I almost fell off the ladder as I bent back below the top of it before he could hit me. I pushed the cartridge latch to make the empty magazine fall all the way down to the asphalt. Stuck in mid-air, I had no idea how I was going to load a new magazine. Then I heard a beautiful divine sound. It was the sound of metal knocking against metal. I couldn’t believe it: His gun also jammed!
I raised my head and saw him kneeling. He hit the magazine of his Kalashnikov on the shed’s metal roof. How close was he to me? Close enough that I could see the bullet casing stuck in the breech of his gun. I threw my Glock at him, but he didn’t see it coming. His eyes shot up when it smacked his head. He collapsed on the roof, dropping his weapon.
It took me two or three breaths until I started to crawl towards him. My bleeding hands dragged on the rusty floor. He tried to get up and put his hand out toward his gun, but I jumped over and pounced on his chest. He looked up at me – and that was his last moment of consciousness before I beat the shit out of him. It wasn’t a masterpiece of martial art, just a rain of bleeding punches into his un-responding face.
“Itay! “ I heard shouts from below, and I realized Leroy had been calling me.
The terrorist lay there in an unnatural position with a deformed face.
“Evron, what the hell is going on up there?” I heard the voice of my boss, Amit, from below.
The strong wind threatened to unbalance me, but I was determined to stay above the terrorist lying on the filthy roof.
“Evron!” I heard Amit yell again, followed by the sound of steps on the rusty ladder I had used. Instead of his glistening baldness, it was a Glock barrel that peeked up the ladder.
“Don’t shoot!” I shouted and bent down. “It’s me! The terrorist is disarmed!”
Amit got up to the roof and stood next to me. He was wearing long pants with a bleach stain and a touristy shirt from Costa Rica. “Is he dead?” he asked and lowered his gun.
I looked down at the disfigured figure “I don’t know.”
“Let’s cuff him,” Amit said, as if he cuffs a man every day before lunch. I took hold of the terrorist’s shoulder and waist and flipped him over on his stomach. There was slight resistance, and a weak sigh coming from the twisted, bleeding, immobile body.
Boom! Amit’s shoulders shot up, and so did mine. There was a single gunshot that echoed very closely.
It took Amit half a second to pull out his Glock and kneel down. I did the same, but less automatically. It took me a second to find my gun, pick it up off the floor, and reload the last full magazine I carried. “What was that?” Amit whispered. I looked at him and didn’t know what to say − mainly because I had no idea what it was.
“What was that?” Amit roared. “Leroy? Shlomi?”
We ran to the edge of the roof. Amit told me to throw the terrorist’s rifle in the green trash can, and then he jumped off the roof. I did what he ordered and slid down the ladder after him, wondering how he didn’t break his legs from the jump.
“Where did the gunfire come from, dammit?” Amit ran, his eyes moving from side to side like crazy.
“Can anyone identify anything?” We heard someone shout from the entrance. It sounded like Arik but I wasn’t sure. I turned around and realized that there were many people there, all in civilian clothing, with identification hats on and holding loaded guns.
“I can,” a voice came from the dark side of the warehouses. Everyone stopped.
Amit’s wrinkles deepened even more when he heard the strange answer.
“Freeze! Everyone! “ Amit shouted and looked intently at a random spot in the air. I thought I knew what he was thinking.
“A sniper?” Arik asked. At that moment I was sure it was Arik’s voice, almost as I sure as I was that it was not a sniper. The shot had been close and clear, not the echoed sound of a sniper’s weapon from a distance. “It’s not a sniper! Everyone put down your guns,” I shouted because I saw Amit was delayed.
I looked behind me and saw Bitton taking position. He had come from home, wearing shorts, a tank top, and sandals. It was a strange combination to be wearing with an identification hat and gun.
Amit told Bitton and me to comb the area with him, that the others will stay where they are, wearing the cloth police identification hats and waiting.
After Amit went over half of the warehouses while Bitton and I scanned most of the other half, I suddenly heard movement to my right. I looked at Bitton, who looked back at me with the same thought.
“I took out the terrorist,” we heard a high-pitched, weak voice – which was not the roar of a combat guard. Amit joined us; he also heard a strange sound. Bitton looked over at the dark corner the voice was coming from, pointing his gun with sweaty hands.
I thought it might be a trap, but something about the strange voice seemed real. I headed toward the recycling container, with the gun at eye height. My elbows were locked in place, finger tightly on the trigger. When I passed the container, I saw him.
It was Avner Tal, the redhead who was responsible for the vehicles in the base. He was one of the few back-office workers who always carried a gun, since he spent half of the time outdoors. He was called in late at night to extract one of the office vehicles stuck on a Judean road. When he returned, he saw an armed man running, but the man didn’t see him. He was lost in thought, sitting on the asphalt with his head between his legs, his arms folded above his head, still holding the loaded Glock.
“Are you hurt?” I asked him, but he just mumbled.
“Avner,” I softly kicked his leg, “what’s going on, man? Talk to me. Did you just fire?”
“Yes, I shot him.”
I turned around, trying to understand where the second terrorist could have gone. Amit was covering me from his position, his gun out and ready to fire.
