by E. L. Pini
“Oh? She looks eight hundred. Then again, I may just be blinded by her beauty.”
“Listen to me. I mean really listen, and take it seriously. It isn’t just the spinal stuff. You also suffer from calcification, the accumulation of calcium in your soft tissues. A degenerative process that’ll worsen with age. There’s no cure, only an operation I won’t let you have. But you have to understand that you aren’t a little boy anymore, you’re a big fat man.”
“Thank you, doctor. Really, thank you, but I have to go,” I said, thinking of the odd coincidence in her words – Little Boy and Fat Man were the codenames of the nuclear bombs the Americans dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – a small fraction of the power of our Kusinka mat.
“I really do have to go,” I said again.
“And you will. After Saida is finished.”
“Does she have clearance?”
“Funny.”
As the beauty’s muscular hands pounded my flesh, Verbin said, “There’s another thing. When you’ve finished this war game of yours, Froyke will have to retire. He’ll get better, but he absolutely has to retire. Bella said he could stay on as a consultant, that he could go back to the farm, to Ma’agan Michael, go out to sea with their ships. Okay, I think that’s all. I need to go now, shift’s about to start,” she said, kissed the tip of my nose, and left.
After Saida finished beating me into submission, I arranged what little baggage I had and Siboni drove me back to the airport. I actually did feel a great deal better, and more or less prepared. The lady at the counter told me I’d been upgraded to business class. Thank Bella for small favors, I thought.
In Vienna I switched out my papers for Doctor Schultz’s. The flight to Riyadh, from which I was supposed to take another flight to Beirut, had been cancelled. I was forced to board a flight to Tripoli, instead – an airport which I absolutely loathed.
I waited for two mosquito-filled hours and boarded the plane sweating and itching, cursing the battle doctrine and the idiot who wrote it, forcing me to fly to one hostile country only via another.
When the plane landed in Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport, the passengers started applauding. I fought the urge to take a bow. I took my small handheld bag, passed through passport control, and from afar suddenly spotted Boris holding up a “Green Energy” sign. I followed him in silence, doing my very best not to hug him. He opened the car door for me. I sat down, somehow managing not to laugh or punch him. He drove to the hotel, meticulously carrying out all our little rituals intended to shake any unwanted company – slowing for no reason, stopping abruptly after turns, etc. – all of which could be rendered futile by a single drone, so I assumed he was mostly trying to get on my good side before I tore him a new one. The truth was, I was so overjoyed to see him alive that I’d most likely have ignored his blatant disregard for orders, and the absolute insanity of deciding to return into the gaping maw of Moscow to try and save Gigolo, with every local security and intelligence agency looking for him.
I wasn’t supposed to tell him that I’d have done the same, but nonetheless it was the very first thing I said, neutralizing whatever defense Boris had prepared. He told me that Grisha and Gigolo were tortured to death by a Jew named Khazanovich, RET’s Head of Security, and that he had managed to infiltrate said Khazanovich’s house in the suburbs of Moscow, and promised him a quick, painless death in exchange for information. Khazanovich was extremely forthcoming – Hamdani, he said, had sailed from Novorossiysk in a submarine manned by Iranian divers, and Rasputin left for a series of meetings all over the Middle East. He had an office at the Khmeimim facility in Syria, as well as a villa owned by RET on the shores of Tartus. That was all Boris needed, and with a bullet to the back of the neck, Vysshaya Mera style, he concluded his business with Khazanovich.
“Do you know Beirut?” asked Boris, then immediately shrugged. “Stupid question, I suppose.”
I looked around. Beirut is a wondrously manic-depressive town; cries of joy from the casinos below meet the thunder of explosions from above. It is teeming with Hezbollah Shiites, who occasionally make a holiday of slaughtering a Christian academic who they think might be spying for Israel or for the States. And in the background, the 24/7 din and turmoil of international business, lazy Mediterranean vacations, and mind-boggling quantities of money, drugs and weapons. It felt as if someone had dropped Manhattan and Vegas into a martini shaker, shaken it a bit too vigorously, and garnished it with some Gaza and a sprinkle of Balata Camp. The sheer number of weapons dealers, spies, agents, prostitutes and paid snitches is comparable only perhaps to postwar Vienna.
