“Yes, I have it,” said Eytan as he prepared to write.
“Ready to copy?” Benni asked.
“Ready.”
“Good. Beginning on catalogue page sixty-four, then . . .”
In the upper left corner of a blank page in his spiral-bound notebook, Eytan jotted the numeral 64. Then he moved the pencil to the right-hand edge of the sheet and began to list numbers vertically, in very small print, as Benni read them off.
“Thirty-six, two, twenty-four, eight, six, eleven, zero . . .” Baum read off twelve more numerals, sighed, and said, “Next. Bandages.”
Eckstein flipped to a fresh sheet, moved to the right margin, and listed fourteen more numbers.
“Syringes,” Baum intoned flatly, and Eckstein repeated the process, then twice more for “surgical supplies” and “antibiotics.” As Eckstein quickly recorded the codes, he briefly wished that Benni had selected a market subject more in keeping with his cover as a photographer. Then he realized that Baum had already considered that, deciding that the bulk of foreign conversations coming from the Horn involved medical relief, while a list of Tri-X, Agfacolor, and lenses would stand out among the transmissions.
At last there was silence from Benni’s end.
“Is that it?” Eytan asked.
“That’s enough, I think.” .
“Give me fifteen minutes or so,” said Eckstein. “Then I’ll let you know if we can afford the increases.”
“Fine.”
“Will you be there?” Eckstein asked flippantly, as yet unaware of the state of Baum’s dilemma.
Benni snorted and hung up.
Not one quip, thought Eckstein. Not a single sarcastic retort to show that Baum was still in control, which he always managed despite the gravity of a situation. Eckstein could not remember ever hearing The Bear sound so desolate.
He looked up, to find the boy regarding his notepad with curiosity. He smiled at him. “Got any water, lad?”
“A bottle?”
“Yes.”
“No.” The boy shrugged. Then he smiled hopefully. “I have Pepsi.”
“Super.” Eckstein slapped the counter and moved to the table. He sat down with his back to the rear wall of the café and pulled the earthenware bowl of wat over to his place. His appetite had been supplanted by his anxiety to decode Baum’s message, yet he picked up the large metal spoon, shoveled a pile of lentils and gravy into his mouth, and said, “Hmmm, fab,” as the boy grinned and placed a warm can of soda on the table. A heavy shadow crossed the front windows of the café as a large yellow pickup truck rumbled up to the gas pumps. The boy hurried out the door.
Eckstein picked up his rucksack, opened a side pocket, and came up with a slim paperback novel. It was the orange-spined 1975 Penguin edition of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. The copy was well worn, actually on the brink of molting from its bindings, but Eckstein had repaired the cover with black electrical tape and reset the binding with carpenter’s glue. He could certainly have acquired a newer version of the classic, except that it was identical to Benni Baum’s copy and could not be substituted for the sake of aesthetics.
A book code was one of the oldest and most primitive tools of the intelligence trade, yet it remained among the most secure methods for message transmissions. Two operatives holding identical copies of any publication, whether it be Newsweek, Vol de Nuit, or the Bible, could encrypt and decrypt in relative safety.
The sender began by first writing out his message vertically, the words and phrases taking on the forms of “down” columns in a crossword puzzle. Then he selected any page of the printed manuscript and began to encrypt, carefully matching each letter of his message to the first identical one that appeared in a line of text, and noting the number of the location in that line, including periods but not spaces between words. If a letter failed to appear in a given line, the sender noted a zero as a “null” and carried on. The resultant matrix of numbers could be further encrypted by math, but that was rarely necessary. Interceptors found these codes to be maddeningly unbreakable, for the letters never appeared in the same numerical positions, and there was no hope of decryption based on repetition. Without the book to match the code, you were lost.
Eckstein took the first number that Baum had selected as his “catalogue” page, 64, subtracted one from each digit, and turned to page 53 of Hemingway’s semiautobiographical tale of an American ambulance driver serving with the Italians during the First World War.
