Bloodline (33 page)

Eliahu tilted his head quizzically in an image of terse surprise at the interference. He wasn't used to being either commanded or contradicted. “There's no need to be crude, Governor. The matters I'm discussing with the prisoner are of the strictest secrecy. These are issues of national security. There is to be no one present.”

The governor's feet were planted and he was not going to budge.

Again Bilal screamed, “He was trying to kill me! In his bag—”

Furious, the governor said, “If you don't shut up, prisoner, I'll have you gagged.” Then he looked coldly at Eliahu and said softly and menacingly, “If it's about national security, I'll need to see a court order allowing you to be alone. What do you think we're going to do? Put it on Al Jazeera? Until I'm ordered to by the courts, the prisoner will be accompanied at all times. There's no room to move on this.”

Bilal was near to hysteria. “He's trying to kill me!”

“I told you to shut the fuck up!” shouted the governor. “Well?” he said, looking at Eliahu.

Eliahu stood in silence, his eyes never leaving the governor. A contest of wills. Finally he nodded, closed the briefcase, and said, “I'll be back. This prisoner has more to tell me.”

He left the room and a shaking Bilal behind.

Y
AEL WAS ALONE
in her hotel room. She had closed the blinds, shielding her from the glaring Mediterranean sun, and sat cross-legged on the bed. The phone was in front of her, and when she had reached out to make a call, she saw her hand was still trembling. She was petrified by the confrontation with Hassan, but there was, at the same time, a resolve inside her that refused to allow her to crumble or cry. Her fear, her panic, was replaced by deep and profound anger.

She had tried to persuade Hassan to come with her, persuade him that they could go to the police, but the suggestion had sent Hassan into a panic and he had dashed away, leaving her alone with the memory of a hit man with a loaded gun.

Yael steadied her hand, picked up the phone, and called Yaniv.

She had barely finished telling him about Hassan when he cut her off.

“Yael, be quiet. Stop talking.”

“But—”

“Shut up. Not another word. Don't say your location or anything. You need to listen to me. Leave the area you're in immediately . . .”

The area you're in
. The phrase was deliberately vague.

“Tell nobody where you're going. Just get into your car; drive on back roads if you can. I'll meet you in the place where we had our first cup of coffee—don't say the name of the place. Take your battery out of your cell phone immediately; take the SIM card out and drive to where we first met. Just say whether or not you understand me.”

“Okay. Ok—”

“Not okay!” he shouted. “Yes or no. Do you understand me?”

“Yes!”

“Good,” said Yaniv. “Then do it now—immediately!”

He hung up on her. She was offended by his rudeness, but then she realized she was still in shock from Hassan. For nearly
a whole minute Yael looked at her cell phone as though it were an unexploded bomb. She followed Yaniv's instructions and removed the battery and the SIM card. She was so frightened that she put them into separate pockets, as though they could talk to each other otherwise.

She threw her things into a suitcase, paid at reception, got into the car, and drove first north toward the Lebanese border, then east toward Jordan and Syria, then south on minor roads until she approached the intersections that divided the country between the hills where Jerusalem was situated and the sea on the edge of which Jaffa and Tel Aviv stood.

In a few hours she parked her car in a side street away from the grounds of the Jerusalem Hospital and walked four blocks toward the back entrance. Two flights of stairs took her to the main reception area, and a minute later she was sitting in the café where she and Yaniv had met and drunk coffee the day after her television appearance at the museum. Yaniv was already seated. He didn't smile at her as she approached the table.

“Are you okay?”

“Nothing about this is okay. What's going on, Yaniv? What could Bilal possibly know that suddenly makes me a target? I'm only his doctor, for God's sake.”

“I don't know,” he said, and to Yael it felt like the first truly honest thing he had ever said to her. A flat answer without journalistic qualification or bombast.

“I don't know what Bilal knows. He wouldn't tell me. But—” said Yaniv, stopping himself short.

“What?” Yael asked impatiently.

“When Bilal was in the hospital, did he have visitors?” asked Yaniv, but it wasn't really a question.

