“Went back down to that Riegar place and did some surveying on foot,” said Arno. “The place is weird. Looks like something out of Batman.”
“That’s because it’s a combination of something built a hundred years ago and modern stuff. See anything interesting?”
“Mixed with the crowd when the four-o’clock-shift change got under way. Tell ya one thing, got some hostility goin’ there.”
“Yeah,” said Stone, “some of those animal-rights people get really worked up.”
“I don’t mean them,” Arno said. “A couple of the guys at the gate were speaking German, and one of the guys coming off shift went by, talking to his buddy, and called them ‘fucking monkey handlers.’ Might be able to use that. You know, get ’em in a bar or something, work on the resentment, pick up some intel.”
“Speakin’ of which, wish you spoke German. It’d be interesting to know what those guys were saying.”
“We spoke German all the time at home. My grandmother never did learn English. The one German called the locals lazy and sloppy and the other guy agreed with him. That was all. But you can see there’s no love lost.”
Wings Harper, trying not to look as impatient as he felt, said, “When you gonna brief us on this op of yours?”
“This evening, right after chow. I need to get whatever intel Saul Rosen’s been able to come up with first. Catch you later.”
Stone went into his office and closed the door. He wanted to collect his thoughts before confronting Saul. There was no local television—all the stations were out of New York City, so he turned on the FM receiver of his stereo system and tuned in to the local talk-radio station. The host was taking calls. The subject was local crime in general and the murder of Ira Levin in particular. Preliminary police reports said that the shopkeeper had been shot once, fatally, with a small-caliber weapon, probably a handgun, in what was presumed to be a robbery attempt he resisted. Fearing discovery, the killer apparently fled without taking anything.
The grandfather clock was just chiming five when the doorbell added a few notes and Saul Rosen, carrying several videocassettes, entered. Stone intercepted him and steered him into his office.
“Sit down, Saul.”
Saul could tell by the look on Stone’s face that something serious had occurred. “Sara—she’s okay?”
“Sara’s fine,” said Stone. Then he hit him with it cold. “Ira Levin’s dead.”
Saul didn’t bat an eye. “When?” he asked flatly. “How?”
“This afternoon. One shot from a suppressed subcaliber weapon. He thought you and your sister important enough to be the subjects of his last words on this earth. Now, tell me again how fucked up I am to be suspicious of the guy who saved my life. I’m gonna ask you again, Saul. Who are you with and what the fuck’s going on here?”
Saul Rosen’s voice was level and calm as he replied: “I’m a lieutenant colonel in the IDF, assigned as the first assistant to the military attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.”
“That was very good, only a bit too practiced, as a first cover story tends to be. Now let’s remember who you’re talking to and forget covers number two and three and get to the truth. Who’re you with?”
“Hey, listen, Mike,” Saul said with some heat, “I told you—hell, I swore to you I’m not with the Mossad.”
“And I believe you. But that doesn’t answer the question, does it, Saul?”
Saul said nothing, and Stone let the silence just hang there, getting thicker and thicker. Then he said, “I’m the guy you told your sister she could trust. I’m the guy who’s trying to keep your sister out of prison, in the course of which I’ve been attacked physically, my office burglarized, my livelihood threatened. I’ve been the subject of an attempted bribe and had my aunt thrown in front of a bus. The Germans at the plant were talking about your sister before she got here, and now a cigar-store owner who gets popped with a suppressed weapon dies talking about Sara and says you’re okay—but that you’re not who I think you are. And I never told him who I thought you were. Now, who the fuck are you?”
For a few moments, Saul Rosen struggled, like a man trying not to throw up. “I swear, Mike, I don’t know why this guy, the Germans, why anybody would be talking about Sara. I mean, Sara’s just … Sara, that’s all.”
“Okay. I believe you. Or at least that you don’t know. Now, how about you?”
Saul Rosen said the hell with it and threw up. “I’m what I told you I was, but you’re right, it’s a cover. But I’m not with the Mossad.” He gave a small, mirthless laugh. “Why is it every goy thinks half the Jews in the United States and everyone in Israel is Mossad?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because Ira Levin was Mossad?”