CHAPTER 10
IN the ward at the field hospital they told me a visitor was
coming to see me in the afternoon. It was a hot day and there
He noted Benni’s double confirmation, the word “hospital” in the first line. Then he set the first page of his notebook against the margin of the print and began to decrypt. He had used this method rarely, yet retained the ability to quickly count words as summed groups, slowing only as he approached the required number. In the first line, the thirty-sixth letter was m. In the second, the second letter was o. In the third, the twenty-fourth letter was also o.
His five columns of numbers corresponded to five consecutive pages, the breaks having been cued by Benni’s changes of medical requirements. The process took less than five minutes, during which Eckstein did not try to read the phrases forming in his notebook but kept one eye half cocked on the doorway, through which he could see the Ethiopian boy chatting with the driver of the pickup.
Eckstein closed the novel, the cover of which showed a large red cross and part of a photograph below the title. The picture was of Hemingway himself during the Great War, fully uniformed and recovering in a wheelchair from his leg wounds. The cracked image reminded Eckstein of his own long recuperation, wheeling himself impatiently around the sunny grounds of an IDF military hospital.
He replaced the book in the rucksack and closed the pad as the young proprietor trotted back into the café.
“Is it good?” the boy inquired as he passed by, clutching a sheaf of bills.
Eckstein shot him a thumbs-up as he popped the top of the Pepsi and downed half the can, quenching the spicy fire of the wat. The boy grinned, rooted behind the counter for change, and skipped back out the door.
Eckstein took a breath, opened the notebook again, and quickly read the five rows of decryption.
He sat for a long while, blinking at the rows of words, reading them over again, wondering if he might have made an error. Yet even one or two decryption mistakes would not have altered the profundity of the message. He could feel the thump of his left breast against the damp cloth of the sweatshirt, the strange crawl over his forearms, and the heat that was suddenly so oppressive, undimmed by the shade of the café or the fan that whizzed behind him like a carnivorous fly.
Moonlight active. The prisoner exchange was “go,” counting down to a date as yet undisclosed to him.
Blue Queen back. Martina Klump had emerged from a self-imposed operational exile, and use of her old code name meant she was functioning again as opposition.
Has taken Ruth hostage. Eckstein failed to absorb this, could not believe it. Had to, or the only counterconclusion was that Benni had lost his mind. Ruth, that stunning and magnetic Baum for whom Eytan had always had feelings that were borderline fraternal. As she had grown into womanhood, he was grateful for their gaps in age, and the relationship between himself and Benni that hexed all indulgence in fantasies. She had once, as a late teenager, blatantly informed him that she intended to marry him, an objective that seemed finally to wane upon his wedding to Simona. Ruth had gone off to study in New York. Benni was now in America as well. But how the hell in God’s name . . . ?
En route your A.O. Martina Klump had kidnapped Ruth and was traveling with her to Eytan’s area of operations? To Ethiopia? No, Benni was generalizing. Somewhere in Africa. But to what end?
I am lost. There was no subtext in that. Baum was clearly at wit’s end, a confession that Eckstein never thought to hear, read, or have revealed, ev
en if his old comrade was drawing his very last breaths.
“Elohim ba’shamayim ayzeh fashlah,” he exclaimed silently in Hebrew—“God in heaven, what a screw-up”—as he tried desperately to assemble the frantic phrases into a logical progression. The prisoner exchange, years of collective effort by all of Israel’s military, diplomatic, and intelligence arms, and with Baum as its point man, was about to bear fruit. Somehow, Martina Ursula Klump, all but forgotten along with the tattered Tango file in Baum’s safe, had come forth once more, and for some reason was connected to Moonlight, a danger to its execution. Her fate and Benni’s were intertwined again; perhaps Baum had tried to thwart her and the Blue Queen had countermoved by taking a precious pawn. Of course Benni was “lost.” His hands were expertly manacled. Any reaction on his part might result in the death of his daughter.
