by Dov Alfon
Car lights flashed in the distance, and they signalled him to approach. Heading for the car, he gripped the handle of his blade with his right hand.
The transaction itself went quickly and smoothly. The digital scale stood on the asphalt in front of the car lights. He put down the hash, and a black hand gathered it, placing a bag of pot on the scale. The smell was auspicious. The figure jumped to 1.5 kilos. There was no point in arguing and, anyway, the deal reflected current market forces. Once he had picked up the bag, the car lights went out.
Half-blinded, he tried to find his way back to the entrance. Three or four car engines started behind him, their lights off, and thirty seconds later it was just him and the silence. His hands were outstretched as he fumbled from one parked car to the next. His eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness, he finally spotted the green light of the lift door. Relieved, he stepped confidently towards its flickering light.
He realised his mistake too late. Someone was standing in front of him with a helmet and night-vision goggles, like in an expensive video game. The man pointed a very long gun at him, and then a red light flashed, illuminating the Chinese pedlar’s cart. Without knowing why, Wasim understood straight away that he was going to die.
Chapter 56
The Military Secretary stood in front of the giant National Geographic map of the world that hung in his office, talking on the secure telephone. The political advisor was sitting on the couch behind him, nervously awaiting the results of the conversation.
“The Prime Minister told me he was not worried at all,” the Military Secretary said. It was a complete lie; the Prime Minister never shared his feelings with him. In fact, the Prime Minister kept him on a need-to-know basis, and what he needed to know was always information the secretary could have obtained from other sources. But he liked to tell his interlocutors that the Prime Minister told him this or that, in the hope of creating at least an appearance of information exchanged. “He told me he was not worried” – the implied question being, “So what did he tell you?”
Aluf Rotelmann’s calm voice came through on the line, “I’m happy to hear that.” A silence lingered. The Military Secretary knew that his pretence convinced no-one, and certainly not someone with the I.Q. attributed to Aluf Rotelmann. But one could settle for persuading people with low I.Q.s and still make a career out of it; which is why he brought the conversation to an end and immediately called Zorro, Aluf Rotelmann’s deputy. He began by saying, “Aluf Rotelmann told me you have already been updated on everything.” From there he could navigate easily.
He spoke once more with the military attaché at the Israeli embassy in Paris, who was too far away to grasp the intricacies of the balance of power in Jerusalem, and only then called the Prime Minister, who was in his car en route from the Ministry of Defence. The exchange took less than two minutes, but still enabled him to save face in front of the advisor, who was doing his best to seem not to be listening. Only after this entire rigmarole did he allow himself to turn to him and say what he had planned to say from the beginning: “Everything’s under control.”
“Famous last words,” the advisor said. “How is everything under control? How is it under control when we aren’t on top of a single scenario in this affair, when we didn’t create it and we’re not going to be the ones who end it? If it ever ends.”
“It’ll end soon,” the Military Secretary said. But would it?
“Define ‘soon’,” the advisor persisted. “Uncle Saul is arriving next Sunday. The Boss wants this affair behind him well before then.”
“The Boss” was the Prime Minister’s uninspiring code name. “Uncle Saul” was the code name of his primary donor, Saul Wenger, a Swiss billionaire who had amassed his fortune from casinos and cable T.V. He came to Israel once a year, and each time the Prime Minister’s Office suspended all activities to make sure that the visit was a success.
“I believe this affair will be behind us by tonight,” the secretary said, more hopeful than confident.
“And what does Aluf Rotelmann believe?”
“My assessment is based on conversations with Aluf Rotelmann and others. By the time Uncle Saul lands, this affair will have dropped off the radar and the Prime Minister will be able to focus on other things. Don’t forget we have a great Tzahal tour planned for Uncle Saul, a visit to the Hatzerim airbase, conversations with pilots, we’ll give him a large printed photograph of him sat next to a fighter jet as a souvenir; they print and frame it on the spot.”
“The Prime Minister has not approved that tour itinerary yet,” the advisor said. “But there’s still time for that. What we need to focus on at the moment is making this affair go away. Have you talked to the head of 8200?”
“No-one has talked to him, but from my understanding, he’s expected to land in a few hours.”
“How is it possible that he has not been in touch since the kidnapping this morning?”
“I don’t know where he is,” the secretary admitted. “He left San Francisco yesterday, but his office said he won’t be back until tonight.”
The advisor became quiet, and his gaze travelled across the map of the world on the wall.
Chapter 57
He Xiangu heard her mobile beeping while she was in the shower. Erlang Shen? Had he found the blonde? It could not be Team Two, because the translators had yet to arrive at the building in front of the embassy. Whoever the message was from, they would have to wait.
She let the water wash away the chlorine from the pool. She increased the flow of cold water and steadily turned down the warm. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about anything, not about her status in the organisation, the failure of the abduction or the question marks that only multiplied the more she tried to repair the damage she had already caused. Most of all, she tried not to think about Ming’s possible reaction. Her mobile beeped again.
