by Nathan Ronen
He approached the shelves that were packed with files laden with material. Theatrically, he extracted a thick binder from one of them and produced secret files regarding the Iranian nuclear plan: “proof of the lies.” The prime minister’s spokesperson’s aides walked among the journalists, handing out binders with photographs and background material in Farsi, translated into English.
Ehud Tzur examined his audience’s shocked faces like a magician producing a rabbit from his hat. He walked over to the computer, projecting its display onto the large screen behind him. “Here is the proof that they developed nuclear warheads that were all aimed at Tel Aviv. Iran committed to not having such a project. It lied. We hold a hundred thousand secret documents and files that prove Iran defrauded the world when it claimed it had no nuclear program. Iran also lied after signing the nuclear agreement with the superpowers. It was a terrible agreement. I hope the American president does the right thing for the United States and for world peace.”
A hand was raised among the dozens of journalists present in the room. It was the most senior of CNN’s Middle East reporters. Ehud Tzur knew he was being filmed live and allowed the reporter to ask a question.
“With all due respect, sir, what you’re displaying here today is old archived material from before 2003. None of this material you’re presenting, Mr. Prime Minister, could indicate a ‘smoking gun.’ American intelligence agencies are certain that Iran is abiding by the nuclear agreement and has terminated its nuclear plan,” the CNN reporter said, pointing at the copies of the Iranian documents handed out to the media.
Ehud Tzur examined him with a piercing gaze. He did not like being challenged, especially when it happened in public, before a cast of journalists from all over the world. He liked it even less when he was live on air, trying to substantiate his claim that Iran’s nuclear agreement with the countries of Europe and the United States had been a fatal mistake.
“Really?” he asked mockingly, approaching the computer.
Nir Stern, his spokesperson, ran to assist him.
“Put on the Operation Bakery presentation,” the prime minister instructed him.
“Are you sure?” the spokesperson whispered, shocked. “That’s highly classified!”
“You’re pissing me off. Move!” Ehud Tzur pushed him aside forcefully and took control of the computer himself. He searched for the prepared presentation and projected it onto the screen. His eyes sought out CNN’s reporter and he pointed at him, as if saying, pay attention! This is the real thing. This isn’t old archived material.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I want to prove to you that we don’t merely have archival material proving that Iran has been consistently lying to the world,” he dramatically declared. “Two years ago, we intercepted the fact that Iran concealed 200 tons of enriched uranium in warehouses in Chad. They hid it until the world signed a nuclear agreement with them, in return for eliminating the financial sanctions. After the agreement was signed, and a week after being visited by IAEA inspectors, they intended to return the material to Iran and hide those yellowcakes in their secret nuclear facility in Fordow, but we beat them to it!” Tzur announced with a flourish and began describing Operation Bakery.
Cornfield felt that he could no longer watch this absurd showcase, to which he had objected from the start. He rose from his seat and yelled at Ehud Tzur, “You’re a disgrace!” limping out while his large silhouette blocked the image of the fired-up Ehud Tzur from the TV camera operators. No one noticed the minor scandal. The sensation evoked by Tzur’s revelations eclipsed the incident between the prime minister and the head of the Mossad.
The entire hall was in turmoil as dozens of reporters called out, wanting to ask questions and requesting more details. Tzur’s statements regarding another sensational Mossad operation would undoubtedly become the main headlines in most of the world’s newspapers. The immense amount of interest raised the adrenaline levels in Ehud Tzur’s blood to levels that he himself found intoxicating. He was no longer in control of his mouth and began to threaten Iran. He was already envisioning the headlines of papers all over the world comparing the daring mission to Operation Entebbe in 1976, with his photo spread out all over the front page as the hero of the day.
The live broadcast was also intercepted in Iran, located about 1,100 miles away from Israel, evoking much anger in the bureau of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei. Iran’s Supreme Leader decided that as of this moment, they were transitioning from a policy of forbearance to one of revenge.
Khamenei called President Hussein Rahimi and told him what he thought of the Israeli sting operations.
“Please convene the Supreme National Security Council. There are some decisions we need to make urgently. We can no longer hold back!” he instructed, seething with rage. “This will cost them dearly!”
Chapter 22
Kfar HaNagid Village
In his state car, on his way from Jerusalem to his private residence, Ben-Ami Cornfield was sitting and cursing the gods of all politicians. He was furious at himself for allowing Ehud Tzur to fool him. He was angry at the prime minister’s exercise in deception, which had turned into the enforced press conference, an event in which the heads of the security agencies became extras, a kind of respectable decorative background to Ehud Tzur’s one-man show, being broadcast live on international media outlets.
His driver sat in the front seat and kept his silence. He had known Cornfield for years now and knew it was better to allow the boss’s emotional turmoil to subside on its own.
Cornfield was frustrated. On the one hand, he knew he needed to maintain firm control over the country’s most important security agency until he could find a suitable leader to whom he could pass the reins. On the other hand, he could no longer pay the emotional price required from him if he continued to work under an opportunistic, hedonistic boss like Ehud Tzur, a man who could not control his tongue and exploited state secrets for his political needs, without taking into account the price that the country’s intelligence system might end up paying. This was not the first time the man had endangered the country’s security with inexplicable hubris. He had already done so when he appeared before the American Congress in violation of the White House’s explicit request. At that time, the president had gotten even by approving a massive weapons deal with the Saudis that granted them superior strategic munitions, putting Israel’s security at risk.
Cornfield was intimately acquainted with the personal profiles of Iran’s decision-makers, and knew for certain that they would be unable to put up with the smug, public slap in the face that Ehud Tzur had delivered tonight. He knew that General Qasem Soleimani, commander of Quds Force within the Revolutionary Guard, whose Mossad nickname was “the jackal,” would plan and execute a painful revenge for Iran’s humiliation.
By the time Cornfield reached his home, his fortress, he was already mentally exhausted, wrapped up in a mental fog comprised of hunger, thirst, frustration, sadness, and doubt.
He opened the door, pleased with his wife’s smile and warm welcome. Amira was the main support in his life. She was the deep river to which he always returned when he felt distraught, and the only one who knew how to soothe and console him. Living with a dominant personality like Cornfield was not easy. There were many ups and downs in his life. He was not the kind of guy characterized by a predictable, welcome routine. He had never known stability or normalcy in his life. His tough, uncompromising farmer father had taught him never to rely on anything, other than himself and his immediate family. He reacted to life as it unfolded. As far as he was concerned, danger and surprise were routine elements. Perhaps that was why he was considered one of the best Mossad directors.
Amira read him like an open book. Her ability to decipher his thoughts in his expression exceeded his ability to express them.
“I see Ehud Tzur really managed to get to you. I saw that idiot on TV. Rea
lly, what was he thinking? I imagine the military censors are tearing out their hair in despair this evening,” she said, putting her hands around his waist while he towered above her. She rested her head on his chest and reached out with her long arm to scratch and scrape his broad back, affectionately stroking his curly silver mane.
Cornfield pushed her away. He was too upset. “Did you see him on TV, that little son of a bitch?”
“I watched the press conference. Sit down and calm down. All the politicians in the entire world are like that.” She walked over to the fridge and served him a glass of cold fresh-squeezed lemonade, unsweetened due to his diabetes.
“That little shit has opened Pandora’s box, and I don’t want to tell you exactly what I think is going to happen!” Cornfield yelled into the space of the house in frustration.
She looked at him maternally, knowing how to soothe him. When he used to return from clandestine operations, stinking and sour with sweat, his clothes muddy, she fed him hot, comforting home cooking. After a hot shower, she would discharge the tension stored in his loins with wild, lengthy sex. His diabetes had compromised his libido, but not his constant hunger for comfort food, especially when he was angry.
“While you go up and shower, I think I’ll make us fresh pappardelle pasta with seafood, tomato sauce in pesto, and parmesan cheese. What do you think?”
“Sounds really good, but don’t add wine to the sauce, since, you remember…” Cornfield said, slowly climbing the wooden stairs to their living quarters. His prosthetic leg was bothering him again. He slowly took his clothes off, tossing them on the floor as always. Hobbling, one-legged, to the big shower, he sat down on the wooden step inside the stall. The stream of hot water soothed him. He closed his healthy eye and allowed the water to flow over his large, solid body.
In the meantime, Amira tossed some wide noodles into a large pot of boiling water. She then fried a bag of mixed seafood she had taken from the freezer and stirred it in a large pan, adding chopped garlic, fresh tomato sauce, and a handful of spices she had picked in the garden. The pesto and sautéed sage spread a pleasant aroma throughout the kitchen.
The thumping of a crutch echoed from the creaky wooden stairs as Cornfield descended from their living quarters, supporting himself on the banister. He walked over to Amira, who was immersed in cooking, leaned into her ripe behind and rubbed against her, grabbed her solid breasts and whispered in her ear, “What’s this smell that’s making me all horny?”
“Cornfield, not now. Go set the table in the garden arbor for us and turn on the ceiling fan. There are plenty of virulent mosquitoes in early fall.”
“You’re lucky I’m tired,” he growled. “At one time, I’d have thrown you here on the carpet and had you as the first course, remember?”
She smiled at him. It had indeed been one time, and it had been long ago.
Cornfield waited for her in the large arbor with a smile. He was wearing shorts and a white sleeveless undershirt that exposed the strong, muscular body of a warrior and a farmer. He looked at his wife of forty-five years with obvious affection while he checked his blood sugar level and injected the required dosage of insulin into his stomach with an electronic syringe.
Amira poured herself a glass of chilled Gamla chardonnay. For Cornfield, who had quit drinking a year ago, she poured a glass of soda with a bit of homemade, anise flavored Antésite extract, which she prepared from licorice extract.
The large fan blew a cool stream of air above them.
“To you, my champion,” Amira said, raising a glass of wine. But the scent of the food and his hunger overcame Cornfield, and he was already wolfing down the food, sucking the noodles in noisily and scattering a handful of hard, grainy-textured and intensely flavored Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese over his seafood. He smacked his lips, emitting murmurs of admiration.
“Go slowly,” she scolded. “You’ll give yourself heartburn.”
