The Jerusalem Assassin

by Avraham Azrieli

  “ That’s an odd question.”

  “ What is the single most important thing that I expect you to perpetuate as Neturay Karta’s leader?”

  “ The value of shalom?”

  “ Go on.”

  “ To maintain peace among our people,” Benjamin said, “even when we see blasphemy, even when we see the secular Israelis breach the most sacred teachings of God-drive cars on the Sabbath or dig up sacred graves in search of archeological evidence of a past that we already know existed as written in the Torah. We pray, we show them an example of a life of virtue, and we protest loudly. But we don’t raise a hand against a fellow Jew, albeit a sinner.”

  The curve in the road took them around a corner. To the west, only the top edge of the sun still glistened above the skyline.

  Rabbi Gerster stopped and made Benjamin face him. “You are a good student. A good Jew. And a good rabbi. Now, do you trust me?”

  Benjamin nodded.

  “ Then stop worrying. My efforts continue to be dedicated to this task of keeping Jews from hurting each other. That’s all you need to know.”

  They turned into Shivtay Israel Street. Down by the gate of Meah Shearim, a woman stood by a car, waiting. Rabbi Gerster recognized Itah Orr. He would have stumbled, if not for Benjamin grabbing his elbow. She wore pants and a sweatshirt, and her hair was not covered.

  The men murmured, “ Shanda! Shanda! ” One of them picked up a soda can from the gutter and raised it threateningly.

  *

  Taking a train from the airport to Zurich’s main rail station, Tanya walked the streets, thinking of her next steps. After meeting Herr Horch, she would continue on to Paris tonight, where her team was engaged in tracking every piece of information related to the recent spate of Palestinian violence. Unlike the French police, Mossad wasn’t interested in catching the perpetrators but in discouraging those who aspired to step into the shoes of Al-Mazir and Abu Yusef. Prime Minister Rabin had issued clear orders to prevent further terrorist attacks, which were turning a disillusioned Israeli public against the peace process.

  The tip from the Mossad informant in the French police was intriguing, and she was eager to learn what Herr Horch really knew about Elie Weiss. It had been a stroke of luck that the bank manager in Senlis recognized the news photos of Abu Yusef’s corpse and connected it to the large wire transfer signed by Herr Horch of the Hoffgeitz Bank of Zurich. She had also learned that Armande Hoffgeitz was recovering from a heart attack while Herr Horch ran the bank in his absence. She remembered Armande, who had been Klaus von Koenig’s best friend. The last time they met, at the Swiss-German border crossing, Armande Hoffgeitz was a chubby thirty-four-year-old banker, lounging in the rear of his Rolls-Royce, congratulating himself for getting richer from a war that had destroyed most other people. It was odd to think of him as an old man with a bad heart. Should she visit him in the hospital? She chuckled. Seeing her would surely give him another heart attack.

  But this was no time for nostalgia. Tanya was alarmed by the involvement of the Hoffgeitz Bank. This was a development she had to pursue herself. To her team she had reasoned that Herr Horch was more likely to open up to a woman than to a whole group of Mossad agents. Their time was better spent in Paris, tracking down the festering opposition to Arafat and the Oslo process. But the real reason she was doing it alone was the risk of exposure. No one at Mossad knew of her teenage relationship with the Nazi general or of the fortune he had left with Armande Hoffgeitz. There was little risk that Herr Horch would somehow make that connection, but even a small risk was too much for her to take. How could she justify to the chief of Mossad keeping such a secret throughout her decades-long career with the Israeli secret service? But even more crucial was her fear for Bira. It was one thing to grow up without a father, his absence justified with a fictional story of a brief relationship and a death in the war. But to be identified as the daughter of Himmler’s deputy, Oberstgruppenfuhrer Klaus von Koenig, a top Nazi whose hands were covered with the blood of millions of Jews? The ramifications of such disclosure were too horrific to consider. It would ruin Bira completely.

