A Long Night in Paris: The must-read thriller from the new master of spy fiction

by Dov Alfon

  “It isn’t such a big lake,” Léger said, revived by the concrete information. “I can get a divers unit over here and they’ll locate him within a couple of hours.”

  The deputy director grimaced. “You can’t put divers in the primary tank. These are extremely powerful cleaning agents. You’d be jeopardising their health.”

  “Then drain the water from the tank,” Léger said.

  “You cannot shut down the facility. It services eight million people!”

  “Then what do you suggest?” Léger asked in despair.

  “You have to wait for the next stage. The used water passes into the next station, the open lake you see on your right, through a duct with dense wire nets throughout. Your body will stop at the first net, it’ll trigger the sensors, and then I’ll call you.”

  “When do you expect that to happen?” Abadi asked.

  “In the next twenty-four hours. This time tomorrow at the latest,” the deputy director said. “If there even is a body here. But if there are inaccuracies in your story, the water will continue to flow uninterrupted, and I won’t call you.”

  “Elementary deductive reasoning,” Abadi said.

  “We need a body,” Léger said as they walked back to the police car waiting in the car park. “His shit continuing to flow is no legal proof that the abductee is still alive.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll have a body,” Abadi comforted him. He glanced at his mobile, but there were no new messages. It seemed as though back in Israel they weren’t too perturbed by what had happened in Charles de Gaulle. As someone who exercised great caution when it came to the press, he was usually reassured by media silence. But this time, the silence was foreboding.

  “As a matter of fact, Commissaire Léger, I fear that if we don’t get information quickly, you’ll have to contend with more than one body.”

  Chapter 20

  It was 3.50 p.m. in Jerusalem when the Prime Minister’s Office received a request for comment on a report to be aired on the evening news.

  Nearly all the radio stations were under the direct control of this office. Two T.V. channels were under its close supervision, and another channel was directly owned by the Prime Minister’s biggest donor, a Swiss tycoon who reigned over casinos from the U.S. to Macau. The T.V. channels had websites and newspapers, and those also yielded to the pressures of this office.

  But there were other media outlets that were not under their thumb, and the television reporter who had submitted the request to the Prime Minister’s office for comment worked for one of them.

  For the spokesperson, the mere fact that material of such nature had already been gathered, researched, verified and passed through the editing rooms without anyone from the channel’s news department giving him a telephone call was troublesome enough. But the report itself was a blatant declaration of war.

  Shortly after, they reconvened. The four advisors passed the reporter’s questions round among them. The spokesperson did his best to translate for the American advisor.

  “They’re in possession of a report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stating that, on his last trip to Geneva, the Prime Minister applied pressure for an official visit to Monte Carlo to be arranged on his way back to Israel.”

  “Why Monte Carlo? For the casino? Sounds unlikely.”

  “There were no plausible grounds to pass through Monte Carlo at taxpayers’ expense, but eventually they managed to pull off some kind of dinner with a few Jews who had arrived from France especially for the occasion, and they called it a ‘fundraiser’.”

  “That’s the story? An unnecessary trip? That won’t grab headlines in any major outlet.”

  “When they arrived at the hotel in Monte Carlo, the Prime Minister’s wife demanded that the head hairdresser from Alexandre de Paris – once Princess Grace’s regular salon – be brought to their suite.”

  “No. No, no, no, please no,” the American advisor said, rocking in his chair as if in prayer.

  “The Israeli consul in Monaco tried to explain that it was out of the question, but, as expected, she was forced to surrender. The stylist was duly summoned and arrived with a team of eight; three hours later he was taking a selfie with the Prime Minister’s wife. The channel claims to have the photograph.”

  “Please tell me she paid for it out of her own pocket,” the American advisor said.

  “The hairdresser asked the Prime Minister’s wife where he should send the bill, and she told him she did not involve herself in such matters, and asked him to charge it to the room.”

  “Please tell me the hotel refused and that the story boils down to nothing more than some goy hairdresser who’s owed money,” the American advisor said.

  “The hotel accepted. The receptionist added the bill to the room, including tax but not a tip.”

  “Which explains why the photograph ended up in the hands of some reporter,” the political advisor said, and sighed.

  “The next day, the consul was surprised by the expense, and asked the Prime Minister why this bill was included in the room’s account.”

  “And the Prime Minister apologised and said it was a mistake,” the American advisor said, trying to guess the turn of events.

  “The Prime Minister yelled at the consul for pestering him with issues she was supposed to resolve herself. She consulted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and it was decided that the hairstyling should be added to the trip’s budget under the only available category.”

  “Please tell me it has a boring bureaucratic name.”

  “The category was ‘unexpected security expenses’.”

  The room fell silent.

  “That’s not good,” the American advisor said.

  “No, it’s not,” the spokesperson agreed. “The Prime Minister’s wife’s haircut cost the taxpayer 1,250 euros. A rinse and blow dry included.”

  They processed the information. In their profession, information was measured not by its importance or credibility, but by the potential for stories it might spawn. The more they mulled over the details, the less possibility they could find of anything good coming out of it, only snowballing damage.

