Abigail – The Avenging Agent: The agent appears again (51 page)

When he had just reached the trees, a tremendous
explosion was heard that shook the air and lit up the night.  The impact threw
Effendi against the tree trunk beside him.  Shattered parts flew around him and
a rain of objects spread all over.  When he looked back, he saw small flames
licking at the remains of the car.

Effendi
was tense and exhausted and did not assess his position wisely.  Instead of
escaping and getting far away from the place, he went deep into the forest, lay
down his knapsack under his head and fell asleep.

In his dreams, he heard the whine of
police cars squealing in his ears and he pressed his foot down hard on the
accelerator but his car refused to move forward and his heart pounded hard.  He
woke up to the noise and the racket, flashing blue lights, deafening horns
being blown and sat down in a panic, unable to understand where it was coming
from.

A giant projector was switched on.  It
moved and illuminated the surroundings, throwing the light in every direction
and when it penetrated the forest, Effendi lay down and merged with the sand. 
Suddenly he remembered Rolam's revolver in his pocket, pulled it out and hid it
deep under the carpet of fallen leaves near the tree.  This move revealed him. 
The searchlight stopped racing around and focused on his image that was digging
and within less than a minute people reached him, picked him up and led him
roughly to the police cars.

A flashlight blinded him and illuminated
his face as a body search was carried out on him.  Two cell phones were removed
from his pockets, an airline ticket, and banknotes.  Someone remarked that he
was unarmed and he remained silent and waited.  A policeman, dressed in gray,
pointed to him and yelled that he knew him and that he was the wanted man,
Effendi Khaidar, a member of the ‘Kaukab’ organization.

The policemen turned their gaze for a
second to the officer, who was speaking, and that second was time enough for
Effendi.  He bent down like a slippery eel, rolled on the ground and jumped
into the darkness.  He ran faster than he had ever run in his whole life,
reached the forest and disappeared among the trees. He returned to exactly
where he had been before, searched desperately for the revolver he had hidden
there just a few minutes earlier.  When he found it, he fled deeper into the
woods.

The projector lit up all at once and
illuminated deep between the trees but, Effendi melded with a tree trunk, with
his back to them.  He watched how the giant ray of light wandered slowly,
touching the tree he was pressed up against and continuing onwards.  He
listened to the voices and when he heard the crackling of twigs behind him, he
knew that they were popping under the feet of the men, who were chasing him down.

They moved forward into the forest in a
horizontal line and Effendi did not move.  He waited until the last second when
he could almost smell them, held his gun in both hands, turned towards them and
shot round after round.  He hit every figure that stood out against the
background of the light that came from outside the forest and watched them
fall, one by one. 

When the firing pin clicked and the
revolver stopped firing, he went to hide behind another tree to replace the
empty magazine.

Just then, short commands were heard and
the men spread out into a broad circle, surrounding the area.  Someone called
out:

“There he is, fire!”

At least ten revolvers were aimed at him.
They fired at him like an execution-style firing squad and filled him with
holes like a strainer.

Effendi remained fixed to the tree
trunk, shocked with each hit and very slowly slipped down to the ground.  They
pulled and dragged him over the sand to the road.  Then they brought the dead
from the forest and laid them at a distance from him in a long line, alongside
one another.

Effendi shot seven policemen to death that
day and an additional one survived and lived.

One of the soldiers stood beside him and
spat on his body and then kicked him.

*
* *

Abigail felt very sick in the morning. 
She couldn’t put even a tiny morsel in her mouth yet she felt like throwing up every
ten minutes.  When she bent over the toilet bowl for the third time today and
held on to a wooden board that she placed across it, she heard beeps from the
radio communications device. 

"No, just not now," she
thought.

She washed her face and went to receive
the message.  She read the sentence she deciphered and understood that she was
being called up for an internal assignment for the organization.

“Timmy has
disappeared.  It’s important that you act.

Make
contact.”

            Abigail
shrugged, like a little girl who has been given a task she doesn’t feel like
doing. Nausea and vomiting had exhausted her and all she wanted at this moment
was to rest.  Later, she thought she should say something and delay the assignment
till she felt better, and called.

            “Yes,
I hear,” she said.

            “I
can hardly hear you, what’s the matter, haven’t you eaten today?” Michael tried
to joke with her.

            “No,
and I don’t have the strength to do anything today.” She responded impatiently. 

            Michael
couldn’t understand what had happened to this energetic agent and tried to
check that he hadn’t got the wrong person and said:

            “Hey,
am I speaking to the most beautiful woman in the word? To Lucy?”

            She
smiled in spite of herself, swallowed, and tried to suppress the sensation of nausea
that rose again in her throat.

