hotels. Beyond the beach, Tel Aviv was an urban sprawl, stretching as far as he could see.
The KLM plane turned in a wide sweep over the southern outskirts of the metropolis and touched down with a healthy bump on a runway bordered by plowed fields.
The immigration control agent took one look at Lemmy’s Dutch passport and laughed. “Baruch Spinoza!” She spoke loudly enough for her colleagues at the other counters to hear. “It’s an honor to welcome you to the Jewish homeland!”
Lemmy voicelessly cursed Carl. “Thank you. Happy to be here.”
“I’ve studied Ethics at the university. Clever how you questioned God’s existence without actually expressing blasphemy.”
“Appreciate the compliment. The late philosopher is my great-great-great-great-uncle. And I don’t think he questioned God’s existence, but rather suggested that God and nature could be the same, philosophically speaking.”
“As I said, clever.” She smiled. “And the purpose of your visit to Israel?”
“Shopping.” He chuckled at the sight of her raised eyebrows. “Car parts. I restore classics as a hobby, always looking for missing pieces-doors, windows, handles, mirrors, a hood, this and that.”
“Good luck.” She handed him the passport. “There’s a street bearing your name in Tel Aviv. Check it out, take a photo, lay a wreath, you know?”
“I’ll do all three.” He passed through to the luggage area, still smiling. That was the sabra spirit he remembered-direct and irreverent!
*
Itah went downstairs to thank the PR director, a close friend who had arranged for the suite the previous day. She returned with pastries, coffee, and clothes for Elie.
They sat on the balcony, the three of them facing the view of the Old City rather than each other.
Elie pointed. “The border used to run right under this hotel.”
“ Let me guess,” Itah said. “You two worked together?”
“ At the time,” Rabbi Gerster said, “there was a concern that the ultra-Orthodox would rebel against the secular government. I worked with SOD to keep the extremists in check.” He put down his coffee cup. “I used to take the men of Neturay Karta to pray within sight of Temple Mount every Friday afternoon. Over there. You see that huge boulder?”
“ I was doing my mandatory service in the air force,” Itah said. “I worked the wireless communications at Ramat David Air Force Base. All our planes took off that June morning, heading to Egypt. I still can’t believe they managed to reach all those enemy airfields undetected. The base commander told me that Mossad knocked down the only radar capable of early detection-that huge thing the Americans installed at the UN command over there.” She gestured at the south of the city. “At Government House.”
“ It wasn’t Mossad,” Elie said. “My SOD did it. It’s old history, but today’s political situation is very similar. Back then, with the Arabs gearing up to destroy Israel, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol was losing the public’s trust. Now, the Oslo Accords are failing to deliver peace and security, with terror attacks intensifying rather than declining, and Prime Minister Rabin is losing popularity. History repeats itself.”
Suddenly everything connected in Rabbi Gerster’s mind: Elie’s financial support of the right-wing fringe ILOT as the opposition’s firebrand, the insidious mingling of the extremists’ virulent rhetoric into Likud rallies to paint the whole right as violent and lawless, the recruiting of former members of Shin Bet’s VIP Protection Unit, and the grafting of Nazi and PLO garb onto Rabin’s image to imply that he deserved to die. “Are you going to try it again? Are you?”
Itah looked from one to the other. “Try what?”
Elie lit a cigarette. “What is real wisdom but to succeed where one failed before?”
“ Wisdom is to avoid repeating mistakes!” Rabbi Gerster sat back, shocked. “You’re insane!”
“ What’s going on?” Itah asked.
“Back in sixty-seven, he tried to prop up Levi Eshkol with a fake assassination attempt.”
“ Not fake,” Elie said. “A failed assassination attempt. Intentionally staged to fail.”
“ Now I’m confused,” she said.
