“As we know the break-in is almost certainly going to be discovered,” I remarked, “wouldn’t it make sense to simply take the file with us instead of wasting time photographing the contents? Especially seeing that I’ll be doing it on my own?”
Udi said that he’d asked this question, and the reply he had received was that if there was any chance at all that the break-in not be discovered, that would be best. But even if it was, we didn’t want the Gimbers people to know which of the thousands of files had been handled; if they did, they would be able to conceal the evidence and ship the goods to the Iranians before we could get the local police to raid them.
I didn’t ask why I was chosen to be the operative most likely to be burned, but I was told anyway: from the point of view of cover, Niki and I were a very strong duo. I was the point man of the operation and the person most likely to be photographed because if I were to be identified and questioned, with Niki’s help, I would have the best chance of getting out of trouble. This sounded reasonable to me.
Ronen was left without a role in the break-in, unless something went wrong, like police cars showing up at the site or chasing us. His job would be to enable us to escape. He would also be the one who would sneak Niki and me out of the hotel parking basement on the way to the target, and back again afterwards, and then get Udi out of Sweden.
A check of the ways of leaving Stockholm showed that it would be better for us not to depart the morning after the op because it was possible that photographs of Udi and me would reach airport security by then, and in any event the names of departing passengers would be registered as suspects in the break-in. Leaving by ferryboat too soon would also involve border formalities, with the same risks. Travelling to Norway across Sweden involved a 300-mile trip, and the local authorities were unlikely to suspect that anyone would escape that way. In the end it was decided that Udi and Ronen would take the overland route out to Oslo, and Niki and I would stay in Sweden for a day and go to the meetings that had been set up for us with gallery owners and publishers as part of our cover stories.
In discussions with Avi, it was decided that our cover stories would be stronger if Niki and I didn’t turn up in Stockholm as a couple, but rather arrive at the hotel as strangers and stage a pick-up scene, to be witnessed by hotel staffers. This would make the conclusion by investigators that we’d come there as a team, intending to provide each other with cover, less apparent. Avi told us to forget all the “couple-cover” work we’d done in Toronto. My address would be the Beach apartment and Niki’s the Old Town one. We practised a chance meeting of two Torontonians in a hotel lounge, and set out on our mission.
Thus, the Canadian artist Ron Friedlich found himself, towards the end of a frosty, gloomy winter, going from one Scandinavian gallery to another, with a portfolio of his work under his arm. For two days, I was in enchanting Copenhagen, where the cobbled streets behind the City Hall are lined with galleries: I could have sold all of my paintings there. In Oslo, where I spent the next two days, my success was partial at best, and I had to make do with the business cards of the snobbish curators. Then I travelled to even-colder Stockholm and took up residence in the Best Western Kung Carl hotel. The Best Western chain has four hotels in the city and I thought of choosing the Terminus, situated next to the railway station, something that might be useful for a getaway, but in the end picked the Kung Carl, which is right in the city centre. As I was to meet Niki in Stockholm, I thought we would be able to enjoy a little more of what Stockholm had to offer if we stayed there. It made sense for a Canadian artist to take a North American hotel that wasn’t too expensive – the Kung Carl had a four-star rating. It had a few other advantages, too. Despite its tall, pyramid-like structure, it was fairly intimate, with a small lobby and bar lounge, where Niki and I would be able to meet up, as planned.
Not a bad job, this, getting to visit a different country every few weeks I thought, as the train from Oslo arrived in Stockholm. Time and again I found myself in awe at the beauty of Europe’s capital cities, and Stockholm was no less beautiful than any other imperial capital, with its splendid palaces and homes situated on the islands in the strait between Lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea, where the city stands.