“So,” I smiled, “what do you say, dude?” For a vehicle clerk, Avner seemed to be dealing pretty well with combat. “Are you going to tell me which way the terrorist ran or not?”
He remained silent. I couldn’t think of any better way to express myself except for pulling his hair and slapping him.
“In which fucking direction did you fire, you idiot? Where!?”
Avner burst into hysterical crying.
“Answer me!” I slapped him once again.
I felt someone pulling my shoulder. I turned, and it was Amit, telling me to calm down.
I turned to give the redhead another one, but he jumped back and pointed towards the area where they keep the empty gas containers. What the hell would have happened if a bullet had hit one of those?
I went over there and didn’t find anything.
“Is there anything there?” Amit yelled to me. I turned and saw him holding on to Avner’s hand firmly.
“No,” I shouted back. When I turned back around, I saw him lying on his face. I aimed my gun at his head to make sure he wouldn’t try anything. I kicked his hand lightly; he didn’t move. I kicked him harder in the waist, still nothing.
“Evron?” Amit screamed when I kneeled, my gun still aiming at his head that was stuck in sand and stones. I grabbed his shoulder and turned him onto his back. The few seconds felt like an eternity when I examined him. A 9 mm bullet entry hole was next to his nose and his eyes were wide open.
Good God! It was Leroy.
Chapter 37
At 2:00am I dropped onto the couch in the foyer that we used to call “the living room.”
On the small screen I managed to put on the wall, I repeatedly ran the report by Meirav Altshuler, the TV broadcaster.
She’s not a kid; she’s over 40. She has such a serious look on her face when she broadcasts serious matters and is so emphatic when reporting on painful topics. Her smile is so young and naughty when she tells her viewers about a woman in Japan who married a robot. Her everlasting beauty with her journalistic intellect gives her amazing sex appeal.
/>
Libby once told me that according to Freud, “Eros” and “Thanatos” are the two fundamental life and death drives. The “Eros” explains the phenomena of life, and the “Thanatos” is a sort of secret desire for death.
At first it sounded like the usual university intellectual crap, but when I think of Liza and all this violence, well, maybe there’s something to it.
Meirav Altshuler has a perfect smile. I wonder what her favorite position is. The late-night newscast started with a report about us:
“Good evening, and happy Hanukkah. We begin tonight with a grave security incident that took place early this morning in Jerusalem. Doron Shem Tov, our correspondent in Jerusalem, has the details.”
Doron Shem Tov talked, but didn’t say too much.
“There are casualties; there is a gag order on all the details.”
Leroy’s funeral was at the military cemetery in Herzliya. He was both the fiercest and most heartful guy the ISA had ever employed. A mighty warrior and a real mensch. Such great potential, with such a bright future. And he was killed on my shift. The ISA Director, Avi Bachar, came up to me before the ceremony, accompanied by Amit, and reached out to me.
“Itay, well done. You fought the way an ISA guard is expected to fight,” he said.
I was not expecting to meet such a high-ranking officer, and I surely didn’t think I deserved praise. So I remained silent.
The director didn’t let go of my hand and pulled it towards him. He looked straight at me, trying to catch my eye.
“Itay,” the director said. The sun had set, and my spirit had gone dark.
“Itay,” he said once again, pulling me closer.
Before the funeral, I had only seen him on television, sometimes in the dining room. I had never been so close to him, and God, how I wish I hadn’t been now.
“It wasn’t your fault. We’re going to investigate the entire incident, but one thing is for sure: you saved my employees.”
My tears were out of control. I lowered my head again. Bachar patted my shoulder and told me not to feel guilty, as though it were an order. “You’re the opposite of guilty,” he said. “You’re a hero.”
I would much rather be neither − just normal.
Meirav Altshuler finished giving the soccer results and continued with the weather forecast, but not before a kind reminder that Corporal Seffi Keinan had been in captivity for 850 days. The little plate with burekas on the table next to me was almost empty.
“A quick update: the name of the man killed in yesterday’s attack in Jerusalem has just been released.”
I grabbed another burekas. “ISA Agent Leroy Cohen, 26, from Herzliya, was killed by friendly fire last night during an attempt by terrorists to infiltrate a classified base in the Jerusalem area. Two additional ISA employees were lightly and moderately injured. Cohen’s funeral will take place this afternoon at the Military Cemetery in Herzliya. Most of the details of the incident have not yet been released.
She called Leroy an “ISA agent,” and not an “ISA guard.” I had often wondered what they would call me on television if I died.
The bedroom door opened and Donna peeked out, half asleep.
“You’re still up? What are you doing?” she asked with a yawn.
“I can’t sleep. My stitches hurt,” I answered. Libby once told me that the public television channels at night are a parallel universe where all the people with insomnia go to watch surreal shows, and this fills their lack of dreams.
There was one more burekas left, and I decided to spare it.
“Come sleep with me, honey,” she told me, but I declined, waving my hand at her. Put some ice on your lip to stop the swelling.”
“I don’t want to,” I answered. Donna gave up and closed the door
Amit summoned me to meet with him and Gila, the social worker. They gave me the business card of someone named Daphna, a psychologist in Jerusalem specializing in ISA employees.
