MERAL: To be able to kill Dimiter.
SANDALLS: Why?
MERAL: Because Dimiter killed his son.
SANDALLS: Good reason.
MERAL: Quite. But not in the way you and I would understand it. Vlora despised his son. Vlora ordered men tortured in the name of what he thought was a greater good, whereas the son inflicted pain for the pleasure it gave him. Albanians have something called the “code of the bessa:” Someone murders your blood and you have to murder theirs. Any male. If he’s the only one available it could even be a child. It’s something like a moral imperative with them. There wasn’t any passion in Vlora’s hunt for Dimiter. It was all principle. Honor. Duty.
BELL: When did Dimiter kill his son?
MERAL: While on his mission to ordain the new priests in Albania. He was captured for a time and tortured and interrogated by Vlora, and then in making his escape he killed Vlora’s son. Up to here are we clear?
SANDALLS: We’ll see.
MERAL: Well, then, things took a strange and extraordinary turn. After rescuing Vlora from a car crash that without his intervention would most certainly have killed him, Dimiter had him treated at the Government Hospital in Jerusalem and then took him from there to his apartment in Jerusalem Heights where he slowly brought him back to some semblance of health: you know, feeding him, nursing him, reading to him, keeping up his spirits; at times, it seems, just by his presence alone, and that’s something that I know about at first hand.
SANDALLS: What do you mean “first hand?”
MERAL: I mean that just being in his company changes you.
SANDALLS: Changes you how?
ZUI: That’s not important. Back to Vlora, please, Sergeant. You were saying?
MERAL: Colonel Vlora was stunned. I mean, this from a man that he’d ordered tortured for endless days and in the most unendurable and horrifying ways and whom he’d just tried to kill. It was the code of the bessa turned on its head! Vlora changed. He was overcome. Made new. In its way this was Vlora’s own mystical experience. And then the truly amazing thing happened.
SANDALLS: We’re talking letters again?
MERAL: Yes, that’s right.
SANDALLS: Are we getting our hands on those letters?
ZUI: Yes, we’re sending you the batch. You have my word.
SANDALLS: Moshe, thanks. And now what’s this “amazing thing,” Meral?
MERAL: It truly is! Vlora knew that someone else was targeting Dimiter. Dimiter had told him that. Then a few weeks later he asked Dimiter to walk with him to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and when they were almost there he revealed his intention, telling Dimiter that if a staging of Dimiter’s “death” were made known in some extremely dramatic and public way, it might cause the would-be killer to believe that he’d made a mistake, that Wilson wasn’t Dimiter after all and that he had targeted the wrong man. Dimiter had so many different looks, after all. Vlora’s plan was to die and to be taken for Dimiter, and so early on the morning he was to execute the plan he went over to the apartment he had rented, but in fact never occupied, and salted it with all of those documents that led us to think that Vlora was Dimiter. When Vlora told him his intention, Dimiter was appalled. He didn’t want this. No. Not at first. Though of course it made no difference since the venom was already in Vlora’s system. And that brings me to the second part of Vlora’s thinking. Who could possibly think this was a suicide, he thought. Who would choose to end his life with the incredibly painful Deathstalker venom when a handful of sleeping pills would do the job as well? To a mind like Vlora’s that had been trained to view the world with the remorseless squint of the bessa, it was this, he believed, that would likely persuade any would-be assailant that Dimiter had indeed been killed and by someone who had hated him intensely.
SANDALLS: Maybe yes, maybe no.
MERAL: Precisely. And that’s what’s even more remarkable about it: that there was no guarantee his plan would work and that Vlora chose extraordinary pain just on the chance of it.
SANDALLS: I think I get your point. So what came next?
MERAL: Well, there was nothing now that Dimiter could do and so he went into the Tomb with Vlora, who as soon as the others in the chamber had left took another massive dose of chloral hydrate, lay down on the burial slab, folded his arms across his chest, and then closed his eyes and waited to die.
BELL: The crossed arms? What was that? Some Albanian thing?
MERAL: No. It was just something that would add to the aura of mystery intended to capture the attention of the press and the public. Dimiter promised Vlora he would stay to the end, and when it came he slipped out of the Tomb and then the church. End of story.
SANDALLS: Who salted Vlora’s apartment with Dimiter’s I.D.? Was it Vlora?
MERAL: Yes, Vlora. All except the juggling balls and the clown things. Vlora didn’t know their significance so Dimiter added them to the items that Vlora had salted. He didn’t want his sacrifice to be in vain.
SANDALLS: Okay, thanks.
MERAL: You’re very welcome. Inspector?
ZUI: Okay, let’s get into Dimiter’s mission.
SANDALLS: I’m going to say this until I’m blue in the face. He was here on his own.
ZUI: But he did have a mission.
SANDALLS: Oh, for Christ’s sake, Moshe!
ZUI: I think you’ve just hit the nail on the head.
SANDALLS: What do you mean?
ZUI: If you’ll listen for a minute you’ll find out.
SANDALLS: Okay, I’m listening. I’m listening intently.
