by Nathan Ronen
“Well, then, tomorrow you’re coming to my place for the Sabbath meal,” she told him, her nostrils quivering with desire. She knew she would have to return to the market the following day to finish her shopping.
He intuited her needs like a sophisticated predator toying with its prey. His tongue probed her ear, her breath becoming rapid and shallow. He licked her throat and thrust his hand into her bra, gently pinching her hardening nipple. She felt a wetness between her thighs that she hadn’t felt in years, and grew dizzy. She was utterly defenseless.
“Not tonight, we’ll take it easy,” he told her gallantly, allowing her to resume control, a fact she appreciated greatly.
***
When she arrived home, she called the Prime Minister’s Office security officer.
“Rami, I want you to look up a guy named Sasha Yarshanski, from the International Crime Unit, at the police national HQ in Jerusalem.”
The security officer called her back half an hour later. “There is an officer by that name, with a rank of captain. He’s the unit’s wunderkind, a reliable, serious guy. What’s your connection to him?” he asked, with the curiosity characterizing a former police investigator.
“Everything’s fine, thank you,” she replied mysteriously, hanging up.
Chapter 37
Katamon Tet Neighborhood, Jerusalem
“ Geula the Pygmy,” as she was called behind her back by the girls at the office, felt dizzy and excited about her date in a way she hadn’t felt for many years now.
It had been quite a few years since she’d been with a man. She filled up the loveless void with long hours at work, investing all her energy in a job where she felt like the undisputed queen in the most important bureau in the country. She let out her frustration by personally berating the office’s female employees, who were terrified of her. She was as ruthless as Cerberus in Greek mythology, the three-headed dog that guarded the gates of hell.
That night, she didn’t sleep well. She herself could not understand what she was going through. She woke up early on Friday morning, rushing off to the hairdresser and the beauty salon, having her thick brows plucked and her upper lip and legs waxed. From there, she hurried off to the market to finish her shopping, returned home and began to cook dinner for her new lover.
At seven thirty in the evening, the doorbell rang. Sasha had shown up with a bouquet of red roses, holding a bottle of fine red wine in his hand.
“If I just touch wine, I fall asleep immediately,” she warned him, putting the flowers in a vase.
“It’s okay, I’m opposed to necrophilia, too,” he said, blinding her with his winning smile, and she did not ask him what the word meant in order not to expose her own ignorance.
Geula was indeed revealed as a gifted chef, and the food was amazingly tasty and especially aromatic with the unique spices of Kurdish cuisine, combining the flavors of Arabic, Turkish and Persian cooking.
She cleared the dishes prior to serving dessert, only to feel his body clinging to her from behind. An electric current swept through her body, sending shivers through her. He grabbed hold of her breasts and kissed the back of her neck.
She turned to him, biting his shoulder lustfully, and he repaid her with moist kisses trailing down her short neck. She moaned. He thrust his brawny hand between her legs, lifting her up as if she were a small child, rather than a forty-year-old woman weighing more than 160 pounds.
She took hold of his neck with both hands, steering him toward her bedroom. He laid her down gently on the bed, taking off his shirt. His form was truly impressive, slim and very muscular. His chest was surprisingly smooth compared to the few men she had known in the past. She reached out for his belt and began to unzip him, thrusting her hand in eagerly to seek his manhood.
She pushed him down onto his back and removed his pants, gazing at his erect member appreciatively. She decided to give him a night he would never forget. Although oral sex repelled her, she knew many men liked it, and tended to him at length and in depth. She sensed that he desired her, yet he did not make a sound, merely closing his eyes. She found his reaction too understated.
Sasha flipped her over onto her back and began to kiss her large, heavy breasts. She had big, dark nipples that came to attention in response to his suckling lips and his agile, nibbling tongue. She moaned out loud, yelling out, “Come to me!”