  “I’m not confident we can attack this head-on,” the strategic advisor said at last. “It’s a tiny corruption story, but easy to understand. It’s not like interfering with the work of the investigation of the corporate bonds committee.”

  “Excuse me, but the Prime Minister did nothing wrong. It was clearly a mistake on the part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the political advisor said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” the American advisor said tersely. “It’s his wife’s hair, it’s a capricious trip, it’s a 1,250-euro haircut, it’s an unexpected security expense. The jokes can practically write themselves.”

  “Then we’ll deal with it indirectly,” the spokesperson suggested. “Maybe drown it in a bigger story. Maybe a military threat.”

  “We can’t drum up a military threat on such short notice,” the strategic advisor said. “They won’t actually wait for the evening edition, they’ll start drip-feeding it in the show’s promos. We have two hours, tops.”

  “Didn’t we have a military story this morning? The Israeli who was abducted in Paris?” the political advisor said.

  “He was probably murdered, but there’s no body yet,” the spokesman said.

  “Wonderful!” the American advisor said. “Big drama, gag order has been lifted, an Israeli was kidnapped in Paris, officials suspect nationalistic motives, the Prime Minister has contacted his French counterpart and pressured him into action. Are there any pictures?”

  “But I’ve since spoken to the Military Secretary, who said they’re now certain the abduction had nothing to do with him being Israeli, it’s a criminal case, a case of mistaken identity,” the spokesman said.

  “What is he, an Isis spokesman? How can he be certain of the motive?” the American lashed out. “It’s our job to come up with ridiculous speculations, not his. I asked if we have ph
otographs.”

  “We have more than photographs,” the spokesperson said. “There’s footage from El Al’s security camera. You can see the woman who kidnapped him.”

  “The woman?”

  “A real knockout, if I understand correctly.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” the strategic advisor said. “Pass the footage on to all the channels, breaking news, announce preparations, the Prime Minister is receiving regular updates from the Minister of Public Security, the Intelligence Corps is investigating, the rabbi of the Western Wall has said a special prayer, the Mossad is on alert, the Shabak is also in the picture.”

  “Wait, I need to co-ordinate this with the deputy minister of defence.”

  “Heaven forbid! You collaborate only with the police. I don’t need the Military Secretary here getting in our way.”

  “Less than an hour ago we told all the channels that it was a trifling criminal event,” the spokesperson reminded them.

  “And in the meantime we’ve received new information,” the American said calmly. “This security event is brought to you by Alexandre de Paris hair salon of Monaco. Let’s go, the clock’s ticking.”

  Chapter 21

  Back when her father used to take her here, the ugly mall on the parallel road had yet to be built and no road signs mentioned Glilot, let alone the presence of a military base, and most cars in the vicinity were military vehicles anyway. They would drive from their suburban house in Ramat Hasharon along a half-concealed dirt road next to a strawberry field that today served as the officers’ car park.

  It was always after dark – on the way to her ballet class or a sleepover. After a few sharp turns, in which her head banged against the car roof from the potholes, suddenly there it was, the jungle: dozens and dozens of giant antennae of all kinds, a futuristic cluster of space spiders, as beautiful and blinding as the promise of love.

  She could have gazed at them for hours, but usually he would leave her in the car in front of the illuminated jungle for fewer than ten minutes, returning after being briefed and giving orders, always without a briefcase or documents. When they arrived at the ballet class or sleepover, it was all she could do not to tell her friends about her father’s secret, next to the strawberry fields north of Tel Aviv.

  Where do these amazing feelings go when you’re no longer a child? When she was in secondary school they took a trip to New York, and in the taxi from the airport she braced herself for the famous skyline of skyscrapers which had been mentioned so often in discussions of their upcoming holiday. And indeed, all of a sudden, as they were emerging from a boring tunnel, New York revealed itself to be everything she had been promised, beautiful and mysterious and frightening and blinding, and still she could not help feeling a little disappointed, because the skyline was not as breathtaking as that of the 8200 headquarters’ jungle.

  Back then no-one had dubbed the place 8200, least of all her father, who simply called it “the unit”. In their neighbourhood, which was populated primarily by career soldiers and pilots, it was referred to as “the secret base” or “the headquarters”. The day the retiring 8200 unit commander appeared on the cover of the weekend edition of Yedioth Ahronoth, her father refused to open the newspaper for the whole Sabbath, telling her, “You see this, Oriana, you see this? This is the beginning of the end for this country.”

  By then, she was already an expert in deception. My mother is upstairs. My mother will be back soon. My mum just left. My mum is visiting her own mum. Mum is dead. Mum is in the hospital. Mum is a speaker at an international conference. My mum will laugh at all these rumours when she gets back.

  They left the kibbutz at night. Her father drove, her younger brother in tears in the back seat, and she naturally took the seat next to the driver. She remained at his side for years to come, because her father never remarried. Then the family moved closer to the antennae, into a villa which felt way too big and where all the furniture was new. Her mother stayed in the family unit in the kibbutz with her young Palestinian lover, a part-time Arabic teacher from one of the surrounding villages, straight from the Israeli leftist textbook.

