Dark Waters
Other Books by Chris Goff
A Rant of Ravens
Death of a Songbird
A Nest in the Ashes
Death Takes a Gander
A Sacrifice of Buntings
A Thriller
Chris Goff
New York
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Chris Goff
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-62953-192-2
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-62953-372-8
e-ISBN: 978-1-62953-205-9
Cover
design by Lori Palmer
Crooked Lane Books
2 Park Avenue, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10016
First Edition: September 2015
For Danielle, who took me to Israel and became the catalyst.
T
he smell of falafel hit Ben Taylor’s nose the moment he opened the door. For the hundredth time, he cursed the preponderance of eating establishments around Zinah Dizengoff Square. The mingling of odors created a non-Kosher smell that oozed from the surrounding buildings and wafted up from the outdoor dining areas. The only respite came at sundown on Friday, when every business establishment in Tel Aviv closed for Shabbat.
“Luce, we need to get moving.”
“I’m coming, Daddy.”
His daughter sounded annoyed, but Taylor cut her some slack. It was tough being eleven. Especially since he had picked her up and set her down halfway around the world—without her mom and without her friends.
“We don’t want to be late.”
“I said, I’m cooooming!” Lucy dragged out her final word as she stomped through the bedroom doorway, tying up her blond hair with a ponytail band. “Have you seen my Coach bag?”
Translation, pink purse. Her mother had given it to her the day before they had left for Israel. Lucy carried it everywhere.
Taylor glanced around the sparsely furnished apartment. To his left, a small entertainment center faced a sofa littered with the
remnants of yesterday’s
New York Times
. Between the entertainment center and sofa, a rickety end table served as a catchall.
No purse.
Behind the sofa, a small, empty table and four metal chairs segued into a kitchen of miniature proportions.
“I don’t see it, Luce.” He glanced at his watch. “Six minutes until the fountain goes off. You either go without the purse or we miss the show.”
Taylor figured that would get her moving. Lucy liked their daily routine—heading into the square, stopping to watch the fountain in all its glory, and then walking along Sharon Street to Alon, cutting through the residential neighborhoods, past the dusty school yard and down the block to the strip mall where Alena’s office was tucked away in the basement. Following Lucy’s treatment, they would saunter back, taking their time to window-shop. Taylor liked the bookstore. Lucy liked the Pizza Hut. Taylor figured it reminded her of home.
“I
need
my bag,” she said.
“Did you check the bathroom?”
Lucy dashed down the hall and came back seconds later, flaunting the purse on her arm. Cropped blue jeans, black flip-flops, and coral-tipped toenails completed the “all-American kid next door” look. She struck a model’s pose with her little-girl frame. “Ta da!”
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s move it.”
She stepped around him, swishing back her ponytail, her white tank top riding up on her tanned stomach. Only her pale face and the dark circles under her eyes belied the picture of health. It frightened him.
Taylor keyed the deadbolt and led the way down two flights of stairs and through the garden bereft of chairs, benches, or plants. Across a wide expanse of gravel, the back door to the bar catercorner to the apartment complex stood ajar, propped open by a large,
black, plastic trash can. Straight ahead was the back entrance to the apartment building offices.
He stuck to the sidewalk, skirting both doorways, and held open the garden gate. Heading across the street toward the square, Lucy edged closer.
On their first day in Tel Aviv, they’d learned that, in 1994, Dizengoff Square had been the site of a suicide bombing. A bus trundling down Dizengoff Street had passed underneath the elevated pedestrian square and exploded, killing twenty-two people and injuring forty-eight others. The story had terrified Lucy.
In Israel, suicide bombings were never a thing of the past. While they had gotten used to seeing soldiers with guns and being searched every time they entered the grocery store or mall, the military presence served as a constant reminder of the possibility for violence.
Now, starting up the rise toward the fountain, Lucy dogged Taylor’s heels. He knew the gathering throng spooked her. She possessed a fear of crowded places—and teenagers—and Dizengoff Square served as a Mecca for Tel Aviv teens. Still, her love of the spectacle of the fountain trumped her anxiety.
The
Fire and Water Fountain
stood in the middle of the overpass. Created by Jewish artist Yaakov Agam, the fountain was more entertainment than art. Four times daily, it spun to a pulsing musical beat, flashing a variety of colors and spewing fire and water into the air. The display was listed in every guidebook and on every website as “among the top ten things to do in Tel Aviv.”
