The Assembler

By J.B. McNab

A number of factors contributed to making Raakel Myers the most successful securities trader in a generation. Assiduous research was one of them. But her devotion to exercising due diligence ensnares her in one family's war of succession, spurred on by bigotry, wealth, and greed. This, however, is hardly her only foray into a web of danger. As had happened before, it is the double-edged nature of her attributes, to both aid and harm, which pit her against powerful forces enraged by suspicion. She has allies, however, and that's part of the problem. Without the uncertainty as to who stands behind her, she could be taken at face value and dealt with efficiently. Not knowing the extent of her alliances holds her adversaries at bay while leaving undiminished their lust for villainy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Feb 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9780228839132

J.B. McNab

J.B. McNab was born in Mandeville, Jamaica.He now lives in Mississauga, Ontario.This is his first novel.

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Copyright © 2021 by J.B. McNab

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction, and all characters are fictitious. Names similar to those of individuals, living or dead, or to organizations, long-defunct or currently existing, are incidental.

Graphics: front and back cover courtesy of Getty Images

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-3912-5 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-3911-8 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-3913-2 (eBook)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

GLOSSARY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you, Virginia, James, Sarah-Anna, for your love and tolerance, and for so many things I’ve not said enough about.

Thank you, Tereza, your insights were invaluable, your encouragement indispensable.

CHAPTER ONE

Singapore

Stepping from the elevator onto the landing of the twenty-fifth floor, the much younger woman turned toward her companion, who remained inside the lift.

Go to bed, Taeko, the older woman directed.

An expression of bewilderment appeared on Taeko’s face, but just as quickly gave way to a hint of a smile. Bending at the waist with her torso almost parallel to the floor, she bowed as the doors closed. Taeko walked slowly toward her room, while the lift ascended and came to a stop on the twenty-ninth floor.

The third wealthiest Japanese woman walked with a steady gait. Decades before, she had given up wearing heels. She now favoured flat-soled shoes made of satin, like those worn by dancers, down to the straps tied behind the ankles. She wore a navy dress that extended to just below her knees. The dress was sleeveless and comfortably hugged her torso. Over that, she wore an indigo jacket of finely combed wool, unclasped at the front with mid-length sleeves. She rounded a corner and continued walking down the wide corridor. On reaching the second door from the end, she stood and waited, bracing herself. She took out a key card from an inner pocket of her jacket and tapped it against the card reader. A buzz sounded. She pushed the door open and walked into the room.

Matsumoto Akio stood to his feet as the woman entered. Behind him, floor-to-ceiling, sliding glass doors framed the lights of Singapore. He gazed upon the woman who had not been within a hundred metres of him in almost forty years. His expertly tailored suit hung from his thin frame. He attempted to smile but the moment overwhelmed him. The woman was not having an easier time. She returned his stare but said nothing.

Hiroyo, Matsumoto whispered. Still, the woman remained silent. Please, sit down, he said in a formal tone. They sat at opposite ends of the couch and looked toward the city lights. She politely refused his offer of tea, content to remain seated in her stately pose.

You look well, Akio. Her voice was deeper than he remembered. They had missed so many years together. Atagi Hiroyo undid the straps of her shoes and curled up on the couch in her bare feet. Using a cushion for a pillow, she lay on her side with her head in Matsumoto’s lap. She could still see the city lights against the skyline. Matsumoto gently stroked her temple, admiring the beauty of her skin. Atagi’s family derived their wealth from cosmetics; the kind of wealth that could transform people into brutes, maybe even killers.

Sixteen years before, she was simply the sole heiress to a fortune that began in the production and trading of silk before diversifying to encompass other textiles, and finally, dealing exclusively in cosmetics. Now, she controlled the transnational conglomerate, having assumed ownership on the death of her father less than a year after her sixty-first birthday.

Their rendezvous had been carefully planned. Without secrecy, several lives could be at risk. Their meet-up took place at the request of Atagi, and Matsumoto anticipated with unease a request he was certain would come up.

I want to see her . . . just once, Atagi said, sitting up. She followed Matsumoto with her eyes as he stood to his feet and walked over to the sliding doors. The doors were closed but they allowed access to an exterior landing. Matsumoto stood by the doors and turned to face Atagi. For God’s sake, have a heart! Atagi pleaded.

I’m sure you know what you’re asking. I just don’t think you’ve thought it through.

