by Dov Alfon
The head of counter-intelligence nodded.
“They’ll buy it?” the minister said.
“I thought about adding another paragraph, so they’d have something to argue about with you instead of arguing about the facts.”
“Go ahead, surprise me.”
How many times had they played this game? How many times had he averted and diverted for his friend the minister, how many times had his friend the minister repaid the favour, how many times had they buried an adversary together, or a potential adversary, or a former adversary, or an imagined adversary? Scores. But they got a kick out of it each time.
He took another piece of paper out of his pocket and read: “I cannot overstate the danger associated with the large-scale trafficking of drugs within the French Republic, as demonstrated by the ruthless crimes perpetrated by the gang which Commissaire Léger and his men dismantled tonight. I personally have no doubt that the fashionable discourse in certain political circles with regard to the legalisation of such drugs is encouraging gangs to overwhelm our country and eliminate their enemies in any way possible. I urge the Président de la République to put an end to this initiative before the next violent crime wave.”
The minister looked at his friend with manifest amusement. Employing inflated rhetoric to cover up for a deep failure, the argument was both ridiculous and ingenious. Ridiculous, because it was untrue, irrelevant and illogical. And ingenious, because it was a clear attack on his political enemy in the party, the Speaker of the Senate, and that’s all anyone would focus on – journalists, the Twitterati, politicians and taxi drivers.
“Two minutes until air!” the producer called out. The minister straightened his hair and got back up on the stool, looking into the camera lens with an expression of solemn sincerity.
Chapter 119
Abadi returned to consciousness, struggling for breath. Even before he opened his eyes he knew he did not recognise the room from the hundreds he’d slept in over the course of his life – the silence was unfamiliar, the mattress too soft.
He opened his eyes.
“You can’t be left alone even for a few hours,” Oriana said.
He was lying in a hospital room, then – that much Abadi could gather even through the painkillers. And it was a French hospital – that much he could infer from the sign about patients’ rights and the view of Notre-Dame through the window. The woman talking to him was his deputy in Unit 8200’s Special Section, Segen Oriana Talmor. That one he knew from the slight twinge in his heart, which hurt even more than the stitches in his shoulder. Why did he have stitches in his shoulder? He strained to remember. Yes, his right arm was bandaged because he had been hit by shrapnel when two Chinese commandos had begun shooting like madmen, and his left arm was attached to a drip probably because it took the French an hour or two to remember to search the area. He had lost blood.
“How did you find me?” he said. He was parched, but he wasn’t sure he could reach the water on the bedstand with all these bandages. Oriana was standing on the far side of it, leaning against the wall.
“I was in an ambulance with two extremely handsome French paramedics, and I told them I needed to get to your hotel near Notre-Dame. They couldn’t stop laughing. There are better ways to learn that Hotel Dieu is not a hotel but a hospital. It suited them fine and they brought me here.”
She wore blue jeans and a leather jacket. Abadi noticed an incongruous aviator hat under her arm and recognised a military strap on her shoulder, with what appeared to be a short-barrel Kalashnikov hanging from it. He was madly in love, and to hell with the new Military Ethics Law.
The bells of Notre-Dame started chiming.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“1.00 p.m. exactly. They brought you in two hours ago and immediately gave you Valium. You missed all the glorious press conferences the French police gave.”
“Let’s hope the casino millionaire doesn’t give a press conference in Macau later today. Yerminski gave him the reel and I won’t be able to find it now.”
“The reel is here, dummy, on your night table. The Macau casino millionaire is someone called Ming. He gave it to me very nicely.”
“What? How did you find him?” he said.
“The same way I found that 8200 leaker you protected during trial, Abadi,” she said with a matter-of-fact tone that belied the spark in her eyes. “With great talent and equal ruthlessness.”
His laughter was swiftly followed by a groan of pain.
“Do you want some water?” she said, pushing off the wall with her foot. “The doctor said that you need to drink a lot.” She took a step closer and gently supported his neck while she lifted the glass to his lips. She smelled like flowers and fields, and there wasn’t one thing he didn’t like about her. He tried to think of something clever to say, although he could as easily remain next to her in complete silence.
“So I suppose the Commander of 8200 is pretty happy now? What are our orders?”
Oriana looked at her Navran and shrugged. “He sent a rather vague operation order to keep the damage to a minimum, whatever that means, and to come back by the end of the week if there was no fallout. But we’ll need to stop by a statue at Le Bourget on our way to Charles de Gaulle . . . My passport is buried there.”
“O.K. So can you help me get up?”
“You think you’re well enough for damage control?”
“No, but we need to go to my mother’s for lunch.”
Although she had promised herself not to smile at him for at least an entire day, she couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
“You’re taking me to your mum’s?”
“I have to go and visit her. She’ll be dying of worry and she won’t calm down until she sees me.”
“Maybe you should also calm down General Rotelmann, who seems to believe you’re an ‘immoral, ruthless influence within the unit’?”
“I don’t think he’s worried about me. At any rate, not as worried as my mother is. He knows there will be many more opportunities to sacrifice me as a scapegoat. I imagine there are dozens of potential Yerminskis in a huge apparatus like 8200, we won’t be able to stop them all. So until then, we deserve to rest. Or at least eat some couscous with stuffed artichokes.”
