Abigail – The Avenging Agent: The agent appears again (14 page)

Jalal climbed onto the deck and Karma
reached the ship’s
side, put out his arm to grab his dog and climbed up with him.

The sun disappeared behind clouds and the
wind grew icy cold.  Drenched to the bone, Karma shivered, his teeth chattered
in his mouth.  He beat his hands on his chest and then rubbed his body to speed
up the flow of blood in his veins.  Gray clouds gathered in the darkening sky
and Karma figured it would rain soon. 

The other members of the group were also
wet and had prepared for the rain.   They knew from experience that they were
facing a storm and they went below into the belly of the ship and left Jalal
and Karma on the deck.

The boat increased its speed as it moved
away from the bank, cutting the waves and enormous drops sprayed out in all directions.
Overhead, a white bird screeched and tried to get a grip on the tall mast but
the wind was so strong that it fluttered its wings and pulled it away with
powerful gusts. 

The sea churned and the waters grew
dark, almost black.  Rising waves crashed down on the side of the boat,
spraying everywhere as they broke and splashed on the deck.  Abdul, his dog,
shook himself wildly from the top of his black nose to the tip of his bushy
tail and went below the bridge, yelping.  Karma followed him and wondered
whether his animal foresaw the beginning of the storm that was on its way.

Jalal also knew that he should hurry and
get off the deck, but he thought it was also an opportune moment to get rid of
the boy.  He reached into his pocket, grabbed hold of his flick knife and
slowly approached Karma from behind.

Just then, the shadow of a gigantic wave
rose over them and blocked out the light of day.  The breaker appeared to stand
still momentarily like a deep blue wall, its head touching the sky and then
broke all at once, hit the deck and almost overturned the boat.

 Karma fell forward, lost his breath and
rolled in the water.  Jalal lost his balance and, at the last minute, grabbed
at the pipes that formed the balustrade rails before he was washed along the
deck towards the sea by the backwash of the wave.

From the force of his fall, the flick
knife Jalal was holding penetrated the palm of his hand and cut deep into his
flesh.

The whole matter lasted just a little
more than a minute.

Karma crawled and dragged himself to
Jalal and then stopped beside him.  He saw his bleeding hand and the knife that
had slipped from between his fingers and grasped the situation.  He recoiled,
crawling backward and stared at the man who had just tried to kill him.

The blood flowed from Jalal’s hand in a
thin stream, mixing with and reddening the considerable amount of water around
them.  It colored his pants red and the blood had even run into his shoes.  The
pool of blood drained beside him and reached the shiny blade of the flick
knife. Karma bent forward and picked up the knife, wrapped his fingers around
the handle and Jalal held his breath.  At that second, their eyes met but then,
Karma retreated and Jalal allowed himself to continue breathing.

The wind whistled as high waves rose up
and washed over them and Jalal closed his eyes.  Karma ignored him, then
noticed that the pool of blood was growing larger.  He looked for something
with which to stop the bleeding when he saw a wooden barrel wrapped in cloth.
He tore off a piece of cloth from it, went to Jalal and bound his hand.  The
red pool continued growing steadily and it was clear that something else needed
to be done.  Karma picked up Jalal and supporting him under his armpits led him
to the rope ladder that went below deck.  It was then that Karma saw the cut in
Jalal’s pants and the bleeding from his thigh.

When they were below, Mohammed emerged
from one of the cabins, supported Jalal to a wooden bunk attached to the wall
and yelled:

“Khaled, Ta’al l’hon (come here). Someone’s
wounded!”

Khaled came with a First Aid kit and sat
down beside Jalal, who was barely conscious.  Together they tore off his
bloodied pants and found that the wound was much deeper than they first thought
and blood was trickling out in small streams.

“We have to suture his leg, the wound is
deep and blood vessels have been cut,” Khaled concluded and scratched his head.

“Who’s going to stitch up the wound? 
You?”  Mohammed asked.

Karma glanced at both of them.

“Y’allah (come on), I’ll stitch his
leg,” he blurted out, surprising even himself.

Khaled gave him a puzzled look but went
out and returned with a cloth bag and threw it to him.  He stared at Jalal, who
was lying there, white in the face, his eyes closed and his breathing slow.

“Do we have anything to calm him or stop
the pain?” Karma asked.

“Yes, sure, we have a magic potion,”
Khaled claimed and pulled a circular bottle out from under the bed.  “This is
excellent. It’ll do the job.”

“What is it?” Karma inquired.

