“Do you have even a shred of evidence to support the utter nonsense that just came out your mouth?” he finally asked.
Aharon turned toward the laptop that lay open on the table. “Come have a look at something,” he said, and Alon leaned forward to glance at the screen. It displayed an image of himself and Brian in conversation in that damn antiquities store in Zurich.
“What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“You’re supposed to be looking at a picture of you and your handler, Brian, in an antiquities store in Zurich six days ago. That’s what you’re supposed to be looking at.”
“I don’t know that man. I think I may remember him from the store, but I don’t know him from Adam. He wanted to purchase some antique statue and asked for my opinion on the piece.”
“And what were you doing in Zurich?”
“Aharon, my friend, I don’t think I should be answering your questions, not that one and not any at all. You aren’t here in any official capacity, and I agreed to come here only out of respect for you. And here you are hurling the most awful and unfounded accusations at me. Under the law, if there was someone else here to bear witness to what you’ve just said, you’d be guilty of slander.”
“I spoke the substantial truth,” Aharon replied, using the wording of the law to which Regev had alluded.
“You don’t have even a single piece of evidence. If the best thing you can show me is an image of me and a stranger in some shop in Zurich, you aren’t exactly excelling, to say the least. And I, so it seems, can sleep easy. My conscience is clear.”
“From this moment onward you will never sleep easy again,” Aharon said, unknowingly echoing Brian’s sentiments. “And as for your conscience, you, the traitor that you are, lost that a long time ago. I have no idea what drives you. Greed, a sense of frustration, megalomania, loneliness. I used to handle people like you myself. And when push came to shove, regardless of their rank and no matter how high they had climbed, they were nothing more than wimps. People who sought to find in me the things they lacked in themselves. You’re just the same.”
“Your insults, Aharon, are pretty pathetic. They’re simply an expression of your frustration. Perhaps your retirement is the reason? Has it caused you to lose touch with reality?”
“You know that if the Shin Bet were to interrogate you, instead of this pleasant chat we are having, things would be looking a whole lot different right now.”
Alon thought for a split second that Aharon and Brian must have spoken beforehand to coordinate their positions.
“Is that the worst thing you can threaten me with? A Shin Bet interrogation? And you think a veteran KGB spy couldn’t handle that?”
Aharon tried a different approach. “Perhaps you can tell me how it all started?” he asked. “How did you end up in the hands of those Russians? How did they fool you so?”
“As I said, I have no idea what you’re talking about at all. But I want you to know something. For almost thirty years now I’ve been sanctioned to maintain secret ties with official representatives of the United States.”
“Sanctioned by whom?”
“Daniel Shalev. Are you familiar with him? He was once the prime minister of Israel. A well-schooled and crafty individual. No less a tactician than a strategist. He initiated the ties for me, told me where to go and what to do, and all through my years with him, when we wanted to pass on confidential messages, when we wanted to reveal our true positions to the Americans in an unofficial yet trustworthy manner, the plans we’ve made for this or the other development in the region, or the positions and plans we wanted them to believe were genuine, we did so by means of the ties I maintained with them. We pieced together an irreplaceable shunt the significance of which can’t be overstated. If anything, I deserve the Israel Defense Prize, for the double life I’ve led for the sake of this country, the Israel Defense Prize,” he raised his voice, “and not the insults of the former Mossad chief, an old and frustrated man.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you spied for the Americans at the behest of Daniel Shalev, and that in practice it wasn’t espionage but a private initiative by a man who went on to serve as prime minister?”
“You can ask him yourself!”
They both knew that wasn’t an option. A stroke he had suffered some four years ago had left Daniel Shalev in a vegetative state, or something like one.
“And how did the Russians come into the picture?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Do you know that as we speak, Brian, despite himself, his hands cuffed, is our guest in the cabin of a merchant ship currently making its way from northern Italy to Tel Aviv? He needed some persuasion to join us on the trip, but after the doctor administered the shot, he became a far more agreeable individual. And by the way, when he cursed, he did so in fluent Russian. Not in the English of a professor from the East Coast. It’s going to be interesting to hear his version regarding his ties with you, and how he fits in to the fantasy you’ve just now tried to sell me.”
