The English Teacher Read Online Free PDF Page B

had been together on more dangerous assignments than this one, and he was not about to insult the man who recruited him into the Unit.
    â€œGive me the basic details again,” Joe requested, and Ehud, who knew the importance of setting out every problem simply, explained that Rachel didn’t inform the Unit she was going to her father’sfuneral. This was contrary to protocol and contrary to the document she had signed the day she left, normal procedure incumbent on anyone who had been party to secret information while on the staff. The chief security officer showed him the paper and said that just because of this she could cause punitive losses to her retirement pension. The phone conversation was the first and only contact with her, and it was only because he called the Office that the alarm was raised and the war room became operational. Joe asked about money and Ehud apologized for forgetting and told him about the withdrawal she had made in London. “What passport is she using?” Joe asked. “All by the book,” said Ehud. “She left using her Israeli passport, entered and left England with her British passport. More than this, we don’t know.” He wanted to tell him that the Unit commander had already sent a team to look for her in India, but Joe was busy parking the car behind a commercial van at the end of the street, and Ehud wasn’t sure that at seventy-five Joe could handle two things at once.

    T HE TEAM COMMANDER, B RIEFED ABOUT THEIR arrival, approached them when they finally got out of the car. He pointed out for them the white van of the cleaning company and the young men in blue overalls. They were trained, orderly, and didn’t skip any detail, not even the apparently careless driver and the two middle-aged women, ideal camouflage for the job they needed to do. The team commander signaled to his men and they unpacked their cleaning equipment and prepared to set to work. Ehud watched them. They were professionals. You could sense this, but he wondered what else they were capable of beyond breaking into any place quietly and doing the job and leaving without a trace. They know how to search too, no doubt about that. They could find the needle in a haystack. You just need totell them what to look for. He saw the commander checking his watch as he gave final instructions to the security team. “There’s no need for all this,” he said to the commander. “The probability that Rachel will suddenly return from a shopping trip or from a morning run is so remote, you can tell the couple sitting on the bench to go, and the moving van at the corner might as well leave too. Think of the budget.”
    â€œNo one will suspect people your age,” said the team commander snidely, signaling Ehud not to interfere. He gave them the number of the apartment, and one of the young men opened the door of the building. As they walked slowly up the stairs Ehud imagined the moment that Rachel answered the phone and wondered what she did afterward. What does a woman feel, hearing the ring of the phone and answering politely in English, without any trace of an accent, confirming that she is Rachel, and being told that her father is dead? We all know, he thought as he panted from climbing the steps, that at any moment someone is liable to knock on the door of our house and turn our world inside out. Few people live in constant readiness. And Rachel? She lived in the very heart of the enemy, she knew that the life she was constructing there and the links she was forging with her surroundings were for a limited time only, but you still have to live that life as if it’s going to last forever. That’s the secret of perfect cover, you can’t overlook any detail. But this time something else has happened to her. Something that touched her deep down inside, that penetrated the shell that she created around herself.
    He stood at the door and waited for Joe to join