Three years after my service with the Mossad had begun, I decided to leave. I'd had enough. The work had become too routine. Every great organization is like a Swiss watch with many wheels working in sync. My superiors had all been veterans of the old Russian school of thought. Jews who emigrated from Russia had ruled Israel in its formative years. Some of them became the legendary leaders of Israel's security services and had implemented their strict purist doctrines in their organizations.
Their idol had been the second and celebrated head of the Mossad, Isser Harel, who emigrated from Russia in the 1920s. He was a short man with jumbo ears, piercing eyes, and unrelenting dedication in his character. People who knew him said he had ice water in his veins. He'd been revered and feared. Judging from the stories I'd heard, I didn't think anyone had loved him. Admired, yes. Loved? Hardly. During his years as head of the Mossad, from 1952 to 1963, he had carte blanche on all matters of security from David Ben-Gurion, the founder of modern Israel and its first prime minister.
Harel had ruled not only the Mossad, which was primarily responsible for activity outside Israel, but also the Shin Bet, the secret internal police whose mere existence was kept a state secret until the mid-1970s. When I joined the Mossad, Harel had already been out of power for almost two years. But he continued to cast a long shadow, influencing organizational procedures and philosophy long after his departure. As in any other intelligence-gathering organization, discipline in the Mossad had been tight to prevent leaks and infiltration attempts by hostile powers. The high moral standards imposed by Harel, which had become the norm, continued to be applied. That was fine with everyone, though to be sure there was a double standard involved. When you were on a mission outside Israel, you were expected to lie, cheat, steal, or even kill. But when you returned to Israel you had to be the exemplary model worker and citizen. Never run a red light, tell a lie, or, God forbid, forget to turn over a receipt for ten bucks you spent on the job. Outside Israel we made sizeable cash payments to informers who hadn't exactly been in the habit of giving out receipts. But in Israel? Don't even think of it. Outside Israel we had had other ways to keep a receipt — sometimes on paper, sometimes on a roll of film. The backup unit used photography in the prevideo era. The recording of the “receipt” was useful not only for bookkeeping purposes. Once you had an informer on film receiving payment from you, he was yours forever.
I had been a deputy on several major operations. It was fascinating and dangerous, but at that level there had been no room for personal initiative or original thinking. I quickly discovered that my lone-wolf personality, cutting corners on my way to the target, was in direct conflict with the rigid structure of such a discipline-based organization.
Then there was a major problem. Two groups from Mossad had been sent to Rome in January 1971. I'd accompanied Alon, a blond and athletic-looking senior case officer, and a small backup unit had followed separately. The Mossad was collecting information on the hijackers of an El Al flight from Rome on July 22, 1968. The hijackers, who called themselves the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, had diverted the plane to Algeria. Thirty-two Israeli passengers had been held hostage for five weeks, the first-ever hijack of a civilian aircraft by Palestinians. It was standard procedure to investigate incidents like this, no matter how many years it took. Nothing was ever shelved, no unsolved case was ever closed, until the responsible individuals had been identified and brought to justice, in public or (more likely) clandestinely.
Our target was a Libyan diplomat keener on his payoff than on his loyalty to Khadafi, the Libyan dictator who'd been in power for just one year. We planned to meet the diplomat in a café. He thought he was going to be interviewed by Scandinavian journalists investigating the hijacking, and he'd promised to bring someone along who had firsthand knowledge of the operation.
I sat at a table with Alon who held, as agreed, a white umbrella — an old trick of the trade. The diplomat arrived with a dark-skinned young man who scanned the area with piercing eyes. Then he looked at me, our eyes met, and he recognized me. The young man was Hammed, a Palestinian who happened to work in my parents’ garden as a landscaper. How did he get here? It really wasn't important. What was important was that, through an extraordinary coincidence, my cover had been blown. The moment Hammed recognized me, he snapped something to the diplomat; they turned around and left the café in a hurry.
“It's a professional risk,” said Alon afterward. “There's no way to know if a person you once met as a friend might not return as an enemy.”
My disappointment was acute. Not only had the operation failed, but I knew what the personal consequences would be; once identified, I could not soon again, or maybe ever, participate in clandestine operations. I would have to spend the rest of my working life pushing papers at Mossad headquarters as a researcher and analyst while watching others triumph. I couldn't stand the thought of playing second fiddle, and being out of field operations meant I wouldn't even be in the orchestra.
Even within a glorious entity, there are many unimportant ants working to give the queen her glory. Now that my cover had been blown, I would have to become one of those ants permanently. I had to make a change. I wanted to become royalty elsewhere.
My decision to leave was met with surprise. Service in the Mossad is considered a lifetime career, not a single line, however distinguished, in a long resume.
I applied to Israel's toughest law school, at Tel Aviv University. That changed the course of my life, ushering me into a new profession and a new country and, ironically, as my lunch with Benny revealed, bringing me back years later into contact with the Mossad.
