by Dov Alfon
On the one hand, she had been granted authorisation to investigate Yerminski’s disappearance, but on the other, they had done everything to ensure her investigation would fail. The questioning of Yerminski’s roommate had been restricted to a staged interview, in the presence of two hostile advocates – the Deputy Chief of Intelligence on one side, and the network intelligence officer on the other. Without access to the El Dorado department she would have no physical findings, and without findings she would not even know what to ask. Oh, and even if through some kind of miracle she did know what to ask, she would not be allowed to ask it without linking it somehow to the absenteeism offence.
“Let’s get this charade over with,” she said.
Chapter 89
On landing at Le Bourget airport, Ming got into the limousine that awaited him. He asked the driver to take him to the Gare Saint Lazare.
He was surprised by the bustle at the station at this time of night – hundreds of people swarming in all directions, shops still open, and quite a few policemen patrolling the area – and hurried down to the basement level. Everything was brown marble; the electronic storage compartments to the right of the stairs stood out in their shiny white solitude.
Number 702 was a medium size compartment along the right wall. He typed in the code and the door opened to reveal a plastic bag and, inside it, a strange object, antiquated yet menacing: a magnetic reel.
It was a five-inch audio reel made by the German company Uher, the most prestigious tape recorder brand in the history of espionage, favoured by all intelligence services both east and west of the Berlin Wall, the only audio reel allowed on the space mission to the moon, the only object Chairman Mao, President John F. Kennedy, the Israelis and the Indonesians, James Bond and George Smiley could claim to have in common. And now he had it in common with them.
He took the reel in both hands. Although everything had already gone digital by the time he entered the profession, he still had a vague recollection of the recording technologies of old. He admired the fact that it was a four-track reel with two-way storage capacity, which meant it had between ten to twelve hours of recording power, just as the little bastard Yerminski promised.
Ming tossed the reel into his briefcase and walked out into the lit square. He stood under a modernist sculpture made of dozens of clocks, each showing a different time. On any other day it might have made him laugh, but not today.
Taking out his phone, he checked the dots on the organisation’s map. Most of his men were already at the airport, awaiting instruction to retreat via a commercial flight. His own two pilots would be waiting at Le Bourget. Four junior xiake had been left in Paris, awaiting the order to aid Erlang Shen. Two additional dots were seen by a lake in Créteil. The red dot marking Erlang Shen had just crossed the 13th arrondissement, heading south. He pressed the conversation button. Erlang Shen answered almost immediately.
“I will reach Créteil in half an hour, Commander. I’m driving within the speed limit to avoid being stopped. I was informed that she had gone to bed. I’ll be inside her apartment in less than an hour.”
“Don’t be afraid to shake her up a little if it helps the conversation with her son,” Ming said, and hung up.
Chapter 90
They brought Shlomo to her in the dining hall, as if to signal that she was no longer free to barge into the offices of the seniors on base. The cook was in the middle of early breakfast preparations, and the meal would be waiting for the soldiers when they finished their night shift in the bunker: bread, a slice of hard cheese, runny cottage cheese and an omelette that looked as if it had already been thrown up.
At least she could now cross halva off the list of suspicious items.
Rav Turai Cohen turned out to be a very tall, very thin, very young and very dark-skinned man. He had a sleepy gaze and a frozen expression, his entire person declaring an indifference to life. He sat down on the bench on the other side of the table, as if he and Oriana were about to share breakfast at the end of a shift. Then he removed the beret he seemed to have taken pains to wear, as if realising he was not on trial after all, and placed his iPhone on top of it. He took his military I.D. card out of his shirt pocket and placed it on the table between them, exactly in the middle.
Oriana picked up the I.D. and pretended to read it. For lack of a better option, Zorro and the network intelligence officer also sat down on the bench, one on each side of the soldier. Oriana focused on the card for an extended moment, stretching out the uncomfortable silence.
“You may begin,” Zorro said.
She raised her head, looking straight into the eyes of the soldier, who flinched, as if from an electric shock. She was not aiming for anything beyond that, beyond sending a tremor through the ground beneath this staged event, beyond signalling that she had no intention of admitting to failure.
“Are you Shlomo Cohen?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make a statement to your welfare officer that your roommate, Rav Turai Vladislav Yerminski, has a French girlfriend whom he’s about to marry?”
As she assumed, Cohen had prepared for the question. She let him go on and on about Yermi’s power of persuasion and about how he – Shlomo – regretted having believed him and that he just wanted to help, and all Yermi probably wanted was to take a nice break in Paris, but he – Shlomo – did not realise it at the time.
Oriana tuned out during the monologue and did not take notes. When the soldier had finished, she looked up at him again. “Shlomo, what kind of music did Yermi like listening to?”
Cohen reacted with surprise and glanced at the officers flanking him.
“What difference does it make?” the network intelligence officer wanted to know.
Zorro considered intervening, but did not want to entangle himself in an unnecessary war. “If it will help the Special Section, I’m willing to allow the soldier to reply.”
