by Dov Alfon
Chapter 85
What did Vladislav Yerminski do in a place like this, day and night? The antennae field was huge, but the base itself was much smaller than Oriana had expected. The pavements were painted green and white, the colours of the Intelligence Corps. Along the pathways were directions to the dining hall, the living quarters, the bunker, directions to everything but the exit from the base, since apparently everyone knew the way out. Six trees swayed in the wind that blew sand through the command square, and around a command poster that stated in red letters: “A RIGHT IS ALSO A DUTY”.
The drone continued to hover above their heads, its buzzing growing louder in irregular cycles. The base was full of night sounds that she did not recognise, used as she had been to her kibbutz in the north. Irrigation pipes dripped across a symbolic square of yellowing grass. Crickets chattered from every direction. Every now and then she heard the growl of an old air-conditioner compressor that someone had forgotten to turn off.
They were light years away from Unit 8200 as it was portrayed on the outside, and light years away, in fact, from any technology unit. On the exterior wall of the dining hall was a giant reproduction of Munch’s “The Scream”.
It wasn’t a painting, Oriana discovered, but a mosaic made of thousands of bottle caps. A metal plaque explained that the soldiers on the base had worked on the piece for three months as part of an artistic recycling project sponsored by Coca Cola.
The command board included a guard duty roster and the punishments imposed in the disciplinary trials that week: four hundred shekels for failing to wear a beret, a week’s detention for substandard cleaning of the showers.
So what did Vladislav Yerminski do in a place like this, day and night, for a year and a half? Oriana still could not answer that question. The base’s exasperating network intelligence officer had decided to exercise his right to file an appeal against the inspection, forcing her to wait forty-five minutes before her people could enter the intelligence bunker.
“The El Dorado department is the most secret place in this country, carrying out the most sensitive intelligence-gathering missions. I strongly protest this inspection and hereby appeal against it,” he shouted at her, cleaning his glasses like a nineteenth-century academic. When she took out the Navran to appeal his appeal, he looked at the device like a child robbed of a toy promised to him and him alone.
She assumed the unit 8200 commander would reject the appeal, but nevertheless decided not to wait before logging initial findings. The drone had already located an impressive number of information security offences. The soldiers on the base regularly sent each other private e-mails, text messages and photographs that included geolocation data during their shifts. Over the last twenty-four hours, dozens of posts had been uploaded onto Facebook from the base, more than a hundred photographs onto Instagram, and at least one of the intelligence antennae had been tuned to a sports radio station, most likely the initiative of soldiers who wanted to get updates during their shift. In the meantime, the team raided the offices and living quarters, where there was no-one to object.
“Where’s the base commander?” Oriana asked the only administrative officer they could find.
“All administrative officers are at home except for me. I’m the duty officer,” he said.
“Even the base commander?”
“Especially the base commander.”
According to the manpower structure in the base’s administrative department, ten soldiers served in the El Dorado department. Three of them, including Yerminski, were on leave – quite a high proportion for a sensitive department in a closed base. Oriana opened the charts relating to the living quarters and took four of the section’s soldiers to raid the missing soldier’s room. His bed was made, and a poster of the movie “Ocean’s Eleven” hung on the wall behind it. His locker was almost empty. Rachel listed the items: One set of clean combat uniform.
One service dress windproof jacket.
Four pairs of socks.
Four books in Russian (Boris Akunin, Fandorin series).
Coin pouch.
Paris travel guide in Hebrew from ten years ago, property of the base library.
Pair of keys.
Sennheiser helmet headphones with 0.7 jack.
Civilian I.D. card.
P.O.W. card with dog tag.
Three packs of military wafers.
“You’re looking for something strange. It may be something unexpected, it may be something that’s missing, it may just be something that looks out of place,” Oriana thought.
