MOSSAD ENDGAME
Hank Barnes stared skeptically at Marci as she promised she would now be straight with him. She understood, she told him, that he didn't trust her, but she hoped he'd at least hear her out before adding her to his list of egregious liars.
"Sure, I'll hear you out," he said. "But not here in my wired hotel room."
"Right," she said. "We'll go for a walk." She smiled, moved closer to him, spread her arms. "Pat me down, Hank. Assure yourself I'm not wired too."
As he patted her down, he couldn't help but laugh. "Still miss my body?"
"Shhhh!"
"What? Your colleagues don't know about us?"
She glared at him, whispered: "Of course they know!"
"Yeah, I figured."
Outside it was dark. Curved street lamps burned yellow in the misty air. Stepping out of the hotel, Marci gestured down Avenida Alvear. This was, he knew from his walks, one of the best residential blocks in Buenos Aires, lined with graceful apartment houses that reminded him of buildings in Paris.
His first demand, he told her as they started to walk, was that they have a one hundred percent honest conversation. At this point, he told her, nothing less would do. He also demanded a new hotel room. If he decided to go through with the dagger exchange (and that, he told her, was "one very big if") he'd do so at the Alvear, but he wouldn't sleep there anymore. Depending on how well she explained herself, he told her, he'd move to another hotel or head for the airport.
She nodded. "Fair enough, Hank. Perfectly understandable."
Right! And you'll agree to a lot more before we're finished!
"So what's with the Pedrazas and what's with the dagger?" he asked, leading her toward a side street.
"Let's keep walking straight," she said. "I want to show you something. We'll talk on the way."
A young man, striding toward them, held leashes attached to a dozen dogs of different breeds. A pair of joggers passed, then speedily turned the corner.
Osvaldo Pedraza, Marci told him, was the ideological leader of a covert group of neo-Nazis who called themselves the Immaculates. They in turn controlled a larger illegal group of right-wing military known as the Crocodiles. The leadership of the Immaculates had inherited a Nazi dagger—Hermann Göring's Reichsmarschall dagger brought to Argentina by Göring's aide, Walter Hobler. Hobler had founded The Immaculates in 1954 along with a Nazi-sympathizing priest. The dagger was a symbol of the Immaculates' Nazi roots and it was used by the leadership group as a totem.
"You mean they worship it? Pretty hard to believe."
"I don't know that they worship it, Hank, but they respect it greatly. When they hold a leadership meeting, the leader, Pedraza, places the dagger on the table. After that, whoever is speaking picks it up and holds it. Then he hands it off to the next speaker, and so on. So it's totemic in the sense that the one who holds it also holds the floor."
Hank was still skeptical. It sounded like hocus-pocus, the way the kids use the conch shell in Lord of the Flies.
"How do you know all this?"
"We've been watching them for years. We knew about the Göring cult. They commissioned a portrait of him ten years ago. We also knew the dagger was here, but until recently we didn't understand its significance, or that the leader kept possession of it, or even who the current leader was. This past year we mounted a penetration operation which yielded a lot of information. But then the officer who ran the operation was identified, and he and an operative were tortured and killed."
"When did this happen?"
"Month and a half ago."
"You approached me four months ago at MAX."
She nodded. "Even back then we had in mind a role for you, or someone like you who could get hold of their dagger."
"Which you heard about from Max Rosenfeld?"
She nodded again. "When Señora Pedraza brought it into him for appraisal, he recognized it, photographed it and handed over the photographs to a friend at our embassy. When, later, we learned the Señora needed money because she was contemplating a divorce, we developed a plan to pay her to help us steal it. The purpose was to discredit Pedraza by sticking him with its disappearance. But after our officer was murdered, we developed a second plan, far more ambitious and complex."
"Why so devious with me, Marci? Why the phony story about the Korean maid?"
"Luis' mistake."
"Is his name really Luis?"
She smiled. "Come on, Hank! Real names don't matter. Luis came up with the maid. He figured if you heard the dagger story from her, you'd be more likely to buy into it. But he forgot that the more you complicate things, the more likely they are to fall apart. Also he underestimated you. He figured anyone who dealt in Nazi daggers had to be a jerk."
