P. Deutermann - The Last Man

It did to David. The watcher in the airport, and now evidence of someone looking into his computer. He could understand perhaps the Ministry for Internal Security, but Dimona? What the hell was this?

“No wonder you were mad at me for wandering off the reservation,” he said, to cover his own confusion. “Did that get you in trouble, by the way?”

“Apparently not,” she shrugged. “Although now that I think about it, Yosef Ellerstein seemed to be interested in what you were doing as well, but I think that was only because he was part of the committee. You know.”

“Yeah.” David kicked some sand. The beach was well lighted from all the hotels, but the sea itself was dark. Only the sounds of a small surf breaking in lazy curls against the sand revealed its presence. There were other people out walking, their faces pale blurs in the light coming down off the main street.

So there was more to this minder business than just the professors. A state security officer from Dimona, and also Ellerstein, his interlocutor? He sighed. “I apologize again. If I’d known there were security people—”

She shrugged it off. “Israel is full of security people. Mossad, they are the spies, of course. Shin Bet is counterintelligence. Mishtara, the national police. Shabak, like your FBI. Aman, the military intelligence. Then there’s Mishmar Hagvul; they’re the border police, part of the army, I think. The customs. The immigration. The army and the navy and the air force security. We seem to have security people in inverse proportion to how much real security we have.”

As she was speaking, two border patrol men came strolling up the beach, Uzis slung over their shoulders. To David they looked like high school kids dressed up as soldiers, their uniforms sloppy and their hair modishly long. Judith greeted them politely in Hebrew, and they waved and walked on.

“Against the PLO from Gaza and the Hezbollah from the Lebanon,” she explained. “Sometimes they send small teams of terrorists in rubber boats to shoot up the beach resort areas.”

“Lovely. So those two guys are supposed to catch them?”

“Oh, I think not. I think the foot patrols are out here to reassure the tourists. The real guys are probably up there on the tops of all these hotels, with night-vision devices.”

“Ah, so heaven help the lovers.”

She gave him a sideways look but said nothing. They had wandered down the beach hotel strip for nearly a mile and had started back again. They continued in silence until they reached their starting point, where they encountered the same two border patrol troops eating ice cream cones. As they walked back up a boardwalk to Hayarkon, he toyed with the idea of inviting her to the hotel bar for a nightcap but thought better of it. So far she’d gone along with everything he had suggested: coming down for drinks, dinner, joining him at Caesarea, and the beach walk. Quit while you’re ahead, he thought.

When they reached his hotel’s entrance he checked to make sure the car was there. She turned to say good night.

“It has been very pleasant, David Hall. Thank you for inviting me.”

“It has been very pleasant indeed, Judith. There’s Ari.”

“Thank you especially for the use of your car and driver.”

“Jerusalem is too far away for a night drive. The least I can do. I’ll call your office to confirm the arrangements for the dive on Wednesday. If you have any doubts about equipment, I’ll get the dive shop to call you. I’m looking forward to it.”

“I think I am, too,” she said. “Although it has been a long time.”

“It’s like riding a bike or making love: Once you know how, you know how.”

That provoked an amused look on her face as Ari pulled the Mercedes into the hotel driveway. David opened the door for her. One last dazzling smile, a flash of those glorious legs, and then she was gone. He stood in the driveway for a moment after the car pulled out.

Riding a bike or making love? Where had that come from? As he turned around he saw the bellhop giving him what looked suspiciously like a sympathetic look.

“Can’t catch ’em all, sport,” he said and went in.

Judith sank back into the cushions of the Mercedes after confirming that the driver knew where he was going. So: first outing for the new Yehudit. She had followed Yossi’s advice and deliberately kept her mind blank for the last half of the evening, compliantly letting David take the lead, even saying she would go on a dive with him. Everything was so new. Putting on a sexy cocktail dress. Wearing makeup. Paying the slightest bit of attention to how she looked. Meeting a strange foreigner — well, not strange, but not a longtime friend, either — in a hotel bar. Having dinner with him. Talking about Dov. Walking on the beach like lovers. If he had proposed that they go back to his rooms for a nightcap she might well have done that, too. Well, maybe not.

She tried to assess her feelings but couldn’t manage it. She stared instead out the windows of the car, her eyes unseeing as the suburbs of Tel Aviv raced by. Going through the motions. In truth, she could go through the motions forever, as long as she did not look over that wall and see her former life with Dov, the times when neither one of them had been going through the motions, those first years of love and marriage and romance and fun and contentment. Even when he had begun to get politically involved, it had been exhilarating to watch him get swept up in a cause and, when their jobs were threatened, to prove to him that she was with him even if it all went wrong and they had to start all over again. That was the problem, wasn’t it: She simply did not believe that she could ever bond that hard to another human being again. No matter how long she went through the motions. Not even with this attractive American.

The road darkened as they headed up the long climb to Jerusalem. A lone taxi followed, one discreet kilometer behind.

Yosef Ellerstein was unpacking after his overnight trip to Amman when the phone rang. He looked at his watch. Ten thirty. Late for phone calls.

“Hello, yes?”

“Professor Ellerstein,” a raspy voice whispered. “I apologize for the late call.”

“Who is this, please?”

“This is Colonel Malyuta Lukyanovitch Skuratov. I am the chief of security at Dimona. Would it be possible for me to stop by for a few minutes?”

Skuratov! Ellerstein thought. He didn’t like this at all. “Well, Colonel… Skuratov, is it? It is very late. Perhaps in my office?”

“I am close by, Professor. Actually in the neighborhood. It won’t take but a few minutes, and it is rather urgent, I’m afraid.” Ellerstein put a hand over the mouthpiece and looked through the curtain of his front window. A large Mercedes was double-parked in front of his two-story apartment building. A white-faced figure was barely visible in the right rear window, raising a black-gloved hand at him.

“Well—”

“Thank you, Professor. I’ll be right up.”

Ellerstein put down the phone and saw that his hand was trembling. How should he handle this? Had Skuratov found out his attachment to Shabak? If so — what? He heard footsteps coming up the stairs outside. More than one person was coming. He stepped into his bedroom, brushed his hair, and put on a dressing gown over his trousers. The doorbell rang.

He went to the front door and peered through the peephole. There were three men outside. Skuratov he recognized from his own time at Dimona; one did not forget that face and the strange hat. The other two looked like bodyguards. He unlocked the door and opened it. Skuratov offered a gloved hand.

“Professor Ellerstein. We meet again.”