Avraham Azrieli - The Jerusalem Assassin

Agent Cohen tossed the report. “The real Horch was here at Hadassah Hospital at the same time. It’s a good thing we’re not looking for a guy with my last name, or we would get a thousand reports a day.”

“We’re running out of time,” Gideon said.

“It’s your fault. I told you to shoot him!”

“How could I put a bullet in a man who raises his hands and speaks Hebrew?”

“He’s a chameleon, don’t you get it? For what the Saudis can pay, they hire the best. This guy is probably the top assassin operating in the world today. He can probably pass for a Frenchman, a Russian, or a Hungarian for all we know. You should have eliminated him at first sight, like I told you to.”

Gideon nodded thoughtfully. “I’m impressed with how he disabled us so quickly. But why didn’t he kill us?”

“Do I have to repeat myself?” Agent Cohen rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Spinoza is a professional. He won’t kill unless he’s being paid to kill you, or if you represent mortal danger to him, which obviously you weren’t. Next time, I suggest that you shoot, not talk, okay?”

“ First we have to find him. An ultra-Orthodox man in Jerusalem is like a needle in a haystack.”

“ There’s a way to deal with those schvartzehs. ” Agent Cohen used the derogatory term blacks for the ultra-Orthodox. “They know each other’s business like there’s no tomorrow. Watch this.”

He curled his good finger at the hospital chaplain, who was waiting just outside the ER.

The chaplain rubbed his hands nervously while explaining how Rabbi Benjamin Mashash, the leader of the Neturay Karta sect, had arranged with him to bring a minyan of men to pray with patients. “This is a Jewish hospital,” he said, “how can I refuse when a righteous rabbi offers to spend time here, provide spiritual healing to the-”

“That’s why Rabbi Gerster yelled Benjamin! ” Agent Cohen spat on the floor. “He was telling Spinoza to go to Rabbi Mashash in Neturay Karta!” He waved off the chaplain, who scattered away before they changed their minds.

“ But what’s the connection between Rabbi Gerster, Rabbi Mashash, and Spinoza?”

“ Maybe the Saudis are paying Neturay Karta to help Spinoza. That sect hates Israel as much as the Arabs do.”

“ I doubt it. But let’s assume he’s still with them. Neturay Karta has hundreds of families, and each one would do the rabbi’s bidding and hide Spinoza, no questions asked. How are we supposed to find him?”

“ Break down their doors one by one until we get him!”

“Not so simple.” Gideon pressed on the bruise at the back of his head. “Going door to door would require lots of agents, together with police support, roadblocks, armored vehicles. There’s going to be resistance, barricaded doors and windows, stone throwing. And as soon as word gets around Jerusalem about police invasion in the middle of the Sabbath, thousands will flood the streets. Neturay Karta is a core of fundamentalism, but the rest of the other ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods aren’t exactly bastions of patriotism. Unless we’re ready to deal with a city-wide riot, we must come up with a better plan.”

The ICU doctor appeared. “I checked Weiss. His vitals are fine, but we can’t wake him up. I don’t know what’s going on. It might be neurological.”

“We need him awake,” Gideon said. “He possesses information that’s essential to our investigation. It’s a matter of national security.”

The physician shrugged. “You’ll have to wait.”

“He’s pretending,” Agent Cohen said. “Stick a needle in his foot, and he’ll wake up.”

“We tried pricking his toe.”

“And?”

“No response. Not even an eyelid twitch.”

“What did you expect?” Gideon chuckled. “You’re not dealing with a normal human being.”

“Try breaking his finger,” Agent Cohen said. “Or poking his eye.”

*

Saturday, November 4, 1995

Sabbath morning at Benjamin’s small apartment was different than any other morning. A huge pot of meat, potatoes, and pinto beans had been simmering on the stove since sundown on Friday, filling the apartment with the unique smell of tcholent that Lemmy remembered from childhood. He was looking forward to Sabbath lunch after the services.

Everyone was up early, preparing to go together to the synagogue. Rather than a full breakfast, Sorkeh had put out slices of pound cake and a pitcher of milk. Benjamin sang to the youngest while changing his diaper. Lemmy helped one of the boys lace up his shining Sabbath shoes, while Sorkeh brushed her teenage daughter’s hair and tied it with a red ribbon. Itah borrowed a flowery headdress from Sorkeh, which went well with a taupe dress she had found in a box of donated clothes. The oldest boy, Jerusalem, was lying on the living room sofa, his face rosy with fever. When everyone was dressed and ready to go, they wished Jerusalem Good Sabbath and a speedy recovery, and went to the synagogue.

Itah walked with Lemmy behind the large Mashash family. “I used to hate them,” she said. “Their black coats and hats, their beards and side locks, and their holier-than-thou isolationism, as if we, secular Israelis, were not really Jews.”

“And now?”

“Now that Neturay Karta is the only place I’m safe?” She laughed. “Your father cares for these people, and I understand why. They’re like a Jewish microcosm, a biosphere of Talmudic life, unchanged and uncontaminated since before modernity. Look at them-like shtetl dwellers in Poland three centuries ago.”

At the forecourt of the synagogue, hundreds of Neturay Karta members congregated to exchange greetings and share news of recent engagements, new babies, and illnesses. Everyone was dressed in their best clothes, the men in tailored black coats and wide-brim felt hats, the women in colorful headdresses, and the kids in miniature outfits resembling the adults, except that the unmarried girls wore their hair uncovered.

“One day,” Lemmy said, “I’ll bring my wife and son to visit, see how I grew up, what gave me a solid foundation in life.”

“And what is that?”

“Talmud,” Lemmy said. “Everything you see here is the direct result of a communal, lifelong devotion to the study of Talmud, which is a boundless intellectual world spanning ten thousand pages of debates over right and wrong. A student of Talmud spends his days agonizing over what constitutes an ethical behavior in every aspect of one’s life-worship, family, business, politics. There’s nothing like it.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Yes, I miss Talmud. I miss it terribly. But I don’t miss the insular lifestyle. And I couldn’t live without cars.”

Itah laughed. “Cars?”

“Love them,” he said. “Have you ever fooled around with a Porsche? Made out with a classic Citroen?”

“Shhh!” She gestured at the people around them. “It’s Sabbath!”

They made their way between the people of Neturay Karta into the foyer of the synagogue. At the foot of the stairs leading to the women’s section, Itah said, “You could have been their rabbi.”

Lemmy looked at the animated faces of bearded men, the kind smiles of untimely aged women, the cacophony of Yiddish and Hebrew, and the little boys with kiddie black hats and dangling side locks, running around, squealing in joy. It was so familiar, yet so alien. He tugged at his fake beard. “I guess…it wasn’t meant to be.”

*

Rabbi Gerster spent the night in a small hotel overlooking a muddy canal. When he checked out, the Dutch proprietor said, “Good-bye, Herr Horch.” It took him a moment to remember this was his last name-same as his son’s, yet again.

According to the phonebook, Doctor Mullenhuis Data Recovery operated out of a warehouse in the southern outskirts of Amsterdam, on the road to Leiden. He didn’t have much hope of finding the office open on a Saturday morning, but to his surprise, a man opened the door as soon as the taxi stopped in front of the building. Rabbi Gerster asked, “Are you Carl?”