"You knew better?"
"Of course! I liked you and respected you. And, whether you believe this or not, I very much enjoyed making love with you."
Hank glanced behind to see if anyone was following. He didn't spot DiPinto or Laura, just more joggers crossing the street and several well-dressed women carrying shopping bags bearing the logos of expensive shops.
"Lovely of you to say that, Marci, but I'm beyond the point of caring."
"I understand."
He stopped beneath a street lamp, moved close to her so he could look into her eyes. "Do you?" he asked. "Do you really? Do you have any idea what it feels like to be played for a fool?"
"I didn't mean—"
"Sure you did."
The light gave her face a ghostly appearance.
"Look," she said, "that's my job, to play people. Which doesn't mean I don't care about them or forget that they're also human beings."
"Pretty thoughts." Hank spoke scornfully, wanting her to feel the full force of his contempt.
"I want you to meet somebody," she said, pulling out her cell phone and rapidly punching in a number. Not bothering to move away from him, she spoke quickly in Hebrew. He didn't understand a word. When she was done she snapped her phone shut. "My friend's waiting for us. We'll walk this way."
She led him across the intersection with Avenida 9 de Julio. "Let's turn here," she said, as they approached Arroyo. "I want to show you something down the street."
He shrugged, followed her to a point where the street curved at the end of the block. Here they came upon a one-man guardhouse set up before a chain link fence. Inside the fence was a small trapezoid-shaped park. Marci stopped.
"This was the site of the Israeli Embassy, blown up by a terrorist car bomb in 1992. Twenty-nine people were killed, many more injured. Hezbollah executed the attack with the help of the Immaculates. This little park is the memorial."
Hank had heard about the attack, but hadn't realized the site was so close to the Alvear.
"A very sensitive memorial," he observed. "I'm not going to say I'm unmoved. But is this the point where I'm supposed to go all squishy inside and pledge myself to assist your operation?"
"That you're genuinely moved is enough," she said.
"What do you want of me, Marci?"
"I want you to help us."
"What's in it for me?"
"What do you want, Hank? You'll get your thirty thousand."
"Real money or counterfeit?"
"Do you think we'd sink that low?"
"What about Señora Pedraza—is she really going to get a hundred fifty thousand cash?"
Marci nodded. "That's what she's going to get."
"You must expect a lot in return."
"We do."
"I sincerely hope you get it. As for me there's only one thing I want out of this...assuming I agree to help."
"The dagger."
He nodded. "The real one, not the replica."
As they walked on, into the neighborhood called Retiro, he wondered where she would lead him next.
"May I propose something?" she asked, as they started across the elegant Plaza Libertador General San Martín.
"Sure, propose."
"I bought a lot of stuff at MAX. When we're done here, all of it has to be sold off. The Göring dagger too. When this operation is finished we'll have no further use for it. Obviously we don't want it to fall into the wrong hands."
"Obviously!"
"Suppose you act as our agent—Hank sell everything on our behalf? At your regular commission, of course. If you manage to sell the dagger for a million, that'll earn you a hundred thousand free and clear. Plus you'll have your promised thirty thousand, and ten percent of whatever you can get for the rest." She looked at him. "Not bad pay, huh?"
"No, not bad. Will you put it in writing?"
"I'll have to clear it with my superiors first."
"So this is just a speculative proposal?"
"I'm serious, Hank. It makes sense to me. I think it'll make sense to them too. We're at a crucial stage now where we very much need your help. I happen to think you're entitled to something substantial in return." She paused in the center of the park, turned to him. "Can I tell them you'll go along?"
A dejected homeless man sat on a park bench nearby, surrounded by polyurethane garbage bags. A shoeshine boy approached, implored Hank to let him polish his shoes. Marci handed the boy some coins, then waved him away.
"Showing all your cards like this, Marci—you're not much of a poker player."
"This isn't a poker game, Hank. It's what you told me you wanted—a one hundred percent honest conversation."
"What do I have to do in return?"
"Complete the sale and exchange with Señora Pedraza."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
It was a very good offer, he knew. But he still had questions and was angry about the devious way he'd been treated.