Matsumoto took a seat in a Victorian armchair. He leaned forwards, his elbows on his knees, and looked about the room.

Matsumoto was not the enemy; Atagi knew. Like her, he was a victim. He was just a boy she had dared to love and had spent a lifetime loving, never once entertaining the slightest interest in anyone else and discovering, much later, that he had done the same.

I just want to see her, Atagi repeated. She had passed along secret notes with the same plea several times before.

Matsumoto changed chairs and sat beside Atagi once more. He held her head between his hands and brought his face close to hers. Do you trust your family? he asked her.

A wave of anguish appeared gradually over Atagi’s face. Her expression became contorted, the way someone looked when they were experiencing debilitating pain. Tears emerged from between her clenched eyelids and her lips quivered. She shook her head, then reached out to wrap her arms around Matsumoto’s neck as her body heaved with subdued sobs.

Israel

Toward the western exit, perched near one end of the uppermost row of seats, Raakel Myers sat next to Major Tiffany Shmuel for a third-year undergraduate presentation in biochemistry at Ben-Gurion University. Major Shmuel, or Tiff, as she would remind her friends, wore civilian clothing; business casual pants and a jacket, contrasting with her young recruit, who was conspicuous in army-green military fatigues comprising baggy pants gathered at the ankles and tucked into her boots, and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up above the elbows, worn over a white T-shirt. On Raakel’s left shoulder, the lapel of her shirt was buttoned down to clasp her folded beret.

Seated on the other side of Shmuel, a natural blonde hardly took notice of the couple beside her. It was evident they were just visiting. The blonde’s face was expertly made up, and her hair was collected in a bun, held in place by a slender wooden stick, painted black. She wore jeans and a loose-fitting chiffon blouse. Two, or maybe even three, identical spaghetti straps ran over each shoulder from more than one garment. Women made up slightly more than half of the audience. One student wore a hijab and blue jeans seemed to be the standard attire.

Raakel’s thoughts went back twelve months to her last year as an undergraduate. Lectures for her were rare and, when they occurred, the setting was far less formal. Then, as now, no one kept tabs on the students’ attendance. Now, some students had in-ear speaker buds in place, and no one cared whether they were patched-in to the speaker’s microphone for a clearer rendition, or listening to their favourite rap album.

For fifty minutes, Professor Aaron Nisim kept his undergraduate audience awake during his mid-morning lecture with his melodic intonation and changes in volume—a skill that took most of his almost twenty years of teaching to fully develop. A simulation depicting the biochemical actions of an experimental class of inhibitors on the synthesis of the stress hormone, cortisol, played out on a large video monitor while he narrated. Shmuel listened with disinterest. Along with Raakel, she was attending her second lecture given by Nisim. They had no plans to be present for a third.

The casually dressed professor was carefully observed throughout his presentation. Raakel had gone through his dossier, making for as stimulating a read as the volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica her mother kept at their home in Finland when Raakel was a young child.

As you just saw . . . Nisim wound things up, . . . we have an agent that inhibits the synthesis of cortisol, but there’s a problem. The dose of the agent needed to effectively lower cortisol levels is potentially toxic to the individual. Find a way to regulate cortisol biosynthesis using safe doses of this agent, and I’ll recommend you for your doctorate.

A din of laughter erupted as the students packed up their belongings and joined the procession to leave. Raakel and Shmuel remained seated and impassive. Nisim looked up in their direction and held Shmuel’s gaze for more than a moment before abruptly leaving the lecture hall.

Mid-morning on a cool but sunny day, Shmuel was found conferencing with her superior, General Asher Arad-Ayalon. A full week had passed since Professor Nisim’s lecture, and Shmuel sat looking down the length of a rectangular conference table. Arad-Ayalon sat at the other end and leaned against the high back of his chair until it creaked. There was a time, not too long before, when the general’s arms, folded across his body as they now were, would not have obscured Shmuel’s view of his lower jaw. But as his mid-section increased in girth with each passing year, his lower arms rose progressively higher across his distended abdomen whenever he sat as he was now positioned. His arms formed a barrier, rendering Shmuel’s lip-reading skills useless. She kept asking the general to repeat himself until he caught on and brought his chair firmly, and irreversibly, to its upright position.

She concluded that he has a sibling, said Shmuel.

