'What are you saying?'
'I'm not saying anything, David. The unit was small, covert, and when it was disbanded all the records were destroyed. You won't find anyone now who'll admit it ever existed. No one wants to own up to having signed off on the damn thing because of the way it got out of hand.'
'I heard something about Peretz, that he 'liked to cut.''
Yehuda nodded.
'They cut people?'
'That wasn't the purpose. The purpose was to strike back hard.'
'So what's all this about cutting?'
'Stories. Tales. You couldn't prove any of them. It was all hearsay kind of stuff.'
'What kind of hearsay?'
Yehuda looked away again. 'The way it started out, the unit was supposed to leave some kind of mark. That way people would know we had a reprisal squad and that the squad always got its man. So let's say they did a termination, they'd leave these cuts on the guy, their signature. But then, later, with this violent criminal element involved, it got out of control.' He tightened his lips, squirmed in his seat, then looked David directly in the eye. 'There were, at least we heard, some mutilations, things like that. You know, ears, eviscerations-though I find that hard to believe. Women and children too, somebody said. Tell you the truth, David, I don't really want to talk about this. It makes me want to puke.'
'So what happened?'
'The unit got disbanded.'
'What about Peretz?'
'The army quietly let him go.'
'Just like that?'
'Actually, they found a desk job for him. But he didn't like it, so when he complained they suggested he resign.'
'No investigation? No inquiry?'
'The stories couldn't be verified. The witnesses were criminals. As for Peretz, he was an outstanding officer who took on a dirty job and did it well. Relentless, maybe merciless, but at first no one was too concerned. They wanted results and he gave them results. Later, when they got to know him better, there developed this feeling that he might be getting off on it, which is when they began to have second thoughts. I think that's what really bothered them. Not that Peretz did these things. We're at war. Counter-terror's not supposed to be a Boy Scout jamboree. But if the commander was actually enjoying his work, as opposed, you understand, to treating it as a dirty job… I mean, if it'd been you or me, David, we'd have tried to get out of it, or have griped until they pulled us out, or, failing that, done it half-ass. But Peretz didn't do it that way. He liked it and after a while everyone could see he did. So in the end that was the real reason they closed him down.'
Yehuda sat back. Then he gave David a bitter little smile. 'I could get into a lot of trouble if it ever came out I told you this.'
'Forget about that. It won't. But I've got a couple of questions. You say the unit records were destroyed. Does this mean I can't get a list of the men?'
'No list. The unit didn't exist. It didn't even have an official name. Whenever anyone mentioned it he'd just say 'Peretz and the boys.' Peretz recruited for himself, so he might remember. Didn't occur to me till now, but he might have some kind of informal list of his own.'
'Second question: What exactly was the 'signature'?'
'I don't know exactly but I have a vague recollection of hearing it discussed one time. I think the original idea was to convey the notion of double trouble, two-for-one. You know, like in Hosea: 'They have sewn the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.' I remember something about sets of cuts-double cuts, something like that.'
They found Peretz very quickly on the videotapes, and when they did they all wondered why they hadn't spotted him before.
'He's so still, David.' Shoshana shuddered.
'Guy doesn't move, doesn't react.'
They rewound the master audience tape and ran it again. The striking thing about Peretz was his total lack of affect. In a sea of highly disturbed people he was a noticeable island of calm.
'As if nothing anyone said touched him at all. How did we miss him?' Micha asked.
'We were looking for the wrong thing,' David said.
'But still we got him! We got him!' They were excited: David's long-shot scheme of the false symposium had worked.
'Not so fast,' he warned them. 'He's a suspect. Now we watch him. No pressure. He mustn't know we're there. Full-press covert surveillance around-the-clock, which means constantly changing shifts. Not three guys wearing Ray-bans parked in a white car across the street.'
He put Dov in charge of organizing the surveillance, gave Micha the job of digging into Peretz's past. But Micha was put out when David assigned him Moshe Liederman.
'He's a burn-out. He isn't any good. All he talks about is his retirement.'
'Try and use him anyway,' David said. 'He told me in thirty years he's never worked a case that wasn't shit. I'd like it if, when he retires, he could tell people he worked one hell of a case one time.'
That night, the Seder night of Passover, he called Avraham. 'Do you know a Jacob Gutman?' No reply. 'I know you do, Father. Please tell me who he is.'
A long pause, then finally a response: 'Jacob Gutman is a man who has been wronged.'
Driving home the second evening of the holiday, passing Herod's Gate, David glanced up at the Rockefeller Museum and smiled. He remembered the day he had spotted Anna here, the day that had changed his life.
It was the previous November, just three weeks after he'd broken off his affair with the journalist Stephanie Porter. He'd bought himself a ticket to a recital at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer. An exciting new Soviet- emigre cellist was being featured along with her Israeli accompanist. There'd been an article about them in the Jerusalem Post, an interview with Anna Benitskaya and also her photograph. Perhaps it was the inviting look in her eyes or the expression on her face. Something intrigued him. When he discovered he had a free evening he decided to go and hear her play.
The recital moved him. He loved chamber music, and when she played the third Beethoven sonata he found himself entranced. He couldn't take his eyes off her. She was a beautiful young woman but it was more than beauty that he saw. Vulnerability, something open and yet mysterious, a haunting quality too, an impression of depth that belied her youth. She had worn a gray silk dress, a pearl necklace, and tiny pearl earrings which glowed like soft little lights beside her head. She played with passion and her forehead gleamed. When the concert was over he left the church wondering wistfully where she was staying and whether it would be possible to meet her and if he did what she would be like.
Then, the next day, there was one of those coincidences that seemed to occur so often in Jerusalem. He had been driving mid-morning past the Rockefeller Museum on an errand concerning some now-forgotten case when he saw her walking alone up the entrance drive.
My chance, he'd thought. I mustn't let it pass. He quickly circled the museum, found a parking place, hurried back to the gate, bought himself a ticket, and entered too.
It didn't take him long to find her. There were few tourists that time of year, and the Rockefeller, an archaeological museum, was not one of the more popular sights. There were perhaps a dozen visitors moving quietly through the galleries, but when he found Anna she wasn't studying the collections. She was walking slowly beneath the vaulted arcades that lined the central sun-filled court.
He watched her. It would have been too obvious to follow her directly, and in any case he was a detective and knew how to follow without being seen. So as she moved slowly under the arcades he moved more quickly through the adjoining interlocking galleries, catching glimpses of her every so often through interior windows open to the cloister.
After a while she crossed to the center and sat down on an old stone bench. It was nearly noon. The sun was shining directly on her, showering her with brilliant November light. She shut her eyes, turned her head for warmth, and as she did, revealed her face. Her forehead gleamed as it had during her concert and then he caught a glimpse of skin glistening at her throat. Something so intimate about that gloss of perspiration: He was filled by an image of