"Why didn't you explain everything in the first place?"
"I couldn't. This is a highly classified operation."
"Why not have one of your own people play the dealer role?"
"To bring this off we felt we needed the real thing."
"Who's Mr. G?"
"Another member of the team."
"Luisa Kim?"
"An acting student. She does odd jobs for us on contract."
"Laura?"
"Another team member."
"Anyone else?"
"I can't tell you that."
They started walking again.
"You needed me for far more than buying that dagger." He told her. "You were also setting me up."
"What makes you say that?"
"I was seen meeting with Señora Pedraza in the Alvear bar. I'm sure you have pictures of us together and tape of us talking in my room. If she's ever questioned about the dagger—who bought it, who has it—she'll give my name. Then the Immaculates, or the Crocodiles, or whatever the hell they call themselves, will hunt me down. Also, if something goes wrong and your operation has to be abandoned, I'll be the one left holding the bag. That's what I'm really here for, isn't it—to take the rap? To be the schmuck."
Marci smiled.
"What's so funny?"
"Schmuck is the Yiddish word for penis."
"So I'm a dickhead. Listen, you say you need my expertise. Why, Marci? What do you care whether Pedraza's dagger is real? You're not collecting Third Reich militaria. This all has to do with the replica, doesn't it? You want to plant the replica with Pedraza. Come clean, tell me the plan. Otherwise I won't play along."
They'd crossed the park, now stood in front of a stunning art deco skyscraper.
"A friend of mine lives here," Marci told him. "She's expecting us."
On their way up to the thirtieth floor, she told him the building was called the Kavanagh, in its era the tallest structure in South America.
"Kind of run down now, but it was magnificent in its day."
"I keep hearing that down here," he said. "It seems to be the local refrain."
Inside the apartment, Hank met Marci's friend, a strikingly intense woman in her forties with short dark hair and dark glowing eyes. Marci introduced her as Shoshana Rifkind, then the two women embraced. After they exchanged a few words in Hebrew, Marci told Hank that Shoshana would show him a videotape while she reserved a new room for him at the Mariott Plaza next door and arranged for his bags to be brought over from the Alvear.
Shoshana guided him into her living room which overlooked the city. From here Buenos Aires appeared an endless grid sparkling with a million points of light.
Shoshana's tape was a compilation of footage documenting the neo-fascist movement in Argentina: fire and wreckage after the explosion at the Israeli Embassy; more of the same after the devastating AMIA bombing; a montage of images of Argentine anti-Semitic tracts and virulent Argentine neo-Nazi websites; documentation of Hezbollah penetration of the "three borders" area, and the collusion between Middle-Eastern terrorist groups and elements in the Argentine army and police. This material was intercut with interviews with journalists and human rights observers concerning the rise of Argentine neo-fascism as well as an interview with a lawyer who accused a former Argentine President of taking a ten million dollar bribe in exchange for dead-ending the investigation of the anti-Jewish bombings.
"We want you to understand what we're fighting against here," Shoshana said when the video was finished. "Why we care so much."
Hank recognized her presentation as an emotion-laden dose of propaganda. He also found it convincing. He had no doubt that sectors of the government were riddled with neo-Nazis, and that Argentine Jews had good reason to feel threatened. Many, Shoshana told him, had emigrated to Israel, but the Jewish community of Buenos Aires was still substantial, the fourth largest in the Western Hemisphere.
After the video, Marci reappeared.
"Your friend here knows how to work a guy over," Hank told her.
Marci nodded. "How do you feel about what she showed you?"
"How am I supposed to feel? It's frightening, of course."
"But—?"
"I have to ask myself—why do you want to show me this?"
"Why do you think?"
"Maybe to make me, a guy who earns his living dealing in Third Reich militaria, see the error of his ways."
"Do you see the error, Hank?"
He shrugged. "There's a big difference between endorsing Nazi policies and dealing in Nazi-era artifacts."
"The symbolism's the same. All those swastikas. It's too glib, Hank, to draw a distinction, and too easy to blind yourself to what those artifacts represent."
He shook his head. "I guess I'm supposed to feel guilty now and seek redemption by assisting with your operation."