What little color was left in Saul Rosen’s face drained from it. “What do you know about that?”
“Nothing. I’m guessing.”
Rosen heaved a deep sigh. “You’re real close. Back during the war for independence in ’forty-eight, Ira Levin used his New York mob connections to help out the Irgun. When this Riegar business came up, the Mossad remembered that and tapped into him for whatever he could come up with for them. I mean, he was already here, had connections … I knew about him, but I didn’t think he knew about me. They must have briefed him on me.”
Saul paused, looking off at the wall without seeing it, then said, “Mossad simply means ‘institution’ in Hebrew. The full name is Mossad le Aliyah Beth. Central Institution for Intelligence and Special Assignments. Or, you could translate ‘assignments’ as ‘services.’ They’re good. Real good, but their interests are still relatively provincial, generally Middle East, compared with the more worldwide interests of other pro-Western nations. And my outfit.”
“Which is?”
“I’m with the LAKAM. It’s an acronym for the Hebrew, Lishka Lekishrey Mada; the special division of the Defense Ministry in charge of acquiring scientific and technological intelligence. Historically, this has made for somewhat tense relations with the Mossad—kind of a rivalry. That’s why I was told about Ira Levin. He was the Mossad agent-in-place, keeping tabs on Riegar for them, when that’s really not their business. It’s ours.
“For reasons I can’t go into, we’ve targeted Riegar. And our interest, I think, is the source of the Mossad’s interest and their use of Ira. I came up really to take on the local operation here. I swear Sara’s got nothing to do with us and I’d know if she was with the Mossad. They’re pissed because the U.S. press put the onus on them for the Jonathan Jay Pollard spy case—you remember, the U.S. citizens who gave national security secrets to Israel from July of ’eighty-four to November ’eighty-five. Pollard worked for us, LAKAM, not the Mossad.”
“Shit,” said Stone. “You telling me an outfit like the Mossad can’t take a little heat in the U.S. press for an op it didn’t run? C’mon, that goes with the territory.”
“You don’t understand. The real embarrassment was in Israel. When the Pollards first volunteered to pass U.S. secrets to the Israelis, the Mossad turned them down. They didn’t want to pull clandestine ops against the United States because it would endanger their close relationship with the CIA. Ironically, the relationship was built up by James Jesus Angleton, then the Agency’s top counterespionage official. He’d been using the Mossad to do things for the CIA domestically that it was prohibited by law from doing itself.
“Now, the guy running my outfit, LAKAM, had once been a high official of the Mossad who was passed over for the top job. He knew all about the CIA-Mossad connection, but was still pissed at not getting the number-one spot a decade before, so he didn’t give a shit. He took the Pollards on and embarrassed the Mossad with the intelligence coup they gave Israel. Then the shit really hit the fan: just months after the Pollard conviction, the Iran-Contra affair blows and the American administration and the Israeli government are trying to deny the U.S.–Israel link in the swapping of arms for hostages. Believe me, there’s no love lost between the Mossad and the
LAKAM!”
“So, what are you after Riegar for?”
“I can’t tell you that because I really don’t know much myself. I don’t need to. That gizmo I told you I learned to put together in school? That’s bullshit. I brought that synchronizer with me. I’m just supposed to tape their computer screens and send the tapes back by diplomatic pouch to Israel. The guys wearing thirty pens in their plastic shirt-pocket protectors will figure out what it means. But I’ll let you review them first for whatever help it’ll give you with your op to help my sister. All you need is a TV and a VCR.”
“Okay, Saul. Fair enough. I’ll keep your cover at the briefing tonight. Thanks for leveling with me.”
“Okay to ask a question?”
“Shoot.”
“Just what, exactly, did Levin say?”
“I’m not saying I was there and heard it. Right?”
“Sure.” Saul smiled.