Arad-Ayalon’s eyes narrowed. Siblings? he questioned, he has none.

That’s what we have in his dossier. Now, he admits that he does. He thought the information would disqualify him from our program. He has a sister who is eighteen years older than he, same mother, same father. She was given up for adoption and moved to the US. She’s now an aide to the governor of Delaware.

Do you think she spoke to Nisim? asked the general.

Would he have told her what he wouldn’t tell us? That little detail is hardly the sum of it. She knows he enlisted to fly for the Israeli military and was rejected. That, too, was not in his dossier. She also speculates that he’s a latent sexual predator.

God forbid she gets her hands on my dossier.

Given how much time she has already spent with you, she wouldn’t need your dossier at all.

Hmm. Arad-Ayalon disapproved of the pleasure Shmuel seemed to be deriving at his expense.

Imagine the sort of advantage we might have if she’s as effective when the stakes become considerably higher. The excitement in Shmuel’s voice was undisguised.

Arad-Ayalon suddenly had a lot to think about; Tiffany Shmuel, it seemed, had stumbled upon an asset. No one was likely to ever question her presence in his meetings again—certainly not him.

After Shmuel left, Arad-Ayalon took a walk to the john. He detected the faint odour of caffeine in his urine. He tried to remember every encounter he’d had alone with a woman. He was sure he’d never touched a woman against her wish.

Didn’t that put him in the clear? There were a few people he’d certainly like Raakel Myers to have a look at. But he would be kidding himself if he thought he could simply deploy her as his personal polygraph machine, if that was even what she did.

For Raakel Myers, Finland was a long way from Israel and a long time ago, the language forgotten but for common phrases. She’d lost her mother at age six, leaving her father disoriented for many years. All this time, she hadn’t been able to decide whether he had grieved for himself, or for his only child. Her mother’s tendency to hold her often was absent in her father. Her loneliness had become a refuge, impenetrable to everyone.

We’re going out tonight. Abi Tirosh had just walked into the room they shared, surprising Raakel. I think you should come, Abi offered. We’re going off-base.

I’m really swamped, Raakel lied. Rain check?

I already have dozens of those.

Abi lived with Raakel on the base called Bahad 1. After Abi left each morning, she had no idea what Raakel did. The year before, they had the same routine; classes, drills, shooting practice, battlefield games. Everything suddenly changed after they were moved out of the dorm they shared with two others. Nothing had changed for her that would warrant an upgrade. She wondered what had changed for the recruit no one seemed to talk to.

Abi sat on her bed, elbows on her knees, chin in her hands, feet on the floor.

Maybe if she just stared, something might break.

Raakel sat crossed-legged in bed, her feet wedged beneath her thighs. She squirmed without diverting her eyes. She munched on an apple and read from a thick binder.

You wouldn’t believe how many people have tried that, Raakel said. You’re going to lose.

The sound of chomping filled the room. That, and the occasional tchick whenever a page was turned.

I have a sister like you, Abi volunteered. Well . . . not exactly like you. She isn’t like you all the time. But she’s my sister, so I have to try. You? I don’t care. But I can tell you this; there’s something special about spending two years with someone, training in the military. You’re going to wish you hadn’t been such a cunt.

Raakel earned the dossier of the powerful Republican chairman of the US Senate’s Defense Appropriations Committee, Henry Merten. Merten was serving his third consecutive term in the Senate and yet, had made an official trip to Israel only once. He was known to require deep concessions from Israel in return for the US government’s appropriations for military aid. Israeli policy makers would have a problem as long as they failed to mitigate the influence exerted by Senator Merten on the US government’s decisions.

Merten came from a family which, six generations earlier, had settled in Pennsylvania’s verdant countryside, not far from present-day Harrisburg. The earliest Mertens had been Flanders in northern Belgium. He passed the Pennsylvania bar exam but never practiced as an attorney, preferring instead to run the tool and die business that his family owned. He became active politically, following his father’s death from natural causes, when he successfully ran for Congress as the representative for Pennsylvania’s fifth district. After serving three terms as a House member, he decided to take on an ageing incumbent for the US Senate. Merten ran on a platform that argued for a smaller, less intrusive federal government. He was particularly infuriated by what he termed the hegemony of the Environmental Protection Agency. Merten’s first campaign for the Senate was characterized by acrimony and brutal personal attacks by both candidates. Even though he won, Merten came out of the campaign demoralized and cynical. By his second Senate campaign, he had won himself broad support from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress on account of his reasoned position on the need for technological superiority in the area of defence, through a boost in spending on research, development, and the commercialization of technology. When Republicans gained control of the Senate, two years into his third term, Merten became Chairman of the Senate Defense Appropriations Committee. But even before becoming the chairman, Merten had gained the ear of a Republican president who had sought his counsel on matters having to do with military support for Israel.

