“Did you lose family members in the war?” he asked her, maintaining the physical distance between them.
“No, no. We are very deeply rooted here on English soil. The first members of my family came to this island more than three hundred years ago. At the end of the seventeenth century. Portuguese Jews who arrived here via Amsterdam, with the authorization of Cromwell. We’ve been safe ever since. But the horrific pictures from the camps, the testimonies of our soldiers, the eyes of the people whose bodies had turned to skeletons. . . .” Her eyes welled with tears. She couldn’t complete her sentence.
“And you?” she asked. “Did you lose family in the war?”
He felt the blood drain from his face. “My parents got out of Greece in time,” he said. “Shortly after the Great War. The Land of Israel became our home. But those in my family who remained behind all perished.” He stopped there, and his body, which had stiffened, clearly conveyed his unwillingness to elaborate.
“We won’t talk about it anymore. Not now.” Sarah smiled through her tears. “We’ll have our tea outside, in the garden. Alfred went out early for a ride. He should be back soon. You can go on doing whatever it is you’re doing . . .”
She doesn’t bother completing her sentences either, Raphael thought. As if things are clear and there’s no need to make the effort. Whatever it is you’re doing. Who does she mean by you? Alfred and me? You, the men?
“So you studied chemistry at Oxford,” he said to her as they sat down at the white marble table in the garden. “Are you involved in the field?”
“First there was the war, and afterward I needed time to myself,” she responded, her eyes blurring again. “Although I studied chemistry, as one of just two women who were doing so at Oxford at the time, I’ve always been interested in the history of art. Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of combining the two fields, of studying restoration. Taking care of Alfred’s collection. Helping perhaps at the churches in the district. There are quite a few important pieces of art around here that are crying out for repair and preservation. You know, things are sometimes more fragile than they appear to be.”
• • •
The time passed quickly, and as he stood at the door of Lion’s Slope on Monday morning, tightening the scarf around his neck, the driver was already patiently waiting for him alongside the open door of the black Bentley. He put his bag down so he could shake his host’s hand.
“Thank you for a wonderful weekend,” Raphael said.
“The pleasure was mine, ours,” Strong replied, smiling at Sarah, seeking her confirmation.
“Certainly, it was my pleasure, too,” Sarah said in her deep voice, her dark eyes staring straight into Raphael’s.
“I hope from now you’re going to feel like one of the family,” Strong said to him. “As we agreed, you can work in the hunters’ cabin, turn it into your country studio. Every great artist needs the right conditions in which to work and create. But we’ve already discussed it all. We don’t want to hold you up. You need to make your train. It’s good to be here”—he smiled—“but you also have to maintain your escape routes.”
Strong’s handshake was warm and firm. The hand Sarah offered was limp, as if she had suddenly gone weak. “We’d love you to come back,” she said. “You promised.”
As the car pulled away, Strong and his wife were still standing at the front door of their home, he waving his hand, she with her arms folded and a piercing gaze fixed on Raphael.
47
LONDON, BETHNAL GREEN, JANUARY 2015
Their large eyes gleamed through the slits in the veils. Ann and Helena removed the fabric that was covering their heads and faces but remained dressed in loose-fitting black dresses that concealed their bodies from neck to ankle. Helena flopped into the shabby armchair with a sigh. The four of them were staying in an apartment rented by Sayid, who gave a Maghreb name, paid in cash, and told the landlord that his papers were still at the Home Office branch in Croydon, South London, awaiting final approval.
The apartment was located in the attic of a yellowish brick building from the early twentieth century. Living in the same block were six Bengali families, three families from Somalia, and one family of Egyptian origin. Small satellite dishes adorned the apartments’ meager balconies. The attic apartment was small and run-down. A furnished flat, the Jamaican estate agent proudly declared as he gestured toward the shabby items on display, and Sayid, the refugee from Algeria, thanked his lucky stars. The realtor was unaware of the apartment’s major and true advantage—an open line of sight to the exit door of the mosque at which preacher Anjam Badawi delivered his sermons. The range: 450 meters.
