I Am Not a Traitor: A psychological thriller about an army veteran with a huge secret

by Y. I. Latz

  Jimmy intervenes. “Laptop, camera, cell phone. That’s all—and your life will transform completely. Just tell us where you hid them, huh? Didn’t you personally promise me to give it some positive consideration?”

  The silence that descends on my cell drills holes in my body.

  “Okay,” Marina finally says. “Let’s go back to that night in Provence.”

  I twitch as if an electric current is going through me. Wearily, I say, “Again? Haven’t we talked about it enough?”

  My response causes her to ignite. She goes into attack mode, truly roaring. “You pathetic little pissant! Did you hear what you just said to me? ‘Haven’t we talked about it enough?’ Who do you think you are, you worthless zero? Get up! Get up on your feet, you scumbag, when I’m talking to you! From now on, you’re standing up all through the interrogation, and I don’t care what the doctors say! You’re a traitor and you’re also a murderer! That despicable murder is enough in itself to get you a life sentence, and we still haven’t mentioned the decades you’ll be serving for every single one of your other offenses. If you’re still hoping to see your wife and daughter at some point, and maybe a bit of sunshine and sky, you better answer every one of my questions at length and honestly, even if we have ‘talked about it enough.’ You zero! And you should know very well that as far as I’m concerned, I can interrogate you with no breaks from now until Saturday, or until you die. Whatever comes first, zero. Ze-ro! What a ze-ro!”

  Her screams fill the cell, returning to us as an echo. Her eyes are bloodshot. She keeps her short hair pulled back with a hairband, which makes her pimpled face look deranged.

  The other interrogators are also startled by the commotion she’s making, and they quickly sit up in their chairs, like pupils who have been caught red-handed.

  I have no doubt that if it weren’t for the cameras on the ceiling of my cell documenting the interrogation, and the fact that I’m a privileged prisoner embroiled in a sensitive affair, she’d beat me mercilessly, as she’s certainly done to less fortunate prisoners.

  This isn’t the first time they’ve dwelled on the event in the South of France. It drives them crazy, with good reason. It turns out that the biker who was following me in France and who was found dead on the side of the road was a veteran warrior in the Mossad’s Operational Surveillance unit.

  No less—

  Marina claims I ran him over intentionally and then beat him with a wooden beam.

  I deny it.

  To her, this deed eclipses the rest of the terrible deeds she attributes to me. She claims my responsibility for the fatal injury of her “comrade in arms” is my ultimate crime.

  As if I had personally hurt a member of her family.

  “I didn’t run him over,” I repeat, like a robot.

  She grows enraged. In a moment, she’ll start throwing a fit again. I’ve already gotten to know her. “You’ve decided to try to pull one over on me again, you maggot? When I say you ran him over, that means you ran him over. That’s not the question. The only question is how. Come on already, just spill your guts and let’s get it over with.”

  I respond, sticking as close as possible to the version I’ve already given them countless times.

  “It’s a winding mountain road, the weather was bad, and visibility was limited. His motorcycle brushed against the car, he lost his balance, apparently hit a big rock that was lying in the shoulder of the road, and flew into a ravine.”

  “Look at me when you’re talking!” she screams, confronting me with the full length of her squat figure.

  I look at her reluctantly. I find her that repulsive.

  She keeps on screaming. “You ran him over on purpose!”

  “I told you. He was driving like a maniac on a twisty road, and he lost his balance.”

  Sounds are coming out of her mouth. Her eyes are scurrying back and forth. Her nostrils alternate between flaring and emptying of air, like a bellows. I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if she breathed out fire.

  She continues, circling around me. “You panicked. That’s what happened. You panicked. You admitted it yourself during one of your first interrogations. You saw a biker following you and you panicked. You realized he’d managed to track you down, and you simply decided to eliminate him.”

  “No,” I said. “No, no, no, no. That’s not what happened, and that’s not what I said.”

  “You know what? I’ll meet you halfway. It’s already late and we’re all tired. You didn’t make a decision. You simply pulled on the steering wheel and rammed into him. That’s natural. You were scared. You see? I’m not angry. I even understand why you did it. Anyone else in your position would have acted the same way. Will you sign?”

  “I didn’t ram into him. He rammed into me.”

  “I think you’re a despicable liar, but let’s move on. The fall just injured him. Mild or moderate injuries, but he was just wounded, and definitely not gravely so. The medical reports confirm this. So let’s be smart about this and come to an arrangement. Okay?”

  I don’t react and she continues, laying out photos and diagrams on the table between us. “Here are some photos of the conditions of the terrain on-site. He fell and rolled a few dozen yards toward the ravine, but his fall was broken by bushes and rocks, and he remained prone. You see the photos? No one gets fatally injured or loses consciousness just by falling a few feet onto dense greenery and rocks, definitely not someone like our dear fellow here, who’s a proper man with an exceptional physique. Go on.”

  “Go on?”

  “Go on from this point. Here are the photos. Describe to me where you rammed into him, where he fell, where you stopped, what you saw and what you did.”

  “I didn’t stop.”

  “More of these stories? You know very well that we know that you did stop. At every single moment, we knew where you were and what you were doing. We already told you we’d installed a hidden GPS tracking device on your car, which was transmitting every move you made to us in real time.”

  Yes, they’d already told me—

  I’d had time to be startled as well as shocked—

  I can’t estimate the extent of the damage caused by the GPS covertly installed on the Renault I was driving, at what stage it was installed or when it was removed. But the information supplied to them by the electronic device is inaccurate, or partial, if they insist on hearing, again and again, the version I’ve already given them.

  She resumes. “You stopped by the side of the road. You stood there for seventeen minutes exactly. Don’t try to bullshit us. Seventeen minutes! You climbed down the slope toward him. He was lying on a big rock where some bloodstains were found. You saw that he was injured. Not dead. What did you do? Did you pull him by the shoulders? Kick him? How did someone like you manage to push him into the ravine?”

  “I didn’t go down to where he was, which means I didn’t push him.”

  “No? He volunteered to crawl about twenty feet all on his own, and jump into the ravine of his own free will?”

  My mouth is emitting strangled sounds. I talk fluently, in a tone that might be perceived as earnest. “The Mossad agent was about twenty-five years old? Thirty? Thirty-five? With a good physique, like you said? I’m fifty, with a really crappy physique. After I supposedly hit him with my car, why would I stop, rather than getting out of there as quickly as I could? After all, there were no witnesses! Why would I put myself at risk by going down the ravine? To see what? And if I had gone down there and he was only injured, would I have been capable of grabbing hold of a sturdy guy like him and pushing him, even if he was wounded? And why would I do that? What would I have gained?!”

  She looks at me for a long time, as if she’s trying to tear off my mask. For a moment, I tend to think I’ve managed to convince her. Her fellow interrogators look convinced, anyway.

  “You want
ed him dead,” she says softly, surprising me after the screaming she’d been doing until a moment ago.

  “You have to understand! He was chasing me! I was scared! I didn’t know who he was! I just took off!”

  “You took off. That’s true. But that was only after you’d been parked on the side of the road for seventeen minutes. Seventeen minutes is enough time to be a lowlife killer and to run off like a cowardly rabbit.”

  “I was confused. I stood on the shoulder until I recuperated. Seventeen minutes isn’t a lot of time.”

  “You’re full of it. You know very well that according to French law as well, you’re guilty of a serious offense. For intentionally hitting a motorcyclist and abandoning a wounded person, they prescribe a more serious penalty than we do. It might come to twelve or even fifteen years in prison. You don’t have to believe me. You can ask your illustrious lawyer. One signal from me, and we’ll extradite you to the French. They’re cruel motherfuckers. Compared to them, I’m your best friend. I don’t have to tell you what a French prison would be like for a scumbag Jew like you.”

