by Nathan Ronen
“In order to carry out a task like this,” Bislan said, “I need pavement artists42, who are usually retirees from security agencies or French intelligence: tracking experts, as well as lookouts stationed in the target’s travel routes, electronic and visual intelligence personnel, and computer experts. We’ll have to employ maximum compartmentalization so that they don’t know about each other and what each of them is doing.
“It’s not a problem. I’ll handle them through my front corporation, which occasionally recruits clean, legitimate security personnel to carry out work that they don’t know is being done on my behalf. But if we’re talking about a hit on a government official, it has to look like an accident or suicide. And that’s a whole other story. I’ll have to recruit ‘terminator hunters,’ whom I’ll export from foreign countries in order to avoid attention from French security forces.”
“Give me the numbers,” Arik instructed impatiently.
“How much money or how many people?” Bislan fished for information.
“Both,” Arik interjected gruffly.
Bislan sighed, saying, “I need to recruit tough people from unknown provinces.”
“Are you talking about hitmen?” Arik asked.
“Not necessarily. French hitmen usually cover their ass when it comes to local work, and they’re also unreliable, since they have covert connections with the authorities. I need clean, unknown people, the kind who don’t have Interpol files. I have connections with the heads of defense agencies in places in the world where there’s a lack of resources, and they’d be happy to loan me their most brutal fighters. People who don’t care who they’re working for. They come over, get the job done and disappear, in return for cash paid into unmarked accounts. The best part is that these terminator-hunters don’t know themselves that they’re being outsourced. They think they’re working for their home country, so they’re motivated to excel.”
“Albanians? Bulgarians?” Arik asked, and was answered with a nod.
“Also Ukrainians, Belarusians, Indonesians, Malaysians or North Koreans who’ll do any job for money. Sometimes there are also Africans for special jobs,” Bislan added.
Arik examined him at length and said: “Take into account that our guy is one hell of a son of a bitch. A Foreign Legion man. A man of masks and shadows. If you don’t send your top people after him, they won’t stick around long enough to explain who sent them.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll send you the best. And the greatest part is that even if he catches them and sets them on fire or drowns them in some frozen river, the only thing they know is that their country sent them here on a secret mission. They don’t know who’s targeting whom or why. They came to carry out a one-time job and then get out. Do you intend to eliminate him, or just scare him?” Bislan asked.
The thought that all was well now, and Eddy was no longer on his back, crossed Arik’s mind. However, he needed information on the man he did not trust.
“How much is this going to cost me?” Arik asked, and was given an initial price.
“Who’s the guy?”
Arik told him.
Bislan froze and this time did not whistle. He felt he was putting the last of his nine lives at risk. He poured himself tea from the steaming samovar and drank another glass with a loud slurp. Crunching more Russian tea cookies, he directed a prolonged gaze at the floor, then threw out another number.
Arik looked at him with a dismissive smile. Bislan thought again, and deducted 50,000 euro. They shook hands.
A bottle of frozen premium Russian Standard Vodka appeared on the table, along with two frozen stopka goblet-like shot glasses and some salted and sliced pickled cucumbers and cabbage, in accordance with the traditional Russian way of closing a business deal. East Europeans would only drink when there was an occasion for celebration; toasting was incredibly important in Russian drinking culture.
Bislan raised his glass and said: “Za zda-ró-vye—cheers!”
After the third toast, Arik felt himself losing his balance, as he had barely eaten since an early breakfast during the flight, but it was considered imperative to always finish an opened bottle of vodka, and not to leave any of it undrunk. Bislan raised glass after glass, toasting their parents, their families, their wives and health.
On the last round of toasts, Bislan turned to Arik and uttered a string of incomprehensible words: “Дьявол вернул меня к жизни. А теперь он говорит, что судьба моей души в его руках,” laughing unsteadily. When Arik looked at him in query, he explained in French: “Satan brought me back to life, and now he’s saying that the fate of my soul is in your hands,” and started to cry.
Still feeling wobbly, Arik took a taxi to the embassy to update Mossad Director Izzo Galili. He was afraid he would not get his approval and had already planned an escape hatch in the form of a direct call to Ehud Tzur if Galili was to stand in his way.
* * *
40 A moshav is a cooperative agricultural community comprised of individual farms.
41 The Russian Federal Security Service (Федеральная служба безопасности), or FSB, is a Russian intelligence agency similar in function to the Mossad.
42 This term appears in John Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Chapter 66
The Apartment on 7 Pilon St., Tel Aviv
Friday afternoon. Geula was napping in her home, getting her beauty sleep in preparation for her meeting with Sasha. In recent months with him, she felt, for the first time in her life, like a desirable woman. He filled her with good energy, and she was calmer than she had been for years. She embarked on a strict diet, smiled frequently, and even became more meticulous about her clothes. Everyone complimented her on her new look.
