Sam Bourne - The Final Reckoning

‘Rebecca, where did you get that?’

‘Let's say it was a gift from someone we just met. A former comrade in DIN.’

In an instant, Tom pictured the lingering farewell he had witnessed between Rebecca and the Israeli president: how he had muttered to her in Hebrew, how he had held her hands in a double-grip, one that could easily have concealed the handover of, say, a needle and a measure of deadly fluid. Now I would like to have a private word of remembrance with Dr Merton, in honour of her father.

If Gerald Merton had been able to work out the truth of Paavo Viren's past, it would not have eluded Israeli intelligence. Once the President was reassured Merton had not been after him, and once he had heard Rebecca request her face-to-face meeting with the Secretary-General, it would have confirmed it: Viren had been DIN's last target. And what better way to assuage his guilt over Aron than to give DIN what it needed from him once again – a vial of deadly poison? Even if Rebecca had been caught, the President would have known that this young woman – a daughter of the Shoah and a daughter of the Avengers – would not have betrayed him. She would have been bound by the code of DIN.

Viren was making a half-hearted effort at writhing out of Tom's grip. But his eyes were only on Rebecca. ‘There must be a way we can resolve this. If you insist, we could have an independent review, to examine the claims you've-’

‘Oh no, I'm far too unreasonable for that. You see, your second great misfortune is that you picked the wrong people to murder and maim. You raped and nearly killed my aunt, Hannah Matzkin, who, thanks to you, I never met.’ She squeezed the syringe, holding it still as it squirted a brief jet of fluid. ‘And you took part, an eager part from what I hear, in the massacres at the Ninth Fort. I wonder if you remember any of the thousands of people you and your friends shot into those pits. My aunts were three of them.’

Tom was frozen, still holding the old man but doing so now out of sheer paralysis. He was watching Rebecca as if he were viewing events at a distance, played back on a video monitor. Perhaps it was the near-darkness of this room. More likely it was the shock of everything that had happened, everything he had heard, over the last few minutes. He seemed to be on some kind of delay, each new item of information taking a few seconds to register. Now though he realized that he had been co-opted into what was about to become an act of homicide – without even having a moment to consider it. He was restraining Paavo Viren, holding him down so that Rebecca could inject him with poison.

Yet he had not wanted to let Viren go. He wasn't sure about Rebecca's analysis of the scar tissue on his arm. But the old man's reaction had settled it. His tone had changed. He had stopped protesting his innocence and begun pleading for a deal. When innocent people were faced with punishment for a crime they did not commit, they did not start plea-bargaining: they insisted all the more loudly that they were innocent. It took time, often a long stretch of it, to grind down people's essential belief in fairness; only then were they ready to negotiate a compromise penalty for something they had not done.

Viren had required no such time. He had been ready to deal within a few seconds. Tom was an experienced enough lawyer to know that that – along with his failure to walk out as soon as Rebecca started making her charges, his unexplained decision to stay and listen – was not the action of an innocent man.

Tom was still holding Viren in place, frozen, as Rebecca carried on speaking.

‘You killed the wrong people, Mr Viren. You killed the family of Gershon Matzkin and he was not the kind of Jew you bargained for. He was one of the Jews who refused to die. He was one of the Jews who were determined that their blood be avenged. He was part of DIN, the movement whose Hebrew name means judgment. But it also stands for three words. Dam Israel Nokeam. “The blood of Israel will take vengeance”.’ She was speaking faster now, the urgency in her voice accelerating. She held the syringe vertically between her index and middle finger, as if it were a cocked weapon. ‘He was an avenger, Mr Viren – and I am his daughter.’

With that, Rebecca leaned forward and placed the tip of the needle on Viren's neck, expertly finding the jugular vein.

The certainty of that action, the finality of it, seemed to snap Tom out of his state of disconnection. Rebecca intuited immediately what he was about to do.

‘If you make any sudden movements now, Tom, the needle will go in. Really, even a slight jerk and Viren will be dead.’

Tom could see that she was right. His job now was to hold the SG stock-still – for his own sake.

Viren managed to squeeze out a few words. ‘What do you want from me? If you want to kill me, just kill me. Get it over with.’

‘Oh, but that wasn't your way of doing things, was it, Mr Viren? From what I understand, you and the men from the Lithuanian militia enjoyed the whole performance. Get the Jews to come to the collection point, packing all their bags as if they were off on a journey. Then a long wait. Then a long truck ride. Then another long wait. Then a march to the pits. Then watching the women undress, lining them up by pits you'd made the Jews dig for themselves. And then only a single bullet, so that – what, one in ten, one in five? – did not even die straightaway, but had to choke to death, buried alive under a pile of corpses. So don't start bleating about “getting it over with”. If this is trying your patience, Mr Viren then I don't apologize.’

Tom was wincing, watching Rebecca standing so close to the SG, her finger capping the plunger of the syringe as if it were a detonator.

‘My father would have done the job much faster, that's true. The way he'd worked it out, getting you on your own meant there would be no time to speak to you: he'd have had to kill you in a split-second. But that was not the normal DIN way.’

‘Rebecca, listen to me. You can't do this.’

‘Shut up, Tom.’

‘I mean it. This is not right. Not like this.’

She didn't take her eyes off Viren. ‘For DIN it was very important that the target know the identity of his executioners, to know that the Jews had sought justice. But I want something more. I want an admission. I want you to tell me the truth.’

Viren began to stammer. He could surely see that this woman would not be swayed by a confession into an offer of clemency; she had already made clear that she was going to kill him. Tom suspected that her father would have been more skilful, tricking his victims into believing they had an incentive to talk.

‘Listen to me, Rebecca. This can't work. You'll be caught. Even if people sympathize with you, you'll spend years in jail. Is that what your father would have wanted, to see his beloved daughter behind bars?’

‘I could get away.’

‘Come off it, Rebecca. Henning knows you're here. He'll be here soon. If he finds the Secretary-General dead, you'll be blamed.’

‘We'll say he had a heart attack.’

‘There'll be a needle mark. Bruises on his arms where I've held him. Please, Rebecca. Think what your father would say, the idea that the Nazis would destroy the life of another woman in the Matzkin family.’

Rebecca's eyes were on fire, two braziers of flame in the murk of this room. ‘How dare you talk to me about what my father would have wanted.’

Tom's arms were tiring from keeping his captive dead still. ‘Your father never got caught, Rebecca. None of them ever did. I bet that was important to them: that a Jew would not suffer again because of the Nazis, not even for one more day.’

‘I need to hear him say it, Tom.’ She was staring at him, hard. ‘There needs to be a reckoning.’