Avraham Azrieli - The Jerusalem Assassin

“ Please go downstairs,” Lemmy said, “and ask the account managers to search their client lists for the last name Weiss. Someone called me, and I thought it was a wrong number, but now I realize it could be a client of one of the others-”

“ I can look it up on my computer. Other than Herr Hoffgeitz’s accounts, we have all the account owners’ names in the database.”

“ I already looked,” Lemmy lied. “Perhaps the account is registered to a corporation. The account managers would recognize a name if it’s the trustee or the executive related to the account, even if the name on the account is different.”

The phone started ringing. Christopher reached to answer it.

“ I’ll take it in my office. You go downstairs and ask around.” He waited, watching Christopher leave. Back at his desk, Lemmy answered.

“ Don’t play games with me, Herr Horch.”

“Lindenhof Park,” he said. “It’s at the top end of Oetenbachgasse. Five thirty this evening.”

“That’s better,” she said, and the line went dead.

Lemmy turned to the window. The sky was gray and bleak. He forced himself to think clearly. Elie’s agent, Grant Guerra, had called yesterday with a message that could only come from Elie: Launch CFS! But the woman who had just called could not be speaking for Elie, who would never allow the use of his real name on a phone line. But how did she know Elie’s name and that he was incapacitated? And if she wasn’t part of SOD, who was she? Not an agent for any European law enforcement agency, that was certain, or she would have arrived at the bank for an official meeting, escorted by a Swiss detective, speaking politely and expecting no answers. And an official would not agree to meet at a public park on a drizzly evening.

Was she an agent for Mossad? No. There was no trace of a Hebrew accent in her speech, which he identified as purely native German from Bavaria. And Mossad wouldn’t dare harass a senior Swiss banker in such a direct manner for fear of causing a diplomatic skirmish with Switzerland, which was highly protective of its banks. A Palestinians agent? Unlikely. Judging by her speech and haughty, clipped style of interaction, she was German through and through.

Could she belong to the same Nazi organization as Christopher? Perhaps Elie had crossed swords with them, so to speak, or had even eliminated one of their Nazi elders years ago, causing them to follow him, trace him, and discover his connection to Lemmy. Had they planted Christopher at the Hoffgeitz Bank because of Elie? Was this German woman operating as Christopher’s Nazi handler? That would explain how she knew that Elie was incapacitated: Christopher had told her after eavesdropping on the call from Grant Guerra!

But did it really matter how she knew about Elie or his connection to Lemmy? She endangered his cover as Wilhelm Horch, a successful, respectable banker. Therefore she endangered his life!

Paula and Klaus Junior looked back from the photograph on his desk.

What should he do?

That wasn’t the correct question, which was: What would Elie do?

After almost three decades of working for Elie, Lemmy knew the answer, especially now, as they were finally nearing control of the Koenig fortune, about to launch the most ambitious secret program in the history of the Jewish nation-an end to centuries of anti-Semitic genocide. The order from Elie had been consistent with the mission. Launch CFS! But this German woman was an enemy. There was no doubt what Elie would do in this situation. Eliminate her!

Lemmy looked around his office-the wood furnishings, the Persian rugs, the soft leather chairs, the original paintings on the walls, and the family photographs on his desk. This was his world. The woman posed an existential risk. He must respond in kind. And then it would be Christopher’s turn-force him to divulge his true identity and who he worked for, and then make him pay the ultimate price of betrayal. Perhaps that’s what Elie had meant when ordering Launch CFS! Did Elie know that these modern-day Nazis were on his tail? Did he expect Lemmy’s first action in the Counter Final Solution campaign to be the elimination of Christopher and his cohorts?

Kneeling by the small safe, Lemmy turned the knob left and right until it clicked. He took out the box with the Mauser.

*

The vast plaza in front of the Wailing Wall was mostly in the shade now, as the sun descended behind the rooftops. A late-afternoon breeze picked up. Rabbi Abraham Gerster rocked back and forth in the rear of the group of Neturay Karta men.

Benjamin led the prayers, reading each sentence aloud, pausing for the men to recite the words. “ And we shall continue to mourn, ” Benjamin chanted, “ we shall dwell in sorrow, until God forgives His sheep, until He rebuilds His house on the mountain of His glory, on the ruins of Solomon’s Temple. ”

Repeating the words, Rabbi Gerster looked up at the tall wall of massive stones. Even after so many years, it was hard to believe they could stand so close to the focus of centuries-old Jewish longing. As the leader of Neturay Karta, he had started this weekly prayer tradition back in 1948, after the War of Independence had left Jerusalem divided, with the Old City in Jordanian hands. Every Friday afternoon, he had led the men to a hill by the border, where they had prayed in view of Temple Mount. In 1967, the Six Day War drove the Jordanians back across the Jordan River, and Rabbi Gerster had turned the Friday afternoon prayer of longing into a Friday afternoon prayer of gratitude at the Wailing Wall. And when Benjamin had taken over as the sect’s leader, he had put his own stamp on this tradition, modifying it yet again into a prayer for the rebuilding of the temple.

But for Rabbi Gerster, this special time of the week-the hours before the commencement of the Sabbath-was a time of reflection about a past that had grown more painful with time. He thought of those early Fridays on the hill by the border, when Lemmy was a toddler, light as a feather, happy in his father’s strong arms atop the huge boulder, with the Jordanian-occupied Old City spread before them, the ancient walls and the Tower of David in reddish-brown, glowing in the twilight. The prayers had been mournful back then, but the days had been happy, Lemmy a blonde boy who loved his daddy with complete, unblemished adoration.

“ Rabbi?” Benjamin took his arm. The prayer was over, time to walk back to Meah Shearim and receive the Sabbath. “Are you feeling all right?”

“ Thank God, yes.” He smiled at Benjamin. “And you?”

They followed the group up the ramp, away from the Wailing Wall.

“ I’m worried,” Benjamin said.

“ Why?”

He helped Rabbi Gerster up a set of stairs. “Perhaps we can take you to a doctor?”

“ There’s nothing wrong with me, other than the fact that I’m getting old.”

They reached the top of the stairs and followed the road that circled the Old City along the walls. A group of tourists surrounded their guide, who gestured at the firing slats in the ancient battlements, his Spanish rapid and melodic. A few of the tourists stared at the ultra-Orthodox group as if it were part of Jerusalem’s quaint attractions.

“ I’m worried, because you disappear for hours at a time, and Sorkeh complains that the food she brings for you is left untouched.” Years ago, the rabbi had given his apartment to Benjamin and moved into an alcove off the foyer of the synagogue, which did not have a kitchen.

“ Tell me something,” Rabbi Gerster said. “As my heir, my successor in leading Neturay Karta, can you point to the primary lesson I have taught you, to the fundamental idea, the consistent thread of light in the chaos of faith?”

“ That’s an odd question.”