Today the square seemed busier than usual. Young and old, Jewish and non-Jewish, soldiers and civilians crowded the walkways. People lined the waist-high walls and filled the benches that encircled the square, waiting for the show to begin.
Ahead of them, Taylor spotted their landlord, Ofer Federman, coming toward them. A tall man with close-cropped hair and dark
glasses, he towered a head above the crowd. As always, he carried a bag full of crepes, purchased every day at 10:50 a.m. from the stand on the opposite side of the square.
“
Shalom aleichem
, Lucy. Ben.”
“
Shalom,
Mr. Federman,” Lucy answered, plastering herself to Taylor’s side. He squeezed her shoulders and nodded to Federman as they passed.
“Look, Daddy, there’s a seat.” Lucy grabbed Taylor’s hand and tugged him forward. One-half of a blue bench sat empty, the other half occupied by an olive-skinned man in a black, short-sleeved shirt, clutching a small computer.
As Lucy scooted onto the bench, the man glanced up at Taylor. “Together?” he asked, first in Hebrew, then in English.
“Yes,” Taylor said. “But we’re here every day, sometimes twice a day. I can stand.”
“You may have it.” The man’s accent made him hard to understand, and he no longer looked at Taylor but at some point beyond. Taylor started to turn around, to see what captured the man’s attention, when the man stood up.
“I insist,” he said.
“It’s okay, really,” Taylor said, but the man hurried off.
Lucy scooted over and patted the bench beside her. “Front row seats.”
Taylor smiled.
They spent the next five minutes watching the people filling the square. Lucy pressed up close to his side, and he draped his arm lightly around her shoulders. It was these moments he cherished most, the times when she seemed just like any other child.
A commotion beside them caused Taylor to turn. A computer clattered to the pavement. A man on a bench to their right clutched his throat. A tall man in sunglasses stood behind him, one arm snaked around the seated man’s shoulders, one arm held out to the
side. Sunlight flashed off the blade of a knife in his hand. Blood gushed from the victim’s throat.
Then a shot rang out.
A red circle bloomed on the assailant’s forehead. His head snapped back. His arms flew up. The knife clattered to the concrete, and both men dropped to the ground.
Taylor reacted. Pulling Lucy to her feet, he pushed her forward, toward the cover of the fountain wall. A moment later, the fountain cranked into motion, its pulsing music and erupting fire whipping the crowd into a bigger frenzy. People screamed and ran for cover. A young mother pushing a baby carriage veered to the right, the carriage on two wheels. Someone knocked into Lucy, sending her sprawling onto the pavement.
“Lucy!” Taylor grabbed the back of her shirt.
She scrambled to her knees, her face bloodied. Grabbing her unzipped purse, she frantically scooped up its spilled contents—a cell phone she carried in case of emergency, lip gloss, and a small Hello Kitty wallet.
An Israeli soldier nearby shouldered his gun to return fire. When a bullet slammed into the sidewalk near his feet, near Lucy, the soldier jumped for cover.
“Move!” Taylor yanked his daughter up. He dragged her closer to the fountain and pushed her down behind the concrete wall. “Stay down!”
Hunching over his daughter, he put his body and the whirling fountain between her and the shooter. A third shot ricocheted off the edge of the fountain above his head. Was the sniper gunning for him?
Taylor pressed tighter the fountain wall, closer to Lucy. He knew he had taken a chance coming here, but what else could he have done? Lucy’s life hung in the balance. He knew Alena would save her, just as long as he didn’t get her killed first.
B
atya Ganani lowered her rifle and stared down at the square from her fourth-floor perch in disbelief. Her assignment had been to oversee the exchange and provide backup in the event of a double cross. Now Cline and another man were dead, and the contact had escaped with the USB drives. Colonel Brodsky wasn’t going to be happy.
She replayed the scene in her mind. There had been no trouble with the exchange. The men had passed in the square and exchanged drives. No one seemed to notice or care. Both men carried tablets and stopped in the square to verify the exchanged information. Then Cline’s contact had nodded, and another man had stepped forward and slit Cline’s throat from behind. She had done the only thing she could do. She had put a bullet through the forehead of the accomplice. When she finally had a clean shot at the contact, the trajectory was low. The bullet clipped the wall of the fountain. She’d missed.