Their relationship was that of two people who were very busy with their work during the week. Every once in a while, she managed to steal away for a few hours to meet Sasha, conditioning it upon the meeting taking place out of town. She did not want to be seen with him in the exclusive bars of Jerusalem’s hotels, where everyone knew her, and certainly not in the food and drink joints of Mahane Yehuda Market, which changed its face at night. The part she found thrilling was the spontaneous encounters in Sasha’s car in Jerusalem Forest, a kind of excitement that, as the daughter of a religious family, she had never experienced, and Sasha taught her new pleasures that she had never even thought of a permissible or possible.
Afterwards, they would drive to Tel Aviv, the big “Sin City.” She loved “their bar,” called Boxa, on Rothschild Boulevard. No one knew her there, and she wasn’t the only ‘cougar’ walking around with a younger partner. Most of the people partying there were around Sasha’s age.
The bar featured good music, live performances by jazz bands, concept nights and a massive collection of dolls in the front window. The clientele included white-collar employees embarking on their professional path, young tattoo-aficionado bankers, and tourists who had managed to uncover the locals’ hangouts.
It was also the first time in her life she had consumed alcohol for reasons other than a religious ritual. Sasha introduced her to the house cocktail, called April Breeze, an orange, bittersweet beverage with a relatively low percentage of alcohol that included watermelon puree, ruby red grapefruit syrup and lemon juice. Sometimes they’d stay the night at a small hotel on Hayarkon Street, across from Atarim Square, the beach and the promenade, and the next day, early in the morning, after a decadent breakfast, each of them would return to his or her own affairs in Jerusalem.
This evening, she was invited to spend the weekend in his apartment in Tel Aviv for the first time. She knew that in the middle of the week, he slept in a tiny room in the dorms of the police academy in Jerusalem, and wondered what the place in which he really lived would look like. The apartment was on Pilon Street, a side alley cl
ose to City Hall and Ben Gurion Boulevard. What Geula didn’t know was that the apartment served as a temporary residence for the Office, housing agents and collaborators who arrived in Israel for short refresher courses on various aspects of their profession such as tracking, sabotage, and breaking into homes and safes.
At seven p.m., she knocked on the door. They kissed for a long time. “I’m starving,” she told him. “What did you make me?” Her fantasy was that Sasha would prepare a Russian meal for her. She expected him to surprise her with blintzes with mushrooms and fried onion, hard-boiled eggs filled with chopped liver and mayonnaise, piroshky and other dumplings stuffed with meat. She only hoped he remembered that she only ate kosher meat.
“I’m sorry, darling, I’m not one of those guys who know how to cook, especially compared to an illustrious chef like you,” he told her, kissing her eyes the way she loved, “but I made reservations for us at Onami on HaArba’a Street.” He flashed his winning smile.
She hesitated at the entrance to the restaurant; she didn’t like the unfamiliar aromas. The atmosphere was quiet, and people were whispering. It was true that Geula had made great strides, including altering her physical appearance, but she was a conservative girl at heart and observed Jewish dietary restrictions. The restaurant’s design was stunning, but it was too dark for her liking, and the music was strange. They were seated by an Asian-looking waitress at a side table, and both of them were given elegant menus in Hebrew and Japanese.
“Welcome to Onami,” the waitress said in an odd accent. “The restaurant offers three kinds of fascinating Japanese cuisine, including a sushi bar, a yakitori grill, and Japanese delicacies, including hot and cold dishes.”
“Where have you brought me?” Geula asked with a smile covering her deep sense of apprehension.
“It’s a Japanese restaurant. Have you ever been to one?” he asked, pouring her hot sake into a square wooden glass from a small china pitcher.
“No. This is my first time.” She drank the rice wine, which was light and pleasant.
“Well, then, how about if I order us a variety of appetizers, and then we’ll decide what to order next?” Sasha asked with the confidence of one familiar with the intricacies of Asian cuisine.
He turned to the waitress, addressing her in Japanese: “Konbanwa. Please bring us a medley of appetizers: some tsukemono43, thinly sliced seared sashimi buri in sesame oil, salmon tartar and avocado, seared slices of raw entrecote in spicy sauce, and a little gyoza stuffed with meat.”
“Hai!” the waitress replied, smiling as she bowed. “Kashikomarimashita—it would be my pleasure.”
“Domo arigato—thank you very much,” Sasha said to her, bringing his palms together and raising them, with a small dip of his head.
“I didn’t know you spoke Chinese too,” Geula said appreciatively.
“That was Japanese. I don’t speak Chinese. The two languages are very different. Chinese is comprised of characters, while Japanese has an alphabet. The Japanese did take their calligraphy from the Chinese, but the languages are different, and the two nations are very hostile toward one another.”
“They look the same to me,” Geula said, feeling the rice wine go to her head.
A gong sounded in the background. The food arrived on black-lacquered wooden plates, accompanied by soy, chili and vinegar sauces, as well as a green paste that smelled like horseradish. The waitress opened the paper bag containing the wooden chopsticks for Geula, pointed at the wasabi and said, “Careful, Japanese horseradish is very spicy.”
Sasha immediately perceived the distress reflecting in Geula’s eyes.
“What’s going on, my pretty?” he whispered.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing at the plate of fried dumplings.
“That’s gyoza, stuffed with ground pork. When eating them, they’re usually dipped in a mixture the diner creates himself from soy, chili and vinegar sauces.”
