Mishka Ben-David - Forbidden Love in St. Petersburg

In the first debriefing back in Israel we were severely reprimanded for having shot the two members of the group who were on the run.

I can sort of understand the rationale for shooting the man carrying the launcher and the other guy handling the missile. So long as the group was there, the others could step in and replace those who’d been hit. But to shoot after they’d fled? Why? Rafi asked angrily. For the first time I understood that he too was capable of pitying the enemy.

This was my chance to repay Levanon for his help in the Hong Kong and Seoul operations. Those were my instructions, I said. I was never told that they should be allowed to run away. Firing from the jeep was one of the authorized operational options. Levanon thanked me with a slight nod of the head.

Rafi said we’d discuss the matter further some other time. Meanwhile he complimented us on our performance and clean getaway, and told us we were free to go home.

There I found Orit with dark rings under her eyes. Four Arabs killed in the Seychelles did not perhaps make for big headlines but the Strela missile found next to their bodies certainly did. So too did the chambermaid in the hotel who, wearing a plastic neck brace, was endlessly interviewed by CNN and the BBC giving a fairly accurate description of me. On the Israeli television channels the foiling of the terrorist attack was widely praised by professionals and commentators alike, though there were those who questioned why we hadn’t tried to get the Seychelles authorities to intervene. The arrest of the airline’s security officers on suspicion of being complicit in aiding us definitely didn’t help. But since there was no real proof against them and everybody had a strong alibi, they were released after a short while.

Listen carefully, Orit said to me, her expression serious, her body thinner than ever, rejecting all my attempts to hug her. I’m not asking whether you were there or were involved in this. That way you won’t have to lie to me. Your tan speaks for itself. According to the descriptions there was a whole bunch of you over there. Jeeps, speedboats, hotels. I’m not interested in what precisely your role was or if you were simply the communications centre for these guys. I’m also not prepared to get into a discussion about the vital necessity of what you did or did not do, and whether it saved lives or not. It certainly destroyed life. As far as I’m concerned it’s unacceptable, understand?

Unacceptable? I was bewildered.

Don’t get clever with me. You understand perfectly well what I’m saying. And that’s before discussing the missed opportunity of me conceiving. That’s certainly something I am not going to forgive.

The waste is also mine, Or, I said. The loss is also mine.

The sin is yours, and for that we’re both being punished. Don’t you see that? You took life and lost a life you could have given.

Or, really!

But Orit, utterly tense and glowering with pent up anger, fled to her studio. I was left speechless with conflicting desires raging inside me. Let the storm pass, said one voice, while another said: I can’t accept statements like the ones you’ve made; not from a moral perspective, nor from the plain, rational point of view; and certainly not if there is a religious or metaphysical aspect to it. Other strident voices shrieked inside me; yes it was me who did it. Thanks to me our plane landed safely. And yes, I’m proud of that. And no, I don’t want to hide this from you. And no, I am not prepared to be ashamed of it anymore. And I want you to want to know, and to be involved in my feelings of satisfaction.

These screaming voices almost overwhelmed me and only a huge effort enabled me to stay silent, though I did manage to give vent to a small, strangulated cry. I went to wipe off the sweat pouring down my face.

How do we move on from here? I wondered afterwards.

Work had also become routine–gathering intelligence, surveillance, break-ins–and towards every ovulation I was at home. It was obvious that we couldn’t go on like this for the full term of my contract. But again, just as I was planning a conversation with Rafi, another call to action came and again I was unable to say no. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, a few dozen missiles with nuclear warheads together with their launchers had been left behind in the newly independent state of Kazakhstan. Through local Islamic groups Iran succeeded in bribing a number of sufficiently high-level officials in the country’s defence ministry, army, and missile command, enabling it to buy a number of mobile missiles and their launchers. A supposedly well-guarded convoy of such weapons was about to make its way to the port of Atyrau on the northern coast of the Caspian sea at the mouth of the Ural River. From there the cargo was to be shipped on board an Iranian vessel to its final destination.

Because of the great importance of this particular preventative action HQ decided to send two teams to the area. One, a slimmed down team under my command, would cover the roads from the missile base inside Kazakhstan to the port. Our mission was to try and attack the convoy on its way there. The second team, reinforced by a sea commando unit, was to fly to Astrakhan, the biggest Russian port on the Caspian Sea, on the border with Kazakhstan. There they were to hire a vessel and sail in the direction of the nearby port of Atyrau. If I failed in my attack on the convoy, the second team’s mission was to sink the Iranian vessel. Udi, a former naval commando officer, took charge of this expanded squad.

By the following morning, together with Levanon and two additional operatives, I was already on the roads of western Kazakhstan heading for the port of Atyrau.

Fortunately we were not far from the convoy when we received news of its exact location, information that was obtained from satellite images. According to the intelligence we were given the three huge vehicles carrying the missiles were not guarded at all: it seemed that only a small number of people were in on the secret and they wanted to keep it that way.

As darkness fell we bypassed the convoy and put down some not very large stones on a deserted stretch of the road just moments before it got there. My three colleagues and I spread ourselves out opposite the spot where we thought the vehicles would be forced to stop. When they came to a halt we discovered that in fact in every one of the missile transporters there was an armed guard. Nonetheless, we had the advantage of surprise. The shooting lasted only a few seconds. We also managed to hit the front wheels of the three vehicles before hurrying back to our own cars that we had left on the other side of the stone barrier.

HQ’s assumption that the Kazakhstanis would try to keep the incident under wraps proved to be right. Not a word on the affair appeared in any of the media. From Orit’s point of view this had been another routine trip. From my point of view it was less so. Those killed on this occasion could well have been relatively innocent drivers. I comforted myself with the thought that had I not succeeded, Udi’s group would have had to sink the ship with its entire crew or gain control of it by force of arms and in doing so spark an international sea lane conflict.

At home we’d grown used to the dreariness of our routine; grown accustomed to the silences; to Orit’s seclusion in her studio; to the continued and depressing deterioration in my parents’ health; to the pain that went with Orit’s treatment; to the nerve-wracking periods waiting for a result, followed by the disappointing call from the hospital. We’d also grown used to the infrequency of our sexual relations and the almost total absence of any expression of love.

And yet we were together. Neither of us thought of dissolving our marriage. Behind us were twenty years during which our love had never been in doubt. We were bound together by the prolonged and distressing effort of bringing our child into the world and knew that, one day, I would once again become a farmer and that our little child, even if he were to be born through a donor egg, would be running around our home.