He was in no hurry. He slipped off her panties, overwhelmed by the thickness of her pubic region and the dense forest he found there. He glided down to lick her clitoris. Within several seconds, she was unable to hold back, and climaxed powerfully, trapping Sasha’s head between her thighs and almost suffocating him, leaving no passage for the air to traverse.
He climbed up her body again, kissing her and gently nibbling her lips. His hand reached down to her loins and began to massage her sex with increasing speed, his fingers penetrating her again and again. She was wet, and his hand slid in and out easily. His pace increased gradually until she came intently once more, this time wetting the entire sheet. Sasha felt as if her cry of “Oh my God!!” could be heard throughout the building. She drilled her fingernails into his flesh, scratching his entire back and drawing blood.
She lay there, breathing heavily, her eyes closed as she blurted out disjointed phrases: “That was something else… I’m forty-two, and I’ve never felt anything like that.”
Sasha lay on his back, biding his time.
She asked, “Where are you?”
“Down here, waiting for you,” he replied. She descended upon him, urging his member into action. Seating herself upon him, she inserted him inside her, concentrating on herself and her own pleasure. She began to move her full thighs back and forth, crushing his testicles. He tried to focus and ignore her excess weight, but found it difficult. She was so busy with her own gratification that, miraculously, within a short time, she brought herself to a third climax and collapsed on his body, exhausted and sated, moaning, breathing heavily and sweating all over.
“Did you come?” she asked after a while, remembering him. Sasha lied and nodded.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” she said, rolling off him and allowing him to breathe easily again.
His long, burly arm reached for his pants, extracting his cell phone. He looked up Motke Hassin’s name and sent him a text message: “This is the Bushman. I’ve caught the monkey. He’s mine. I’m starting to feed him salt crystals. When he’s thirsty, he’ll lead us to the secret water reservoir.”
She returned enveloped in a flowery robe that covered her lush buttocks, asking him with a broad grin: “Want to have dessert in bed?”
He smiled at her with the sweetness of a professional seducer. As a warrior in the Mossad’s Kidon Unit, he knew how to assume any character in order to achieve his goal. He was entirely focused on his mission.
Chapter 38
Moroccan General Security HQ, Rabat
The window of General Abdelhak Kadiri’s lavish office, on the tenth floor of the building housing the Moroccan Ministry of the Interior, on Alal bin Abdullah Avenue in Rabat, overlooked the New City’s commercial center. The head of security services for the Kingdom of Morocco was sitting at his desk, going over confidential reports. A large pitcher of steaming mint tea was situated at arm’s reach, along with a large pile of almond cookies. The sweetness soothed his nerves.
The phone on his desk buzzed. His personal assistant was on the line.
“Sir, you have a call from someone who describes himself as ‘a good friend of yours from Paris.’”
“What’s his name?” Abdelhak was curious.
“He doesn’t want to say,” his assistant replied.
“Put the call through,” Abdelhak instructed. He heard a soft buzz.
“Keef halak, ya sahbi—how are you, my friend?” Arik began in Arabic, and Abdelhak Kadiri recognized his voice immediately.
“And how are you, my friend? I heard you’re the big boss at your Prime Minister’s Office these days. Mabrouk—congratulations.”
“I’m not there anymore,” Arik replied, businesslike. “We need to meet urgently. Is there a chance you can get to Paris during the week? This can’t wait, and I don’t want to convey it through the staff at our station or my man in Rabat.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t leave Morocco right now. You, of all people, will understand. We’ve had a few terrorist attacks on tourism sites that were apparently carried out by the Maghreb Islamic Jihad. In addition, we’re having some problems with the Berber tribes who are part of the Polisario Front21 in the Western Sahara District. What is this about?”
“I can’t go into details, but I have some sensitive, urgent information that I have to share with you. Information that will be of great interest to you and your bosses,” Arik said.
“I’m on my way to Marrakesh today for a few days, for work purposes. Why don’t you coordinate your arrival with our Paris bureau, and they’ll fly you to Marrakesh for a discreet meeting with me?”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll see you tomorrow evening,” Arik said.