“Pork?” she echoed, appalled, returning the gyoza to its place.
Sasha felt ashamed. He had forgotten she only ate kosher food.
“And the fish isn’t cooked,” she pointed at it in disgust, “and the sliced fish looks raw to me too.”
Sasha smiled. Usually, the ‘cougars’ were the ones teaching the young men about the pleasures of life. In their relationship, he was the one who had to teach Geula every new thing in almost every area.
“Darling, give it a try, please; close your eyes. Take some of this sashimi, dip it in the soy sauce, add a bit of wasabi, and put it in your mouth. Trust me, it’s very tasty.”
Geula didn’t move.
Sasha picked up a morsel of fish with the chopsticks, dipped it in the sauce and brought it to Geula’s mouth. “Taste it. It’s great. It’s very fresh fish. It doesn’t even smell like fish.”
Geula took a bite, but she was clearly not enjoying herself. She had a hard time swallowing, and spit the sashimi into her paper napkin.
“Okay, my mistake. I thought you’d like it. I’m sorry. Do you like sushi?”
“I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never had it.”
“You put a layer of rice on some dried seaweed, and a few pieces of fish and vegetables on the rice. Using a special mat, the seaweed is rolled into a cylinder, which is sliced up and eaten with soy sauce. It’s delicious. Especially the red tuna or the salmon.”
“Is the fish raw in sushi too?” she asked, and watching her expression, he realized he’d made a serious mistake.
“I’m sorry, honey. My bad. It’s my fault. I forgot you don’t eat that kind of food. Let’s get out of here.”
“No, I feel bad. Don’t they have a burger and fries or chicken or roast beef?”
“It’s okay. I don’t really like it here, either. It’s just a snooty restaurant. I wanted to impress you. Let’s get out of here. I know where we can eat good food on a Friday night without a reservation.”
Haj Kahil’s restaurant on Yephet Street in Jaffa was bustling, as usual.
“Do you like stuffed neck of lamb, lamb shank, kabab sinia in tahini or tomatoes, or just some meat skewers?”
“I want a plate of hummus with fava bean ful and olive oil, fresh pita bread, two pullet skewers, mujaddara rice with lots of onion, and a bottle of Coke Zero,” she smiled in relief. They had kanafeh pastries and sweet mint tea for dessert.
“Thank you,” she whispered to him. “Now, that’s what I call real food. I don’t like food I don’t know, and I don’t like restaurants that feel like a pharmacy.”
When they returned to his apartment, which was modestly furnished, as she’d imagined, they made passionate love, with Geula, as usual, taking control and riding Sasha like a cowboy in a rodeo. She brought herself to an intense, speedy climax, with Sasha taking on the role of the wild stallion submitting to the cowboy. The combination of the evening’s excitement, the sake wine and the orgasm took their toll. She fell asleep immediately and began to snore with an open mouth. He knew how to make her come quickly. Looking at her broad thighs, he covered them with a light blanket.
Sasha got up from the bed and walked to the living room with a chilled bottle of Corona beer to watch an action flick.
He served her morning coffee in bed, just the way she liked it: brewed Turkish coffee along with a heated butter croissant. He prepared a double espresso for himself.
“Tell me,” she asked coquettishly. “Do you love me?”
“Tell me,” he imitated her. “Can’t you feel it yourself?”
She giggled. “So what do you have planned for us today in Tel Aviv?” she propped herself up in bed on her elbow.
“Before we go for a walk in Sarona, a newly renovated complex in the heart of Tel Aviv, originally a German Templar colony, and then take the Beach Promenade straight to the Neve Zedek neighborhood and Hatachana Compound on the border of Old Jaffa, there’s something serious I want to
talk to you about.”
His solemn expression and the tone of his voice frightened her. “I hope you’re not going to talk to me about getting married...”
He laughed. “No, my sweetheart. We’re happy the way we are. I want to talk to you about something I heard at work that I want to share with you.”
She grew curious and sat up in bed, her large breasts resting on her belly.
“I don’t know if I’m even allowed to talk about it, and I hope I don’t lose my job because of this…” he said, pausing as he dangled the bait in front of her.
“Is it something that’s related to me? Or the prime minister?” she asked hesitantly.
“No way. And if it actually was, I wouldn’t know about it, because it would be beyond my security clearance.”
“Well, then, who is it about? And why do you think it interests me?”
“At the office, I saw a request from the FBI to investigate allegations about someone named Arthur Schein who works in your office.”
Geula tensed. Would this finally signal the downfall of her rival, who had been taking over her position of close proximity to the prime minister?
“What did you hear?” she asked.
“I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it,” he said, playing the innocent.
“Come on, you know I have a high security clearance,” she told him.
“The FBI asked for our help in investigating a man accused of tax evasion and money laundering in the United States. Do you know him?”
“Not very well,” Geula said.
“We received authorization from the president of the District Court to record his conversations and examine his bank accounts.”
“You’re recording calls at the Prime Minister’s Office?” she asked apprehensively.
“God forbid. Only by this Arthur Schein, and that’s why I was so surprised when I heard a conversation between him and the prime minister relating to you.”