Abigail – The Avenging Agent: The agent appears again (7 page)

All at once, Fereydoun roared:

“Idiot, why did you kill him?!  We
should have strung him up in the Public Square like any ordinary spy we
discover!”

“That’s right! What a son
of a bitch! We should have left him hanging for everyone to see what we do with
a double traitor!” said Omar, excitedly, while Rulam remained silent.

“Why are you silent?  Why did you shoot
him?”

“Because
I think that it’s important to eliminate a traitor like that immediately and on
the spot,” he said.  Fereydoun lowered his voice and answered him quietly:

“So, how will the ‘Mossad’ know that he
also betrayed them and was a double agent?”

“We have to issue a notification of his
capture with a photograph of his corpse.”

“Where is that scoundrel’s corpse?”

“Down below, on the street.  I ordered them
to drag it into the building.”

“Well, at least you handled matters
sensibly, as you should,” Fereydoun remarked and Rulam blushed at the
unexpected compliment, sat down and excitedly began recounting his recent
adventure.

“The traitor tried to disappear among
the demonstrators.  I noticed him leave the building next door and attempt to
blend into the crowd.”  A note of pride rang in his voice.  He dabbed the
perspiration on his face with his sleeve and continued:

“Gentlemen, I think it’s important to
warn you that what is going on outside is about to get out of hand.  Those
hooligans are destroying everything, and I don’t know what we’re waiting for.”

The echoes of rounds of fire penetrating
the room were a response to Rulam’s remarks. Smiles spread, once more, on the
lips of the bearded men.

            “That
sounds good; the armed forces have apparently arrived and are dealing with the
rioters.”

With
the gunfire in the background, Rulam glanced at Fereydoun and spoke.

            “I
will sum up, the information we got from the traitor.”

            “If you’re referring to
Aisha and that Rania with the blue eyes, then we’ll find a similar solution to
the one you found.”

            “What?” Rulam insisted.

            The first step is to
instruct border security to look out for a beautiful woman with blue eyes. 
What’s not clear about that?” Fereydoun replied.

            “And, when they catch her?”

            “Bring her to me and her
fate will be like I suggested you should have done with the traitor you
killed.”

Shortly after that, a photograph of Mas’habi’s
mutilated body lay on Fereydoun’s desk.

            “Wow,” he exclaimed, “It’s
impossible to recognize him!  Perhaps we should blur those marks?” he suggested
and pointed to the picture that even he found shocking.

            “Let the Zionists work out how
he landed up in this condition, ha!” added Omar, who was Fereydoun’s right-hand
man.

            “Good,
then publish it!”

*
* *

That day, a special edition of the
Iranian newspaper,
“Inshallah”
appeared.  Plastered on the front page
was a photograph of the mutilated remains of Mas’habi and, indeed, it was hard
to recognize him.
  His light-colored eyes were open on
his disfigured face. Strips torn from his shirt revealed deep wounds, scratches,
and purple bruises.  The headline read:

Iran Killed the Agent Planted by the Mossad

The computer printout lay on the table
in the apartment on Hagilgal Street in Ramat Gan.  The two ‘Mossad’ agents,
Barak and San, read the article and Barak tapped it and said:

            “Did
they plant him with us?”

            “Yes,
it’s possible.  Abigail also distrusted him from the moment she saw him.”

            “Hey,
you mean, Rania, right?”

            “Oops!”

            “That’s
okay.”

            “It’s not okay.  We make her
feel guilty when we find her reacting instinctively to her former name,” he
said as he glanced at the article again and suggested:

            “If it’s true that he was
their plant, I wonder what information he passed on from our meeting with him,
for example.”

            “It’s quite clear to me.  He
passed on details about Rania and, perhaps, even of Aisha, who came to the
apartment that day.”

            “Do you know what I’m
thinking, right now?”

            “The same as I am.  That we
cancel the plans he knew, the codes and…”

            ”Amazingly, the first thing
that comes to mind is changing our agent’s name, which even we couldn‘t get accustomed
to.”

