"The motel - Princess Lodge - is on the coast road at the far end of the bay," I explained to Kate. "They're looking for a cook in exchange for a room. They're willing to wait for me. Danny pitched me as a Dutch chef specializing in Eastern European cuisine. That might have impressed them, but they also made sure I knew how to flip hamburgers and pile fries up on a plate with two eggs, sunny side up, for breakfast. The joker took the trouble to tell me there was an industrial park and offices going up in town and they'd be sure to need talented attorneys." I didn't mention the possibility of volunteering my time as a lawyer for the organization my mother ran. I still couldn't talk about that.
We sped up Route 195 at nearly a hundred miles an hour. For the last lap of the journey, I slowed down. A heavy fog hung over the road. The car Danny had loaned me climbed the last hill after Huntington. Behind the hill, the fog lifted, revealing Hampton Bay below us. I slowed to a crawl. It was a dream come true, with reefs stretching into the water and a sandy bathing beach at the northern end. Now, at low tide, we could see a broad strip of wet grayish-blue sand. The gulls, which had just woken up, gathered in small groups, flying over the shoals and shrieking as they swooped down on the creatures trapped on the sand as the water receded. The wind, constantly shifting, alternately carried the sounds toward us or away from us. Every now and then the gulls disappeared behind a long shelf of rock. At the far end of the bay stood the Princess Lodge, a plain, efficient structure pleasantly painted in turquoise and brown.
Kate stared intently at the view. Biting on her lower lip, she asked, "Can you drive along the beach?"
I agreed willingly. The car bounced over the shoulder, crossed a ditch, and then I was driving with a happy heart along the wet sand toward the gulls.
Four cars were waiting behind a barricade of rocks. Two headed straight for the sea, blocking our way. The other two started up and sped to take up position behind us. I stopped the car and looked over at Kate, appalled to see her unhesitatingly opening the door, about to get out.
"No, Kate," I said. "Wait, let me get out first. I'll try to keep them busy while you make a run for it."
She gazed at me, and suddenly she didn't seem in the least bit drugged or defenseless. "You're in Canada," she said, in a tone totally unlike the familiar soft vulnerable voice I was expecting. "You can't go back to the States anytime soon. My job is over. I'm going home."
I stared at her disbelievingly, my throat dry and my heart pounding wildly. I glanced back outside, then in the rear view mirror. Several men with rifles had gotten out of the two cars behind us. One of the cars in front bore Canadian diplomatic plates - probably from the American embassy in Ottawa - and the other carried American plates of the District of Columbia. I knew they belonged to the F.B.I. Cross Border Security Cooperation. Two men I'd never seen before got out of the car, followed by one I recognized immediately. A massive old geezer with broad shoulders and a melancholy expression: Tom, the fisherman from the Newfoundland Co.
"Shit!” I groaned.
She was standing on the beach beside the car, looked back at me to see how devastated I was, then, bringing her hands to her mouth, she shouted into the wind."Give me a couple of minutes!" She got in again and sat down next to me in silence.
I stared at her, stunned.
"For me, it was all over when I took off at the Park Street station," she said. "My job was finished. I'd gotten all the evidence we needed and I could go on to my next assignment. But, like a lovesick bear in a china shop, you had to keep looking and barging ahead and breaking things. You jeopardized the whole operation. Finally, I asked to go back and get you out. Otherwise, you’d have been dead a long time ago. Remember the four punks in Central Park? You were the most amazing dancing bear I've ever seen. You know, for every one of those bears, there's a tune; you just have to play it and he starts dancing. It's all a matter of training. But you never learned. You didn't dance to the Israeli tune; you didn't even dance to our tune the way you were supposed to."
I gazed back at her. A few pieces were starting to fall into place, but I still didn't understand what she was saying. She tried to explain it all again, very patiently. I was amazed by the matter-of-fact, military style she adopted, while the wind played with her soft silky hair and the sparkling trust in her eyes still pulled at my heart.
"We've known about the Benjamin affair for at least three months. We had almost all the evidence we needed. The only weak link was the line to the senior handler."
"Miller?" I heard myself ask in a cracked voice. I knew it was a lost cause.
"No. The Government of Israel. The whole operation looked like the work of an intelligence agency that had gotten out of control. We couldn't find any evidence of involvement on the part of the Israeli government, which left the whole affair hung up in the air, from our point of view, until `Sparrow' picked up the phone when I called from Cape Cod. That was the missing part that finally confirmed the link to your government."
"Did you tape the call?" I asked superfluously in a voice that wasn't mine.
