The Jerusalem Assassin

by Avraham Azrieli

  Lemmy got up. “Don’t move anything. I’ve memorized the battlefield, and I’m winning.”

  “You’re dreaming, Papa!”

  He twisted his face at Paula, who picked up the knife threateningly. He circled her at a safe distance and snatched the receiver. “Yes?”

  “Are you watching the news?” The voice was meek and scratchy, but Lemmy recognized it instantly.

  “Excuse me?”

  Paula gave him a curious look.

  Elie Weiss coughed. “Turn on your TV.”

  Lemmy’s hand tightened around the receiver. Elie had never called him at home.

  “Watch the report from Paris.”

  “What is this about?” Lemmy glanced at Paula, whose eyes moistened from the sliced onion.

  Elie said, “Here’s what I need you to do. First-”

  “I beg your pardon.” Lemmy tried to keep his voice formal, professional. “Please call my office on Monday morning. I’m sure we can assist you.”

  “Shut up!” Elie’s voice was still hushed, but the rage came through clearly. “Security is not important anymore.”

  Lemmy wiped the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. He could feel Paula and Klaus Junior watching him.

  “Listen carefully. First, as soon as the prince contacts you, call me at the Hilton Paris under the name Rupert Danzig. Second, you must take over the bank ASAP. We’re out of time.”

  Lemmy almost choked. He couldn’t believe Elie was saying this on an open line. “This is highly irregular-”

  “Get rid of your father-in-law. Tomorrow. It’s an order!”

  “Who is this?”

  “Remember who you are! Nekamah! ”

  The line went dead.

  “ Is everything all right?” Paula asked.

  “An odd duck. Some clients are just…weird.”

  “Papa? What’s your next move?”

  “Coming.” Lemmy could hardly believe what had just happened. Elie’s voice on his home phone, with Paula and Klaus Junior a few feet away. Such an invasion was never supposed to happen. Complete separation was the only way things worked. Otherwise Wilhelm Horch’s life would collapse like a tower of cards.

  Get rid of your father-in-law. Tomorrow. It’s an order!

  Was Elie losing it? Armande Hoffgeitz as a target? A job inside the family? It was madness! Why the sudden urgency?

  The news!

  “Papa? Are you playing? Check! ”

  Lemmy advanced a pawn, an irrelevant move.

  Klaus Junior moved in for the kill and announced, “ Check mate! ”

  “Great game.” Lemmy got up and walked out of the kitchen, not looking at Paula. He could not face her.

  In the living room, he turned the TV on to CNN.

  Klaus Junior followed him. Lemmy put his arm around the boy’s shoulders, and they watched the broadcast from Paris, a procession of injured people and body bags moving across the screen.

  *

  Everything was white-the walls, the ceiling, the door, the sheets that covered Tanya. Even the curtain hanging from a circular rail around the bed was white. A woman appeared, her coat white, hair white, face white, only her lips were red as rose petals. “Ah! Madame is awake!”

  Tanya tried to sit up. “Am I dead?”

  “Not at all,” the woman said matter of fact, as if responding to a normal question. She pointed to an embroidered logo on her coat: Saint Antoine Hospital.

  The pain appeared suddenly, as if someone hit her head with a hard object. Tanya groaned and touched a bandage on her right temple.

  “Careful.” The nurse held her hand. “You had a concussion. Do you remember?”

  It took a moment for the memory to surface. “The synagogue!”

  “Yes, terrible. The detectives would like to speak with you when you’re ready.”

  As soon as the nurse left, Tanya got out of bed. She was dizzy from the pain in her head, but this was no time for self-pity.

  The cabinet doors were not locked. Her dress, which was dark enough to hide the bloodstains, was draped over a hanger, and her shoes rested on a shelf next to her purse, which contained false identification papers and a credit card that could not be traced. Tanya got dressed, rinsed her face in the white basin, let her hair down over the bandage, and left.

  *

  Sunday, October 22, 1995

  Prince Abusalim spent the night in a sparse room with only a prayer rug to cushion the concrete. At dawn, he was brought to his father’s chamber, and they prayed together. No words were exchanged, and Abusalim figured this was his punishment-a night of seclusion, discomfort, and repentance.