            “What, again?  That’s too
much.  At birth, they named her Naima, then, she got the name Abigail and now
she’s Rania.”

            “Wait, you’re a genius, she
can go back to her usual name, Abigail.”

            “No, I suggest she goes back
to her name she had when she was born. Then see how fast she’ll get moving!”

            “Do you know what?  I accept
your idea, but about the color of her eyes, he probably reported what he saw –
blue eyes.”

            “Right!  So, she can go back
to her natural eye color and get rid of the lenses.”

            Abigail arrived at their
next meeting, blinking incessantly and wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. 
She could hardly open her eyes in the morning because the discharge from her
eyes stuck her lashes together.

            “I
need eye drops.  My left eye is killing me and the other is also itchy.”

            “No,
Naima, perhaps you should remove the lenses,” Barak suggested.

            “Remove them?  Wait, what
did you call me?” She stopped wiping her eyes and stared at him.

            “Naima. 
That’s your name, isn’t it?”  She peered at him with her blue eyes, moving her
gaze from him to San and smiled.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because I understand; you’re removing
my new persona so that the miserable Iranian will appear to have misled them,
right?  I’d love to know how they caught him out.”

“You also suspected him.”

“But I didn’t think he was a double
agent.  I was bothered by the story that he left and returned to Iran twice and
also at his arrogance when he boasted that his father was a genuine Persian…
 
Big deal, a pure Persian,” she mocked.

“Really? What’s special about that?  I
don’t understand.  How does the fact that a man admires his father make him a
traitor?”

“I think that’s an unnecessary remark
that has nothing to do with anything.  Sure, he was a natural born Iranian so
there was no chance that he would betray his roots.”

“I don’t agree with you, but it was one
of the considerations that led us to return you to your roots.”

Abigail laughed with pleasure.

“I have to admit that this time I’m delighted
with your decision.  If you please, I am going to arrange it immediately.”

She left and went out of the room. San
rapped his fingers on the table and said:

“I’m
worried and trying to go back and scan through the protocol to check what we
said that day.”

“Yes,
we have to change codes, passwords, and pre-agreed signals.”

“Of
course, that’s why I invited Foxy and Zaguri to come here today.”

At that moment, Abigail came into the
room, her bobbed hair still brown, but her green, almost transparent eyes, made
her look quite different.  When San saw her, he thought it was a good thing
that Barak had called for the photographer to take new passport photographs of her,
and he hurried her off to prepare herself.

“Why
are you photographing me again?”  She inquired, “I don’t think you should risk
someone recognizing me.”

            “Who?”

“My
mother or even Adam, the Judge.”

“But,
your hair is different.”

“Yes,
but who else has eyes like these, eyes that only my mother knows I have?”

San
frowned and thought she had a point.  He heard Barak explain:

“Mas’habi may have told them that you
have blue eyes, so it’s important to change their color,” and she nodded in
understanding.  “We will be discussing the Mas’habi affair this afternoon, at
five.”

“In that case, I’ll leave now,” She
announced as she looked at her wristwatch.  “It’s almost four o’clock already.”

“No, you had better stay because it
affects you, too.”

Shortly before five, Foxy arrived,
almost colliding with the photographer, who was just leaving the apartment.

Foxy was a short red haired man with a
narrow aquiline nose and close-set brown eyes and resembled a fox, which was
how he had acquired his nickname.  He was a mild-mannered, shy man whose many
achievements had not altered his modest demeanor.

At five o’clock, he was joined by his
partner, Zaguri, who was his complete antithesis.  He was tall, had graying
salt and peppered hair and gray eyes.  Unlike Foxy, he was very boisterous and
on entering, he immediately greeted everyone with his booming voice.  Then he
noticed Abigail and from that moment his behavior changed.

“Hi, who is the beautiful lady with us?”