Sayid had already attended Friday prayers at the mosque on two occasions. He was taken aback by the warmth with which he was received. The regular worshippers embraced him but didn’t trouble him with questions. He found a spot for himself in one of the last rows of worshippers, trying to occupy as little space as possible. Rather than be a burden on the others, he only wanted to find some peace of mind. But even from his position at the far edge of the mosque, he could see the enthusiasm that gripped his fellow worshippers when Badawi delivered his sermon.
Accompanying Badawi were three well-built young men who served as his bodyguards. Sayid found it hard to believe that they were armed. Carrying a firearm without a permit is a serious criminal offense in England, but their self-assured and threatening demeanor, their alertness and obvious devotion to their duty, were certainly a deterrent. Who knows, they may have had knives and clubs concealed on their person. With them around him, it would be difficult to get close to Badawi. And it would undoubtedly be even more difficult to make an escape from the place if someone were to strike at him from close range.
After the first sermon, the worshippers left the mosque and took to the street. Sayid followed suit. Badawi and his henchmen also left the mosque, talking among themselves. A battered Rover was waiting at the curb to pick them up. Several fired-up youths walked alongside Badawi, asking him questions, trying to impress him. He wasn’t in any hurry to get into the car, and spoke congenially with the group surrounding him, patiently answering their questions. Sayid witnessed the same ritual on his second visit, too. Badawi’s powerful rhetoric continued to reverberate even after he had finished delivering his sermon, and his words, like a giant magnet, seemed to pull the young men out onto the street in his wake, looking to draw encouragement and meaning from his presence.
Ann and Helena sewed their dresses and veils themselves. They realized it would be much easier for them to walk around Bethnal Green protected by their black clothing. No one dared to approach any of the veiled women in the street, and they certainly didn’t attract the kind of attention they would have had they spent hours wandering through the neighborhood as attractive white women in jeans and jackets from Uniqlo or the Gap.
In fact, thought Ann, who had known London since birth, Bethnal Green was a deceptive neighborhood. Some of its streets looked no different from the well-kept thoroughfares of Islington or Fulham. But take just take one step beyond some imaginary borderline, and you step into another country. The neighborhood changed face in an instant, becoming hard and rough, and the people walking its streets suddenly didn’t look the same, were no longer members of the English middle class, but immigrants and the children of immigrants, from those same countries ruled in the past by the empire on which the sun never set.
In keeping with Sayid’s findings, an assassination from close quarters was ruled out as a possible course of action. As a result, Aslan decided to opt for a sniper operation from a distance. So they scoured the area to find a rooftop or apartment on a high floor that offered a clear line of sight to the mosque. And that’s how they found the place in which the team was currently staying. They had already decided that Aslan would be the one to take out the preacher. He was the only member of the team with sniping skills and experience. The only thing they still needed was a weapon for the operation. That was a
constant point of weakness when it came to covert operations abroad, and Aslan’s stomach always churned ahead of an incriminating encounter with people he didn’t know and who couldn’t be trusted in the least. But he believed in Goran, and he was relying on him not to drop them in the shit knowingly. The connection between him and Ya’ara ensured that, insofar as one could be sure of anything at all in the world of mercenaries and arms dealers. He trusted Goran’s contacts far less, however. And even if the connection with them amounted to nothing more than a money transfer to an anonymous bank account or stashing a sum of cash in a hidden location, they’d still know where the weapon could be found, and they could share that information with counterterrorism forces or the London police or MI5. And they would certainly do so if they were exposed or were cooperating with them. Ultimately, the weapon had to change hands. There was no getting around that.
Aslan and his team began planning their escape route from the apartment after the shooting. They discussed several courses of action. Escape in a rental car, on a motorcycle, via the Underground. Aslan wasn’t happy with any of the options. Stealing a vehicle was an option, of course, but the theft itself could lead to complications, and his cadets had very limited experience with stealing cars. Zero would probably be a better word. The Underground, for its part, is a great place in which to blend in with the masses, but it is also one of the most photographed locations in the world.