  When she visited her childhood home every second weekend he was never present, but it didn’t take her long to find traces of him: a man’s sandal under her mother’s bed, strange scribblings on the telephone pad, an Aqua-Velva aftershave tucked under the bathroom shelves, to say nothing of her mother’s browser history. He certainly was unavoidable everywhere outside the house – in all the kibbutz dinner halls, clubs and along the bike paths her mother’s new love interest was on every member’s disapproving lips.

  She didn’t care. She was happier in Ramat Hasharon, she could swim in the Mediterranean, buy cool outfits, go out. Her father appeared to be unaffected by the whole thing, and that was all that mattered to her.

  It changed radically three years later. She was in her last year of secondary school, concentrating on her exams. Her father was the lead candidate to oversee the relocation of the Intelligence Corps to the Negev desert scheduled for 2022; it was an important promotion that, he reluctantly admitted, would force them to move yet again.

  And that was when the Arabic teacher returned to their lives. Not in person – he was under house arrest – but in the form of a secret note sent from the internal security service to the nominating committee. The head of the Shabak respectfully notified the committee that the top contender for the post, Aluf Mishne Talmor, had shared his then-wife with a young Arab Israeli whose cousin was now suspected of belonging to a terror organisation.

  Of course, the note went on, Aluf Mishne Talmor himself was not suspected of any wrongdoing, and his record as a brilliant intelligence officer stood; but the record showed that a possible terror suspect had had access to his home, to his private documents, to his landline, and possibly to any intelligence documents he might have taken home.

  “The role of the counter-espionage unit is to collect information, and to distribute it to the relevant authorities at the right moment, but ultimately the decision is yours,” ended the note, duly signed by the head of the Shabak, one Aluf Rotelmann, probably already working on his own nomination to head the Intelligence Corps.

  Backstabbing in Tzahal, or in any huge organisation for that matter, was not a science, it was an art – it had to have an emotional impact. And so an incompetent from the Shabak got the job and her father got cancer. Oriana did not suspect Aluf Rotelmann of any wrongdoing either. All she knew was that one day her father was there, taking her to Tzahal’s I.Q. tests before her enlistment, and three months later he was dead.

  She had hoped never to return here as a soldier – on her preference questionnaire at the induction centre she had written “anything but 8200”, and when she arrived at the officers’ intelligence course after serving in the information security department, her interview write-up stated: “Owing to personal circumstances, the officer has been exempt from being assigned to the unit in which her deceased father served.”

  But a series of upheavals shook Unit 8200, a flood of events that could all have been prevented if only someone had been awake to the incessant ringing of alarm bells. One paedophile officer, a sudden wave of conscientious objectors, and hundreds of news reports around the world following the leaking of classified information by their American counterpart: the National Security Agency. Suddenly Unit 8200 was in every newspaper, and not only in flattering articles in the technology sections.

  The Commander in Chief of Tzahal decided to establish Special Section, and its recruiters immediately approached her – an outstanding cadet in the course, an outstanding researcher in the department, with a record of cracking cases other officers had long abandoned. “We have four branches here,” her commander used to tell officials on V.I.P. tours, “security, research, teleprocessing and Oriana”.

  And yet, it felt a little strange coming back here, making her way on a new, well-marked asphalt road. The soldiers guarding the entrance to the base all recognised h
er car from a distance, and therefore adhered to the strict security protocols, including checking her I.D. cards and the boot of her car. It was the price she had to pay for her own stern approach to security, even if today it was just downright annoying: she had only ten minutes until the secure video conversation with Abadi, and she wanted to catch up on everything that had happened in the section during her absence.

  The duty sergeant in Special Section was Rachel, the only person who could get a smile out of her even on a bad day. And indeed, Oriana had barely made it through the door when the samelet broke into one of her usual animated and incoherent monologues, which she called “the commander’s update”.

  “Commander, commander, come quick, you have a summons for a secure conversation with the new head of section. Get to your room and your screen. The summons came from him, so he’ll be the one making the call. You also need to approve three messages that have arrived for you. Should I read them to you in the order in which they came or by the sender’s rank? Actually in this case it’s the same thing. O.K., here I go. Are you sitting? Coffee first? No? Good, because I would not have time to make coffee and give you the commander’s update. So should I begin? First, there’s a message by the unit commander stating that you’re no longer the head of Special Section, because the world-class silver fox, Aluf Mishne Zeev Abadi, decided to assume his position earlier.”

  “I know, Rachel, I was cc’d on that e-mail. I don’t remember it mentioning that the new head of section was a world-class silver fox.”

  “It’s obvious, it didn’t need mentioning, his profile photograph is in the e-mail. As if it isn’t enough that you’re such eye candy, now a guy like that’s joining. I’m going to be the section’s ugly duckling. I’m seriously considering putting in a transfer request.”

  Rachel, who complained that she was short and fat owing to her mother’s genes, had the guys on the base wrapped around her little finger as if she was a supermodel. Oriana spent a significant amount of her time in the office boosting the self-confidence of her favourite investigator, but now was not the time.