The sirens on the street grew louder, and she cursed her luck. Soon the building would be crawling with soldiers and police. It was time to go.
Picking up the rifle, she folded the sling close to the barrel and palmed the weapon near the trigger, holding it upright against her back. She only needed to get to the hotel’s trash chute without the
rifle being seen. She wore indistinguishable clothing—black pants, black shoes, a wig, and a black, short-sleeved T-shirt that showed off her cleavage. Experience told her that few men, or women, would notice anything else about her. A loose black jacket helped conceal the weapon.
The hallway of the hotel was deserted, the beige carpet and walls broken up by closed white doors. In case any residents peeked out of the peepholes of their doors, she kept her head down, the hair of the wig obscuring her face. She avoided the main elevators and exits and made her way to the end of the hall.
She stepped into the small service room, dropped the rifle into the trash chute, and made her way to the service stairs. By now, soldiers and police would have cordoned off the lobby. The stairs led to the kitchen and then to the basement, where the trash chute emptied. From there, a separate set of stairs led to the street.
She encountered no one as she made her way down from the fourth floor to the kitchen. The door creaked softly as she pushed it open.
“Who is there?” a young soldier demanded.
Ganani considered playing the frightened guest, but she couldn’t risk being detained. Stepping into the kitchen, she flashed identification.
“
Yasam
,” she said, the lie coming easy. She slapped her credential holder shut before the soldier could note the differences between it and the shield of the Israel Police Counter-Terror Unit.
“You don’t dress like
Yasam
.”
“We had a tip. I was placed here to appear like a guest.” She did her best to sound annoyed, making it clear it was not his place to question her. “Why aren’t these stairs being guarded?”
The soldier, all of eighteen, kept his eyes glued right where she wanted them. “I am guarding them.”
“Then you need to be in the stairwell,
Turái
.” Private. She spoke gently, as if addressing a child. Ten years of added experience left her feeling generous.
The private glanced up at her face and then back at her breasts. “I was told to stay near the door.”
“By whom?” As the seconds ticked by, her feelings of generosity waned.
“The
samál
.”
She drew a breath that made her breasts rise. “Go tell your sergeant there must be two people here—one by the door and one in the stairwell.”
“I have orders not to leave.”
Enough already. “What is your name, Private?”
The boy glanced up again.
“Tell me your name.”
“I don’t want any trouble.”
“Then go tell your sergeant.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He saluted and turned on his heels.
Once he disappeared, Ganani wasted no time. The basement entrance was hidden behind a five-tiered metal cart covered with jars of pickles, olives, and jam. Pushing the cart out of the way, she tugged open the wooden door.
Kicking a baluster free of the railing, Ganani secured the door from the inside. Then, scrambling down the wooden steps, she retrieved her rifle from the mound of bagged trash beneath the chute, slung it across her back, and moved quickly across the dirt floor to the outside door.
More steps climbed to the street entrance that opened out onto a small concrete pad crowded with trash and recycling bins, nearly a block from the main entrance of the hotel. Her car was parked across the street directly in front. Looking through the dirty, barred window beside the door, Ganani could see three soldiers
standing on the opposite sidewalk. These were not young men and would not be so easy to boss around. One of them leaned against her black Volvo C70.
Pressing her back to the exit, she drew a deep breath. It wouldn’t be long before someone inside discovered the basement. From her position by the window, she could hear footsteps in the kitchen. Best to take her chances outside.
She was reaching for the door handle when a commotion in front of the hotel saved her. The young soldier who had refused to give her his name bolted into the street. From snatches of conversation, she ascertained that he had returned to the kitchen and found her gone. Now he sounded the alarm. Not to be left out of the action, the three soldiers near her car raced away behind him.
Ganani waited three counts and then slipped outside. She closed the door, jamming the handle with a trash cart from the outside, and moved swiftly to her car. Popping the trunk, she placed her rifle inside, along with her black wig, and shut the trunk. Sliding behind the wheel of her Volvo, she slipped on a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses and pulled the car into the street. A policeman on the next corner gestured her into the far lane and waved her on. Two turns later, she reached Ben Yehuda Street and was free of the area.
Rolling down the car windows, Ganani let the breeze ruffle her hair and strip away some of her tension. There were still things to do. First she needed to call her boss. Then she needed to find Cline’s contact.