Sam Bourne - The Final Reckoning

‘I'm afraid that has all been taken care of. When you leave here, your passports will be returned to you, stamped in all the right places. Check your bank statement when you get back home, Dr Merton. You'll see that you withdrew the right amount of cash to pay for two tickets to New York. There are two boarding pass stubs as well. My young associate tells me you'll even qualify for frequent flier miles.’ He offered only the smallest smile. ‘The technology makes so much more possible these days. In your father's time, for him and his comrades, it was only what they could forge with ink and paper. And still they did remarkable things.’

Tom got to his feet and took a step forward. He was now just a few feet away from the President. He towered over him, yet the old man – whose biographer had branded him a coward – did not look in the least bit scared.

‘I won't insult you, Mr Byrne, by reminding you of the risks of physically assaulting a head of state. Especially an eighty-four-year-old one. Even a very good lawyer like you could not talk your way out of that.’

Tom stepped back, though he remained standing. ‘None of what you're saying matters. You've admitted to us that you ordered our abduction, that you burgled Rebecca's home and the home of her father, that you were involved in the death of Henry Goldman. We just have to tell the world what you've already confessed!’

‘And who would believe you?’ The emphasis was on the last word. Tom was startled.

‘What the hell do you mean?’

‘I mean, who would believe a Mafia hack like you? The paid servant of organized crime, the hired help of the Fantoni family of Newark, New Jersey. Who, in case you've forgotten, have been charged with racketeering, money laundering, drug-trafficking, of course, prostitution – need I go on?’

Tom swallowed, hard and visibly. He could feel Rebecca's eyes on him. He could not bear to see her; his face was hot.

‘Oh, I'm sorry. Perhaps this is something you've not yet shared with Dr Merton. I gave more detail than was strictly necessary. I apologize. The point is, no one will believe a word you say. A lawyer who freaked out then sold his soul to Don Corleone.’

Rebecca spoke, her voice low but wavering with anger. ‘Your thugs obviously injected us with something. There'll be traces of it in our bloodstream. There'll be puncture marks on our skin.’

‘Are you sure this is a point you want to make, Dr Merton?’

Tom turned around to see Rebecca whiten. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I mean that your skin has probably quite a few marks on it.’

She shook her head in disbelief. ‘That was ten years ago. How could you possibly-’

‘You can find out anything about anyone, if you really want to. That's all intelligence work really amounts to. You once had an intravenous drugs habit which means-’

‘I didn't have a habit! I injected drugs but I was never an addict.’

‘Is that a clinical definition?’

‘It was a mistake, I was at a very low-’

‘Doesn't matter to me. I'm a liberal on these issues. But it could make your position – as a doctor, I mean – complicated. Let's put it no more strongly than that.’

Tom fell back into his chair. Rebecca, of all people. He would never have guessed. He contemplated the unhappiness that would have driven her to it; he remembered what she had said about growing up in a house of permanent darkness. Still standing, he stretched a hand across the space between them and found hers, the first time they had touched since they had come into this room.

He could see the old man had them cornered. Neither could say a word to anyone about anything. If they did, they would sound delusional: no saner than the people who send emails to the national press, insisting they have been abducted by aliens or are the personal victims of the royal family. They had been comprehensively outmanoeuvred. Tom sunk in his chair and waited for the next blow.

It was Rebecca who spoke, softer than before. ‘I don't understand. You used to be the leader of Israel. We learned about you in school. Why would you be my father's enemy?’

The old man sighed and took slowly to his feet. It was the first time he had showed his age. He walked in deliberate steps over to the window. The city seemed to glitter in the morning sunlight.

Without turning around he spoke quietly. ‘You're right to want to move beyond these preliminaries. We've set the ground rules. It's time to get to the heart of the matter. We need to speak about DIN.’

‘This is the second mistake my aides would warn me about.’ He paused to turn around and face them. 'I say “would” because, of course, they know nothing of this. Not the real reason. I have kept it from them, the way I have kept it from everyone. My family, my friends. My country. My aides – the team out there – think only what I have told them: that you hold information that compromises the security of our country.

‘The problem is, I don't know if that's true or not.’ He cocked his head to one side, a gesture designed to show he was about to correct himself. ‘Of course, I know that you know nothing that directly threatens Israeli security. But I don't know if you know something else. Something that threatens me. And therefore threatens my country.’

Tom felt a wave of exhaustion coming over him. ‘What are you talking about?’

'I knew Gershon Matzkin was still alive. I'd always known it. I'd been keeping an eye on him: I had people who could do that for me. And I waited. I waited for the day I'd hear he had been hospitalized, or had fallen ill. But the day never came. I thought about it more often than I like to admit. I'm not proud of this. Maybe a few days would go by when I didn't think about it. But never as much as a week. Especially in the last few years, when he was the last one left.

‘Aron, the leader, he died long ago. Such a strong man, such a hero. He didn't even reach seventy. What's his name – Steiner – he lost his mind years ago. I knew he couldn't hurt me. But Gershon was still fit. He still had everything up here.’ He tapped the side of his head. 'I hope I don't offend you, Dr Merton, if I tell you that I was, in a way, waiting for your father to die. Not out of cruelty, please don't misunderstand me. Out of worry. Out of an old man's anxiety. I needed relief , you see. I needed to know that I had outlived him. I have spent all these years needing to live in a world where no one knew our secret but me. Because then it wouldn't be a secret any more, would it? The memory would have gone. I would be free.

‘But not while Gershon was alive. Not while he carried our story in his head. And then Monday happened. I was here, in New York, for the General Assembly. And I hear that name, on the local cable news. “A British man has been killed on the steps of the UN. He has been identified as Gerald Merton.” Can you imagine what was going through my mind? My hands were trembling.’ He held up his right hand, giving it an exaggerated wobble. 'I wondered who would want Gershon dead. They were saying it was an accident, but I didn't believe it. Gershon always took care of himself. All those killings – I'm sorry, those executions – and never once did he let anyone get near him. Others from DIN were not so skilful, but Gershon was different. It's not an accident that he lived the longest. He was the best.

‘But then I began to get queasy. Why was he in New York? Could he have started,’ he paused, unsure what word to use, ‘work again? Who could he possibly be after? He must have known I would be here. Was it me he wanted to see? And then my hands trembled some more. Had Gershon come to New York to kill me?’

Tom wanted to interrupt, to ask what motive Gershon Matzkin would possibly have had to murder the President of the State of Israel, a fellow Jew, a comrade, it seemed, from the secret crusade that was DIN. But he bit his lip: this torrent of words from the old man would eventually explain everything. He just had to let it gush out.