by Nathan Ronen
“Problems at work?” she interrogated.
“As usual, there’s a crisis at the office. I have to go back to Israel. Are you coming back with me?”
“I can’t right now. I’m currently mentoring a few students preparing to hand in their thesis next month. Can we talk about it on the phone?”
“Okay. After breakfast, could you please give me a ride to the train station? I need to catch an El-Al flight from Frankfurt. I need to get back to Israel urgently and… Say, I have a silly question to ask you.”
“Okay.”
“When you were a little girl in Germany, did you read the first book in the Wizard of Oz series?”
Apparently, she did not understand where he was going with this, and so reacted only with a noncommittal hum.
“Do you remember the part in the story where Dorothy, the lion, the scarecrow and the tin man arrive in the land of Oz and discover the great wizard is just a cowardly dwarf of a tyrant who can’t do magic?”
She waited for the conclusion.
“That’s how I feel right now. I’ve come a very long way with myself, and at the end of it, it turns out I’ve got nothing to do with what I’ve found. I’m just a little tin man who needs you, my Dorothy, by my side.”
She didn’t say a word, but felt the tears clogging her throat.
She organized the little suitcase for him and hid a small note inside: “Once again, you’ve proven to me that under your tough exterior, you’re a romantic. So here’s a brief quote for you from my favorite American poet, Dorothy Parker. She wrote: ‘Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it and it darts away.’ Have a good trip, my love. For a moment, I was hoping in the fantasy of our wondrous weekend that we could become a family again. The last time I gave you the news, you weren’t listening. Congratulations are in order for us. The tests indicate I’m in my twelfth week of pregnancy. I really hope we’re having a girl.”
Chapter 84
Kfar HaNagid Village
Arik boarded the express train to Frankfurt. After an hour and a half, he arrived at the airport, where he presented his agency badge to the El-Al security officer and deposited his pistol with him for the duration of the flight.
The flight was delayed due to a technical problem, and after it finally took off, various troubling topics surfaced in Arik’s mind. The way Galili had spoken to him and the lack of gratitude for the fact that none of the Israeli soldiers had sustained as much as a scratch annoyed him. He also recalled the conversation he had conducted with Alex in the garden of Mossad HQ prior to the operation in Morocco. He wanted to consult with someone whose integrity he could trust, someone who was as honest as they came. The two people who fit the profile were Gideon Perry, his former commander and Mossad deputy director, and Ben-Ami Cornfield, the man who had effectively fired him from the Mossad.
Arik’s heart wanted to share his dilemma with Gideon Perry, but his instincts told him he needed to approach Ben-Ami Cornfield, the man and the myth.
At nine p.m., he landed in Ben Gurion Airport and powered on his Chameleon. A stream of internal messages and updates from his office appeared on the screen. A brief message from his office manager Claire caused a shot of adrenaline to race through him: an order to show up at Galili’s office the next day. There was also a text message that his car had been left for him at the airport parking lot, on the roof across from the elevators.
On the one hand, after the brief vacation with his beloved and his son, he had realized once and for all where his heart was leaning. But on the other hand, he had one more urgent matter to handle: the ‘yellowcakes’ that the Iranians had purchased in Chad.
Arik headed south on his way to his home in the Tsuk Kedumim neighborhood in Palmachim Airbase. On Road 1, he veered in the direction of Ashdod, taking Road 42 south. When he passed by the sign announcing Kfar HaNagid, he hit the brakes and stood in the parking lot at the entrance to the village, which was Ben-Ami Cornfield’s place of residence. He dialed Cornfield’s home and was answered by his wife Amira.
“Good evening, Amira. It’s Arik Bar-Nathan. I hope this isn’t too late in the evening for you,” Arik said.
“It’s fine, thank you,” she answered, sounding as if she couldn’t talk, and had something to hide.
“I wanted to pop in and see how Ben-Ami’s doing, if it’s okay with you two,” Arik said.