“Understand,” said Stone, who had committed the vital words to memory, “the man was dying. There were … gaps. The first thing he said was ‘the man.’ He was pointing behind me—probably trying to call my attention to the man who shot him. It was no robbery attempt or he’d have hit me, too. My back was to the son of a bitch, for Christ’s sake. I don’t know why Ira was hit, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was to silence him before he could talk to me. The next thing he said was ‘Rosen, Saul.’ He inverted your name, like he was reading from a military personnel list. Then he said, ‘Not what you think, but okay.’ He was gasping pretty badly now in between words. Then he said, ‘Riegar,’ then ‘Sara’—or,” Stone thought a minute, “at least the first part of it, like ‘Sa…’ or ‘Sar.…’ You know, he’s gasping for breath, shot through the lung.”
“I know just what you’re talking about,” said Saul. “I remember.”
“Yeah, I guess you tend not to forget something like that. At any rate, the last thing he said was the same as the first: ‘the man.’ Then he died.” Stone withheld any mention of the piece of paper with the unusual shorthand on it. He didn’t know what it meant, and Rosen had no need to know.
Saul Rosen seemed lost in thought. “What is it?” Stone asked.
“Oh, nothing.… I’m sure you’re right.”
“About what?”
“Well … this is pretty farfetched. Look, you’re sure that when Levin first said ‘the man,’ he was pointing at somebody behind you? Like the guy who shot him?”
“Sure. That’s exactly the way it happened.”
“Then why did he say it again, after the guy is long gone, and it’s his final effort, his last words?”
“I don’t know. He was dying, for Christ’s sake. People say strange things when they’re dying. The brain’s going, you know.”
“Yeah. But not usually really focused people like Ira. Suppose he was trying to tell you something he considered more important than anything else he had to tell you—about me, or Sara, or anything?”
“Like what, for Christ’s sake!” Stone’s voice was irritated, impatient.
Rosen ignored the tone of voice and continued in a measured way. “It may be a helluva coincidence, but there’s a terrorist, who’s number one on just about everybody’s list, who’s name is Al Rajul. In Arabic, that means ‘The Man.’”
Stone considered what Saul had said for a moment, then nodded his head and said, “You’re right, that is a helluva coincidence. But what would a top Palestinian terrorist be doing in a place like Rhinekill, New York?”
“Who said he was Palestinian?”
“You said the name was Arabic.”
“Correct. But it’s not a proper name. More like a description, if anything. Nobody knows this guy’s real name, or nationality, or even what he looks like.”
“Still, what would he be doing here?”
“Hey, Mike. There’s a thousand people here weren’t here a month ago. Why am I here? Why is the international press here?”
“Riegar?”
Saul Rosen raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.
“You get a better answer, tell me.”
“But what…?”
“Who knows. One thing’s for sure.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re not gonna find out sittin’ on our ass around here.”
Michael Stone got up out of his chair. “Yeah. Let’s go to chow.”
* * *
Stephanie Hannigan was frustrated, annoyed, fearful, and perplexed to the extent that her uncharacteristic mood swings were drawing comment among her colleagues in the public defender’s office. The memory of the intensity of her arousal frustrated her and the fact annoyed her with herself. What she had learned from Naomi led her to be fearful—both of the future she still longed to have with Michael Stone, and of the man himself and his capabilities. Her perplexity arose from not having the slightest idea what to do about all this.
Pride had dictated that Stephanie avoid locations and occasions where she might run into Stone again. She had carried off the last meeting rather well, she thought, but it had been excruciatingly difficult, requiring a self-control she was unsure she could repeat. Nor, damn it, was she sure she wanted to.
Nature, however, was uncooperative with Stephanie’s intellectually taken decisions. Gradually, subtly, her resolve was subverted by her human instincts. She started to rationalize. There could be no harm, temptation whispered, in just physically seeing the man; especially if he did not know about it. Seeing him might help to clarify her thoughts about him; one must be careful in important matters such as these to avoid fantasizing and be certain one was dealing with reality.
