Abigail – The Avenging Agent: The agent appears again (6 page)

            “For what,
precisely?”

            “For
everything.”

            “And what’s
being planned for me?”

            “The idea is that you are on
standby.  Your time for action will come.”

Abigail turned and went
back to the room in which she had lived with Aisha for the past month.  The
atmosphere of Iran was everywhere.  She still wore the garb of a Muslim woman
and when she took off the black dress and looked in the mirror, to her delight
she rediscovered Abigail, the person she knew. 

For a moment, she mused
whether to remain in her black clothes so that her neighbors in the building
she had left would not notice her.  But, on further thought, she decided there
was no need since there was no harm in changing apartments.

She
dressed in the clothes she had arrived with, jeans and a blue tricot t-shirt
that matched the hue of her contact lenses and went back into the living room
to take leave of them.

Abigail went outside onto the bustling
street and noticed the small car that had replaced her previous one.  Then, she
decided to leave it where it was, in its tough to find a parking spot and she hailed
a passing cab.

            “Dov Hoz
street in Tel-Aviv, please,” she directed the driver.

When they reached Natan
Hahacham Street, which was parallel to the street where she lived, she asked
the cab driver to stop.  She took care not to go as far as her home on Gordon
Street, reminding herself not to observe fixed habits. 

It was midday, and she knew she had no
food at home, so she decided to go to the mall at Dizengoff Center, about a fifteen-minute
walk away. 

She was met with
bustling crowds as she turned to the mall, and throngs of people were milling around
when she saw her old friend, Shiri.  She waved to her excitedly, ran towards
her and called out her name on top of her voice.  When she got closer to her,
she noticed Shiri’s look of surprise then grasped that she wasn’t Abigail
anymore, that her appearance had changed, and she stopped, all at once.

            “Do we know
one another?” Shiri inquired.

            “Oh, sorry,
I was confused.  I was sure that…”

            “No, you
weren’t confused.  I am Shiri.”      

            “Ah, but it
wasn’t you I had in mind.  There must be someone else, who looks a lot like you."

            “Wait, your
voice reminds me of someone,” the young woman exclaimed.

            “Do you
know Abigail?”

“Who?  No, I don’t know
her and I
apologize.”

She quickly turned away.

She pushed her way
through the crowds and turned her back on her beloved Shiri, the friend, who
had been with her from the age of six at boarding school. 
She
ran out of the mall, short of breath, and a minute later continued on her way.

Then, it occurred to her that this had
been an excellent lesson and also proved that she looked entirely different
because even her best friend could not recognize her.

Further down the road,
she noticed a store window with art supplies, right beside a small intimate
café.  She chose a corner table and within a minute or two a waiter
brought her a menu.

            “Yes, two
eggs, sunny side up, green salad and whole-wheat bread,” she ordered as she
pointed to a line on the set menu.

            “It
includes the coffee,” he said with a smile.

            “No, this time, I’d prefer a
glass of lemonade,” she responded, ignoring his lascivious stare.

When she finished her
meal, she left and went to look at the display window of the art supplies
store.  Bowls of beads were arranged according to shade and size and there were
painting sets and frames.  The painting was what aroused her curiosity, and she
entered and wandered around inside.  Abigail mused with the idea of painting
the members of her family, who had remained in the desert and for whom she longed
so much.

            “May I help
you, Ma’am?” a young man standing behind the counter, inquired.  “Have you ever
painted anything?”

            “Yes, on
canvas.”

            “Very nice,
but I think it’s better to prepare a sketch first.  May I suggest a sketch pad
and charcoal pencils?”

            “I’d like
to go ahead without sketching.  I prefer painting freely, without a sketch.”

            “As you wish, Ma’am.”

Abigail purchased some
canvasses, tubes of oil paint and brushes of varying sizes and hurried home
enthusiastically.  She shut the door with a gentle kick and became absorbed in
the work, forgetting everything else in the world.