Chapter 120
To: Central
From: Police/National Headquarters/Foreign Intelligence Immediate/Unclassified
The representative of the Israeli police in Europe confirms that another Israeli was killed in a shootout between criminal elements related to the Chinese mafia in the French capital. The casualty is Vladislav Yerminski from Ashdod, a 21-year-old soldier on leave who was previously involved in other crimes in the French capital. The Paris police believe that Yerminski was the abduction target of the Chinese crime cartel that killed high-tech employee Yaniv Meidan in a case of mistaken identity. The French Minister of Interior said this morning at a press conference that the background to the event was a major drug deal, foiled thanks to police alertness, which led to killings within the organisation. A total of twelve criminals have been killed in this affair over the past twenty-four hours, most of them from China, France and Russia, and an unprecedented quantity of Class A drugs was seized.
The commissaire in charge of the investigation, Commissaire Jules Léger, called the embassy this morning to thank the representative of the Israeli police for his co-operation. Yerminski’s body will be brought back to Israel for burial after autopsy.
To: All Editorial Boards
From: Military Censor
A sweeping gag order is hereby imposed on the military role of the soldier killed in the drug-related case today while on leave in Paris. It is strictly prohibited to mention or imply the location of his post, his military department or the corps in which he served. The only details authorised for publication are his name, age and hometown. Any other detail from this moment forth, and until further notice, must be submitted to censorship prior to publication.
To:
Central
From: Aman/Central Intelligence-Gathering Unit/Intelligence Liaison Unit/Duty Network Intelligence Officer Priority: Immediate/Top Secret Clearance level: Purple
The information transferred to us from friendly sources (Code 33) confirms that the assassination of Vladislav Yerminski this morning in Paris, near a nightclub in which a major drug deal was about to transpire, is of a criminal nature and unrelated to his military service in Unit 8200.
It should be noted that yesterday, immediately after the abduction of the civilian Yaniv Meidan in Paris, we relayed that the event was of a criminal nature, contrary to the claims of certain sections in Unit 8200.
To: Aman/EWF – Early Warning Forum To: Aman Research/Head Divisions To: Aman/Intelligence-Gathering Command/Head Units Cc: General Headquarters/Vice Chief of Defence Staff From: Chief of Intelligence Priority: Secret/Routine
As of today, the responsibility for communications with foreign liaison departments in the various units will be transferred from me to my deputy, the head of Intelligence-Gathering Command. The shift will enable better co-ordination and better protection of our allies’ information security.
Please adjust accordingly.
Chapter 121
Oriana drove carefully, less because of the peculiar traffic laws in Paris than in an attempt to minimise the impact of the bumps on the road, which elicited groans of agony from Abadi every time. The doctor who had signed his release form cautioned that he was still weak and must be brought back to the hospital in the event that he lost consciousness again.
She felt lighthearted and confident, as if the fact of his injury granted her equal status. Every now and then he touched her to point out monuments in a gesture void of authority and consequently rich in meaning. Every so often her hand brushed against him while changing gears. They passed by the Hôtel de Ville, which wasn’t a hotel either, Île Saint-Louis, the Jardin des Plantes, the Place de la Bastille and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Between them, in the storage compartment, were two mobiles: Yerminski’s green Samsung and Ekaterina’s red Nokia into which Yerminski had entered his private key. Oriana was supposed to open his bitcoin account and authorise a new transfer to Ming’s account for twenty million dollars. She was sure that her father would have clicked “Send” by now. But would he have been right to do so? Would, for instance, Zorro hand the money back? Would the Prime Minister do it? And would Abadi? He had listened with an impassive face as she told him about “Putin’s promise”, and had said they would have to talk about it later. She was not sure what he meant. Or maybe she was.
Oriana Talmor felt that it had been a long night. In “effective continuity” she had been a spy in the service of her country, a security officer in the service of her country’s spies, a suspected traitor against the nation’s interests, an agent provocateur in the service of God knows whom, a seeker of truth and a professional liar; she had been on one side and then on another. On whose side was she now, and on whose side was the unfairly attractive Aluf Mishne Abadi? Twenty million dollars rested between them, in the darkness of the storage compartment.
We’re in Paris, Oriana reminded herself, letting go of all other concerns as she did so. We’re in Paris, this is happening in a parallel life. He was an officer with a decorated past. She was an officer with a promising future. They drove along the river.
It was 2.40 p.m., Tuesday, April 17.
Glossary of ranks and their equivalents
Israeli rank British equivalent
Rav Aluf Commander in Chief
Aluf general / major general
Tat Aluf brigadier general
Aluf Mishne colonel
Sgan Aluf lieutenant colonel
Rav Seren major
Seren captain
Segen lieutenant
Samal/Samelet sergeant
Rav Turai corporal
Turai private
Israeli title British equivalent/translation American equivalent
Rosh HaMateh HaKlalli Chief of Defence Staff Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff
Rosh Aman head of Israeli Defence
Intelligence
Israeli Organisation English Description
Tzahal Israel Defence Forces
Aman Israel Defence Intelligence (military)
the Mossad Israel’s Foreign Intelligence Service
the Shabak Israel’s Internal Security Service
DOV ALFON, brought up in Paris and Tel Aviv, is a former intelligence officer of Unit 8200, the most secretive arm of the Israel Defence Forces. He was editor in chief of Israel’s most influential newspaper, Haaretz, and chief editor of the leading publishing house Kinneret-Zmora. A Long Night In Paris, published in Israel to rave reviews, topped the best seller charts for 24 weeks.
DANIELLA ZAMIR lives in Tel-Aviv, where she works as a literary translator. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in literature from Tel Aviv University, and her master’s degree in creative writing from City University in London.
* A Glossary of ranks and their equivalents can be found on p.427