Abigail – The Avenging Agent: The agent appears again (2 page)

Nameless people came and fussed over her
for two hours.

The first person cut
her long hair, it fell in bunches on her knees and dropped softly to the floor.
He colored her hair almond brown and styled it in a short bob that revealed her
ears. Another pierced her ears with thin gold hoop earrings.

As they colored and shampooed her hair,
and pierced her ears, Abigail understood that everything was changing, including
her profession. There was no chance of ever going back to her office or
representing clients in court.

No mirror was placed in
front of Abigail so she could not follow the changes as they were unfolding.   Now
someone else stood before her and asked.

            “What shade
would you like your eyes to be?”

He opened tiny boxes
and Abigail viewed the colored lenses inside them.  She selected a dark blue
shade, understanding that the intention was to blur her distinctive features,
especially her eyes, which were almost colorless.  From this moment, she would
lose the nickname “Pale Eyes”, given her at the Bedouin encampment where she grew
up.

            “What’s
your name?” a voice behind her asked and she answered right back:

            “Abigail”
and shivered as she realized that her name would also change.

            “From today, you are Rania,”
Barak announced.  Abigail Ben-Nun was assassinated yesterday and her burial
will take place tomorrow at noon.”

Another unfamiliar man faced her, and
two flashes of his camera made her screw up her eyes that were still tearing from
the contact lenses they had just inserted.  She understood she was being
photographed to update her records with a new identity.

One after another, the
nameless people left the apartment. A mirror was placed before her and Abigail
regarded her reflection with curiosity.  The reflection looking back at her was
a different woman.  She burst out laughing and pointed at her.  She felt a
twinge in her heart.  Tears welled up in her eyes
,
and she knew the blue
contact lenses she was wearing were not the reason.

People went to the home
of the real murder victim in Jaffa, to talk to Pamela’s parents and reach a clandestine
agreement with them.  They did not reveal that her murder had been an error and
both her parents were surprised by the generous offer of compensation of one
hundred and fifty thousand shekels.

            “What for
and why?” the weeping mother asked.

            “If you
agree to a joint funeral,”

            “A joint
funeral?  But Pamela will be buried in her own grave, right?

            “Of
course.  The Ministry of Defense will arrange for the burial and take care of
the headstone bearing her name.”

            “So why are
you arranging a joint funeral?” the father pressed.

            “Firstly,
nothing will detract from your daughter Pamela’s funeral but we are asking you
to agree to her burial in the south, at a prestigious site, near a famous
Bedouin encampment in the Negev.  The parents stared at one another and turned
back to look at the spokesmen.

“It’s the birthplace of
her employer, Adv. Abigail Ben Nun, who will also be buried there on the same
day, at the same time.”

            “Ah, I
understand” the father replied and glanced at his wife because he had only just
grasped that the attorney was apparently also murdered.

“That’s why they want to compensate us.”

Beyond that, nothing further was
explained to the parents, and the compensation and payment of their daughter’s
burial costs sufficed them.  They also had no problem with the presence at the
funeral of the lawyer’s numerous acquaintances and family.

Barak and San debated whether to allow
Abigail to participate in her own and Pamela’s funeral and sought the counsel
of a professional.  They took pains not to reveal the identity of the parties
involved despite their concerns they would discover her.

            “Hmm,” Peter, the
organization’s psychologist, considered the question.

            “It’s
important to check what the deceased feels about it and you have to consider
the reaction of the mourners among whom he will appear in his new image.” He
looked at San and Barak.

            “I approve
because it is an important milestone for him, to end one incarnation in one
stroke, before the…hmm.”

            “Yes, but
what about him seeing his family?”

            “That will
be a painful encounter but what will he do if he bumps into other old
acquaintances from his previous life?” He said and added:

            “I am also considering the
feelings generated by an emotionally charged meeting at the burial.”

The announcement of Pamela’s funeral and
the location of the burial place near the Ka’abiah tribe in the Negev only
appeared the day it was to take place. There was no mention of Abigail though
the news spread on the grapevine that it would also be the day of the funeral
of the assassinated secret agent.

A huge crowd turned up, a mix of two
families:  that of the victim from Jaffa and Abigail’s family. Abigail’s relatives,
her colleagues
,
and strangers came to pay their respects to the renowned
hostage, who had escaped almost a year earlier from her Iranian captors.