  She takes off the hairband and returns it to its place again.

  Her eyes—

  I swear, there’s a spark of madness in them—

  I wobble. Shift my weight from leg to leg. My feet are burning. They’re really on fire. My heart emits a suspicious murmur. I panic. I’m about to collapse.

  And then I do.

  ◊◊◊

  This is Marina’s shift. A tough Russian with a senior role in the Shin Bet’s Interrogation Division.

  I assume she immigrated to Israel as a little girl, but she’s retained her heavy Russian accent. She’s repulsively fat, really swollen, suffers from various maladies, primarily thick legs that betray her and cause her to walk slowly, as if stepping on nails, waddling from foot to foot like a duck.

  In the familiar role-play of “good cop, bad cop,” she’s usually the epitome of the bad interrogator. Cynical, mean and with a tongue that has no inhibitions. She takes full advantage of her authority to saddle me with all manner of painful sanctions, and enjoys threatening to revoke my few rights.

  I’m not the only one she abuses. She displays a similar attitude toward the young investigators she supervises, whom she thoughtlessly and coarsely insults in my presence.

  But there are other, less awful aspects to her as well. Sometimes I discern a human spark in her eyes, and then her voice becomes more feminine and less aggressive as well. It doesn’t happen frequently.

  I wonder if she has a family. Due to her insatiable loquaciousness, her interrogations stretch on unnecessarily deep into the night. She dedicates most of the time to long monologues that refuse to end. Again and again, she praises her skills as a renowned interrogator, boasting of making even the toughest of her adversaries crack, until yawns burst out of me and my eyes close in fatigue.

  I often find myself feeling sorry for the young interrogators who are her subordinates. They have to stay with us in my foul-smelling cell for long hours, while the effectiveness of the interrogation came and went long ago. During those hours, their eyes redden with exhaustion even more than mine do.

  It’s already eleven thirty at night. We’ve gone through ten hours of nonstop interrogation. I’m sure that more than once, the young interrogators have found themselves thinking that if circumstances were different, they would lie down in my bed and fall asleep instantly.

  I’m still lying on the concrete floor—

  It’s quiet around me.

  I thought she had left, even though I hadn’t heard the heavy iron door opening and slamming behind her.

  I try to get up.

  I was wrong.

  “Even your wife doesn’t want you anymore!” she throws out at me, kicking me lightly with the toe of her shoe. The kick is humiliating more than it is painful.

  And she leaves.

  ◊◊◊

  I’ve been locked up here for three months now. Three months is a long time for someone who never spent even a day of his life in prison. I’m incarcerated in utter secrecy in a special wing of the prison that is under the authority of the Shin Bet, separate and isolated from the other wings. No one knows my true identity, including the guards.

  Not a word on my arrest has been published in the media so far. I was stuck with the nickname “Johnson,” after an American dog I once saved from being run over in Nahalal Junction. A kind of trick they’re playing on me.

  I suppress my anger. I’ve been angry enough. If I can’t find my way out of all “this,” I’ll have plenty of time to get angry here for the rest of my life.

  Other than the hours in which I’m being interrogated, I’m treated surprisingly well. The terms of my incarceration are good as well. This is not how I imagined life in prison. Apparently, the horrors I was fearing take place only in the movies.

  It’s true that I’m incarcerated by myself—“solitary confinement,” they call it—but I don’t feel lonely. Even on the outside, I wasn’t a particularly social creature. The cell is roomy. I’ve gotten used to the security cameras tracking my every move. There’s nothing for the guards to watch. For most of the day, I sit at the metal table that is affixed to the floor and write, or lie in my bed and listen to CDs, using headphones.

  The guards are courteous and considerate. I sense their respectful attitude toward me. I assume it’s not due to my winning personality but to the orders they’ve received.

  During the last few nights, they even dim the lights so I can sleep comfortably. I was also allowed to bring a laptop with no Internet connection into my cell, along with ten CDs of my choice.