  Within an hour of sunrise, the air was already warm and dry, the palm trees still, and the servants hushed with dread. Sheik Da’ood az-Zubayr kneeled, his forehead on the carpet, and completed his prayers. Hajj Ibn Saroah helped him rise.

  Prince Abusalim touched his forehead down once more and got up. The long galabiya covered him as a cloak, reaching down to the plain sandals. He could smell his own body odor and longed to soak in a foam bath, sit on the balcony in view of the Eiffel Tower, and sip chardonnay while browsing the Wall Street Journal. He took his father’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you for making me realize my errors-”

  The sheik pulled his hand away and left the room with the hajj.

  Prince Abusalim followed, puzzled by his father’s behavior. Two limousines waited at the foot of the marble steps. The first had already departed when Prince Abusalim got into the second. It drove in silence down the road toward the airstrip. He twisted his face at the bittersweet smell of smoke and animal manure that drifted over from the tribesmen’s huts.

  They climbed into the Boeing 747, and the doors were shut. The front sitting room was paneled with gold and thick cushions. He went upstairs to the miniature mosque on the upper-deck and sat with an open Koran. The carpeted floor floated on a swivel to allow it to turn toward Mecca no matter where the plane was heading.

  The engines roared and the pilots began taxiing. The plane was less than two years old, equipped with state-of-the-art flight instrumentation, including a live link to the command center at the main Royal Saudi Air Force, enabling the pilots to view air traffic in every part of the region, including neighboring Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, and the Gulf Emirates.

  After takeoff, they turned west toward the Red Sea. The prince pushed aside the silk curtain and looked out the window. The yellow desert was vast, stretching through the horizon, its monotony disrupted only by an occasional nomads’ encampment, a handful of camels and sheep grazing on a faded stain of greenery.

  The hajj appeared at the door. “Your father wishes to see you.”

  On the main level, in the rear suite, a large TV was playing. At first the screen was red. Then the camera zoomed out from a man’s open chest and shifted to his face, which was twisted, mouth open in a last scream. It moved across a demolished hall, resting briefly on a shattered body, a severed hand on a bed of charred prayer books, a woman kneeling by a boy who sat upright, his head slumped forward, unresponsive to her pleas. In the background, a recording of a short conversation was played:

  “ Paris-Une. Oui? ”

  “This is the Abu Yusef group.”

  “Yes?”

  “We attacked the synagogue on Rue Buffault. Our freedom fighters committed this brave attack under the command of our leader, Abu Yusef, the future president of Palestine.”

  “Wait a minute! Who are you?”

  “Our leader is Abu Yusef, the future president of Palestine. We will continue our struggle until Palestine is free again! Long live Palestine!”

  The TV screen again filled with red, focusing on a stained sheet over a dead body.

  Prince Abusalim felt his knees go soft. This was the reason his father had ordered him into seclusion last night! He kneeled and bowed, his forehead to the carpet. He remained in this position until the plane landed near Mecca.

  Two Mercedes sedans waited at the end of the runway. Ag
ain the sheik and the hajj went in the first, Prince Abusalim in the second. The sun was high already, the yellow desert surrounded by dark peaks-in the east, Jabel Ajyad and Jabel Qubays, in the northeast, Jabel Hira, where Mohammed had once found seclusion. They drove down the Al-Mudda’ah Avenue, which was crowded with pilgrims. Ancient Mecca had been the oasis on the caravan route connecting the Mediterranean coast with Arabia, Africa, and Asia. But since Mohammed had returned here in 630 AD, it had become a city of religious fervor. How he missed Paris! But not the bloody sights from Abu Yusef’s synagogue attack. What unfortunate timing, just as his father was going to forgive him!

  Prince Abusalim knew he must convince his father that the attack was part of a holy jihad. The Jews had brought it upon themselves. Unlike Arafat, Abu Yusef had the stomach to continue fighting. One day the Jews would tire of death and sorrow, leave the Middle East to its rightful Arab owners, and go to America or Canada, where many of them already lived safely among the Christians. And Abu Yusef would rule Palestine, with the power to appoint the new mufti of Jerusalem.