  Tanya had taken a gamble by mentioning Elie Weiss on the phone, but the Swiss banker’s rudeness in repeatedly hanging up revealed that he recognized Elie’s name. And his suggestion to meet with her away from the bank was another indication that he knew the clandestine nature of Elie’s business. He was clever to suggest a public park in a quiet neighborhood-a safe location for a rendezvous with a woman he didn’t want to be seen with. Tanya would have preferred a cafe on a side street near Bahnhofstrasse, where she would be warm and dry. In general, it was safer to meet an informer in a public place, where the presence of strangers reduced the danger of outright violence.

  It was unusual for her to wander around a European city without her escorts. But the vice president of an old Zurich bank did not pose a security risk. He was probably a younger version of Armande Hoffgeitz-overweight, bespectacled, and morally pragmatic. The only attack he was likely to engage in was a panic attack, and she had already planned the conversation to put him at ease. She had no intention of causing him or the bank any trouble-as long as they cooperated fully.

  Her goals were simple. She had to assert the rights of the State of Israel in stepping into the shoes of Elie Weiss as a client of the Hoffgeitz Bank. She carried basic credentials-a power-of-attorney with Elie’s forged signature and a letter from a physician at Hadassah Hospital confirming Elie’s incapacitating emphysema. He might have used a false identity in his relationship with the bank, but Herr Horch’s reaction proved he knew who Elie Weiss was. She assumed that Elie had also kept a safety deposit box with the bank. Finding a complete list of SOD agents would cut short an exhaustive investigation. And there was the issue of Klaus von Koenig and his fortune. Had Elie taken it over? Had he already spent much of it? Today she would have the answers. She expected Herr Horch to resist at first, but she would make him understand that he had to work with her rather than wait for a sick man in Jerusalem who wasn’t coming back.

  The rain intensified, and Tanya took shelter near a jewelry store. A tray of wrist watches and chained timepieces filled a whole window display. Inside, a jeweler in a three-piece suit noticed her through the window and smiled. There was something in his posture and blue eyes that reminded her of Abraham Gerster, and Tanya found herself searching his fingers for a wedding ring.

  Don’t be silly!

  She turned and walked into the rain, following the directions she had memorized to Lindenhof Park.

  *

  “ Stop it!” Benjamin hurried over and took the empty Coke can from the man’s hand. But Itah Orr had already drawn a canister from a belt holster and pointed it at them. “You want some pepper spray? Do you?”

  The men lowered the brims of their black hats and entered the gate. But Rabbi Gerster approached Itah, holding his hands up in feigned surrender.

  “Bastards!” She holstered her pepper spray. “They’re lucky I have bigger problems right now.”

  “Rabbi?” Benjamin lingered at the gate. “Sabbath is about to start.”

  “Sabbath will wait another moment,” Rabbi Gerster said. “Itah Orr, please meet Rabbi Benjamin Mashash, the leader of Neturay Karta and a man of peace, like me.”

  The reporter extended her hand, then pulled it back. “Sorry. I forgot women are too dirty to touch.”

  “It’s not about cleanliness,” Benjamin said, “but about preventing unnecessary temptation for men, whose self-control is poorer than women’s.”

  “Thanks for the double compliment,” Itah said. “I can see why you’ve been anointed.”

  “Go ahead.” Rabbi Gerster patted Benjamin’s shoulder. “I’ll be a few minutes.”

  Benjamin obeyed, glancing over his shoulder as he walked away.

  The rabbi gestured at her outfit. “Thanks for complicating my life.”

  “You took the words out of my mouth.” Itah looked up and down the street. “They’re aft
er me. And they’ll be after you if they find out we talked.”

  “Who’s after you? The boys from ILOT?”

  “Worse.” She led him across the street and into a doorway of an apartment building. “I managed to give them the slip, but they’ll find me again, I know it.”

  “Tell me everything.”

  “My friend works for the Commissioner of Banks at the Ministry of the Treasury. She has access to the database of every bank. I went to her office and we ran searches for Yoni Adiel. There were several people with that name, and we had to weed out the wrong ones by age, occupation, and so on. We eventually found the right one. He’s paying tuition at Bar Ilan University out of his account, so we knew it’s him. But we got screwed because it’s a tripping account.”

  “ What’s that?”

  “ Like a trip wire. If someone steps on it-electronically speaking-an alarm goes off, and nasty people come after you.”

  “ You’re exaggerating the Israeli government’s efficiency.” Rabbi Gerster chuckled. “Maybe someone would call your friend to ask why she looked at the account, but there’s no way they’ll mobilize a surveillance team for something so benign.”

  “ Obviously it’s not benign.”

  A car engine sounded outside, and they peeked to see a white sedan with darkened windows cruise down Shivtay Israel Street, which was otherwise quiet in the minutes preceding the commencement of the Sabbath.

  “ Damn!” Itah pushed him back inside, where the darkness made them invisible to the people in the car. “They found me!”

  “ Impossible,” Rabbi Gerster said. “How would anyone know you’re here?”

  “ They must have put a tracer on my car. It’s parked around the block.” Itah stuck her head outside. “They’re gone for now, but I can’t go back to my car.” She handed him a stack of papers held together with a rubber band. “That law student, Yoni Adiel, has an account at the Bank Hapoalim branch in Herzlia, which is where his parents live. Top three pages, here.” She flipped through the stack. “His account gets a monthly transfer of funds from an account at Bank Leumi, which belongs to Freckles. Here.” She showed him a sheet with numbers. “And Freckles’ account gets frequent cash deposits, as well as a regular monthly paycheck from a multi-signature account.”

  Rabbi Gerster went through the stack, finding a page with tiny print that showed a copy of the signature requirements on an account. There were three sample scribbles. The account owner was listed as a series of numbers and letters. “What does it mean?”

  “ It’s a government account. You remember the embezzlement scandal last year at the Ministry of Defense, with the fake acquisitions of light weapons?”

  “ So?”

  “ The Knesset passed legislation requiring each government agency to set up expenditure approval panels.”

  “ Of three officials each.”

  “ Correct. Freckles has been getting regular paychecks from a government account for the past ten years. And the fact that the agency’s name doesn’t appear on the account means that it’s one of the secret services. Conclusion: Freckles has been a government agent for nine years!”

  “ Shin Bet?”

  “ Probably. Now look at this.” She turned a few more pages. “Copies of checks Freckles gave to Rina Printing Ltd. It’s a small shop in the Talpiot industrial area. Looks like nothing, but I sifted through the trash in the back and found leftover copies of some ugly right-wing propaganda.”

  “ For example?”

  “ The poster that shows Prime Minister Rabin in Heinrich Himmler’s SS uniform. Another shows him in a checkered kafiya. And a bunch of stickers: Rabin = Rodef! Government of Traitors! Rabin is a Terrorist! Do you understand?”

  “ There are several possible explanations. But I guess we have to assume that Freckles is an agent-provocateur. The Shin Bet gives him money to operate the fundamentalist ILOT group, print provocative anti-Rabin posters and stickers, and hand out money to activists such as Yoni Adiel. They’re probably gearing up for the Likud rally on Saturday night.”

  “ And look at this.” She showed him a page listing deposits into Freckles’ account. “He’s enjoying not only the government’s generosity, but some serious cash deposits.”

  “ What’s the FF next to each deposit?”

  “ French francs,” Itah said. “Someone besides the Shin Bet is giving him tens of thousands in cash every couple of months, which he uses for the same right-wing provocations.”

  “ It’s probably the old sponsor that Yoni’s girlfriend told me about. That’s how Freckles explains the money to Yoni and the other ILOT members without telling them he’s also in the pay of Shin Bet.” Rabbi Gerster didn’t say more, but he was certain now that the money was coming from Elie Weiss. The two knew each other-the stocky young man leading the demonstration by the prime minister’s residence was Freckles, who had given Elie the thumbs up. Rabbi Gerster wondered if the dark-skinned youth with the sign 1936 Berlin = 1995 Oslo had been Yoni Adiel. And what was Elie up to with these young men anyway?

  “ This is explosive,” Itah said. “The government finances right-wing militant activities, which taints the whole political right wing as anti-government fanatics!”

  “ It’s not the first time a government used an agent-provocateur to delegitimize the opposition.”

  “ But does the sponsor from Paris know that Freckles is also a government agent?”

  “ In other words, you think Freckles is a double agent?”

