PROLOGUE
Jordan – November 25, 1963
In a modest dwelling nestled in the Muslim quarter of the ancient city of Jerusalem, a short distance from the revered Dome of the Rock and the sacred Garden of Gethsemane, where it is said that a Jewish carpenter-turned-rabbi looked into the future and sweat droplets of blood, sat a little girl and her mother, their eyes fixed on a flickering TV screen.
Amal, a precocious ten-year-old, snuggled close to her mother Asima, both riveted by the images of the somber funeral rites for the fallen president of the United States. It was a mere three days since the tragic assassination.
The little girl’s gaze was drawn to a veiled figure cloaked in black mourning attire, barely discernible amidst the shadowed hues of grief. The woman appeared dignified and strong, reminding the child of her own mother when she wore similar garments in the aftermath of heartbreaking loss. Flanking the lady in black were two children, one of whom, a young boy, tenderly offered his departed father a military salute.
Three hundred million homes joined together in collective mourning, witness to the savage outcome that hate had unleashed upon the innocent and guilty alike. Now Asima’s tears flowed freely, mingling with the devastating anguish cascading around the world. Amal reached out to her mother, her small hand resting gently against the damp cheek.
“Who are they, Mamma? Why are you so sad? Do you know them? Are they family to us? Are you sad because we must leave here and move to France?”
“Be still, Amal!” her mother implored, struggling to control her sobs. “We are all connected by such sorrows. I feel her suffering. She is a mother, I am a mother. She lost a husband, I lost a husband. We all must live in the same broken world, we all want the same things for our children, and this man did not deserve such a fate. We are all bound by grief and suffering, and by the pain we feel over the senseless violence that surrounds us.”
Amal felt the comforting rhythm of her mother’s heart beating against her own; she held her mother very close for a very long time, the lines between them blurred by their shared grief and solace.
As they hugged, Asima whispered, “Blood of my blood, I pray to our merciful God that we may never be apart.”
“I don’t understand, Mamma.”
“You will.”
CHAPTER 1
COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Paris, France – October 1964
Tony De Castro hated his job.
He loved fine Scotch and a full-bodied Rioja. He loved playing dominoes under the shade of the black walnut trees in Little Havana. He loved the inspiring prose of Hemingway and Mario Vargas Llosa. He loved the rhythmic cadence of waves as the evening tides moved toward darkening horizons. He loved listening to the tender melodies of his youth played by old men on worn guitars.
Above all else, he loved his gifted young daughter, Raquel.
But Tony De Castro—a survivor of the Bay of Pigs, an expert in covert operations, entrusted by the most powerful man in the world to do what needed to be done—hated his job.
He hated killing.
The job had already cost him everything he loved.
The savory aroma of a recently cooked meal filled the room. Toys and clothes were scattered across the floor, an unfinished chocolate bar in its crumpled foil wrapping lay deserted on the kitchen table.
Something’s not right, he should be alone.
Treading cautiously through the Parisian apartment, Tony struggled to decipher why his target had deviated from the safehouse protocol. A woman’s blouse hung limply from the shower curtain. In the bedroom he stumbled on a small tennis shoe, scuffed white Keds abandoned among a child’s playthings. He froze in mid-stride, his breath trapped in his throat, his heart pounding out spikes of fear and trepidation. His daughter, the one he may never see again, owned an identical pair.
A child staying in a safehouse? How could this be?
A torrent of emotion swelled within him, threatening to derail his attention. Not now, he urged himself, clinging to the fragile thread of resolve that tethered him to the present moment.
Not good, too many unknowns.
Surges of adrenaline triggered fight or flight impulses. The inner voice, the doubt creator, demanded attention, insisting he reconsider what he was about to do. He paced back and forth, compulsively rubbing his sweating hands over his trousers.
A child, the voice insisted, about the same age as your daughter.
There must be another way.
Steady! he admonished himself. The mission comes first, the target must be eliminated. Today. No exceptions. Regardless of Aaron’s contribution. Everyone on The List must be dealt with. They must be erased.
The voice offered a compromise. You’re done with this business. When this is over you get out and you disappear. For good.
Tony retrieved a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it tightly around his sweaty hand, the hand now clutching a gun. He focused on steadying his heart rate, wresting control from the unsettling inner turmoil.
No room for distractions, he rationalized. No time to dwell on his daughter.
Remember, this is for her. Even if you never see her again, you know what must be done, you have a vital role to play. It’s imperative you do everything you can to make the world safer for her. Whatever it takes.
He continued arguing with himself, reciting age-old justifications. Collateral damage is inevitable in war.