“It’s fine whiskey, the best ‘Chivas’
from someone’s freight, but I’m sure they’ll forgive us for taking it if we
tell them the reason we opened it.”

Suddenly, the boat jerked wildly and
Mohammed came running.

“Quickly, go up to the deck, the cargo
is slipping and falling down!”  He shouted and ran to the ladder leading to the
bridge, and Jalal opened his eyes.  Khaled handed the bottle to Karma and
rushed up to the deck with all of them.

Karma stared at the bottle.  It looked
like someone had already drunk from it.  He opened the stopper and proffered it
to Jalal.

“Drink!” He ordered.

Jalal rose on his elbow, took a gulp,
pulled a face and lay back again.  Karma took the bottle from him and turned it
towards his mouth and drank, twisted his face and spat out a quiet curse.  He straightened
up, threaded the needle and stood beside Jalal, staring at the open wound that
continued bleeding.  All at once, Karma began singing on top of his voice, saw
how Jalal peeped at him, but ignored him completely and knelt beside him.

Outside, the storm continued to rage,
rocking the boat on the swirling water as if it were an empty nutshell.  Huge
waves, which kept rising and falling, suddenly tossed the ship, putting mortal fear
in the trembling hearts of the people on board.

Karma gritted his teeth, jabbed the
needle into the flesh and pulled the thread through Jalal’s thigh, making him
groan.  Karma felt he was about to throw up and bit his lower lip, tasted blood
on his tongue but continued sewing up the cut.  He used his other hand to hold
the edges of the wound together and forced the needle through them and pulled
the blood-stained thread to the other side.

Then, as if controlled by an unseen
hand, the wind changed direction.  Torrential rains hit the water for a long
time and whipped the air, creating a transparent screen.  A half hour later,
yellow sunlight shone through the scraps of clouds and lit up the universe as
if bringing comfort and mercy to the creatures of the world.

This was the moment Khaled had been
waiting for.  He went down to the engine room, increased the flow of fuel to
the engines and listened to their increasing revs.  He was determined to make
up for the hour of lost time caused by the storm.  He began yelling, banging on
the counter and cursing his boat as if he was a coachman goading his horse to
run faster:

“Y’allah, (come on) giddy up, old nag! 
Rip through the water, sail, and fly; miserable wreck that you are!”

An hour and a half later they entered
the vast ‘Shat-el’ Arab River.  Other ships sailed around them, making their
way to the great Straits of Hormuz.  They continued sailing up the arm of the
river through almost all the daylight hours till they sighted the large delta. 
When darkness fell on the water, many points of light twinkled yellow and green
from the antennas of the gigantic ship in the distance.   It stood high over
the masts of the boats in the area that marked trails of light in the water.

Jalal opened his eyes and he awakened
from the induced torpor of the anesthetic effects of the whiskey.  He sat up
and groaned with pain.  His pants were stiff and stained with dried blood.  He
tried to get down from the bunk and when he was unable to, he screamed like a
madman.

“Mohammed!  Come here, ya’kalb (you
dog)!

All at once he saw Karma’s face and
flinched.  Karma came closer, held and supported him to stand and without a
word and without looking at him, Jalal glanced at him in embarrassment. He
wanted to ask where everyone was, but then he heard Karma mumble something
about a giant ship below them and that everyone had gone on board.

“Shukran, (thank you), ya’Karma,” Jalal
muttered.  He paced slowly to the rope ladder that dangled down from above and
climbed up to the deck with great difficulty.  Karma remained staring at Jalal
and refrained from helping him.

Members of the crew stood pressed to the
railing and stared at the distant spotlights
that were drawing nearer.  Above loomed the enormous shadow
of the American aircraft carrier and their boat looked like a pin beside it

This massive vessel, the “
Enterprise
”,
the pinnacle of American workmanship and engineering, was the pride of the U.S.
Marine Corps.  It was driven by nuclear power and stationed in the Indian Ocean
as a show of American strength in that part of the world, where it sailed on a
fixed route.  At present, it was located there to defend the merchant ship, the
“Oratorio”, whose lights sparkled at a distance of 500 yards from it.

Here, in fact, Jalal’s boat had reached
its destination.  The spare parts on its deck were intended for another
aircraft carrier.  A system of miniature nuclear reactors and lead plates had
been installed on it and these were the same spare parts, which had almost been
lost in the raging sea during the terrifying storm.

A small transporter boat was lowered
from the “Oratorio” and it rocked gently when it touched the water.  The small
vessel sailed to their ship and Jalal went down the gangplank and climbed on
board.  It then sailed to the enormous American ship and Jalal boarded it.  His
team watched him until he disappeared from view.

