Jonathan de Shalit: Traitor

“From this moment onward you will never sleep easy again,” Aharon said, unknowingly echoing Brian’s sentiments. “And as for your conscience, you, the traitor that you are, lost that a long time ago. I have no idea what drives you. Greed, a sense of frustration, megalomania, loneliness. I used to handle people like you myself. And when push came to shove, regardless of their rank and no matter how high they had climbed, they were nothing more than wimps. People who sought to find in me the things they lacked in themselves. You’re just the same.”

“Your insults, Aharon, are pretty pathetic. They’re simply an expression of your frustration. Perhaps your retirement is the reason? Has it caused you to lose touch with reality?”

“You know that if the Shin Bet were to interrogate you, instead of this pleasant chat we are having, things would be looking a whole lot different right now.”

Alon thought for a split second that Aharon and Brian must have spoken beforehand to coordinate their positions.

“Is that the worst thing you can threaten me with? A Shin Bet interrogation? And you think a veteran KGB spy couldn’t handle that?”

Aharon tried a different approach. “Perhaps you can tell me how it all started?” he asked. “How did you end up in the hands of those Russians? How did they fool you so?”

“As I said, I have no idea what you’re talking about at all. But I want you to know something. For almost thirty years now I’ve been sanctioned to maintain secret ties with official representatives of the United States.”

“Sanctioned by whom?”

“Daniel Shalev. Are you familiar with him? He was once the prime minister of Israel. A well-schooled and crafty individual. No less a tactician than a strategist. He initiated the ties for me, told me where to go and what to do, and all through my years with him, when we wanted to pass on confidential messages, when we wanted to reveal our true positions to the Americans in an unofficial yet trustworthy manner, the plans we’ve made for this or the other development in the region, or the positions and plans we wanted them to believe were genuine, we did so by means of the ties I maintained with them. We pieced together an irreplaceable shunt the significance of which can’t be overstated. If anything, I deserve the Israel Defense Prize, for the double life I’ve led for the sake of this country, the Israel Defense Prize,” he raised his voice, “and not the insults of the former Mossad chief, an old and frustrated man.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you spied for the Americans at the behest of Daniel Shalev, and that in practice it wasn’t espionage but a private initiative by a man who went on to serve as prime minister?”

“You can ask him yourself!”

They both knew that wasn’t an option. A stroke he had suffered some four years ago had left Daniel Shalev in a vegetative state, or something like one.

“And how did the Russians come into the picture?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Do you know that as we speak, Brian, despite himself, his hands cuffed, is our guest in the cabin of a merchant ship currently making its way from northern Italy to Tel Aviv? He needed some persuasion to join us on the trip, but after the doctor administered the shot, he became a far more agreeable individual. And by the way, when he cursed, he did so in fluent Russian. Not in the English of a professor from the East Coast. It’s going to be interesting to hear his version regarding his ties with you, and how he fits in to the fantasy you’ve just now tried to sell me.”

To the people sitting transfixed in the other room, Alon Regev appeared to have had the wind knocked out of him by a punch to the gut. But he held firm, didn’t fall to the canvas, and his breath returned, albeit short and rapid.

“Aharon, my friend.” That Aharon, my friend, again, Ya’ara thought to herself in anger.

“Aharon, my friend. I’m getting up and leaving now. And I’ll pass on the ride your goons offered me. I’ll take a taxi. I thank you for your time and am sure you now realize what an embarrassing mistake you have made. I’m not vindictive when it comes to aging spies, but you should know that you’ve crossed the line. Stay away from me. Touch me again, you or your people, and the best attorneys in Israel will come down on you like a ton of bricks. You’re walking a parapet. Be careful, Aharon. That’s the advice of a friend.”

Alon stood and headed to the door. He struggled a little with the security chain, and eventually freed it and walked, uneasily, toward the elevator. Ya’ara called Aslan from the nearby room. “He’s on his way down to you. Good luck,” she said.

Aslan started the car. Amir was in the front seat next to him. And from a distance of some fifty meters, they kept watch on the hotel’s entrance, waiting for the figure of Cobra to emerge.

TEL AVIV, APRIL 2013

The entire crew had gathered in the apartment, the one that could perhaps go on to serve one day as Michael Turgeman’s law firm office. Aharon was sitting in his armchair, alert and raring to go. “Let’s start with Aslan’s report,” he said.

Aslan cleared his throat. “Cobra left the hotel looking tense and as white as a sheet,” he began. “He looked around—maybe to find a taxi or maybe to see if he was being followed, I don’t know. But a taxi pulled up next to him, and he simply didn’t see us, me and Amir. He must have been stressed because the taxi took him straight to Tel Aviv without any stops or maneuvering that would have allowed him to try to spot us. He got out on the corner of Ibn Gvirol and Manne and immediately headed down Manne, in an easterly direction. He then stopped for a short while, just twenty seconds or so, alongside the concrete fence of one of the buildings. And after standing there briefly without moving, he hailed a second taxi to his home in Tzahala. We checked, but there was no marking on the fence.”

“Do you think he intended to leave a sign there for his handlers?” Aharon asked. “The age-old technique of chalk marks on the wall?”

“Perhaps,” Aslan said. “But as distressed as he may have been, he must have realized that we may have him under surveillance and chose not to do so. Someone like him has other ways of reporting his situation, even if he’s reluctant to use them to begin with.”

“Thank you, Aslan. Great job. So what do you have to say,” Aharon asked the team, “about my meeting with Alon Regev?”

“What astounds me,” Michael said, “is that he used the meeting to try already to sell you the ultimate cover story, a story that appears impossible to contradict or refute. Yes, he has maintained secret ties with a superpower, the United States and not the Soviet Union, and these ties—despite their conspiratorial nature, and perhaps even because of it—were in fact a covert channel for passing on messages and sometimes disinformation, with the entire operation initiated, ordered, planned, and authorized by none other than Daniel Shalev, who obviously can’t be asked a thing.”

“We can ask all we want, but we aren’t going to get any answers.”

“Why do you think he did so?” Michael continued. “Why play such an outlandish story so early in the game, when it could have been his trump card, in the event he really finds himself with his back to the wall?”

“The explanation for that, I think, is a complex one,” Aharon said. “First of all, he’s already under terrible stress. His cover’s been blown, and he knows it, and he’s fighting for his life. Second, I think that already at this stage he wanted us to know what awaits us at the end of the line. He wanted us to know that he has a trump card. A story like that could explain almost everything that he’s done that appears to be espionage. And to top it all, with permission and authorization that can’t be verified. We could of course ask him to see a document or piece of paper or something that proves he did indeed receive his instructions from Daniel Shalev, but then he’ll simply say no. Matters of this kind don’t and could never be allowed to leave a paper trail.” Aharon took a deep breath.