Approaching the end of this harrowing mission, he recommitted to concluding it swiftly and vanishing into obscurity. Erased from history, along with the rest of them.
He fixed the suppressor onto the High Standard HDM—the silencer to muffle the noise, the towel to mitigate flash and residue. Wait until the target turns on the TV or radio, providing cover with background noise, clean kill, this is no place for a firefight. One to the back of the head or through the heart, one shot, minimal splatter circumference, exit the scene at a normal pace. Must be executed flawlessly, no room for error, and absolutely no witnesses.
Moving in and out of shadows, probing for optimal leverage, he inadvertently tramples the white tennis shoe. He shudders.
Focus, goddammit!
He decides the small alcove near the front entrance offers the best tactical vantage point. Slipping into the shadows he waits, a purveyor of lethal corrective measures lurking in the dark.
Ideally situated, the safehouse was located in a bustling Parisian neighborhood at the heart of the Latin Quarter with cafés, bakeries, student housing, and jazz clubs thick on the ground. A quiet side street leading to the lively Boulevard Saint-Michel, with the Odéon at one end and a popular bookstore at the other. Easy for a stranger to blend in amidst the usual Parisian throngs. Students, professors, artists and hippies wandered the streets, blissfully unaware of the perilous brink the world teetered upon.
From his concealed vantage point Tony meticulously surveyed every doorway, every egress, his gaze tracing potential escape routes, his mind exhaustively exploring every conceivable contingency. The target, Aaron, an accomplished Mossad asset, a stand-out among the most elite covert operatives in the world, would be formidable if backed into a corner.
Mossad leadership didn’t tolerate incompetence; you either excelled or you perished. Tony vetted him carefully, he traveled to Israel to meet him and his family—he had to be sure he was reliable. Twenty-two on The List had met their fate at Aaron’s hands, dispatched with unfaltering precision. At the end of this night, only two operatives would remain privy to the dark secret behind the mission. And, if the plan unfolded as designed, only one would be left to carry the burden of truth.
One more, then you disappear.
Veiled in darkness, he continued to wrestle with relentless deliberations. Was it perverse to have met Aaron’s wife, knowing the inevitable outcome of this assignment? Aaron wasn’t a thrill-seeking mercenary. Soulless guns-for-hire were common in this line of work, motivated solely by the thrill of wet-work and the allure of blood money. Tony had no tolerance for them; they were unreliable, their allegiances transient. He had encountered their ilk at the Bay of Pigs— men unable to grasp the nobility of sacrificing everything for a cause they believed in.
Aaron was cut from different cloth; his motives transcended monetary gain. A significant portion of his family had perished in Nazi concentration camps. He witnessed first-hand the relentless tug-of-war between good and evil, and comprehended the unwavering will resistance demanded. Aaron recognized that prevailing in this eternal battle occasionally required deeds of unspeakable cruelty.
He brandished a tailor-made CV. Too young to make a difference in ’42 or ’43 when his ancestors were being slaughtered throughout Germany and Eastern Europe, he dodged a brutal fate. As a young boy the underground resistance smuggled him out of Germany while the German Wehrmacht sliced through Europe. In 1950, at the age of twenty-two, after the Israeli Knesset passed the Law of Return, he moved to Israel as a citizen of the Jewish state. He joined the Israeli Defense Force and quickly rose through the ranks, distinguishing himself as an expert in special operations. He retired from the military and operated as a private contractor, taking covert assignments for the Israeli government. Well known in certain circles as a discreet, effective, no-nonsense operative who got things done.
Aaron and his wife were good people. His wife Helen was a wise, capable and compassionate partner. There was a quiet strength about her he admired. As husband and wife, they shared a partnership buttressed by a fierce sense of duty.
Why would he invite a woman to stay with him in a Paris safehouse? Aaron didn’t do things on the fly.
Maybe he wasn’t getting sloppy at all. Maybe this was how he blended in. What Frenchman didn’t have a woman on the side? He turned the safehouse into a pied-à-terre. Maybe the setting wasn’t as crazy as it seemed. Maybe she needed a place to stay; maybe she was cheating on her husband. But what about the kid? Maybe Aaron would walk through the door alone. One shot. Done. Slow walk out of the building and down the street, textbook elimination.
Please God, let him be alone.
Uncertain of God’s intentions, Tony chose to no longer harbor doubts about his own.
Outside, the Eiffel Tower glimmered against a moonlit sky. The city of Paris remained a testament to beauty and human potential, a magnet for dreamers and wanderers drawn to its labyrinthine streets and bustling brasseries. A spellbinding achievement of civilization that even the callous Nazis could not bring themselves to destroy. Yet the enchantment of the City of Lights held no sway over him now. He had a job to do.