Her bodyguard turned away when she walked naked to the table. He was sitting in the armchair facing the front door, his pistol drawn, and she turned her back to him as she disconnected the mobile from its charger. She typed the code for reading texts, but not before checking in the mirror to be sure the bodyguard was sneaking glances at her as often as he ought to. As she became increasingly aware of her body, she closed her eyes, the better to focus on the screen once she opened them again.
The message was from Team Four. It took her a moment to remember what Team Four’s mandate was and where it would now be reporting from. In fact, she nearly forgot that at noon she had sent three of her xiake to keep watch at the El Al desk at Charles de Gaulle airport. It was possible that Yerminski would decide to return to Israel.
“Team Four to Commander. Report from El Al checkin zone for Israel. A man caught on Team Two’s cameras this afternoon entering and exiting the Israeli embassy in Paris (documented as John Doe 24), has arrived here. According to Team Two’s recent report, which is still in stages of decryption and translation, it appears that John Doe 24 is the chief investigating officer of Israeli intelligence’s Unit 8200, Colonel Zeev Abadi. Video attached.”
He Xiangu pressed play. The video was only seconds long. John Doe 24 was seen in profile, probably from a camera concealed in a briefcase. He was documented presenting a card and entering El Al’s security zone. He was tall and muscular, with feline grace, and would have looked like a million other secret soldiers around the world if not for his face, which counterbalanced the ordinary efficiency of his body. There was a strange harmony to his features, in which the thin lips, strong nose and scarred chin gave way to a wistful, slightly amused gaze, like that of certain cats.
Once his entrance had been approved by the security guard, John Doe 24 turned his head and his eyes swept the area, locking for a split second on the agent carrying the hidden camera, who interrupted the taping and walked away as a bird abandons a tree when a cat approaches the trunk.
The second message was not at all reassuring.
“Team Four to Commander. Colonel Zeev Abad
i (former John Doe 24) met in the security zone a heavy-set man with silver hair, who has yet to be documented, and will be known from now on as John Doe 38. The two spoke for approximately two minutes, and from their body language it appears that John Doe 38 is higher in rank. It is therefore possible that John Doe 38 is Abadi’s direct commander – head of Israeli intelligence’s Unit 8200. It should further be noted that the flight to Israel was due to depart in less than forty minutes and that the checkin area was already officially closed, but El Al crewmen personally escorted John Doe 38 and opened a checkin desk for him. Before leaving, John Doe 38 handed Colonel Abadi a small package wrapped in tinfoil. Colonel Zeev Abadi left immediately upon receiving the package, while John Doe 38 approached the checkin desk. We were unable to document the encounter, and the operative of Team Four was detained for questioning by French policemen at the request of El Al security when he got too close to the barrier. He was released after his passport had been checked, and will be sent back to the homeland on the next flight. A xiake from Team Four was sent to follow Colonel Abadi upon his departure from the terminal, whereas the team leader has remained at his post, and awaits further instruction.”
When He Xiangu started school, her grandfather gave her a kaleidoscope. It was a traditional Chinese kaleidoscope, with black silhouettes on a yellow and red background. She was scared to death by the strange object, and tried for more than two hours to understand how the colourful shapes could refract into so many symmetrical, unrelated parts. Finally, overcome with rage, she stomped on the gift, which broke, and the glass shards lost their visual coherence.
Now she felt her mind turning into that broken kaleidoscope. She tried to make sense of the message she had read and grant it some kind of logic, but it only caused the riddle to refract into ever more vibrantly coloured shapes, which were related in a symmetrical yet unpredictable way, adhering to a pattern she could not grasp.
She felt her legs, still wet, buckling under her and stumbled back in the direction of the armchair, falling into the lap of the bodyguard, who did not protest. She read the message a second and third time, replaying the surveillance footage to hone in on the last shot and dive into the laughing eyes of John Doe 24. Was this Abadi, the one referred to as the senior investigating officer of the Israeli unit, the same Abadi mentioned in the recording that the translators were trying to decipher this very moment?
Until this point, she had believed she was the one who had initiated the operation. She was the one who had planned the abduction, the one who had authorised all the operative details, the one who had set the rules of the game. But had she been a pawn all along, manipulated into believing the initiative was hers? Was the soldier Yerminski not the targeted victim but the bait? Were the Israelis convened in some other hotel, as if in a parallel universe, watching her as she watched them, playing tricks on her, laughing the deeper she dug her grave? Who was the bird here? And who the cat?
She felt her bodyguard harden beneath her. She arched her back, her limber body a question mark furling into its own exclamation point. Her literary namesake in the Chinese classics aroused her husband, Ximen Qing, by feeding him an overdose of herbal aphrodisiacs until he lost his mind. He Xiangu was so enraged, she could have easily killed someone, but she decided she would be better off relaxing through an activity that only came close to death.
Placing her mobile underneath her, she rubbed against the tense young man, back and forth, sprinkling him with water, foam from the hotel soaps, honey from between her legs, memories of an interrupted meditation. He moaned and the heavy gun slid from his hand and landed on the carpet. Her legs carried her weight up and down to the rhythm of his breathing against her back. From the floor, the screen flashed one last time before switching off, and she saw Colonel Abadi’s playful gaze challenging her before being swallowed into the darkness of the room.