She did not notice anything missing. As for strange, almost everything in that locker looked strange to her. Tomer burst into the room panting, bearing the folders from the administrative department. Yerminski’s two roommates served with him in the El Dorado department. One of them, a signaller for English communications named Joe, was on leave outside the base, and the other, a signaller for Arab communications named Shlomo, was presently doing a night shift in the bunker to which she had yet to obtain access.
The folders Tomer carried also contained the rosters of the different departments. For the past three months Vladislav Yerminski had requested his roommate Shlomo as his shift buddy, and they had pulled most night shifts together. Tomer also found Yerminski’s overseas leave request, authorised by a unit welfare officer. She had approved his request without interviewing the intended bride, “due to distance”. Only one witness confirmed the existence of the upcoming wedding: Yerminski’s roommate Shlomo.
Shlomo was Shlomo Cohen, Tomer announced gloomily, and with such a common name there was no point in searching for information on him on the internet. His military record, Tomer reported, included a complaint concerning vandalism of military property, which had resulted in a fine, and two incidents that had led to detentions.
It could be what she was looking for. It could also be, for the time being, coincidental. To find out, she had to interrogate Rav Turai Shlomo Cohen, who was at a safe remove in the sealed-off bunker.
She checked the Navran again; still no authorisation to enter the El Dorado department. “In the meantime let’s check Cohen’s stuff,” she told her soldiers, and they returned to the room. A military policeman picked the lock and Rachel took out the objects and described them while Tomer filled in the report. They did not dig up anything in Russian, and certainly not in Chinese, or anything that linked him to Yerminski. The findings were slim: One set of service uniform.
One field sweater.
Keys.
Five pairs of socks.
A Bluetooth mobile headset.
A toiletry bag.
A pair of slippers.
A Samsung Android mobile (switched off).
Four packs of halva snacks from combat rations.
A Swiss army penknife.
A copy of Rich Dad, Poor Dad from the base library.
“Maybe we can arrest him for stealing halva snacks from military combat rations,” the commander of the military police unit said with absolute seriousness.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Oriana said, “I can’t even get authorisation to question him for aggravated desertion. I don’t think halva is going to get us anywhere.”
“So you want us to put everything back in his locker?” he said.
The filed articles were still laid out on Yerminski’s bed. What was unexpected here, what was missing?
“No, take everything to my jeep. Leave a receipt for confiscated objects registered under Vladislav Yerminski and Shlomo Cohen’s names. I’m going to find out what’s going on.”
She left the living quarters in the direction of the bunker. From a distance she noticed the bespectacled network intelligence officer talking to someone. He seemed familiar, and when she drew closer, she recognised Zorro even before she noticed his stripes. She did not need to ask herself the reason behind the Deputy Chief of Intelligence’s presence here in the desert.
Chapter 86
At Hôtel Molitor, Erlang She
n sat at the edge of the pool and waited, stroking the steel handle of his gun. It was an N.P.-30, a masterpiece of the Chinese weapons industry and a special adaptation of the American Colt M.1911. For the purpose of the mission, he had equipped it with a silencer, an American 45 Osprey that doubled the pistol’s length and unfortunately compromised its harmonious beauty.
Only three employees were in the lobby at this time of night, a security guard and two receptionists. Access to the pool was symbolically fenced off by a chain bearing an apologetic sign requesting would-be swimmers to respect guests’ sleep. Erlang Shen hopped over it easily without being noticed.
Ming’s instruction was to spare the bodyguard’s life if possible. Under normal circumstances it would have been more than possible, because at night the bodyguard was supposed to guard the boss from the hallway. But despite the hour, the lights in He Xiangu’s room were still on, and what little time Erlang Shen had before his next mission of the night was running out.
He tried to guess where the bodyguard would choose to position himself inside the vast room. The four windows and the door to the balcony overlooking the pool presented so many weak spots for the bodyguard. Why did she choose this hotel, and why a suite with a balcony? As this miserable operation played out, Erlang Shen found He Xiangu’s conduct an embarrassment.
