“ Flew out of the cuckoo’s nest.”
“ Where did he go?”
“ Back to the field.” Elie pressed a button, and the head of the bed rose, lifting him halfway to a sitting position. “Why are you here? Haven’t you received my orders?”
“ Tanya came to Zurich. I almost eliminated her by mistake. She told me about my father’s real job, about your manipulations.”
“ Ah.” Elie looked toward the window. “Tanya.”
“ I know what you’ve done.” Lemmy kept his voice lower than the praying voices behind him. “You manipulated my father into a life of lies. Then you deceived me, an eighteen-year-old kid, to give up my life and become someone else.” He took a deep breath, controlling his rage. “It’s monstrous!”
“ You feel sorry for yourself?” Elie breathed a few times. “You suffered?”
“ Yes!”
“ You don’t know what suffering is. Go back to your job!”
“ All your schemes are for naught. Shin Bet has shut down your ILOT. You’ll never become intelligence czar.”
A weary grin appeared on Elie’s gaunt face.
“I tried to protect Tanya, but they got to her in Amsterdam. I had to leave her, broken and bleeding, surrounded by strangers, abandoned. Is she suffering enough? Are you pleased with the consequences of your games?”
The grin faded away. For a moment there was no other reaction, but then Lemmy saw something that stunned him. In the corners of Elie’s eyes, tears bubbled up.
There was a knock on the door, and the guard peeked in. “Are you done praying?”
*
“ You see this road?” Agent Cohen had to yell over the racket of the rotors. He pointed down at the narrow blacktop that slithered up the Judean Mountains. “It’s the Burma Road. Back in forty-eight, when Rabin was a young commander, he tried to save Jerusalem from the Jordanian siege, but the main road was blocked by Arab terrorists. Someone found this goat path and broke through with supplies for the Jewish civilians. But it was too late to win the battle.”
The helicopter was flying low, the tree summits almost within reach. Gideon rested his forehead against the window, looking down at the landscape of planted pine forests and deep ravines, an occasional boulder breaking through the green with the bleached white of sandstone.
“He never forgave himself,” Agent Cohen yelled.
“Who?”
“Yitzhak Rabin, for losing the battle for Jerusalem, leaving it divided for nineteen years. That’s why he insisted on winning it back in sixty-seven.”
Gideon nodded. These historic details seemed trivial now, as he was flying to Hadassah Hospital to confront the man who had hired and mentored him. Despite his misgivings about Elie’s methods, joining with Shin Bet against the old man felt like a betrayal.
“ Three minutes.” Agent Cohen pointed at a distant cluster of buildings among the green mountains. “There’s Hadassah Hospital.”
*
“ We’re almost done,” Benjamin told the guard, closing the door. “Psalms, seventy-nine. Lord, how the Gentiles invaded your domain, contaminated your Holy Temple, turned Jerusalem into wreckage. ”
While the men of Neturay Karta repeated after Benjamin, Lemmy leaned closer to Elie. “Shin Bet is hunting us down. I fear for my family. I must make a trade with them. Offer them something they can’t refuse.”
Elie grimaced.
“ I’ll give them Koenig’s money. It’s a king’s ransom-they won’t turn it down. I already know the account number and password.”
“ You do? That’s good. Very good.”
“ Where’s the ledger?”
“ What ledger?”
“ The record of all deposits that Armande Hoffgeitz signed in forty-five. Where did you hide it?”
Benjamin recited, “ They fed the carcasses of your fallen faithful to the circling vultures, the flesh of your disciples to the earthly scavengers. ”
“ I gave you my orders.” Elie’s head rose from the pillow, trying to show himself to the surveillance camera over the men’s black hats. He gave up and lay back. “Counter Final Solution. That’s your job.”
“ Tanya told me she gave it to you, and you presented it to Gunter Schnell in sixty-seven. Where’s the ledger?”
“ Go back to Zurich and serve the cause, or your cute little Nazi namesake will die-”
“ In a ski accident? Like Christopher’s father? And Paula’s brother?”
The gaunt hand gestured in dismissal. “Gentiles.”
“ I want the ledger!” He placed his hand on Elie’s neck. The skin was cold against his palm. He closed his fingers and squeezed.
*
From above, Hadassah Hospital looked like oversized Lego blocks, positioned among the pine trees in cascading order on a moderate slope, adjacent to the Ein Shemen village. A heliport was marked with a crossed circle and an orange wind bag. The pilot descended slowly, balancing the chopper against a gust of wind from the north.
*
Elie’s weak hands clasped the bedrails, rattling the frame. His mouth opened and closed, his yellow teeth clinking.
Lemmy let go. “Where is the ledger?”
His breathing fast and shallow, Elie reached under the sheets. His hand came out with his sheathed blade, which he offered to Lemmy. The gesture was more than a sign of capitulation, of a lifelong killer expressing his readiness to be killed by his successor. It was meant to symbolize a passing of the torch.
But Lemmy had no interest in carrying Elie’s torch or in trying to figure out if this was yet another manipulation, another clever signal intended to achieve the opposite result of what its plain meaning would suggest. He grabbed the blade and tossed it to the floor. “Answer me!”
Elie turned his face to the window.
Lemmy applied pressure again, shutting off the wind pipe.
Elie writhed, his legs kicking the mattress.
“ They spilled your chosen’s blood around Jerusalem,” Benjamin chanted, “ and no one to bury the dead.”
The men of Neturay Karta repeated the verse, their voices louder to drown out Elie’s noisy struggle.
“ Where is it?” Lemmy’s grip tightened. He leaned so close that his face almost touched Elie’s aquiline nose. The squeaky breathing had stopped. Elie’s legs kicked once more. His hands feebly pulled against the rails.
Benjamin stepped closer to Lemmy and chanted, “ Be forgetful, Lord, of our early sins, put forward your compassion, for we are pitiable.”
Elie’s eyes opened wide, focused on Lemmy, who released the pressure.
The chest under the white sheet heaved abruptly, air shrieking as it filled the sick lungs.
“ We are your chosen,” Benjamin recited, “ your sheep, Shepherd, our gratitude is eternal, from one generation to the next, forever we shall praise your glory.”
Lemmy put his hand on Elie’s chest, weighing down. “For the last time, where is the ledger?”
“Let’s…make…a deal.” Elie’s sallow face twisted into a grin, and he coughed hard.
Lemmy’s right hand clenched into a fist and rose up, ready to hit the demon in the bed. But Benjamin gripped his forearm while the men repeated, “ Forever we shall praise your glory.”
Elie looked away, the black eyes focused not on the window, but on the night table by the bed, the tray with untouched lunch, utensils, and the thick book. Lemmy pushed the utensils out of Elie’s reach, more out of habitual caution than of real concern that Elie would attempt to attack him. The balance of power was too tilted, and even in his current state Elie would not be suicidal. He wasn’t the type.
Lemmy picked up the book, surprised by its weight. The top cover was a wooden plate carved with a Star of