"Obviously. Buddy, or Tom if you prefer, was the agent in charge. He was afraid you'd hurt me, so he decided to keep an eye on me personally. It's no big deal to rent a house from a neighbor who isn't there all winter and use his name for a few days. You see," she went on in that military style, "all these years, you've been very good at setting up impenetrable, compartmentalized security networks. We'd nearly given up all hope of infiltrating them. But there's always a weak link, you just have to find it. I claimed – rightly, as it turned out - that if we looked in some small out-of-the-way delegation we could find someone who'd make a mistake and force the whole network to admit responsibility. Don't forget, I know you Israelis very well." She grinned. There was no malice or anger in it, just triumph - and that glow I remembered from when she first told me how she met Avihu in Washington Square. She hunted him, not the other way around. She was now talking rapidly. Our two minutes were about to end. "That time I came to the consulate, when because of me, you walked out and turned your back on them all - that was an attempt to trap you guys. We had to prove the direct link between the State of Israel and that schmuck Benjamin. I failed. The consul didn't buy my story and I was sure he sent you to check me out."
"Really?" I said, offended. "That's what you thought? After everything I did for you?"
"I realized soon enough that you weren't there to keep tabs on me." Gently, she removed her hand from my grasp. "I couldn't believe it. It was so beautiful, David, the way you trusted me."
"That's why you used it so well?"
"That's the business we're in. I went with you to the Cape, hoping to net some big fish we didn't know about yet. But we got even more than we bargained for."
"You've only known about it for three months? But you were in on it when they recruited Benjamin!"
"No, he was recruited three months before they thought they'd reeled me in too, but I heard the stories about him so many times, I could be very convincing. It's only been three months and two weeks since I got the assignment," she stated proudly. "Actually, I wrapped it up two weeks ago, but I came back for you, and almost got myself killed in the process. Don't you see? They were keeping me under guard at the mental home in West Roxbury because I was the key witness. But I had to get you out of New York before you ruined everything, and before a few ruthless men on our side decided to take you out. That's why I called you from there. Listen, that search of my apartment and the bonding warehouse could have gotten us into a lot of trouble with the Department of Defense - as well as with some of your friends - before we could make our case. They still don't realize how big a bomb is about to go off. The idiots at DOD tried to cover up for you. I think someone there lost his marbles and thought they'd be able to get their hands on me at the last minute and do me some real harm. Can you imagine! This isn't just another case that's going to be discreetly buried with the understanding of the president."
I remembered what Miller had said. In the long r
un, that was what the Israelis had in mind. But I didn't say anything. I recalled a picture of Motti Pizza. I could see Miller, Avihu, Nadav, and Nissim. How could they all have been bamboozled into believing Kate was just another Israel junkie? But then again, maybe she was?
"So what's real in this whole business?"
"You're real," she answered, and I thought I saw her trying to swallow a lump in her throat. "Rishpon is real. I'll get there some day."
"Avihu?"
Silence.
"What's going to happen to them all?"
"What are you worried about? Miller and Gadi will go on switching masters, creeds, and missions," she said, curling up her lips contemptuously. "They'll buy and sell people and commodities without getting a scratch on them - except, maybe, for some freak accident now and then. Right now, you know more than anyone else about the Benjamin affair," she added after a moment's hesitation. "You know it's going to explode soon, and when that happens, there won't be one truth anymore. Every side, and every agency, will present its own biased version of the facts, something between actual distortion and covering their asses. A lot of people with a lot of ambition came together over this one."
"Bears that dance to some tune?"
She glanced at me, trying to tell if I was hurt. "No, not really. I think they believe they're writing the tune. Maybe a lot of gypsy kids too, the kind who take advantage of the occasion to pickpocket the spectators. If you want my opinion, I think it would be a good idea if you wrote it all down - you've got a pretty good education. I hope you lay back and find a tune you like at Hampton Court, or you can just stroll through the town, like a bear."
"What about Avihu?" I asked quickly. We were running out of time. "What's going to happen to him?"
Kate sighed deeply. "He'll go on carrying the cross on his back from one place to the next, over one hill and down another, hoping to find somewhere he can stop and rest and quit."
All of a sudden she threw her arms around me and kissed me on the lips. "My teddy bear," she said, "my sweet little teddy bear. Take care of yourself." She got out and strode to one of the other cars, not looking back. They sped off as soon as she got in. The acrid smell of the exhaust fumes hung in the air for another moment, and then was gone.
Oren Sanderson, Dancing Bear
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