Chapter 39

Washington

5:48 am GMT, 1:48 am Local

The package had been waiting in Lior Eichorn’s suite at the Israeli Embassy on Reno Road, just as the text had said it would be.

When he’d arrived from Dulles Airport earlier in the day, his security detail had carried his belongings upstairs to the visiting dignitaries’ residence and had put everything away in the drawers and closets precisely the way he liked them. Same thing was done in the bathroom, where his toiletries had been laid out to the left of the sink, again with the desired precision: toothpaste, brush, floss, deodorant, razor, shaving creme. His five prescriptions made up a second tier toward the back...along with a bottle of ibuprofen just in case he drank too much gin.

And mixed in with all that, a pocket-sized vial of a brand-name hand sanitizer was sealed with a tiny bead of adhesive compound designed to keep the contents airtight, until it was broken and the cap was twisted off.

Eichorn dared not do that now. While the vial mostly contained the product listed on the label, it had been combined with a generous quantity of A-234, an organophosphate nerve agent developed by Soviet scientists and considered vastly more potent than its lethal predecessor, VX. One of several variants of Novichok, the selection of A-234 was deliberate and calculated. While one of the scientists who developed it in the nineties had long since defected to the west, Russia continued to be the only known manufacturer of the compound throughout the world. Its use in a high-profile killing on American soil not only would cause an international incident of the highest magnitude, but would deflect blame to the Kremlin and its former KGB president.

How Eichorn’s source was able to procure even a small quantity at such short notice was a mystery, even to him. The Russians vehemently denied the existence of Novichok and its associated agents, as well as their involvement in any of the international killings attributed to them. But his fellow Israelis could be exceptionally enterprising, especially when it came to subterfuge, or just shifting attention from them to another player when political necessity dictated.

In Eichorn’s case it strictly was a matter of retribution, the ultimate feat of political artifice, distracting the audience with the hands while the eyes were misdirected elsewhere. And, of course, there was the absolute need to maintain distance and deniability if the sky began to fall.

It was almost two in the morning when he got back to his room, seven hours earlier than in Jerusalem. He’d not spoken with his wife in three days, right after Eitan Hazan had confirmed his worst fears about their daughter. Her tears and wails had echoed those he’d felt in his heart for over six years, and had drawn down the curtain on a macabre tragedy that had begun when her plane had gone missing. They both had known in their hearts that she’d perished along with the aircraft but, as long as it remained lost, they’d been able to maintain a small fragment of optimism, as misplaced and futile as they both knew it was.

The discovery of the wreckage and the five victims had put a stop to all that. The pretending and dissembling of their daily lives finally could come to an end, replaced with a real sense of healing that permitted them to accept—even welcome—the grim face of truth. A different stage of grieving had begun, no more painless than the first, but much more final.

What made it all the more difficult was the guilt he felt for his complicity in Avigail’s death. This was something he would have to deal with alone, until he finally took it to his grave.

He thought about calling Alina now. She’d be awake, probably out in the garden already tending to her lilies and irises. She’d gladly take his call, but he didn’t want her to think that he’d stayed up this late, imbibing too much gin and flirting with pretty American women. Which was the truth and, no matter how much he might try to slur his way through an excuse, she would know. In the spirit of poet Ernest Christopher Dowson, he’d always been faithful to his wife, in his fashion. Now it was time for him to go to bed; he could call her tomorrow, when he was refreshed and ready to greet the morning.

Eichorn left the bathroom light on, gently closed the door until it projected a thin line across the floor. He usually preferred to sleep in total darkness, but tonight he seemed to need a visual reference point should he wake up. Or maybe it was just a need to keep half an eye on whatever evil might invade the room, a fear that remained from when he was a child and his mother would prop an ironing board against the front door of their small home. His father had been killed during the Six-Day War and, since they lived not far from the newly annexed West Bank territories, she had wanted to be awakened if intruders attempted to force their way inside.

He swept all the pillows and the duvet from the bed, slipped under the lone sheet. His head still spun from the events of the night, the drinking and the dancing, and especially the brief phone conversation he’d had with his assistant deputy in Berlin. But there was no word at all from Eitan Hazan, whose silence was growing more bothersome by the hour. It was foolish to think something serious might have happened to him: he’d fought at Entebbe and Morocco and Tunisia, and countless other hot spots over the years. He knew how to take care of himself. This was unlike his cousin, and he’d begun to grow concerned, if not outright worried.

His conscious mind struggled to cross the threshold into sleep. He bounced from one thought to another—events of yesterday, tonight, tomorrow—and once again his mind seized on the ampoule of hand sanitizer in the bathroom. It was just a simple matter, really: Mossad 101 training in its most elementary form. Essential tradecraft, and he’d mastered everything they’d thrown at him as one of the best in his class.

Problem was, riding a desk for twenty years can dull one’s faculties, as well as one’s confidence to use them. From a low-level intelligence recruit fresh out of university, Lior Eichorn had risen to one of the most powerful positions in the government, and he liked to think he wasn’t finished yet.