Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

Even though Zaif was a well-known figure, the Syrians managed to conceal his identity from the media as well as from the Island’s authorities for two whole days. However, the arrested security men didn’t remain silent for long. This, plus our carefully measured and planned leaks, gradually revealed more and more details that helped both the local administration and the media to complete the picture. In the week after the liquidation there were a number of unsensational headlines suggesting that the hit was linked to a deal for the supply of North Korean non-conventional weaponry to Syria.

The delay in publishing the identity of the deceased or the nature of the spiked deal, and the belated responses accusing the Mossad of the murder, meant that Orit–if, in fact, she paid any attention at all to these stories–didn’t in any way link them to my trip abroad.

Later on, I was invited to a meeting at which an officer from military intelligence’s technical department talked about the operation’s outcome. The Syrian institute for weapons development had been practically crippled since, as he put it, the ‘the top guy had died of unnatural causes’. All the employees of the institute were undergoing checks in an attempt to identify the leaker; all trips abroad had been suspended and, because Zaif headed a number of the institute’s key projects, activity there was at a standstill and the transfer of the production line from North Korea had also been halted.

The man from military intelligence added that the file of documents we had brought back was priceless and that we now had a clear understanding of the Syrian chemical weapons program. That would make it much easier for us to monitor future developments. I asked that a note be made expressing special thanks to Levanon, who was not present at the meeting.

Hezi went on to say that it had been a very long time since such a fast and clean attack with no traceable leads had been carried out, and delivered such significant results. His comments settled the remaining doubts I harboured deep inside me about the operation itself. As we left, Hezi put his arm around me and said, you see, when we decide to use force like this we are not always fools or maniacs. A lot of thought went into this, a complex analysis of possible outcomes, gains versus risks. The operative may assume that those above him did their work properly. Ideally, everyone should focus on doing their very best with the task they are given.

I understood that this was his way of summarizing his discontent with the reservations I had had. Anyway, I noticed that my standing within the division had changed. My silence–merely an outcome of my numbed feelings–was interpreted by Udi and the other members of the team as evidence of my self-control. As for my superiors, their conclusion was that in me they had found a natural ‘operator’, the man who pulls the trigger. They rarely sent me to the East on non-essential missions and I began specializing in the areas of expertise required of an ‘assassin’; firing a pistol, fast draw and instinctive shooting, firing a sniper’s rifle, shooting while on the move. I learned to ride a motorbike, and operational driving. I had training in the use of explosives and in break-in techniques. Though I still went abroad quite often, anything that kept me in the country was seen by both Orit and me as a plus. It turned out that even ‘essential’ missions were almost a monthly event.

There were those in the division who thought I wasn’t suited to this new role. The head of training, who was at my side throughout the course, said that I didn’t have the ‘killer instinct’; that I operated through understanding and recognition, rather than from a gut feeling. Hezi, on the other hand, thought I was OK; he wasn’t looking for ‘natural born killers’. My senior trainer had his own analogy: If you were picking a football team, you wouldn’t pick him as a striker, he said. You’d make him a defender or a midfielder; that’s his natural position.

The division’s psychologist was asked for his opinion on my suitability for the role. Ilan, a pleasant man, was apologetic. It’s not that there’s something wrong with you, he said. It’s just that an ‘operator’ is exposed to things that are likely to make him a bit of a schizophrenic. So I need to get to know you better and understand more about what happened to you in Hong Kong and afterwards.

Weren’t all the interviews and exams before the course–sentence completion, arithmetic progressions, psychometric exams, and Rorschach tests–enough? I asked, fatigued more than resentful. No, not for this kind of role, he answered, and went on to ask me a series of pointed, though gently formulated, questions.

It’s true that I did what I did without being totally committed and only because I understood how damaging it could be to the country if I didn’t act, was my response to the most difficult of the queries. On the other hand my doubts didn’t prevent me from carrying out the mission to the best of my ability.

Was not the fact that you recoiled at firing the third shot somehow linked to your general reservations about the action? he asked.

I gave it some thought. I don’t think so, I finally said. The third shot seemed superfluous to me because there was a big bang and the security men could have come in at any moment. I wanted to get out of there quickly before success turned to failure. That’s why I also forgot to get the file of documents.

That only goes to show that you are normal, Ilan said. Do you have flashbacks of the incident or dream about it, he asked. Perhaps of the victim’s cracked skull after he was shot, or of a muzzle flash in the darkness of the room? No, I told him, I don’t have dreams about the operation, or any trouble sleeping. So what visions do you have, he asked. I told him that mostly I saw images of Orit and me having sex.

Ilan laughed, and said that my priorities were really OK. I explained my difficulties in not telling Orit, told him about the feelings of deception that were disturbing me in my relationship with her.

Does this feeling bother you more than the fact that you killed somebody? Ilan asked, giving me the impression that his curiosity was more personal than professional.

Yes, I replied. He was an enemy. An enemy whose ultimate purpose was to kill. She is my wife. But don’t get me wrong. Don’t think, not even for a moment, that I don’t understand that from an ethical point of view what I did was immoral, bad, inhuman, call it what you want. I know that at least as much as anybody else does. But I don’t relate to this act as being moral or immoral but as an act of survival, and such an act is not judged according to its morality. The little lie to Orit, however, is.

Ilan listened intently, with even the hint of a smile. Then he asked if I was capable of saying out loud that I was a Mossad assassin and stand by what I’d said. My answer was negative. I maintain the right to decide whether or not to carry out an operation depending on how critical it happens to be, I replied after thinking it over. And that prevents me from defining myself that way. But I can say out loud that I have killed while in the service of the Mossad or state.

Our unproductive attempts at conceiving led to a series of tests. My sperm was pronounced OK, Orit’s ovulation was found to be regular and all her other tests also proved OK. There was no apparent reason for our lack of success.

Orit pinned the reason on our way of life–which was another way of saying my trips abroad. Given that for a few years already I had been away from home at least once a month, it could very well be that we were apart on the days when conception was a possibility. The tension that she felt while I was travelling also didn’t help.