“Yermi did not like any kind of music,” Cohen said and shrugged to stress his indifference.
“But what did he like listening to? What did he listen to?”
“He didn’t listen to anything. He’s the only one on the entire base who doesn’t have any music on his mobile. When he was a kid his parents made him listen to classical music, and he’s hated it ever since. He doesn’t like to listen to any kind of music.”
“So what did he listen to? The news? Football broadcasts? Other radio shows? Lectures? Podcasts?”
“I’m telling you, nothing. He didn’t listen to anything. He liked quiet.”
“That’s strange, Shlomo. I found Sennheiser headphones in his locker. Are you saying he used them for work during his shifts?”
Zorro leaped up as if bitten by a snake. “That’s impossible, Segen Talmor. That’s against military regulations.”
“Going abroad under false pretence is also against military regulations.”
“There could be several explanations for those headphones. Maybe, unbeknownst to his friends, Rav Turai Yerminski listened to music on his iPod or iPhone or whatever it’s called.”
“They’re headphones with a 0.7 jack. They’re almost out of production, and used only for very old sound systems, like analogue radio sets. You can’t use them for iPhones or iPods or iPads or any other type of ‘i-’.”
“You can’t use that kind of headphone on our regular systems either,” the network intelligence officer said hesitantly.
Oriana kept her eyes on the prize. “So you can use them on non-regular systems?”
“We don’t have non-regular systems,” the network intelligence officer said, digging his grave deeper.
“Does the department have any audio equipment you can plug headphones with a large jack into?”
The network intelligence officer looked at Zorro, who clearly had no idea what to expect. Between the two, the soldier now held his beret, crumpling it between his fingers. Finally he put it back on the table and started playing with his iPhone. Oriana watched him, spellbound. The networ
k intelligence officer finally answered.
“Yermi used analogue back-up equipment, he could understand the Chinese better on it.”
“You mean, in violation of information security orders, you let someone bring equipment that enables copy-making into the unit’s most secret department? What is it, a tape?”
“It’s an Uher reel-to-reel tape recorder, probably thirty years old. It can’t make any copies. Yermi was allowed to transfer the digital material to it once, that’s all.”
“And who kept track of the cataloguing and safeguarding of those reels?”
“Yermi,” the network intelligence officer replied, his shoulders drooping from the weight of his admission.
“Terrific,” Oriana said. Her gaze suddenly honed in on Rav Turai Cohen’s fingers, which were nimbly scrolling down an endless thread of Instagram photographs.
“One could still argue it isn’t necessarily connected,” Zorro said.
“One could argue anything. That’s precisely what you three are doing here,” Oriana said, eyeing Shlomo’s telephone.
Zorro lost his composure. “Segen Talmor, your impudence is already well known throughout the entire intelligence department. I’m telling you now, you had better watch it.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Oriana said in a subdued tone. “I need a cigarette. Is smoking allowed here?”
“Of course not!” the network intelligence officer protested in a high-pitched cry.
“Then I’m taking a break, a few minutes outside. I’ll be back and we’ll wrap up the investigation quickly.”
“It’s your time. This investigation is over in fifteen minutes whether you use this time for questions or cigarettes,” Zorro said.
“Sure,” Oriana said. She left the rancid-smelling dining hall and found Rachel waiting for her outside.
“Are you O.K., Commander?” she said. Oriana’s fingers unbuttoned the pocket of Rachel’s shirt and pulled out her pack of Gauloises.
“I’m fine,” Oriana said. “In fact, I finally understand what I’m doing here. I didn’t before. The investigation here is almost over.”
“So you’re celebrating with a cigarette?”
“No, Rachel, I’ll celebrate in an entirely different way when we have something to celebrate. I needed a cigarette as an excuse to come out to see you.”
“What for?”
“I want you to sneak the things we put in my jeep into section headquarters,” Oriana replied. “Take Tomer, maybe Boris too in case we need Russian, get them both in the car and hurry to 8200 headquarters. I’ll talk to the duty officer in the encryption department and tell him to expect you. We’ll go over the details on the way.”
“It’s a military jeep, Commander, I can’t go above speed limit.”
“Why else did Abadi hook us up with hot motorcyclists, Rachel? You’ll have an escort all the way to Glilot, don’t worry.”
“And what about you, Commander?”
“I’ll stall them a bit longer, until you’re at a safe distance, and then we’ll get the hell out of here,” Oriana said. “How long is a cigarette break?”
“Four, five minutes, but seven is also not unreasonable,” Rachel said while texting. “So that’s about how long you have to organise this smuggling,” Oriana said. “In four minutes, I’m going back in.” Rachel lit her commander’s cigarette and ran towards the parking area.
Chapter 91
Erlang Shen surveyed his surroundings with admiration. Créteil had, for many years, been a Communist suburb, and every building in the neighbourhood was a gem of ’70s proletarian architecture. Someone here had thought about the workers instead of shoving them into housing blocks with tiny apartments that resembled rabbit cages. Someone here had tried to give the working citizens the feeling that the government cared about them.
