by Nir Hezroni
Besides one member of the team who remained at the facility, the rest of the group stood up to leave. They thanked the facility’s operators and Rotem skipped over and hugged Meital and Dafna. The door to the facility opened with an electronic buzzing sound, and on the way out they stopped for a while to allow one of the team members who was still feeling nauseous to go to the bathroom and throw up.
Their two cars started to make their way back to the main base. Grandpa wanted them to get organized there, coordinate the raid on the house on Moshav Yanuv with the SWAT team, the Shin Bet, and IDF’s Home Front Command. The team member who remained at the facility sat with his eyes fixed permanently on screen twelve.
Grandpa placed a call to the Operations Room at the main base from the road.
“Put me through to the head of the Operations Division.”
After waiting on the line for thirty seconds, Grandpa continued his conversation with the division chief. “I want you to call the Shin Bet’s headquarters and ask them to cordon off Rabin Square and send people to all the traffic junctions around the petrochemical plants in the Haifa Bay area. I want all the entrances to the plants closed to traffic. I also want them to start going through Tel Aviv and dismantling all the trashcans on the sidewalks in the Sarona area. They need to coordinate things with Home Front Command and the Israel Police with respect to who’s going to take the lead, but I don’t want them fighting over territory like little kids. We’re dealing here with a matter of national security with disastrous potential. Repeat the words, ‘mega attack,’ a few times when you talk to them. And mention Islamic State, too; they love that combination.”
Rotem signaled Grandpa and he passed the phone to her.
“Hey, Mario, it’s Rotem. Is this call being recorded? Good. Tell them the trashcans are on Eliezer Kaplan Street outside the Defense Ministry compound, on the corner of Arania and HaArba’a, along HaArba’a in front of the restaurants all the way to Sprinzak, on the corner of Kaplan and Ibn Gvirol, around the Charles Bronfman Auditorium and HaBima Theatre, on the corner of Ahad Ha’Am and Borochov, on the corner of Rothschild and Shenkin, on David Elazar toward Kaplan, on Begin toward Azrieli, on the HaShalom Interchange bridge—on the bridge itself and leading north away from it, and at the HaShalom train station. That’s all I saw, but there’s a good chance we missed some. Start with those. They need to dismantle every one and transport them all to a secluded location because some are bombs. To be on the safe side, when they’re done with those, they should dismantle all the trashcans in Tel Aviv.”
Grandpa took the phone back from Rotem, concluded the call, and read a text message he received from the team member they had left at the AngelFire facility: “He’s still at home. I’ll update you if there’s any movement.”
“You remembered all that by heart?” Carmit asked, staring at Rotem as if she were an alien.
“My mind works like that. Visually. I look at maps, diagrams, text, and a bunch of other things and see them as a mixture of colors and emotions. It’s hard to explain.”
“I have a knife on me. When we get to the base, I’m going to get you to do Bishop’s trick like that girl at the facility mentioned. I want to check if there’s blood in your veins, or silicone.”
“Speaking of knives,” Grandpa interjected, “if you want to remain with us on the hunt, we need to get you properly armed with a pistol when we get to the base.”
“I’m tagging along for sure. But without a gun. Guns give you an exaggerated sense of security. I’ve seen more armed people get killed than unarmed ones. I prefer not to carry one. My senses are sharper without one.”
December 12, 2016 (13 days ago)
- Remember that guy that Herr Schmidt sends to take care of tough cases?
- He sends us to take care of tough cases.
- Then the guy he sends to take care of very-hard-on-the-verge-of-completely-lost cases. The Barber.
- The one who smells soil and digs holes in the ground?
- Exactly.
- He’s one crazy motherfucker. Just thinking about him gives me the chills.
- Do you know why he is called “the Barber”?
- What?
- How the Barber got his nickname. He wasn’t called the Barber when he was born.
- I think his parents gave him this name. He must have come out from between his mother’s legs wearing that weird priest’s hat on his head and that black coat he wears all the time. I tell you, this person’s brain is scratched on an extreme level.
- You may be right about the hat and coat. I wasn’t there in the delivery room so I can’t contradict you but for the sake of discussion there is a possibility that it was like that.
- So why is he called “the Barber”?
- When he was about seventeen or eighteen his young sister came back from gymnastics, went straight up to her room, and he heard her crying; so he entered her room, sat on the bed beside her, and asked what had happened but she didn’t want to tell him anything at first because she was afraid of what he might do. His family knew he was crazy. Even his sister who was six or seven at that time was afraid that he would react badly.
- And did he react badly?
- It depends who you ask. I think he reacted very well. He persuaded his sister to tell him what had happened and she told him that after class all the other girls had gone home and the gym teacher had asked her to stay for a few more minutes to practice her split and while she did it he felt her, telling her that her leotard was a bit small and she needed to replace it, and he is checking what size she needs to tell her mommy to buy, and he has put his hands in places where a gym teacher’s fingers should not be on a young girl’s body.
- Son of a bitch.