“ Let me explain,” Elie said. “There’s a whole field of political science that supports this proposition-popularity through victimhood. For it to work, a politician must be the target of a real attacker with sincere murderous intentions, the weapons must be real and deadly, and the politician must be in the line of fire, in deadly peril. That’s why President Ford gained nothing from two half-hearted attempts on his life in California while few today remember how unpopular and ridiculed Ronald Reagan had been before he survived Hinckley’s nearly fatal gunshot. My plan in sixty-seven had been visionary, perfect, a real attack that was going to fail only because Eshkol was on the roof, briefing reporters, when the grenades were to explode near his ground-floor kitchen. The assassination attempt was supposed to be real in every respect, and it would have restored the prime minister’s popularity.”
“ How?”
“ Good luck is a political aphrodisiac,” Elie said. “Voters love a plucky leader who laughs in the face of danger, who is steady in opposing the extremists, and who unites the nation after depraved assassins tried to divide it. The political situation today is perfect for such an operation. And that’s how Rabin will win the next elections.”
“ It’s madness!” Rabbi Gerster stood and grabbed the railing. “The Eshkol assassination failed because I discovered your scheme and stopped it! And by God, I will stop you again!”
“ It’s too late,” Elie said. “The wheels are already in motion. Unstoppable.”
*
Lemmy rented a zippy Fiat with a manual transmission. The wide, well-marked road out of Ben Gurion Airport wound through manicured flower beds and trim shrubs, which looked more like Switzerland than the dusty Israel he remembered. The buildings were large and modern, the cars new and abundant, and the road signs multi-lingual in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.
He glanced at the directions Carl had given him to the town of Bet Shemesh and turned onto the Tel Aviv- Jerusalem highway, heading east. The radio played edgy music, a mix of American pop and Middle Eastern crooning. He searched the stations for something more to his taste and happened upon the Voice of Israel, which announced the ten o’clock news.
Obeying the speed limit of ninety kilometers per hour earned him honks from the Israeli drivers, who tailgated him before passing. Some gave him angry glares, and others cut back in within inches of his front bumper. A couple of them actually hit their brakes as soon as they returned to his lane, forcing him to do the same. It was funny for a while, but eventually, as he approached the imposing monastery at Latrun, he decided that speeding was safer than driving legally. He swung into the fast lane and increased his speed to 130 kilometers per hour, which made all the difference.
The news started with politics, quoting Prime Minister Rabin: “The Oslo Accords are the only path to peace and security for Israel and its neighbors!” Opposition leader Bibi Netanyahu was quoted next: “The current government has placed our national security in the hands of Palestinian murderers!” Next came economic news, mixing impressive achievements by several exporters with pessimistic forecasts for the industrial and farming sectors should Palestinian terror attacks grow even more frequent and deadly.
Crime news came last: “A government spokesman announced this morning the exposure of a suspected ring of identity thieves. The group allegedly hacked into computers at the Central Bank and stole personal banking data, which was then used for illegal purposes. The suspects include a well-known ultra-Orthodox rabbi in Neturay Karta and a TV reporter.”
Lemmy swerved across the left lane and came to a stop on the shoulder. A well-known ultra-Orthodox rabbi in Neturay Karta! No one in the insular sect, which banned television, computers, and all forms of entertainment, would have the means or inclination to engage in financial fraud, let along hack into computers at the Central Bank. And who beside his father could be described as a well-known rabbi in Neturay Karta?
The news ended, followed by a promotional jingle for vacations in Eilat. Lemmy turned off the radio. What was the meaning of this? Tanya had told him that his father, the great Rabbi Abraham Gerster, had been Elie’s mole in Neturay Karta. Was Rabbi Gerster now in the crosshairs of Shin Bet, another casualty of SOD’s collapse? Was Shin Bet busy arresting Elie’s agents on trumped-up charges? And how long would it take for Shin Bet to pounce on Wilhelm Horch in Zurich? Or to track down the Dutch tourist Baruch Spinoza, who had ventured into Israel with neither contacts nor allies for support?