The results were disastrous, but that was another story. Across the lake stood tall cauliflower-like buildings, on the right was a narrow tower most likely planned for bachelor pads, and on the left totally wacky buildings evoked psychedelic monsters.
Mme Abadi lived on the top floor of a rather standard building, as much as any orange and white construction can pass for standard. A gate with a keypad lock led to a courtyard and several doors, all of them locked.
“Are you sure she’s in there?” Erlang Shen asked for the second time.
“One hundred per cent sure,” the pair replied in unison. Erlang Shen had never worked with them before, and the number of blunders in this operation did nothing to reassure him.
“Let’s go over it again,” he said, and the two took out their surveillance report.
“It’s the top apartment on the left, number 35. The surname ‘Abadi’ is written on the intercom, the mailbox and the door itself,” said the taller of the two xiake, who had no command authority, but intended that to change as a result of these findings. “Mme Abadi left the building at 18:32 to go to the grocery you see there on the corner. We’re sure it was her because she was greeted by name by the man at the store. He offered to have his employee deliver her groceries, but she declined and piled everything into her baskets. I followed her to the entrance of the building, and after she got into the lift I went in to check that she actually went up to the top floor.”
“In the meantime I settled on the roof,” the other one cut in, loath to let his partner steal all the glory. “I could see her getting out of the lift and entering her apartment with the groceries. She and her husband were talking very loudly, and then I heard the television.”
“What were they talking about?”
“I don’t know, I don’t speak French,” he said, and the first xiake seized the opportunity to take back the reins.
“Two hours ago I saw the light go on in the bedroom, and it seemed that the husband had gone to bed. It’s the window on the far left, with the flowers on the balcony.”
Erlang Shen’s concern only intensified. “You stayed here all that time and watched the building? What if a neighbour had called the police?”
“At that point I had already joined him downstairs; it looked a lot less suspicious because there were two of us, and we pretended we were talking. And the fact is, the police didn’t come. Patrol cars pass here every now and then, and nobody gave us a second glance.”
Erlang Shen was about to respond, but the device in his pocket began buzzing. It was a message from Ming, and he read it several times before confirming.
“I have to get back to the city,” he said, raising his eyes from the screen. “Something important is going on in Paris. We have no time to waste here. I’m going up, you wait for me here with the car ready.”
“Don’t you want one of us to help you knock her out?” the first one asked.
Erlang Shen took his gun and loaded the tranquilliser dart. “This would knock out a lioness,” Erlang Shen said, “and however much Mme Abadi loves her son, she’s still not as strong as a lioness.” He approached the door of the apartment building.
Chapter 92
The road to the fraud division was paved with good intentions, and also with seventeenth-century mosaics, medieval stained-glass windows and horrifying guillotines. The Paris Préfecture de Police building was connected through ancient underground passages to the Palais de Justice, the detention centre and the Public Prosecutor’s office. Until the relocation of all employees to a new, ultra-modern location in the suburbs, this network of buildings occupied a quarter of the entire grounds of Île de La Cité, and Commissaire Léger now scurried between them.
“Where the hell is it?” he asked his deputy when they inadvertently arrived at the passageway ascending to the island’s royal chapel, the Sainte-Chapelle.
Abadi had visited these places in the past, but without any inkling of the vast dimensions of the underground part closed to the public. Under the Conciergerie building, the prison that had once hosted Marie Antoinette, hundreds of redundant display objects were piled up. Under the chapel were dozens of sculptures of Jesus and the c
rucifixion. Between all these stood shelves crammed with criminal files, kilometres of paperwork describing crimes committed over centuries.
They now stood at a junction of passages in the middle of the island, a veritable Bermuda Triangle of the justice system. Abadi gathered from Léger that the major crime division was to the south, the other divisions to the east, and the entrance in front of them led to the Court of Appeals. A wooden sign declared that above their heads was the last vestige of the original cross from the “Mount of Olives” in Jerusalem. He had come a long way over the course of a day only to find himself in the same place, he thought.
“You’re on the right track, Commissaire, it’s over here,” his deputy said, and led them in the opposite direction. They arrived out of breath and befuddled at the offices of the fraud division, which were larger and nicer than those of the major crime division, as if the nation wanted to make clear that it gave higher priority to monitoring the financial system than to saving human lives.
The detective who greeted them was as condescending as a Parisian waiter. He had light grey eyes, and was almost browless. He shook their hands absentmindedly, invited them to take a seat and told them, reading from his screen, “Among the credit card fraud reports today was a complaint relating to Le Grand Hôtel. I saw your request for information, so I called. I don’t have many details. A British businessman named Scott Purduie claims that the maximum withdrawal amount, two thousand five hundred euros, was withdrawn from his account today at 14:30 from a cashpoint at the Opéra.”