The Pure

A hardness was emerging in her, a coldness that he knew only too well. She broke off and took another sip of wine. ‘I knew it was a dirty job from the beginning, but I was idealistic when I started out. I was naive. I still thought there was something noble about it all – land of the free, home of the brave. National security, protecting our way of life. But America is the biggest bastard of them all, Uzi. We’re the bullies of the world. My eyes were opened, and what I saw left a bad taste in my mouth.’ She sipped her wine.
    ‘So you left.’
    ‘So I left.’
    ‘You got yourself pregnant, and you left.’
    ‘That was the official reason. Maternity leave.’
    ‘And you didn’t go back because your family were killed.’
    Liberty lowered her eyes for the briefest of moments before replying. ‘I’d never intended to go back. I’d had enough of being the bully of the world.’
    Uzi regarded her carefully. She sat, straight-backed, composed, not giving anything away. Her hand rested near her handbag. He consulted his instincts, his logic, his powers of observation. None of these were sending him any warning signs. The woman was telling the truth.
    ‘Almighty dollar,’ he said.
    There was a note of bitterness in her laugh. ‘Shall we eat?’ She waved for the waiter and he appeared with the menu. Uzi ordered for both of them: a variety of seafood and a 1999 Chenin Blanc. The waiter brought them the wine and disappeared again. Uzi looked out at the vastness of the city. He thought about war, that moment in a battle when suddenly you find yourself no longer part of a mighty force. When you’ve achieved your objective, and you look round and find you’ve lost sight of your comrades. When the enemy fire, previously so random and ineffective, now unifies against you like something elemental. When you can no longer see your helicopters overhead, and you realise that you’re a nothing but a man, a solitary human being who could be killed as easily as a rat.
    ‘So,’ said Liberty at last, ‘what about you? Did you abandon your country or did your country abandon you?’
    ‘I’ve never told anyone that.’
    ‘Not even Avner Golan?’
    ‘What do you know about Avner Golan?’
    ‘I’ve read your files, remember? I couldn’t avoid your old comrade-in-arms. He was all over the place.’
    ‘Avner and I both fell from grace, in our different ways. He’s lucky he was only demoted.’
    ‘You call falling from Katsa to Bodel lucky?’
    ‘You really do know everything, don’t you?’
    ‘The CIA keep me happy. I’ve seen a lot of sensitive things and they don’t want me spilling my guts to WikiLeaks. So they help me with my business from time to time. Of course, I hate those bastards, but it doesn’t mean I can’t use them now and again.’
    ‘So you used your CIA connections to put me under surveillance?’
    ‘Come on, Uzi. You’ve been under surveillance anyway.’
    ‘Fuck.’
    ‘You didn’t know?’
    ‘I knew. I just didn’t want to be told.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ she said gently, patting the back of his hand. ‘You’re not being watched any more. Nobody knows where you are. Even the Mossad don’t know where you are. You’re with me now.’
    The food arrived and they began to eat, sliding oysters off shells, cracking lobster claws, washing their fingers in fingerbowls. Uzi tasted the ocean on his tongue, and marvelled at the passage of time, how things had changed.
    ‘My organisation didn’t expel me,’ he said suddenly. ‘I left. I’d had enough, so I upped and left. It was after . . . a difficult operation.’
    Liberty looked up. ‘Difficult?’
    ‘I’m not going to talk about it.’
    ‘Good for you,’ she said.
    ‘I probably would have been kicked out anyway. If I’d stayed any longer.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Simple. I challenged the chain of command. I was a free thinker. I thought the unthinkable. And once – just once – I spoke the unspeakable. I was bugged in the privacy of my own home. But I was thinking aloud, nothing more.’
    ‘So you said something controversial?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘What did you say?’
    ‘I’ll tell you from the beginning,’ Uzi said, and stopped. He collected his thoughts. Could he really do this? He took a breath and let it out. Then he took another. And let it out. Then a third. ‘Have you heard of Nahal Sorek?’ he asked. There. It was done. His blood ran hot, then cold, then hot again.
    ‘I’m not sure I have,’ said