"Will you?"
"You still have to explain my fall-guy role in this."
"I'll let Shoshana do that," Marci said.
Shoshana began to pace the room.
"Over forty years ago we kidnapped Eichmann here," she told him. "The Argentines still haven't forgiven us for that. We can't afford to take another such rap. So, yes, you were to be the fall guy if things went wrong. Blame it on the American. But you were not meant to take the fall if Pedraza found out his wife sold his dagger. In the first place, she'd never own up to it. That would amount to sentencing herself to death. Second, when we're done fixing up the replica, Pedraza will never know the daggers were exchanged."
"We're sending it and your photographs out by courier tonight," Marci said. "Our artisans will fix it up, add three grams and make it indistinguishable."
Hank looked from one to the other. "Let me see if I've got this right: One morning a woman walks into a Buenos Aires jewelry store with a dagger, and from that little encounter, you've created this huge elaborate scheme."
"Yeah, that's about right."
"Amazing!"
"In a way I guess it is," Shoshana agreed.
"You still haven't explained the point of it all."
Marci glanced at Shoshana, they exchanged a look, then Shoshana shrugged.
"There'll be a tracking device inside the replica," Marci told him. "That way we can follow Pedraza to his meetings."
"You can plant a tracking device on his car. There has to be more to it."
"There's also a microphone. When people in the leadership group meet, we'll be able to hear everything they say."
Hank scoffed. "Still doesn't seem like enough."
"It's more than enough!" Shoshana said. "There's an economic crisis here, the kind of crisis that's catnip for fascists, just the kind of environment in which Mussolini and Hitler came to power. Fascism is always based on nationalism combined with some form of hatred of 'the other.' In my view, the human race is hard-wired for fascism. It evokes a response from something deeply flawed in human nature. That's why we Israelis are always on guard. We know that wherever Jews are threatened, the seeds of fascism will be found."
She leaned forward. "For a long time those seeds have been sprouting in Argentina. There's an important politician, a serious presidential contender, with close ties to Pedraza's group. If we can expose that connection, we can stop any chance of his being elected. But we need solid evidence such as a tape recording of an Immaculates meeting where that relationship is discussed."
Marci looked at Hank. "You're right—planting the replica on Pedraza is the point of the exercise. As Shoshana explained, for us there's a great deal at stake. Which is one reason we're not going to endanger the operation by paying Señora Pedraza with counterfeit dollars."
Marci stood. "Your new room's ready. By now your stuff's arrived. Let's get you set up over at the Marriott, then grab some dinner."
She spoke to Shoshana in Hebrew, then embraced her. Shoshana gravely shook Hank's hand.
"You're a very effective advocate," Hank told her.
For the first time since they'd been introduced, Shoshana showed him a tight little smile.
Back on the street, Hank turned to Marci. The night air was thicker now, carrying the aroma of the Río de la Plata.
"So this operation's about planting a microphone with Pedraza's group so you can track their political connections."
"And identify all the players."
"Why?"
"So we can deal with them. They're dangerous. They've had our people killed."
"Please tell me something, Marci—what does 'so we can deal with them' really mean?"
"That, Hank, you don't want to know."
He studied her. It was time to get a few things straight.
"Why did you call me when I was in transit in Miami? What was that warning about 'unsavory characters' supposed to be about?"
"Believe it or not, I was worried for you?"
"You recruit me, prep me to be set up, then worry?"
"It's true."
He shrugged. "Here's my final question: Did you or your people have anything to do with robbing my stuff in Pittsburgh to soften me up for your approach?"
She stared directly into his eyes. "Absolutely not, Hank! I swear to it! Never, never, never!"
He believed her, perhaps because of the forceful way she replied or because he couldn't bear to think she'd been involved. He knew he still had little cause to trust her...but he couldn't help himself, he did.
They engaged in numerous activities over the next several days, but the main one, the one that would be forever etched upon his memory, was fucking.
They screwed over every piece of furniture in his new hotel room: the bed of course, the couch, the easy chairs, as well as on the carpet and against the walls. They made love at all times of day and night in different modes—violent couplings; soft affectionate entanglements; breathtakingly slow tantric copulations. At every opportunity they felt, tasted, stroked, caressed, licked, sniffed and imbibed one another till they lay exhausted in each other's arms. And all the while, between affectionate mutterings, he expressed to her his mistrust.