First she stretched the canvas over a square
wooden frame and secured it with tiny nails.  Then, she stared at the blank
canvas, contemplated it and decided to paint a portrait of her mother, Leila. 
She got to work right away, dipped a fine brush into one of the colors and
began tracing the exterior lines of the figure.  Then she drew the outline of a
little girl and burst into tears.  In the minutes that followed these characters
took shape and by evening they looked out at her from the canvas on which she
drew them.  Although she had not finished drawing them yet, she spoke to them,
sniffled and dabbed away her tears.

Abigail went to bed when she could no
longer see straight and awakened very early in the morning, fresh and eager to
get back to work. She completed the first picture that day and added another
almost every day.  She spread the pictures out in the living room, laying them
out in order of their importance to her.  But, she also kept changing their
place because she could not decide which of the subjects was dearer to her.

In the first picture, which was the
largest, Abigail sketched her mother, Leila, caring for her granddaughter and
Abigail’s child, Arlene.  Abigail filled in the background with the enormous
date-palm that cast its shadow on the massive women’s tent and on the white
camel cow, which shared Abigail’s birthday.  In the other picture, she drew
portraits of her sisters.  She laughed at the thought that suddenly entered her
head – what would happen if she were to send them the painting, a hint that she
was alive?

When she had finished the portraits of
everyone, she decided to paint a pictorial record of her being held hostage.  She
considered her story a miserable one, soaked in pain and sorrow, so she added
dark hues to her selection of tubes. It took her much longer to paint the
paintings that described her imprisonment and she was hardly able to finish
them.

She placed the pictures
of her capture and imprisonment in a corner of the room, one behind the other
and tried to keep them apart from the portraits of her family.

* * *

Rulam
,
a member of the “Majles”, the Iranian parliament, could hardly force his way
through the furious mob to reach the tall building.  He made his way through
the throngs of people, entered the stairway of the Parliament building and
climbed up to the first floor.  Out of breath, when he got there, he smoothed
his short beard and peered into the conference room.  Five bearded men sat
around a large table.

            “My friends,
it’s awful.  The barbarians are out of control down below, in the streets, and
I foresee serious problems.” He panted.

            “If we don’t arrest them, I
fear it may develop into a revolt.  I am grateful to Allah for his infinite
mercy by whose merit we managed to get here without being recognized.”

       
“What
are they shouting and who are they demonstrating against?” Mustapha inquired
with concern.

            “From what I was able to
understand, they are crying about fraud in the “Majles” elections.”

            “Really?
Oh, that’s awful.  So, why are we waiting?  We have to disperse them.  Where
are they concentrated?”

            “I
heard that thousands are demonstrating at Hamadia and Abadan,” Rulam added.

            “That’s
right, but there, our Revolutionary Guards were turned on them.”

            “I think we should deploy
the Basij Militia.  They will stop those screaming hordes and bring them back
to their senses.” 

            “Certainly, I agree with you,”
Fereydoun added.  “In my personal experience it’s always been important to get
one’s hands on the leaders.  The crowd is just made up of stupid sheep, who
follow the rabble-rousers like fools.”

            “Are
we planning to take action instead of just being careful?”

            “Of
course.”

These six leaders sat and passed the
time talking and waiting for their man in the field, who should have arrived
already.

            “What’s happened to our
agent and what’s keeping him?” Rulam inquired.  “It’s likely that…”

Someone peeked in through the door and
immediately entered.  When he saw the six men in front of him, he stopped and
raised his eyebrows in surprise.  Mustapha got to his feet, touched the chair
close to him and invited the man to sit down.

            “A’halan and Mar’haba to you
all.”  (Peace and blessings) he greeted them as he entered and sat down.

            “A’halan w’ Sa’halan (Greetings
and welcome),”  They responded in unison.

It was Mas’habi.  He had arranged this
meeting two days earlier, with Mustapha and didn’t know that he would be
meeting with six people when he arrived.

He had a recording device bound to his
body with broad bands of dark-colored medical tape that was similar in shade to
the dark hue of his skin.  As he entered the room, he pressed a small button
with his elbow and from that moment on, he recorded every word and sound being
made in the room.

            “Forgive my tardiness,” he
apologized, “I was forced to go a very long way round to get here.  You know
there are enormous crowds in the streets, and it took a long time.”