Every vote Senator Merten ever cast as a member of Congress made it into his dossier. There were notes written by Israeli government officials who had met him, transcripts of interviews he had given, titles for papers he had written in college, photographs from as far back as high school, his menu when he travelled, indulgences at home and abroad, a list of suspected lovers before marriage, tax fillings, expense claims submitted for reimbursement, and on and on. Senator Merten, Raakel read, once lived with an Amish family for four months during his final year of law school. One photograph showed Merten seated on a horse-drawn buggy holding hands with an attractive brunette, who looked to be his own age. A third person in the photograph, also a young man, held the reins of the horse. All three looked directly at the camera, not at all surprised that a picture was taken. The young woman didn’t look like she could become the person Merten had married, and Raakel found nothing that hinted at her name.

Raakel went through Merten’s dossier repeatedly, all the while growing increasingly moody. Over the span of a month, she seemed to be constantly brooding. One day suddenly, her spirits lifted, and she decided to start writing. She was granted the use a vacant office and secluded herself. She wrote all day, making exactly two trips to the washroom.

Early the next morning, she dropped her report onto Arad-Ayalon’s desk, then sat down opposite the rotund, venerable, Israeli military mind. Her chair was as plush as his. Arad-Ayalon began reading audibly. Senator Henry ‘Hank’ Merten is no friend of Israel and will never be. He thinks Israel is a land of religious zealots, utterly deluded. He supports Israel because it’s political suicide not to do so, but he wouldn’t care if there were mass migrations back to Europe and the whole land of Israel became overrun by the surrounding nations. Arad-Ayalon continued reading, inaudibly this time, skipping over multiple paragraphs at a time. The thirty-one-page document covered the senator’s voting record extensively, both in the House and in the Senate. Raakel had made the consistency of the senator’s voting record a point of emphasis. Senator Merten had never, in all his years in Congress, gone out on a limb in support of Israel. He always played it safe and was careful to oppose Israel, only when he could get away with it politically.

Arad-Ayalon kept his expression unchanged as he read, never once looking up at Raakel, not until he had gone through all the pages. There was no urgency in his voice when he finally spoke. I know it’s probably here, but I want you to summarize how your conclusions are supported.

Raakel took a deep breath before responding. She sat with her shoulders pressed against the back of her chair. Her lower arms followed the contours of the armrests. All her fingers were close together and pointed forwards. As a young man, Senator Merten fell in love with a beautiful Amish woman. I think he was attracted by her intelligence. He tried to persuade her to leave her way of life, and she failed to persuade him to join hers. Neither of them chose to give in and, instead, went their separate ways. Merten felt cheated by her religious fervour. That’s when he decided that all religions were without logic, merely robbing their adherents—some with great minds—of their liberty to fully enjoy the life they had. That’s also . . .

I think I get it, Arad-Ayalon interrupted. But what is your level of confidence in your conclusions?

I don’t know, Raakel hedged. She shrugged her shoulders. How can one ever be certain? It’s the best explanation I could devise to account for all the facts.

Arad-Ayalon brought his hands together. His palms pressed together, he placed his index fingers against his lips. With his palms still touching, he then spread his fingers and placed the tips of both index fingers beneath his lower lip. He swivelled from side to side on his chair before fixing his gaze on Raakel. Senator Merten has never expressed an unkind sentiment concerning any religion. What do you say to that?

He would not have had a ghost of a chance of becoming the chairman of a Senate committee had he done otherwise.

Arad-Ayalon fell silent again. He got up from his chair and walked over to the lone window. Looking down from the second floor, his gaze took in a parade ground barren of any activity. The doors on a row of garages remained closed.

We’ve had our suspicions about Senator Merten, but I must admit, we’ve never come up with a concrete explanation. How then do you think Israel should navigate its interactions with Senator Merten, given what you’ve concluded?

You know that’s not for me to say.

