The Pure

to sell a stash of old Israeli Galil assault rifles to a representative of the Georgian government. The Office had been training Georgia’s special forces, and the Georgians were desperate to equip their troops with the same weapons they had used in training. The Office was withholding its supply so that Uzi, posing as a Russian, could come in through the back door and sell at an inflated price – the aim being to conceal the fact that the Office, to whom they were paying large sums of money for the training contract, was ripping them off.
    The extra profit would be used, Uzi was told, to fund the Office’s activities abroad. He hadn’t contested the operation openly, but by that point, the rot had already set in. He had started to question Yigal about the missions he was being given and the methods he was being encouraged to employ. He had been ordered to kill three people in cold blood, and told to adopt an increasingly brutal approach. Yigal had warned him several times, in forceful terms, that he shouldn’t question direct orders, that he was thinking too much, that he had to trust in the chain of command. Uzi knew he was endangering his own career but found himself unable to swallow his opinions. He lived in the hope that his horses, Moskovitz and Rothem, would be able to contain any damage that Yigal could do to him when his meagre stock of patience was exhausted.
    He got into the lift behind two women in expensive coats and stood in the corner. Nobody noticed him. In his new clothes, he fitted in. The women got out; he travelled to the top floor alone. The doors slid open. Everything was as he remembered: the ornamental fish tanks, the quietly clinking cutlery, the black-clad waitresses, the spectacular views over London. He hoped that the escape routes he had memorised last time were also still intact.
    At the mention of Eve Klugman, the waiter’s eyebrows raised just a fraction and he took Uzi’s coat with special care. Then he vanished. Uzi wandered over to the massive window and looked out over the city. Millions of individual lives lay under his gaze. Births, deaths, dreams and frustrations, love and cruelty. Normal lives. How had he ended up like this, orbiting society, dipping in and out of violence and horror? He could feel his R9 digging into his back like a magnet, like a curse.
    The waiter beckoned Uzi to follow him through the restaurant and out on to a private balcony. Uzi ordered a vodka tonic and the waiter melted away, leaving him alone. It was cold, but gas heaters burned into the night overhead. It was deserted. In his mind were scenes of a riot near Duheisha refugee camp two decades in the past. He made his way along the balcony, the city spreading out on one side, sparkling and cold and beautiful. He kept one hand in his pocket, ready to draw his R9. The balcony curved around the corner of the building. He followed it; there, leaning against the railing, was a figure. For a moment he thought it was a woman in a hijab. Then he saw it was Liberty, a cashmere stole drawn around her shoulders against the chill. Diamonds glinted at her throat, a small handbag was tucked under her arm, and what could only have been a Pernod and water glowed blueish in her hand. Once again she was the picture of elegance, but this time she looked different. More powerful, more mythical, and more dangerous.
    ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Drink?’
    ‘I’ve ordered one already,’ he replied. ‘A vodka tonic.’
    ‘A vodka tonic,’ Liberty repeated, and laughed.
    Uzi smiled in return, trying to decipher her mood.
    ‘You’ve had some trouble?’ she asked, gesturing towards his wounds.
    ‘I fell over in the shower.’
    ‘Ah, that’s a relief. I was worried it was domestic abuse.’
    ‘If you knew my wife, you wouldn’t say that.’
    ‘Why not? Is she very sweet?’
    ‘No, she’s a bitch.’
    ‘I bet she’s not a patch on me.’
    ‘You could be right.’
    Liberty gave him an ambiguous look and beckoned him through a door on the far side of the building. Inside was a private dining room with a single table. Waiters emerged from the shadows and pulled out the chairs for them. A sommelier presented Uzi with a leather-bound wine list.
    ‘Any preferences?’ said Uzi.
    ‘Red,’ Liberty replied. ‘Let’s start with a red then go to white with the meal.’
    ‘South African?’
    ‘No. Something rich, fruity. Something deep.’
    Uzi cast his eye down the list, ignoring the cheaper vintages. ‘How