 “That’s alright, friend, the main thing
is that you are here.”

Mustapha clapped his hands.  A scrawny
man, bearing a tray full of bottled drinks and glasses entered through a side
door.  Robed in a long dress, his head bound with a snow-white turban, he
placed a bottle of Coca-Cola and an empty glass in front of each of the men at
the table.  He opened each bottle and poured all the glasses, filling them with
the dark colored drink with its frothy white head.

They watched him silently.  As he finished,
he picked up the tray and walked backward out of the room.  When the door
closed after him, Fereydoun turned to Mas’habi.

            “What words of wisdom, do
you have for us, ya Muallem (our teacher)?”

Fereydoun was the Director of
Intelligence and was familiar with everything that happened in his department. 
He was the kind of administrator who took steps to ensure that everything that
transpired would also reach him.  He had heard about this agent from Rulam, and
when they told him about the arranged meeting with Mustapha, Fereydoun decided
to attend it, too.  This time, he invited the heads of departments to consult
with them and formulate an opinion of the man because he had been nursing doubts
and suspicions in his regard for a long time, now. 

They heard a sharp whine in the room,
and Mas’habi looked at everyone right away because he understood that it was
feedback from another recording device in the same place.  He hoped that they
had not noticed it but he didn’t observe the quick glance that passed between Omar
and Fereydoun. The wink from Fereydoun was his response to acknowledge that they
understood the matter and the meeting continued without further interruption.

Mustapha introduced him to the group.

            “Gentlemen, this is our man,
who has just returned from Palestine,” he announced.  “He passes in and out of
the ‘Mossad’ with the familiarity of someone who is completely at home there.  He
brings us information about them and we are here today to hear what he has to
tell us.  Please, my friend, speak and enlighten us.”

Mas’habi’s heart pounded wildly.  He
stretched his lips into a forced smile and apologized that this time he had
nothing new to report.

            “I regret I have brought
nothing today.  I took part in only one meeting.  We were four people; I mean three,
including me.  They introduced me to an agent but, besides her – there’s
nothing.  Ahh…. Almost nothing.  No, nothing today,” he stuttered.

            “Tell
us what they said and we’ll decide if it’s nothing,” Fereydoun said roughly.

            “Fine. 
Firstly, did you know that Aisha is working for the Israeli organization?”

            “Who
is Aisha?”

            “Ah, Ali’s Aisha, you mean
the one from the mountains,” Mustapha recalled.  "They executed the woman’s
husband, Ali, and both her sons a year or so ago.  Afterward, she disappeared
from sight.”

            “What do you say?! What is
she doing there, in Palestine?”

            “She has a job.  She instructs
and trains agents, who come to spy on Iran, and turns them into Iranians,”

            “Well, that’s good, let them
turn Zionists into Iranians and convert all the Jews to Islam.  What’s wrong
with that?”

            “It’s
not that. She’s training them and preparing them to be spies.”

            “Aisha?!" 
He turned back to Mas’habi.  “Did you see her with your own two eyes?

            “Yes.” He enjoyed noticing
the interest he had aroused.  “I saw her coming to our meeting with some
woman.”

            “With whom?  Give us some
details about the spy she is teaching, and I can tell you now that we will make
sure she is buried under the sand before she even sets foot on our soil.”

            “The woman’s name is Rania.  She
has blue eyes and a good head on her shoulders and she is exceptionally
beautiful.”

            “How do you know?  What led
you to that conclusion?  I mean that she has a ‘good head on her shoulders.”

            ”She is well informed and
has a quick grasp,” he explained and avoided saying that she had reservations
about him.

            “What did they talk about,
what did they say? Tell us, speak, why do we have to extricate these things
from you by force?”

            “Fine, so, I said that the
‘Mossad’ was planning a clandestine activity at our strategic sites and the
people in charge did not correct me.”

            “Yes, what else?”

            “The Jewish woman stared at
me in amazement.”

            “Yes, yes, continue,” Fereydoun
instructed.

Mas’habi omitted to tell them about his
argument with Abigail about the reactor in Bushehr.  
He
racked his brain desperately to recall the details of their conversation.