We got to the Kempinski Summerland Hotel, a spitting distance from the harbor where the Spartacus was docked, having unloaded the containers of Hezbollah missiles. From the roof of the hotel we could transmit and receive uninterruptedly all the way from Haifa in the south to Tartus and Latakia in the north. This was reason enough for Dr. King Schultz, the CEO of Green Energy Ltd, to have come in for a meeting and proposed to the hotel manager, an Italian by the name of Giacomo, to install a photovoltaic system on the roof as a free pilot. The manager immediately began planning the PR campaign in which he would tell the world that the Kempinski Summerland was “the first sustainable energy hotel in the Middle East.” Giacomo also offered me a room during my stay, on the house, for as long as we needed to conduct our scans and measurements of the solar radiation and whatnot prior to the installation. I refused – politely, but firmly – and he liked that, too.
I brought in Boris as the company’s Head Engineer, and with the help of Gonni, the captain of the flotilla team still on the Spartacus, we installed the little black boxes that he’d brought from the ship. I was reminded of the nights back in the Unit when we’d go out and plant surveillance and recording equipment around Egyptian and Syrian headquarters, returning every few months to change the batteries. In one of those missions, at some Syrian kharat el tanaq, we lost Kfir and Ra’anan to surprise heavy fire from an unexpected source. Ido, our commanding officer, ordered us to retreat. I refused to go anywhere before taking out that piece of shit operating the machine gun. He was furious. “How exactly do you plan on doing that? He’s got the advantage, smartass.” I told him I would do it with rage and power, and without waiting for his reply started running up that hill, yelling, firing wildly, like a maniac. I honestly don’t know if it was the bullets or the yelling that killed the guy behind the machine gun, but we took out the rest of them in pretty much the same way, all of us running and shooting and screaming like Indians in those old movies. The team started calling me ‘Two hundred and thirty pounds of rage and power’, which over time became just RP. Just the team – I’m pretty sure no one else knew, back then. After that, we started behaving differently in the field. Like we were immortal. Like we were unlisted in the bullet address book. But still, Ami Kahanov and I are the only ones from that team still alive.
Years later, on the anniversary of ‘loco’ Moshiko’s death, I met Nehemia from a parallel team, who had meanwhile become a psychology professor, and he diagnosed that mad sprint up the hill as stemming from what he called “the warrior gene,” an unfortunate combination of violent DNA and a deeply twisted mind. “Individuals like yourself are characterized with an increased willingness for risk-taking. In short, Ehrlich, you’re a pretty fucked up guy,” he concluded, then attempted to soften the diagnosis somewhat by mentioning that these same individuals have a knack for properly estimating their chances of success in crucial situations.
“Ehrlich? You with us?” said Boris, pulling me back to the roof of the Kempinski Hotel in Beirut.
“I’m with you,” I said.
Gonni was saying that the Polish captain wanted the ten thousand dollars he was promised in exchange for the missiles, and it seemed that if he didn’t get them he might attempt to run. Boris suggested that they activate the charge in the bracelet and remind the captain of his place. G
onni smiled and promised to consider it.
The plan was for the captain and his chief engineer to take the engine out of commission, providing the Spartacus with the excuse she needed to remain in the Beirut port for as long as necessary. During this delay, the boys from the flotilla would cover the ocean floor with sensors disguised as poisonous little sea-urchins, spreading from the harbor area and along the coast all the way north, toward Tripoli. Another flotilla team would operate from a tiny sub, which would disperse similar urchins in the ocean near Tartus and Latakia. The port itself was out of reach, being under Russian control.
“Any trouble with the Hezbollah?” I asked Gonni.
“Once they got their missiles, they couldn’t give two fucks about us,” he grinned.