To the people sitting transfixed in the other room, Alon Regev appeared to have had the wind knocked out of him by a punch to the gut. But he held firm, didn’t fall to the canvas, and his breath returned, albeit short and rapid.
“Aharon, my friend.” That Aharon, my friend, again, Ya’ara thought to herself in anger.
“Aharon, my friend. I’m getting up and leaving now. And I’ll pass on the ride your goons offered me. I’ll take a taxi. I thank you for your time and am sure you now realize what an embarrassing mistake you have made. I’m not vindictive when it comes to aging spies, but you should know that you’ve crossed the line. Stay away from me. Touch me again, you or your people, and the best attorneys in Israel will come down on you like a ton of bricks. You’re walking a parapet. Be careful, Aharon. That’s the advice of a friend.”
Alon stood and headed to the door. He struggled a little with the security chain, and eventually freed it and walked, uneasily, toward the elevator. Ya’ara called Aslan from the nearby room. “He’s on his way down to you. Good luck,” she said.
Aslan started the car. Amir was in the front seat next to him. And from a distance of some fifty meters, they kept watch on the hotel’s entrance, waiting for the figure of Cobra to emerge.
61
TEL AVIV, APRIL 2013
The entire crew had gathered in the apartment, the one that could perhaps go on to serve one day as Michael Turgeman’s law firm office. Aharon was sitting in his armchair, alert and raring to go. “Let’s start with Aslan’s report,” he said.
Aslan cleared his throat. “Cobra left the hotel looking tense and as white as a sheet,” he began. “He looked around—maybe to find a taxi or maybe to see if he was being followed, I don’t know. But a taxi pulled up next to him, and he simply didn’t see us, me and Amir. He must have been stressed because the taxi took him straight to Tel Aviv without any stops or maneuvering that would have allowed him to try to spot us. He got out on the corner of Ibn Gvirol and Manne and immediately headed down Manne, in an easterly direction. He then stopped for a short while, just twenty seconds or so, alongside the concrete fence of one of the buildings. And after standing there briefly without moving, he hailed a second taxi to his home in Tzahala. We checked, but there was no marking on the fence.”
“Do you think he intended to leave a sign there for his handlers?” Aharon asked. “The age-old technique of chalk marks on the wall?”
“Perhaps,” Aslan said. “But as distressed as he may have been, he must have realized that we may have him under surveillance and chose not to do so. Someone like him has other ways of reporting his situation, even if he’s reluctant to use them to begin with.”
“Thank you, Aslan. Great job. So what do you have to say,” Aharon asked the team, “about my meeting with Alon Regev?”
“What astounds me,” Michael said, “is that he used the meeting to try already to sell you the ultimate cover story, a story th
at appears impossible to contradict or refute. Yes, he has maintained secret ties with a superpower, the United States and not the Soviet Union, and these ties—despite their conspiratorial nature, and perhaps even because of it—were in fact a covert channel for passing on messages and sometimes disinformation, with the entire operation initiated, ordered, planned, and authorized by none other than Daniel Shalev, who obviously can’t be asked a thing.”
“We can ask all we want, but we aren’t going to get any answers.”
“Why do you think he did so?” Michael continued. “Why play such an outlandish story so early in the game, when it could have been his trump card, in the event he really finds himself with his back to the wall?”
“The explanation for that, I think, is a complex one,” Aharon said. “First of all, he’s already under terrible stress. His cover’s been blown, and he knows it, and he’s fighting for his life. Second, I think that already at this stage he wanted us to know what awaits us at the end of the line. He wanted us to know that he has a trump card. A story like that could explain almost everything that he’s done that appears to be espionage. And to top it all, with permission and authorization that can’t be verified. We could of course ask him to see a document or piece of paper or something that proves he did indeed receive his instructions from Daniel Shalev, but then he’ll simply say no. Matters of this kind don’t and could never be allowed to leave a paper trail.” Aharon took a deep breath.