ZUI: Good. It has something to do with your St. Paul, who was originally our Saul and like Dimiter a legendary assassin. He hunted down Christians and killed them mercilessly. Then one day on the road to Damascus along with a number of companions all determined to annihilate the Christian community there, he had a mystical experience in which he was knocked to the ground by some force, by some brilliant white light in the sky, and he also heard a voice, and soon after our Saul became your St. Paul. Something similar happened to Dimiter. He had a mystical experience that stunned him, something to do with Jesus Christ. And like Saul, at first he didn’t understand what had hit him. But being Dimiter, what does he do? Why of course! He comes to Jerusalem to find out what it was that just knocked him to the ground. Or off his horse, as some people seem to think.
BELL: I still don’t get it. Why Jerusalem?
ZUI: He loved the sound of people constantly arguing. Sergeant Meral? Would you take it from here, please?
MERAL: Yes. Now you’ll recall that Paul Dimiter’s preparation whenever he was tasked with a high-level hit had him spending many weeks, sometimes months, researching personal data about the target he’d been assigned to hunt down and kill: what the target ate, how he walked, how he dressed, what he read, what made him laugh, what made him cry, what made him angry, and so on and so on—every possible fact that could be gathered about him, but above all else how the target thought, so that when he had finished with his preparation Dimiter virtually was the target.
SANDALLS: Listen, maybe I’m just thick, but what’s this all got to do with his coming to Jerusalem? Why here? And didn’t we agree he was hunting an idea here and not some person?
MERAL: No, there was a “Target X.” It was a person.
SANDALLS: Are you kidding me, Sergeant? You’re sure of that?
MERAL: Yes. Absolutely.
SANDALLS: And so who was he hunting?
MERAL: Christ.
[10:55: INTERVIEW TERMINATED ABRUPTLY]
In the tense exchange that followed, Bell and Sandalls asked for copies of the “Dimiter Letters” and left hastily, edgy and somehow flustered, refusing Zui’s request that they stay behind to discuss a “very new and unsettling development.” When they and Sergeant Meral had left, Zui sighed, picked up the note he’d been handed much earlier and then slowly shook his head as he numbly reread it.
“Wait until they hear,” he murmured. “Wait!”
&nb
sp; CHAPTER 32
His large hands gripping the black iron railing at the top of the Russian Church Tower, Meral stood and looked eastward at the reddish brown twists of the forbidding and precipitous Mountains of Moab, with their salt sides bleached and sloping whitened in the sun, while before and below them sweeping fields of yellow dandelions bright in tall grass shone like promises of rain and redemption. When he’d arrived there were several other tourists at the top, but now they were leaving and Meral was grateful. He wanted to be here alone, as he had at dawn on many mornings before when he had come to hear the echo of Dimiter’s footsteps, to inhale the last lingering traces of his presence. It was different at dawn when the world was hushed and the sun was slipping up from behind its rim like a shimmering benediction; but after the Final Report had concluded, some mysterious and irresistible impulse had drawn Meral here despite the less favorable time of day. And now he waited. But for what? Then something crossed his mind. Had he come here for a sign? he wondered. He thought of Dimiter’s letter about seeing the “wire” and his “special thinking,” his only letter about his visits here. Would something appear? Meral stayed and was alone for a while, and when he looked at his watch and was about to leave, from out of nowhere a sudden fierce wind sprang up that was so strong it pinned his back to the tower wall until, just as it had arisen, it abruptly died into absolute stillness. Meral started his descent still not knowing what had drawn him there in so unquiet a time of the day.
He had remembered Dimiter’s letter about his “special thinking.”
But forgotten his mention of the sudden strong wind
CHAPTER 33
Meral entered his room, slipped off his uniform jacket, hung it up, and then sat on the edge of his bed where, as he did every night of his life, he stared lovingly and long at each of the photos on the top of his desk, the last of them a new one. Mayo’s. Then his gaze dropped down to the slim center drawer of the desk. He leaned forward and pulled it open, reached in a hand, and then lifted out a single sheet of paper on which the love that had created the beauty of things had now written a letter of its own. It was Dimiter’s last letter to his wife. Meral had withheld it.
He was certain it had been written for him.
Dearest Jean,
You’re alive! Oh, my joy! You live! And you’ve confessed to me all that you have done, what you and Stephen have done, and still mean to do, which is to kill me. And now you want me to meet you in secret and away from Stephen. You now hate him, you say. You fear him. And you want me to help you escape him. You want to come back to me, you say, and that you are filled with remorse, which, if true, is surely the only thing you’ve told me that is, for you have sent me an invitation to my death. Although I think there’s something else you said that’s true. That you still love me. Oh, I know you don’t think so. But in that part of your soul still untouched and unstained by this fallen place, the part that remains the Jean I’ve loved for so long, I believe that you do.
I am coming to your meeting. I’ll be there. And I will make no resistance. I am coming to tell you and to show you I forgive you, for who knows then what blithe and unexpected grace might one day beckon your heart to where it’s always belonged.
And then finally allow you to forgive yourself.
I will love you forever, my Jean.