I waited for Niki to arrive before touring the city and in the meantime called several galleries from the hotel. Some of them wouldn’t even meet me; they didn’t operate in such a disorganized fashion and weren’t ready even to consider accepting an unknown artist’s work. But there were some who agreed to take a look, and at the set time, the owner, or the curator, or the artistic adviser was waiting for me to show my portfolio. Their reactions were not at all bad, and within two days four galleries, all of them in Drottninggatan, “Queen’s Street”, had agreed to buy my works. Drottninggatan is a busy pedestrianised shopping street in the heart of Norrmalm, in the northern part of the city, among buildings which were quite old, stone structures and the others which were more modern but all of which were of a reasonable height, five or six storeys. There was something ascetic about this city which had maintained its traditions and never chased after American-style progress.
I had only three RF pictures left when Niki came to the hotel. She’d spent four days in Berlin, where she found a brim-full literary scene, and another day of meetings in Finland, where she’d signed a contract with a well-thought-of young poet. In Stockholm, she’d set up four meetings in the first two days, after which our operation was scheduled to take place, and another one for the next day.
I was sitting in the hotel lounge, on a leather two-seater, its back to the wall, facing the bar. There were two leather armchairs next to the coffee table in front of me. The other seating groups in the lounge were occupied, and the set-up suited me. I had sat in the bar on the two previous evenings as well, and struck up a friendship with the young Turkish barman. This evening, I’d ordered a Campari and cola, half and half, in a tall glass. The brown of the cola and the red of the Campari gave the drink the colour of blood. After taking a healthy sip, I began looking at the catalogues of several galleries that I’d brought with me.
I smelled Niki’s perfume before I saw her and looked up: her dyed-blond hair had startled me for a moment. She was wearing a dark dress with low-heeled shoes and her shoulders were covered by a shawl. Clearly she had come from her room and not from outside. She went straight up to the bar and asked for a Bacardi and soda. With the drink in her hand, she glanced around the lounge. All the groups of seats were occupied and the barman surveyed the space, trying to help her. When his eye caught mine, I nodded, indicating that it was OK for her to sit with me.
“Maybe near this gentleman here,” he said, and gestured towards me. With feigned embarrassment, Niki asked me if that was all right and I said of course it was.
She sat on one of the leather armchairs, put down her glass, took a manuscript out of her bag, and began reading.
We’d been apart for a week, establishing our individual cover stories. Her eyes were immersed in the manuscript, the barman was dealing with some other people, and I could now study the features of my sweetheart without any distractions. They had something unfamiliar about them. The week’s separation had created a slight distance between us that enabled me to observe her with a certain degree of detachment. She was so gorgeous. My gaze caressed the now fair hair, which intensified her glow; her ivory forehead, her fine eyebrows, and her eyes which, as she was looking downwards at the manuscript, seemed to be half-closed from where I was sitting. Her small, chiselled nose, her child-like lips slightly open, with the tip of her pen between them. Her high cheekbones and taut cheeks, which I knew would make the sound of a drum when I tapped them with my fingers. Her pointed chin. Her long and slender throat, with the deep hollow at the bottom, and on either side of the hollow, the two collarbones that seemed separate from her body, running on under the shoulder straps of her dress.
I can reconstruct every second of the tortuous process of our getting to know one another and becoming lovers,
a process which made us one body and one soul, and yet then, in that hotel bar, with Niki playing the stranger, I felt I could start wanting her from the beginning again.
I finished my drink, and went up to the bar for another. I quietly asked the barman if he knew who she was, and he said he didn’t. I asked for a dish of almonds for myself, and another for her, and when I placed it on the table in front of her and she raised her lovely eyes to look at me I asked her, aware of the inquisitive gaze of the barman, where she was from.
“Canada,” she replied and I burst out laughing.
“Canada! So am I,” and against the rules of correct etiquette I offered her my hand, and introduced myself, “Ron Friedlich.”
Niki gave a little smile, brushed her hand against mine, and went back to her manuscript.
I exchanged a brief glance with the barman, a shared masculine objection to female reticence, and went back to my catalogues.