“Not many,” replied Yael. “His imam came. His parents when I arranged it.”

“And someone else. A Shin Bet commander named Eliahu Spitzer.”

“So? Bilal tried to blow up the Western Wall. Of course security people would want to speak to him.”

Yaniv shook his head. “Eliahu Spitzer is one of the most senior men in Shin Bet. Him coming down to talk to Bilal is like the minister of health doing rounds to check on your patients. It doesn't make sense.”

“But what's that got to do with these Arabs who want to kill me?” asked Yael.

From her tone, Yaniv knew that she was getting frustrated. “Spitzer was a hugely successful field operative with internal security. But then his daughter was killed in a Hamas bombing of a school bus,” he said in almost a whisper.

“I remember that bombing. Four or so years ago. Twelve young boys and girls—terrible.”

“A little while later he has a massive heart attack. After a couple of years of recuperation, he goes back to Shin Bet and a desk job. But he comes back a different man. He was always a conservative and hard-liner with the Palestinians, but suddenly, according to my sources, he starts wearing a yarmulke and going to synagogue like clockwork . . .”

“Finding religion when your child dies? Hardly anything unusual about that,” said Yael.

“There's more to it. He alienated himself from his colleagues. I know a few of them from my work, and they told me he was a guy who used to be well liked, but when he came back from sick leave he was suddenly introverted and secretive. But that's nothing. According to them, he was saying really bizarre things and acting strangely. Some people in Shin Bet thought he'd gone gaga since the operation and the murder of his daughter. So they began to watch him closely. They were worried about him inadvertently breaching security.”

Yael couldn't see anything wrong with the situation. She was used to the consequences of death on people, and it all sounded normal to her. Yaniv knew she was doubting the seriousness of
what he was saying, so he leaned forward like a conspirator and said softly, “When they began to examine him closely, they suffered unusual incidents. Two of his operatives died meeting informants in Gaza. These are the undercover agents who look and dress and speak like Arabs, guys who had been working in Gaza for a decade. But suddenly they're uncovered, caught, and killed, and their bodies turn up torn to pieces in a field near Ashkelon. And Spitzer? He doesn't even go to the funerals.”

“But that doesn't mean anything . . .”

“Maybe, but both of these guys, according to a contact of mine, had filed confidential internal reports saying they were concerned about the behavior of Eliahu Spitzer.”

“Behavior?”

“I couldn't get the details of what they'd written. Those files are buried if they still exist at all, which I doubt. But last year I was tipped off about Spitzer, and I interviewed the two guys' widows. I know that their husbands were worried by the change that had come over him since his massive heart attack. When he came back to work, he threw himself into it despite being told by the head of the agency to take it easy. He was rabid about the Palestinians, demanding more and more from his staff, as though something had been triggered while he was ill. He went from calm and methodical to being an attack dog. Suddenly, he'd throw caution to the wind and send his guys out on reckless missions. So the two guys complained . . .” Yaniv leaned back in his chair and Yael couldn't help but see the journalist's flair for drama come out, despite the circumstances.

“So? That could be put down to the effects of the operation he must have undergone, and his recovery. Not uncommon in people who have suffered trauma and illness. I see it in cancer patients and—”

Yaniv cut her off and continued: “So a week after the funerals Spitzer is seen in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim.”

She was shocked. Yael couldn't find a reason to explain Spitzer's behavior. Mea Shearim was a place avoided by all but the most fervent of religious Israelis.

“Black hats and side locks everywhere, and he's greeted like a long-lost brother. People who saw him say he was taken to the home of Rabbi Shmuel Telushkin, one of the leaders of Neturei Karta. He was the bastard who was at the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran.”

Yael looked at him in astonishment. “Neturei Karta? You're kidding. Mea Shearim I could understand. That would explain the sudden finding of faith. But Neturei Karta, those bastards . . . ?”