Backwash waves beat the enormous
bulkhead and rocked Jalal’s vessel as if it were a toy boat in a kid’s
bathtub.  Karma raised his eyes and looked at the thick letters lit up by the
searchlight

O R A T O R I A

They waited for a long time till Jalal
returned to his boat.  When he climbed on board, he tottered as if he was drunk
and when he steadied himself he signaled to his friends to begin transferring
the cargo. The team started working and rushing about the deck and Jalal
approached Karma and whispered to him hoarsely:

“They told me that someone would soon be
coming to speak to you.”

Suddenly he faltered, grabbed hold of
Karma to steady himself and slipped on the deck.  Mohammed hurried over to him
and he raised his arm as if to say ‘everything is fine’ and whispered that he
was just resting for a moment.  He gestured with his finger that he was dizzy
and a minute later he crouched, leaned over the railing and threw up into the sea.

A long arm of a crane was extended from
the tall “
Oratorio
” and its enormous scoop hovered over the small boat. 
Six sharp metallic claws grasped the steel plates and picked them up in the air
as if they were made of cardboard.

They were all busy moving cargo while
Karma remained alone near the railing, listening to a melody that came from nowhere
he could identify.  The screech of a bird tore through the air and Karma
shivered. 

Suddenly, he saw a figure coming towards
him and he drew back.  The figure extended a hand towards him, which he shook
uncertainly.

“Hello, I’m Bill.”

A flashlight was turned on and blinded
Karma. Its beam was projected at the opening going below the deck and signaled
Karma to descend.

They both climbed down the rope ladder
and when Karma’s foot rested on the floor of the ship’s hold, he heard the man
ask:

“How did you get here?” but Karma
remained silent. 

He remembered Jalal’s terrifying
response and was frightened to confide in this new person, who had just arrived
and was still a faceless figure to him.

“I’m American,” he laughed.  “I was told
you are familiar with America.”

“Yes, that’s right.  Someone said there
was such a country.” And, they both laughed.

“Listen, I’m planning to go back there
in two days.  Do you want to come with me?” And even before getting a response
from Karma, he continued: 

“And if I take you to America, where
will you go?  It’s a gigantic continent, you know, and it’s easy to get lost
there.”

Karma tried to guess how sure he could
be of Bill, the American.   He almost felt like turning down the offer because
he was not sure he could cope with another failure.

*
* *

“Look, can you see the mountains in this
picture?”

“Sure, I can even recognize the place. 
Those mountains are the border between Russia and Iran.”

Jacob had undertaken to prepare Abigail
for her cover.  They told him to train her to be a tourist guide in Eastern
Europe and Asia and that was all he knew.

While Abigail sat in the room with Jacob,
 her thoughts wandered to an entirely different place.   Two days earlier, she
had done something, she could never dare tell anyone about, because it was
dangerous and irresponsible.
  It happened because her longing
was so painful that she could no longer restrain herself.

At dawn on the day before yesterday, she
got into her car and just decided to take a ride, a ride that was tantamount to
a suicide trip.  From the outset, she knew it was a pointless journey that was
likely to ruin everything even before her assignment began.  Abigail drove to
the tent encampment in the sands of the Negev, where she was born, to the Ka’abiah
tribe.  She just wanted a glimpse of members of her family for the last time in
her life.

It was important to see Arlene, her
little daughter, to gaze once more at her mother Leila and, if she was lucky
enough, to see her Bedouin brothers and sisters.  She was certain they were all
convinced that their Abigail had been murdered and buried more than six months ago.

Almost all the way there Abigail
muttered to herself that her journey was crazy and stupid and that she, Abigail
Ben Nun, was behaving irresponsibly, but she continued, as if possessed.  She
promised herself:

“Halas (enough), just one more time,
that’s all.”

By the time she reached the encampment,
the sun had risen but no one was up and around yet.  She drove quickly to the
junk repository of old car chassis and rusted metal that lay in mounds from way
back, doused her car and looked around.  The tent flaps were still closed
,
but she was sure that none of these tent-dwellers even dreamed that their
‘departed’ was so close to them at this moment.

A transparent haze rose from the sands,
blurred and caused the air to shimmer and Abigail discerned small figures, far
away in the area of the dunes.  She supposed that they were her brothers going
out with their herds.  They looked tiny as if they were drowning in a sea of
sand.

