by Nathan Ronen
Tzur chuckled. “The truth is that I haven’t had time to delve into it yet. Mostly, I read the headings and the summary. You intelligence people treat everything so seriously. So much material to read, so many potential threats, so many options…”
Arik observed him with a sardonic eye. Unable to hold back:, he asked, “You know what they say about the difference between intelligence and Coke?”
Tzur’s expression turned quizzical.
“The difference is that Coke has one formula, while intelligence is open to many interpretations.”
Tzur smiled. He liked Arik Bar-Nathan.
They were soon joined by Major General Amishav, the military secretary who was Cornfield’s friend and Arik’s longtime rival. He sat down, producing a notepad to document the main points of the conversation.
“I want to manage expectations here,” Arik began. “To decide on new work procedures. And I also want to know what’s happening with the promise Lolik Kenan, may he rest in peace, made to me, to appoint me as the next Mossad director.”
“Really? He promised you that you would be the next director of the Mossad? I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware of that. Do you have anything in writing? A summary of the interview?”
“No, it was verbal, on a transatlantic call. He contacted me when I was convalescing abroad and offered me the role. I’m sure Major General Amishav, who was present, summarized the proceedings. He’ll certainly testify to that fact.” Arik gestured at Amishav, but the military secretary looked down at the papers before him.
“That might be the case, but life is dynamic; things change, as you see,” Tzur declared with satisfaction. He was in love with the sense of power with which the role imbued him. “Arik, you’re still young. At the moment, I have a completely different candidate for the job. But don’t worry. I’ll give you a chance to compete to head the Mossad from inside the organization, serving as Mossad deputy director and head of operations. Don’t worry. Who knows, you might get the job in the next term. What do you say? It’s important to me that you help the new guy get acclimated there. After all, you were head of the Caesarea Operations Division and commander of Kidon7, right?”
Arik glanced at Amishav again, but the military secretary looked down once more. The two men had never liked one another.
“Meaning you’re releasing me from my role as your intelligence and national security advisor to the Prime Minister’s Office, effective immediately?”
Ehud Tzur leaned back in his chair with a victorious smile. “Why ‘effective immediately’? Finish out the month, and as far as I’m concerned, you can take a vacation. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No,” Arik said sourly. The offer to be appointed Mossad deputy director was a demotion, as far as he was concerned. It wasn’t exactly the compensation he was expecting for being deprived of his senior position in the Prime Minister’s Office, but he knew the old saying his father had taught him back when he was a child, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Especially considering the fact that Tzur had not given him any other options.
“Sir, before I accept the role that’s been offered to me, I want to know who is going to be appointed as the next director of the Mossad. I want to know in advance with whom I’ll be dealing.”
“I certainly understand. The moment my candidate agrees to take on the role, I’ll call you and let you know,” the prime minister concluded. “In the meantime, take some time off. I remember you went through a serious health event not long ago, right? Get some rest. What’s the rush? If I need you, I’ll know how to find you.”
“Thank you, sir.” Arik rose and left the room, his disappointment apparent.
* * *
5A nickname for the prime minister’s office, where the jokers say piranhas swim.
6The Heads of Intelligence Agencies Committee, headed by the director of the Mossad
7 Mossad Special Operations Unit, , which includes assassination operations when necessary.
Chapter 4
The Apartment in Givat Massuah, Jerusalem
Arik parked the government-issue car in the building’s parking garage and ran in. Winter had come early this year, and the early winter showers and thunderstorms masked the sound of his entrance. Eva didn’t hear him. She was sitting in the living room, across from the big window, breastfeeding Leo. Her expression was radiantly happy in the remaining rays of the sun. Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 swelled to fill the space of the apartment. Its arcing windows served as a handsome frame for the view of the city of Bethlehem and the Judean Mountains to the south. A fire had been lit in the wood-burning stove, and a pleasant, delicate scent of mint emitted from the burning eucalyptus logs.
Arik stood there quietly, taking in the heart-warming sight of his beloved, their baby and the music. All this made his heart bloom with happiness. The baby finished his meal and fell asleep in Eva’s arms. Eva believed that a newborn was a tabula rasa, a blank slate, and should be exposed from infancy to classical music that would enrich his soul. She had decided to breastfeed their child until he was a year old, and therefore had reduced her hours as an associate professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Jewish Studies by half.
During the year in which he served as the prime minister’s advisor on national security matters, Arik took care, for the first time in his life, to come home at a reasonable hour, in order to help Eva take care of their newborn baby, and it had brought them significantly closer as a couple.
Arik walked over to Eva and kissed her head.
She turned to him in surprise, joyfully crying out to him, “Hi there, my man,” and they kissed. Arik gazed at the angelic face of his son Leo, named after his deceased father Leon—Leibush in Yiddish. Arik inhaled his scent and caressed his head very gently. The baby’s blond hair was curly, his eyes a pale blue. Little Leo opened his eyes and directed an enormous smile at Arik, exposing two emerging milk teeth. Such a smile would usually melt Arik’s heart, but this time, his mind was elsewhere.