Amira replied, “I know Ben-Ami will be surprised that you want to see him.” She hesitated. “But he’ll also be very glad to hear that you need him.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Arik said, driving his vehicle into the village’s main street, and immediately turning left at the first house.
Amira opened the door. “Arik, how are you?” she asked in a friendly manner that did not reveal the two had once been lovers at some point in the distant past.
“How are Eva and the baby?” she asked loudly for the benefit of any potential eavesdroppers.
Her eyes scanned his slim form and she smiled to herself, lightly caressing the stubble on his face. An enigmatic smile fluttered upon her lips.
“You look wonderful too,” he told her quietly, putting an arm around her waist. She tried to steal a brief kiss, but Arik shied away,
Cornfield was already waiting for him in the house’s garden. Arik was amazed by the change the man had undergone since leaving the Mossad. Cornfield looked thinner and older, as if old age had suddenly descended upon him. His curls had gone white, and he needed his cane once more. However, Arik noticed that he was completely sober.
“Hi, Ben-Ami, how are you?” Arik asked, shaking Cornfield’s enormous hand. Ben-Ami did not reply, merely placing that large hand on Arik’s shoulder and leading him to the sprawling kitchen.
Amira was already preparing a thinly chopped vegetable salad. An aromatic herb omelet was sizzling in the pan, and the scent of fresh pastries was emanating from the stove.
“Amira, I just got off a flight. I ate on the plane,” Arik protested, knowing she would not relent.
“Hogwash. You might have taken a bite or two. How can you eat food from that warmed-up metal tray, right? It’s not like the Mossad sprung for a first-class ticket for you, am I right?”
“So, how are you two doing?” Arik asked them.
“I’m sure you heard how that corrupt bastard Ehud Tzur backed me up into a corner and told me he’d decided to terminate my role, effective immediately. No ‘thank you’ or nothing,” Cornfield said, still mortally aggrieved, as if the events hadn’t happened more than a year ago.
“Why are you offended?” Arik wondered. “After all, you yourself knew and talked about leaving office ever since Ehud Tzur was appointed for the job. Everyone heard you say you were expecting to have to leave your job soon, since you couldn’t stand the guy, and you let him know exactly what you thought of him. I’m sure it didn’t come as a surprise.” Arik spread butter on a warmed bun that had been produced from the freezer.
“That’s true, but there’s a dignified way to terminate someone. To let me know I’d be leaving my job in some aisle in the cemetery? Later, I found out that a government meeting had taken place around noon that same day, and he’d already announced there that I was departing, and in one fell swoop, confirmed that pretty boy from the Air Force as my replacement. Come on, what’s his name? It sounds kind of Slavic. Everyone knows that asshole bought the most important job in the country with election bribes.”
“Izzo Galili?” Arik asked.
“Major General Avigdor Galili,” Amira corrected him. “And Ben-Ami, don’t make fun of him. He’s an illustrious fighter pilot, and an IDF major general, just like you.”
“Can you say one good word about Galili?” Cornfield challenged him.
“Yeah. I’ve worked with worse,” Arik smiled bitterly. “But excuse me, Ben-Ami, for bringing this up, but the way
you replaced your predecessor, David Fischer, wasn’t appropriate, either.”
“That wasn’t me,” Cornfield apologized. “That was that fat-ass, Lolik Kenan. You know how paranoia can be catching. He was a cold son of a bitch as a prime minister, and he couldn’t stand that Brit, Fischer, and his work methods. I was just the messenger.”
Arik looked at Cornfield compassionately. What a journey the man had undergone, and what a change had occurred in his personality. From the tough, brutal, uncouth man he had been in the beginning of his role as Mossad director, he had become one of the most active, admired heads of the Mossad throughout its history. Not only had he not dismantled any Mossad departments, but he had also strengthened and fortified the agency as well as the foundations laid down by his predecessor, turning the Mossad into one of the best intelligence agencies in the world.
