Chapter 43
Le Marais
Paris
Eliza Porter Elkins and Don Baker stood at the entry to Gerard Rosenfeld’s building on the Rue des Rosiers.
It was cool and dreary, but Eliza was sweating.
She could feel the beads of perspiration on her forehead and on the back of her neck.
There was no reason to be nervous. She was visiting a French citizen to ask him a few questions.
She could walk away anytime. There was no one scouring the city for her.
There was no red flag next to her name and work ID.
All the same, she was sweating. Now, at this advanced stage of her career, she finally knew how it felt to be an agent. She didn’t like it.
They found Rosenfeld’s name on the directory beside the front door.
“Don’t ring,” said Baker, grabbing her arm as she put her finger to the buzzer.
“Sorry,” said Eliza, ruffled. “I’m new to this. But what if he won’t let us in?”
“Leave that to me,” said Baker.
Just then, a resident exited the building. Baker led Eliza into the foyer before the door could close. They took the lift to the third floor. There were two apartments, one to either side of the landing. Neither door had a nameplate or a number.
“Do we just knock?” asked Eliza.
Baker shook his head. He was looking at something, and whatever it was, he didn’t like it. He took a few deliberate steps toward the door to their right. “Oh boy,” he whispered.
Eliza followed at his shoulder. “What is it?”
Baker crouched and pointed to a dark, gelatinous puddle on the tiled flooring. He tested the gob with a finger, rubbing it as if assaying its composition. “Blood.” He stood. “I’m guessing this is Rosenfeld’s place.”
Baker turned the doorknob. Unlocked. Not a good sign. He shot her a glance, then eased the door open. They listened for a moment. Not a sound. The silence was too much. Eliza couldn’t abide the notion of trespassing. You didn’t just walk into someone’s home unannounced.
“Bonj—”
“Shh!” Baker made a sign to shut up. “Wait here,” he said.
Eliza nodded. She was happy to let Baker go by himself. She put her hand on the doorframe, not that she needed to steady herself.
Baker advanced down the hall, opening a door to his left, another to his right, peering inside each room. She didn’t know someone could move so quietly, especially someone like Don Baker. It came to her that she didn’t know him at all. He glanced back at her and shook his head. No one was there.
Somewhere inside the building, a door slammed. A voice called out a name. A dog barked ferociously, then quieted. Eliza stepped inside the apartment and closed the door.
“Don,” she called, wondering if he was mad at her, if he was keeping quiet to spook her, payback for not having read him in to the situation earlier.
On the drive over, she’d finally given him the details of the conference underway since Wednesday at the élysée Palace.
A gathering of potentates from across the Gulf, with a view to formally enact a diplomatic and mercantile alliance between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Israel, with Bahrain and Qatar signing a separate nonbinding codicil.
(Though Qatar was sponsoring the talks, all parties agreed it had been too close to nearly all the regional terrorist entities—Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards—to be awarded full member status.) The agreement called for the establishment of permanent embassies in all signatory countries, along with the exchange of ambassadors, the relaxing of tariffs across a broad swath of products, and the opening of channels of communication between military commands.
It was a triumph of oil and technology over history and religion.
Arab oil and Israeli technology. The Holy Bible and the Quran had yielded to the modern scriptures of Forbes and Fortune.
This was the twenty-first century. There was no future in enmity.
It was time to put aside past grievances and embrace one another, warts and all.
As with all milestones in the region, it was hailed as a victory by some and as blasphemy by others.
Eliza was concerned about the latter group.
Over the past months, the Agency had picked up significant chatter about the coming conference.
Some was couched in language of those seeking to prevent an act of violence.
Far more, however, hinted at efforts to prevent an agreement from being signed and urging action to be taken. Violent action.
The president was adamant in his support of an agreement. It was the best chance to bring lasting peace to the region since the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948. Nothing could be permitted to derail the historic efforts.
For “nothing,” Eliza substituted Mac Dekker, and now, Ava Attal.
“Don?” she called out again.
“Eliza,” he answered in a quavering voice. “Get in here.”
Even so, she proceeded slowly. She was in no hurry to learn what had prompted Baker’s anxiety.
Bracing herself, she entered the living room.
It was the smell that told her something was wrong.
A sharp ferrous scent that prized at her nostrils and threatened to turn her stomach.
She was reminded of her youth and of bitter cold mornings hunting in the Smoky Mountains.
When field dressing a deer, the first action is to empty the carcass of internal organs.
She had been taught to insert the knife below the throat and cut all the way to the groin.
The pressure with which the intestines and stomach and liver burst from the ruptured cavity had amazed her.
Accompanying the exposed organs was the sharp ferrous scent of blood and offal and all the nasty things living creatures kept inside of them.
Eliza smelled that now. She noted the look of horror on Baker’s face.
She told herself to be ready. This was bad.
But nothing could have prepared her for the sight of the two individuals, man and woman—Rosenfeld and his wife?
—seated on the couch. Both were bound hand and foot and gagged.
Both had been shot in the head, the woman through the left eye, the man in the forehead; both shots had left powder burns.
The man’s belly had been cut open and his intestines—oily, gray, and coiled—had spread onto his arms and lap.
Eliza swung her head away, gagging. When she opened her eyes and somehow focused them, she was looking at a polished wooden table crowded with framed photographs.
She immediately recognized one of the men.
It was Itmar Ben-Gold, Israeli minister of defense, whom she’d met numerous times while at the State Department.
