The Pure

was only a mission. In time, with the help of our psychologists, you will readjust.’
    ‘But it’s not that simple, is it?’ said Adam. ‘Uzi was more than just a mask. That’s why I was chosen.’
    ‘That’s true,’ said the Kol. ‘You have always been a troublemaker. We knew that you made controversial statements and thought too much for yourself. Ram Shalev even advised his MOIS controllers that you were the most likely operative to be turned. We knew all that. But this is the philosophy of the Tehorim: to take a seed from inside the operative’s psyche and nurture it to create a watertight cover, to grow a new person, and for the duration of the mission, to have the operative inhabit him. To believe in him.’
    ‘You never worried that I would go off the rails? That I would become Uzi and never return?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why?’
    The Kol sighed. ‘Your psychological profile. We understand the depth of Israel’s hold on her children. For someone like you – the son of a war hero, the grandson of Zionist pioneers – to betray your country would be physically impossible, however politics sways you, whatever trauma you suffer. When Israel is in mortal danger, people like you are cleansed of any hesitation and fall four-square behind the State. This is the alchemy of a bloody history, the alchemy of nationhood. This is the alchemy of the Holy Land.’
    ‘Ram Shalev,’ said Adam dreamily. ‘Fucking Ram Shalev. I can see his face now.’
    ‘Don’t worry about Ram Shalev. The man was a traitor of the worst kind. Ex-Mossad operative – and MOIS agent. For years, he was the lynchpin in a network of Iranian spies that had been grafted into the Office’s power structure.’
    ‘I know that.’
    ‘But?’
    ‘I didn’t say but.’
    ‘The man deserved to die, Adam. By the time we discovered his identity, he had already given the Iranians intelligence on the whole of Operation Desert Rain. Apart from the target, that is. And he was trying like hell to find that out.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘He had planned to tell WikiLeaks that the prime minister was going to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities to gain pre-election popularity points. He wanted to put us on the back foot, use the media to force us to postpone Operation Desert Rain, to allow the Iranians a little more time – just a little more time – in which they would try to develop the bomb. Ram Shalev was a hair’s breadth away from causing Israel’s destruction. The only thing he didn’t know was the target of Operation Desert Rain. And thanks to you, we fooled them.’
    ‘What makes a man turn like that against his own people?’ said Adam broodingly. ‘What’s the trigger?’
    ‘Come on, Adam, don’t be naive. You know what motivates people. With Shalev it was mainly money. Money and sex. And revenge, too, we think. Like everyone else.’
    ‘I killed him. I played a part in killing him. I’ve killed so many people.’
    ‘You should be proud – proud of the difficult tasks you’ve carried out for our homeland, and proud of the fact that you’re a moral enough man to worry about it.’ She leaned closer, and Adam saw her face half illuminated by the moonlight. ‘You’re not Uzi,’ she said softly. ‘You’re Colonel Adam Feldman. You were always were Colonel Adam Feldman. You’re a red-blooded Zionist. That’s the truth.’
    He flicked another cigarette over the side of the yacht and watched it disappear in the blackness. His throat hurt, and his ear and shoulder were aching as if the microphone and receiver were coming alive inside him. He opened the glass case and took the dagger in his hands, holding it up in the moonlight. Behold, the guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps . The engraving was detailed and elegant, and the dagger itself was solid, well weighted, with a leather-bound handle. He rested on the railing again, weighing the knife in his hands. The Kol was saying something, but he was no longer listening. He wanted Leila. He had been trained for this, of course. He had been taught how to construct an alternative persona and then, when the mission was over, to allow the character’s psychology, fears, hopes, dreams, memories, to melt off him like a coating. But when he was Uzi, he had felt more genuinely himself. The Doctrine of the Status Quo – that had been his. It had only taken the creation of Uzi to bring it to fruition. Everything had been his, everything deep down had been his. He could not get rid of