Avraham Azrieli - The Jerusalem Assassin

*

They were sitting in the living room on black leather sofas around a chrome-and-glass coffee table. Rabbi Gerster said to Itah, “Start moaning. I need background noise so they can’t hear what I’m saying.”

Itah complied, uttering a low moan toward the ceiling.

Rabbi Gerster leaned close to Elie. “I demand that you come clean with me!”

Itah kept going, interrupted only by a brief intake of air.

Elie gave him a cold, dark glare. “Tell her to shut up.”

“The man in the photo with Tanya is my son. If you don’t cooperate, Shin Bet will find and kill him!”

“ Quiet, please,” Elie addressed Itah directly. “This game could end badly.”

Rabbi Gerster put his much bigger hand on Elie’s. “If you don’t level with me, I’ll tell Agent Cohen everything I know-about Tanya, about you, and about the fortune left by Klaus von Koenig.”

“You know nothing.”

Itah raised her hand to quiet them and stopped moaning. She took a sip of water, gargled it, and resumed moaning. Meanwhile the housekeeper went to the phone and began punching numbers. Gideon leaped from the sofa and took away the receiver, hanging up. The woman shrugged and returned to the dishes in the sink.

“I won’t sit idly,” Rabbi Gerster said, “and let my son die again. Tell me the truth!”

Elie scratched his scalp. “The truth? You seem to know the truth already. Jerusalem Gerster died in sixty-seven, and a German teenager came to life in his stead. My Swiss agent might be living inside your son’s physical body, but he’s someone else. For him, you don’t exist.”

“ That’s a lie!”

“ Can you blame him? When Jerusalem rebelled against the ultra-Orthodox lifestyle, you declared him dead and sat shivah for him-made your own son homeless and hopeless. And that was even before he became a soldier, before the war. You lost him forever when you excommunicated him.”

“ That’s between me and Lemmy. You had no right to lure him into your spider web.”

“ Why? You had tossed him into the garbage, and I dug him out and made use of him. Why is it your business?” Elie’s colorless lips curled, exposing teeth yellowed from smoking.

“ Wilhelm Horch. That’s his name, correct?”

The grin disappeared from Elie’s face.

Itah ran out of breath, and the room quieted down. Instantly Gideon raised his head and howled, which made Itah burst out laughing and caused the housekeeper to smile for the first time.

Elie, however, was not smiling. He pointed at Rabbi Gerster’s chest. “If you utter that name again, you’ll cause Lemmy’s death.”

It seemed that Elie didn’t know Lemmy was already in Jerusalem. “But Agent Cohen said they’ll catch him-”

“ Bravado. Kids playing spies.” Elie sneered. “You have no reason to fear Shin Bet.”

“ I fear you! ”

“ For good reason.” Elie raised two fingers, held together. “I have a backup agent, right next to him inside that bank. You disobey me one more time, and I’ll have your son’s throat slit. We understand each other, yes?”

Before Rabbi Gerster could respond, two Shin Bet agents burst into the apartment, guns at the ready. One of them was the nurse, a large, muscular woman, who aimed at Gideon. “Quiet!”

He stopped howling.

“ What’s going on here?”

“ We’re having a contest,” Itah said, “a coyote-imitation contest. Would you like to try out?”

*

“ We found it!” Benjamin rushed into the small room with the leather-bound book. “You were right. Rabbi Gerster hid it in plain view on the top shelf.”

Lemmy opened The Zohar and browsed through the pages, which were yellow from old age. On page 67 he found a sheet of paper, folded in half, attached with a strip of tape. He peeled it off.

Jerusalem, October 29, 1995

My dear Lemmy,

Until a few hours ago, I had only grief, guilt, and regret to occupy my mind. Now I have hope-to hug you, to kiss you, and to beg for your forgiveness.

Much needs to be explained face-to-face, but just in case fate is again unkind to us, please know that I had deceived you and your mother. I don’t believe in God, and so I’m not a true rabbi. why had I done that?

I have witnessed the Holocaust firsthand. No God stopped the Nazis, and no God will prevent future disasters and deaths. It’s up to us to reduce Jewish suffering, each with the skills we possess. My skills are rabbinical by upbringing, and so I’ve dedicated my life to this job.

And what is this job?

As you have studied, civil wars and brotherly hatred typified the repeat demises of Jewish sovereignty in Israel. I came to live among the ultra-Orthodox as a mole, assigned to keep the extremists in check, lest they bring down this current iteration of the Jewish state, as they had destroyed all its predecessors since the empire of King David.

In the course of my duties, I caused you and my saintly wife much suffering. I condemned you to the loneliest agony-that of a son who hates his own father-because your innocent eyes saw in me only the cruelty of a devout fanatic. Was that the reason for your cruelty in rebuffing the pleading letters that your mother sent to you in the army?

But now I know how Elie had manipulated our lives to serve his fanatical ends. He caused me to become a deceiver, a hypocrite, a husband and father who cheated his family out of the love and loyalty which they deserved. And he made you repeat my errors in your own life. How ironic!

But Elie’s malice does not diminish my responsibility. It’s too late for either of us to obtain your mother’s forgiveness, yet I hope you can find it in your heart to understand, and perhaps accept, that my choices were motivated by selfless idealism, foolish as it might be.

Now to the present. I am convinced that you will return to seek answers soon, as Elie’s current scheme stinks more ominously than anything he tried before. This morning we’ll try to pluck him out of the hospital and question him.

Stuffed into the binding of this book you will find a complete summary of my investigation, assisted by Itah Orr. The agent nicknamed ‘Freckles’ is the key. Seek him, and you’ll find what Elie is up to, how to stop him, and how to free yourself from his web.

And for this-your freedom-I’m willing to lose my life. I’ll do anything to bring you home, to give you a second chance to live a normal life.

I love you, my son, more than anything in this world or the next. I love you more than I love life itself, more than the sun and the air that I breathe.

Your father, Abraham Gerster

Lemmy held the letter before him, too choked up to do anything but look at his father’s handwriting. He wiped his eyes and read the letter again, more slowly, from the beginning. One sentence especially made no sense: Was that the reason for your cruelty in rebuffing the pleading letters that your mother sent to you in the army? Lemmy could not understand. What letters? He had received no letters from his mother during his IDF service!

“ Jerusalem?” Benjamin touched his arm. “Are you okay?”

Lemmy tore off the book’s binding and found a densely scribbled, three-page note that described everything Rabbi Gerster and Itah had uncovered about ILOT, Freckles, and Yoni Adiel. A copy of the table of contents of the ILOT Member Manual was also hidden there, together with bank statements showing the money that passed through the young men’s accounts and old paychecks from the VIP Protection Unit.

A youth, about eighteen, came in and whispered in Benjamin’s ear.

“My son tells me there are strangers in the neighborhood. They might be looking for you.”

“Then I must leave.” Lemmy folded everything and put it in his pocket. There was no point in breaking Benjamin’s heart with Rabbi Gerster’s blasphemous confession. “I don’t want to put you in danger.”