Very well. Arad-Ayalon took his time before speaking again. What can you say about the Amish woman? What is she doing today?

That’s on page thirty.

And, I’m going to read it. Arad-Ayalon waited for Raakel to comply. He didn’t have to wait long.

If she’s alive, she could still be living among the Amish, married with multiple children, and very unhappy. But I think not. I think she’s no longer living with the Amish, and she’s highly accomplished in what she does.

And what would that be . . . that she would be doing?

Maybe she writes novels or teaches music to college students. Maybe she’s a sculptor. Although Amish women tend not to receive an education beyond high school, I don’t think Merten would have been attracted to someone who didn’t share his intellect. And I think Senator Merten met this woman on a college campus. I think she chose music.

Arad-Ayalon didn’t bother thanking Raakel for the work she had done. He simply reminded her of her next subject: The President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who, one day, could become the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve and who, by virtue of that position, was automatically a senior advisor to the US president. He didn’t give her a deadline.

Within the hollow space, the two women grunted like wild boars, the echoes deafening. Every lunge was reciprocated. No one conceded without first trading in a bruised shoulder or a skinned elbow. Raakel hated losing to the super athletic army recruit who had first challenged her to a contest in squash shortly after their second year on the base began. The score was now ten to four in her opponent’s favour. That was not the score in the current contest, but the overall number of wins between them in a nine-month span. If she was going to win her fifth contest, Raakel would have to overcome a hobbling ache at the front of her right thigh. She had sustained it after a players’ collision, the outcome of which, had not been fairly distributed.

Perhaps she could sacrifice the elbow of her racket-free arm to even the score in injuries.

Knuckles knocking on glass alerted the players to General Arad-Ayalon’s presence. He motioned for Raakel to leave the area of play, presumably for a quick word. Raakel had not spoken to the general in more than two months, not since her Merten report had been submitted. Both players ignored him and their tussle resumed, this time with an audience, and continued for another forty-five minutes. The close match did not go Raakel’s way, setting her up for a tense encounter with a vastly superior officer. Despite the hot day, the breeze outdoors made for a welcome respite.

We know who the Amish woman is, Arad-Ayalon began, seeming not to remember being kept waiting.

Raakel looked straight ahead while she walked. Then she’s alive, she said.

Her husband and daughter live in their Amish community in Pennsylvania, the general resumed. She spends as much time with them as she can. Arad-Ayalon paused once again. She’s frequently a guest conductor of the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra.

Raakel halted abruptly. She turned to face Arad-Ayalon. The general’s green eyes radiated streaks of brown within the iris. He felt the full tension of her words.

She turned down Henry Merten to keep her way of life, then later had regrets. I’m sure Senator Merten understands exactly what had influenced her original choice. Any wonder that he hates Israel?

She remembered how unbearably cold it was. That was the worst part—that, and the thought that a snake, seeking warmth, might invade her foxhole. There had been no one within a kilometre of her position, and they had not given her as much as a radio for communication. As one would expect, she had dared not sleep a wink. She could hardly believe that was almost six years ago. It felt like only a month had passed. She had come to find her thinking interrupted quite often by an invasion from her military past.

Inside her apartment in Haifa, Israel, Raakel sat at her desk and ran the numbers through an algorithm. She was thus able to get a present value for her holdings of bonds—the value of a single bond issue or an aggregate value of a portfolio of bonds. And that was the trouble for bondholders. They had to keep reassessing their positions against the prevailing conditions in the market. If a central bank lowered or raised the interest rate, they had to decide which bonds were worth keeping, selling, or swapping out. Presumably, they paid a fee for a broker to do that on their behalf, the fee being exacted whenever their holdings realized a net gain. But if they could intervene to prevent the broker from accepting a certain gain where an even higher gain was available, they might prevent their wealth being squandered.

Raakel had mandatory reading that involved taking out subscriptions to major newspapers and newsletters written by analysts. Her data gathering also involved hearing from the best minds; people weighing in on the multiple factors that interplayed in the financial markets. Her sources were an unconventional mix of both securities traders and nontraders. Information considered irrelevant by most found a place in her analyses, and something filed away years earlier could prove to be the clue that would unravel a complex enigma.