His telephone vibrated. The two junior xiake had positioned themselves outside the apartment in Créteil and requested approval to burst in and carry out the abduction of Mme Abadi. As if the team had not chalked up enough humiliating failures for one day. “Don’t make a move before I get there. Confirm message,” he typed. They confirmed.
The listening team had already evacuated the building in front of the Israeli embassy, the teams searching for Vladislav Yerminski were ordered to stop, and the back-up forces were instructed to return to their London base immediately. Erlang Shen had only six junior xiake at his disposal, not including the commander’s personal bodyguard. He calculated that even if they boarded the flight at the last minute, and even if Mme Abadi did not pose an especially difficult challenge, the drive from Paris to Créteil and from there to the airport did not leave him much time.
The lights in the suite were still on, in the living room as well as in the bedroom; she had probably let her bodyguard go and had fallen asleep without turning them off. It was against regulations, but He Xiangu had already demonstrated her blatant disregard of regulations.
Ten more minutes passed. There was no point in waiting longer. Erlang Shen put his gun back in his pocket, ran to the white railing and started to scale the white fence, an Art Deco gem that had survived thanks to preservation laws. For twenty seconds he looked like a swift black cat, and even though his action invited attention, the cat disappeared onto one of the balconies without anyone raising the alarm.
Erlang Shen peered into the living room. He did not see the bodyguard at the most logical lookout post, the side armchair by the door. Nor did he see him anywhere else in the room. The door was closed. As he had supposed, He Xiangu had fallen asleep and her bodyguard was standing in the hallway. Thanks to the silencer, the bodyguard would not suspect a thing and would have no reason for entering the room. He would receive an order from the organisation to leave the hotel and drive to the airport.
Erlang Shen took out long pliers and turned the lock of the balcony door, which slid silently open. The heating was on full blast, with music emanating from the bedroom. Closing the door behind him, he scanned the room again.
Empty. Hallway empty. Bathroom empty. Everything was empty and lit. He drew his gun and carefully opened the bedroom door. At first, he did not register what he saw.
For a moment he thought He Xiangu was in the throes of a nightmare, her arms flailing in the air, obscure guttural sounds emerging from her throat. But she was not dreaming. Underneath her, buried in the sheets, moaned a much taller figure; it was his arms that were flailing. The bodyguard’s gun was on the carpet next to the bed. He Xiangu’s swarthy body moved rhythmically against the white sheets, and Erlang Shen noticed a large tattoo of a wolf on her arched lower back. The bodyguard suddenly spotted him beyond the rising shoulder of his commander; he tried to get up, but she pressed him back onto the mattress. Erlang Shen aimed at her tattoo. He almost regretted using his silencer.
Chapter 87
On occasion, people have a sense of foreboding. And when faced with it, they try to set their house in order. Parents call their children. Lovers text each other from afar. Executives ask for the revenue report. People get blood tests, write wills, change the oil in their cars, gaze at the sky in search of a sign.
Abadi had never understood this. He understood the feeling itself, of course, but not the impulse to examine its roots. What good would it do? Nor did he understand people who got up in the middle of the night when they thought they heard a strange noise coming from the living room. If no enemy was lurking in the living room it was best to go back to sleep, and if there was one, getting up to greet him would certainly be the least advisable course of action. Why buy into the idea that knowing the problem necessarily led to its solution?
By now – one hour after he had detailed the intelligence information he requested for an urgent operation authorised by the head of Unit 8200 – hundreds if not thousands of intelligence reports should have coursed his way. In reality, not even a single data report waited in his inbox. The same answer came from every department and unit he enlisted:
N.T.R.
N.T.R.
N.T.R.
N.T.R.
Suppose there was indeed “Nothing To Report”? An implausible supposition given the massive amount of data he had ordered and was there not something eerie about a series of negative, laconic responses sent at the very same time and in the very same form?