Abigail attended the joint funeral.
 
She stood at
a distance, melding into the huge crowd.  Large sunglasses shielded her blue
eyes, and though she felt like Abigail, she knew she looked like Rania.

Both the ‘Mossad’ agents, Barak and San,
were present at the funeral and covertly scanned the crowd.  San signaled Barak
to pay attention to a man, who insisted on standing close to the grave.  His
face was partly hidden by a handkerchief, but his eyes were taking in
everything going on around him.  San drew Barak’s attention to a distant path,
where two people observed the mourners and flashes of light made it clear that
they were photographing the funeral.

During the funeral, Abigail was
heartbroken. It was difficult for her to bear what she saw.  She watched the
members of her family and mourned with them in their grief.  She had forgotten
about Pamela, her secretary, who had been killed instead of her and she cried
when she saw her loved ones, who surrounded the grave.  Clearly, her family had
no idea that the figure wrapped in shrouds, now being interred, was not their
beloved daughter. They embraced one another and cried as they watched Pamela’s
burial.

Abigail stared forlornly at her mother
as she grasped the hand of little Arlene, her granddaughter, and Abigail’s only
child.  She saw her heartbroken brother and sisters and dumbly followed the crippled,
limping figure of Adam Ayalon, the father of her daughter, the Judge, who had
been her partner during their mission to Russia.  He covered his eyes, bitterly
weeping over his partner, Abigail, who had escaped together with him in a
daring operation.

Two days later, under cover of dark,
another grave was dug with no one else present. The gravediggers took care to
work three graves away from the new mound under which Pamela had been interred. 
They laid new wreaths on the new mound with Abigail’s name on them as well as
other floral tributes, which they removed from Pamela’s grave. They added black
ribbons to them that bore the name of Abigail Ben Nun.

A month later they erected a headstone,
on which they inscribed:

To
our mother, daughter, and sister

Adv.
Abigail
Ben Nun

Naima
- of the Ka’abiah Tribe

Who
courageously escaped imprisonment by the enemy

And
was killed by monstrous villains

1985
– 2014

M.H.D.S.R.I.P

Only three people on
earth knew that this grave was a fake.

No one could have
guessed that the tombstone covered a pile of tidily rolled shrouds that looked
as if they wound around a corpse but were empty.

* * *

“Hi, Abigail!” she
heard

            “Yes,
what?” she replied and turned around, and blushed when she realized that she
had forgotten again.

            “Oh, it’s
difficult to overcome the instinct and even harder to get used to my new name”
she declared when Barak approached her.  He embraced her shoulders and laughed,
saying:

           
“Let’s agree that if it depended on me I would only let you err
one more time.”

            “Only one?”

            “Believe
me, that’s one time too many because out there, where it counts, you wouldn’t
even get a single chance.  Just one mistake could steal your fate.

            “Oh, I
know.”

            “No, we think you’re taking
this too lightly so, we’ve brought someone in to help you.”  He said and
stepped back.

 A curly-headed man
appeared from behind him.  The t-shirt he wore barely covered his broad chest
and revealed his powerful muscular arms. In spite of his solid body, there was
something gentle about him because his curls and the expression in his eyes
softened the physical impression he made.  As he drew closer, she expected to
hear him speak gently and was surprised by the subdued tones of his voice.

            “Hello, my name is Khalil
and I know that you’re called Rania.

Abigail noticed his brown eyes and tried
to recall what was so familiar about their expression and suddenly remembered. 
He resembled Sharif, who had rescued her from captivity and died in the
operation to release her.  She would never forget that expression.

            “Mush mumkin!”
(It’s impossible!) Burst out of her mouth in Arabic and she saw it sparked a
reaction in the man’s eyes.

            “What is
your connection to Sharif?” She asked quietly.

            “I’m his
brother.”

            “What?!
Good God!  Why didn’t you say so?”

            “I didn’t
think it would matter to anyone.”

            “I don’t believe it!” she
cried out, hugged him then immediately withdrew in embarrassment and asked:

            “Did you
know who I am and what your brother, Sharif, did for me?”

            “Yes.”

            “Is that
why you’re here?”

            “That’s
almost right.”

            “Then why,
exactly?”

            “He contributed
in his way, and I contribute in mine.”

