Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

You realize that means I’ll be burned after the operation, finished. But Udi stuck to his guns. I’ll report the implications to HQ, he said. His expression was one of understanding, even affection, but it was clear to me that his concern was the operation’s success, not my professional future.

I couldn’t argue with the operational logic of Udi’s proposal, and moved in to the Garden View the following day. A moment after being given my room’s magnetic key, a transit van carrying the Syrian delegation drew up outside.

I went up to my floor and hung around for a few minutes, checking the landings on which the elevators were stopping. I was on the tenth floor, and the Syrians on the eighteenth and twentieth. My window faced the mountain and another apartment hotel, and I assumed that their rooms overlooked the harbour.

I arranged to rendezvous with my colleagues for our evening meeting at The Peak, a well-known tourist trap at the top of Mt Victoria, a place swamped by a mass of shops and restaurants from which the only diversion is the stunning sight of the lit-up city at the foot of the mountain. After updating each other, Udi suggested that I ask to change rooms in the hope that I’d be able to be nearer to the Syrians.

On my return from The Peak, feigning excitement, I asked the receptionist for a room ‘with a view like the one from The Peak’. She promised that such a room would become available the next day and that I could have it.

In the morning, while breakfasting in the hotel dining room, I was easily able to identify our man; a distinguished-looking individual, his hair streaked with grey and surrounded by young, brawny security men. As soon as they appeared, and before we’d made eye contact, I left the dining room by a side door.

The Syrians later left the hotel in their people carrier–closely followed by two of our men, Motti and Levanon–for what turned out to be a tour of the city’s sites. Meanwhile, Micha, another team member, Udi and I got together for a planning session.

A little research by us revealed that the Syrians had booked a block of rooms, and we needed to know which of them was Zaif’s. As bait to get this information I used my fake Breitling watch that I’d bought for just a few dollars on one of my previous trips to Hong Kong.

We got a message from the surveillance team that the Syrians had ended their tour and were on their way back to the hotel. Meanwhile I’d been given my new room on the sixteenth floor, and there I waited. I was notified that the Syrian security men had gone to the hotel bar and Mr Zaif had entered the elevator. I watched it go up, and when I saw it stop on the twentieth floor, I called it down and took it to the lobby.

I found this watch in the elevator, I told the receptionist.

It probably belongs to the gentleman who went up a few minutes ago, she replied. Let me call the floor manager and ask. As I leaned forwards, placing my elbows on the reception desk, I overheard the floor manager confirming that the guest in 2012 had just entered his room.

I thanked the young woman for her help and left the hotel. On my return a few hours later, she calmly told me, ‘Mr Zaif says it’s not his watch.’

Bingo! The target’s name and room number had been confirmed.

In the evening we analyzed the situation. As night fell, Udi, Levanon, and I were sitting at a table on the veranda of a restaurant on the Kowloon promenade, watching the lights come on across the straits in Hong Kong Island. Motti and Micha were keeping an eye on the entrances to the Garden View and the Sheraton hotels, with instructions to alert us if any member of either delegation was seen leaving.

Levanon, fascinated by the sun descending over the western approach to the bay and disappearing behind clouds of mist, drew our attention every now and then to the grand spectacle of Hong Kong’s brightly illuminated signboards. The view itself was by then of little interest to me. But I did find myself looking at Levanon’s handsome profile silhouetted against the background of the setting sun, and thinking how odd it was that because of the rules of our game I really knew nothing about my partner in this operation. Did he too have a wife back home? Perhaps even children? I could only guess his age, late twenties, the same as mine.

This is how I see our options, said Udi. Correct me if you think I’m wrong. And if you have any other ideas let me know. Option One: Attach a bomb to their vehicle in the hotel car park. Option two: Take the target out in his room, using a silencer. Three: Do it inside the hotel as he goes into or out of his room. Four: Aim to hit him when they are all inside the transit van or, five, shoot as they get out of the vehicle. Udi then proceeded to list the pros and cons of each option.

Any other suggestions?

Much to my regret I had to agree that getting it done in his room was the best plan. The downside was the locked door. On the other hand there would be no witnesses and no one else would get hurt. Break-ins were Levanon’s specialty. He was sure to be able to deal with the security chain on the inside of the door provided I gave him a photo and the measurements of the chain on my own door. Levanon’s evident composure had a calming effect on me. He was a quiet, easygoing operative who had quietly accumulated a great deal of operational experience and, with it, an impressive air of confidence that wasn’t at odds with his modesty. And yet that voice inside me saying ‘no’ to liquidations refused to be silenced.

I told Udi that we now had to inform HQ that we had a good plan.

I’ll send a message, he replied matter-of-factly. They’re six hours behind us, so it’s now 2 p.m. in Israel. The head of the Mossad and the division head are meeting with the PM at three, and I assume we’ll get their OK for one or other plan in the course of the next few hours.

Hearing these words sent a shudder through me, a blend of excitement and alarm resembling the mix of expectation and fear that grips you before an exam. I was nervous about getting up from my chair in case I released the gasses that had suddenly accumulated in my stomach. Instead, I made do with a hiccup.

The equipment’s arrived, Udi informed me as he read a message he’d received on his cell phone. Let’s go to the marina. We should meet the people and have a look at what they’ve brought.

The skipper who’d hired the yacht, a bearded, tanned, well-built man with blue eyes, shook our hands firmly, a broad smile across his face. At long last we’re going to do it then? he said, surprising me with his heavily French-accented Hebrew.

Udi had requested that I not ask the man any questions about his identity, and so I tamed my curiosity.

A short time later, as we sat below deck, Udi’s phone rang.

The meeting with the PM has finished. We’ve been authorized to shoot the target in his room. The PM’s insistent that nobody else be harmed. It’s a go for tonight.

I could feel my stomach churning. Deep down inside me I had known all along that my ‘OK’ back then, in the division head’s office, was really a ‘maybe’ and based on the hope that a different plan would be adopted. But there was no room now for ‘maybes’. All hope of another plan had vanished. On the other hand, I consoled myself, planting a bomb in a vehicle was a far worse option. Shooting him in the van or in the street might also harm others and, in truth, beating him up was something I simply couldn’t do. He was my father’s age, and even looked a little like him.

So kill him?

Yes. If all those clever guys at HQ think that taking him out will prevent the Syrians from manufacturing lethal chemical weapons under North Korean auspices, then, yes, kill him.

Out came the pistol from its hiding place; a Glock 17 like the one I’d trained with for hours only a few days before.