“Please, Danni. This business…this has nothing to do with him.”
Danni pointed at the screen. “He did that.”
“Do you think I would have taken his money if I thought he was a gangster?”
Danni regarded her father, sitting there in his linen blazer, his fancy sunglasses and Gucci loafers. In that instant, she saw that he’d changed. Maybe he’d seen too much, done too much, hurt too much. Before joining Unit 8200, he’d been a founder of Israel’s targeted assassination program. When she’d first joined the Mossad, he’d spoken to her of his victories and his mistakes, happy to be freed from the bonds that forbade discussion of such matters. These days, he talked about his new Mercedes or his newer Swiss watch or his culinary excursions to London and Paris.
“I think you’ve lost your bearing, Papa,” she said, taking his hand.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You forgot where True North lies.”
“My daughter, the poet.” Franck freed his hand.
“Look at you. Your jacket costs as much as a major’s monthly salary. Brioni, right? You have your gold Rolex and your Italian loafers. You look like you belong with Fredo Corleone in Havana.”
“It’s a Breguet, by the way. And I’d prefer it if you said I belong with Michael in Lake Tahoe.”
“God knows, it happened to me. It’s like rot. You get used to doing whatever you think is necessary, breaking every rule, breaking the law, ignoring your conscience. It’s easy to believe that the means—no matter how twisted, how depraved, how ugly—are acceptable when the end is Israel. After a while you forget everything you know about right and wrong. There’s just the mission.”
“Danni, please, this isn’t the place.”
“You used to talk about them. The families of the targets. Wives, sisters, mothers, children. The ‘collateral damage.’ God, I always hated that term.”
“It had to be done,” said Franck. “I won’t apologize.”
“I don’t want you to. There was no alternative, at least not at the time. But after a while it stopped bothering you.”
“It never stopped,” said Zev Franck solemnly. “Never. I just chose to forget.”
“And now? We’re not protecting Israel anymore. We’re businesspeople. We make a product and we sell it. Daddy, the information we provided to a client led to a man’s death. Luca Borgia ordered Rafael de Bourbon’s killing.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I read some of the take.”
“Danni, the first rule is—”
“Never get involved in a client’s business. I know. But Borgia is a thief. De Bourbon threatened to expose him. Now he’s dead.”
“It is not our concern.”
“We are accomplices.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I need your permission.”
“For?”
Danni leveled her gaze at her father. After a moment, he looked away. She saw something in his features she’d never before seen. Shame. It came to her then that it was him, that it was her father who’d given the Saudis the software that had led to the journalist’s death.
Zev Franck stood and buttoned his jacket. “You’ll do it no matter what I say.” He turned to leave. “But it’s a mistake.”
“And Daddy…not a word.”
Chapter 46