"Is this part of the plan?" he asked, after a particularly tempestuous bout.
"Fucking's always an option," she replied, amused.
"You're awfully good at it. Did they teach you this at the Mossad training academy?"
She giggled. "I believe it's more or less instinctive."
"How can I ever trust you?" he asked on the third day as she nestled in his arms. "How can I be sure you won't betray me?"
"Because now you know too much." She kissed him. "I've told you everything. Sure, we can clean things up here if we must, but we won't be able to fully erase the trail."
"So I'll be believed. I suppose that's comforting." He stroked her breast. "Why expose yourself to me like this?"
"Why not?" she asked, fondling him. "And, by the way, how do I know you're really going to come through for us?"
As expected, Señora Pedraza phoned. When Hank's cell phone rang, he was walking with Marci on Calle Florida, past a crippled child begging for coins.
The Señora told him that after giving some thought to their transaction, she'd concluded that two hundred thousand dollars was the correct price for the dagger. When Hank told her the price would be one hundred fifty thousand, she asked for one hundred eighty, and, when he again refused, for one hundred sixty-five.
"No," he told her. "I'm the only legitimate buyer in town and I'm the only one with a replica. So it's a hundred fifty or nothing. Take it or leave it."
Reluctantly, she said she's take it.
When the conversation was finished, Marci was grinning.
"What?" Hank asked.
"Seems like you joined our team."
"Yeah," he said, surprised. "Yeah, I guess I have!"
When the replica came back from Israel. Hank found the finish work remarkable. Comparing it to his photos of the original, he agreed the two daggers now appeared identical.
"But since I can tell them apart by feel," he told Marci, "there's a possibility Pedraza will be able to too?"
"I doubt it considering the way he and his people use it. They don't handle it the way you do, like a connoisseur."
Though he dropped the matter, it continued to bother him. If Pedraza could tell the difference, then the operation would fail. Perhaps, he thought, Marci had too much invested to conceive of the possibility of failure.
That same afternoon, Marci took him to what she called a "reconciliation meeting" with DiPinto at the Alvear Palace. Though Hank was willing to forgive and forget, he couldn't resist teasing his old antagonist.
"Your stunt with the maid really sucked," he told Luis. "You really thought I'd fall for that?"
"I apologize," Luis said. "Seems I outsmarted myself."
Softened by the apology, Hank offered some advice.
"Here's a tip, Luis. There's a little runt of a private detective with an office across the hall from yours. I think he may be on to you."
"The matrimonial guy, Piglia?"
Hank nodded. "He seemed pretty interested in your comings and goings."
"Thank you. We were planning to close down there in a couple days. I'll take care of it this afternoon."
As expected, Señora Pedraza insisted on inspecting the touched-up replica. While she looked it over, Hank was careful not to let it leave his sight. Though she tried to restrain herself when Hank showed her the attaché case filled with cash, her eyes betrayed her greed.
The Señora also insisted on testing the legitimacy of the money. She flipped through the banded packets of hundred dollar bills, then extracted five at random.
"I'll have these checked by a currency expert," she told Hank. "I'll be back in half an hour."
"You still don't trust me."
She smiled. "Only a fool trusts anyone in Buenos Aires."
The cash and dagger exchange finally took place just six days after their initial meeting in the hotel bar. Again the Señora brought her husband's dagger wrapped in an Hermès scarf. Hank inspected it closely, comparing it to the replica, while she counted and then recounted the cash.
"Are you really leaving tomorrow?" she asked after she finished. Then, when he nodded: "I'll be leaving the country myself next week. I don't care for my husband anymore. My sister lives in Spain. I'll be making my usual winter visit...but this time I won't be coming back."
"I wish you luck, Señora," Hank said as they shook hands at the door.
"I wish you the same," she said. She looked at him, smiled. "Since we've both just committed a crime, this'll probably strike you as absurd, but from the very beginning I felt I could trust you, Mr. Barnes. I knew you weren't a chanta. You see, you have honest eyes."