            “Well, what else was said
there?”

            “Ah, yes, I asked her where
she was from, and she replied that she was from Tel-Aviv. When I inquired
whether she lived alone and when she began working for the ‘Mossad’, she
avoided answering.”

            “What did she say?”

            “She asked if we were
supposed to be friends.  The truth is, I tried to persuade her to tell me a
little more about herself, but I was unable to get her to do so.” 

            “What a pity, it’s not like
you.  I thought you had more expertise in extricating information.”

            “I said from the start that
perhaps it was worthless.” Mas’habi apologized.

He raised his glass,
which was already empty and turned it up to his mouth, looking for more drops
of Coca-Cola and distracting himself.  He seemed embarrassed at the remark they
had just made about him.

            “Do you have any idea when
this Jewish spy will arrive here?  Can you also get to Aisha?”

            “I’m not certain, I think
she is learning Persian and I guess she is due to arrive here soon on some assignment.” 

            “Fine,
firstly, it’s a good idea to eliminate Aisha,” Fereydoun announced and raised
his hand, on which he wore a gold ring on his pinkie.  This was his way of signaling
that the meeting was over.  Mas’habi rose, nodded his head and slowly left the
room.  He knew that he had not satisfied the intelligence officials, and a
chilling feeling grabbed at his heart.

At
the door, the noise of the masses outside could already be heard.  Mas’habi
went down the stairs slowly and, out on the street, he searched for the car he
had left there with some concern.  But other than rivers of shouting people,
pushing their way, he couldn’t find his car.  As he moved ahead, he saw the car
but a gang of people surrounded it and were shouting and waving sticks.  They
broke the windows and turned the car over on its roof as if it was no more than
a toy. They egged themselves on with their roars, and one of them threw a
burning plank through the windows into the building beside them.  Within a
minute, flames rose up high and black smoke billowed out of the building as the
crowd raged even more.

Mas’habi wondered what he should do.  He
retreated and decided to move ahead in the opposite direction to that of the
crowds and barely managed to reach the entrance to the next building.  There,
he entered the stairwell and sat down on one of the steps, panted hard. 

Opposite he noticed a familiar figure
and recognized him as Rulam.  The man had a gun and his eyes were searching
around.  It was clear to Mas’habi that he was looking for him and that his life
was now in great jeopardy.

Indeed, he understood that the members
of the committee, which he had just left, did not regard him favorably.  But, he
didn’t imagine for a moment that they were trying to get rid of him.

‘What to do, now?’ he pondered.

He stood up and clung to the wall while
he analyzed his situation.  He realized that he should leave the country
immediately and also understood that they were likely to make it difficult for
him to escape.  His brain worked feverishly. He felt he needed to get out and
escape but forced himself to stand still and think slowly.

            ‘If they decided to
annihilate me five minutes ago, the instructions might not have reached the  Revolutionary
Guards yet,’ he thought, and decided on the spot:

‘I’m not going to wait even one more second. 
I have to find transport because every minute counts.’

Mas’habi peered outside and decided this
was exactly the right moment to merge with the enormous crowd and disappear by mixing
with the people.  He went out of the entrance, marched with the throng, his
eyes all the time seeking any possible vehicle that might speed him away to the
country’s borders.

He continued walking for another two minutes
when he heard the shots. Suddenly he was hit in the back of his head, and
everything went dark. He didn’t fall immediately because the dense crowds moved
ahead as one body and bore him along, pressed between them.  Blood sprayed
forth from the two holes, one behind his ear and the other on his neck.  The
shots caused panic among the crowds.  People began pushing one another and
running wildly, and Mas’habi slipped between them to the ground and was
trampled underfoot by the frightened masses. Dragged along the road, his body
was mutilated almost beyond recognition.

A quarter of an hour later, Rulam
returned to the conference room and threw an object attached to brown strips of
tape down on the table.  Fereydoun frowned inquiringly at him, and Rulam spoke
quietly:

            “They taped a recording
device to his body.” 

            “Oh, what a bastard!  The
scoundrel was playing a double game.  He transmitted what we said to them and
it would be interesting to know if he reported what he heard there to us.”