Japan

Terada Hurato had never fully understood what had possessed a young Israeli investor to travel all the way to Japan to recruit him. He kept her abreast of the financial news and reported on trends in the Japanese economy, but still marvelled at how he had managed to land his position. Whenever he paused to think about it, he was still befuddled. He wondered why, for example, he’d been chosen to work in business and finance after earning a doctorate in astrophysics. Other members of his cohort, fresh out of graduate school, had battled fierce competition to find work, while he had been handpicked. The criteria he had to meet were never explained to his satisfaction. His friends envied how much he was paid—and the figure he gave them was short of the actual—and what he did to earn it, especially when he embellished his job description by inserting phrases such as senior analyst or advisor to the chief executive. But all told, whatever information Raakel Myers requested, it was his job to get it; comprehensively, yet concisely, and in short order.

Aided by software, Terada translated over the video call, reading from two nationally-circulated newspapers, The Yomiuri and The Nihon Keizai. Terada was Raakel’s lone employee in Japan, and he was required to make himself available to take her calls. As part of his preparation for each call, he had been forced to acquire a broad range of knowledge. He collected reams of data, curated sources, and, not least of all, burnished his command of English.

He now gave Raakel a rundown of a discussion which was shown earlier in the day on the NT Network involving a group of economists. They had debated the recent cut in the Japanese central bank’s prime lending rate. Professor Ryo Hashimoto of Osaka University warned that retaliation against Japanese exports was sure to follow and, as happened in the auto industry decades earlier, exporters would be forced to set up production facilities overseas, resulting in job losses in Japan. Nobu Sakamoto of Mizuho Financial argued that if exporters did well, they could afford to enrich their pension funds, and so, the rate cut was no doubt pandering to popular sentiment.

By now, Terada was accustomed to being grilled by Raakel on the disparate mix of topics she would assign for him to research, such as trends in rice production and consumer spending on coffee. She once wanted to know what Nagano residents in their twenties were doing with their time on a Sunday morning and the average commute each day for transit users in Tokyo. Was the average steady, or changing? How many people had season passes to baseball games? Terada didn’t always have the answers, but he had come to know what to expect whenever Raakel called.

Israel

Standing in the middle of a grocery aisle, a loose section of Raakel’s shopping cart rattled in synchronous vibration with the phone inside her handbag. She reached inside the bag, perched on the upper compartment of her cart, and retrieved the phone. Ethan Lilly, a friend for almost three years, wanted to come over later that evening.

Ethan taught music at the University of Haifa and rarely had time to socialize. Raakel first met him while schmoozing after one of his concerts, put on to raise funds. While she was a donor to his charitable causes, they had remained friends only because they shared two things in common; a barren social calendar and a desire for companionship, with no expectation of intimacy or any form of commitment. They challenged each other in a game of squash every two weeks, or so, and Raakel had yet to win. He promised her that he would lose one of these days, but that she would have to earn the victory.

After dinner? Sure, Raakel told him. He was now booked in her unofficial schedule.

Ethan and Raakel had similar skills of concentration. It was not uncommon for them to take long walks together, all the while dwelling in their separate worlds, grappling with something each needed to independently unravel.

Raakel’s apartment was designed as a loft, devoid of interior walls. It consisted of two oblong areas located on the fourth and uppermost floor, one much larger than the other, that met at a right angle. The apartment occupied a third of the entire floor, and its shape was optimized to exploit the space available after the four other apartments on that level had been designed. One entered through the kitchen, which gave way to two separate living spaces, furnished as lounges, each with completely different décor. One used irregularly shaped, rough-cut stone for the floor, giving a feel of the outdoors. The floor of the other used laths of bamboo in a decidedly cozy, luxurious finish.

Further along, an area served as an office. Then the apartment took a ninety-degree turn, revealing an expansive bedroom. At the far end of the bedroom, one-way glass that appeared black from the outside enclosed the sole bathroom. Exterior walls were found on the north and east-facing sides only. Five glass panels, separated at regular intervals by solid stone and extending from floor to ceiling, served as windows. Only one of the panels, the one nearest the bedroom and equipped with a landing, could be opened.

Raakel poured from a bottle of pinot noir into two large goblets, each a quarter of the way. Ethan stood looking down at a lounge chair, not unlike the type used at the beach. It wasn’t there on his previous visits.

It’s anaconda, Raakel said. And it’s been dead a long time, she added with a grin. It’s a gift from a client.

