Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

At the entrance to Bir-el-Abed he was stopped by a chained roadblock manned by two armed guards.

“Dr Itzmat Abdel-Ganem,” Gadi said. The previous year that had been their cover story, which they had worked on extensively, but now there was no substance to it, he would just have to hope these Hezbollah guards were lazy and would not check it.

“Why doesn’t he come and get you here?” the guard asked him. It was rare for Westerners to enter the neighbourhood alone.

“I’ve already been to his house twice,” Gadi answered, in American-accented Arabic. “We work together at the Christian hospital.”

Gadi was smiling while butterflies tumbled crazily in his stomach. It wasn’t the first time that a smile stood between him and jail, but on other occasions there had at least been some opportunity to ground his cover story, like a phone number that someone would answer. But now there was nothing. A couple of idle Kalashnikov rifles were not the end of the world, but still they were pretty close. Two blows and he and his Mondeo would be out of there in a flash. Gadi had already worked out how he would hit them and where he would turn the car around. He had a chance of getting away if they didn’t recover quickly and shoot at him, or if their comrades didn’t arrive on the run. Just as had happened with Ronen, during the failed operation. Only this time nobody was there to sneak a car into the throng, as Gadi did that day.

The guards lowered the chain.

As soon as his car had turned into Abu-Khaled’s quiet street Gadi could see, from far off, the small new guard booth positioned on the pavement at the entrance to the parking area of Abu-Khaled’s building: the manifestation of a lesson learned from our operation, Gadi thought. He scanned the buildings on both sides of the street, saw some movement inside the guard booth and turned his gaze in another direction; he did not want the guard to take notice of him on his first drive through the neighbourhood. He still had no way of knowing how alert the guard was, or whether he was the only one stationed there.

MISHKA BEN-DAVIDwas born in 1952 in Israel. He holds an MA in comparative literature from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD in Hebrew literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Ben-David served in the Mossad for twelve years, becoming a high-ranking officer. He is now a full-time novelist living outside Jerusalem.

Duet in Beirut

JACKET DESIGN BY ANTHONY MORAIS

JACKET PHOTOGRAPHS © ALAMY AND © ISTOCK

AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH © BORIS DIKERMAN

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES COPYRIGHT © 2016 THE OVERLOOK PRESS

This edition first published in hardcover in the United States in 2016 by

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Originally published in Hebrew under the title Ahava Asura Be-Peterburg by Keter Publishing House Ltd, Jerusalem, 2008

Copyright © 2008 by Mishka Ben-David

Translation copyright © 2015 by Mishka Ben-David

Published by arrangement with The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

ISBN: 978-1-4683-1347-5