  “ Yes, but Yoni Adiel and the others have no idea that Freckles is anything but a fellow right winger.” Itah showed him another paper. “And I found out how they met. This is an earlier statement from Yoni Adiel’s account, and this is from Freckles’ account, about the same time. My friend managed to pull out past history in both accounts. It’s from a period before online banking and the advent of personal computers, so the government didn’t bother to hide the agency’s name. It appears that the two had worked together for another agency before going to the university, drawing regular paychecks. Look at these entries.”

  Holding the pages side-by-side against the dim light from the doorway, Rabbi Gerster saw entries that fell on the first or second day of each month for two years. The notations said: Sherut Bitachon Klali, Hebrew for General Security Service, otherwise known as Shin Bet. Smaller letters in parentheses read: YLI. “What’s this acronym?”

  “ I also wondered, so I looked it up.” She took a deep breath. “YLI stands for Yechida Le’Avtachat Ishim.”

  “ The VIP Protection Unit?”

  “ Correct. Freckles and Yoni Adiel had worked for Shin Bet together, guarding VIPs for two years. Imagine the operational knowledge they accumulated, the familiarity with security procedures, even the lingo.”

  The VIP Protection Unit! Rabbi Gerster felt a sensation he had not experienced since hiding with Elie in the attic of the butcher shop while the Nazis slaughtered their families. It took him a moment to recognize the sensation, which resembled a flush of cold water through his veins: Fear.

  *

  Lemmy left the bank early, wrapped in his coat and a soft hat with a narrow brim. He had fitted the silencer to the Mauser, which he carried under the coat against his right hip. From Bahnhofstrasse he veered left into the Rennweg, then to Fortunagasse, a narrow, uphill alley lined with one-story, well-preserved medieval houses-a sharp contrast from the stately splendor of Bahnhofstrasse. The rubber soles of his shoes paced silently on the wet cobblestones.

  At the top of the hill, a low stone embankment surrounded Lindenhof Park. Light rain curtained off the views. He passed among trees whose thin, bare branches simulated spider webs, spread wide to trap the unwary. Farther in, he zigzagged between black-and-white checkered squares and hip-high chess pieces, which waited in pre-game rows for springtime. Before marrying Paula, he had lived in an apartment building on the opposite hillside, which offered fair weather views of Lindenhof Park and its chess boards. Years later, he had brought Klaus Junior
here to play a long and cheerful game on one of the giant boards.

  But today the views were masked by rain and fog, which turned the park into a trap with a single entrance and limited opportunities for anyone seeking to hide. If the German woman attempted to bring reinforcement, Lemmy was confident he could pick them off as easily as ducks in a pond.

  The ground under his feet was hard and bare, no grass or flowers. The fallen leaves had been cleared away, the lines of rake teeth drawn finely in the earth. He approached the edge, where a water fountain was topped by an armored statue. Far below, the Limmat River snaked between the hills of Zurich. Should he push the woman over the low wall at the edge instead of shooting her? The police would be less suspicious of foul play. But what if she didn’t die? No. A bullet to the head would provide finality. The Mauser was tried and proven, a reliable tool that made him confident of the outcome, almost like a good-luck charm he had inherited-in fact, had stolen-from his father.

  The wind picked up, the drops prickling his face like icicles. He slipped his hands into the coat pockets. His right hand touched the Mauser. His breath turned white from the cold.

  He scanned the park. No one was around. A squat building was all that was left from the ancient Roman citadel. He imagined the steel-clad sentinels scanning the horizon, their alarm upon detecting invaders advancing from the distant, snowy peaks.

  The gas lamps came on, shedding circles of yellow light on the ground. Lemmy sat on the low wall and looked down the cliff. He was not prone to height anxiety, but it occurred to him that his whole life was now teetering at the edge of an abyss.

  A set of spotlights around the fountain illuminated the statue, and he realized it was a woman in black armor, a steel sword tied to her belt, a flag held up in her iron hand. A brass plaque told of Zurich’s brave women, who had saved their city from the Hapsburg Army in 1292 by stripping the armor from their dead husbands and marching to Lindenhof. From across the Limmat, the enemy mistook the women for a reinforcement army and retreated. Lemmy saw in the steel face of the armored woman a determined expression, unafraid of the enemy gathered across the river. He heard marching, and it took him a moment to realize it was the real-life sound of a pair of advancing boots.