Killing Time

CHAPTER 29

In the United States of the information age there are many grand houses that were once inhabited by people who brought life into their rooms but that have now fallen into the hands of wealthy international transients who do not so much live in this world as move through it, grabbing at whatever power and pleasure they can. Ari Machen was such a person, and his villa in Bel Air was such a place. Built in the mid-twentieth century by that rarest of Angelenos, a person with genuine style, the house as we approached it that misty night after again being deposited in an out-of-the-way spot by our ship seemed to cry out for habitation by someone who would make it a home, who would plant foliage and install furniture that were expressions of personality rather than of the ability to hire what I'm certain Leon Tarbell would have called "sexless" designers and decorators. Melancholy prevailed over obvious signs of money in every chamber of the place; although, given what we had come to do, such an atmosphere was only too fitting.

Disabling first the heavyset security guards who prowled about the estate and then the place's electronic surveillance system did not even amuse Larissa enough to bring out her predatory smile; or perhaps the importance of the work at hand was too great for even her to view it as sport. With weapons at the ready we swept silently through the house, finally detecting signs of life in the master bedroom upstairs. It is unnecessary to detail herein what exactly was going on in that room; suffice it to say that Machen was afflicted by all of the usual sexual neuroses that so often characterize men whose craving for power and excitement betrays even to the layman an almost fantastic insecurity. The sight of strangely dressed and armed intruders was enough to send Machen's several male and female prostitutes (he likely never would have conceded them to be such, but they had all the earmarks) screaming toward another room, into which Larissa promptly locked them after delivering a stern warning to be silent. Machen, meanwhile, attempted to grab an old Colt.45 automatic from a wall full of vintage weapons but was thwarted by Colonel Slayton, who, it seemed to me, handled the producer in a particularly rough and humiliating manner. When Larissa returned, she and I took up positions by the door and window, keeping watch over the house and grounds as Slayton's interrogation began.

"You don't remember me, do you, Mr. Machen?" Slayton asked after trussing our host up in his bed with some drapery cord.

Machen — a small but athletically built man of about fifty, with deeply tanned skin, thinning hair, and piggish eyes — shook his head nervously while using his feet to try to cover his naked body with a sheet. "Are you CIA?" he managed to get out. "Do you work for the Palestinians?"

"The two most logical choices, given your past exploits," Slayton answered, pulling up a chair and straddling it. "But let's ignore the question of our identity for the time being." Glancing around, the colonel looked both disgusted and amused by the situation. "I admire your collection," he said, indicating the wall of weapons. "You find they're useful in your current line of work? Or are they trophies of your heroic service to your homeland?"

"I–I am an American citizen," Machen said.

"Yes," Slayton answered slowly. "The generosity of this country never ceases to amaze me." He stood up and went to the wall, taking down an old revolver and opening its cylinder. "Well," he said appreciatively. "Hollow-point bullets." He began to point the gun around the room, finally bringing its barrel to rest in Machen's direction.

Shying away a bit but desperate to preserve some semblance of what he apparently believed was manliness, Machen said, "I've been tortured before — by the Syrians!"

"Excellent," Slayton answered. "Then you know what to expect." Machen's tan face paled a little at that, and Slayton moved closer to him. "Recently you purchased some materials from a mutual acquaintance — John Price."

Giving courage another shot, Machen said, "Of course. He worked for me many times."

That brought the muzzle of the revolver to his temple and an involuntary whimper from his throat. "Since you own these weapons, I'm going to assume that you know what they do," Slayton said quietly. "If I pull this trigger, there won't be enough left of your brain to feed a cat. Mr. Price is now dead. We know you weren't responsible for that, because we were. So take this situation very seriously. Now — you maintain links to the Mossad, and you passed the materials you bought on to them. But somewhere along the line they got lost." Slayton cocked the revolver. "Where along the line?"

"I—" Machen was by now filled with such fear that his legs, instead of trying to cover him for dignity's sake, were throwing the bedsheet away from him as if he were an infant. Still he managed to declare, "I would die for Israel!"

"You will die for Israel," Slayton assured him, "unless you talk to me." Machen's whimpering became more pronounced, prompting Slayton to give him a click of the tongue. "You've never killed an armed man in your life, have you, Ari? Those Palestinians you murdered — they were tied up just like you are now. And that's why you're so afraid."