  My interrogators are also courteous most of the time, or as courteous as they can be under the circumstances.

  I’m not referring, heaven forbid, to the head interrogators, Marina and Jimmy, but to the younger interrogators. They listen to me solemnly, constantly peering at the pages in their hands. Sometimes they whisper among themselves.

  I wonder where they find the patience to listen to my answers, which repeat themselves, worn down from use. I even bore—so as not to say irritate—myself.

  They’re bright, educated, motivated. Only rarely do they lose their temper, grow annoyed or speechify. When they believe they’ve detected a contradiction in one of my answers, they truly come alive. When I hurriedly supply them with an explanation, they have a hard time hiding their disappointment. If I were in their place, I’d treat myself completely differently.

  Once they leave, I pass the time by indulging myself with thoughts about their private lives. Do they drive their kids to school in the morning? How do their wives look? Soft? Tough? Generous in spirit? Do they have familial lunches at their parents’ place on Saturday? What is their favorite leisure activity?

  And most of all, what do they tell their wives or girlfriends about their work? Do they tell them that they spend more time in prison than in their offices?

  And about me. Do they mention me? Have I come up in their intimate conversations? And if so, what did they say? What do they think of me? Do they feel some affection for me? Is there some understanding? Professional appreciation for someone who had fooled them using their very own tools? Or do they feel hatred toward the man who has “betrayed” their country?

  I sigh—

  “Is something wrong?” They leap in my direction. “Do you feel okay? Want a doctor? A break? A cold drink?”

  When they get tired of me or my answers, they react with an implied threat: They’ll transfer me to interrogators belonging to a notorious military intelligence unit. These interrogators, as I’ve already grasped, are considered a lot tougher. Truly cruel.

  “With them, you’ll not only spill everything, you’ll beg to spill everything,” they threaten.

  Sometimes I clash with a young interrogator who is particularly energetic and motivated. He’s full of
hostility, and this hostility is clearly evident.

  He’s not satisfied with my answers, lashing out, “I swear to you, I will break you—”

  “In another country, people like you are hung in the central square—”

  “You were a fighter in the Naval Commando. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

  “You think you’re so smart? You’re a lowlife killer—”

  “You’re fifty years old. You’ll never get out of here alive. Not on your life!”

  Until his friends silence him.

  He calms down.

  I don’t.

  Unlike them, I know he’s right.

  ◊◊◊

  Another month goes by. I believe the worst is yet to come. My lawyer disagrees. Today he’s been permitted to meet me in private, after a long period of no contact.

  He arrives all elated. He tells me, with sparkling eyes, that the wall of suppression around me has begun to crack. In the last few days, several British newspapers have published short articles about a “British citizen” who has been under arrest for several months now under conditions of utter secrecy in a friendly country, accused of espionage. The stories did not hint at his identity, or at the identity of the country in which he is being held.

  With an expression of utter mock-innocence, he asks me whether I can venture a guess about who is behind the publication, or why the stories are only appearing in British newspapers.

  I assume a similar expression and shrug.

  He repeats his question, and I shrug again.

  “This can’t be bad for us,” he concludes.

  For us?

  He’s swollen with self-importance, sporting a tie and embalmed in a suit even in the hottest weather, and therefore emanating an unpleasant body odor. He could be anywhere between forty-five and sixty-five, and is always carrying a heavy rectangular briefcase full of documents, none of which have to do with me.

  I don’t trust him and I didn’t want him. He’s known to have close ties with the authorities, and charges his clients unbelievable sums. I had no choice. The judge forced me to hire him, claiming he’s among the few attorneys in the country who have been granted the highest security clearance, as required due to the severity of the charges against me. The Shin Bet begrudgingly agreed to reveal the affair solely to the secretary and treasurer of the kibbutz, so that they, on behalf of the kibbutz, could serve as guarantors for his labor fee.