Shaking Ben-Gold’s hand was a slight, pleasant-looking man with a halo of frizzy gray hair.
It was the same frizzy gray hair that belonged to the dead man seated just feet from her.
“This wasn’t Mac,” said Baker.
“Then who?” It was difficult for Eliza to speak, let alone think. “Who, Don? We know he was here. We know he believed Rosenfeld could help him find Ava Attal. Who else would do this?”
Baker didn’t respond.
“Look at the pictures,” said Eliza, pointing the table.
“Rosenfeld was tied into the Israeli government. There’s the prime minister.
There’s Rabin. There’s Sharon. This is about this weekend.
Put two and two together. Ava Attal on the run.
The dead Saudis. Now this. There’s a reason Mac came to Paris this weekend.
He’s going to disrupt the conference. Don’t tell me it’s coincidence. ”
“What does Mac care about the peace conference?” asked Baker. “It has to be her.”
“Ava Attal did this?” demanded Eliza. “Tied them up. Tortured them. Police didn’t see her running from the apartment at four a.m. They spotted Mac Dekker.”
“Eliza, no.”
“Tell me if I’m wrong, Don, but isn’t this what he did in Iraq? Hunt down the bad guys, interrogate them, kill them. That was his job, right? Know what he said to me once? ‘Sooner or later, we always get ’em.’”
“You said you didn’t know him,” Baker retorted angrily.
“I lied,” said Eliza. “So sue me.”
“What the hell? When? Where?”
“Iraq. A million years ago. It’s none of your business. What does it matter, anyway?”
“If it didn’t matter, you would have told me in the first place,” said Baker. “Is that why you jumped on the red flag?”
“Of course not,” said Eliza. “There was no other choice, not this weekend. Not with what’s at stake.”
“You never gave him a chance.”
“The person at my desk doesn’t have that luxury.”
“Maybe,” said Baker. “Maybe not. I just wonder what else there is you’re not telling me.”
“You know all you need to,” said Eliza. “You’ll have to take my word for it.”
Baker looked away, lips pursed, shaking his head. “What if she’s doing the same thing we are?” he asked. “Ava Attal.”
“What’s that?” asked Eliza. “Trying to stop a bad guy from ruining the conference?”
“Yes, exactly that,” said Baker.
“Doesn’t play,” said Eliza. “If she knew something was up, all she had to do was go to her own people. Why keep silent? You’ve got it ass backwards, Don. She’s the one we’re after. Her and Mac.”
Baker gave her a look that let her know how he felt. Any other day, she’d have canned him for it. He shrugged violently. “You want to call the police?”
“No,” said Eliza, regaining her senses. “We can’t be tied up here all day answering questions. Like McGee said, best not to involve ourselves in police matters.”
But Baker wasn’t listening. Something had caught his attention.
“Don?”
“Check this out.” He kneeled to pick up a cell phone lying next to the sofa leg.
“So?” said Eliza. “We don’t have time to hack it. Maybe McGee can get some of his team on it.”
“Step back,” said Baker. “You don’t have to look if you don’t want to.”
Baker circled the sofa to Gerard Rosenfeld’s side.
Taking care to avoid the entrails, he took hold of Rosenfeld’s right arm.
Using his free hand, Baker selected Rosenfeld’s pointer finger and placed the tip in his mouth.
He kept it there for fifteen seconds, then removed it and dried it with his jacket.
Next, he took the phone he’d just found, activated the home screen, and pressed Rosenfeld’s now warm finger to the On button.
“Never,” said Eliza, looking on with disgust.
“Sometimes,” said Baker, showing her the phone, “you need a little luck.”
“It worked?” asked Eliza.
“We’re in,” said Baker.
“Son of a bitch,” said Eliza. Then: “Pardon my French.”
They moved into the kitchen and sat at the table, examining the phone’s apps.
The call register showed two calls to Yehudi Rosenfeld—Israeli country code, Jerusalem city code.
The first, made at 4:16 a.m., was an outgoing call that lasted ninety seconds.
The second, at 4:21, was an incoming call that lasted fifteen minutes.
A text message to Yehudi Rosenfeld, read by the recipient at 4:14, said simply, They know you are working with Tariq al-Nayan-al Sabah.
“He goes by TNT,” said Baker.
“I know who he is,” said Eliza. “I’ve met him on several occasions. He’s as smooth as they come.”
“If he’s working with Rosenfeld, that means he’s working with Itmar Ben-Gold.”
“Give me a minute to process this.”
“Gerard Rosenfeld texted his brother,” said Baker, “then called him when he didn’t hear back right away. Probably left a message on his machine. Yehudi wakes up, sees the text and the call, and promptly freaks out. He calls Gerard to get the full download. They’re the ones we should be after.”
“All the chatter was right.”
“It usually is,” said Baker. “Now we know what exactly it was all about.”
Eliza picked up the photograph of Itmar Ben-Gold. “He’s minister of defense. That means he has say over Mossad, Shin Bet, all their security apparatus.”
“What if Ava Attal did go to him?” said Baker.
“And he shut her down,” said Eliza. “He’d have to if he’s working with Tariq al-Sabah.”
“So she took matters into her own hands.”
“But why, Don? Tell me why.”
“To do the right thing?” said Baker. “Wouldn’t you?”
Eliza Porter Elkins didn’t have an answer. She hated herself for it. “So what do we do now?”
“We do what Mac’s going to do,” said Baker. “Find TNT.”