“Should we go downtown, find something to eat?” Boris suggested. Gonni seemed tempted, but then informed us that he had to go be with his men. “You guys go, find a nice falafel place and bring us some,” he said, smiling. “I gotta go.” And he was off in his rented jeep.
“So, shall we bring the kids their falafel?” I asked.
“Including the prisoners, that’s about sixty of them,” Boris said, raising an eyebrow. “How’re you planning to explain that? Bar mitzvah party? You like him, don’t you,” he determined after a pause.
I nodded. Gonni was tall and athletic, his eyes blue and his face bright just like Eran’s, and he was a captain, just like Eran was. How could I not like him?
“You must know some decent restaurant around here…”
“Of course I do, but we’re in Beirut, among dozens of people who might know me and be less than perfect at hiding it – our own agents, the Service, IDF intelligence, all of whom wander this city and celebrate each day of not dying by going to a fancy restaurant. We’ll Google it and find some place I don’t know, where I won’t be recognized. Actually, you know what? Let’s ask our buddy Giacomo.”
The hotel manager made a face when we asked, and demanded that we have lunch at the extravagant hotel restaurant, “and this time it’s on me, and I won’t take no for an answer.”
“Giacomo, where’s the best falafel in town?”
“They say it’s the Barbar Restaurant, but personally I don’t eat such things.”
“Could you send someone to get me sixty meals, packed in heat-insulated bags?”
“Sixty? When?”
“Now, after we’re done eating.”
Giacomo placed a strong hand on my shoulder. “Listen, now, Mister Ehrlich…”
Did he say Ehrlich?
I felt the blood flow into my muscles. What else does he know? I leveled my gaze at him. He took a quick step back at the same time I took a step and a half toward him, following it with a punch that twisted into his soft belly. He folded, attempting an appeasing smile which was warped by pain and lack of oxygen. I came up behind him and closed my arm around his neck. He slapped his thigh to signal surrender, but I didn’t let up. My Fight or Flight mechanism goes into Fight mode fairly quickly, but it takes time to loosen back down. Like an AmStaff with amnesia, Verbin said.
“Bruno, Bruno Garibaldi,” he wheezed. “AISI, I work there.”
I eased up my grip and he took some deep breaths.
“Bruno Garibaldi. You know each other, right? Your friend, my boss. Bruno told me to get into your solar project and give you… the best possible service.” I let him go. He slowly straightened up and cautiously rotated his head from side to side, checking for damage.
“Sergio Elsa.” We shook hands. He was still rubbing his neck. “You’re fast for an old man. You don’t recognize me?”
Now, there’s a question I really don’t like. A positive reply tends to drag you into a swamp of nostalgic reminiscence. A negative one might imply impaired memory or lack of gratitude. I gave him a closer look. He smiled, and I told him there’s no way in hell I’d remember a face that utterly unremarkable. He laughed, saying, “Honestly, I never would’ve recognized you if Bruno hadn’t told me it was you back in that Arab’s apartment in Via Puta Madre in the Jewish quarter. You came in with your friend, the little guy from Milan. Luigi, Luigi Napolitano. Right? You came into the line of fire and saved our asses.”
“Bad luck. Happens to everyone,” I said.
“You had some balls back then.”
During this whole exchange, Boris was just standing there like he was waiting for his fucking popcorn.
“So,” Sergio said, “You really want all that falafel? Where should I send it?”
“Here, we’ll get it where it needs to go. Listen, Sergio, a person looking for a special sort of escort around here, where does he go?”
He smiled knowingly. “He goes to Sa’id, down at reception, who can also show you the photos before you book. But I’m sure you know half the girls here already work for your people.”
“I need women who specialize in S&M. The absolute best.”
He spread his arms with a sort of helplessness, “Tricky. Those girls usually work with the KGB and BND. But I’ll see what I can do.”
57.
The meal at the hotel restaurant was excellent. After we ate we moved to the bar, where Sergio-Giacomo arrived with a bottle of 24-year Macallan.
“From your friend,” he said.
