had made love to as a teenager. She was now a top Mossad official. Would she risk her position, maybe her life, for Lemmy Gerster, a boy she had long assumed to be dead?
A disturbing idea came to him. What if the man he had shot at the park was actually Tanya’s agent. What if they staged the call to Paris to set him up? What if “Number One” was merely a playact for the purpose of deceiving him? What if Tanya wasn’t in danger at all, wasn’t anyone’s target? What if he was the target? What if this whole thing had been staged to make him betray
Elie’s clandestine infrastructure and secret money sources so that Mossad could take over SOD?
It all came down to one question: Could Tanya be trusted?
He followed the Amstel River as it merged into the Singer Canal. Farther down, the row of houses seemed impenetrable until he came to an arched passageway. It led into a courtyard tiled in a colorful mosaic of the Holy Virgin. Each of the connected dwellings had a small garden, and Lemmy paused and took in the scent of freshly cut grass. A modest Catholic chapel on the left faced a stone-built English church on the right. He glanced at his watch. Carl was late.
Toward the corner he found a wall of icons. In the center, baby Jesus was cradled by Virgin Mary, while a burning candle cast golden light upon them. Below Jesus, a hand had written: In de salvaeder. Other icons had been carved into the stone wall by the loving hands of Beguine women over the centuries, biblical scenes whose colors had dulled from rain and wind. At the bottom was a drawing of an altar atop an arid hill, a young boy tied up, a bearded Abraham holding a long blade, ready to slay his son while a guardian angel stayed his hand.
“You believe in angels?” Carl threw his big arms around Lemmy.
“I need all the help I can get.” He returned Carl’s embrace, pounding his friend’s back. “I’m up against very capable people.”
“ Government or private?”
“ Government.”
“ Ah, bureaucrats!” Carl spat on the ground. “Incompetent fools, all of them.”
“ These are Israelis.”
“ Oops. They are the exception.”
Lemmy laughed.
“ How in the world have you antagonized the Israelis? I thought you Swiss vanillas are supposed to remain neutral.”
“ It’s a long story. Can you get me a valid Dutch passport and a couple of credit cards with the same name?”
“ Are you running away from them?”
“ On the contrary. I’m going into the lions’ den.”
“ To Israel?”
“ Yes. My cover will be the car restoration. I hear there’s a good selection of old Citroen models for parts.”
“ I’m sure they have plenty of Deux Chevaux wrecks, but your old Presidential will only take SM and DS parts. I’ll run a search for you.”
“ Thanks.” He handed Carl an envelope. “Snapshots for the passport. I’ll meet you in front of Metz amp; Co. tomorrow at noon.”
“I’ll do my best. Anything else?”
“A friend of mine will be staying with you while I’m away. She’s in danger.”
“Is she pretty?”
“She’s incredibly beautiful, considering she’ll turn sixty-eight on January first.”
They hugged, and Carl left. A few minutes later Lemmy headed back to his hotel. He walked quickly through the dark mist that descended on Amsterdam, his hands in his pockets, his head bowed against the cold.
From his room he called Christopher in Zurich and asked him to go to the bank the next morning and wait for his call.
*
Sabbath was over when three stars could be seen in the darkening sky. After the evening prayers and a light dinner, Rabbi Gerster and Itah Orr left Benjamin’s apartment. Itah wore a long dress and covered her hair with a scarf. They walked to the center of Jerusalem. Along the way, she used a pay phone to call her neighbor and ask him to feed her cat and clean its litter box every other day until she returned. “I hope you’re not allergic to cats,” she said as they resumed walking.
“ I don’t know. There are no pets in Neturay Karta.” He hesitated. “I take it you’re not married?”
“ Three times widowed. First husband killed by Egyptian artillery on the Suez Canal, left me with a baby girl. Second saw his son born-thank God for small favors!-before he was hit by a Katyusha rocket near the Lebanese border. I actually have the casing and a bunch of fragments from the rocket. I put them together like a puzzle showing the Russian manufacturer’s name, ink-stamps from Iranian and Syrian customs, and a Sharpie note from Hezbollah: Jews are monkeys and dogs. ”
“ Didn’t Mohammed say that?”
Itah shrugged. “Even a great man can sometimes say foolish things. Didn’t Moses tell God to go find someone else?”
“ What happened to the third?”
“ Johnny? He was Canadian-came to Israel too old to serve in the army so I thought we would be safe, grow old together, all that. Super guy. Helped me raise the kids like they were his own-though now they’re both in Toronto, studying art on Grandma’s dollar.”
“ And Johnny?”
“ Run over while crossing the street. Can you believe it?” She chuckled to dispel the morbidity of her marital record. “The fourth would have to be suicidal.”
“ I disagree,” he said, and left it at that.
On Jaffa Street, a line of police barricades blocked vehicle traffic, allowing thousands of pedestrians to march down the wide road toward the Zion Square. A building overlooking the vast square had been decorated with flags of the Likud party. A huge banner read: Peace only with security! Many held placards with photos of victims from recent terror attacks as well as skeletons of blown-up buses. A chorus of a few hundred people adapted the tune of a romantic Zionist folksong to crude lyrics: “Yes, Rabin is a homo…yes, Rabin is an SOB…’cause Rabin is a dog…and a murderer!”
The offensive crooning repeated again and again, with more voices joining. Rabbi Gerster felt Itah grip his arm. He turned to see an elderly man in a suit, who held a sign with a photo of a young woman and the words: I survived Auschwitz, but my daughter didn’t survive Oslo!
The long balcony across the front of the building was filled with political leaders of the right, led by Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu. The banner under the line of Likud leaders read: The Murderer Arafat Deserves Capital Punishment!
Underneath, the plaza was dense with people, many of whom now chanted, “Death to Rabin! Death to Rabin! Death to Rabin!”
Arik Sharon started talking into a loudspeaker, barely overcoming the chanting crowd. “The murderer Arafat was brought into our midst by the collaborators. It’s a government that forgets everything, forgets the victims of the war criminal Arafat!”
“Look!” Itah pointed at a stout young man wearing a white skullcap. “That’s Freckles!”
Rabbi Gerster recognized him as the leader of the small demonstration in front of the prime minister’s house. He was holding a placard with a life-size photo of SS leader Himmler in dress uniform, only the face was substituted with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s face. Next to Freckles stood a few other young men with colorful placards on sticks, showing Rabin dressed as an Arab with a checkered kafiya, Rabin with a hangman’s noose around his neck, Rabin shaking hands with Arafat under the headline: Partners in Terror.
“Freckles is very creative,” Itah spoke into Rabbi Gerster’s ear as the noise around them was deafening. “But the money fuels everything. We need to find the old man in Paris!”
Rabbi Gerster nodded.
The crowd switched to another chant: “With blood…and fire…Rabin will expire!”
Next came Netanyahu, who managed to say, “Good evening,” before the crowd roared, “Bibi! Bibi! Bibi!”
Rabbi Gerster saw other signs rise above the crowd’s heads:
