“Shouldn’t you rest a little? You’ve just undergone an operation…”
“No, I feel great. I must go to al-Aqsa this very day.”
“Only if the doctor approves it.”
Dr. Jackie Maman, the surgeon, nodded in affirmation.
“All right, sir. On our way, we’ll stop at the Jerusalem Theatre. We’ll have a professional makeup artist change your appearance in such a way that not even Dato would be able to recognize you.”
“Dato will always be able to recognize me,” Nur Sultan said cynically. “We have a saying: a dog will always recognize his master’s hand so long as it feeds him.”
Arik looked with embarrassment at Dato, who was sitting beside the president. Dato’s face was sealed.
A short drive later, the car slid into the Jerusalem Theatre’s back entrance. The makeup artist, a smiling, portly woman, waited for them in one of the dressing rooms. Makeup tubes, vials, and powders were placed on the table. “Hello, everyone,” she said amicably.
Nur Sultan gave Arik a worried look, and the latter nodded reassuringly.
Half an hour later, a dwarfish man wearing a coal-black wig exited the theatre. A mustache was proudly glued on his upper lip, and a small, black beard had been attached to his chin. When he smiled, two rows of perfect teeth were revealed, glued onto his crooked ones. New wrinkles stretched at the corners of his eyes and gave him an elderly appearance. He wore glasses with thick lenses on his nose. A white and black keffiyeh was wrapped around his neck, a sign of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
At the entrance to the Temple Mount, Gabby Ben-Jenou, the Jerusalem district’s chief of police, wearing civilian clothes, waited for Arik and his guests. Beside him, wearing their ceremonial clothes, stood the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the head of the Waqf, the religious trust managing the Islamic sites on the Temple Mount.
They had been ordered to arrive to the mosque entrance to welcome an important Muslim oligarch from Turkmenistan. It was hinted to them that, should the oligarch be pleased, he might make a generous contribution to the Waqf’s charity fund from which, as everyone knew, hefty amounts happened to end up in their own pockets.
Nur Sultan shook everyone’s hands and greeted them in Russian. One of the Jerusalem precinct’s general security servicemen translated their greetings from Arabic to Russian for the honorable guest’s benefit. The Mufti beckoned with his hand respectfully, offering the guest to be the first to enter the holy place. Nur Sultan walked inside with small and humble steps. The other men of his entourage, including Arik, the chief of police, and the General Security Service guards, took off their shoes and placed them in a row next to the entrance.
Nur Sultan opened his eyes wide, trying to absorb the sight of colorful carpets, painted ceramic tiles, and the large foundation stone, on top of which, according to Islamic tradition, Al-Burāq, Muhammad’s steed had once landed. The president’s soul filled with ecstasy, and he smiled at everyone gratefully, telling them again and again how delighted he was to visit al-Aqsa for the first time in his life.
He had not told them the main reason for his sense of elation. On the previous day, before the operation, he had had a vision. He dreamed the angel Jibril was standing at his bedside, touching him. In an echoing voice, the angel told him it was not a Jewish doctor who would save him but Allah himself, who had flown him from Mecca, where the president prayed just a week before on his way to Dubai, to Jerusalem, just as He had done for the prophet Muhammad.
Nur Sultan was convinced it was a manifestation of a passage from the Surah al-Isra in the holy Koran: “Glory to Allah who did take His servant for a journey by night from the sacred mosque to the farthest mosque, whose precincts we did bless, in order that we might show Him some of our signs, for He is the one who heareth and seeth all things.”
The other worshippers were removed to the sides of the hall. A few metal poles covered by a red drape offered Nur Sultan a private prayer area. The Mufti handed him a personal prayer mat as a present, then respectfully retreated to begin his own prayer. Nur Sultan placed the new mat beside him but did not make use of it. He preferred to have nothing separating his head and the earth to emphasize the humility of his spirit in the face of such divinity. Trembling with excitement, he began to mumble the words of the Surah al-Fati. h ah with great intent.
“In the name of God, the infinitely Compassionate and Merciful.