Nor could he ignore the fact that forty-five minutes had passed since his deputy requested authorisation to enter El Dorado in the southern bunker without receiving the desired confirmation of the 8200 commander, the one who had ordered this investigation in the first place.
But what good would it do now to make calls, send messages, decipher the dynamics driving the forces fighting high above? Better to focus now on escape routes from the quickly dissolving plan. And the only alternative at his disposal, the only tool that was not confiscated from him in the internal war carried out thousands of kilometres from where he was in Paris, the only man who could help locate Yerminski without requiring the intelligence-gathering services of Aman, was a French commissaire on the brink of retirement, lacking any technological knowledge, who was moments away from getting fired.
Léger listened to Abadi’s requests and tried to the best of his abilities to answer them. He focused and focused, and finally it was he, surprisingly alert at this time of night, who articulated a clear and concise answer: the French police had no way of extracting e-mails, text messages or telephone calls from Le Grand Hôtel without an appeal to the counter-intelligence service, which would not rush to their aid. “All the French police can do is French police work,” he said in an apologetic tone.
What could Abadi do? He suddenly felt that he had lost his own centre of gravity, that he existed only within the confines of the circumstances.
“Per angusta ad augusta,” Léger said.
Abadi looked at him with distrust. “What?”
“It’s Latin. A quote from Victor Hugo, I think.”
“But what does it mean?”
“Through difficulties to great success. It’s the motto of the French secret service. The D.G.S.E., in fact, our version of your Mossad.”
“Considering our position, Commissaire, I’d settle for even a small success.”
“There may be a tiny success on the way,” Léger’s deputy interrupted them. “The fraud division’s duty officer wants to see us. He says it has to do with Le Grand Hôtel.”
The fraud division? Léger feigned a rapid sign of the cross in supplication. “May the saints protect us, the dead serve us. And G
od help us.”
It was 1.00 a.m., Tuesday, April 17.
Chapter 88
Zorro read out the decision from his mobile, as if he was afraid to get even a single word wrong.
“Aluf Rotelmann decided moments ago to accept the appeal of the network intelligence officer of the southern base regarding the need for an inspection by Special Section in the El Dorado department, as defined in operation order Long Night. Aluf Rotelmann appreciates Special Section’s excellent work in searching for an explanation for Rav Turai Vladislav Yerminski’s absenteeism without leave, yet believes that exposing the section in which he served is unnecessary for the continuation of the investigation.”
The white light emanating from the screen lent Zorro’s face a melodramatic touch in the darkness that engulfed him, like the victim in Caravaggio’s crucifixion paintings. Oriana tried to focus on the message itself, but her thoughts kept wandering to art class. Who is in the centre of the painting, what is the painter trying to express, what does he suggest is about to happen to the figures in his work?
“In order, however, to grant the request of the commander of Unit 8200, if only partially,” Zorro kept reading in a hesitant voice, “Aluf Rotelmann has decided to authorise deputy head of Special Section, Segen Oriana Talmor, to briefly question the appellant, the network intelligence officer in charge of the soldier, as well as Rav Turai Yerminski’s roommate, who is suspected (based on accumulating findings) of aiding Rav Turai Yerminski in perpetrating his offence. The questioning will take place outside the intelligence bunker, and will focus solely on questions that may shed light on the conduct of the absentee soldier.”
Bravo, Maestro, Oriana thought. One could not help but admire the virtuosity of Aluf Rotelmann – with just a few sentences, an investigation of national inquiry commission proportions had been turned into the negligible matter of a disciplinary offence. The El Dorado department’s Chinese expert had simply gone absent without official leave, and so, if Rav Turai Shlomo Cohen was his accessory, he was merely a suspect in aiding an offence of absenteeism. Oriana was being portrayed as someone who had swung the entire Special Section into high gear in order to chase down some troubled soldier, and Aluf Rotelmann was generous enough to let her play in the sandbox just a little longer.