Eckstein looked at his watch. Nearly fifteen minutes had passed, though he had no doubt that Baum would sit by that telephone for hours until he called again. He found himself patting the pockets of his shorts in search of cigarettes, then remembered that he had quit. He knew too well that by sharing this deadly ambush, Benni had placed him at the heart of a conundrum. If Eytan decided to consult with Itzik Ben-Zion in an effort to enlist departmental aid, the general might justifiably postpone or cancel the exchange. Without knowing Martina’s intentions there, Eytan could not predict her reaction. Would such an effort buy Ruth time? Would it result in her death? Was there a window of days in which to mount a rescue? Or did merely hours remain, or ineffectual minutes? And if Eckstein did not relay this quandary to Itzik, could that withholding result in tragedy for Israeli prisoner Dan Sarel?
Then, of course, there was the issue of Eckstein’s own mission, Operation Jeremiah. True, he and his team were waiting out a lull pending the arrival of two crucial individuals from Europe, but he could not take leave and go gallivanting off now while Jeremiah was running. Such an act would be unforgivably remiss, a danger to his comrades in the field, an invitation to a court-martial.
The image of Ruth Baum’s face suddenly superseded his reason. He saw her again as a young soldier, appearing proudly at the door of Benni’s home on her first leave. He saw the features that could return a man to belief in the wonder of Genesis, the smile so powerful it seemed capable of illuminating a moonless night.
He saw her cringing under the barrel of a pistol.
He got up and sprang for the counter, where the Ethiopian boy was just lifting the telephone to return it to its hiding place. Eckstein grabbed the instrument and, in reply to the boy’s shocked look, quickly produced his wad of cash, peeled off an American twenty, and said, “Just one more, okay?”
The boy took the bill, laughed, and again disappeared into the kitchen.
It seemed forever until Benni once more came on the line.
“How do those prices strike you?” was how Benni answered.
“Shockingly high, if I have them right.”
“You have them right.”
Eckstein took a long breath. “They are a problem.”
“Yes. They are.”
“I have a question.”
“Ask.”
“Is the astronomy project directly linked to these other changes in the weather?” He was asking if Moonlight was tied to Martina, and therefore to Ruth’s abduction.
“It is,” said Benni.
“Then if there is an eclipse of the moon, we may not see Venus?”
So many years of working together made communication possible by the improvisational use of hints. “The moon” was obvious. Venus could only be Ruth.
“We may not see that planet again.” Benni’s voice wavered.
Eytan paused, trying to imagine the depth of his friend’s pain.
“I see,” he said. “That’s what I feared.”
“Fear.” Benni expelled the word with disdain. “There’s a better term for it.”
Terror, Eytan thought instantly. “Well,” he said at last, “I’m due a vacation.”
“Wait a minute—” Benni began, but Eckstein rode right over him.
“I’ll be leaving the capital tonight.” Eytan’s tone made it quite clear that his move was irreversible.
“You have work,” Benni protested, though his tone was unconvincing, his hopes too tenuous to mount a proper protest.
“It can wait. In twenty-four hours, I’ll be where Rick met Ilsa for the last time.”
If Baum did not immediately realize that Eytan meant Casablanca, Art Roselli was an old Bogart fan, and he would figure it out soon enough.
Benni said nothing for a moment, and Eytan wondered if his old friend had lost his nerve, that his fear was crippling him, that he would decline to face the bull just once more. When Baum finally spoke again, this time in German, Eytan heard the choked tones of emotion.
“Our boss will bust you to corporal,” Benni warned in a whisper.
“Well,” Eytan answered in the same tongue, “rank has its privileges.”
He replaced the telephone on its cradle, picked up his ruck and camera bag, and headed for his jeep.
Chapter 14: Bethesda, Maryland
“Just give it to me, Baum.”
Jack Buchanan’s voice was like the slow scrape of a woman’s fingernails across a long dry blackboard. The words were carefully disjoined above a background hiss swollen with intent, as if someone had maliciously proffered a violin and bow to a malcontent.
“Give it all to me NOW, everything you’ve got, and we can skip the ugly formalities.”