“Why don’t you dress up as a woman, cover yourself up in a black dress and veil, and make your getaway from the apartment on foot?” Ann suggested.
“Like Ehud Barak?” Sayid asked.
“And if you’re going to be a woman,” Helena interjected, “you should be pushing a baby carriage. We can prepare a doll wrapped in blankets for you. Who’s going to suspect a mother with a baby carriage of being a dangerous sniper?”
“Not bad, but remember, with all those disguises and masquerades, I’m also going to need to get away from this place as quickly as possible.”
“Bicycle?”
“Speak in complete sentences, please, Sayid.”
“What about escaping the neighborhood on a bicycle?” Sayid suggested. “There’s something innocent-looking about a bicycle. Unlike a getaway car or motorcycle that speeds off with a terrible noise. A simple bicycle. A woman on a bicycle. Covered in a veil. In a neighborhood in which half the women never show their faces in public.”
“I want an orderly analysis of the various options,” Aslan said. “You’re cadets. You’re here to learn. Let’s do this properly.”
48
BRUSSELS, FEBRUARY 2, 2015
The pilot run was a success—its first stage at least. They managed to divert the convoy of prisoners to a different route from the one that had been set for them. Nufar was in front of her battery of computers at seven in the morning already. They were basing their alternative route on one that had served the convoy in the past. They wanted the escort teams to feel secure, to recognize the route they were taking. They decided therefore to insert a small deviation only at one specific point along a familiar path. Instead of driving through a traffic tunnel, the vehicles would be diverted to the upper stretch of the road. A move that would require them to stop or at least slow down at an intersection or two. Nufar fed the particulars of the new route into the computer of the operations officer. Two questions remained. One: Would it work? The other: Would the escort teams ask questions later about the route selected for them?
• • •
Nufar remained behind to keep an eye on the convoy’s progress in real time, via the computers of the Prison Service, which she had already made her own. Assaf stayed with her, to deal with any possible disturbance. Ya’ara and Batsheva went out into the field, to observe the convoy with their own eyes. They took up a position at a café that offered a view of the intersection the vehicles were due to reach. They wanted to see if it would actually transpire. Would five vehicles really take the upper stretch of road rather than continue uninterrupted through the tunnel? They wanted to see if there’d be any sign of bewilderment or confusion stemming from the deviation in the familiar route, or if the drivers would simply follow the directions provided by the GPS device. It was nine twenty. Dawn had broken not too long ago. February’s days in Brussels are dark and gloomy. But on the right side of the café’s large window, it was warm and cozy. Two cups of coffee with that strong morning aroma, fresh and crispy croissants. A WhatsApp message from Nufar: “Convoy entering the tunnel. ETA two minutes.” And arrive it did. A white patrol car with flashing blue lights emerged at high speed from the opening of the tunnel, crossed through the first intersection, and then stopped at the next one. A red light, pedestrians wrapped in their coats traversing the crosswalk with heads bowed against the icy wind. A prisoner-transport vehicle, with flashing blue lights, too, and bars to secure its windows, pulled up behind the first vehicle. And behind it, a second patrol car, another prisoner-transport vehicle, and then a third patrol car. The rearguard. They had a clear view of the entire convoy. What a wonderful sight, Ya’ara thought. The convoy waiting patiently for the light to change. Pulling off with the roar of engines as the red turned to green. Insofar at least as Ya’ara and Batsheva could tell, the slight change in the route prompted no reaction from the prison guards and security personnel. None of them exited the vehicles with their weapons drawn. The drivers didn’t decide to keep going despite the red light. Nothing at all about the manner in which the vehicles in the convoy were traveling changed. A WhatsApp message to Nufar: “You did it, honey! Just like in the movies!”
If their manipulation of the route went unnoticed, without subsequent questions or queries, they would set the real operation in motion on Monday of the following week. The change they’d make to the convoy’s route would be more extreme. In a week’s time, they would separate the prisoner-transport vehicles from the escort vehicles. They would reroute the vehicle carrying Hamdan to a location that offered them a tactical advantage over the security guards, even if it was a temporary advantage only. And they would exploit their advantage quickly and aggressively. At that stage, whether the change in the route raised questions would be irrelevant. Because there would be far more difficult questions begging for answers.