At the athletic center, Stephanie recalled, the layout—high spectator seats above the line of sight of those in the pool—as well as Stone’s use of goggles while swimming and his general preoccupation with the details of his exercise program had made it necessary for her to call attention to herself at the pool and again later by blowing the horn of her car. What better place to observe the man discreetly? Never intruding into her consciousness was the thought of her reverie as she sat mesmerized by the sinuous, rhythmic rippling of the muscles in Stone’s back as he swam beneath her gaze.
Shortly after 7:00 A.M. of the morning following Michael Stone’s briefing of his small former SEAL unit, Stephanie Hannigan slipped into the athletic center. This time, to be on the safe side, she took a seat on the highest row, back in the farthest corner. Stone, she could see, was present, but something unusual was going on. The routine was markedly different from that which she had observed previously.
No one was swimming in the pool at all. A number of men and women in wet bathing suits, obviously just out of the water from the way it still dripped from their bodies, were clustered at the near side of the pool like so many spectators. Four men, one of them Stone and one of them black, were stripping off one of the two racing trunks competitive swimmers typically wear to increase drag when practicing, the same psychology that prompts baseball batters “on deck” to swing several bats at the same time. There was an air of expectancy in the vast area that Stephanie could sense all the way up in her high perch. Curiosity gnawed at her, but she dared not get closer, where she might have been able to find out what was going on.
To Stephanie’s relief, several people who had been down on the pool deck came up into the stands to get a better view. Instinct again overruled Stephanie’s caution, and she moved unobtrusively down behind them, seated herself, then leaned forward and whispered to a bathing-suited young woman who was shivering under a large bath towel. “What’s going on?”
The woman turned around and, with excitement in her voice, said, “That’s Michael Stone behind the block in the outside lane. He’s a local lawyer who’s a member of the New York Athletic Club water-polo team. He works out here all the time. The other three guys are members of the team, too, up visiting from New York. They were working out together when the tall guy—the one with the red hair?—kept teasing the other white guy that he was a sinker an
’ all and couldn’t really swim. I don’t know why, the guy was doing great in practice. Anyway, he got the others betting about it, and they’re gonna have a race. The redheaded guy wanted a two hundred IM. That’s an individual medley; two laps ’fly, two back, two breast, and two free. But Mr. Stone, he said that wouldn’t be fair—why, I don’t know—so it’s going to be two hundred breast. I—”
Someone blew a whistle and called out, “Swimmers on the blocks!”
The four men stepped up onto the blocks, raised boards that slanted downward to the front, leading edge even with the side of the pool. The men moved to the front of the board so that their toes hung over it. Then they curled their toes to grip the forward edge tightly and leaned forward, gently shaking their long, muscled arms as they hung loosely before them.
“Take your mark!” Stephanie could see the man who was speaking now. He was a balding senior swimmer, who spoke with the authority of an experienced swimming judge and had positioned himself at the near end of the pool, slightly to the front of the racers so that he could sight down the line they formed. At his command, Stone and the others had leaned down and placed their hands on the boards next to their feet, gripping the edge hard enough to whiten their knuckles. They seemed to be pulling with their hands and pushing with their feet. As Wings Harper gripped the board with his hands, his body didn’t stop moving. As if in slow motion, it pivoted on the board edge he was gripping with hands and feet until his center of gravity was well over the water. He let go with his hands and waved his arms in a vain attempt to restore his balance, failed, and fell into the pool.
“False start on number one!” shouted the man serving as the official. Wings Harper, sheepish under the leer of Arno Bitt, climbed out of the pool and back onto his block. Four spectators equipped with varying kinds of stopwatches and standing behind the blocks rechecked their watches as the other three contestants used the interruption to relax.
“Take your mark!” the bald man repeated, then brought the whistle up to his mouth. Again the four former SEALs leaned forward and gripped the board edges with hands and feet. The official checked that none was moving, then, using his tongue to start and stop it, produced a short, sharp note from the whistle.
The Monkey Handlers Page 25