Arabia.”
“It’s a risky gamble.” Lemmy crossed into the opposite lane to pass a motorcycle, ridden by a couple who both wore black helmets and gray ponytails.
“Rabin is a strategic thinker. He looks at the whole region as a single battlefield, which is the reason he really believes in this peace. Only he could inspire so many Israelis to support reconciliation with the PLO-”
The shots came one after the other, blowing both tires on the left side of the car. Lemmy struggled with the steering wheel, but the car veered to the shoulder, flipped over, and landed upside-down in a ditch.
In the sudden silence, Lemmy heard the rattle of a helicopter. “Are you okay?”
No response from Itah.
Bullets knocked on the car.
The seat belt buckle took several tries to yield. He crawled out through the shattered window. A cloud of dust lingered from the car’s tumbles. Freckles’ FN Browning was already in his hand. He cocked it, advanced up to the edge of the ditch, and waited for the dust to settle.
The helicopter was somewhere to his right, hovering low. Lemmy traced the sound with the barrel of the FN Browning. A gust of wind cleared the dust. A sniper hung out of the open door as the helicopter slowly descended toward a flat piece of desert. More shots hit the car.
Lemmy aimed at the most vulnerable part of the craft-its rear rotor. He released one, two, three shots.
At first there was only a brief burst of steam-like vapors, but then the sound level changed. The sniper managed one more shot, hitting the dirt by Lemmy’s head, but the helicopter began to spin around, showing its other side, which gave Lemmy direct visual line to the pivot holding the rear rotor. He pressed the trigger three more times. There was a popping noise, and the helicopter turned again, tilting sideways, and hit the ground.
No explosion. Must have been low on fuel.
Lemmy crawled back into the wrecked Subaru.
He didn’t need to check Itah’s pulse to know she was gone. The car’s gyrations must have tossed her upper body sideways through the window. Her head was crushed.
Someone was yelling.
The motorcycle riders.
They had been close behind when the first shots hit the car. The bike was lying on its side, and the man was crouching by his female passenger in the middle of the road. Lemmy ran over. She was conscious, crying softly.
A car was approaching. It was the station wagon he had passed earlier. “There’s your ride,” Lemmy told the biker. “Get her to a hospital.”
The motorbike was an old Triumph Bonneville, its few chrome parts shining, a testimony to pride of ownership and, Lemmy hoped, good repair. He lifted the bike, scanned the controls, slipped the gear into neutral, and stepped on the kickstand. The engine fired up immediately.
The owner yelled something.
Lemmy shoved the FN Browning in his belt and straddled the bike, revving the engine.
Another shout, this one closer.
He turned.
The biker held forth a helmet. “Don’t leave the bike idling too long-it’ll overheat.”
Slipping on the helmet, Lemmy rode off, surprised by the engine’s smooth response. A moment later he was speeding down the hill, his eyes squinting against the sun, which was descending toward the Mediterranean. As he breathed deeply, the adrenaline rush subsided, and anger flooded him. Itah was dead, and with her died the feelings she had developed for his father and the knowledge she had accumulated to help him in his quest to uncover the truth and secure his family’s safety. Again he was alone.
*
Part Seven
The Redundancy
Saturday, November 4, 1995, Sunset
Gideon found himself in a daze, engulfed by smoke and groans of pain. He was upside down, the safety harness cutting into his shoulders. It was hot, and he thought, I don’t want to burn! Bracing his head with one arm, he unbuckled and dropped to what was left of the ceiling. He helped the other agents get free and edge out of the wreckage. The nurse was gone.
They cleared off the shards from the front windshield and helped Agent Cohen and the pilot get out. The nurse’s body was sprawled on a boulder a good distance up the hill, having flown out during the crash landing.
A few minutes later, an IDF jet flew low overhead. Two military helicopters followed, landing in a swirl of dust and tumbleweed. Army medics ran over.
Agent Cohen had lost his eye patch, exposing a black eye. His broken finger was off its stick, and he cursed as one of the medics fixed it.
Touched by the last rays of the sun, the first helicopter took off with the wounded agents and the dead nurse, heading to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Gideon and Agent Cohen boarded the second one. As they ascended into the air, the rolling lights of ambulances could be seen on the road nearby. A report came through the wireless. The wrecked Subaru contained one dead woman, who fit Itah Orr’s description. Her notebook was on its way to headquarters. Spinoza, however, had apparently stolen a motorcycle and disappeared down the road. By now he was already in a dense, urban area, impossible to detect until he reached the center of Tel Aviv.
“Put out an alert,” Gideon said. “Every police officer, every sharpshooter on the roofs, every soldier manning a checkpoint. We have less than one hour until the rally begins, and Spinoza is halfway there already. We have to catch him!”
Agent Cohen radioed in the description of the Triumph Bonneville and its rider to the chief of the Tel Aviv police, who commanded all the perimeter checkpoints and roadblocks around the peace rally. A flyer with Spinoza’s photo had been distributed already, with a warning that he might be disguised as a black hat. Anyone fitting his description was to be stopped, searched thoroughly for weapons, and released only if his Israeli identity was established without doubt.
As they flew over Tel Aviv, the giant square appeared below in glorious lights, already filled with people. The helicopter circled above, and they could see the IDF sharpshooters on the roofs, the gathering spectators on balconies around the plaza, and the traffic barriers on every incoming street and avenue.
The pilot put down on the helipad at Ichilov Hospital, a short distance from the Kings of Israel Plaza. They ran to a waiting car.
*
Tanya opened her eyes to see Bira in the arms of a tall, gray-haired man in an elegant jacket and a gentle manner. He looked at her and smiled- Lemmy’s smile! -and she recognized him. She tried to speak, but her throat was dry. She swallowed, and said, “You’re free.”
Abraham Gerster rubbed his clean-shaven cheek. “Yes, at last, I am free.”
She looked at the two of them, her daughter and the man she loved, standing by her bed, holding each other. “If I knew…it would take this.” Tanya moved her broken leg, shaking the wires. “I’d have done it…sooner.”
They laughed.
“What about…Lemmy?”
Abraham hesitated. “I think he’s in Meah Shearim with Benjamin, hiding from the Shin Bet.”
Tanya sighed. “Your son isn’t…the hiding type.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
She watched Abraham’s face, as handsome as the first time she had seen him, kneeling beside her in the snow, wiping the blood from her forehead. “Elie trained him,” she said. “Lemmy will prevail.”
“ We can’t lose him again.”
“ No! ” Speaking so sharply hurt her chest, where three of her ribs were fractured. Tanya shut her eyes. She
