer set the bottle carefully on the bar top.

“Sorry about that, son,” Harry White rasped. “But you were taking too damn long. If you knew what I’ve been through in the past couple weeks, you would’ve done the same thing.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” Danny backed away.

“Tell you what, kid, if you’ve got any bourbon back there, Jack Daniel’s preferably, I promise not to bite. Deal?” The expression of madness was transformed into a smile that was almost grandfatherly.

Danny poured a shot of bourbon and wisely left the bottle on the bar. Stealing a glance at Sara, he saw her watching the whole bizarre exchange with a smirk. She looked as if she expected such repulsive behavior from Americans. Bitch.

Harry gulped down the bourbon and helped himself to another, pouring until the glass could not hold one more alcohol molecule. When he brought it to his lips, he didn’t spill a drop. “You’re a lifesaver, my friend. A goddamned lifesaver.” The liquor filed the sharper edges off Harry’s voice. “Eight or ten more of these and I might feel human again.”

“Mr. White?” a female called from the lobby. She was poised at the entrance to the bar with a startled look. Her chest heaved because she had been forced to run into the hotel, chasing after the octogenarian. Wearing a conservative gray suit with an off-the-rack blouse and a ridiculous bow, to Danny she was the picture of a government employee. She trod across the marble lobby floor, her sensible shoes clacking with a horse-like clomp. “Oh, thank God, Mr. White. I was afraid I’d lost you for a second.”

Harry nodded at his drink. “A second was all I needed.”

The harried young woman was Jessica Michaelson. She worked for the CIA under the cover of a cultural attaché and had been assigned the job of minding Harry White until his flight back to the United States. As the lowest-ranking CIA agent at the embassy, she had been saddled with Harry for nearly a week now. While not involved with his debriefing, she had to keep the curmudgeon occupied when he was not in meetings with the more senior officers, including the station chief.

Jessica had read the report of what Harry had been through in the past couple of weeks, and even in its sanitized version his experiences were harrowing. But after a week with him, she felt her pity wearing thin and was hoping the terrorists would come and take him away again.

From a portion of the report that Jessica Michaelson had read, Harry’s own words from a stenographer’s transcript described what had happened to bring him to the care of the CIA:

For the rest of the details of Harry’s adventure, Jessica had broken a few security protocols and listened to the old man’s ramblings when she spent dinners with him at the embassy cafeteria, including his dim recollections about the shoot-out at Dulles Airport and the names of a few of his captors.

Her superiors had acquiesced only partially to Harry’s continuous entreaties for alcohol and allowed him a drink after each day’s debriefing, saying they wanted him fresh for the next session. But now that Harry was finally being returned to the United States, he had bolted from the car transporting him from the embassy to a hotel in Tel Aviv prior to his flight. Because Harry wasn’t in any sort of custody, and those that had taken him had gone deep underground, the CIA had agreed to give him a few hours of free time provided that he was under constant surveillance. This also gave the operatives a convenient place away from prying eyes to hand Harry over to agents of the FBI, who would actually be accompanying him on his flight home.

Hot on Jessica’s heels into the bar were two additional CIA minders, both men wearing lightweight jackets to conceal their weapons. They too were breathing heavily and looked at Harry with mild shock, for he had managed to outrun them all.

“Mr. White, you weren’t supposed to do that,” Jessica chided. She moved close so only he could hear when she continued. “We’re here for your protection.”

Harry turned and pinned her with his stare. “It’s not my fault you guys can’t keep up. If there had been something to drink in that car of yours, I wouldn’t have needed to get in here so quickly. I told you to get me one with a mini-bar.” He shot a smile toward Danny. “How about a little ginger ale?”

“Harry, you are still in danger,” Jessica Michaelson whispered. “You should stick by us until we have you safely in the FBI’s care.”

“Or what? I’ll be in trouble?”

“No, Mr. White. You might be dead.”

“Ehh!” Harry dismissed the comment with a wave, a lit cigarette magically appearing in his claw-like hand.

One of the male agents tapped Jessica on the shoulder and pointed toward the ceiling. “Harry, let’s go up to the room we have waiting,” she said. “The FBI should be here in a few minutes, and it would be best if we all met upstairs.”

“Okay,” Harry agreed, pouring more bourbon into his nearly finished drink. “Let me just freshen this last one and we’ll go and see what room service can do for us.”

“Mr. White. Harry. Do you really think it’s wise to get drunk before your flight?” Jessica Michaelson had no children, yet she had the “mother voice” down perfectly.

Harry had been playing up his situation a bit, he admitted. But he’d done what everyone had asked of him and wanted very little in return, and now his patience was about gone. “Listen, sweetheart,” he deliberately taunted. “I’ve been through hell in the past few weeks and I managed to get myself out of it without your assistance. Indeed, I’ve managed to survive eighty years without your help, for what that’s worth, and I’ve been in worse scrapes than this. You may recall World War Two from your history books — the chapter usually ends with a picture of a mushroom cloud. I appreciate your concern, it’s touching really, but you’re a few weeks too late.

“Now, I promised your superiors that I would keep this affair quiet when I get home. But so help me God, if you say one more word, I’m going to sell my story to the nearest magazine and let the chips fall where they may. Everyone says that the Middle East is a powder keg. Well, I just spent a few weeks with the bastards who made the fuse and are currently standing over it with a lit match.”

Jessica looked chastened. She wasn’t expecting an eloquent outburst from her charge.

Harry continued. “I’m going up to the room with you and I’m going to allow myself to be passed off to the FBI and I’m going back to Washington to let Dick Henna’s boys debrief me again. But if you think for one second that I’m going to spend the few hours I have between you and them in any kind of sober state, then you have a lot to learn about me, Ms. Michaelson. I’ll do my patriotic duty, honey, but right now I’m on my time.”

He lifted himself from his bar stool and glanced at Danny. “She’ll be paying my tab and make sure she gives you a good tip.”