There was a long silence as everyone looked around.
“ She’s not my agent,” Elie said. “Feel free to send your dogs after her.”
“ Wait.” Agent Cohen was pale as the wall. “What about the Zurich shooter?”
“ There’s new information,” the nurse said. “He arrived on a KLM flight yesterday. We traced his entry record. He is travelling under the name Baruch Spinoza.”
Rabbi Gerster barely managed to suppress a smile-Lemmy had assumed the name of another young Jew who, over a century earlier, had been excommunicated by his congregation.
“ Only a matter of time,” the nurse said. “His name will pop up somewhere, and we’ll take him down.”
The comment made Rabbi Gerster cringe. The powerful Shin Bet was chasing after his son with the intent to kill! He cleared his throat and asked, “Doesn’t the stand-down agreement extend to all SOD agents?”
But the phone line had already gone dead.
*
Itah Orr changed taxis three times before reaching the central bus station in southern Tel Aviv. The evening rush was peaking, thousands of office workers and day laborers heading home. She lingered at shop windows, but no one was following her.
At a secondhand clothing store, she exchanged her outfit for a long-sleeved dress that reached down to her shoes and a dark-gray headdress, which she tied in the ultra-Orthodox style, hiding all her hair. She bought basic toiletries at a pharmacy, as well as a note pad, sunglasses, and a fresh can of pepper spray to replace the one confiscated by Shin Bet.
She paid cash for a room at a seedy motel. Against the background noise of hookers and their eager customers, she sat at a rickety desk and wrote down the events of the last few days.
*
Part Six
The Understanding
Thursday, November 2, 1995
The van left Meah Shearim after morning prayers with the same dozen black-garbed men whom Benjamin had brought along yesterday. They obeyed him without question, treating him with a reverence that astonished Lemmy. His childhood study-companion had come a long way.
As they had planned, the van parked in front of a phone booth on a busy street, and Lemmy stepped out. He placed a collect call to Zurich, and Christopher accepted it.
“Any news?”
“Yes,” Christopher said. “I received a call from Prince Abusalim’s father, Sheik Da’ood az-Zubayr. He demanded full accounting of his late son’s dealings with the bank. I explained that you’re away on business.”
“Call him back and extend my deepest condolences. Tell him that I plan to personally travel to the az-Zubayr oasis at a time of his convenience to assist him with the transition of the account and any other service that he would require.”
“Understood. Also, Herr Hoffgeitz regained consciousness last night. He asked for Klaus V.K. and had to be reminded that his son had been dead for a long time. He then asked for Klaus Junior. Paula brought your son, and Herr Hoffgeitz told him to learn from you how to run the bank.”
“He said that?”
“Yes. The doctors decided to sedate him again, give his heart a chance to heal.”
“ Anything else?”
“ A personal message from Paula. I don’t understand it. She said to tell you that she’s still late.”
“Still late?” Lemmy laughed. “That’s good! That’s very good!”
*
Itah Orr took the bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. On the way to Meah Shearim, she stopped at a vegetable stand and filled up two shopping bags, paying in cash. On Shivtay Israel Street she joined a group of ultra-Orthodox women.
A white Subaru sedan parked on the pavement near the gate. As the cluster of women approached, two men emerged from the car and ambled over. Their presence, though impolite, achieved the desired effect. The women stopped, afraid to risk even accidental body contact with the strangers, which would constitute a sin under Talmud’s strict chastity rules.
“Shalom!” One of the men held up a silver, feline-shaped keychain. “Any of you girls lost this?”
Itah recognized the spare keys to her car, which she had parked nearby last Friday. The thought that these men had invaded her home and rummaged through her personal possessions made her see red, which was probably what they were hoping for. She kept her head up, her eyes hidden by the sunglasses.
“Anyone?” He dangled the keys. “Come on, ladies!”
None of the women responded.
“How about this?” The other agent held a short piece of gray, hairy rope. “Anyone?”
It took Itah a moment to realize it wasn’t a rope. It was her cat’s tail. As the agent shook it, she could see the clipped end, red with blood.
Biting her lips to block a scream, she reached into her purse for the pepper spray.
*
With Elie Weiss and Rabbi Gerster gone to Hadassah Hospital, the apartment felt big and empty. Gideon settled to watch CNN while the housekeeper set the breakfast table for two.
Agent Cohen showed up with warm pastries and a bandage over his eye. He held up his finger, which was taped to a short stick. “I’m filing a disability claim, maybe an early retirement.” His joviality didn’t mask the jittery tremor at the corner of his mouth.
“ You shouldn’t feel embarrassed about what happened yesterday,” Gideon said. “Even your Number One is no match for Elie Weiss.”
The housekeeper served coffee and set the pastries on a plate.
“Fact is, I failed,” Agent Cohen said. “I underestimated him, and this debacle will haunt me for the rest of my career. Especially if the situation turns into a real disaster.”
“What do you mean? I thought it’s over. Didn’t SOD and Shin Bet agree to a truce?”
“That’s the least of our worries.” The agent bit into a chocolate-filled croissant.
“What else is there to worry about?”
He swallowed and sipped coffee to chase it down. “Spinoza.”
“ Isn’t he part of the deal? Surely Elie will send him home now.”
“ We don’t think Elie controls Spinoza.” Agent Cohen pulled photos from a thick envelope and set them on the table. The first group showed Arab sheikhs in settings that varied from formal dinners to car races and camel rides. “That’s him, with the red kafiya. His real name is Wilhelm Horch. A German national, married to a Swiss woman. He’s vice president at a Zurich bank, and his personal assistant is a member of a Nazi group.”
“ How do you know?”
“ Mossad has files on every significant businessman with ties to the Middle East. We have access to those files. Horch has extensive Arab clientele. No one knew of his connection to Elie Weiss-we’re still not sure of the nature of this relationship. When Tanya Galinski met Horch at a Zurich park a few days ago, we happened to be tailing her because we suspected she’s involved with Elie’s assassination scheme.”
“ What’s Horch’s game?”
“ He’s been playing Elie,” Agent Cohen said. “Look at these photos from the Galeries Lafayette.”
The same man, wearing a coat, a fedora, and a fake goatee, stood inside the glass doors of the Galeries Lafayette. Other photos showed him on the stairs and in the menswear section. “These are from the security cameras, recorded during the thirty seconds preceding the shooting of the Arab kid in the dressing room.”
“ That shooting was a disaster,” Gideon said. “Police descended on the place, and Bashir drove off too fast for us to follow him back to Abu Yusef’s hiding place. Elie was certain the Arabs killed Latif in some kind of an internal