As Hank would be flying to Miami the following morning, Marci suggested, after an afternoon bout of sex, that they spend a final celebratory night on the town. She left him for a while to take care of unspecified business, then returned in a taxi at nine p.m. to pick him up.
They went first to a restaurant in Recoleta, where, over a steak dinner, she told him her superiors had approved her proposed deal.
"I can't give it to you in writing," she said, "since, after all, nothing we've done here has officially occurred. But you can expect the dagger to be delivered to you in Chicago within a week. It'll come via UPS along with all the other stuff I bought at MAX."
"I can trust you on this? Hank asked.
"One hundred percent!"
After a light desert and cheese followed by coffee, they got back into the same cab waiting out front.
"Have you hired him for the evening?" Hank asked, gesturing toward the driver.
"This is a special taxi." Marci answered. "The driver works exclusively for us."
"Where to?" Hank asked.
"I have a destination in mind. But I need to take care of some business first. You don't mind if we make a stop along the way?"
Hank shrugged. "Whatever you want...."
The taxi took them deep into the Barrio Norte, stopping finally on a residential street in Colegiales. There was a sparsely occupied café on the corner, and then, in a row, a dry cleaning store, a shoe repair shop and a florist, all closed. Across the street was a row of four small well-kept two-story houses, with a larger house on the corner.
That house, like so many corner buildings in the city, was cleaved on the diagonal, creating a facade that faced directly on the intersection, an architectural feature which, Marci told him, was called an ochaba.
"The word derives from ocho which means eight. The angle, you see, is one eighth, or twelve and a half degrees."
There was something exceptionally calm about her as she stared at the corner house. Picking up on her interest, Hank studied it too. Lights showed through the windows. He made out the glow of a TV set in a room on the second floor.
"Late autumn now," she said. "It's starting to get cold. Winter's coming and with it the cold south wind from Antarctica that Porteños call the sudestada."
Hank looked at the back of the driver's head. The man sat absolutely still in his seat. He turned back to Marci.
"What's going on?"
"We're interested in that house, the one with the ochaba," she said. "See the two guys hanging out in front? They're bodyguards, Crocodiles most likely." She turned to him. "It's Pedraza's house."
Hank felt a chill pass through him. "What the hell are we doing here?"
"Just a little errand," she said, extracting her cell phone from her purse.
"Is this where you double-cross me?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Hank. This is where I save your ass."
"I don't."
"Shhhh!" She punched a number into her phone. "This'll just take a few seconds. Then we'll be on our way."
Even though she spoke Spanish into the phone, he could make out what she was saying:
"Hello! Señora Pedraza? I must speak to your husband. It's an urgent matter....thank you."
She glanced at Hank, placed her free hand on his knee to calm him.
"Yes, hello! Dr. Pedraza? I am speaking to Dr. Osvaldo Pedraza? Yes, please, sir...just one moment while I connect you."
She took the phone away from her ear, then, carefully calmly punched in a number. Just then there was a flash of light on the second floor of the house, followed by an explosion.
"Holy shit!"
At the roar, the bodyguards rushed inside. At the same time Marci's driver hit the gas.
"Christ! What the fuck happened?" Hank yelled, as their taxi swerved around the corner, then raced up an empty avenue.
"Hopefully I just blew off half of Pedraza's head," Marci said, snapping her phone shut, replacing it in her purse.
"You fucking killed him with your phone?"
"The Señora's phone actually. It's an effective method, one we've used before with great success. One too that bears our signature. And no, Hank, it had nothing to do with you, or with the replica dagger. We cloned her phone, then made the substitution at her hairdresser's a week ago. Ever since she's been walking around with a little bomb in her purse. But there was no danger, the method's foolproof. I'm the only one who could set it off, and only with a special code."
"I'm the one who got you her phone number, remember?"
"That's true," she agreed. "So I guess you're also implicated if you care to look at it that way."
"Why did you do this?" he asked, shaking. The taxi had slowed, was now moving normally in traffic. Hank wasn't sure whether it was his shock at what she'd done, or her calm that most unnerved him.