Soon you will leave Paris and forget all this blood and madness.
Quiet now! He reprimanded the badgering inner voice and reviewed exactly how he would execute the hit. He would not wait for his target to get settled, even if it meant risking whatever noise might escape his dampening agent. Just get it over with! He secured the towel around his hand and gun and waited in the small alcove beside the door. A close-range hit. Aaron would enter, close the door and it would be done.
The reasons and rationalizations sufficiently parsed, doubt yielded to certainty. With each passing moment, his heartbeat slowed, his nerves steadied, and the persistent inner voice fell silent. He waited, surrounded by shadows and the palpable presence of death.
The sound of a turning lock triggers his hyperawareness; sounds of shuffling of feet, the rustling of bags, hushed conversation at the door. The specifics elude him—now irrelevant details to the matter at hand. The jingling of keys, latches echoing in the hallway, a bolt sliding away, his own heartbeat accelerating, amplifying the rising anticipation. The door groans, swings open and then quickly closes, sealing them inside with an ill-fated thud. A woman’s voice, another voice, a…
He fires three shots in quick succession. POP. POP. POP. One shot each. Clean. Efficient. Fatal. Stepping over the target and two other bodies lying face down, he moves toward the unlocked front door, avoiding the oval-shaped pools of blood.
Tony turns on the TV, exits, and gently closes the door behind him. Maintaining a slow pace, he strolls out of the building into the embrace of a warm Paris evening.
The image of a spilled bag of groceries, a stuffed animal soaking blood from a child’s head, the Eiffel Tower glistening through an open window, permanently imprinted in memory. He would carry it like a scar, a curse, a sin, a wish that he too could lie beside them in darkness, in the pain-free nothingness of oblivion.
The memory weighed him down, pulling him further into dark places he was ill-equipped to visit.
His wife Helen should hear of Arron’s fate directly from him. He resolved to visit Israel and sit Shiva with her, he owed him at least that. Aaron died a noble death in the service of a higher cause.
He had to convince her of this.
He had to convince himself.
His sanity depended on it.
***
“It is done.”
“Good,” said the voice on the other end of the phone, distorted by the crackle of a poor connection. The anticipation of what came next, predictable and unwelcomed, added to Tony’s surging dread. “Then it is over, comrade, as I too have completed my final task. With this, our mission is now concluded. We have done our duty, and we can now both disappear into obscurity.”
“May it be so,” Tony said solemnly, letting the silence between them fill the air for a moment too long.
“Listen.” The Russian accent now discernible on the overseas connection.
Tony clutched the receiver, his hands involuntarily moving it away from his face as if he could somehow separate himself from all the blood he’d spilled and the final witness he must still dispatch. He fought the urge to disconnect the line, to disconnect from who he had become, to disconnect from his own troubled memories.
It’s not really over, is it?
“You and I share a bond,” said the voice. “We both share a burden we will no doubt carry with us to our graves. There is no glory or pleasure in what we’ve had to do. We can at least take comfort in the knowledge that we served our countries, we served our fellow humans, we both paid a heavy price to accomplish what needed to be done. What is next for you?”
“I’m not sure,” Tony said. “I will travel, put this behind me. There is one thing I am sure of though, my service to this cause is over. I am done. My new life begins today. All must now be forgotten.”
Couldn’t I at least be spared this one last thing? Tony pleaded with himself.
“Listen, my friend,” the man with the Russian accent insisted, “we are brothers in this; we are comrades. Please grant me one last request before you disappear. Let us break bread as brothers one time. Meet me in Barcelona. We will eat well, drink good wine and speak of what nobility may yet be rescued from this world. And after, we will depart as brothers. Do you have a family?”
“My family is lost to me now, I can never go back to them.”
“I understand,” said the voice on the other end of the phone line. “Perhaps you will find a woman here, one who speaks your native tongue, and maybe she can help renew your spirit. Either way, comrade, you must come to Barcelona.”
Enough! Never again will I allow myself to become a pawn in a game played by people who love power more than life itself. After this, I must erase who I became and find a way to start again.
Tony agreed to the meeting. He gritted his teeth, his inner voice aching with determination.
You’ve convinced yourself you are serving a higher cause, but if every time you are called to serve, you must relinquish a piece of your own humanity, you need to ask yourself: is humanity really worth saving if you are forced to sacrifice a part of your own in the process?
2
BLOOD BROTHERS
Barcelona, Spain – November 1964
