In only one respect were spheres of activity clearly demarcated. Barren Corporation was hers. It was something she’d insisted on right from the outset. Nemesis laid off Barren. If the company was going to be fried, she was going to be the one to do it. Because at the end of the day, that’s what it was all about. The
only
thing it was about. It was their cyber-attacks on Barren that had brought the Nemesis Agenda to her attention in the first place. It was Barren that occupied her, day and night, especially after the cathedral. Everything was rooted in Barren, all roads led there. Barren was
her
ulterior motive. Always had been, always would be.
‘Shit!’
She slammed on the brakes. The Land Cruiser lurched and skidded on the hot tarmac. She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she had overshot the gap in the fence. Muttering, she reversed the car around and backtracked. A kilometre north along Route 10 she braked again and pulled off the road, bumping across gravel and up to the barbed-wire tube that marked the border. On this side, Israel and the Negev. On the other, Egypt and the Sinai. The government were in the process of erecting a less permeable barrier to hold back the drug and people smugglers – 215km of surveillance posts and electrified fencing stretching all the way from Gaza down to Eilat. They’d yet to start work on these remote middle sections, however, and for the moment you could still slip across without too much trouble. Normally she’d have brought the others with her, but for this mission she was on her own. Where Barren was concerned, she often flew solo.
She got out and surveyed the landscape. It might as well have been Mars for all the signs of human life. She gave it a minute, then went over to the fence and heaved aside the wire tube at the point where they’d cut it. She took the Land Cruiser through, attached the Egyptian number plates, re positioned the fence, sped off. It was the best part of 400 kilometres to Cairo and she wanted to be there and back before dawn.
T
EL
-A
VIV
‘Do you think Barren Corporation might be involved in sex-trafficking?’
Natan Tirat damn nearly spat out his Goldstar.
‘Is that some sort of joke?’
Ben-Roi’s expression suggested he wasn’t sure whether it was or not.
‘I know it seems unlikely . . .’
‘It’s more than unlikely, it’s completely fucking surreal.’
Tirat rocked back on his chair, dangling his Goldstar bottle in his hand.
‘I mean, come on, Arieh. This is a company with . . . what, a forty, fifty-billion-dollar turnover. Ten billion profit at a conservative estimate. Probably closer to twenty. And you’re suggesting they’re topping that up with a sideline in illegal prostitution. Seriously, can you see that scanning?’
Ben-Roi admitted that he couldn’t. Had never be able to see it scanning, not from the moment Barren and sex-trafficking had first announced themselves as part of the same equation.
‘It would make a good story, mind,’ continued Tirat. ‘A
great
story. “Global Minerals Giant in Holy Land Pimping Scandal”.’
He ran a hand through the air as if tracing an invisible newspaper headline.
‘Scoop like that could make my career. Sort me out for life.’
Ben-Roi told him not to get his hopes up and swigged his Tuborg. They were sitting at a pavement table outside a bar on Dizengoff, the oldest people there by a good decade. Around them trendy young things in designer clothes were sipping designer drinks, chatting and laughing, making the most of the early evening sun before heading off for a night in the clubs. He was only in his thirties, but the surroundings made him feel like he was already over the hill. Although not as over it as Tirat, whose sizeable paunch, leather waistcoat and greying hair done up in a ponytail made him look like a relic of a not particularly successful 1970s rock band.
‘Have you heard of Barren being involved in
anything
dodgy?’ he asked.
Tirat’s eyes had drifted to a girl at the next-door table, her cleavage bulging from the top of her low-cut dress. Ben-Roi had to repeat the question to get his attention.
‘Your colleague asked me the same thing when he called the other day,’ replied Tirat, reluctantly pulling his gaze round.
‘And?’
‘And nothing. Or at least nothing anyone’s ever been able to pin on them. I mean, they’re a global multinational so I’d be surprised if they weren’t up to
something
. They all are. A bit of creative accounting, some environmental corner-cutting, off-the-record briefings against their competitors . . . like I told your friend, these companies are in it to make money, not win prizes for being the class nice guy.’
He drained his Goldstar in two long glugs and placed the bottle on the table beside the one he’d already finished.