Two women made their way out of two
adjacent tents and for a moment, she was startled when she thought one of them
was looking at her but immediately calmed her fears.  Even if she were
discovered, they would not recognize her with her different hairstyle.  She
smiled as she recalled how her original name had been returned to her, Naima,
the name her father had given her.  She glanced at the large dark women’s tent
that was still there, the tent in which she was born, assuming that her mother,
Leila, was inside.

Standing close to the tent was the light
colored camel cow with her young camel doe trailing behind her.

It was the season for broom bushes and
they both grazed on buttons of tiny white flowers and thin twigs.  The camel
cow snorted loudly and its young doe bent its long neck and pushed its mother’s
white belly as it sucked.

Abigail leaned back and closed her
eyes.  She drew in her breath, savored the familiar smells and tried to
identify them.  The smell of fire prickled her nostrils and the smell of
burning dung serving as fuel reminded her of her childhood.  The wind bore
other aromas she was unable to name and she opened her eyes and that was when
she saw her.

A little girl skipped and ran among the
lambs.  Abigail’s leg muscles cramped her as she forced herself back into the
seat, not allowing herself to jump out and run to her.  She clamped her lips
together to stop a cry of love that threatened to burst out of her throat.

“Come to me my little girl, come to
Mother, my sweetheart, come and touch me.” The voice inside her spoke, but Abigail
would not allow it to escape and slapped herself on her cheek.

Arlene, her beloved child, came closer;
almost the distance of an arrow’s shot from the car and ran after two frisky
kids that had broken away from the herd of goats.  Abigail leaned down till she
was almost lying on the passenger seat beside her.  She listened to her
daughter chasing the sheep and goats and she cried.  A thin wail escaped her
lips and she got a fright.  She covered her mouth with her hand, wiped her nose
and pulled herself up a little to peek at the child. It was so difficult to
hold back from opening the car door.  She followed her with her eyes, afraid to
miss even a second of seeing her and watching what she did.  Abigail even
managed to see her blue eyes, breathed in her sweetness and held her breath.

Liraz
, her sister, came out
of the women’s tent and a weak cry of surprise burst out of Abigail.  She held
a dark-haired baby in her arms but, she was followed by a fair-haired toddler
tottering on tiny legs as she hung on to her mother’s skirts.  Abigail stared
at the little one, who looked like her when she was born here. She had also
been fair-haired like her.

“I wonder what they call her,” she
wondered and gazed at her sister, Liraz, who was busying herself around the
fire, preparing to cook the family meal.

When her tall, statuesque mother, Leila,
walked out of the tent it seemed to Abigail that the end of the world had
come.  This woman was entirely different from the person she remembered.  Her
mother had been beautiful and always stood tall and erect.  Instead, she now
saw a stooping figure, whose face was wrinkled. Abigail was willing to bet that
the shawl wrapped around her head that fell on her shoulders covered gray hair
that had once been as black as coal.

She mumbled:  “Come, Mother, come here,
I’m Naima, your daughter, and I’m here beside you, alive and breathing.”  She
put her hand out to the windscreen, leaving her handprint on it as she caressed
the image reflected in it of her mother, who had aged before her time.

“Hey, Naima, are you listening to me? 
Did you hear me?”

“What? Yes, Sure, something else just
crossed my mind,” she admitted in embarrassment.   Pictures of landscapes and newspaper
cuttings were spread on a table beside her.

“Perhaps we should take a break and
continue, say, in a quarter of an hour,” Jacob suggested and knew that she
would refuse.  Dimples deepened in her cheeks she asked him apologetically to
repeat what he had told her.

“Fine, then I’ll question the way a
teacher does in the classroom,” he said, placing sections he had prepared from
an article about a site located beside the snapshot.

“Where do you think this place in the
photograph is?” And, he immediately covered the item with his hand.

The photograph was a view of forest
trees.  At the bottom of the hillside, the trees were broad-leafed and higher
up the mountain the trees had coniferous trees with thin needles.  Two types of
trees were growing on the mountainside. A snowy dome at the top of the mountain
and darkly robed shepherds tended their flocks on it.  Abigail racked her brain
to think where a place, on which these two different types of trees grew, could
exist.  She knew that they never grow alongside one another.  She talked to
herself, as she pondered the matter.  

“It is a strange combination of two
sections of the landscape types.  Strange, it just cannot be.  How can broad-leafed
trees grow lower down and coniferous trees to grow higher up on the same
mountain?”

She stuck her bottom lip out, passed her
finger over the trees in the photograph and continued talking to herself.

“Broad-leaved trees are only found in
areas of high humidity, like the Black Sea,” she muttered.  “There, the air is
really moist and the rainfall is heavy.  But when the leaves bloom, there is no
snow on the mountains and, besides, what are the coniferous trees with their needles
doing there?”  And she grew silent.

