The Pure

the bodyguard. The life had left him. His skin was white in the moonlight; a perfectly round, perfectly black hole was above his right eyebrow. It looked like a fly, as if you could brush it away with your hand. A dark halo was spreading into the sand beneath his head. Uzi picked up the AK-47. Had he been a split second slower, this would have been the weapon that killed him.
    ‘Nobody has ever escaped from Little Tehran,’ said Leila, her voice more controlled now. ‘I know what the security here is like.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ said Uzi. ‘Listen to me. I’m just like you. You joined the MOIS because of your father. I joined the Mossad because of my family, the way I was raised. But we are our own people, Leila. We can go somewhere together. We can be free.’
    Leila’s eyes flicked from his face to the ocean and back again. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me,’ she said. ‘You’re making no sense.’
    ‘Leila, Leila. I have to tell you something. I need to come clean . . .’
    Suddenly the woman’s expression changed. Her eye had caught a disturbance on the face of the water, far out in the strip of moonlight. ‘What’s that? I saw something. Seventy-five metres out.’
    Uzi took her arms and held her firm. ‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘I’m saying – god, I’m saying I want to be with you. I’m saying . . . I’m saying this has all been a mission for the Mossad.’
    A pause.
    ‘The Mossad?’
    ‘Yes. I’m still a Mossad operative. I’m just under cover. Deep cover.’ The secret was out. Time seemed to stand still. For the first time, Uzi saw Leila at a loss. Her mouth worked, but no words came; it was as if he had just shown her a conjuring trick. ‘There’s no time to explain,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘I’ve sworn that this is my last operation. I want to escape, to be with you. We can leave all this behind.’
    The Kol’s voice appeared softly in his ear. ‘Be subtle. We want her alive for interrogation.’
    ‘I – I don’t understand,’ said Leila. ‘You fucked the Mossad. You gave me all that intel. You helped us avoid an air strike. You’ve saved our nuclear weapons programme. It doesn’t make sense.’
    ‘Look, there’s no time to explain,’ Uzi repeated. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter any more. None of it matters. It doesn’t matter whether Iran wins this battle, or Israel wins – the war will be endless. The Mossad has been exploiting me, and the MOIS has been exploiting you. We’re both pawns, don’t you see? They both use operatives until they’re killed, then recruit more to fill their shoes. They don’t see us as human beings. They’re using us, just like they used that young boy to kill Ram Shalev. We need to get out of the whole game. Both of us.’
    He glanced over his shoulder. Two dark objects had broken the surface of the ocean thirty metres from the shore, a pair of black round domes bobbing side by side, trailing wisps of surf behind them. For a moment they disappeared as a wave swelled in front, then they reappeared again. Now more could be seen: the heads of two frogmen, their masks reflecting silver in the moonlight, their regulators like jewels in their mouths.
    ‘Gently,’ said the Kol. ‘Gently.’
    ‘I love you,’ said Uzi desperately. ‘I’d give up everything for you. I love you more than my country. Remember? Think – you said the same to me. I know you understand me, I know it. You’ve been made into a weapon in an endless war. We both have. Now the Mossad is coming to take me to safety. Come with me.’
    Suddenly Leila broke from his grasp and tried to run back towards the rocks. Uzi chased her, grabbed her in a bear hug. ‘If you go back to the MOIS, they’ll kill you. They’ll kill us both. Come with me. Come with me, and I’ll protect you.’
    ‘Then I will be a martyr for my country!’ said Leila. ‘My life is a price worth paying for a nuclear Iran!’
    ‘You don’t think that. I refuse to believe you think that.’
    ‘I’d rather be killed by MOIS than the Mossad,’ she replied. ‘Let my own people kill me, if that’s what I deserve.’
    ‘No – you deserve life! I told you, I have a plan. We’ll use the Mossad to get out of here. Then we’ll escape, I promise.’
    ‘You promise?’ she laughed bitterly. ‘I’m supposed to believe you because you promise?’
    She spun round and, in a seamless movement, tripped Uzi into the sand. He rolled onto his side and saw that in a flash she