Prologue
We hardly expected callers, the night Karl Adams entered our lives.
Betty and I lay in our secret dimension, her enchanting, cobalt-blue eyes captivating me just as they had twenty-four years earlier. In my reverie, she was once again the striking shop girl and I was the dashing young Mossad field agent.
Alright, I've romanticized our former occupations a trifle, but if I tell this story, I must be honest. Betty was indeed a shop girl, but not a poor little clerk. She owned the place, and did right well for herself.
And while I did work for the Israeli Mossad, I spent much of my tenure as a simple analyst, safely ensconced in the Tel Aviv office. The occasions requiring field work provided more than my share of adventure(or in hindsight, simply trouble), from which I providentially emerged with hardly more damage than mussed clothes, scratches and shot nerves.
I’m not exaggerate her beauty, however. Over the years, the infinitely skillful Artist who had first sculpted this living work of art continued refining His creation, accenting her countenance with the fine styli of happiness and sadness, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. He had taken fifty-two years to produce the masterpiece that lay before me, and dwelling on the privilege of receiving her love filled me with reverent gratitude.
We spoke little, feeling what couldn't be said, and would have continued doing so but for the slight noise from somewhere in our lower rooms. No one should have been there to cause it.
Our experience with the intelligence community sacked our pillow talk, and we dropped like cats to the floor on either side of our bed. My hand sought the grip of the pistol I kept hidden at the head of our mattress for just this unlikely circumstance, and we crept towards our bedroom door.
I listened at the gap under the door, heard a faint whispering, and unconsciously held my breath as I nudged the door handle. But to my horror, the mechanism squeaked just the slightest, and the whispering instantly stopped.
“Jack! Put away your Glock, ‘tis only me.”
Hearing the familiar voice allowed me to breathe once again, so I opened the door enough to speak to her. “Rachel! Why didn’t you call first, rather than sneaking about in the middle of the night?”
“Sorry Jack, but this really is an emergency. I want you to meet someone. Please, do come down. It’s hard to converse civilly from opposite ends of a staircase.”
“Right. Give us a moment”
Betty mimed to me her outrage at the late-evening interruption, and I quietly tried to calm her. “It isn’t like Rachel to do something like this frivolously. We’ll find out what’s up soon enough.”
Though Betty was miffed, she and I hastily pulled on our trousers and robes, then tramped down to meet Rachel and her terribly important guest. “Rachel, what’s going on? This is entirely unlike you.”
Obviously conscious of the scare she had caused, Rachel tried to charm us with her deep, brown eyes and winsome smile. “Jack, are you interested in a position, or not? Because if you are, I’d like you to meet your new employer.”
The man standing with Rachel was of less than average height and appeared athletically lean. While he was not a handsome man, one could tell by his conservative attire and professionally styled blond hair that he took care of his appearance.
“New employer, is it? And what makes you think we’re in need of employment?”
The stranger’s well trained, American accented voice spoke up. “Excuse me ... Mister ...,”
“Hubert. Jack Hubert, and my lovely bride, Betty.” I gestured towards my scruffy-looking, lovely bride.
“Mister Hubert, my name is Karl Adams, and Rachel seems to think you and your wife are just the people I need to cover certain ... security duties I’ve just become aware of.” The gentleman tried to present a casual demeanor, but his shifting eyes betrayed his anxiety.
“Rachel,” I directed my query to her, not wanting to be taken in by a bloke we had only just met. “We know the gentleman’s name, but who is he, and how do you know him?”
Through the ensuing conversation we learned enough about Mister Adams and his circumstances that we should have bounced him right out, but Rachel’s passionate appeal convinced us to ignore our reservations. Had we then known the upheaval our association with Karl Adams would cause, there would have been no story to tell. But someone wiser than I once said, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
Betty and I have exhaustively researched the circumstances surrounding Karl Adams’ adventures. In presenting the following account, I have used my imagination and third-person narration only as necessary to connect the events that I witnessed.