Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

You’re our man in the Far East, the head of the division told me in all seriousness. You know the area, you’ve been there on numerous missions. We simply don’t have the time to send Kidon to explore the area, formulate possible plans of action, and map out potential escape routes. You more than anyone else know how to blend in with the local population, how and exactly where to do the job, and how best to get out of there in one piece. We haven’t yet understood the full significance of the recent return of Hong Kong to China; what it means in terms of border crossings, the police, keeping track of foreigners, and so on. For you it’s a different story, you’re at home there.

They’re already waiting for you at the Kidon facility to start your training, said Udi. The course you took with us gave you a good foundation. Add a bit of polish to that and you’ll be as skilled as any other Kidon operative. Anyway, you won’t be on your own over there. I’ll be flying out with you to approve the plan you decide to go with. The others in your regular team will be around, so you’ll be well supported.

Everyone sensed how downcast I’d become from the moment this assignment was dumped on me.

We’ve looked at who’d be the most suitable person for this mission, Hezi said. We’ve considered every member of your team. You’ve all had the same basic training and each one of you is specialized in some field or other. None of you are professional assassins, but you seemed to us to be the most suitable and capable candidate. Take that as a big compliment.

I felt slightly less weighed down, but not much.

You know that the Mossad doesn’t force its people to do anything they don’t want to do. You want a few minutes to think it over?

Through the window of the division head’s office, I looked out towards the sea for a moment. Hezi was sitting in his comfortable chair at the top of the long boardroom table with Udi and I facing each other to his right and left. They both had their eyes fixed on me. The Mossad doesn’t force you to do anything. That much was true. But a refusal would be the end of my career. You won’t be alone over there, I’d heard Udi saying. I’ll be going with you. That offered me a degree of comfort. The powerfully built Udi had an attractive face and a gentle expression. He’d been seconded from a naval commando unit to help plan sea-based operations but had fitted so well into the division’s command structure that he stayed on. Though he’d been involved in numerous operations that he both planned and took a part in, he was not an authorized operative. He didn’t have a foreign passport and so was always on the fringes of an action. If he’d ever killed anyone it had been in his marine commando days. I didn’t feel that his presence in the field would provide me with the right kind of support. At the moment of truth I’d be on my own.

I very nearly said ‘no’. My career was not the issue here. On the other hand, if this was really the right solution, then why should someone else have to do it? I tried another way out: are you sure that threats, beatings, a fire, intimidation, not just of the Syrian but the North Koreans as well, won’t produce the same result? Especially if we make it all public and engage in some psychological warfare afterwards.

I’ve told you we considered that, said Hezi quietly. Maybe the prime minister will go for such a plan rather than the one we are recommending. We haven’t yet presented him with all the options, so it’s possible that in the end that’s what will happen. Even then, the intention is for you to be the leader. Before the decision is reached you’ll have to be in the field and what we ultimately do will also be influenced by your and Udi’s reports from there, he said nodding at Udi. The various weapons you’ll need will already be in place when you arrive. In fact, they’ll be on the move tonight.

OK, I said, still clinging to that one ray of hope–the influence my reports might have on the final decision.

Since my childhood and the books I read then, Hong Kong had been for me a place of adventure, daring buccaneers, voyages of discovery, and whores. Like the Cape of Good Hope and Gibraltar. I went there for the first time before Britain had come to terms with the new balance of power in the world and honoured the treaty it had signed with China a hundred years earlier. I was also there subsequently but hadn’t noticed any real changes.

Coming in from the sea, Hong Kong Island appears as a steep green mountain, sloping all the way down to the water’s edge. High-rise residential blocks dot the mount’s upper and middle levels, its base and shore crowded by row after row of modern skyscrapers– Hong Kong’s very own Manhattan. The scene is particularly spectacular at night when the buildings are bathed in the light of dozens of colourful billboards promoting the world’s major communication and high-tech companies. But the magic vanishes once you reach dry land. The way from the ferry to the harbour led me directly into the lower town’s alleyways. Despite the height of the buildings, many of which are banks whose architecture I found disturbingly modern, the streets lining the length of the harbour area are extremely narrow and packed with shops selling every imaginable commodity. Pedestrians mostly make their way through this district on elevated walkways the like of which I haven’t seen anywhere else in the world.

After the initial excitement of that first encounter, I came to think of Hong Kong during those visits as a mixture of Haifa, Manhattan–with its own Chinatown–and Tel Aviv’s Carmel market.

This time, however, I landed at the new international airport and within minutes I was on the express train to the centre of Hong Kong. Udi, who was keeping an eye on my every movement, hurried along some paces behind me. We’d both arrived on a flight from Paris, while the three other members of the team flew in via Vienna and Istanbul. Alighting at the station closest to the harbour we walked to a taxi stand controlled by a very bossy uniformed supervisor, and travelled separately to our respective hotels.

According to the latest intelligence reports, the North Korean delegation was due to stay at the Kowloon Sheraton, located on a beach on the mainland side of the narrow waterway: Kowloon had become a densely populated city of old high-rise apartment blocks resembling a huge bazaar. Udi went to check out the hotel. The Syrians had booked into the Garden View Park on the slope of the mountain near the botanical gardens. As soon as I had checked in to my own hotel, I went to have a look at theirs, a twenty-storey building with only a tiny lobby which made it impossible to sneak in without being spotted by the reception clerks.

Udi and I arranged to get together with the rest of the team in Lan Kwai Fong, a cluster of alleyways jammed with bars and small restaurants which attracted large numbers of young visitors to the city. I’d marked it out as a place where we could meet and, when the time came, as a possible initial exit point for me and the team.

We met up in a small quiet bar I knew where we could talk in a corner without shouting. I reported on my findings and the conclusion I had reached that we shouldn’t attempt to deal with the Syrian in his hotel. Udi told us about the Sheraton. We knew that the meeting with the North Koreans could take place in any one of the city’s hotels or restaurants, of which there were hundreds. Udi also informed us that a yacht hired to carry the weapons and explosives for the operation had already left Taiwan and was just one day away.

We’ll have to work hard, Udi said, and tail them until our plan is firmed up. We would be far more effective, he suggested, if I were to move into the Garden View.