Cornfield chuckled awkwardly. “It’s true, I was a bit of a woolly mammoth in a china shop when I started out. It’s a good thing the department heads weren’t scared of me, and fought me bravely and wisely.”
“Boys, get out of my kitchen and go sit in the swing under the mulberry tree,” Amira suggested. “I’ll bring you a pitcher of Turkish coffee and some cookies in a few minutes.”
Cornfield rose heavily, evading the helping hand Arik extended to him. Leaning on his cane, he tottered slowly toward the garden, and Arik followed.
“So, how are you?” Arik asked, waiting with supreme patience to embark on the real reason for his visit.
“Listen, I feel like I just woke up as an old man one day,” Cornfield said with a chuckle.
Arik examined him affectionately. Despite their disputes and mutual anger at one another during the five years in which they worked together, he had learned to appreciate and admire the man’s ability to discern what was real and what was fake. Cornfield had never been impressed by certificates or degrees. He was a mensch who appreciated qualities such as reliability, honesty and the brotherhood of fellow warriors.
Amira arrived with a large copper kettle in which quality black coffee, cooked on the range, was bubbling, along with two small glass tumblers. She served them small, crispy homemade maamoul cookies, filled with dates and nuts before retiring to her room.
From his pocket, Cornfield produced a masbaha49 necklace made of large amber stones, which he had received as a token of gratitude from one of the kings in the Persian Gulf, and began toying with it restlessly.
“It’s time we leave memory lane behind, and discuss the real question: why are you here?” Cornfield said, aiming his one-eyed inquisitive gaze directly at Arik.
* * *
49 A masbaha is a Muslim rosary, comprised of ninety-nine beads symbolizing the different names of Allah in the Quran.
Chapter 85
The Arbor in the Cornfield House, Kfar HaNagid Village
“I came here to consult with you because I’m very worried,” Arik began. “There are things happening at the Office that I initially dismissed as cheap gossip, but then I heard more and more disturbing things about the use of confidential intelligence to benefit some American billionaire, a friend of Ehud Tzur’s, who wants to open a tax-free casino in the south of the Arava Desert, on the coast between Eilat and Aqaba on the border with Jordan, in order to cater to the oil gentry of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, and suddenly, it’s affecting operational plans and determining the EEI50 in the quest for intelligence.”
Cornfield did not say a word, merely filling his pipe with an aromatic mixture of sweetened, packed Captain Black Gold tobacco, listening as he exhaled a cloud of thick fragrant smoke.
“Then I hear from our people on the ground in the Mossad that friends of Galili, director of the Mossad, are making the rounds in Azerbaijan, selling weapons, ammunition and intelligence. Apparently, they’re working some kind of circuitous deal for weapons that’s been personally approved by the Mossad director, paid for by the Azeri in gas and oil that’s immediately sold to a third party at the end of a pipe in the Black Sea, while bypassing the rules and procedures of the Ministry of Defense’s Exports Control Agency.”
Cornfield listened, replying merely with an indistinct hum that blended into the snoring of the old Shar-Pei dog that was sleeping under the table.
“And I heard from Alex, head of the Research and Intelligence Division at the Office, that the prime minister’s people prevented him from sending an expert witness on behalf of our financial department, Back Door, to an American court to testify regarding the involvement of Chinese banks in financial transfers that ultimately serve to fund terrorism,” Cornfield said.
“When did he talk to you?” Arik wondered, entirely forgetting that he had been the one to authorize Alex to contact “someone he trusted.” And Alex had indeed done so, sharing the information with Cornfield, the person Arik himself had decided to consult.
“Alex also updated me that Avigdor Galili was applying pressure on him to get information on the Chinese. Alex suspects this classified information is being passed on to some French tycoon who’s funding Ehud Tzur’s election campaign. Alex believes this guy has financial interests concerning the Chinese,” Cornfield noted.
“Right, I heard the general gist of it from Alex as well, but I didn’t really delve into it much, since in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been focusing on just one thing—the operation in Morocco,” Arik said.