‘Good lad you’ve got there, by the way,’ he added. ‘Intelligent. You should hold on to him. Might actually help you solve some cases.’
He lit a cigarette and scrunched a handful of salted almonds from the bowl on the table, his eyes momentarily flicking back to the girl in the low-cut dress.
‘There’s no question that Barren
are
secretive,’ he went on, his gaze returning to Ben-Roi. ‘Even by multinational standards. They keep a tight rein on their image, don’t welcome questions. And being a private corporation, they’re obviously not open to the sort of in-depth scrutiny they would be if they were stock-listed. So who knows, maybe they
have
got a few nasties lurking in the closet. But honestly, Arieh, I can’t see them being involved in something like sex-trafficking. Or murder, for that matter, which is where I’m guessing this is leading.’
He raised his eyebrows at Ben-Roi, who didn’t respond to the prompt, just took another sip of his beer. A pair of female soldiers ambled passed, Givati Brigade, feet in sandals, M-16s hanging off their backs. In Jerusalem soldiers were part of the visual fabric. Here they stood out more. Ben-Roi watched them a moment, then picked up the conversation.
‘Apparently Barren have got political clout,’ he said, changing tack. ‘Friends in high places.’
Tirat acknowledged that was the case. ‘It’s not exactly unusual. All these big multinationals have got an in to the corridors of power. Although Barren do seem to be particularly well connected. Bottom line is: money buys influence. And Barren have got money. A lot of it. From what I hear, they’re bankrolling half the Knesset. Half of Congress too, if you believe the stories.’
He funnelled the almonds into his mouth, chewed, dragged on his cigarette. Ben-Roi bounced the Tuborg bottle on his knee, casting around for some sort of angle.
‘Do you know anything about their dealings in Egypt?’
Tirat didn’t, beyond what he’d already told Dov Zisky.
‘What about the head honcho? His wife was Israeli, right?’
Tirat nodded, clawed another fistful of nuts.
‘They met at some embassy event in Washington. She worked in Cultural Affairs. Apparently he sent her flowers every day for a year till she agreed to marry him. She died in a car smash a while back. He’s never got over it, by all accounts.’
‘The son? Dov tells me he’s a bit of a bad boy.’
‘And some,’ grunted Tirat. ‘Skag habit, violent temper, beating up on prossies – classic gossip-column material. Although to be fair I’ve also heard he’s a lot sharper than people give him credit for and the high jinx are all just a front.’
He rattled the almonds in his hand.
‘Truth is, he’s an unknown quantity. They all are, frankly. There’s a lot of speculation and hearsay, but when it comes to hard facts about the Barrens . . . If they’re secretive about their business dealings, it’s nothing compared to how they are about their personal lives. Hardly anyone even knew there
was
a son till he suddenly popped up on the company board ten years ago. Schooled under a false name, kept well out of the limelight – the sort of money they’ve got, it doesn’t just bring influence. Buys you a lot of privacy as well.’
He gave the almonds another shake, then dropped his head back and siphoned them into his mouth, munching vigorously.
‘He comes to Israel a lot, if that’s any use.’
Ben-Roi cocked his head. ‘On business?’
‘If you call snorting coke and shagging hookers business. Keeps a penthouse over in Park Heights. Party central, if the rumours are anything to go by.’
Ben-Roi pondered this, wondering if maybe there
was
a link between Barren and sex-trafficking. Genady Kremenko sources prostitutes for the heir to the empire; Rivka Kleinberg finds out about it and threatens to expose him; Barren Junior comes up to Jerusalem, follows Kleinberg to the cathedral, confronts her, loses his temper . . . again, it was one of those scenarios that matched some parts of the case, didn’t match others. Whichever way he moved the carpet, he could never seem to get it to fit perfectly.
‘There was one little mystery you might be interested in,’ said Tirat, sleeving salt speckles off his lips.
Not another one
, thought Ben-Roi. ‘Go on.’
‘It’s to do with the car crash. The one that killed Nathaniel Barren’s wife.’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, the coroner’s verdict was death by misadventure. A tragic accident.’
‘So?’