I paid for the tea and the energy bar that looked like compost and tasted no better, took the envelope Benny had given me, and left the cafeteria on my way back to my hotel on Tel Aviv beach overlooking the old Mediterranean port of Jaffa, half a mile away. Sitting at the desk in my twelfth-floor room, I opened the envelope. It contained photocopies of documents. The first document I saw was obviously an application form. The top portion of the document was cut off. I guessed it was Peled's application to the Mossad. His bio details matched what I already knew about him, but there was something else that attracted my immediate attention. He had a wife in Israel. Dov Peled had married one Mina Lerer. That was a surprise, since all I knew of DeLouise so far was that he had a wife and son in California. There was only an indication of his Israeli wife's date of birth, April 6,1930, in Romania, and her Israeli ID number. The treasures are always buried in the minute, seemingly unimportant details.
Where was Mina Lerer now? I picked up the phone and called Ralph Lampert at his home in Tel Aviv. Ralph was a private investigator who had spent many years working in the Shin Bet. I'd met him on a joint operation before I left the Mossad. In those earlier years, operations on Mossad targets carried out within Israel were always in cooperation with the Shin Bet.
Ralph was the classic ordinary person. You could pass him by a thousand times and never pay him any mind; he looked like your neighborhood butcher or dry cleaner. He was that other guy sitting next to you on the train, on the bus, on the plane, the guy you never really noticed — a definite asset in his line of work. After leaving the Shin Bet, Ralph continued doing the only thing he knew how to do: private investigations, this time for insurance companies or suspicious wives or husbands. If there was something you needed to know in Israel, he could get it for you.
What I wanted from Ralph was simple: Mina Lerer. He agreed to come over to the hotel later in the afternoon.
I pulled out the second document pertaining to Peled. It was the standard Mossad employee evaluation sheet; every employee was judged on his personality, his attitude toward his coworkers, his traits, and his success in his work. Finally there was a recommendation concerning the employee's future in the Mossad's maslul kidum (Hebrew for “track of advancement”). A special section was devoted to a personal interview with the employee and the supervisor's impression of how the employee saw him
self, his future in the organization, and his ability to take criticism. I could tell by looking at the handwriting that throughout the four-year period, the form had been filled in by two or three different individuals.
As reflected in his supervisors’ evaluations, Peled's personality came through loud and clear: intelligent, hardworking, persistent to the point of stubbornness, and conniving. “Marked for promotion,” said one comment, “but not in positions that require teamwork.” For a moment I suspected that Benny had pulled a fast one on me and given me a copy of my own evaluation form. The most recent comments on the form were written in 1955, although Benny had told me earlier that Peled left in 1957. Was something being kept from me?
The only other document in the envelope was a letter of appreciation Peled received from Professor Ernest David Bergman, the legendary founder and first head of Israel's Nuclear Energy Commission. The letter, only three lines long, commended him for a job well done. There was no mention of the type of work he did to deserve this letter. Why did Benny bother to include this letter among the documents he gave me? It didn't seem to have any relevance. Or maybe it was Benny's not-so-subtle way of saying it did.
Ralph came to see me two hours later. We went out to the park surrounding the hotel to sit on a bench and enjoy the sea breeze. I didn't need to keep our meeting a secret, and I wanted fresh air. Then again, with two people with backgrounds such as ours, even an innocent meeting might suggest we suspected the KGB was watching.
“Ralph, I need you to find a woman for me. Her name is Mina Lerer.” I gave him her ID number. “She was married to a Bruno Popescu, who later changed his name to Dov Peled; he probably divorced her.”
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“I don't, but I know of an American-born current wife. So I don't know what last name Mina Lerer would be using now. Call me at the hotel when you make progress. I think I'll be here for another week.”
“Sure,” he said, “I'll get right to work on it.”
I returned to my room and stood at the glass door looking at the sea. I was trying to conjure up Dov Peled in my mind. He must have been pretty sharp if he was in the nuclear science section of the Mossad. Israel's nuclear weapons policy and efforts, and the Arab countries’ capabilities, were off-limits, even within the organization, except for those actually assigned to that section. We were warned that it was the most closely guarded secret of Israel. In the mid- and late 1960s, Israel kept its nuclear capability under a dissembling cloud while vowing not to be the first nation to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. “Non-introduction” meant doing it anyway, but quietly. Peled, I recalled, had joined the Mossad in 1952 and left in 1957.I wondered what Israel's “nuclear policy” had been in those years.
A call from Ralph woke me up the next morning. I'd closed my curtains so I didn't realize how late I'd slept. It was already past 10:00 A.M. — a case of jet lag at its worst. Ralph continued our conversation as if it had stopped only moments before.
“Your Mina Lerer is now Mina Bernstein. She lives in Haifa on Allenby Street.”
Half asleep, I jotted down the address, then made it a short conversation for both of us. “Thanks, send me your bill.”
I washed and dressed quickly and went downstairs. I fueled my system with a little of the famous Israeli breakfast — freshly cut salad, soft cheese and olives, and fresh-squeezed orange juice — and headed for the garage and my car. Haifa was just sixty miles north of Tel Aviv on the coast, and I figured I could be there within an hour or so. As it turned out, other drivers had similar plans, and they were ahead of me. The trip stretched to almost two hours. But the great views of the sea were some compensation. The color of the water changed from emerald green to azure blue as the waves broke on the beach. Seagulls shrieked; a few fishermen were trying their luck in the shallow waters. The breeze carried a strong smell of salt water and seaweed. It all looked so serene. But it was deceptive; I knew that the undertow just offshore was strong and dangerous.