Ethan chose his regular couch. Raakel operated a remote, and music came on. She undid her dress and let it fall to the floor. Her matching bra and panties, done in lace, were the colour of sapphire. She kept her Louboutin stilettos on, then sat down, crossed her legs, and sipped from her glass of wine.

Gorgeous, Ethan said of the wine, approvingly.

"It is. L’chayim [to health]." Raakel raised her glass.

They sometimes played games of seduction. Neither of them could remember ever having an orgasm, and the sexual release many people felt was essential for healthy living was, to them both, a foreign concept. Their very first conversation had been brief, but Raakel had quickly deduced that Ethan possessed an intricate mind. After their first meeting, they’d exchanged phone numbers and spent several evenings exploring each other’s worlds. When they finally decided to do something together, they had chosen Ethan’s apartment. Take-out pasta and a chardonnay had completed their meal. Their similar histories had gradually come into focus. They had both felt unbothered by the absence of sexual intimacy and had come to regard themselves as asexual creatures. They had gone on to toy with the notion that a little prodding might jump-start their latent libidos. In the meantime, they relished the freedom of role-play, unencumbered by dating mores which they had never learned.

Raakel poured again from the bottle of wine. A drop fell and just missed the edge of the table, then stained the stone floor. From the elevated ridge on which her apartment was situated, the bay of Haifa was visible in the distance through the windows facing north. Raakel sauntered over to stand by one of them, the lights from the port providing a backdrop for her five-foot-ten-inch and one hundred-and-thirty-five-pound frame, as Ethan had estimated.

Wine? Raakel offered, sometime later. Ethan shook his head.

Raakel lowered the music’s volume, and they got up to dance, holding each other at arm’s length and doing their best rendition of a waltz. Ethan peered down at Raakel over his nose. The pale tone of her skin was a perpetual reminder of how little exposure to the sun she was accustomed to.

What if you ever fell victim to my seduction? Raakel said, close to Ethan’s ear, straining to use her lowest octave. She stood behind Ethan and slid a hand inside his clothes, gently cupping his scrotum, then lightly gripping the shaft of his penis. He felt small and soft and, obviously, unresponsive.

You do realize how cold your hand is, Ethan complained.

Tell me to stop.

No. I’m loving this too much.

Liar. Raakel squeezed and Ethan stifled a yell of discomfort.

They talked about things they wouldn’t remember in a week and it was well past midnight when Raakel stripped down to nothing. Ethan did the same and they climbed into bed together. They didn’t take long to fall asleep.

France

On her phone, Abi kept a screen shot in bold type—white letters against a black background. It read in Hebrew:

Don’t you dare fall asleep!

You could wake up in a nightmare.

It appeared as her screen’s background and was there to help ward off complacency. She had lost two operatives—friends—in separate incidents, and in both cases, there was no evidence that anyone had made a mistake. Entropy happens, they would sometimes remind each other. Some things were within one’s control, complacency being one of them. And complacency—in planning and in execution—was, arguably, one’s foremost adversary. Abi didn’t carry a weapon and didn’t wear body armour, nor was she in radio contact with the two-man crew of Israeli agents staying at the hotel. Daytime was their opportunity to sleep. A third agent, like the others a trained commando, performed duties as a driver. He wasn’t armed either, but in a modified glove compartment, an UZI pistol was clamped against the inner side of the drop-down door.

Abi climbed into the back of the GMC Yukon and took her seat beside Hagit Revah, an aerodynamics engineer, who ran her own company in Beit Kama, Israel. Revah, having won a contract from Modon, an aerospace company, to design the rotors for a line of helicopters, was in Toulouse, France, to confer with Modon executives. Abi returned Revah’s smile, then allowed her to resume whatever she was reading on her mobile screen, no doubt filled with technical details, schematics, and what not. Their trip would take twenty-five minutes, and Abi settled in and looked out the window. Low-rise apartment buildings made way for single-family, detached houses on streets lined with a mix of young and mature trees. The buildings thinned out, and a forested landscape filled the view on both sides.

We take so much for granted whenever we’re airborne. The sound of Revah’s voice startled Abi.