After a while, I asked the barman for a pen and paper, and drew her. I got up and left, leaving the drawing and my room number with the barman. “Give it to her when she leaves,” I requested, and politely took my leave.
It was a little hell, trying to sleep alone a few doors away from each other, and after she called to thank me for the drawing, we couldn’t restrain ourselves and she came to my room, violating the explicit instructions of the operational orders. The stolen sex was sweeter than ever, making up for the week of celibacy and of missing each other, but before daybreak, a moment before Niki slipped away to her room, she said with a grave expression, “I don’t want this kind of life of lies and stolen love. I want us to be together, out in the open. You painting and selling your work, and me meeting young writers, editing and publishing their work in Canada. When will it be like that? When?”
And with a tear appearing in the corner of her eye, she vanished into the corridor.
I knew that her complaint was justified. Totally. I felt a wholeness when I painted and nothing else – except when I was making love with Niki – allowed me to immerse myself deeply into it, with my entire being, to ignore the world around, to be at one with my creations. I felt like the composer, the player and the conductor of a piece of music, all three together at the same time. When I looked at the completed work, I sometimes felt euphoric, and when my paintings were exhibited or sold I felt enormous happiness. It was absolutely clear to me that my artistic talent emanated from deep inside me. With utter clarity I saw how the fulfilment of my artistic talent gave me a sense of self-realization, satisfaction, and even serenity. And I knew that like any other strong inner urge, if it did not find release, I would feel unfulfilled and frustrated. I had to rate my inner abilities by their intensity, and to realize them accordingly, and with me, this meant that painting – and of course my love for Niki – had to have higher priority than the break-in to Gimbers the following night, and everything connected to that. And once again I was compelled to conclude that my order of priorities was all screwed up.
For a moment, the slight insult that I’d felt at being chosen to be “burned” was replaced by an odd hope: if I was in fact burned, I would at last be able to put my priorities in order. To be what I was meant to be by virtue of my inner, natural abilities.
I would try, at least, to eke out a few more hours of togetherness with my Niki and in the hotel dining room I initiated an exchange, “Didn’t we meet in the bar last night?” and suggested we tour the city together. Surprised, she accepted.
We walked along the bridges that led to the parliament building, which was located on a small island on the strait that bisects the city. From there, we continued through the old city, passing the baroque royal palace and the opera house and then, in this compact city it wasn’t far to the garden neighbourhoods, the southernmost of which are located on a cliff overlooking the archipelago that stretches out towards Finland.
In the late afternoon we met up with Udi, Ronen, Avi and Moshik in a restaurant. Moshik gave us the latest intelligence. Now it was definite that I had to get to Room 205 on the second floor of the Gimbers office building where the bookkeeping files were kept, and to photograph a file labelled “Checkmate.” Avi had brought the jamming devices with him. The plan called for Niki to activate one of them from the car which would disrupt the cameras covering the wall and the alarm beam that passed along the top of it, while Udi and I climbed over the wall into the plant’s grounds. Udi would remain in the yard to deal with any guards who turned up and would operate the second device to neutralize the cameras outside the building. I would use the third when I was inside to jam the cameras in the corridor and Room 205 and the alarms.
In the Mercedes with dark tinted windows that Moshik had rented, we drove around the plant and tied up the loose ends: where we would stop and dismount, where Niki would park and wait for us, where Ronen would wait in the second car. Back in town, Moshik handed to Udi the car that Niki would be driving. Avi had rented a Toyota Land Cruiser SUV for Ronen, big enough for him to be able to block, by any means necessary, vehicles that tried to interfere with or chase after us. The two of them drove off and Niki and I headed back to the Best Western Kung Carl to finish off establishing our cover story. Ronen checked into the same hotel.
When I entered the lounge, the barman told me that Niki was really wowed by the drawing and had said she’d call me. “She called,” I confirmed, adding that we’d arranged to meet in the lounge that evening.
This time we made sure that snatches of our conversation would be heard by the bartender.