            “Wow!  Seeing but not
believing!” she said emotionally and was insulted when he announced:

“Enough, we’re wasting time,” and
pushed her.  She fell flat on the floor and yelled:

“Are you crazy?!”

“No,” he said and stared down at
her.

“I also don’t understand how you
managed till now,” he said in his deep bass voice.

“Is that the way to fall?!”

“You’re insane!”

She got up and dusted off her
clothes.

            “Sharif would not be proud of you,” she
claimed, “he didn’t save us just to have us meet his idiot brother. What’s
more, he would never hit a woman.”

Khalil laughed out loud and even appeared
to enjoy the situation.  At that moment, Barak approached them and saw how
angry Abigail was.

            “I see you’ve become
acquainted.  But that’s all for today.  You will meet again, same place,
tomorrow morning.”

            “That’s out of the question!” Abigail
sputtered.

Barak turned from Abigail to Khalil.
 Then Khalil spoke in his deep voice:

“Perhaps it
is
unfortunate that I came today, but I know that Sharif would not have tried to
save people who weren’t intrinsically moral.  I’m certain of that.”

“Who is intrinsically moral?” Barak
expressed surprise, and Abigail looked deep into Khalil’s eyes as she declared:

“Sharif sent Khalil to me and
tomorrow morning,  I intend to be here at precisely eight o’clock.”

On her way back Abigail tormented
herself about the unfortunate encounter.  It reminded her of the painful days
that she had not been able to recover from till now.  Tears choked her throat,
but she managed to control herself until she came home and the moment she
opened the door she ran and collapsed on her bed.

Suddenly it was as if the smell of the
moldy wet sand she had forgotten about for months, overpowered her again and
the pain that plagued her ankles exactly where the ropes had bound them,
returned.  The ring she wore sent a tiny stream of shocks up her finger and
turned dark green, giving expression to her stirred emotions.

It was difficult for her, and she
yearned to speak to someone.  She pulled the telephone closer and dialed Adam’s
number.  Without giving her actions much consideration, she listened to the
ringing of the phone but there was no answer and she replaced the receiver.

Her father’s image gazed at her from the
portrait she had painted of him from memory over a period of weeks because she
had no pictures of him.  It happened after his murder in an explosion in the desert,
and it had been important for her to memorialize him.  She examined the eyes of
the image of her father and recalled piling black paint onto his irises to
deepen his gaze so that it focused on her and accompanied her everywhere she
moved in the room.

Just then, the phone rang and she picked
up the call. 

            “Who is
that?” The caller asked.  She recognized the voice of her partner on the
mission and their imprisonment, Justice Adam Ayalon.

            “It’s me, Adam.
It’s me.” She yelled, happy to hear his voice but, suddenly, he screamed
crazily in her ear:

            “Abigail?! Wait, how can you
call me?  Good God!  How can you talk to me after I attended your funeral and
saw them burying you?”

At that moment, she grasped what a grave
mistake she had made, and banged down the phone in a panic.  She beat her face,
stared at the painting and murmured:

            “Oh,
Ya
'
Baba,”
(Oh, Father) and she shook her head from side to side.  She realized she would
have to deal with her error, and she called San at once.  When he answered, she
burst out emotionally:

            “Oh, San, I made a mistake
and called the judge, I called Adam.”

            “You're not serious!  Why?”

            “I don’t know what happened
to me.  I was weeping, I remembered and that’s what I did, without thinking. 
God, what do we do now?”

            “Just tell me if he
recognized your voice and what you talked about?”

            “Yes, he did.  He called me
by my name, and when he began to ask questions, I put down the phone without
answering anything.”

            “Try again and remember. 
It’s important; repeat the whole conversation.  What did you say to him?”

            “I
told Adam it was me, without mentioning my name, but he recognized my voice and
shouted my name.”  Her voice rose anxiously:  “He also asked how I was speaking
to him after he saw them bury me!  San, what will happen?  Is all lost?”

            “Just a second, let’s stop
and think.  If you didn’t tell him, then nothing is lost.  There’s a good
chance he will think he made a mistake
,
and that is why she terminated
the call.”  She heard San continue:

            “The mistake was ours.”

            “Was it your mistake?  Why? 
I don’t understand.”