“The Office was involved in that?” Cornfield asked in amazement. He had watched the dramatic events taking place in Morocco on TV, but the military censors had ordered to conceal Israel’s involvement. He shook his head appreciatively. “But from what I heard on the radio and saw on TV, the king managed to foil the failed coup attempt, with help from the French.”
“Right, that was the media spin we agreed on. I think I’ve bought myself some more time before Galili and I part ways, because I arranged a visit for the prime minister and his wife in Morocco, right on the eve of the elections, with a direct invitation from the king.
“Anyway, I came to see you because I feel like I’m not going to be sticking around much longer. I think I’m about to get tossed out of the Office too, because Galili and I aren’t exactly a love story.”
Cornfield suppressed a smile. He and Arik Bar-Nathan had once had quite a tense relationship as well. “What’s his excuse for tossing you out?”
“What happened in Morocco,” Arik said.
“The fact that you’ve bought yourself a little time is excellent, and serves us well. I need you to go back to the Office and start collecting evidence for me. I mean the kind that can meet the state attorney’s criteria, not just idle chatter.”
Arik looked at him, uncomprehending.
“For quite a while now, we’ve been hearing all kinds of troubling rumors about funds supposedly being given to Ehud Tzur for his election campaign, funds brought here in cash by donors and then disappearing into the private safety deposit boxes of Tzur’s friends. Gifts worth thousands of dollars in cigars, champagne, expensive alcoholic beverages smuggled in without paying customs fees and brought directly to Ehud Tzur’s private residence in the luxurious suburb of Savyon. Jewelry and expensive designer clothes and fur coats given as gifts to Tzur’s wife and even to Geula, his office manager.
“In addition, there are hints of bribes paid to a relative of the prime minister, to his aids, and to the legal counsel to the Prime Minister’s Office, a woman supposedly doing her job on a volunteer basis, for one shekel a year. It turns out Tzur’s relative also represents the German company that manufactures missile boats for IDF and defense systems that are supposed to secure Israel’s gas rigs in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea, and is also the representative for Natek, the company previously managed by Avigdor Galili.”
Arik’s jaw dropped in amazement. He had not been aware of the depths of the corruption at the top, the illicit kickbacks and the lack of clear boundaries between the private
and public sectors.
“We sent a young, handsome fighter from Kidon to seduce the weak link in the Prime Minister’s Office: Geula Murduch, the office manager.”
“Geula the Pygmy, ‘the tarantula’?” Arik marveled. “I’d have thought she was actually the strongest link in protecting Ehud Tzur’s back.”
“People can’t be strong all the time. Each of us has an Achilles’ heel that’s our breaking point. It’s actually the people who don’t acknowledge their own weakness and constantly maintain a strong facade that shatter into a million pieces like fragile crystal.”
Arik shrunk in his seat. He, too, felt as if his strong appearance was about to crumble.
“It was actually Geula’s relationship with Ehud Tzur that we chose to attack. When we exposed her to recordings revealing what Ehud Tzur and his political advisor really think of her, she was mortally offended, and fell to pieces. They were making fun of her physical appearance, her primitivism and her lack of education. And from that moment on, she began to record all her conversations with the prime minister and provide us with material about cash funds being received from donors as well as other incriminating material, in return for an agreement to turn state’s evidence, which she’s about to sign with the state attorney.”
Arik listened on, shocked.
“Unfortunately, Ehud Tzur’s Congress appearance about a month ago managed to enrage the Americans, especially the president. You know how it is when you piss off the president of the United States, the greatest superpower in the world.”
Arik listened as an expression of query spread across his face. “I’m sorry, but I’m still not getting where you’re going,” he mumbled, embarrassed.
“A week after the prime minister spoke before Congress, despite warning signals from the White House not to do so, the president summoned the Saudi ambassador and declared that the US has approved the Saudi request, stalled for quite a while, to purchase strategic weapons and munitions worth 350 billion dollars.”