“But the crux of the matter is that Regev doesn’t require exoneration,” Aharon continued. “He needs to avoid a conviction. All he wanted to do—over and above the fact that he was stressed and felt an inner need to confront me, and not just sit there like a punching bag—was to show us how complicated things are going to get. And this entire discussion is theoretical anyway, because the Shin Bet won’t be involved and there won’t be an official investigation.”
“The thing that really freaked him out,” Adi said, “was the story you gave him about Brian being in our hands and on his way to Israel. That could really put paid to his entire preposterous cover story. Because the moment we have evidence from the Russian side, he’s finished.”
“Yes, he heard that and decided to end the conversation immediately. That undoubtedly put him under terrible strain, but don’t forget,” Aharon said, “that threat, as if Brian is in our hands, will hold water for just a few days. Or even less, if the Russians manage to relay a message to inform him that Brian is okay. To win this battle, we need to take advantage of this brief period of uncertainty, during which the complete picture remains obscure to all. Which reminds me that I need to speak with Bill. I want to suggest that they go public with their investigation of Brian, who may already be on his way back to Rhode Island. Unless the SVR has decided to bring him back to Moscow. They don’t know for certain that Julian Hart’s cover has been blown, but they may have picked up on signs of danger.”
“So where do we go from here?” Adi asked.
“I need to do some thinking. To compile all the information we have in an orderly fashion. You’ll help me with that, okay?”
“Sure,” Adi responded, “no question.”
“I’d like us to have a stay of exit order against Alon Regev. Right now, all he has to do to escape is to board the first plane out of Ben Gurion Airport and fly away.”
“I think I can sort that out with my friend at the Interior Ministry,” Amir said.
“Wow, he must owe you a lot, this friend of yours,” Michael said, genuinely impressed.
“It’s a little frightening, what your friends can do,” Adi added.
“If you had served with me in the support platoon, you’d be doing things for me, too,” Amir said.
“I don’t even want to think about being with a bunch of paratroopers coming to the end of their service. It gives me the creeps,” Adi fired back.
“That’s enough, children,” Aslan interjected in a fatherly tone. “Stay focused.”
Ya’ara was sitting to the side a little, silent and withdrawn. Lost in her thoughts.
“Tell me, Aslan,” Michael asked, “can you put together a team of sorts to keep watch on Cobra’s home? To make sure he doesn’t flee?”
“I can assemble a group of former comrades and tell them we’re conducting a drill on behalf of the VIP Protection Unit, or something like that. But they’re guys with brains in their heads. They’ll start asking questions.”
Aharon opened his eyes, which had been closed for a few moments. “I don’t want to bring additional people into this story. There are several issues we need to iron out with Mr. Regev. If Amir’s friend can block his access to the airport, I’ll feel more at ease. The Russians may have an exit strategy, but it will take them at least twenty-four hours to set it in motion. If we move fast, we can stay ahead of them. So no more people in the know. We’ll run the risk. For now, we’re not bringing in any reinforcements to keep track of Cobra.”
At that moment, everyone turned to look at Ya’ara, who had just dropped the pen she was holding, causing it to clatter loudly on the floor. Only then did they realize that she hadn’t taken part in the conversation.
“Aharon,” she said, “I’d like to speak to you for a moment, in private.”
62
TZAHALA, APRIL 2013
Alon Regev was sitting in the large leather armchair in the den of his home. The room was his private realm, frequented by no one but himself and the maid who came to their house three times a week. Not that his family members were prohibited from entering, but it was clear to everyone that the den was his alone. A large work desk, a comfortable antique leather armchair, an elegant humidor filled with Cuban cigars, a bookcase overflowing with volumes on strategy, security and philosophy, a sophisticated sound system, a small Jerusalem landscape painting by Anna Ticho, a marine navigation instrument from the eighteenth century, an ornate silver box.
