“ The opposite.”
“ She’s with you?”
“ Aha.”
There was brief silence on the other line. “Take her to your hotel room. Use all means to extract everything she knows about Weiss. And keep her locked up until I personally give you new orders. Understood?”
“ Okay.” Lemmy hung up. “Recognize the voice?”
She nodded, her lips pressed together until they bleached.
“ Chief of the Shin Bet?”
Another nod.
Lemmy glanced surreptitiously in both directions, detecting no irregular activity on the busy street. He called the police, informed the dispatcher about a wounded man in Lindenhof Park, and hung up before they asked any questions.
“ They’ve gone rogue!” Tanya grabbed the receiver and punched in a series of numbers. “I must alert my team in Paris.” She waited, but no one answered.
*
The prayers concluded with the singing of Adon Olam, praising the Master of the Universe for His creation, His oneness, and His mercy. Rabbi Abraham Gerster kept his eyes on the prayer book while the men of Neturay Karta departed the synagogue. When they were all gone, Benjamin came over and greeted him, “Sabbath Shalom, Rabbi.”
“Sabbath Shalom, Benjamin. Why don’t you send your boys ahead, so the two of us can talk?”
Benjamin complied, and Rabbi Gerster held his arm as they walked into the chilly night. The alleys were empty, lit by the glow from the windows of the apartments overhead, where families were gathering for the Friday night meal. Muffled voices came through, singing, “Shalom aleichem, malachey ha’sharet. Welcome, angels of peace, angels of heaven.”
“You want to ask me about the woman journalist,” Rabbi Gerster said, “but you hold back. A leader must not be timid.”
“It’s my respect, not timidity.”
“Is there a difference?” Rabbi Gerster chuckled. “You know what Ecclesiastes said about the cycle of life, yes? Everything has a beginning and an end.”
“He also said that there is a time for war and a time for peace.”
“True. And a time to plant and a time to root out the planted.” He squeezed Benjamin’s arm. “All the sages interpret Ecclesiastes as a serious philosopher, but I sometimes think he was writing comedy.”
“Comedy?”
“You could read his pontification as joking about how our scriptures-everyone’s scriptures, in fact-can be read to support contradictory agendas, how the righteous can find divine authority in the scriptures for anything one wants to preach-love and hate, forgiveness and revenge, peace and war. You can find words in the Torah or Talmud, in the Koran or the New Testament, to proclaim God’s divine support of your agenda, whatever it is-and I say this from experience.”
They reached the entrance to the apartment building where Benjamin lived. He leaned against the stone wall, as if feeling weak. “But Talmud is the absolute truth, right?”
“Absolute truth is in the eye of the beholder.” Rabbi Gerster pointed upstairs. “Itah Orr is helping me investigate the truth.”
“ Here?”
“ No. Outside of Neturay Karta. This community is now your responsibility. Should something happen-”
“To you?”
“To me. To others. Events might take unexpected turns. Our community includes some of the most feverish minds. In times of political upheaval, emotions tend to spike up. A few of our people might erroneously breach our tradition of insular Talmud studying and devout prayer. They might advocate political subversion and impious violence. As leader of Neturay Karta, you must face those hotheads decisively. You must smother each fire before it spreads.”
“ But you will help me, yes?”
“ I know your strengths.” He patted Benjamin’s bearded cheek. “And I know your weaknesses. But this is a time for strength only. God is testing our community, while the secular society around us tears itself apart over the Oslo Accords. Israel is in the midst of political crisis of the worst kind.”
“ That’s no surprise,” Benjamin said. “Zionism has always been a rebellion against God, so how could it succeed?”
“ There’s time for gleefulness, and there’s time for a clear mind. Do not heed your heart, even when it feels broken.”
“ By your absence?”
“ Or by what people might say about me.”
Benjamin’s face was white against the darkness. “I don’t understand!”
“ All I’m saying is that, as a leader, your duty is to keep our men’s noses in their books of Talmud and out of the news, no matter what happens to me.”
*
Down in the bowels of Zurich’s central railway station, they stood on the platform while the train to Amsterdam hissed with pressurized air. Tanya held on to him. “I don’t want to lose you again. What if they come after you?”
“ You’re the one being hunted.” Lemmy glanced at his watch. “There is a reason to this madness. Could it be the fortune hidden in my bank?”
“ But no one knows about it except Elie, Abraham, me, and you.”
“ Maybe the Shin Bet is running a high-stake operation in Israel, and Elie somehow figured out what they’re up to? Or the other way around-Shin Bet has stumbled on a rogue SOD operation?”
“ But Elie is locked up. Why would Shin Bet engage in something so outrageous as going after me?”
“ They probably suspect that, when you apprehended him in Paris, Elie told you what’s going on. And we must assume they’re not just speculating. Something triggered their extreme reaction. Try to remember. Did he say anything?”
“ Not a word. But even if that’s what they’re worried about, I mean, for the Shin Bet to break the law by going to Europe, putting a tail on me and disabling my team-”
“ To isolate you, they had to break your chain of command.”
“ They could go to jail for this!”
“ What if they already broke the law? What if it’s a big enough operation that, relatively speaking, this infraction is negligible, especially if they’re afraid you’ll expose their operation?”
“ Pure speculations.” Tanya gestured in dismissal. “For me to go to the media, it would have to be a revolution, a coup d’etat.”
The flow of passengers dwindled, and the conductors started slamming doors.
“This is wrong. I shouldn’t run away.” She straightened her coat. “I should call headquarters in Jerusalem, find out-”
“Didn’t you hear what Number One said? Use all means to extract what she knows. That’s not a vague aphorism.”
“ It’s crazy. I’m too senior to toy with like that.”
“ Don’t call anyone. We first have to find out why Shin Bet has thrown caution to the wind.”
“ I won’t hide from my own government.”
“ Please, do it for me. For old times’ sake.”
Tanya sighed.
“ When you reach Amsterdam, take a room at the American Hotel, near Leidseplein. I’ll arrive tomorrow, and we’ll plan our next move.”
“I could call Rabin directly. We go back a long way.”
“Don’t fool yourself. Nobody is safe. Not even the prime minister.”
She hugged him, and he put his arms around her narrow waist. He felt dizzy. Tanya! Almost unchanged but for