“Good, you’re on the right track.  Now,
let’s solve the riddle together,” Jacob suggested.  Abigail hadn’t seen how his
eyes widened in amazement at hearing her line of thinking as he listened to her
murmuring.

“I brought this photograph of the
enclave in the heart of the mountains intentionally because I knew you had
never been there.  The truth is that it’s a place that no one has visited for
many years because traveling there is so arduous.  The way to get there really
is along the Black Sea, northwards up the mountains.  As you go higher, the
vegetation changes from forest to bare alpine landscape.”

He stared at her and added:

“To tell the truth, you surprised me.  I
took this photograph from a distance. The lens of my camera was able to capture
both these sections of the landscape; the end of the forest with its mountain
background as well as the beginning of the coniferous area and… Wait, did I
already tell you how pleased I am with my new student?”  He clapped his hands
in excitement and she applauded him in return, as they laughed.

Last week, she met people, whose names
and professions were not revealed, but who did everything to instruct and
prepare her for her assignment.  The entire week was spent training and
teaching her about arms and ammunition. She was given written material and could
recite details from memory about types of bombs and explosives.

Yesterday, Abigail was trained in
weaponry, types of ammunition and means of sabotage.

Early in the morning, she fired rifles
and revolvers. Afterward, was given and handled explosives and detonators and from
this point on theory turned into practice.  She dissembled and assembled
weapons, connected fuses to explosive devices and learned to practice safety
measures.

“For the present, this is a dry run,” the
fellows training her, explained.

“So, when do we practice blowing up
buildings?”  She inquired.

They gave her army fatigues and a
training session was fixed for Tuesday, two days ahead, on the sands of the
Wingate Beach near Netanya.

When she reached the appointed meeting
place, she was received by a pair of screeching seagulls flying over the
water.  One of them dived into the surf but came up with nothing in its beak
and remained on the water, bobbing up and down on the waves.  The sea was calm
and the little waves chased one another to lap the sand.

A group of soldiers gathered at the
light-colored ridges that served as a wall to their right and a soldier with
the rank of Captain shook her hand and introduced himself as Yoav.  He got to
work immediately.

“Go
to that structure over there in the distance, do you see it?” he instructed and
pointed in the distance.  “I will watch you from here, through these
binoculars.”

She went ahead and heard him say.

“Hey, wait a Sec. Do you remember the
rules?” he asked and continued, “I’ll repeat them, look:  after you attach the
explosive to the wall, only then will you connect the appropriate fuse.”  He
waited and watched her.

“Do you remember it’s vital to calculate
the time you’ll need to get to a safe place?

He looked at her again, checking if she
was listening to him.

“I hope you haven’t forgotten how to
calculate the time precisely.”

“Yes, yes, I remember, Sir.”

“Okay, on second thoughts or even third
ones, I’m putting off this exercise until tomorrow.  You will present yourself
at six in the morning, but this time we’ll meet on the beach at Palmachim,” he
decided,  “In the meantime, refresh your memory of the rules and techniques.”

On the following day Abigail arrived at
the Palmachim Beach.  She was impatient when they reviewed the rules and after
an additional explanation Captain Yoav pointed to a partially ruined two-storey
structure about a hundred yards away.

“Walk there, I said walk, don’t run. 
The windows of the building have been sealed and all you have to do is set the
explosive device beside it. Connect the fuse and that’s it, is that clear?”

“Yes, Sir.” She looked at him very earnestly.

“Good luck,” he wished her.

Abigail carried on walking and entered
the structure, laid the explosive device, calculated the time that would allow
her to get away safely and connected the fuse to it. She brought a lighted
match to the end of the cord and ran as fast as her legs would carry her.

When the explosion was heard, it
happened earlier than she planned and she fell on the hot sand, covering her head
with her arms and waited with her eyes closed for the waves of impact to stop. 
They hit her crouched back again and again and she cried out in pain. 

When she reached the group of soldiers, huffing,
and puffing, Captain Yoav spoke to her:

This time, you got away with just a
little pain, but you should know that you were very lucky today.  It could have
ended very differently." 

“Yoav,"
she said, "what happens if the spark I light the fuse with, is
extinguished?”

“Ah, an interesting question,” he
replied, feigning solemnity.  “You could return to the site and examine what
happened to your explosive device if you wish.  But there is always a chance it
will explode, POUF, in your beautiful face.  Or, you can leave and never ever
return.”