"No!" Machen cried out, clamping his eyes closed. The mere possibility of having more of the lies he'd evidently generated about himself exposed was enough to reduce the man to submission. "One of my contacts — Dov Eshkol — I gave what you're talking about to him. But he—" Recovering a bit, Machen suddenly stopped; too late, however.

"But he's gone missing, hasn't he?" Slayton said. No confirmation on this point from Machen was necessary; there remained only the final questions: "How much do you know about Dov Eshkol? And where is he now, would you guess?"

"I can't—" Machen stammered. "You don't understand — Dov is—"

I studied the man for an instant as Slayton kept the gun at his head and thought I saw something. "Just a moment, Colonel," I said. Then I asked Machen, "It was Eshkol who threatened to kill Price if he kept copies of the disc, wasn't it?"

Relieved not to have been forced to say it himself, Machen nodded. "Eshkol is old-school counterintelligence — he's the first person the Mossad calls on if one of their own people has turned or even gone soft and needs to be taken care of. He'll — if I tell you anything more, he'll come back for me."

"He may or may not come back," Larissa said. "But we're already here. So tell us — where would he be coming back from?^"

"I don't know," Machen answered, at which Slayton ground the muzzle of the revolver into his scalp with a vigor that made me wince. "I don't!" Machen cried. "Nobody does! He's disappeared!"

"Why?" Slayton demanded.

"He thought that the disc warranted an active response," Machen explained. "But word came down that the government was going to handle it quietly and give the Russians a chance to explain. Eshkol couldn't tolerate that. He exploded and said he'd deal with it himself." Trying very hard to get a grip on himself, Machen went on, "You have to understand, Eshkol isn't — well, he's extreme. And this… one set of his great-grandparents were Holocaust survivors. And a lot of other people in his family didn't make it."

The same dread I had felt at Malcolm's earlier mention of this possibility returned with Machen's confirmation of it, and the feeling must have been all over my face, for when I turned to Larissa she gave me a look of concerned confusion. But I just shook my head and tried to stay alert as Slayton kept after our prisoner.

"Has the Mossad been able to track him at all?" the colonel asked.

Machen shook his head. "They were expecting him to go public with the images — give them to a newsgroup or post them on the Net himself. They've been tracking down the correspondents with the most contacts in the Middle East — so far, nothing."

"No sign of where he's gone?" Slayton asked.

"No, and there won't be. If Eshkol goes deep, not even the Mossad will find him. He's that good."

Suddenly a deep rumble resonated through Machen's house, making me think that an earthquake was under way; but then I realized that the thunderous sound and feeling weren't quite seismic and that I'd heard and felt them before. As if to confirm my intuition, Larissa suddenly put her hand to the collar of her bodysuit.

"Yes, Brother?" Her expression never changed as she nodded and said, "Understood." She looked at Slayton and then to me, calling over the low, growing hum, "It's Bel Air Security — Machen's guards were due to report in three minutes ago. A personnel carrier and an infantry squad are on the way." She opened a pair of French doors that led to a balcony.

In seconds the air outside the house began to shimmer and ripple as if it were being exposed to a great heat; then a seeming crack in the very fabric of reality opened up, revealing Julien and, beyond him, the interior of the ship's corridor, all seemingly suspended in midair. The bizarre sight — a product of partially shutting down the vessel's holographic projector — brought screams from the prostitutes in the next room and prompted Machen to squirm with heightened vigor. "Who are you people?" he said.

But Slayton only released him in reply, as Fouché began to wave to us vigorously. "Quickly, all of you!" he cried.

We bolted for the balcony just as the ship's humming began to rattle the house hard enough to cause Machen's weapons collection to crash to the floor. A few of the guns went off, prompting more howls from Machen; but our thoughts were now all on escape, and in seconds Larissa, Slayton, and I were back aboard and the ship had gotten under way.

Thus were we able to give a name — and soon, thanks to the continued hacking efforts of Tarbell, a rather hard and frightening face — to the man we were seeking. Further monitoring of official Israeli communications indicated that Machen had not lied when he had said that Dov Eshkol's superiors believed the bitter passions inspired in their wayward operative by the Stalin images would find their vent in some kind of public exposure of the materials. But those of us aboard the ship suspected, only too presciently, that the world would not get off so lightly.