49
Ya’ara had chosen to remain alone. She wasn’t happy with the plan they had come up with. Had she been working with experienced fighters by her side, she would have taken advantage of the isolation of the prisoners’ vehicle to create a significant numerical advantage at the scene. According to the most recent information they had gleaned from the computer system of the Belgian Prison Service, the vehicle carrying the prisoners would be manned by just two guards—the driver and a second prison guard sitting next to him. She assumed they would both be armed. The prisoners in the back of the van would be alone, with no guards. A guard in the back with them could very easily become a hostage. And if he were armed, the prisoners could seize his weapon. Security for the convoy, therefore, rested primarily on the escort vehicles. The guards manning them could respond quickly and efficiently to any incident. Diverting the escort vehicles and isolating the van carrying Hamdan would give them the advantage of surprise and the potential advantage of creating a superior fighting force in terms of size. They would be temporary advantages only, of course. The guards in the escort vehicles would realize that they had been cut off from the prisoner van, and were likely to backtrack to the separation point as quickly as possible. Ya’ara decided therefore to divert the prisoner van at a point along the route that would delay the return of the escort vehicles for as long as possible. A busy one-way street. They wouldn’t be able to backtrack against the flow of the traffic. They’d have to circle around to the separation point, and doing so would take time. Not long, though. Ya’ara and Assaf had checked the route, and did it, without sirens and flashing blue lights, in two minutes and twenty seconds. Ya’ara assumed that the escort vehicles would do it in a minute and a half. During that time, she and
her team would have to divert the van, stop it, disable it, neutralize the two guards, gain access to the prisoner compartment, identify Hamdan, kill him, and withdraw. And all of it without causing irreversible harm to the guards and without causing any injury to the other prisoners, if there were any in the van with their object.
But Ya’ara didn’t have experienced fighters at her disposal. These were her cadets. Barely three months into their training. With the exception of the mission in Bremen, they lacked operational experience and had never found themselves in a face-to-face confrontation with professional armed guards. She couldn’t put them at such risk. Assaf had indeed served as an officer and fighter in the Combat Engineering Corps, but that didn’t make him an experienced assassin qualified to operate on the streets of Europe. Batsheva had already proven herself to be a competent actress and creative thinker, but Ya’ara struggled to picture her detonating an explosive device or firing a pistol in broad daylight, with or without Manolo Blahnik pumps on her feet. And the intelligent Nufar, she did great work as a hacker, but she, too, wasn’t ready yet for an operation of this kind.
Ya’ara was at a pub in one of the narrow alleys that led off from the Grand Place. She was sitting alone, on the table in front of her a large glass of beer, one of the hundreds of varieties the pub boasted. All made in Belgium of course. The pub wasn’t crowded, and the ice-cold look in her eyes was enough to repel the men who thought, for a fraction of a second only, of approaching her. Very beautiful, but dangerous and radiating about as much warmth as an iceberg. That’s the impression she was giving off, and at that point in time, it was the exact impression she wanted them to get. Her thoughts drifted momentarily to Matthias, and she wondered what he was going through, what was happening with him. She felt a sudden longing for him, wanted to be with him, to feel the pull of his large, powerful body next to her. She shook her head and returned to the mental image of the scene of the targeted killing that appeared so clearly in her mind. Not for a second did she consider cancelling the operation. But she had to get through it without placing her cadets in the line of fire. She pictured herself emerging from the shadows of the street and moving toward the prisoner van that had been cut off from its escorts and had suddenly run into a dead end. Municipal excavation work had closed the street. This they knew from their patrols around the area, which had focused on the final kilometer leading up to the courthouse. Being so close to their destination, the escorts would have let their guard down a little by then, forgetting that the final kilometer was always the most dangerous. Only thinking, what now?
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