Your Paul
Meral’s head was bent, his gaze still clinging to the letter.
“Yes, ‘Forgive yourself,’ ” he murmured softly.
Besides the fact it had been written for Meral, the letter differed from the others in another way as well. This one had been delivered.
EPILOGUE
A dry sherry, please, Patience.”
“ ‘If it were done when it were done.’ ”
“Yes, precisely. And kindly don’t put anything in it.”
Meral stood at the counter in the Casa Nova bar. It was the end of another day of work and he had changed into a blue linen jacket, khaki pants, white shirt, and a summery pale blue tie. It was the pre-dinner hour. Meral turned and looked around. There were only two other people in the bar and therefore many free chairs, all with camel-leather seats and backs and hollow shiny black metal legs. Meral turned one around so he could keep an eye on Patience, and then he sat down.
“Oh, well, hullo there, old chap!” Meral turned his head. It was Scobie with a folded-up newspaper clutched in his hand. He looked over at the bar. “My usual, please!” he called out, and then he sat in a chair one away from Meral’s.
“Don’t mind if I sit with you, old chap?”
“No, not at all. You’re quite welcome.”
Scobie squinted at him dubiously. “I am?”
“Well, of course, you are, Scobie. Please sit.”
Scobie continued to stare for a moment, then at last turned away and unfolded his paper. “Oh, well, you’ve heard about the latest bit of bloody tomfoolery at bloody Shin Bet, I suppose.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“No? Misplaced the dead body of a secret agent and a bloody damned famous one at that. You know that Dimiter fellow? Silly twits. First they give me a pranging about misinforming them. And now this. This country is becoming unlivable.”
Meral turned to him. Scobie was holding up the newspaper wide in both hands and with his nose only inches away from the text while his eyes scanned about for some item of interest.
“What are you talking about, Scobie?”
Scobie turned to him.
“You really mean you haven’t heard?”
“They’ve lost his body?”
“Oh, well, they had him iced up in the morgue and all ready to ship him to the States, and now they’re saying that his body’s disappeared! They can’t find it!” He turned back to his paper. “Bloody twits. Can you imagine? What a bloody balls-up! Misplaced a body!”
Meral looked off in a reverie of thought and wonder while, as if from some minor and distant planet lost in the tumbling, silent swirl of the galaxies, he heard the voice of Scobie.
“Well, now, this Dimiter, you know. Ever meet him?”
“Yes. He gave me a sunflower once.”
“Okay, I’m here.”
Meral turned to look up at Samia.
“This okay?” she asked. “What I’ve got on?”
She was wearing a pale blue dress, pink sandals, and a red and white Beethoven T-shirt. “I mean, Beethoven wasn’t Catholic,” she went on, “he was Protestant. They’re not snots about that kind of stuff here, are they, Meral?”
“No, they aren’t,” Meral told her.
He stood up.
“And your attire is lovely,” he added. “First a drink and then dinner? The chef is doing Mexican tonight at my request. What’s wrong? You’re not pleased?”
Samia’s eyes had been searching his face with concern.
“You look distracted,” she said. “What are you thinking?”
“You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Me?”
Meral smiled.
Acknowledgments
Toward the end of the 1960s I attended a modest New Year’s Eve gathering at the home of my friend, the wonderful novelist and screenwriter, Burton Wohl, and it was there that I met Marc Jaffe, then Editorial Director of Bantam Books. Familiar with my work as a comic novelist, he asked me quite casually what I was working on lately. My answer involved mention of the State Unemployment Office but then, after debating whether or not to risk losing Jaffe’s respect, I talked for no more than a minute or two about my idea for a serious novel, prudently withholding the fact that I had shopped it around to various publishing entities and several Hollywood film studios, all of whom eyed me with pity. But not Marc Jaffe. When I’d finished talking, and without a moment’s hesitation, he looked me in my eye and said—his exact words—“I’ll publish that!” And he did. It was The Exorcist. Now, forty years later, a period of time during which we’ve had virtually no contact, Marc Jaffe has done it again, having made it a crusade to find a publisher for this, th
e most personally important novel of my career.
I have no way of adequately thanking him. The gift is too great.
My thanks also to Vivienne Jaffe who, along with Marc, gave invaluable help in the editing and preparation of the manuscript, as did also my wife, Julie.
Among others I would wish to thank—U.S. Army Colonel William R. Corson, personnel of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, the Israeli National Police, and Isser Harel, the “father of Israeli Intelligence,” who masterminded the capture of Adolph Eichmann and gave me invaluable research assistance—all have passed away, but I thank them here nevertheless, confident that their mortal deaths will not keep them from knowing that I have done it.
Author’s Note
I would be most appreciative if readers of this novel in Jerusalem were to be so kind as to resist the impulse to write and inform me that there is not now, nor has there ever been, a “Remle Street.” I know that. But only the name is fictitious, not the place, which is Hativat Jerushalayim, the usage of which utterly destroyed the rhythm of any sentence in which I attempted to use it. I didn’t even try with Orthodox Armenian Patriarchate Road. Shalom.
Dimiter Page 21