“Praise be to God, Lord of all the worlds. The Compassionate, the Merciful. Ruler on the Day of Reckoning. You alone do we worship, and You alone do we ask for help. Guide us on the straight path, the path of those who have received Your grace; not the path of those who have brought down wrath, nor of those who wander astray.”[14]
Arik stood on the other side on the improvised private prayer area alongside a few security guards in civilian clothing and the president’s personal and silent bodyguard who towered over them. Arik’s eyes wandered across the hall. As far as he knew, everyone in the company of the president had been checked and didn’t pose a threat, but he was worried about the other worshippers. When they bowed, he examined their backs, looking for any suspicious bulges. He needed to remind himself that securing the place wasn’t his responsibility and that he should trust the chief of police. Reluctantly, he turned his eyes back to Nur Sultan, who appeared to be detached from his surroundings and in the midst of a deep, spiritual experience. In spite of the stitches of the operation, the president managed to perform all the ritual prayer motions. The Salah included standing with raised hands; bowing, stretching the body forward while standing up; worshipping while kneeling; lowering the head until it touched the ground; and, finally, sitting on one’s knees.
The cell phone in Arik’s pocket vibrated once. He silently went out to the sun-washed square and bent to tie his shoelaces. A bothersome fly landed on his face. As he waved his hand to chase it away, he felt a hard object hit his shoulder. He dropped on his face and felt a wetness spreading from inside his shirt to the back of his neck. From behind him, he heard the sound of running police officers and security guards. Arik tried to get up on his hands and knees, but the pain in his shoulder proved to be insufferable, and he lay back on the cool stone floor. Ben-Jenou kneeled beside him, full of concern.
“I don’t understand…” Arik mumbled.
“You’ve been shot. My men are scouring the area. Paramedics are on the way.”
His phone vibrated again. “Could you take out my phone and put it on speaker?” Arik requested.
“What’s going on?” Cornfield’s gruff voice was heard. “I’m starting to get hungry. How much time before you get here with the guest?”
“Thirty minutes, I assume…” Arik struggled to speak. “He’s almost finished praying.”
“Why do you sound so funny?” Cornfield chuckled. “Sounds like you’re talking from inside your grave.”
“I’ve been shot,” said Arik.
“You and your dramas again!” Cornfield shouted angrily and hung up.
Chapter 28
The Hadassah Medical Center—Mount Scopus Campus
Arik was alert and hurting. The police paramedics placed him on a stretcher and brought him to the Temple Mount police checkpoint until an ambulance could come to evacuate him. The turmoil outside had not yet abated; police officers and General Security guards kept running around in and out of the complex. Arik lay on his back, his shirt unbuttoned, and his chest bare. He felt exposed and vulnerable. With an effort, he tried to raise his upper torso and push himself to a sitting position. A sharp pain cut through his back and shoulder. He dropped to the stretcher and this time turned around, leaned on his uninjured side, and tried again to sit. The pain worsened. Tears of effort welled in his eyes. “Don’t feel sorry for yourself,” he ordered himself. “Don’t demonstrate any weakness. Get up!”
While Arik was trying to rise, the district chief of police came inside and kneeled beside the stretcher. Arik mainly saw his shoes and the edges of his pants. “Gabby,
come closer, please,” he asked in a hoarse voice.
The chief leaned toward him. Arik saw his reflection in Jenou’s sunglasses and felt very vulnerable, definitely not as tough as he wanted everyone to think he was.
“You need to evacuate the guest immediately to the Presidential Suite at the King David Hotel,” he ordered in the most authoritative voice he could muster. “Cornfield is waiting for him there.”
“I’ll give the order right away,” said Ben-Jenou. Seconds later, Arik saw a terrified Nur Sultan Babayev, accompanied by his small entourage and surrounded by security guards holding automatic weapons, quickly being led to the gates of the Temple Mount. From then on, the images rushed quickly in front of Arik’s eyes, as if time had quickened its pace.
An ambulance siren blared through the air, and he was finally evacuated.