“You know, Amira, I really regret taking on this role again,” he said. “I think I fell into the honey trap that that bastard Tzur set for me. He just wanted to buy himself some quiet at the Mossad and knew that if I came back, things would stabilize. For him, I was just a form of CYA.” He took another serving of pasta, eagerly grating parmesan cheese over it. “It’s not fair!”
“The only ‘fair’ in life is the country fair. In real life, fairness is relative, my dear husband,” Amira said. “This morning, I attended a women’s meeting at the community center in the city of Yavne, and today’s topic was Hebrew poetry. Do you know why Hayim Nahman Bialik, whose poetry was old-fashioned and Eastern European in style, was chosen to be Israel’s National Poet, rather than Shaul Tchernichovsky, a doctor and poet whose work was considered modern and groundbreaking?”
Cornfield gazed at his wife with polite indifference.
“The reason Bialik was chosen, although it was clear to everyone that Dr. Shaul Tchernichovsky was a lot more talented, was because Tchernichovsky’s wife, Milania, was a Russian Orthodox Christian who refused to convert to Judaism.”
“Ultra-Orthodox sons of bitches. It’s all politics!” Cornfield summed up their brief ‘intellectual’ exchange. “That was also why they didn’t want the media to know that Arik Bar-Nathan had received the French Legion of Honor medal. Just because the ceremony took place on the Sabbath and because Arik’s wife is Christian and German.”
“That’s sad, but it’s already late, and I’m tired. Are you coming up with me, or do you still have things to do here?” Amira asked, beginning to clear the dishes and the utensils from the table, stacking them up on a big tray.
He tilted his head toward the living room in the house, where a large file of documents, brought in earlier by his driver and protected by a combination lock, lay in wait. “I’m still too upset, and I don’t think I can sleep. I also still have to go over the mail. You go up, and I’ll join you soon.”
Amira was familiar with his ‘soon’ and made her way silently up to the bedroom. He hobbled on his crutch to the living room, full and sated, tossing himself into the large old leather recliner. Sharp, their old Shar-Pei dog, who was already half deaf and half blind, joined him, curled up at his foot, and fell asleep instantly, snoring and farting loudly.
The TV was tuned to the National Geographic channel, which was showing some distant destinations. Cornfield was not watching. It merely kept him company. He began to read the daily intelligence dispatches he received from the Military Intelligence Directorate, as well as those from the Mossad’s Intelligence Division and fell asleep within several minutes.
Shortly after midnight, he heard a frightened neighing from the foals, which were kicking at the stable’s wooden fences. His old dog ran out, barking at the sky, and was soon joined by neighboring dogs eager to take part in the barking party. Cornfield woke up in fright, assuming the foals might have sensed a passing snake and gotten spooked. But then he heard the sounds of a truck driving in reverse and letting out a warning beep. It sounded close, right at the back part of his estate. He slipped his healthy foot into a ragged military shoe that he used to stroll in the large garden, positioned the metal crutch under his armpit, and headed for the deck where he looked out in the direction of the stables and found absolute darkness. He did not have the time to go up and put on his prosthesis, which had remained at the foot of his bed.
Thanks to the pallid streetlights, he could make out the silhouettes of the people who were loading his expensive foals onto a metal ramp and into a large truck. Those foals were Arabian-breed racehorses with a distinct shape to their head and high tails, black, and fleet of foot, with a white star on their forehead. Cornfield had brought them to Israel via a circuitous route. They were a gift from the sultan of one of the Persian Gulf Emirates, whose life Cornfield had saved during a military coup sponsored by Iran. He had redeemed the gift using ransom money paid with his retirement funds, receiving authorization to do so
from the ministerial committee on the subject of gifts.
Where the hell has the work crew disappeared? he asked himself. Are they in cahoots with the thieves? He was angry at their ingratitude, as he only employed IDF veterans who had been injured in battle or suffered from PTSD, as part of their rehabilitation process.
He didn’t know Amira had given them the evening off, as one of them was getting married that night.
Cornfield returned to the living room and turned off the TV and all the lights in the room. His one eye adjusted to the darkness. His sense of hearing sharpened at once. From his bag, he retrieved the large Jericho pistol, which fit his hand like a glove. He loaded the magazine, which was equipped with thirteen .41AE 10mm bullets, and cocked the pistol.
Cornfield was not afraid. He did not feel a paralyzing shock or excitement. In the world of commando-unit covert activity, in which he had operated since he was a young soldier, warriors and spies were considered predators, while thieves or collaborators who betrayed their country for money were bottom-feeders. It seemed entirely natural to him that various kinds of animals walked the earth, all contributing to the balance of nature.
It seemed unnecessary to wake up Amira or call the police in Yavne, the nearest city. He had no hesitation, inhibitions, or second thoughts about going out alone in the dark of night, facing the unknown. An aging warrior, a pensioner who was over seventy, who had lost a leg, was legally categorized as totally disabled and was blind in one eye.
He was mostly annoyed by the fact that someone was trying to steal away the mares and the beautiful foals, which imbued him with a sense of peace. Horses in which he had invested the majority of his retirement funds.