- Son of a fucking bitch. That’s also what the Barber thought then, when he was not yet called “the Barber.” He stroked his sister’s head and told her that everything is going to be okay and he’s going to have a small chat with the gym teacher and explain to him that he behaved badly and did something that he shouldn’t have done. He smiled at his sister and told her she was a great kid and it was not her fault and that the gym teacher would understand it and apologize to her and then he left the room.
- And went to visit the gym teacher?
- Yes.
- And the gym teacher apologized?
- Not at first. When the Barber left his sister’s room he was still smiling at her with reassuring eyes until he looked away and started down the stairs. Then his eyes suddenly emptied and he got that hollow ghost face of his. You know. The one that makes you lose your appetite even if you are hungry.
- Yeah, you do not want to meet him when he’s like that.
- He arrived at the gym and the gym teacher was there, alone, arranging the mattresses and closing the lights and when he wanted to come out the Barber stood there at the door and asked him politely to explain why he had to shove his hands in all kinds of places to measure the size of a leotard.
- And?
- The gym teacher pushed him back and told him that if he ever accused him again of such things or even set foot in the gym he would make him go to jail. “I have friends in the police” he said. “And you can tell your mom to fuck off and never send your sister here again and you can explain to her that it’s because of your big mouth.”
- And did the Barber react badly?
- Here, too, it depends who you ask. In my opinion, again, I think he responded very well.
- What did he do?
- He turned back like he was going away but then did a quick spin and slammed his elbow straight into that place where the nose of the gym teacher meets his forehead and the gym teacher fell to the ground like a sack of tomatoes and lost consciousness.
- A sack of potatoes.
- Tomatoes.
- For the sake of discussion, a sack of potatoes is usually said. That’s what is customary to say. It is a globally adopted standard.
- What does it matter what’s in the sack?
&nb
sp; - I’m just saying that this is the expression one would usually use.
- Okay then, he fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes and his nose started spattering blood like a sprinkler.
- So maybe it is a sack of tomatoes after all, the color is more appropriate.
- Lorenzo, I swear to God that if you start with me again I’m stopping this story and focusing only on my plate until we finish eating.
- Okay, so what happened next?
- When the gym teacher woke up he was tied to those wooden ladders you have on the walls of gymnasiums in the position of Christ crucified. And naked.
- The Barber picked him up and tied him there without any help?
- He just looks thin but under that black coat of his there’s muscle. He undressed him, picked him up like a rag doll, and tied him to the ladders, hands spread out and legs apart.
- Jesus’s legs were straight.
- What?
- You said he tied him in the position of Christ crucified, for the sake of discussion, I say, Jesus’s legs were in a straight line on the crucifix. More or less. Not apart.
- It’s impossible to have a conversation with you.
* * *
Ricardo stopped talking and turned his attention to the dinner table. He cut a piece of his steak and chewed it slowly. Then he followed the steak with a long gulp of beer and went back to cutting the next bite. Another beer. Another bite. More beer. Fries. Beer. Steak. Beer. Fries.
- So?
- So what?
- So what happened when the gym teacher woke up tied to the ladder?
- I tell you, Lorenzo, this is one of the best fries I have ever eaten. The thickness and the degree of making are just right. Perfect. Not too soft and not too burned. Golden, I would say. And just the right amount of salt. Do you know who makes the best fries in the world? The Dutch. The bastards know how to make it. They fry it first in a hundred and seventy degrees and then when it’s soft they fry it at two hundred and fifty degrees only for just a little more time to get it crunchy from the outside but soft on the inside. Just when you think you have seen it all you wander around in Amsterdam and you say to yourself “I’m hungry, what shall I eat? Oh, here is a fries store right here in the street close by, why won’t I have some fries now, I know fries, I like fries” and you buy the fries and you taste one, and it’s the best fucking fry you ever had and it makes you—
- And the gym teacher?
- Ah, do you find that story interesting?
- Very interesting, actually this is one of the better stories I have heard recently.
- Right. And you will never know how it ends.
- Why?
- Because it’s fucking impossible to have a conversation with you. Because you’re always picking on the little things and shifting the conversation to side tracks instead of driving on the Turnpike with Cruise Control.
- Okay, I’ll try to hold back. What happened when the gym teacher woke up tied naked to a ladder in the gymnasium?
- He saw the Barber standing in front of him with a roll of fishing line, a needle, scissors, and a Stanley Knife.
- This sounds good. Do continue.
- The Barber who was not yet called the Barber told the gym teacher who was still a gym teacher “I will turn on my phone camera and aim it to your face and you will apologize to Chrissy on video and tell her you are sorry you touched her that way and will never do anything like that ever. Not to her and not to any other girl.”
- Chrissy is his sister?
- Yeah. Christine. She lives in Iowa today, I think.
- And did he apologize?
- Nope. He wouldn’t say anything. He probably assumed the recording could circulate on the Net and then all the girls he had been harassing would file complaints and their families would come to haunt him in an endless series of trials for rape and sexual abuse so he kept his mouth shut and didn’t say a word. Just looked at the Barber and shut up.
- I assume it would have been better for him to speak and record that apology.