“I’ll make sure to make that coffee you like,” Abdelhak smiled.
***
Arik called Galili’s secured line. “There’s a change of plan. My guy is busy and can’t leave his country. Looks like I’ll be flying in one of their planes to meet him on his turf. Two days, in and out.”
“I don’t like it. Don’t travel alone. Take a security detail with you,” Galili commanded.
* * *
21 The Polisario Front is a rebel national liberation movement aiming to end Moroccan presence in the Western Sahara.
Chapter 39
La Mamounia Hotel, Marrakesh, Morocco
In the afternoon, a Falcon 7X executive jet painted in the Moroccan Air Force’s camouflage colors was circling over Marrakesh Menara Airport. From above, the city looked like a green oasis that seemed to have grown out of the desert, out of whose reddish granite stones it had been constructed. A black limousine approached the plane’s jet bridge as it opened.
Before disembarking from the plane, Arik produced some hand lotion and applied it. The flight attendant was impressed by the metrosexual man taking proper care of his hands. She didn’t know that the lotion was actually a type of pineapple-based acid intended to obscure a Mossad agent’s fingerprints for a week.
Arik paused in the doorway, breathing in the air. He liked places where the chill of the mountains blended with the hot breath of the desert. A slim man in a beige military-styled suit, an officer’s cap with a high bill and a black tie walked over, stood at attention and saluted, then said in fluent French with a local accent: “Welcome to Marrakesh, sir. My name is Colonel Akil bin Kureishi, from Morocco’s General Directorate for Studies and Documentation…” The colonel paused, perhaps hoping that his guest would now introduce himself as well. When no response was forthcoming, he continued: “I’ll be your escort officer. We’ve prepared a suite for you at La Mamounia Hotel. I hope you’ll find that it suits your needs. General Kadiri will meet you there in the evening.”
Twenty minutes later, the car arrived at the entrance of the luxurious hotel. Arik exited the car as the driver and the escort officer signaled the hotel employees hurrying toward them to take the esteemed guest’s hand luggage.
Arik looked around, impressed. The opulent hotel combined classic Moroccan architecture with an Art Deco design. The central lobby featured a high, arched mosaic ceiling. Water fountains coated with colorful tiles bubbled in the inner courtyards. Colonel Kureishi took Arik’s fake Canadian passport, in which his name was listed as Dr. Jean Marc Gensburger, and hurried off to the reception desk to complete the check-in process. A very tall Sudanese waiter, wearing an immaculate turban and a white jellabiya, handed Arik a cold glass of tamarind juice from a silver tray. The reception manager, squat and sweaty despite the intense air conditioning, scurried in, asking Arik, with plenty of flattering gestures and waving of hands, to follow him to the royal suite prepared for him.
“I suggest you rest a bit from the journey. I’ll come back to take you out to dinner at eight,” Colonel Bin Kureishi said, and stood at attention to salute him once more. “Please wear something casual, not too formal.”
The Al Mamoun Suite looked as if it had come straight out of the Arabian Nights, the collection of Middle Eastern folk tales also known as One Thousand and One Nights. It was designed to resemble a suite of chambers in a royal Moroccan palace. Giant mirrors adorned the walls, crystal chandeliers emitted their wavering light, and breathtaking red rugs were spread over the light marble floors. Every window provided a view of the red granite peaks of the Atlas Mountains. Their outline nudged at the horizon, and some of them were topped by glittering snowy summits.
Arik dropped into a recliner padded with colorful silk cushions. It was a magical time. The fiery sunset limned the terra-cotta roofs in red, transforming Marrakesh into the “Red City.” From the hotel lobby, he could hear a pianist playing Joseph Kosma’s Autumn Leaves. The suite overlooked the hotel’s beautiful swimming pool among the well-tended gardens. From his pocket, Arik produced the Chameleon, a device that looked like a regular smartphone, and ran the bug-scanning app. He found the bugs easily, dislodged them from their locations and affixed them to the bottom of the room service cart in the hallway.