‘So it left a lot of questions unanswered.’
‘Such as?’
Tirat sucked on his cigarette.
‘Such as why a recently serviced car driving on open road in broad daylight should suddenly swerve for no obvious reason and smack head-on into a telegraph pole.’
He finished the cigarette and flicked the butt into the gutter.
‘Your round, I believe.’
C
AIRO
Having let himself into the Gezira apartment the company was renting for him, Chad Perks went straight through the living room and out on to the balcony. He leant on the balustrade, gazed across the Nile, farted loudly and, as he did at least a dozen times a day, thought:
Fuck me, life’s sweet
.
Regional Director, Barren North Africa possibly suggested more than it actually involved. All the hard deal-brokering was managed directly out of Houston. His role was more in the line of public relations. As head of the Cairo office, he met with the Egyptian bigwigs, took them for expensive dinners – like the one tonight at Justine – paid the people who needed to get paid, flew down to Luxor every month to check on the progress of the new museum, which was now less than a week away from inauguration. Barren’s face on the ground, basically. And, also, Barren’s eyes and ears. With so much riding on the Saharan gas field tender, the company was anxious to keep tabs on the country’s political mood – especially since Mubarak had been given the heave-ho – and Chad Perks was nothing if not good at keeping tabs on things. If and when the concession was granted, his role, he liked to think, would have been every bit as important as that of the people who actually hammered out the details of the contract. A fact reflected in the mouth-watering performance bonus he was set to receive once the deal was finally signed off.
Generous ex-pat wage, nice fat pension pot, luxury Nile-front apartment, impressive-sounding if slightly overblown title –
yup
, Chad thought,
life sure as hell is sweet
.
Or at least it was till he felt someone come up behind him, throw a cord round his neck and yank him backwards away from the balcony rail and off his feet.
Chad Perks had many admirable attributes, but bravery was not among them. He kicked and struggled for a moment, more out of instinct than any innate desire to battle his assailant, then went limp. He caught a brief, blurred glimpse of the Ramses Hilton on the far side of the river, and also a vague, musky waft of some sort of scent or antiperspirant – funny the things you registered when you were being throttled. Then suddenly he was face down on the living-room carpet and the cord wasn’t there any more. He curled himself into a ball, coughing and choking and desperately trying to put together the Arabic for ‘Please don’t hurt me’ (languages, like bravery, had never been Chad’s strong suit).
He needn’t have worried. When his attacker spoke, it was in English. The fact that the voice was a woman’s gave him a momentary glimmer of hope. The feel of a pistol against his temple snatched it away.
‘I want to know what your company’s doing here in Egypt,’ the voice snarled. ‘
Exactly
what you’re doing. And if you try and bullshit me, I’ll blow your fucking head off.’
Chad assured her he had no intention of doing anything other than cooperating fully.
‘Right. Start talking.’
Chad started talking.
J
ERUSALEM
On Sunday morning Ben-Roi got up early. He banged out a four-page breakdown of all the key points of the case and e-mailed it to Khalifa. Then, just for the hell of it, he went on the internet and Googled the car accident that had killed Nathaniel Barren’s wife. There wasn’t much that Natan Tirat hadn’t already told him. Her car had come off a road north of Houston, smashed into a telegraph pole, she had died instantly. One eyewitness claimed to have seen another person in the vehicle shortly before the crash, but no one else had been able to corroborate that, and a detailed investigation had concluded the accident was just that – accidental. After surfing for forty minutes he decided the whole thing was a red herring – there seemed to be a whole shoal of them swimming round this case – and shut his computer down. He called Dov Zisky to say he was going to be late, brought a bunch of roses from the flower stand opposite his apartment and walked over to Sarah’s.
‘What’s this in aid of?’ she asked when she opened the door to him.
‘I felt like seeing you.’
He swept the flowers out from behind his back.
‘I’ve been so tied up with work . . . I thought we could have breakfast and then I’d drive you over to the school.’
‘I’m not due in till midday.’
‘Great. We can spend the morning together.’
She eyed him suspiciously.
‘This isn’t like you, Arieh.’
‘What’s not like me?’