Chapter 58
“Air, fire, water and earth.” When she had a hard time concentrating, Oriana would quickly recite Maimonides’ four elements. “Air, fire, water and earth.” Her father would sometimes try to throw her off by reciting Plato’s order of the elements, but she never got confused: air, fire, water and earth.
Air.
In the silence that fell over the meeting room, Oriana could hear the grunting of the air-conditioner. It was on the highest setting, not only in accordance with a man’s tendency to freeze every woman in his midst, but also – or so she assumed – in order to drown out the possible hissing of hidden recording devices.
Shabak agent Hardy was the one who had asked the real question they had brought her in for.
“We really do have only one last matter. Earlier today, Segen Oriana Talmor, you went to the laundry service of the 8200 headquarters. In fact, you went there twice, one hour between each visit. The first time, according to the quartermasters’ testimony, you conducted an unsecure phone conversation with Aluf Mishne Abadi. What were you doing there the second time?”
“Aluf Mishne Abadi asked me to pick up his uniform,” Oriana said, “so I went over there. I did not know it was forbidden by Aluf Rotelmann.”
“That was the first visit,” Laurel corrected her. “The question is not what you did there the first time, but what you did on the second occasion, when there were no quartermasters there.”
Fire.
Even as a young girl she had found it easy to understand the vast advantage of the tribes who had discovered fire, to imagine the fear in the eyes of their enemies, those who witnessed for the first time people carrying torches and flaming arrows. That’s how she felt as an intelligence officer, because discovering secret information was as terrorising as fire in the Stone Age. I listened in on your telephone calls. I know things about you and you don’t even know what they are.
Now she was on the other side, which was also familiar to her. When Shabak agents see you creeping at night between village houses in the Galilee towards the nearest forest, they know you’re gay. When the credit card company statistician sees you’ve purchased, for the first time, an enhanced moisturising cream and a coconut snack bar, they can guess you’re pregnant even before you yourself know. What did Laurel and Hardy know about her, and what could they guess?
“The first time I went to the laundry service I noticed that the telephone was not secure, so I ran an information security check. And yes, I discharged the soldiers, per security protocol.”
“Shortly after the soldiers left the laundry service under your instructions, strong magnetic activity, electronic transmission-blocking, was registered in the unit,” Laurel said slowly. “It seems that someone over there had activated jamming devices to block remote bugging. That isn’t an information security check. That’s an application of electronic warfare, and you need to explain what could justify it.”
“Help us help you,” Hardy said.
“You knew very well there was an unsecure telephone there, you didn’t find out about it on your first visit. We need to understand what reason you could have had to activate electronic warfare equipment when you went back there an hour later. Give us a reasonable answer, and this affair will be behind us.”
Water.
“Can I first have a glass of water?” Oriana said, trying to force a smile into her voice. Hardy got up and walked to the coffee station at the entrance. How odd that the Greeks did not include time within the context of elements. Was Einstein really the first to make the connection? She promised herself she would look into it the moment she got out of there, if she was still allowed to check things online.
Yes, water. An important stalling element, even though Hardy returned with a jug and cups with relative speed. Once again her mind wandered to Einstein’s genius instead of rapidly coming up with a reason that could justify her use of jamming devices, apart from the obvious one, that she already knew the second time that she was about to divulge classified information on a landline, and all this for what, all this for Abadi the silver fox, the leftist who trashed her on the witness s
tand.
Her thoughts trailed off in every direction. Wake up, Oriana, wake up, focus, what was the fourth element?
“We’re waiting for an answer, Segen Talmor,” Laurel said.
Earth.
Earth, of course; dust, in the language of Judaism, and Rabbi Moses Cordovero even explained why dust came last, but at the moment she could not remember the reason. There was a lot of dust in front of her right now, from the windows overlooking the beaches of Herzliya. She drank from her cup of water and her gaze wandered to two girls on the beach, undressing despite the evening breeze and taking photographs of themselves in bikinis against the sunset. A terrific example of open source intelligence. How many girls around the globe had taken photographs in bikinis against the sunset? A hundred million? A billion? Did humanity need another photograph of a girl in a bathing suit? Was there truly an infinite demand from men for photographs of girls in bikinis? It certainly seemed to be the case, since even Oriana had at one point been tempted to send one to a man – until at the last minute she came to her senses and deleted the evidence from her folder.
All at once her thoughts focused. She saw, with complete clarity in her mind’s eye, her computer folder, and suddenly understood how Tomer could have known her computer had been hacked. She also realised what she would say. She put down the glass of water and looked them, one after the other, straight in the eye.
“I’m still not sure it’s any of your business, but I’m in the middle of a complex operation and I don’t have time to waste on pointless arguments. So I’m answering your question even though I don’t have to. In short, between my first and second visit to the laundry service, evidence was found indicating that my intelligence terminal in the system had been hacked, and was not protected by the proxy server. I subsequently took a series of defensive measures, one of them being the placement of jamming equipment in hot spots around the base, including the laundry shed. I can give you my terminal number and you can check it yourselves.”