Avraham Azrieli - The Jerusalem Assassin

Abraham pulled him back over the railing and lowered him into a chair. Elie kept his eyes closed and listened, hoping they would assume he was out and speak carelessly.

“He’s so skinny and pale,” Itah said. “Is he okay?”

“The shortness of breath is chronic emphysema.” Abraham felt Elie’s wrist. “But his heart is pumping well.”

“Isn’t he heartless?”

They laughed, and Elie heard them enter the suite. He needed to plan ahead. Abraham had guessed correctly that Lemmy was in Zurich rather than in the grave, but the time for their father-son reunion had not yet arrived, and maybe never would. They were more useful separately. As to the reporter, she seemed enamored with the rabbi and his mysterious life. They had worked well as a team, executing a clever rescue operation at Hadassah and choosing a perfect place to hide him. Elie knew that without their help he would be exposed to recapture by the Shin Bet. But he could not trust Abraham any longer. It was time to find another safe place to hide for the next few days.

All this trouble was temporary. Rabin’s reluctance to make a deal in advance was nothing but the naivete of a dignified career-soldier, who had not completely internalized the rigors of real politics. But after the assassination attempt, once Rabin saw how effective Elie’s strategy worked, he would pull back Shin Bet and honor the deal. What choice would Rabin have while running for a certain victory over the discredited Likud? He would have to appoint Elie as intelligence czar-or risk a “leak” to the media of the true conspiratorial circumstances of the failed assassination, which would destroy Rabin’s credibility.

Elie heard the TV blaring. He peeked inside and saw neither of them in the living room. The bedroom door was closed, and faint voices came through. Elie reached into Itah’s purse, which rested on the table by the door. His fingers touched a few bills, which he pocketed, together with the suite’s cardkey.

Downstairs he found a phone in the lobby and asked the operator for an outside line. Freckles answered immediately.

“It’s me,” Elie said.

“ Hey! How’s it going?”

“ I need a safe house for a few days.”

“ Super! Not a problem!” The feigned exuberance must have been for the benefit of the people present in the room with Freckles. “It’s a pleasure!”

“ Pick me up at six tonight. The King David Hotel. I’ll be in the restaurant.”

“You got it!”

“Make sure you’re not being followed.”

“We’re cool,” Freckles said. “God bless!”

*

The door opened, and a nurse faced Lemmy. She was tall and broad, her white uniform ill-fitting, and her smile too wide to be sincere. “May I help you?”

“ Oh, yes.” He took a step toward the door. “I’m a bit confused.”

She didn’t move aside to let him out, but her smile remained fixed. “Are you looking for someone?”

“ My aunt, Esther Weiss.” He lifted the bouquet. “I was told she’s in room three hundred and seventeen.” He tilted his head at the empty bed. “It’s not too late, I hope?”

“ No, she’s fine.” Instead of stepping aside, the nurse entered the room and kicked the door shut with her heel. “Esther was taken downstairs for x-rays.” She reached into her coat pocket.

He shoved the flowers in her face and used a chopping strike to disable her right arm. She raised a foot to kick him, which he dodged, taking advantage of her temporary imbalance to knock her other leg from under her, swing her around, and land a punch into her left kidney. She managed to elbow him hard in the chest, but a second fist to the kidney removed what was left of her fighting spirit. He pulled her coat off her shoulders, leaving the sleeves on, and used the loose ends to tie her hands behind her back. She was lying face-down on the floor, right under the video camera. He knew time was short before her colleagues showed up.

A sucking sound told him she had managed to fill her lungs for a scream. He silenced her with a knuckle-jolt to the side of the head.

The nurse was out cold. But not for long.

As he exited the room, a man was jogging down the hallway. Lemmy pretended not to notice and walked in the opposite direction, where another set of double doors was marked with a red exit sign.

He made it down one bank of stairs when the man yelled, “Stop or I shoot!”

Lemmy raised his hands and turned slowly.

The employee card that hung from the man’s neck meant that he was part of the hospital security team, not a trained secret agent. His protruding belly confirmed it. And what he did next proved him an amateur. “Come back up here!” He stomped his shoe on the landing. “One step at a time! And keep your hands in the air!”

“ What’s the problem?” Lemmy took the stairs one by one, getting closer. “I don’t understand. Is it illegal to take the stairs?”

“ Come on!” The gun was pointing up at the ceiling now, the finger straight forward, not threaded in the trigger slot. “Now, over there!” He turned his head to the doors. “Walk through!”

That brief interval, when the security man faced the doors, was enough for Lemmy to deliver a hard chop to the back of his head. He collapsed, and Lemmy caught him before he rolled down the stairs. The gun was a small-caliber Beretta, and he pocketed it together with a spare magazine he found clipped to the man’s belt.

A few slaps on the face, and the security guard came to.

“ Where’s the patient from four-seventeen?”

He shook his head.

Lemmy grabbed his hand and bent it backwards. “I’ll break it in five, four, three-”

“ In Haifa! They’re in Haifa!”

“ They?”

“ The rabbi and the woman. They took the patient.”

“ How do you know?”

“ The taxi driver is a regular here. He told Shin Bet. They’ll catch them-”

“ He drove them to Haifa?” Lemmy applied more pressure.

“ No! Please!” The man’s eyes turned to the door, praying for someone to show up.

“ Answer!”

“ To the YMCA in Jerusalem. They had a car there. They mentioned driving to Haifa-”

Holding the gun by the barrel, Lemmy knocked him unconscious.

On the way downstairs, he switched the yellow windbreaker and cap for the blue set. The ground-floor exit let him out on the side of the building. Pedestrians and car traffic seemed normal, and no one paid any attention to him. Across a large lawn was an outdoor cafeteria. He selected a seat that was partially hidden by the thick trunk of a eucalyptus tree yet provided a clear view of the main hospital entrance.

Moments later, a white Subaru with tinted windows and a few antennas stopped at the curb. The unconvincing nurse from room 417 emerged from the lobby, no longer smiling. She got in the rear seat. The security guard showed up soon after, pressing a pack of ice to the side of his head. He went around to the driver’s side and leaned over the window, which was partially open. After a short conversation, the Subaru departed.

Lemmy waited twenty minutes before walking over to his Fiat. He took the road toward Jerusalem.

*

They argued in hushed voices over what to do about Elie Weiss. Rabbi Gerster wanted to threaten Elie with exposure of his secret dealings, but Itah objected. In her investigative experience, subjects volunteered much more information out of vanity and for shock effect than under duress. And the more urgent task was to stop the staged assassination plan. “It’s political fraud on a grand scale!”

“ What about my son?”

“ Finding him must wait,” Itah argued. “We should focus on the Rabin deal first.”

“ I have a feeling the two are connected.”

“ Perhaps. But the Shin Bet has also been paying Freckles. I can’t wait to see Elie’s face when we tell him that Freckles plays both sides.”