"Why?" She looked at him. "Several reasons. First, because Pedraza ordered the murder of one of our officers. We don't let anyone get away with that. State Policy. Also, as you pointed out, there was a remote chance he'd figure out his wife had switched the daggers. By taking him out, we eliminated that possibility. That's what I meant when I said I was saving your ass. By the way, I can assure you the Señora wasn't hurt. Our cell phone bombs are highly directional, built to explode only at the person holding it to his ear. A third reason, an important one, is because the leadership of the Immaculates, along with the dagger, will now pass to someone else. The new leader, whoever he is, won't be familiar with the dagger so he'll have no way of knowing it's a replica. We'll use it, as I explained, to listen in to meetings. Once we identify the new leader, we'll assassinate him as well. Then on to the next, and the next, and perhaps even the next...the nice part being that they'll never suspect it's their precious Reichsmarschall dagger that's responsible. They'll never know that, but they will know it's us who's killing them. They'll rack their brains trying to figure out how we know who they are. If all goes as planned, they'll soon begin to suspect one another. Then they'll turn on one another, and then, hopefully, self-destruct."
So that was the plan. She hadn't lied to him, had simply neglected to let him in on the ramifications. It wasn't just Pedraza they were after, it was the Immaculates, every single one.
"Pull over," she instructed the driver. When he did, she said something to him in Hebrew. He got out, walked around to Hank's door, then stood beside it like a sentry.
She turned to Hank. "This is our final meeting. When we're done talking here, you'll get out, I'll drive away...and we'll never see one another again. I tell you this with real regret. I like you very much. I love making love with you and I very much enjoy your company. You're a terrific guy and I'm going to miss you. That said, I'm sorry I couldn't share all the details of our operation, and that I dragged you into, let's be frank, an assassination plot, one that will be ongoing too. These are evil men, Hank, murderous men. They deserve no pity. They're our blood enemies. It's us or them."
She paused. "I have to confess something else. The deal I cleared with my superiors was not the same deal I proposed to you. I felt you deserved a lot more than ten percent, so I told them you would only assist us in exchange for the dagger free and clear. We need our hundred fifty thousand back of course. You'll have to return that to us off the top. But anything you can get above and beyond is yours to keep. As is the thirty thousand for your time, and ten percent on the resale of the MAX stuff. That's a lot of money. It took a lot of persuasion to get them to agree. I hope you're happy with it. I hope it makes up, at least in part, for my duplicity."
"You're kidding me!" he said.
"I'm not. The dagger's yours. Pay us the first hundred fifty from whatever you get and keep the rest for yourself."
"I don't know what to say!"
"Don't say anything. You deserve every cent. You helped us do something very important. We are truly in your debt." She paused again. "One other thing before we part. You deal in militaria. Now you've crossed a line, taken part in a real war. It's a different kind of experience, isn't it? Perhaps it will make you think more deeply about what you do. I hope that after you sell the dagger and the other stuff, you'll decide to change your specialty. How about U.S. Civil War sabers or Old West Winchesters and Colts? Just not the Nazi stuff. Anyway, I hope you'll consider it."
"I will." He gazed at her. "You're an amazing person, Marci. I'll never forget you."
She smiled. "Nice of you to say that, but I insist that you forget me... not that such an insistence has any force concerning a matter of the heart." She pointed ahead. "There's a tango club in the next block. You'll find taxis out front. You might want to stop in and watch the dancing a while before returning to your hotel. The dancers there are exceptionally good, and I don't imagine you'll be returning to Argentina very soon."
She leaned toward him, kissed him lightly. Then she pressed her lips hard against his, then pulled away.
"It's time, Hank." He made out tears forming in her eyes. "Off with you now!" She rapped on the window. The driver opened Hank's door. "Good luck!"
He stood on the curb as the taxi drove off. She didn't look back. He didn't expect her to.
When the taxi was gone, he checked his watch. Midnight. Plenty of time to go back and pack before his flight.
Starting up the street, he saw a sign: Club Sunderland. Then, walking further, he began to hear music, fatalistic, melancholy music that reminded him of the people of Buenos Aires, the way they strutted about and smiled as if to mask their hurt.