London Twist: A Delilah Novella

 
    T here were three of them when Delilah came in, arranged around a square wooden table so that when she sat they’d be facing and flanking her. She wondered why so many. A European boondoggle? A show of force? Safety in numbers? Some combination, probably. Whatever it was, it was hardly business as usual for the Director and two deputies to travel together to a safe house on the outskirts of Amsterdam.
    None of them stood, despite certainly having been alerted to her arrival by the two security men in civilian clothes outside, whom she’d recognized by their demeanors and by the slight bulge of the Uzi Pros concealed beneath their jackets. No one spoke as she made her way through the living room, not even after she’d taken the remaining seat at the table. Her years in Paris had accustomed Delilah to small talk, and she had to remind herself that its absence here would be neither rude nor condescending. These men were Israelis, after all, justifiably famous for their gruffness, and beyond that, they had all spent a lifetime in the military and intelligence. She doubted they knew how to make small talk with their own mistresses, let alone with a field agent.
    Still, the silence was now getting conspicuously long. She waited, watching them, thinking she’d be damned if she spoke before they so much as explained why she’d been summoned here.
    “In case you’re wondering, Delilah,” the Director finally said. “That Saudi mess. It’s been cleaned up.”
    She wondered why he was using Hebrew. She preferred to avoid it, staying in character to the extent possible even during a debrief. Was he reminding her of who she really was, who she really worked for? At least he wasn’t using her real name. Maybe he didn’t remember it.
    A few strands of blond hair had come loose from her ponytail. She resisted the urge to brush them back, concerned the gesture would be interpreted as nervousness. “You’re talking about Farid?”
    “Is there another Saudi mess we don’t know of?”
    Farid was a Saudi financier, an unwitting access agent she had slept with and then had difficulty discarding. Increasingly obsessed, he had sent men to hurt her in Paris. They hadn’t succeeded, but from the standpoint of her sick former paramour, it would have been only a missed opportunity. His motivation would have remained.
    “Cleaned up how?”
    One of the deputies chuckled. “How else? Permanently.”
    They were all wearing khaki pants and blue button-down shirts. One uniform in exchange for another. She thought they might as well have worn signs declaring themselves Israelis. But maybe she was being too critical. Most people would make them as indeterminate widowers and retirees, maybe on a European bus tour.
    “How did you get to him in Riyadh?”
    “We didn’t,” the first deputy said. “MI6 did.”
    “At our behest?”
    To that, they only nodded, watching her.
    She was beginning to understand. “And the British want something in return.”
    “Of course,” the Director said, offering her the grandfatherly smile for which he was famous, but that Delilah had always found false and manipulative. “What do you think, they did this for us as charity? They helped us with our problem. Now we have to help them with theirs.”
    “What does this have to do with me?”
    The second deputy tamped a package of cigarettes on the table. “It could be we’re being too generous in describing the problem as ‘ours.’ Really, it was caused by you.”
    She fought to keep the indignation from rising to the surface. “Caused by me?”
    The second deputy extracted a cigarette, slid it between his lips, held a lighter to it, drew in, and blew out a cloud of blue-gray smoke. He leaned back and looked at her, frowning. “We’ve discouraged you from continuing to involve yourself personally with that freelancer, John Rain. You didn’t listen.”
    She was incredulous. “Rain had nothing to do with Farid. He helped me that night. He spotted the ambush before I did.”
    The second deputy took another long drag on his cigarette. She realized he was nervous. They weren’t sure how this meeting would go.
    “He saved you, did he?” the second deputy said. “You know what else he did? Two concussions; one broken throat cartilage; one crushed hand; one broken face, including nose, teeth, and cheekbone; two ruptured testicles. Injuries distributed among four men. One of whom—the one who will now never be able to father children, not