  Confident in his grand plan, Prince Abusalim was ready to grovel before his father in this holy place and put on a show of solemn penitence-a small price to pay for the glory awaiting him down the road.

  The cars stopped at the gates to the vast courtyard of the el-Harem Mosque. They were greeted by a group of az-Zubayr tribesmen, who led the way across the huge courtyard, through the noise and dust, toward the black Ka’abah.

  The sheik stood in front of the giant singed cube. He looked up at the holiest shrine of Islam-the building that Ibrahim and Ishmael, his son by Hagar, had built together as a replica of God’s house in heaven.

  Hajj Vahabh Ibn Saroah beckoned Prince Abusalim to his father’s side. The prince knelt in the dust. He prepared to bow for prayers, but paused. Something was wrong.

  The sheik nodded at the hajj, closed his eyes, and began whispering verses from the Koran.

  The hajj drew his crooked blade. “Extend your hand forward, thief!”

  Prince Abusalim froze with fear. He could not comprehend this terrible turn of events. He had expected his father to demand that he prayed, maybe even crawled in the dust to beg forgiveness. But to suffer the fate of a common thief? “Father! I beg you!”

  “You stole. You pay.” Hajj Vahabh Ibn Saroah raised his shabriya, its blade pointing to the sky. “Your right hand!”

  “ No!” Prince Abusalim tried to rise, but two of the men held him down. “I need my hand,” he cried. “Father! Don’t do this to me!”

  The only response from the sheik was more verses, recited in a louder voice.

  The hajj reached down, grabbed Prince Abusalim’s wrist, and pulled it forward, holding it tightly.

  The prince could barely breathe. He imagined his severed hand dropping to the yellow sand, twitching with remnants of life. “Father! No!”

  The sheik’s voice grew even louder, the verses uttered in quick succession, drowning out his son’s pleas.

  The sun reflected in the crooked blade as Prince Abusalim felt his wrist pulled forcefully, extended before him, his open palm facing up, pale as a fearful face.

  *

  Tanya stood at the window while a group of Mossad agents searched the apartment on Rue Buffault. Elie and his two agents must have departed in a hurry, leaving behind food, towels, linen, and a few audio books. The street below was quiet. The synagogue forecourt had been cleaned up, but orange tape still blocked access to the building. A police car parked at the curb with two officers inside.

  Tanya touched her forehead, still tender. She had searched her memory repeatedly, but could not remember any suspicious person or unusual behavior prior to the explosions. She had not even seen the grenades fly, because at that moment she was reaching down into a bag of candy. The darkness had lifted only when she woke up in the hospital.

  “We’re done here,” one of her agents said. He pointed to the dismantled box of the computer. “They ripped out the hard drive.”

  “Pack up everything. I want hair samples, gun residue, prints, anything you can find.”

  She was already in the hallway when another agent stopped her. He held up an empty pill bottle. “Found it behind the bed. Pain killers. No patient’s name, though. It’s from a pharmacy near Gare du Nord.”

  “ Go see the pharmacist,” Tanya said. “Samples go to doctors who do regular business at the shop. This could be our lead.”

  *

  The hajj sliced downward with the crooked blade. It sank into the flesh of the open palm. Prince Abusalim flinched and let out a cry. The hajj pulled the shabriya sideways, carving the flesh, and let go of the prince’s wrist. He wiped the blade on his galabiya and slid it into the sheath.

  Prince Abusalim pressed his hands together and fell forward, his face in the sand. His hand was on fire, wet with blood, but the pain was mixed with relief. His father could have ordered the hand severed completely, as done to ordinary thieves, but instead his palm was cut symbolically, the wrist unharmed, the fingers working normally.

  Sheik az-Zubayr knelt in the sand and bowed before Allah. The men around them did the same, and for a few moments the small group was an island of stillness in the midst of a bustling sea of pilgrims.

  The hajj helped Sheik az-Zubayr to his feet. Prince Abusalim remained bowed, more out of feebleness than of devoutness. The kafiya fell from his head, and his unkempt black hair turned gray from the dust. One of the men bandaged the wound while the prince fought back tears of pain and relief.

