Abigail – The Avenging Agent: The agent appears again (61 page)

            “Oh,
who would believe me?”  She thought, at once.

            Abigail
also held the view that Iranians had not yet produced sufficient uranium to use
in nuclear warheads and were, therefore, not equipped with missiles like these.
Above her stood a table with four metal legs and the tools that were visible on
it exuded the smell of oil and grease.  At this moment, she had no doubt that
she was at the entrance to the missile warehouse the ‘Mossad’ was searching
for.

            What
she didn’t know, of course, was that this arsenal was made up of many rooms
divided over two levels. The miserable mound that appeared on the surface
covered only the entrance to a vast plant in which nuclear warheads were
assembled on the missiles.

            The
lower level contained long-range missiles intended for use over distances of
thousands of miles.  On the upper level, short-range rockets aiming for several
or hundreds of miles were assembled.  On this level, they also manufactured
‘dirty nuclear’ warheads.  When they explode, there is no way to control the
contamination they cause in vast areas and to every living organism.

            Abigail
immediately pressed the center of her earplug. She straightened the thin cord
and prayed she would be answered quickly and as soon as contact was made, she
whispered:

“A little sandy
hill, a few miles from Naka,

I
see missiles with nuclear warheads.”

            Just
then, she heard voices approaching and immediately put away the cord, covered
her eyes with the scarf and slipped her hands back in the tie behind her back. 
She recognized the voice, it was Salamas.

            “No,
that isn’t right, don’t do that.  It’s forbidden (haram), believe me, she isn’t
worth the bullet in your revolver.”  

Abigail’s heart missed a beat and just
as she heard the weapon being cocked, she rolled aside in the direction of the
table she recalled.  She pulled out her hand pushed the scarf from her eyes and
kicked the feet she saw.  Naim fell down and a shot was released from his pistol. 
A second later she saw someone else’s legs approaching the table.  She heard
him panting with the effort and a lump of metal fell off the table onto the
head of the gunman.

            “Get
up, get out,” she heard.

            She
pulled the brown lump that was pressed to her body, under her dress, pressed
forcefully and broke the metallic tube, which was the detonator.  In the little
window on the narrow tube, the yellowish liquid began to spread out of the
ampule she had broken inside it.  Abigail knew that in the following half-hour,
the yellow acid would dissolve the cord that held the spring and release it and
that, in turn, would hit the firing pin and explode.

            She
pushed the explosive, which was still wrapped in brown paper under one of the pallets,
so that it would not be discovered by anyone entering the place in the next
half an hour.

            Salamas
had already left and she hurried after him.  When she heard the roar of a motorcycle,
she ran and pressed herself up against the hill.  But then she saw that Salamas
was sitting on it and waiting.  She jumped up onto the seat behind him and
grabbed hold of his clothes.  The huge bike leaped forward, Abigail pressed her
face against his back, but the wind blew in her ears and almost pulled the
hijab off her head.

            In
the distance, the first trees and roofs of the houses of the city began to
appear.  She whispered into his ears, trying to get above the whistling of the
wind, and tell him the last sentence Ali Akhbar had spoken:

            “At
seven o’clock in the yard of the hospital at Baku,” and he nodded to indicate
he could hear her.

            All
hell broke loose in the tunnel they had left.

            Hours
earlier, just as the blind-folded woman had been pushed into the fore-chamber
of the arsenal, Nabil called in and proudly announced that the prisoner was in
their hands.

            In
fact, many hours earlier, during the night when the reactors were aflame, Nabil
had contacted a senior officer in the Basij Militia and the Revolutionary
Guards, by the same name – Nabil. He told him about a woman, who came from the
direction of the reactor.

            “Are
you sure?  How did she look?”

            “I
don’t know, ah…I didn’t manage to see her,” he stuttered.

            Now,
when he reported to Nabil, the senior officer, that this woman had been
apprehended, the man asked again.

            “And
now?  Did you notice how she looked?”  And he added, at once:  "Tall, with
light-colored eyes?”

            “Yes,
yes,” Nabil said hurriedly because that was the first thing he noticed about
her face.

            “We’re
coming right away,” Nabil shouted hoarsely, “Guard her closely.”  Nabil pressed
on the speaker and heard him loud and clear.

            “Listen,
Habibi (my friend), that is an important one you’ve caught there!  She carried
out many attacks and we’ve been looking for her for a long time.  Two days ago,
she got away from a boat on the Naka beach after killing its Captain.  Keep her
alive and don’t do anything stupid.  I am sending my people.”  And before he
hung up, he added:

            “Ah,
she’s also dangerous!”

            This
was also heard by Naim, who was sitting at the binoculars.  He decided there
was no point in waiting and he would take care of her and finish her off right
now.  He was convinced he would be lauded for his initiative, so he pulled out
his revolver and went to the fore-chamber and, just then, met up with Salamas,
who had come to release Abigail.

            Now,
after her escape the place was in turmoil.

            When
a shot was heard from Naim’s pistol, Nabil entered the fore-chamber and
discovered Naim, lying dead under a lump of metal.  He yelled and fired in the air
because he knew he had now lost something much greater than just any dangerous
agent, who had succeeded in escaping.  He now feared for his life, which
clearly he knew that from this moment they do not value more than a piece of the
pie.

            About
ten minutes later, a vehicle for transporting prisoners arrived.  Steel mesh
surrounded the back and the rear doors could only be opened from inside the
driver’s cabin.  Two officers, who commanded Iran’s armed forces and security
operations, got out of the cabin.  They had both been sent to the place and as
they sped along the roads from Naka, they had sounded their sirens.