Yaniv sighed. “I need to understand the connection between him and this rabbi. Something's rotten. A top-ranking Shin Bet officer visiting the Neturei Karta, a group opposed to the Jewish state? And a top Shin Bet man visiting Bilal? It doesn't make sense. And now Bilal is terrified someone is trying to kill him . . .”

Yaniv let the phrase hang in the air before continuing: “And then this Hassan kid shows up saying he's meant to kill you but can't bring himself to do it because—”

Yael didn't let him finish. “What does Bilal know?”

“That's the question . . . And the only person he'll talk to is you.”

A
S
Y
AEL WAITED
in the small room for Bilal to be brought in, the full weight of growing fear began to seep into her. Being fearful of Palestinians who wanted her dead was one thing, but what Yaniv had said about Eliahu Spitzer was like being caught in a vise.

She didn't need Yaniv to explain to her how dangerous someone like him could be. But the shadow of who he was, and the power he wielded within Shin Bet, made her fearful of everyone.
To her mind, anyone could be in league with him; anyone around her could be a Shin Bet agent. Like many Israelis, she had grown up with the perpetual threat of suicide bombings, which had ingrained a hard-to-shake apprehension of Palestinians. But now she was afraid of everyone, Jew and Arab alike, and trusted no one.

Getting in to see Bilal had been surprisingly easy. She didn't need connections or strings pulled as Yaniv had been forced to do. Prisoners were entitled to medical treatment, and as Bilal's doctor with valid hospital credentials she was entitled to check up on her patient after such a complex operation. To sweeten the story, she told the warden she intended to write a medical journal paper on the rare kidney surgery and needed to discuss this with Bilal. She was, of course, searched and had to leave all personal items except her stethoscope behind, but was admitted to the small room and now waited for Bilal to arrive.

Bilal's eyes widened in shocked relief when he saw Yael in the room. But he said nothing until he was seated and the guard had retreated to the corner.

“Hello, Bilal,” Yael said in English, her eyes flicking over to the guard to scan for a reaction. He looked from her to Bilal and back and she took this as a sign that he likely spoke English; most Israelis did. She then switched to Arabic.

“Are you well?” Again she looked to the guard, who wrinkled his nose and lost interest, staring at his feet. Reasonably confident the guard didn't speak Arabic and wouldn't understand what they were saying, she pressed on. “Bilal, I've met your friend. Hassan.”

Bilal took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“Is he okay?”

“I think so,” said Yael. “I . . . I don't know for sure. He ran away. He told me you're afraid that someone was trying to hurt you.”

“Please, Doctor . . .” Bilal's voice was firm and low but his eyes were desperate. “They are coming for me.”

“Who is?” she asked, although she knew the answer. She found herself wanting confirmation rather than an answer.

“Men in here want me dead for being a traitor. But I don't fear them. It's the man with the white hair . . .”

“Has he been to see you?” asked Yael.

“He tried to kill me. Right here in this room.” Bilal's voice was flat. Calm. Almost resigned.

“Why do you think this is happening to you?”

With nothing left to hide and no doubt now that his life was close to ending, it was time to speak. In hushed tones he told Yael about the attempt on his life by the prisoner Ibrahim just after the imam had visited; about the visit from the man from Shin Bet—the skunk—and the hypodermic needle. And finally he told Yael about driving the imam to the meeting, about Spitzer and the old religious Jew.

It was this final confirmation that seemed to put the entire thing together for Yael. All the pieces had been inchoate until Bilal spoke of the rabbi. What Yaniv had told her about the Neturei Karta and Spitzer, the confrontation with Hassan, the imam in the hospital. All the pieces refused to align until this one last scrap of information. And over it all were the remarkable strands of shimmering DNA that connected her with this young man.

“I want to help you, Bilal. But I don't know how,” said Yael. “I don't know where to begin.”

“You don't believe me?”

“I want to, but it doesn't matter what I believe.”

“But that bastard Ibrahim, he tried to kill me in here. I broke his arm. The Shin Bet man tried to kill me. A miracle stopped him. They won't just kill me, they will kill my family!” he said.