Avraham Azrieli - The Jerusalem Assassin

Tanya rubbed her hands to warm up. “Isn’t it good to be home?”

“Mom’s happy.”

Bira brought a pitcher of fresh grape juice and cookies. She poured the juice into plastic cups. “Why don’t you stop by the university tomorrow? A Bedouin man has brought us a piece of clay with Aramaic writing. He found it near the Dead Sea. We’ll start a dig as soon as I can find financing.”

He watched Bira return to the house. She was tall and big-boned, with shoulder-length blonde hair. “She doesn’t look like you,” he said.

“More like her father.”

“You did a good job raising her alone.”

“We weren’t alone. Mossad is like a big family. We moved often, different assignments, but she got a lot of love and grew up fine.”

“ That’s an understatement”

“ I always marvel,” Tanya said, “how natural it seems to raise kids with a loving partner in a busy home, to pursue an interesting career and worry about soccer practice and monthly bills. To me it seems like a miracle.”

“ Thanks for the hint.” Gideon sipped juice. “You didn’t invite me here to discuss my love life or Dead Sea excavations, right?”

Tanya rested her elbows on the plastic table. “We have a problem with Elie Weiss. He didn’t give us any info last night in Paris, and now the Shin Bet has him. We’re trying to locate his human assets abroad so we can run them under Mossad. We’re also curious about his source of funds. But we can’t find anything.”

“Elie never shares information. He doesn’t trust anyone. Keeps it all in his head.”

“ Was there another safe apartment in Paris?”

“ I don’t know.”

“ How about a safe deposit box in a bank? Did you drive him somewhere or pick him up in a certain location?”

“ Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Listen, I understand. He’s a scary man.” Tanya looked at Gideon for a long moment. “After the war, alone with a small baby, I was so afraid of Elie Weiss that I joined the Mossad to hide from him.” She gestured at the three bikes leaning against the wall. “It’s a different world now. And Elie’s locked up. Retired. You don’t have to be afraid of him any longer.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” Gideon said. “I’m loyal.”

“ Your loyalty should be to Israel, not to Elie Weiss.”

“ I don’t see the difference.”

“ There’s a big difference! A long time ago, Elie Weiss was legitimate. He started under Ben Gurion, building up the Special Operations Department right out of the prime minister’s office. The idea was to control homegrown insurgents, such as ultra-Orthodox fanatics and religious fundamentalists, by planting moles in every yeshiva and sect. But the law required all domestic-security operations to come under the Shin Bet. Elie was never a team player, so in sixty-seven he moved SOD operations to Europe.”

“ Serving the State of Israel.”

“ His agents think they work for Israel, but they-and you-work for a rogue outfit.”

“ Elie said that all SOD assignments come from Prime Minister Rabin personally. Did he lie?”

“ Even the prime minister can’t legitimize unauthorized assassinations!” Tanya took a deep breath, calming herself. “Mossad is the only government agency authorized to conduct secret operations abroad. We are entitled to his agents and resources.”

“You’re wasting your time. I work for SOD. Elie took me in, you didn’t.”

“But Elie is out,” Tanya persisted, now that Gideon had implied being silent out of loyalty, not out of ignorance. “Why let his life’s work go to waste-the agents, the funds, the contacts? You must do the right thing!”

“Will you hire me as a full Mossad agent?”

“You think Mossad is so glamorous? You’ll spend the next thirty years in anonymity, in constant temporariness, away from family and friends, sleeping in cheap hotels and buying information from the slime of the earth. And you won’t be able to tell your friends that you’re sacrificing your life for them. That’s what you want?”

“Yes.”

“I won’t do it,” Tanya said. “I’ve ruined enough lives. I won’t ruin yours.”

“Mom?” Bira showed up with the phone. “It’s for you.”

Tanya listened as one of her subordinates in Paris reported on the investigation of Abu Yusef’s murder, which headlined every news program in Europe. “Make reservations for me,” she said. “I’ll fly to Zurich first thing in the morning. Alone. No escort.”

She put down the phone and looked at Gideon. “Our contact in the French police said that a man resembling Abu Yusef visited a bank in Senlis, supposedly for a meeting with a young business associate regarding a large cash payment. The money had come from the Hoffgeitz Bank in Zurich. Does it ring a bell?”

“ For Whom the Bell Tolls? ” Gideon stood up. “Shalom, Tanya.”

*

Friday, October 27, 1995

Lemmy reached the bank before seven a.m. and dialed a telephone number he had obtained from the international operator for Kibbutz Gesher in the north of Israel. A cheerful woman answered, “ Boker tov! ”

“And to you,” he said in Hebrew, using his mother tongue for the first time in many years. “I am sorry to bother you. My wife and I are on a holiday in Switzerland.”

“ Good for you. How can I help?”

“ We’re trying to find an old friend who once worked at Kibbutz Gesher as a volunteer, and we’re hoping you still have his contact information.”

“We’ve had many foreign volunteers. When was he here?”

“Maybe five or six years ago. His name is Christopher Ditmahr.”

“Oh, that name I do remember. Tall, skinny, always a happy smile?”

“ That’s him!”

“ How devious they can be.” She sighed. “He’s not someone you want to be friends with.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. How did you meet him, anyway?”

Lemmy was ready for the question. “We were on a road trip, passed by your kibbutz, and he was hitchhiking. We gave him a ride to Tel Aviv. I think it was in eighty-nine or ninety, middle of the summer. We had a wonderful chat along the way, stopped for dinner in Haifa, and so on. He told us how much he loved Israel even though he wasn’t Jewish. And he said something about going to work in a Swiss bank. That’s why we thought of touching base with him now, since we’re visiting his country.” Waiting for her reply, he wondered if she believed his story.

“I don’t think you want to touch base with this guy.”

“Why not?”

“We kicked him out.”

“For what reason?”

“We found out he was a skinhead. A Nazi aficionado.”

“Christopher? That’s impossible!”

“He fooled us also. But one of the girls saw it.”

“ It? ”

“He has a tattoo-black swastika and the letters SS.”

“Are you sure?”

“I saw it with my own eyes,” the woman said. “As kibbutz secretary, I had to.”

“ And?”

“ It was right there.”

“Where?”

She chuckled. “When you see him, pull down his pants. You won’t miss it.”

*

Gideon thought of his father’s photograph, hanging on the living room wall at home. It was a face filled with youth and hope. Would Joshua Zahav have wanted his son to serve Israel the same way as he had served? To risk death in a distant, cold land?

At the phone booth on the street corner Gideon asked the operator to dial collect to Paris. Dr. Geloux was in his office. He agreed to ship the cash-filled briefcase to the address Gideon gave him in Tel Aviv. He didn’t ask any questions.

When Gideon put down the receiver, he found several men blocking his way.