The TV mounted at the corner of the bar was showing a BBC story depicting the contrast between the ruins of Dahieh and the glitz of Tel Aviv nightlife.
We then took the falafel-filled cooler bags to the ship and made the kids very happy. Only the unusual number of messages Albert had been receiving for us indicated the absolute panic that had taken hold of the command echelon.
The stealth sub and its hundred-megaton bomb hadn’t moved from the top of the EEI, and the entire intelligence community had been recruited to the cause, from the satellites orbiting overhead to the sub detection systems, radar systems and the rest of the navy’s array of gadgets and apparatuses and subs and ships, to the various HUMINT efforts initiated by IDF intelligence, the Service, and even the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with its cocktail parties. And yet, so far, they had found nothing. We were still here, but so was the bomb.
In the battle heritage lectures they told us that back in ’73, Moshe Dayan was certain that we were facing total destruction. We didn’t, but my father whom I’d never known died there, at the Chinese Farm, along with several hundred soldiers. I tried to imagine what he’d have said about this destruction, now, facing the largest hydrogen bomb in the world. I couldn’t.
We took a cab back to the hotel. The driver told us he was a Palestinian from Balata. “The Jews and all their army are afraid to set foot in there, we slaughter them there like sheep. Where are you from?”
“Germany,” said Boris for some reason, and from that point I spoke to him only in German, of which he knew nearly nothing. The traffic, which up to that point had been regular, suddenly came to a complete stop, accompanied by machine gun fire and sirens. A Toyota pickup with a heavy machine gun mounted in the back was parked across the road under a waving Hezbollah flag, surrounded by armed, masked men who let cars pass only after they’d been checked. One of them came to our cab and reached into the driver’s window, patting him on the back of the neck. He seemed alarmed. Boris and I were already holding our hidden weapons, both loaded with the safeties off, when the masked Hezbollah pulled off his ski mask. Our driver burst into laughter as they kissed and embraced.
Just in case, I waved Dr. Schultz’s passport in front of his face. He waved me off disdainfully and told the driver with considerable excitement how just minutes ago they caught a squad of ISIS fighters that had escaped Syria disguised as Hezbollah.
The two kissed goodbye and our driver was given permission to go through, but still made a U-turn and told us he has no choice but to go around. “Not long, very quick.”
“This asshole’s scamming us,” Boris hissed in Hebrew. The driver tur
ned around to look at us. Hoping he hadn’t heard the Hebrew, I let out a stream of nonsensical German phrases.
“Ja, Ja,” said Boris, and for good measure added, “Arbeit macht frei.”
The driver pulled over on the side of the road and locked the doors.
“You are Jews!” he said.
Boris responded quickly with an open-palm strike to the base of the neck. It seemed that he hit the brain stem, because the driver’s head just slumped down.
“Confirm,” I said, and Boris grabbed his head and snapped his neck just in case.
“What now, boss?” he asked.
“Get to the hotel. Go through the beach. I’ll clean up here,” I said, and moved into the driver’s seat after shoving him over to the passenger’s side.
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Boris.
The Hezbollah Toyota came up from behind, a large, bearded head proudly impaled on the tip of their heavy machine gun. I raised my hand out the window with two fingers raised in a victory sign, and the driver responded with a series of happy honks, like we were coming back from a soccer game.
After they’d passed us, I took the cab to one of the abandoned buildings nearby. Boris took out the tin box where the driver had kept his cash, then stripped him of his shirt.
“Better than using your mouth,” he said, placing one sleeve into the gas tank and the other into the car. I lit the sleeve on fire. It spread quickly.
We separated, meeting an hour later at the hotel.
“What did you take that for?” I asked, pointing at the little tin box.
“Make it look like a mugging. If it’s just a casualty or two, they usually don’t look too much into those.”
“And why Arbeit macht frei?” I wondered, and Boris said it was the longest German phrase he remembered, from the school trip to Auschwitz.
We bagged the clothes we’d spent the day in and gave them to Sergio-Giacomo. “We need to get rid of these.”