- You assume correctly. The Barber looked at the naked man on the ladder for a minute and then went and closed all the windows and locked the doors of the gym, switched off most of the lights, and went back to the gym teacher. He tied many twists of fishing thread around the top of his scrotum and with one cut of the Stanley Knife he took off his balls.
- Motherfucker! That’s unpleasant.
- Damn right. The gym teacher was screaming like a slaughtered pig and the Barber knocked a small training weight on the side of his head so he wouldn’t disturb him while he was stitching.
- Stitching?
- Stitching the scrotum around the chin of the gym teacher with the needle and fishing line.
- So you can say he gave him a double chin.
- Yeah, a fucking double chin.
Ricardo began to laugh out loud. Lorenzo’s jokes were mostly annoying but this one was a gem. Some of the diners at the nearby tables turned their heads toward the twins. “Fucking double chin! I tell ya, HA HA.”
- You know, that still doesn’t explain why he’s called “the Barber.” I would say “swordsman” or “samurai” or “butcher” or “tailor” would be more appropriate.
- Once he finished stitching he took a step back and looked, but the picture was not perfect in his opinion so he took the scissors and gave him a nicer chin haircut. Something more modern for the hair on the gym teacher’s balls hanging from his chin, you know, like a French beard. Then he went to the bathroom, filled a bucket with cold water and poured it on the head of the gym teacher and woke him up and as he started screaming again from the pain down his groin and up his chin the Barber stood there holding his phone and recording a video of the whole thing.
- And did he kill him after that?
- Nope. He left him there tied up and went home and that’s how they found the gym teacher the next morning. Tied to the ladders with a fashionable double-chinned French beard. Before the Barber went away he told the gym teacher that he is welcome to go to the police and press charges. He hasn’t done so until today, twenty years or so after that night, even when the Barber sends him an email every Christmas with greetings and an attachment of a few seconds from the video he took back then.
- So he had no friends in the police.
- Who?
- The gym teacher. He said he had friends in the police.
- He must have lied.
- So that’s how the Barber got his name?
- So they say.
- Who?
- Everyone.
- It’s interesting that I haven’t heard of it until now. Ricardo, are you sure you did not make it up here in the restaurant while we were eating?
- My imagination is not that wild. You can call Chrissy if you want to hear more details.
- I would rather die in torture than mess with the Barber’s sister.
- You are a wise man.
12/20/2016–16 days after putting the plan into motion
I go down to the basement, turn on the light, open the folding chair, and sit down in front of the cage. I tell Amiram and Efrat that in honor of my birthday, which falls today, I’ve decided to give them a deck of cards to play with and a full day of light in the basement. I light a candle and leave it on the basement floor and go back upstairs without turning off the light. I begin playing a collection of children’s birthday songs on a loop through the basement speakers.
I sit at the kitchen table to sort out the notes I’ve made to myself. I go through them and neatly copy their contents into my notebook. Later I’ll decide which of them can be incorporated into my plan and which can’t, but everything has to be well documented.
• Connect cable from high-voltage pylon to metal railing (disconnect earth).
• Connect trashcan bomb to large helium canister, release close to a stadium hosting a game with the wind blowing in the right direction.
• Fly a plane into the main base (check the possibilit
y of getting work as a flight attendant for an airline that flies to Israel).
• Small circular candles under the tires of a vehicle I wish to disable (not immediate).
• Sealing a room and lighting a portable burner inside will empty the space of oxygen. (Within how many hours? Check formula.)
• Arson using a large tub of contact glue—4 holes in the sides of the tub near the bottom, seal with strips of masking tape around the tub, remove masking tape, and light to set off. Within 2 minutes or so, the flame will heat the tub and produce 4 jets of burning contact adhesive.
• Check if it’s better to prepare a Molotov cocktail to torch the carpet van or to keep a jerrycan of gasoline and a box of matches in the vehicle.
•To obtain a password for a laptop or tablet, you don’t have to decrypt anything. The encryption’s algorithms are very complicated. It’s easier to listen to the electromagnetic pattern of the keys on the keyboard and thus obtain the password.
• Walk into a cosmetic surgery clinic while someone is undergoing liposuction, neutralize the doctor, and inject a liquid explosive with a tiny detonator. Could be used to bring down an aircraft.
• Buy a police uniform.
•After neutralizing the driver of the gas tanker, drive into the main base, if accessible, under the pretense of making a gas delivery, and hook up the tanker to the bunker’s sprinkler system (empty the water 1st). Using sufficient pressure, the entire building can be filled with gas, and then even the smallest electrical spark will cause the whole place to explode, with devastating effect because the facility is sealed underground. No one will get out alive.
I drive to HaHarzit Street in Savyon, remain in the car, and connect to the Wi-Fi network I located the last time I was there.
I open the laptop, go to the Organization’s website and click on the “Submit Application” link. The system asks me to check the boxes alongside the character traits most applicable to myself. I select “Sociable,” “Team Player,” and “Level-headed & Responsible,” and then provide answers to a long list of questions. Education, languages, military service, employment, particulars about trips abroad.