Avraham Azrieli - The Jerusalem Assassin

Klaus Junior moved the white knight to B-4. “Check!”

“What?” Lemmy examined the board. “Are you trying to kill my queen?”

The phone on the kitchen counter rang again.

Paula said, “Guys?”

“ Sorry,” Lemmy said, “but we’re at war here!”

She dropped the kitchen knife on the cutting board and picked up the receiver. “Hello?” She listened for a moment. “Herr Horch will be right with you.”

Lemmy got up. “Don’t move anything. I’ve memorized the battlefield, and I’m winning.”

“You’re dreaming, Papa!”

He twisted his face at Paula, who picked up the knife threateningly. He circled her at a safe distance and snatched the receiver. “Yes?”

“Are you watching the news?” The voice was meek and scratchy, but Lemmy recognized it instantly.

“Excuse me?”

Paula gave him a curious look.

Elie Weiss coughed. “Turn on your TV.”

Lemmy’s hand tightened around the receiver. Elie had never called him at home.

“Watch the report from Paris.”

“What is this about?” Lemmy glanced at Paula, whose eyes moistened from the sliced onion.

Elie said, “Here’s what I need you to do. First-”

“I beg your pardon.” Lemmy tried to keep his voice formal, professional. “Please call my office on Monday morning. I’m sure we can assist you.”

“Shut up!” Elie’s voice was still hushed, but the rage came through clearly. “Security is not important anymore.”

Lemmy wiped the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. He could feel Paula and Klaus Junior watching him.

“Listen carefully. First, as soon as the prince contacts you, call me at the Hilton Paris under the name Rupert Danzig. Second, you must take over the bank ASAP. We’re out of time.”

Lemmy almost choked. He couldn’t believe Elie was saying this on an open line. “This is highly irregular-”

“Get rid of your father-in-law. Tomorrow. It’s an order!”

“Who is this?”

“Remember who you are! Nekamah! ”

The line went dead.

“ Is everything all right?” Paula asked.

“An odd duck. Some clients are just…weird.”

“Papa? What’s your next move?”

“Coming.” Lemmy could hardly believe what had just happened. Elie’s voice on his home phone, with Paula and Klaus Junior a few feet away. Such an invasion was never supposed to happen. Complete separation was the only way things worked. Otherwise Wilhelm Horch’s life would collapse like a tower of cards.

Get rid of your father-in-law. Tomorrow. It’s an order!

Was Elie losing it? Armande Hoffgeitz as a target? A job inside the family? It was madness! Why the sudden urgency?

The news!

“Papa? Are you playing? Check! ”

Lemmy advanced a pawn, an irrelevant move.

Klaus Junior moved in for the kill and announced, “ Check mate! ”

“Great game.” Lemmy got up and walked out of the kitchen, not looking at Paula. He could not face her.

In the living room, he turned the TV on to CNN.

Klaus Junior followed him. Lemmy put his arm around the boy’s shoulders, and they watched the broadcast from Paris, a procession of injured people and body bags moving across the screen.

*

Everything was white-the walls, the ceiling, the door, the sheets that covered Tanya. Even the curtain hanging from a circular rail around the bed was white. A woman appeared, her coat white, hair white, face white, only her lips were red as rose petals. “Ah! Madame is awake!”

Tanya tried to sit up. “Am I dead?”

“Not at all,” the woman said matter of fact, as if responding to a normal question. She pointed to an embroidered logo on her coat: Saint Antoine Hospital.

The pain appeared suddenly, as if someone hit her head with a hard object. Tanya groaned and touched a bandage on her right temple.

“Careful.” The nurse held her hand. “You had a concussion. Do you remember?”

It took a moment for the memory to surface. “The synagogue!”

“Yes, terrible. The detectives would like to speak with you when you’re ready.”

As soon as the nurse left, Tanya got out of bed. She was dizzy from the pain in her head, but this was no time for self-pity.

The cabinet doors were not locked. Her dress, which was dark enough to hide the bloodstains, was draped over a hanger, and her shoes rested on a shelf next to her purse, which contained false identification papers and a credit card that could not be traced. Tanya got dressed, rinsed her face in the white basin, let her hair down over the bandage, and left.

*

Sunday, October 22, 1995

Prince Abusalim spent the night in a sparse room with only a prayer rug to cushion the concrete. At dawn, he was brought to his father’s chamber, and they prayed together. No words were exchanged, and Abusalim figured this was his punishment-a night of seclusion, discomfort, and repentance.

Within an hour of sunrise, the air was already warm and dry, the palm trees still, and the servants hushed with dread. Sheik Da’ood az-Zubayr kneeled, his forehead on the carpet, and completed his prayers. Hajj Ibn Saroah helped him rise.

Prince Abusalim touched his forehead down once more and got up. The long galabiya covered him as a cloak, reaching down to the plain sandals. He could smell his own body odor and longed to soak in a foam bath, sit on the balcony in view of the Eiffel Tower, and sip chardonnay while browsing the Wall Street Journal. He took his father’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you for making me realize my errors-”

The sheik pulled his hand away and left the room with the hajj.

Prince Abusalim followed, puzzled by his father’s behavior. Two limousines waited at the foot of the marble steps. The first had already departed when Prince Abusalim got into the second. It drove in silence down the road toward the airstrip. He twisted his face at the bittersweet smell of smoke and animal manure that drifted over from the tribesmen’s huts.

They climbed into the Boeing 747, and the doors were shut. The front sitting room was paneled with gold and thick cushions. He went upstairs to the miniature mosque on the upper-deck and sat with an open Koran. The carpeted floor floated on a swivel to allow it to turn toward Mecca no matter where the plane was heading.

The engines roared and the pilots began taxiing. The plane was less than two years old, equipped with state-of-the-art flight instrumentation, including a live link to the command center at the main Royal Saudi Air Force, enabling the pilots to view air traffic in every part of the region, including neighboring Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, and the Gulf Emirates.

After takeoff, they turned west toward the Red Sea. The prince pushed aside the silk curtain and looked out the window. The yellow desert was vast, stretching through the horizon, its monotony disrupted only by an occasional nomads’ encampment, a handful of camels and sheep grazing on a faded stain of greenery.

The hajj appeared at the door. “Your father wishes to see you.”

On the main level, in the rear suite, a large TV was playing. At first the screen was red. Then the camera zoomed out from a man’s open chest and shifted to his face, which was twisted, mouth open in a last scream. It moved across a demolished hall, resting briefly on a shattered body, a severed hand on a bed of charred prayer books, a woman kneeling by a boy who sat upright, his head slumped forward, unresponsive to her pleas. In the background, a recording of a short conversation was played:

“ Paris-Une. Oui? ”

“This is the Abu Yusef group.”

“Yes?”

“We attacked the synagogue on Rue Buffault. Our freedom fighters committed this brave attack under the command of our leader, Abu Yusef, the future president of Palestine.”