“Darling, how was the meeting with the new prime minister?” Eva asked in Hebrew with a heavy German accent.
“Apparently, I’m leaving my position, and he’s proposing that I return to the Mossad as deputy director and head of the Operations Administration.”
“I don’t believe it! You’ll be back working under that cruel man, Cornfield?”
“No. I think the prime minister is adopting the ‘new broom’ approach and sweeping all those loyal to the previous prime minister out of the centers of power, and that includes Cornfield as well.”
“Who’s replacing him, then?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” he said laconically.
“Oh no,” Eva said, her disappointment apparent. “But you can’t go back there yet. You need some more time to bounce back and get better. You’re still not strong enough. This is a serious matter—you almost died! Yes, died! You get it?”
His battle with myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells, had left him very gaunt, and his thin hair was now scattered with gray. He spent many hours exercising with a personal trainer, doing yoga and swimming in the Hebrew University’s pool in Givat Ram. Eva prepared vegan food for him, gave him vitamin pills and squeezed fresh juice in order to strengthen his body.
The more orderly work at the Prime Minister’s Office contributed to his recuperation as well. He had gained weight and, for the first time in a year, felt relaxed, finding time to read and enhance his social life. He had also grown much closer to his two adult children from his first marriage. His son Michael was a student majoring in International Relations and Economics, while his daughter Nathalie had become very religious, and lived with her husband and his only grandson in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem.
“I think it’s time you retire from all this work of yours,” Eva said softly, handing him the sleeping L
eo and coming to stand behind him, massaging Arik’s back. Arik stayed quiet and closed his eyes, allowing the pleasure brought on by her hands climbing up his back, cupping his head and gently scratching his scalp, soothing his emotions.
She took the sleeping baby from him, tenderly laid him down in his portable crib, and returned to sit next to Arik, gently placing her hand on his knee.
Eva thought she could read Arik like an open book. “Arik, my dear, do you know the word ‘crisis’ is written as two pictograms in Chinese, ‘disaster’ and ‘opportunity’? Maybe it’s time for you to seek a new life path? You have a good historical perspective; why don’t you go be a research associate at the university, and get your PhD on the national security topics you’ve been working on? I’m sure any university would be happy to find a place for you at one of its research institutes. If not in Israel, then abroad. Of course, you could also come with me to Heidelberg University, where I can help you settle in, and we’ll have a quiet, normal life.”
“I’m fine,” Arik said, still immersed in thoughts about his future.
“What are you so afraid of?” Eva raised her voice. “The moment you leave your world of masks and shadows, we’ll live in the real world, where the predators have paper teeth at best, rather than bloody knives or smoking guns.”
Arik retreated into silence, as was his habit.
“You Israeli men are so macho. You need time to bounce back, Arik. We need you here, me and our child. Nathalie and Michael need you too. You’ve finally created a good relationship with them and gone back to being a family man. If you go back to work and to your crazy schedule, you’ll be bringing down a death sentence on your family life with your own two hands. Besides, I’m not sure you’re healthy yet, and ready for intensive work.”
“Eva, you’re all very important to me, but it’s not my decision. The prime minister effectively fired me from my convenient position as a national security and intelligence advisor. He’s bringing in one of his own people. I’m out, I’m obsolete, do you get it?”
“I thought you’d finally learned to prioritize emotions and family, and now I understand you’re going back to being the old Arik. The guy who had a hard time connecting to his ‘emotion muscle.’”
He knew the answer to her accusation. Admitting his failure as a father was difficult, and he couldn’t bring himself to speak up. He stayed silent, embarrassed.
Eva gazed at him compassionately, an uncontrollable tear rolling down her cheek. Her man, whom she loved so much, still couldn’t let go of the pains of the past and grow up. Apparently, he had yet to internalize the steep price paid by the people around him.
“What are you scared of? You know, darling, needing someone else isn’t weakness. If you return to the Mossad in an operational capacity and have to interact with the young man who replaced you as head of the Caesarea Operations Division, you won’t be able to let him be. You’ll be involved in every minor detail. Once again, we’ll never see you. You’ll disappear behind the scenes of your world. And yet again, you’ll leave a woman to raise your son on her own, being a present-yet-absent dad. Once again, you’ll be haunted by feelings of distance and guilt regarding our son Leo, just like you felt toward your children with your first wife. Those kids paid a costly price for your absence from their lives, when they really needed a father figure by their side. You’re consciously repeating your past mistakes. Is that really what you want?”
“I’m sorry, Eva. I can’t let an opportunity like this slip between my fingers. I’m still not ready for your plans for me in the academic world,” Eric mumbled, his spirits low.
“Then why are you even asking me, if you’ve already decided?” she yelled at him. It was the first time he had seen Eva lose her equanimity.
“You’re overreacting,” he replied. “This is what I’m realistically capable of doing right now.”