            “Are
you flattering me, eh?” she said, “Michael, make it brief.  I’m not feeling
well.”

            “Okay,”
he added hurriedly, “Timmy has disappeared.  He transmitted a distress signal to
me this morning.  It happened while he had the ‘Noodle’ under surveillance
ahead of the assignment set for tomorrow night.”

            Then
she caught on to what he was saying.

            “Did
you say he was monitoring the ‘Noodle’?  Is the ‘Noodle’s performance for tomorrow?"

            “Exactly.”

            There
was silence.

            “Let
me understand what you said.  Is the assignment to find Timmy or continue the
surveillance?”

            “Apparently,
the one depends on the other,” he replied.

            “There’s
another question that you may not want to answer.  Will the mission be
undertaken even if Timmy isn’t found, or if..?”  She grew silent and Michael
blurted out a groan.

            Till
now, Michael had tried to dismiss this pessimistic possibility but knew that he
had to offer this agent information based on fact.  It was difficult for him,
but he answered her quietly:

            “No,
there is no connection to Timmy’s disappearance and the assignment will be
carried out in any event.”

            When
he heard Abigail’s response, he admitted to himself that there was good reason
she was so admired and understood the source of her strength.  She spoke evenly
and to the point.

            “I
will find our Timmy, of that I have no doubt.  Now, tell me exactly what
happened.”

            Suddenly
he heard her moving away and yelling:

            “Wait,
hold on, I’ll be right back.”

            He
heard loud sounds of her retching and was surprised.

            She
washed her face and returned to the radio transmitter, dragging her legs.

            “Hey,
what happened?" He asked with concern,  "Is it an upset tummy or are
you ill?”

            “Sort
of,” she said evasively, and then thought for a moment and spoke out loud:

            “What
the hell, why not tell you the truth?  This is how this pregnancy begins with
me.”

            Michael
gasped.

            “Oh,
how… what will happen?  No one can do this as well as you.” His voice was soft
now and sounded fatherly.

            You’re
sucking up, again.  I want you to know that if you keep this up then, it might
be worth making the effort.”

            Michael
laughed.

            “Timmy
was following the ‘Noodle’ in a silver “Bentley” he drove out of the hotel parking
garage.  That’s the car in which our, your ‘Noodle’ arrived.  It contains a
bomb set to explode at ten o’clock on Saturday night, which is tomorrow.”

            “Aha,”
she said and suddenly understood and said:

`           “What,
what, repeat what you just said.”

            “In
its place, he left an identical car on which the license number plate had a
different first digit.  The second explosive device was set for eleven fifteen,
on the same Saturday night.”

            “Why
is there a time difference of an hour and a quarter?”

            “Because
the order the ‘Noodle’ received was not from us but from them."

            “What?!
 So, how the hell did they…”  She was distraught.  “How did they crack our
code, how did you discover it… Well, don’t answer, because it doesn’t really
matter right now.”

            After
a moment of silence, she asked:

            “When
did you receive the distress call?”

            “This
morning, at seven o’clock,”

            Abigail
glanced at the clock on the wall.  It was almost eight o’clock.

            “Hey,
although it’s close to the time of the incident, the location is far away from
me.”

            “That’s
right, so how will you reach the hotel in Italy? Oh, I feel very disheartened.”

            “Wait,
don’t forget, they’re in a car and I am flying.  She laughed when she said:

            “I’m
off to beat up the bad guys, Okay?”

            “If
I were a woman, I’d be crying now and telling you that I love you and saying
how lucky we are to have you.”

            Now,
she noticed that her nausea had abated and she hurried to the kitchen, poured
herself a cup of tea and as she sat down to drink it, she spoke out loud to the
empty room.

            “Hey,
I’m coming to you, my ‘Noodle’ and I am going to tell you that we’re pregnant!”

            Abigail
inquired how to get to “The King’s Hotel” in Italy quickly.  First she booked a
flight to the “Leonardo da Vinci” airport in Rome, which was close to the
seaside town of Fiumicino. 

She landed at noon and boarded the
‘Leonardo Express’ that cut the travel time to a half hour, non-stop, and got
off at Termini, its last and only station.

            From
there, a cab brought her to “The King’s Hotel” in the Italian working class
neighborhood of Maestri.  At one forty, she was already looking over the hotel
and it surroundings, where she stood.

            She
noticed some small buttons on the road beside a parked car and on closer
inspection she found an empty revolver magazine and her senses tensed.

            The
silver “Bentley”, which Michael spoke of, was parked beside her and the keys
were hanging in the steering lock.  She pulled the handle and the door opened. 