When he was inside the ambulance, the paramedic told him, “You’re lucky. It was a very small caliber bullet. There are clean entry and exit wounds.” He stuck an IV needle in Arik’s arm. Arik then felt another sting in his hip. “Morphine,” the paramedic said, and the pain almost immediately disappeared. The officer in charge of the security team asked for his pistol and operational cell phone as required by regulations. Arik handed them to him.
It appeared the ambulance didn’t miss a single bump on the roads surrounding the Temple Mount. Even later on, when they drove through the wide roads leading to the Hadassah Medical Center on Mount Scopus, the vehicle shook and jolted with the speed of the drive. Arik looked at the ceiling and tried to guess when the ambulance would pass by the military cemetery in which he’d met Eva just a few hours ago. He was wrong again and again, and when he gave up on his calculations, the ambulance came to a halt.
In the Emergency Room, he was rushed into the imaging room and placed in the CT scanner. While lying in the enclosed tunnel, he felt angry at himself. How come he hadn’t recognized the assassin with his distinct oriental features among the other worshippers?
Suddenly, it occurred to him that the assassin had not even entered the mosque but simply waited outside. Now he wondered how come he hadn’t seen him when he had remained by himself with the policemen and everyone else on the Temple Mount rushed inside to pray. Then he felt angry at the chief of police and his officers. Hadn’t they searched the Temple Mount thoroughly? Patrolled its surroundings? Why had they broken the basic VIP protection regulations? Why had they even allowed worshippers to enter the Temple Mount during the president’s visit? Why hadn’t they stationed snipers?
The bed was pulled out of the tunnel with a buzzing, mechanical sound. A wheelchair waited for him outside. “I can walk,” he almost screamed at the nurse.
“You’re still sedated from the morphine,” she answered with a coolness implying he wasn’t the first who tried to play hero with her. “If you try standing up, you’re simply going to fall.”
He reluctantly obeyed her instructions and stayed in bed, allowing her to wrap his body with a hospital gown. Only now did he notice his shoes and pants had been taken off, and his shirt was gone. He was naked other than his underwear and the ridiculous gown with laces at its open back. The only time he had even seen such a hospital gown was when his ex-wife had given birth to their children.
An orderly helped him move to the wheelchair, then rolled him down the corridors, greeting almost everyone he encountered on his way with a hearty, “Dobriy vecher.”[15]
Ben-Jenou waited for him in the hospital room. “We’ve arranged a private room for you,” he said with a proud smile. “At least for a few hours. You’ll have some peace and quiet here.”
He was the last person Arik wanted to see. “I don’t want peace and quiet!” He erupted with rage. “I want to understand what the hell happened. Where was our security team? Where were all your police officers, the ones wearing uniforms and the ones undercover? How did it happen, and who was responsible for the security? Do you realize what the press will do with this story?”
“Don’t worry, Cornfield already contacted the right people the whole thing will be silenced. And yes, heads are going to roll. Maybe mine as well. The police Commissioner has already announced a secret tribunal of inquiry.”
“Who fucked up here?”
“Both you and us. We didn’t have enough time to plan the security arrangements, and you classified the information and didn’t provide details that could have allowed us to prepare a thorough VIP security plan. In a nutshell, you relied on us, we relied on you, and the assassin ended up slipping away.”
“But how did he know we were coming? And don’t try to cover your ass with the usual excuses. The way I see things, you’re the ones who fucked up. I was told it was a twenty-two millimeter bullet that hit me. This could happen only with close range shooting with a small handgun. On the other hand, a gun would have been detected at the entrance. You do perform a security check for every visitor with a magnetometer metal detector, I assume?”
“A metal gun would have been discovered for sure,” Ben-Jenou said with lowered eyes, “but not one from other materials. We’ve found a cast plastic handgun next to one of the cypress trees with a zirconium barrel coated with graphite. It had two more homemade polymer bullets. If not for the turmoil around you after you had fallen he would have shot those as well.”
Arik thought for a moment. “Only KGB assassins had such guns,” he said. “Did you find any fingerprints? Did you arrest anyone?”