Fauré’s Requiem played clearly and hauntingly over the expensive audio system he had installed in the room. Alon closed his eyes and wondered how he had ended up in his current position. Some two hours earlier, he had opened the real estate website and had clicked on several images of building lots, thus signaling to his handlers to put the escape plan into motion. Following confirmation that his request has been received, he’d have twenty-four hours in which to get to a deserted strip of coast south of Ashdod and board a dinghy. Stripped bare, like a criminal on the run, he would abscond from Israel, never to return. He would cut himself off from his entire family and become the subject of endless condemnation and humiliation. He recalled himself as a young man, at the end of high school, during his military service, his first year at university. Those days of innocence preceding his treason. Before he pressed on the intercom button of the U.S. embassy in Rome. Up until that moment, he had been talented, ambitious, and full of promise. But from that moment onward, he turned traitor. Days of innocence? He berated himself for fudging the reality. After all, the contempt he harbored for this tiny, pretentious, pathetic country wasn’t born that day in Rome. It had accompanied him for as long as he could remember himself. Ever since realizing that only by chance had he been tossed into this insignificant shithole at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. No, he didn’t want a dusty country, with arid mountains scattered with rocks and windswept trees, a densely packed and ugly coastline, a country of small and fanatic individuals, perspiring constantly in the heat and humidity. He wanted a big and expansive country, a country of wealth and unlimited horizons. A country of enlightened and strong people, a country with distinct seasons, filled in the fall with red-leaved trees and with a spring that burst forth green and intoxicating. A country that didn’t end after two hours of driving, but one that had no boundaries, that went on forever, that you could drive the length and breadth of for days on end, from one stormy ocean to the shores of another deep sea. A country with people of action who were healthy, strong, self-confident, clear thinkers. Not ones who were bent and buckled under the weight of tw
o thousand years of wandering, humiliation, and exile. So where are these days of innocence that you’re talking about, he scolded himself. No one had ever accused him of being naïve. Until now, now that the dream had become a nightmare. He had turned out to be the biggest patsy of all. From being a devoted servant of the United States, he had become a contemptuous spy for the Soviet Union. When did it happen? Already at the start? Toward the end? Had he truly not sensed it? Was Brian—who wasn’t even Brian at all—the only thing he had left in this life? And a lot of money, which who knows if he’d be able to even use at all. And Na’ama. Would she join him? Alon knew that the love they once shared had long since become a distant memory, replaced by a partnership of sorts. He couldn’t imagine her asking to join him. He knew her too well. Na’ama would distance herself from him, say she didn’t know anything, express shock, and try to get her hands on as much as possible of the wealth he had accumulated by means of a combination of business skills and treason. He couldn’t bear to think about the children. Did Na’ama really not realize where all their wealth was coming from? Had she turned a blind eye? But turning a blind eye was tantamount to knowing, and who knows for how many years he had done the same thing.
He dozed off for a few minutes and awoke with a start. He was struggling to come to terms with the fact that everything in Israel was over for him. He was familiar with Moscow from his business activities, and knew you could live there like a king, provided you had sufficient money. And that he had. But what would he be there? Who would know him, who’d request his counsel, who would seek his company? He tried not to wallow in self-pity and reassured himself that he only needed to get through the coming days, the weeks ahead, and things would begin to fall into place. Brian would look after him. Brian and the huge organization behind him. They knew what he’d done for them. They wouldn’t let him sink. And Martin, perhaps they’d give Martin back to me. Maybe he could see him again. Now they could be friends, now that all those years of that secret war were behind them. He downed the shot of whisky he had poured for himself in one gulp, feeling the burning in his throat and the comforting warmth spreading in his chest. His eyes filled with tears, and he allowed them to wash over his face. He closed his eyes again and fell asleep. He’ll take a walk down Manne Street in the evening once again, just to see if they happened to have left a sign there for him.
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