“This is Naima, she’s one of ours,”
Barak announced and the tone of his voice cut short any follow-up questions.

The printout of the Persian newspaper dealing
with the demise of the spy and the ‘before and after’ pictures of him lay on
the table and was clearly to be the subject of the meeting.  Barak opened the
discussion:

“We met with this agent less than a
month ago and we introduced them to one another.” He said and nodded with his
chin in Abigail’s direction.

“To her credit, let us say that she did
not regard him as someone she could work with as a partner.”

“Excellent, splendid, indeed,”

“No, that isn’t today’s topic.  It’s
clear that the man reported details from our meeting with him, and we are meeting
today to double-check ourselves.”

“What was the subject of the discussion
with him?” Zaguri inquired, and Abigail responded.

“Mas’habi knew that we were planning to attack
the Islamic Republic’s strategic sites,” and Zaguri raised his eyebrows in
amazement.

“Mas’habi? 
I thought his name was Razah.  At any rate, that’s what is in this report.”

“What,
what!?  Wow!” San exclaimed, “How could I have missed that?  That’s shameful of
me.”

“Wait, and then another question comes
to mind.  Who put us in touch with him and how were his details checked out?”

“What difference does that make now?”
Barak interjected.

It certainly does make a difference,”
Abigail intervened, “after all it makes a difference whether the man was
enlisted or offered his services to the organization, on his own volition.”

San leaned back in his chair and spoke
slowly:

“Oh!  I feel terrible as if I fell
asleep on my watch.  If I had operated like this in Iran, I would have been
strung up, burned, and my ashes dispersed in the wind, long before that.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Zaguri pointed out.
“Perhaps they would put you before a firing squad like an honorable traitor,”
and San frowned at him.

“Abigail kept her silence.  She recalled
her first interview with Barak and San, how they both knew more details than
she could remember about herself, and she peered quizzically at San.

He slapped his knee suddenly and cried:

“Oh!” and the four of them were aghast.

“We received the detailed information
about him from a particular agent,” San announced, hesitant to mention the name
of the operative, who brought him to them.

“If that’s so, then we have our own home-grown
blue and white double agent,” Barak added and he also looked appalled.

“Now, it’s also clear how and to whom
Mas’habi, I mean Razah, was connected,” Foxy remarked.

“Okay, so what do we do next?”

Barak rose, with his cell phone at his
ear, and when he sat down again, announced:

“Done!” and San remarked:

“Now we have to do a total makeover
because whoever brought Razah is fully informed about almost everything we do,
and he knows a great deal.”

“What luck we didn’t call him here
today.”  Abigail expressed her relief.

“How did I not see it?  Razah was the
servant of two masters,” San remarked, ignoring her comment.

The phone rang, and Barak put it to his
ear, listened and then laid it down on the newspaper printout before him.

“Who has seen Rashid recently?”  Silence
reigned around the table.

“Rashid?” Foxy inquired, “I don’t know
anyone with a name like that, how does he look and when did we meet him?”

“The
fellow with the pearl earring,” Zaguri added.

“Ah, he appeared on TV, one Friday, only I didn’t know his
name.”

“What
does he know about us?” San wanted to know.

“What
doesn’t he know?”  Zaguri answered the question with another question and
chuckled.

“About
me, for example,” Abigail stated.

“No one knows anything about you.  It’s
also the first time I’m meeting you, and more’s the pity,” Zaguri complained
and flashed the most charming smile he could muster.

Barak spoke: 

“Friends, I am going to fix times to
meet with each of you individually.  Prepare to swap roles, change cover stories,
and this is also an opportunity to update you on our change of address.”

“Change of address?  Was that planned or
is it a consequence of this affair?” Zaguri queried but received no response.

The
truth was that from the day they fired the bug into Abigail’s old apartment,
the organization had planned to move the base of their activities.  Only a day
earlier, a third-floor residential apartment without an elevator, at 54 Raines
Street in Givatayim was chosen.

* * *