  *

  In Zurich, the pastor spoke about gratitude for God’s gift of life on earth. The old church of the Fraumunster, with its towering stained-glass windows, glowed on sunny days, and this Sunday was especially glorious. Lemmy sat in the front row with his wife, son, and father-in-law. The church was almost full, though most were tourists. Every Zurich guidebook recommended the Fraumunster for its Chagall windows, whose incredibly vivid biblical figures dominated the sanctuary in bold colors. Lemmy was tickled by the irony-a Christian place of worship, glorified by the creations of a Jewish artist.

  He felt Klaus Junior squeeze his hand as they stood to sing a hymn. Looking up at the impossibly high window depicting Jesus, he wondered what Chagall had been thinking as he painted the man whose life and death had inspired two millennia of Christian anti-Semitism, of bloody crusades, riotous burnings at the stake, a torturous inquisition, deadly pogroms, and a Holocaust perpetrated by Nazis bearing a swastika-a version of Christ’s cross with twisted tips. Illuminated by the unseasonal sun, the face of Jesus glowed as if it had an internal source of energy. The primary colors signaled joy, but on closer inspection Lemmy saw no happiness in the face of Chagall’s Jesus. His expression was severe, almost angry, glaring down at the full church, as if the hymned prayers were nothing but distasteful banter. Had this been Chagall’s private joke-to accept the hefty fee raised by Armande Hoffgeitz and his colleagues back in the sixties for the beautification of the ancient church, only to deliver a towering portrait of their savior as an angry Jew, his face expressing revulsion at their misuse of his name to justify mass murders of his kin?

  Lemmy realized his father-in-law was watching him. They smiled at each other and continued to sing. Klaus Junior stood between them, holding both their hands, his thin voice sounding over the adults’ chorus. He was secure in his world of church and school, of doting parents and a loving grandfather. How would he react when told of Armande’s death? How well would a ten-year-old recover from the shock of hearing that his grandfather was shot by an assassin? And it could be worse! Every assassination on Lemmy’s secret record had been accomplished under the cover of anonymity, a quick jab of violence in a faraway location, followed by immediate departure, leaving no trace. He was a professional, his training was excellent and his preparations meticulous. He had never before feared capture, even when Elie had sent him on uniquely dangerous jobs. In his mind, the survival of the Jewish people was more important than the fate of one
man, including himself. But what about the fate of one boy? What, Lemmy wondered, if he got caught this time, exposed as Herr Hoffgeitz’s killer? After all, being the next in line to lead the bank, he would automatically become a suspect. And this was Zurich, the place where he lived and worked and possessed a wide circle of acquaintances, which would make the scandal even worse. How could Klaus Junior survive the loss of both his father and grandfather at the same time in such horrific, outrageous circumstances? This was a risk Lemmy could not take. He would not chance breaking his son’s heart!

  Elie’s admonishment rang in Lemmy’s ears. Your wife and son are Gentiles. Goyim. They’re your cover. Nothing more!

  *

  The Boeing 747 brought them back to the az-Zubayr oasis. The sheik’s personal physician sewed up Prince Abusalim’s hand. He changed into a clean galabiya and went to bid his father farewell.

  The sheik embraced his son. “I now understand that Allah wanted me to see my own error in allowing my son to live among the infidels, where evil temptations led you to stumble.”

  “ Don’t blame yourself, Father. It was my error. But don’t worry. It won’t happen again.”

  “ We must remove you from the den of sins. Go back to Paris and wrap up our business there. Have all the files and your personal possessions packed up and ready. I will fly over next week in person to bring you home.”

  Home! All he could do was bow so that his father couldn’t see the disgust on his face.

  “ You will live right here by my side, with your wives and children and our tribesmen. It’s where you belong, Abusalim.”

  The prospect nauseated the prince, and he struggled to control his voice. “That would be…wonderful.”

  Hajj Ibn Saroah escorted him through the long hallways. “Do not disappoint your father again.”

  Prince Abusalim did not respond.

  “ I haven’t told him everything.”

  “ Everything?”

  “ The bribes from other vendors. I trust you will return the money to each one-”

  “ Stay out of it!” The prince’s sharp voice hid his panic. The situation was worse than he had imagined. “How dare you spy on my affairs?”