It was cocktail hour, and there was no better place to spend it than the suite’s balcony. Arik opened the refrigerator and found everything he needed to mix himself a drink. He took a glass from the bar, squeezed one green lime for juice, finely cubed another, added mint leaves and a tablespoon of sugar, and generously covered all of them with clear, aromatic Moroccan fig arak. The result was a Moroccan-style Caipirnha.
In the absence of a security detail, Arik decided to check out the guests staying at the hotel with him. He extracted the Chameleon and typed in his personal passcode. A list of secret applications appeared on the screen. He placed the device next to the TV set in his room and connected it to the hotel’s TV converter box, clicking the “Scan-Hack” app.
The device infiltrated the hotel’s Wi-Fi system and easily gained access to the reservation department’s guest list. Arik scrolled through the passport scans and payment details for all guests, as well as their room numbers. Unbeknownst to the other guests, he tracked them as they surfed Facebook, and peeked into their email accounts. He found a guest in room 3203 who was, at that moment, checking the balance in his Swiss bank account; the application displaying all the passwords that the careless man used was open as well. This was all Arik needed. He raised a toast to the anonymous Saudi sheikh, whom he could easily turn into a generous donor to the Mossad’s secret bank account, totally unbeknownst to the man himself, if he so desired.
Everything appeared to be in order. He went out to the balcony and watched the sunset. A dry wind blew in from the Sahara. The hotel’s lighting system, designed to resemble Parisian streetlights, came on, illuminating the gardens and the pool with a magical glow. Arik performed some yoga stretches facing the sublime view, sipped his drink, and fell asleep on the comfortable sofa.
At precisely eight p.m., the black Mercedes arrived at the hotel entrance and Colonel Kureishi walked over to the reception desk and called the suite.
“Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll meet you downstairs,” Arik said, his voice sleepy, bounding toward the shower.
When Arik came down, the colonel handed him a cell phone.
“Sir, we’ll be going into places where there’s a big crowd, and if we lose sight of each other, I’d prefer that you have a local cell phone with my number programmed into the Contacts list.”
“Thanks a lot,” Arik said politely, putting the device in his pocket. This was Moroccan intelligence’s way of pinpointing and tracking his location, as well as listening in
on his calls. He had no intention of using the phone.
“Is this your honor’s first time in Morocco?” Kureishi asked.
Arik smiled pleasantly but did not reply. His eyes were taking in the colorful bustle of the square across from the hotel. He opened the limousine’s window and inhaled the medley of scents drifting through the warm, dry desert air.
As a patriot resident of Marrakesh, Colonel Kureishi felt free to wax poetic, adding in French: “This city has always charmed travelers and visitors, writers and poets. Marrakesh is a theatrical, dynamic town, with a constant beat to it. Its great drama is created by contrasts: the teeming streets and plazas and the vibrant activity in the markets serve to emphasize the peace and quiet of the inner courtyards and the well-tended gardens concealed behind high walls. It’s a picturesque, lively city whose exotic nature, Berber heritage and mysterious atmosphere are among its main attractions. That’s my beautiful city,” he concluded proudly.
The Maison Marrakesh restaurant was located in the middle of Marrakesh’s New City. Arik was led to the VIP room on the second floor, where his friend from the Parisian era of his life, General Abdelhak Kadiri, was already waiting. The general had remained small and wizened throughout their acquaintance, but now sported a bushy mustache. In an adjacent room, Arik heard the hushed laughter of young women.
“Arik, mon ami,” Kadiri said pleasantly, embracing Arik warmly. “You haven’t changed a bit,” he added a flattering lie, as was the local custom. Arik had lost plenty of weight and also quite a bit of hair since their wild days in Paris. “Will you have something to eat?” he asked with customary politeness, although Arik already knew he was only invited for coffee.