“No, but we’ve started an investigation.”
“I know you guys. Two days from now you’ll start a new investigation and drop this one. My guest will run away from Israel in a panic, and we’ll all lose the opportunity to offer the people of Israel a great gift.”
“The visitor won’t run away. Cornfield is taking care of him.”
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” Arik muttered and tried to get up again. “Do you have a shirt you could spare? Mine’s torn and filthy.”
“You can’t leave before getting the CT scan results,” Ben-Jenou said, as if he were his nurse. “And don’t worry about the guest. I know Cornfield from my visits to the prime minister’s office. He may be rough around the edges, but he’s not an idiot. He’s as ambitious as any other guy and wants to get the job done. Cornfield goes wild only when he knows there’s someone to clean up his mess. When he’s on his own and in charge, he knows how to behave himself. If something needs to happen with your guest, Cornfield will be able to handle it without you just as well.”
“I want you to send a patrol car here with two officers to help me get out and rush me to the King David Hotel.”
The chief of police shook his head and was rescued from another one of Arik’s angry outbursts only thanks to the doctor, who entered the room with a smile. “Your scan came out perfect. The bone wasn’t damaged; neither were the blood vessels and the nerves. Luckily, the bullet passed clean through your shoulder. A few stitches, some antibiotics, and you’ll be as good as new.”
Arik didn’t answer, distracted by noises coming from the corridor. Ben-Jenou seized the moment and slipped out of the room.
Naomi entered, holding a square, plastic box. She patted his healthy shoulder and said, “I thought you’d prefer my stuffed vegetables with meat to the hospital food.”
“How did you know?” Arik wondered with embarrassment. “How did you get here from Haifa so quickly?”
“Arik, it’s five in the afternoon already. Claire called me more than three hours ago, and I immediately jumped into my car and rushed here.”
Arik smiled. “You’re good to me. I know you think I don’t deserve any of this.”
“You deserve everything, my dear brother. But perhaps you could help more with Mom instead of getting yourself injured in weird car accidents?”
Arik chuckled in agreement. “I’m trying,” he said, waiting for her to approve he was indeed doing the best he could.
Naomi ignored his words and said with a smile. “Eva is on her way as well.”
“Eva? Who asked her to come here?”
“I let her know, and she told me she’d come.”
“How do you even know she exists?”
“When I came into the hospital and asked about you, the nurse called the security officer who asked who I was. I told him I’m your sister, and he gave me your belongings so they wouldn’t get lost, including your cell phone. I wondered who else should be notified, so I checked your recent calls. Perhaps it’s time you told me who this Eva is.”
Arik felt grateful for the fact his operational phone had been taken away in the ambulance and hadn’t fallen into her hands as well.
“She’s a good friend of mine. A professor of theology who is spending her sabbatical in Israel.”
“Eva doesn’t sound like a Jewish name,” Naomi said in an inquisitive tone.
“She’s not Jewish. She’s German,” Arik mumbled.
“You’re going to bring a German woman into our family?”
“There’s nothing serious going on between us,” said Arik.
“You don’t sound too convincing.” She glared at him.
Arik shrugged his single healthy shoulder.
“I called Nathalie as well.”
“And?” Arik tensed up.
“She’s on her way.”
Eva stood at the doorway, prettier than ever, smiling at him and holding a bouquet of flowers.
“Pleased to meet you.” Naomi offered Eva her hand.
Arik settled for saying, “Thanks for the flowers. You shouldn’t have.” Eva placed them on the windowsill.
“I’ll ask for a vase from the nurse later on,” she said cheerfully.
She’s already rearranging my life, Arik thought bitterly.
“What happened to you?” asked Naomi. “What kind of accident? Were you in a car? On foot?”
Eva remained silent, and Arik imagined he saw a hint of understanding in her face. “I can’t talk about it,” he said darkly. “But yes, it was a vehicle accident.”
“I understand,” Naomi said, an expression of “you’re playing secret agent again” on her face. “So what happened to you?”
To Kill a Shadow Page 15