Buchanan could not yell, a restriction that certainly cramped his style. Yet this “interview” was being held in a private room of the Step Down Cardio-Thoracic Unit of the National Naval Medical Center, and although his powers as an FBI SAC sliced through state and federal barriers, he was fully aware of the protocols. Bethesda was fully staffed by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps personnel, the sprawling facility regarded as just another vessel by the uniformed doctors, nurses, and orderlies who served “aboard her.” The NNMC was even “commanded” by a rear admiral. Being a former Marine himself, Buchanan was attuned to naval law and trying to behave like a civilian reluctantly piped across the gangway.
“You have what I have,” Benni Baum lied. Having once been interrogated for a full week by Stasi agents in Leipzig, he was tempted to make a mockery of Buchanan’s threats. Yet the sarcastic humor with which he usually faced such menace had taken leave of him.
He lay on the large pneumatic bed, fighting the urge to jump into his clothes and run from the facility—to the airport, to somewhere, anywhere east, toward Ruth. He stared up at the red and yellow stripes that joined the cream walls and spotless ceiling, one slabby arm across his bare chest. A tube dripped sucrose from a hanging bag into his wrist, and the EKG electrodes were still taped to shaved patches of his skin, though he was no longer hooked up.
Beneath the blanket, Benni’s left hand still clutched the balled-up sheet of legal pad upon which he had encoded his message to Eckstein. He wished now that he had destroyed it, but after Eckstein’s call at 3:00 A.M. and so many hours without sleep, he had quickly succumbed to a flat, immobile slumber.
The sudden breakfast arrival of Buchanan and his angry circus had taken Benni completely by surprise. His copy of the Hemingway classic lay on his night table in plain view, but the sweat of his palm would soon turn his encryption to a mealy, unintelligible wad.
“Bullshit,” Buchanan snorted. He rose from the red polymer chair at the foot of Baum’s bed, thrust his big hands into his trouser pockets, and stepped to the wide window. He suddenly parted the Venetian slats with a loud crackle, staring out as if expecting enlightenment. The gloom of the room was unaffected, as the rainy morning was having difficulty pushing through the night.
“Why don’t you let me try, Jack?”
Benni turned his head. The voice came from the sharp face of a wiry bearded man leaning against the closed bathroom door. He wore scabbed blue jeans, black combat boots, and an army field jacket
, yet the thumbs hooked into his belt exposed the butt of an automatic pistol, spoiling his “construction worker” getup. His name, as he had offered it, was Denny Baylor, and he was an agent of the Naval Investigative Service. Altogether, there were six men in the room in addition to Buchanan. They stood or sat about, with pencils poised above evidence pads, like reporters at a breaking news conference. Yet they all had that restless, hungry air of attack dogs awaiting their master’s signal.
Benni sympathized with their frustration. In fact, he could not quite understand their polite reticence. Had the situation been reversed, an Israeli naval weapon hijacked and Israeli soldiers murdered in ambush, he would have had his hands around someone’s throat, patient or no patient.
His emotions here were split straight down the middle, a schizophrenic fissure above which his loyalties swayed like a mouse clinging to a pendulum. The problem was clear, yet unsolvable in any good conscience. To the left, his allies had been raped, and aiding them in their counterstroke might possibly save Dan Sarel from steaming to his own death.
To the right, Ruth’s life.
The choice was obvious, though every word and action now forced another precarious step out onto a high wire. He knew that his deceptions would soon disgust him. He looked at Baylor and shrugged.
“You could use drugs,” Baum suggested. “But you will most likely just get confessions about my love life. Very boring, and in Hebrew. How is your Hebrew, Mr. Baylor?”
The NIS agent stared at Benni and chewed an unseen glob of something tucked into his cheek. He raised a middle finger from one fist, but rather than aiming it directly, he stroked the bridge of his nose with it.
The response from the other men was less casual. Their spines stiffened, and Benni regretted his cavalier tone, which now caused an atmospheric shift.
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