“Thank you, but that’s not necessary,” I said, and left the card on the table.
“It is necessary, believe me,” Gila said, with the social worker’s generic expression. She is supposed to say, “Believe me,” but it would have sat better with me if she had said, “Give it a chance.”
“Listen, Evron, it sounds like nonsense to you at the moment, but it can really help you,” Amit said, backing up his colleague. He added with a wink, “You even get paid for the time there. It’s better than another day of questioning at the Gush Etzion police station, isn’t it?”
Going to a therapist felt to me like adding more problems to my already complicated life. Passover is coming up in six months, and I’ll probably be smoking a hookah on Libby’s balcony. She’ll analyze it. She always has something smart to say about me, about human nature, or life in general.
Meirav Altshuler completed the report on the incident, leaving out the details she could not report on. She finished up the news report with that junior reporter who shows funny videos from the Internet. He probably completed his studies and ran from one news station to another, offering to act like a clown, free of charge.
Why didn’t I do something like that? What was wrong with a life without gunshots, without dead people, without the threat of killing or getting killed? Without barging into people’s houses, hitting and arresting its occupants? What was wrong with this clown’s life? Late at night in the news studio, sitting on a black chair showing YouTube videos of cats playing the piano to Meirav Altshuler.
I looked at my phone, at Liza’s picture on the small screen. It’s the profile picture she chose for her WhatsApp account. It was a very good choice of picture: a smile with teeth, not too big, spontaneous, and effortless. She looked at the camera with her head slightly turned, as if the photographer said to her, “Hey! Over here!” and clicked. The direct look in her eyes gave me the feeling that she was looking at me personally. Her hair was half tied and half let down, brushing her honey-brown tanned shoulder. She was surprisingly tanned for a girl who was born in Russia.
She sent me a message that afternoon that read, “I heard what happened r u okay?”
I was too scared to answer her, and I don’t even know why.
The last burekas on the plate was at least as lonely as me. The old, dusty blanket was covering me with a carelessness that reminded me of myself. The analog wall clock indicated a late-night hour that some would call morning.
I started writing a message to Liza while trying to get rid of the sesame seed that was stuck in my teeth.
“Hi Liza. It took me a while to answer you because it’s been a difficult 24 hours,” I wrote and deleted. That was too weak.
“Hi. Sorry I didn’t answer. Yes, there was a bit of a mess,” I wrote but deleted it as well.
“I’ll be okay. How are you?” I wrote and sent it. If I had waited, I probably would have deleted this one, too.
I turned the TV off and lay back. My neck hurt. I covered my head with the blanked and tried to count my breaths to slow my heartbeat, just as we did that time in the yoga class in the army.
In between sleeping and awakening, Leroy’s face appeared before me, with the hole near his nose.
After I finished throwing up, I stayed on my knees, holding on to the toilet. Outside the window, the colors changed from black to dark blue. Will this night ever end?
Donna got up and came over to me. She helped me up and wiped my face with a warm, wet towel. This is the best thing that happened to me this last week. Damn, Donna knows how to take care of me.
“I’m sorry, my love. I’m in trouble. Sorry,” I said from under the blanket.
She said it was all right and suggested again that I come to bed. I nodded in agreement and went to brush my teeth to get rid of the taste of vomit.
My phone beeped with an incoming message. I saw Donna in the mirror going to get me the phone. I won
dered who was sending me a message so late. I almost choked on the toothpaste when I realized – it must be Liza! I rushed into the living room, my mouth full of foam. Donna was holding the phone.
I reached out my hand and said, “Give it to me!” but it came out as “--ive it to me!” since my mouth was full of toothpaste.
“Why? Who is it?” Donna asked, apparently affected by my urgency.
“--ive it to me!” I said, and she handed it to me hesitantly.
I went back to the bathroom and rinsed my mouth out. I closed the door, pretending to pee, but I was checking out the three messages Liza had sent.
“good 2 hear from u”
“I’m back and I’m okay”
“Get some sleep and we’ll talk 2moro”
I deleted all my messages from Liza and flushed the toilet, even though there was no reason to do so. Donna asked me about the message. I told her it was from someone at work. It was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. With all the strange things I was going through, Donna wasn’t going to make a big deal about messages late at night. She pressed her warm back against my stomach and went back to sleep for what was left of the night.
I couldn’t sleep. After a few minutes, I turned around and took my phone.
“Yes, it’s good to hear from you too. We’ll talk.”
Chapter 38
The drive to The Academy was peaceful. There were three of us in the car: Bitton, me, and Ran Zander.
“This is the new guy.” Bitton introduced him to me next to the vehicle that was already running, “Zander, this is Evron − the legend.”
The new guy smiled and held his hand out to me in awe. I entered the car, pretending not to see. The ISA can replace Leroy pretty quickly, but for me he’ll never be replaced. “It’s amazing how replaceable we are,” I muttered as I slammed the door shut.
“What?” Bitton asked as he sat down in the driver’s seat.
“Never mind.”
At the beginning of the drive, Bitton asked me how I was doing. I said I was fine and looked out the window.
Fracture Point Page 20