            On
the way, they chatted about what they were going to do to this prisoner, about
what information they would get out of her and understood they had caught a big
fish in their net. They anticipated the praise and adulation their superiors
would heap on him.

            “Do
you know what?  It seems she’s been caught too quickly, this time,” Liam
conjectured.  Nabil nodded.  Out of the vehicle, they now hurried inside,
almost running, out of curiosity to see the agent they had been talking about,
who in addition to her special activity, as they were told, was also gorgeous.

            “Where
is she?” Liam asked enthusiastically and was led the room, where Naim’s body
still lay beneath the block of metal.

            “Naim
tried to shoot her…she got away from here and I…really don’t understand and
don’t know how and who killed him,” Nabil stuttered and choked.  He hurried to
salute and saw how Liam exchanged glances with his partner, Nabil.

            “Listen,
we are both called Nabil, but only one of us is going to stay."

His
remark was like a judgment and when arms grabbed Nabil, who had gone white in
the face, he hissed:

            “Not
here, outside, leave him there on the sand – as carrion for the birds and
beasts.”

            Nabil
was dragged away roughly and the shot that was heard a minute later caused no
more than a blink of the senior officers’ eyes.  No one noticed the explosive
device under the wooden pallet, in which the acid had been bubbling for
twenty-one minutes now and had nine minutes left before it would explode.

            Five
identical vehicles surrounded the tunnel.  Armed and masked soldiers got out of
three of them and spread out all around, to form a vast defensive circle.
People in civilian dress got out of the other cars.  They were the senior
officials, sent by the supreme leader when he heard of the capture of the
agent. 

High
hopes rested on the
secrets she would divulge about the ‘Mossad’ and they had come in person to
hear them straight from her beautiful lips.  These hopes were founded on the
stories, Ismat, the senior interrogator at the Revolutionary Guards’ building
had told them.

One of the four paused beside the corpse
of Nabil, who had been shot to death only a few minutes earlier, and was lying
on the sand.  He had known him to be one of the most courageous and successful
soldiers and therefore, he was surprised and pointed at him.

            “What
happened to him?”

            “Move
that pig!” someone yelled and when the people moved on he joined them with a
shrug.

            They
entered the building in an aura of importance, accompanied by dozens of people,
who ran ahead of them and behind them, clumsily stepped back again to the two
senior officers, who awaited them.  Liam pointed to Naim’s body and declared:

            “The
idiot decided to kill her himself, and here’s the result.”

            “I
don’t believe it!  We had her in our hands and…” Nabil’s words were interrupted
by an explosion that echoed across a radius of many miles and rolled even
further.  The explosion hit the ammunition lying in this enormous arsenal and
from that second a chain of blasts were set off that followed one after another.

            Within
minutes, gigantic craters opened up, filled with metal pieces and fragments of
missiles.  Clothes flew into the air and burst into flame on the ground and
blackened everything in the area.  The fire burned for almost two days, lapped
at dismantled smoldering bomb parts and sent smoke up so high that it even hide
the sun's light.

            In
the hour that followed the whole area was closed to traffic and in the adjacent
town cars drove around between the houses asking people to evacuate their
homes.

            “Please
leave your homes.  You may take only one bag.  Please get on the trucks
assembled at the center of town.  I repeat, come out right now!”

            All
through the morning, explosions were heard and towards noon, helicopters
dropped thousands of gallons of sea water.  They emptied the containers hanging
from their underbellies and rushed back to the Caspian Sea to fill up with
water again.  The intense heat made the water sizzle and evaporate and yellow
smoke arose, accompanied by the sharp smell of gunpowder which made it
difficult to breathe.

            Fire
engines arrived at the area of the explosion only the following day and covered
the smoldering objects with sand and foam.  Thick smoke continued to filter in
from the buried and glowering particles of metal and mixed with the smoke that
was still emanating from the ruins of the smoking reactors in the distance.

            The whole region looked like
a post-nuclear explosion site and in the days that followed experts came to
examine the levels of radioactive contamination of the air.  Only ten weeks
after that, were the inhabitants permitted to return to their homes.

            The vast arsenal of nuclear
weapons, upon which Iran had placed its hopes, was annihilated and destroyed,
and although nothing was publicized officially, the reports that reached the
world press were not denied.                         

*
* *

            At
six twenty-five, Salamas’ motorcycle entered the outskirts of Baku.  He
accelerated to reach the city’s large hospital in time.  At six minutes to
seven he roared into the great square.

             A
lone helicopter stood at the end of the field, its engines roared and massive
rotors on its roof and tail spun and created powerful currents of air around
it.

            Abigail
got off the motorcycle, shook Salamas’ hand and paused for a few seconds to
gaze into his eyes.  She hesitated momentarily, then hugged the man and planted
a swift kiss on his cheek before running to the helicopter.

            Five
minutes earlier a female officer asked the one-eyed man, who was sitting beside
her at the end of the helicopter, and seemed particularly tense.

            “Excuse
me, who are we waiting for?”

            “For
Naima.”

            “Ah,
for a woman?”

            He
nodded and leaned back, closing his eye.

            “Who
is she?”  she asked

            “I
still don’t know,” he replied, without opening his eye.

            When
Abigail boarded the helicopter, she clutched her hijab on her head and the rucksack
on her back and the passengers stared at this tall Muslim woman, as her
colorless eyes scanned the faces of those present.  The woman soldier noticed
how people rose and only sat back down after she had taken her seat.

            The
helicopter began its perpendicular take off.  San, who was sitting in front of
her, pointed to the pilot and said out loud:

            “Barak
is on the line and is talking to the pilot,” when the woman suddenly spoke,
addressing her remarks to the pilot:

            *
* *