           
“Of course, we made a mistake.  Listen, disconnect the phone
right now.  You will have a new number tomorrow.  And, Abigail, ah…Rania, from
this second, don’t answer the phone again until the number changes.”

When she put down the receiver, her
hands shook, and the phone immediately began ringing again.  She was startled,
and she reached out for the phone as if she’d been bitten by a snake, but then
stopped.  Adam was calling her, still dumbfound after recognizing Abigail’s
voice, wondering if he hadn’t imagined it.  When she didn’t answer, he called
San, who had just finished talking to a very distressed Abigail.

            “Yes, Adam” San greeted him,
having recognized the caller’s number.

            “Listen, something strange
happened to me.  Unbelievable, but someone called
,
and I realized it was
our Abigail.  Yes, I know it’s impossible and no, San, I wasn’t dreaming.  Say
what you like, I am sure it was Abigail!”

            “Really?!  How could she
call you?”

            “Come on, San, I’m not
joking.  It was Abigail.  I would know her voice anywhere in the world.  I believe
it was Abigail!”

            “Okay, if you insist.  Who
am I to tell you anything different?  Just so long as it’s clear
,
you’ll
have to check out whether it was a call from heaven or hell.

            “Enough! Come on, really.  I’m
deadly serious.”

            “Adam, please be logical,
what do you want me to say, that you’re right?

Adam sighed.

            “I’m prepared to swear it
was her and no one else.  If only I could meet with her just one more time.”

Adam
heard a deep sigh on the
other end of the line.

            “And what would you say if
you were to meet with her?”

            “Ah, that…perhaps we should
go on a mission of vengeance, on an operation that…Well, that’s enough, I’m
talking nonsense.”  He guffawed briefly and continued.  “I can’t get over the
stupidity of her death.”

            “Did you say ‘stupidity,'
Adam?”

            “Yes!
Because Abigail lay tied up on the wet sand for years and now, after such an incredible
rescue operation – boom, a shot in the head and it’s all over.”

There was silence on the line, and Adam
said,

            “Well, at least, let’s wish
one another a good night.”

            “Yes, pleasant dreams,
Adam,” San said, terminated the conversation and immediately called Barak.

“Hi, Barak, guess what!  We have another
bug.”

“What is it, this time?”

“She called the Judge.”

“What?!  Tell me it isn’t true!”

“Yes, in a moment of weakness and
without thinking.”

“Oho,” a whistle escaped Barak’s lips. 
What did they say?  Where was she making the call, in hell?”

“That’s what I said to him.”

“Said to whom?”

“Look, she called him, he recognized her
voice and she hung up.  Of course, he called her back but she didn’t identify
herself.  When he began to ask questions…”

“Ah, so did he only recognize her
voice?”

“Yes, she was frightened and desperate
when she called me but completely convinced that she hadn’t spoken and hadn’t
identified herself.  I told her it was good she hung up so he would think it
was a wrong number.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“The Judge called me now and said it was
clear that it was Abigail that he would recognize her voice anywhere and argued
that there was no chance it was someone else.”

“Okay, so let’s think our way out of
this.”

“Look, I agreed with him that perhaps he
did recognize her voice
,
and he realized that was absurd.”

“Listen, Barak, this incident proves
that she’s not ready to go out into the field.  I told her to disconnect the
phone and tomorrow we will get her a new line.”

“Ah, good job and good night then.”

The following morning, Abigail came to
the meeting with Khalil and before he responded to her ‘Good Morning’ he asked
her if she was familiar with Krav Maga.

“It’s meant for self-defense, of course,
but I haven’t practiced it for years.”

“Really?” Khalil was surprised. “Did you
ever use it?  When did you need it?

“Twice.  I used it once when a woman
attacked me on the street and a second time when I was followed by a woman and
had to hit her, ah, kill her.” And she ignored Khalil’s response.

Abigail recalled the two-slant-eyed
women she had fought, who had been sent to kill her and at the same moment she
heard Khalil order her:

            “Defend yourself!”

He pushed her back but, this time, when
she almost fell, he put out an arm to slow her fall and clicked his tongue with
feigned concern.

            “Move Out! That wasn’t
good,” he declared:  “Rania, listen, you must always be prepared to respond. 
Krav Maga is street fighting
.
Anyone can turn on you and attack you.”

            “Really? And what about
turning the aggressor’s strength against him?