“You think emotions are an overreaction, but to me emotion is everything.” She began to cry in frustration.
“I’m sorry, meine liebe, my love. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. But I still can’t see myself retiring and playing pétanque or chess with the old guys at the park. I’m only fifty-four.”
Her rage increased. “Why is everything black or white with you? It’s either frenetic action with racing adrenaline while putting yourself in danger without thinking of your family at all, or doing nothing with the eighty-year-olds at the park? This is the logical sequence to which your thoughts extend? A respectable position in the academic world is worthless to you? I’m very disappointed in you, Arik. You haven’t changed at all. You’re still the same stubborn, arrogant Arik!!”
He did not reply, his eyes downcast.
Eva observed him with an ominous silence. Her rage was peaking. She felt as if she was talking to the wall. She got up, kicked the collapsed stroller, which immediately opened up, then cursed heartily in German: “Halt die klappe, sackgesicht.8” She picked up little Leo from his crib, put him in the stroller in a theatrical gesture, and went outside to discharge her frustration with a long power-walk. He meant to warn her that there was a storm raging outside, but the Israeli winter didn’t make much of an impression on someone born in a North European country.
“Maybe it’s because, for me, the Mossad was the only place I ever felt like I was worth something?” he yelled after her in despair, not realizing these were parting words.
She heard him on her way out, but remained disappointed. She had expected Arik to tell her that their home was the only place that felt like a safe harbor to him. For the first time in a long time, she intensely missed her family in Heidelberg, her hometown.
He went into the bathroom. Standing before the sink, he gripped the cold ceramic lip, examining his reflection in the mirror: a man who had the ashes of the Holocaust running through his veins, a warrior who, for years, had turned into the terrorists’ angel of death, Israel’s avenging angel, whose victims paid for the crimes that they and others had inflicted upon his people, the tough man whose name evoked terror in his enemies.
At this moment, he felt so fragile and vulnerable that he did not have the strength to emerge from his protective shell.
* * *
8 A German curse meaning “shut your mouth, knucklehead.”
Chapter 5
The Prime Minister’s Office, Jerusalem
Cornfield rose in response to the office manager’s gesture. He limped heavily into the Prime Minister’s Office, leaning on his cane, the tip carved into an ivory eagle’s head. His joints were aching and uncontrollable tears were dripping from his glass eye down his cheek. He hated pity from others and did not like to expose his weakness. In order to conceal his embarrassment, he wiped his cheek and forehead constantly with a large handkerchief, supposedly perspiring due to the heat in the building.
The acting prime minister had now been in office for a week, and during this period, neither Cornfield nor any of the other intelligence agency ‘gatekeepers’ had been summoned to the Heads of Intelligence Agencies Committee’s routine work meetings, held every Sunday before the cabinet meeting. It was a good thing no urgent security events had occurred, he thought.
“Cornfield, my friend, how’s your health and how’s Amira?” Ehud Tzur asked with artificial pleasantness as they both entered the small conference room next to the Prime Minister’s Office.
“What can I say? At my age, you don’t buy unripe bananas anymore,” Cornfield said with sarcasm that went straight over Tzur’s head.
Cornfield was well aware of the Mossad’s motto, which he himself had changed into a new one: “Where there is no guidance, a nation falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.”9
In accordance with the motto, he should have kept quiet and played the game, but he couldn’t conceal the loathing he felt toward a man who, until recently, had been a two-bit politician at the outskirts of the party,
and due to a mistake in the prime minister’s political consideration, had suddenly become the commander-in-chief.
“Let’s drop the bullshit, Tzur. You’ve never liked me and I’ve never liked you. I’m not planning on becoming your friend now, at the end of my term,” Cornfield said, looking directly at Tzur.
“You’re a brave man, but you military guys think that only someone who was in the trenches with you, with the bullets whistling over your head, is worth anything. You know, we politicians are just as aggressive as you are. We operate on a basic instinct of self-defense. Do you know what it’s like to go to events, weddings and bar mitzvahs of people you barely know from the party’s leadership? Do you know what it’s like to deal with being blackballed at the primaries? Can you even begin to understand what it’s like to be alert and ready at all times for any surprise, betrayal, coalition with your enemies or machinations by someone you thought a minute ago was your supporter? It’s worse than that reality show, Survivor.”
“Just drop it,” Cornfield blurted out wearily. “The wars you’re describing don’t impress me. You were a reporter on the army’s official journal while I was running with the soldiers in my undercover counter-terrorism unit through the sewage canals of Gaza, chasing terrorists. I remember you very well. I always hated your guts and your fake flattery, even when you wrote nice things about me after I was wounded in action.”
“That’s just fine, Cornfield. I actually appreciate your directness. Let’s get straight to the point and talk about work: what’s happening with the operation targeting the Iranian ship carrying weapons and missiles to Hamas in Gaza?”
Cornfield contorted in his seat, directing a chilly gaze at the prime minister’s military secretary, Major General Amishav.