P. Deutermann - The Last Man

Trying not to be too obvious about it, the watcher confirmed the briefed description: Caucasian male, close to two meters in height, late thirties, barrel-chested, eighty, maybe ninety kilos, black hair laced with some gray, square face, a Semitic nose that would make a rabbi proud, prominent chin, and the tanned complexion of an outdoorsman. This Hall fellow didn’t look like an engineer at all, certainly not like the Israeli engineers and scientists the watcher had seen on the telly. This one had big, strong-looking hands, wide shoulders, and a lot of solid muscle under that expensive sport coat. In that regard he truly stood out from the rest of the tourists, who were mostly old and overweight. Hall: Was that a Jewish name in America? He certainly had the Moses nose for it.

The watcher took care not to stare directly. His instincts told him that the American appeared to be aware of his surroundings. He was definitely looking around in a manner that belied his informal, relaxed pose with the driver. The briefer had mentioned that there was an intelligence interest in this American, although what that was had not been explained. Even so, the watcher had been instructed to pay attention to his tradecraft, because there was always the possibility that this American had had some field training. The watcher looked at him again. No way, he thought. Guy looks like a rich playboy, with all that fancy luggage and his fashionably thin computer.

One of the ubiquitous airport security teams, consisting of a man and a woman in rumpled army khakis, strolled by, the noses of their shoulder-slung submachine guns pointing lazily at the floor. They looked like brother and sister. They gave the nondescript Israeli lounging against a concrete pillar, dressed in tan slacks and a cheap sport shirt, the once-over and then, recognizing him for what he was, looked immediately away and kept going. By then the crowd at the doors was thinning out and the American was helping his driver gather up the bags, and then they were pushing through the glass doors to the usual chaos outside. The watcher followed them from inside the terminal building, observing until they stopped at a shiny if elderly four-door white Mercedes.

The watcher waited for the American to get in the car, right rear seat, just like some stuck-up officer. Next stop would be the Dan Tel Aviv Hotel, unless of course they really were going to make a quick getaway and go underground to meet some CIA fiends. Right. Wanting a cigarette, he glanced at his watch. Four forty-five, almost Shabbat, so of course all the CIA agents would be bellied up to the bar at the Sheraton by now. The watcher was not religious, but he was definitely ready for a day off. This American was boring, like most of them. At least he wasn’t fat, like most of them.

David Hall pulled back the sheer curtains of his twelfth-floor corner suite and admired the ocean view. The Dan Tel Aviv, one of the city’s five-star hotels, was just across a small street from the Mediterranean, and the sea still looked cold, with rigid rows of whitecaps being driven in toward the beige, sandy beach by a chilly northwest wind. The sunset was bisected by the silhouette of the Yamit Towers. He looked to either side, where horizontal rows of windows seemed to propagate in every direction. No other faces were visible. The street sounds of the diminishing Tel Aviv evening rush hour echoed quietly up the concrete and glass palisades of the Hayarkon hotel district. He’d specifically asked for a seaside room to avoid the noise of Tel Aviv’s raucous traffic. He yawned and looked at his watch: seven o’clock here, one back in Washington. Why the hell was he sleepy, then?

So far so good, he reflected. All the gear had made it through customs, and he’d received no special attention from any security types, just what appeared to be routine surveillance in the terminal. Suspecting that the nonchalant man in the short-sleeved white shirt and tan pants behind him might be a watcher, he had stopped abruptly thirty feet back from the doors, ostensibly to wait for the crowds. White Shirt had stopped dead in his tracks to examine the empty space between the terminal windows and the ramps. Okay, so maybe the guy had been following him, or perhaps someone else in the crowd of tourists ahead of him. There was absolutely no way they could know what he was really up to, especially since he had made all of his cover arrangements with the help of the Israeli government. That was the beautiful part of his plan. Adrian’s dream, but definitely his plan.

He realized he was hungry, but then yawned again and decided maybe he would send down for room service. Sundown on Fridays brought the official beginning of Shabbat. All the travel guides warned of interruptions in every kind of basic services extending until sundown Saturday. He yawned again. All his great plans for adapting immediately to the local time zone were being defeated by an overwhelming urge to go to bed. He flopped on the expansive bed and thought about what he would order for dinner. Or was it lunch? Maybe wait a couple of hours. Then get something.

The rattle of a room service tray out in the hallway woke him. He sat up in bed, groaned, and rubbed leaden eyelids against the bright daylight streaming in through the side windows. What the hell time was it? Nine thirty. In the morning ? He had slept, what, fourteen hours? Many muscles protested. He looked again at his watch. Three thirty in the morning in Washington. Damn the jet lag. He felt like he’d been hit by a marshmallow train, and now he was really hungry, his earlier plans for room service having been swallowed up in a long if fitful sleep.

He dragged himself off the bedcovers and sat up. He needed coffee and a shower and then breakfast and then some more coffee. His eyes felt sandy, and his neck was stiff from lying on his back all night. He could not remember ever sleeping that long. This was Saturday, the day he had budgeted to get himself acclimated to the six-hour time difference before the game began. If his present mental fogginess was any indication, he would need Sunday, too. He headed for the bathroom.

Tonight he was to meet with a Professor Yosef Ellerstein for a drink in the lobby bar at six thirty. Ellerstein was his official point of contact at the Israel Antiquities Authority, the senior government bureau in charge of all archaeological sites. The Israeli cultural attaché at the Embassy of Israel, where Adrian worked, had gone to Columbia with Ellerstein, and they had remained professional and personal friends, even after Ellerstein had emigrated to Israel back in the early seventies.

Whenever Adrian had talked about her obsession, she’d said that getting access to the site was going to require a connection with a senior guy in the IAA. Her boss, the cultural attaché, knew a professor at Columbia who was still connected to Ellerstein, who was now on the board of directors of the IAA. After Adrian disappeared, and David had made the decision to pursue her life’s dream, he’d called the attaché, who in turn had contacted Ellerstein, who eventually agreed to be David’s interlocutor within Israel’s archaeological establishment. David had corresponded with him for the past year while preparing for his trip, and the professor had suggested meeting Saturday night at David’s hotel before David had to face his first meetings at the IAA and Hebrew University on Monday.

Finished in the bathroom, David went to the north window and stared again into the harshly bright sunlight. The whitecaps were gone. The glass felt warm against his face. So much for the cool breezes of fall, he thought. He walked around to the west windows and stared out at the sea again, trying to get his brain to function, but he still felt stupefied. He went over and sat on the edge of the bed, then realized he was going around in circles. Coffee time.