I finally entered Haifa and drove through the busy port area to a residential area of tree-lined streets winding along the hills overlooking the harbor. I found Mina's house without any difficulty. It looked exactly as Ralph had described it: a two-story stone building, circa 1920, with an iron gate and a path leading to the entrance. I went through the unlocked gate. There were three old vines and a couple of orange trees in the small yard. This house had seen better days. Neglect and disrepair were visible, but so were traces of its former glory. There were four broken letterboxes at the door, each with several names crossed out. The landlord must have had a firm short-lease policy. Unusual. On one of the mailboxes I saw the name Bernstein-Peled. I went up shabby stairs to the first floor. I found the name I was looking for on the door on the left.
I rang the bell. There was no response, and I could detect no noise inside. I waited a few more minutes. It was apparent that either nobody was home or somebody didn't want visitors. I looked at my watch. 1:25 P.M. I hoped Mina Bernstein was at work and would be back soon. I decided to sit in my car and wait it out.
A few people, mostly children, came in but not one looked like a Mina Bernstein. I knew she had to be in her sixties, but no woman of that age entered the building. Finally, after three hours, I went back into the house, up the stairs, and rang the bell. Still no answer. I turned to the door opposite and knocked lightly. A woman in her late thirties in a dressing gown, hair tied up in a haphazard knot, opened the door.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Excuse me,” I said in Hebrew, “I'm looking for Mrs. Bernstein. Would you know when she is expected back? I was to meet her here about this time,” I lied with a smile.
She sized me up. In the background I heard a child crying, and the smell of cooked cabbage seeped from the kitchen. She didn't seem to have much time to spend talking to me.
“All I know is that she left a few days ago. She told me she was going overseas. She didn't tell me where she was going or for how long. That's all I know.” The last sentence was said in a subdued tone. I realized the woman probably thought I was a cop; her attitude was becoming defensive. I needed more information before she asked to see a badge. Let her think I was a cop.
“What about her mail?”
“I collect it,” she replied and pointed to a small table with a stack of mail on it. I went over to the table and shuffled through the envelopes. Mostly junk, some bills. I pulled out the phone bill and slid it into my pocket. The neighbor said nothing.
“Do you know where she works?”
“She was a teacher, but I think she retired last year.”
As I turned away she hesitated and added, “You could also ask her daughter.”
I stopped. “Her daughter?”
“Yes,” she said, “Ariel.”
“Ah,” I said. “Do you know where I can find her?
“She's a chemistry teacher at Ramot High School. You could try there. I don't know where she lives.”
“Thanks,” I said, and walked outside. I looked at my watch; it was 4:12 P.M. No point in going by the school at that late hour.
In my car I opened Mina's telephone bill. It listed service and other charges for two months through September 30,1990. There were no details concerning any local calls — just a flat fee. But there was one line that attracted my attention. It was a collect call made to Mina Bernstein from Munich, Germany, on September 26, 1990, from number 004989227645. The duration of the call was 5 minutes 11 seconds.
I drove back to Tel Aviv and called my office in New York from a pay phone just outside my hotel. “Please do a reverse search on this little item,” I asked Lan, and gave her the Munich telephone number. Not much, but it was a start. I hung up and called Ralph.
“I thought it would be easy,” I said.
“Well, did you find her?”
“No, I found her apartment, but she's been gone a week or so. The neighbor said she went overseas, but I want to make sure it wasn't the neighbor's assumpt
ion. How about checking to see if she actually left Israel.”
“And,” I added, in an exaggerated dramatic tone, “Mina has a daughter, Ariel, who teaches chemistry at Ramot High School in Haifa. I don't have a last name. It could be Peled, but she could be married and using her husband's name. Check her out, will you?”
“No problem,” answered Ralph. “I'll get back to you.”
Israel maintains a very efficient computerized system at the Ministry of the Interior, controlling all exits and entries across its borders. The information, available to the police and other law enforcement and intelligence agencies, was retrievable pretty much any time. At that late hour the ministry's offices were closed, but Ralph, with his connections, could do it over the phone in no time.
The phone rang in my room. It was Ralph. I looked at my watch — it had been twenty minutes since I'd called him.
“Writing this down?” he said.
“Go ahead.”
“Mina Bernstein left Israel on El Al flight LY 353 to Munich on September 28 and has not returned. There is no record of her leaving Israel during the preceding seven years.”
“Thanks,” I said, “I owe you.”
“Unfortunately, not that much,” he chuckled.
“Have anything on Mina's daughter, Ariel?”
“Still working on it. I'll get back to you,” he said and hung up.
This was getting more and more intriguing. Two days after receiving a collect call from Munich, a woman who was not in the habit of going abroad had suddenly decided to travel to Germany, which was not exactly a tourist attraction for Israelis. Something important must have caused Mina to make that trip. I didn't know when she had separated from Peled, but it must have been many years ago. DeLouise's son by his second wife in the United States was at least twenty-four years old.
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