Before getting into the vehicle, she saw
how the pine needles were falling.  The roof of the this silver car was piled
up with them and smaller clumps were caught in the windscreen wipers.  Clearly,
the car had been stationary for a much longer period than the others.  Their
roofs were covered with only a sprinkling of pine needles that the wind played
with and blew away.

            Behind
the well-tended shrubs the sand was trampled, cigarette butts and two
additional gun casings could be seen beneath them.

            She
got into the car and looked it over, noticed the black bag in the glove
compartment and knew what it contained.  Candy wrappers littered the floor,
together with left-over bits of sandwiches and a kefiya.  When she pulled it
close to her nose, she was familiar with its delicate scent and was excited,
because she recognized the smell of Karma. Without thinking, she wound it round
her neck.

            Her
eyes fell on the phone she picked up from the road.  Its cover was missing and
on the shattered screen she saw a call that hadn’t been answered.  She thought
it might be the number of one of his captors and called it.

            A
voice answered with an impatient “Hello” and she hung up at once and waited.

            Her
idea was that if her presumption were accurate, the person would recognize the
phone number she was calling from and would take the trouble to call to check
who was using this phone.

            And,
indeed, Muntazer, one of the two captors, raised his brow when he recognized
the number on his screen and said to Yusuf:

            “Someone
is using our captive’s phone.”

            “How
can that be?! Have they caught up with us?!  Oh, that’s all we need now!”

            “Stop
whining and start thinking,” he said and stared at his phone.

            The
two of them were waiting for their dispatchers to tell them what to do with
their prisoner, who was tied up in the back of their car. Muntazer took a last
drag on his cigarette and threw it out of the window.  He watched the fire
point from the cigarette, as it reached the dry bushes and saw how it set off
small sparks.  At that moment, he heard the beeps of an incoming message.

“Where are you?  You’re
not at the arranged location.

Tell
us where you are again.”

            “Wait,”
he said out loud, “Where did they arrange to meet us?  Wasn’t it supposed to be
here?”

            “I
don’t know.  You were the one who received the explanation.  Did we make a
mistake?  Oh, then where were we supposed to meet?”

            “Shut
up already!  When will you learn to think without getting hysterical?  Try and
remember where they told us to go and where we were supposed to wait for them.”

            Yusuf
got out to check and shouted that there was a road sign behind them indicating
the way to the Da Vinci airport and the other side of Fiumicino.  Muntazer
contacted the number from which the message was sent and explained their
location.  From the corner of his eye, he saw flames licking the nearby thorns
and white smoke billowing out of them and he roared at Yusuf:

            “Get
in quickly, a fire has broken out in those thorn bushes and we have to flee!”

            That
was enough for Abigail, who was listening on the other end of the line.  She
started the car and thought how stupid agents like these can spoil the best-made
plans.  She was familiar with the intersection the man mentioned and took note
of the cry she had heard about a fire. This was now another point of reference to
help find them.

            In
the meantime, Michael called the number of his son, Timmy, again, sure that no
one would answer, and when someone did, he choked up and stuttered in his
confusion:

            “Ah,
hi, hello, good morning,” and heard Abigail’s voice.

            “Yes,
I understand you, Michael. Calm down, I have Timmy’s smashed telephone and I am
on my way to his captors, it seems.  Cross your fingers for luck and don’t call
this number again.”

            Michael felt as though Timmy
had just been released.

            Abigail
drove out of the parking bay, heard a siren behind her and a fire engine swept
past her, its orange lights flashing.  Only now did she notice the fire and the
smell of smoke and realized she was close to her target.

            Two
hundred yards ahead, cars lined the side of the road as their drivers stared at
the scene unfolding on the empty lot.  Two cars stood near the focus of the
fire. Abigail parked at the end of the line of cars and ran to the two
vehicles. 

The heat was unbearable. She opened the
rear door of one car and saw Timmy lying on the back seat.  His arms were tied
behind his back and a rag was stuffed into his mouth. Streams of spit had dried
on his cheeks and his eyes were half open, his gaze fixed and expressionless.

Abigail shouted his name and slapped his
pallid cheeks, turned him on his face and whacked him on the back.  From the
rigidity of his body and his clenched arms, she knew he had been dead for
hours.  She crouched down on the floor of the car, allowing the door to slam
behind her and cried out loud as she untethered his arms from the ropes.  Just
then the broken telephone rang.  She pressed the button to accept the call and
heard the caller hang up.

Suddenly the front doors of the vehicle
opened and two people got in and sat down.  Before she understood what was
happening, the car began to move. She squeezed herself against the rear of the
driver’s seat and hoped that she was not within the range of visibility of the
rear view mirror in front of the driver. She also hoped his passenger beside
him would not see her.