Revah spoke some French and a little English, but with Abi, she used Hebrew. The two women had become somewhat acquainted after sharing a flight from Israel. The night before, Abi’s agents had taken shifts outside two of their hotel rooms. Each stood for two hours at a time until the other arrived to provide relief. Revah was staying in the room on the opposite side of the hallway from Abi’s, and they made it appear that the room used by Abi was the one being secured. Noam Warren, who had commissioned Abi for this assignment, hadn’t said a great deal about the threat that warranted the unusual security.

Warren was Abi’s boss and led a quasi-government outfit, accountable to the Minister of Defence. Warren achieved the rank of colonel at age thirty-four, but left the military for his current post. His rank would follow him for life, and, at age forty-two, he was considered very young for the role he had been given. Abi had encountered many casualties among those who had underestimated Noam Warren.

It was doubtful that a specific threat existed, Abi reasoned, and so, the knowledge held by anyone in Israel was probably limited. Moreover, Warren preferred that his agents remain open to a range of possible threats. That way, the risk of becoming locked into a single line of defence was lessened. Warren also prized adaptability in his agents. Abi thought of several things that could go wrong. She admitted that for some scenarios, there would be nothing she could do if they confronted her.

I work to make flying safer, said Revah, taking another break from reading. But that doesn’t mean I’m supposed to feel invulnerable. I’m willing to bet that taking a chopper scares me a hell of a lot more than it scares you. Revah lolled her head backwards and laughed, then returned to her screen, still smiling.

Revah would be in meetings all day, and Abi would be alone until it was time to return to their hotel. She could call Warren during that time if she wished. If Warren had any updates, that would be the time to provide them. One of the executives that Revah would be meeting offered to take her to dinner at the end of the day. Abi allowed that. After that, an ageing French-Canadian entertainer would be giving a concert in a space adjacent to the dining room. Abi vetoed that engagement.

Revah and Abi stepped out of the SUV under overcast skies. From the ground floor foyer, they were escorted upstairs to the second and uppermost level. It was a short walk to the office of Revah’s contact. Abi shook hands with the Modon executive, then took leave to begin her vigil across the room from a harried receptionist.

Sauntering down the hallway, a woman wearing three-inch heels and an evening dress appeared to be inebriated. She held a drinking glass in one hand and a key card in the other. The agent standing outside Abi’s room was sure the bar had closed at midnight, more than two hours earlier. The woman avoided eye contact with the agent standing along her path. Sliding a hand inside his jacket, the operative gripped a pen-shaped device as a precaution, while keeping his gaze on the stunning brunette as she approached. After the woman came to within an arm’s length, he unobtrusively depressed the overlapping cylindrical barrels of his device.

The mobile phone on Abi’s bedside table emitted a short note, lasting about a second. The sound was as piercing as a bullet hitting a bell. Abi scampered out of bed, trained to quickly regain her alertness after being roused from sleep. She peered through the peephole of her door. The agent didn’t seem to be in any trouble. Abi opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. The carpeted floor felt cold beneath her bare feet. She slept in black, sleeveless tights, extending from her neck down to the middle of her thighs.

What’s going on? asked Abi. The bright lights in the corridor forced her to squint.

False alarm. A drunken woman just went by. She turned the corner at the far end.

No, I think you did the right thing.

No false alarm ever felt truly false to Abi. A sense pervaded her that, at the very least, she should run some checks, just to feel satisfied. She tapped a key card against the lock of Revah’s room and entered, closing the door behind her. A solitary night-light had been left on. Abi stood motionless in the semi-darkness and listened, then walked over to Revah’s bed and listened to her breathing for a short while before leaving the room. Outside in the corridor, the second agent had arrived. Abi summoned one of them to follow her. Her buttocks wiggled in her tights in response to her quick strides, the agent towering over her five-foot-four-inch form as they walked. She turned a corner before reaching the end of the hallway and approached the door to the stairs. On opening the door to the amply lit stairwell, she heard feet scampering down a flight of steps as if someone had been suddenly disturbed. She saw no one. She yanked the door shut, then turned and walked briskly toward her room.

Hotel security noticed the movements in the hallway on the sixth floor. There were no cameras inside the stairwell, and no one bothered to track which floor the woman wearing an evening dress came out onto. The hotel employee quickly dismissed the unusual scene.

Reviews for The Assembler

[Jericho Franke · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

APHOBIA: "They had both felt unbothered by the absence of sexual intimacy and had come to regard themselves as asexual creatures. They had gone on to toy with the notion that a little prodding might jump-start their latent libidos."