“St. George College? Really?”
“The Varsity Blues football team? You don’t say!”
In a short while we were deep in animated conversation. Then we said goodnight to the barman, and I left him a very generous tip. We went up to Niki’s room, where the Swedish investigators were meant to find me next morning, if things went wrong. We didn’t pass up on a brief sexual interlude before ordering a late supper from room service. When it came, I opened the door clad in only a bathrobe and Niki made sure the waiter heard her saying something to me.
An hour later, we took the elevator down to the parking level where Ronen met us and took us – heads down to avoid being seen – in his SUV to the rendezvous with Udi. We moved to the Mercedes, and Ronen drove to his waiting place, a few hundred yards away from the plant where he would be listening in on our wavelength ready to deal with any number of contingencies, when and if they occurred.
Niki took the Mercedes’s driver’s seat, with the jamming device in her hand. Udi and I, wearing work overalls with all the implements we might need in the pockets, sat next to the doors, ready to jump out, Udi in front and I in the backseat. Fortunately, winter was almost over and we could make do with relatively light clothing. We donned specifically designed heavy plastic masks which would make the job of identifying us a little more difficult. Traffic on the road to Gimbers was sparse, and the moment came when we could stop close to the wall.
“Go! Go!” Niki shouted excitedly when she got the signal from the device indicating that the cameras and alarm were neutralized. I patted her left shoulder, the only sign of affection I allowed myself at this juncture, and just before we leaped out I saw Udi patting her on her right shoulder, and I couldn’t help feeling a pang of jealousy. But he was the commander and that was his way of encouraging his young warrior.
Stopping and leaving the car took no more than three seconds, which we had established during the dry runs in Israel, and in another three seconds we were glued to the wall. Niki kept the jammer running, Udi made a “thieves’ ladder” for me with his hands, heaving me onto his shoulders, so I could use clippers to snip the razor wire atop the wall and push it aside with the asbestos gloves I had donned. I switched my jammer on and pointed it at the building, shifted myself around and gave my hand to Udi, straining my muscles to their limit to lift his not-inconsiderable weight, and within a minute we were both on the plant’s grounds. I heard Niki doing a U-turn. She had to keep her jammer on in order to p
revent the transmission of the pictures of our break-in that had been stored in the camera.
Now it was Udi’s turn to jam the cameras and the alarm on the outside and I hurried to the building. Getting through the door was easy with all the pre-adjusted gear I had in the pockets of my jumpsuit and all the practice runs I’d done. As soon as I was inside I activated my jammer, got the confirmation signal and in a few seconds I was up the stairs and at the door to room 205. Here too the lock gave way quickly. I silently blessed the techies’ skills, neutralized the alarm and the camera, and found the filing cabinet.
Within a couple of minutes that seemed like eternity I located the Checkmate file. It was thicker than I thought it would be, and I realized that photographing the contents would take longer than we’d planned for. I regretted that Ronen wasn’t with me because we could have divided the work. But I reported to Udi and began snapping the documents, one at a time. I hadn’t even completed half the task when I heard Udi’s voice.
“Patrol in the building. Get down where you are.”
I marked my place, closed the file and returned it to the drawer. Then I hid in the space behind the filing cabinet that I had noted previously was out of the camera’s view and pretty much hidden from the entrance to the room. Like Niki, I kept the jammer working, so that the footage that had backed up wouldn’t be transmitted. I could now hear the guards’ footsteps and voices. It took no time at all for them to reach room 205 and it seemed to me that they had headed straight for it. They opened the door, switched the light on and looked around. One of them went to the camera, checked it and tapped it a few times. The two exchanged some words in Swedish then left.
I waited until their voices and footsteps faded before coming out of my hiding place and resuming the job. I reported to Udi, but he didn’t reply and I assumed the guards were passing close to him. A minute later I heard his voice in my earphone: “How much have you still got?”
Final Stop, Algiers: A Thriller Page 29