Emerald (5 page)

Hans opened his eyes, trying to focus where he was, outside of his remembered past. Shaking his head, he got up, staggered to the bed and flopped on it fully dressed.

T
he sun-toasted, long-legged blond, jogged toward him on the beach, her feet kicking up the white wash zone. Her skin tight swimsuit twisted back and forth struggling to cover her inviting body. He was running to meet her on the warm sand, their arms reaching out to enfold each other. Just as they were about to embrace his hopeful dream was shattered by the ringing of his bedside phone. The clock’s red digits showed five a.m. Who would be calling at this ungodly hour? Angrily He fumbled for the phone.

“Yes! Do you know what time it is?”

A voice full of gravel erased any further hopes of beaches and blonds.

“Get here as soon as possible. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Click! The voice was gone.

Sitting on the edge of the bed he tried rubbing the dream and last night’s single malt scotch out of his head. But when Levi said jump, he jumped.

Levi was a revered and legendary case officer, or katsa, within the Kidon, a highly secretive department of the Israel’s foreign intelligence service. It had a devious name that had little to do with its real mission. Those employed there only referred to it as the Office. In their training her agents were made to promise never to speak of its real name. David’s new katsa had the job of handling the agents or combatants, who carry out covert actions abroad against whoever was considered to be a threat to Israeli. David had only met Levi once, at his graduation from Kidon training in the Negev desert last year, however, the stories of this man’s exploits for Israel filled what little free time there was during that training. He had been the mastermind behind the tracking and killing of Ali Hassan Salameh, known as “The Red Prince”, the man responsible for the Munich Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes in 1972, and even today, 1994, Levi was still motivated by that shedding of young Jewish blood.

David’s feet hit the floor; he groped for the switch on the lamp by the phone before aiming for the shower. Minutes later, awakened by the stinging cold water, he pulled on chinos, slipped a tee shirt over his uncombed black hair, jammed feet into cowboy boots, grabbed his NY Yankee baseball cap and slammed his apartment door.

Taking the elevator down to the underground parking garage, the Israeli ex-paratrooper ran toward his beat-up jeep, climbed in and fired the engine. The roar of AMC-401 under the hood killed the early morning silence and echoed through the cavernous garage. Pushing the remote button the wrought iron gate began its slow retreat across the exit. Jabbing the gas peddle, the jeep chased the echo of its engine up the slope from the garage onto the street in front of his apartment building.

No one else was crazy enough to be up at this time of the morning and he cruised quickly through the familiar streets of Tel Aviv heading toward King Saul Boulevard. The glisten of last night’s rain on deserted streets added to the mystery of the urgency. David flashed around the dog park at He Be’Lyar Circle on two wheels, and headed down Weizmann Street, wishing he could stop and get a cup of his favorite Turkish coffee at the corner café, as he cut a fast right onto King Saul Boulevard. Just past the Israeli Opera House he honked two long and one short. Jacob, in The Office parking kiosk, looked up from the paperback he was reading, recognized the Jeep careening down King Saul toward him and quickly pushed a red button and the concrete crash barriers slid down into the pavement.

David, screeching to a stop, grinned at Jacob, “One of these days I’m going to sneak up and surprise you.”

“Yeah right! I could hear you coming a block away. No way could you sneak up on anyone in that pile of junk. No one’s snuck past me into the Office yet,” Jacob fired back.

David smiled back and rolled into the parking garage. The building under which he parked his Jeep housed the headquarters of the Mossad, officially known as The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations. However, David and the others who work for this agency call it just - - - The Office.

This semi-secret agency is responsible for intelligence collection and covert operations which are suspected to include targeted killings and paramilitary activities beyond Israel’s borders, and protecting Jewish communities worldwide. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with Aman (military intelligence) and Shin Bet (internal security), and its director reports directly to the Prime Minister.

After parking close to the elevator door in the mostly deserted garage, he got out and pressed a remote in his pocket that shut off the gas flow to the engine - - - a safety check he had installed since it was virtually impossible to lock a Jeep with canvas side curtains. His pass card slipped quietly through the building’s magnetic slot, the door opened, and he took the stairs three at a time without pausing to the fourth floor. His boot heels clicked as he walked down the deserted corridor knowing that the only others in the building at this time in the morning were probably a few in the communications room in the basement level. He finally stopped in front of an unmarked door of the corner office. The incense-like aroma of Latakia tobacco seeping under the door told David that the person in the office had gotten up even earlier that he had. Standing a little over six feet tall he took a deep breath, turned the bill of his NY Yankee cap around to the front and knocked.

The gravely voice bid him enter and as he shut the door he saw Levi in his typical, often washed but never ironed, campaign shirt, shoulder epaulets unbuttoned, stoking his ever present, yellowed meerschaum pipe. However, there was another person in the room. A slender, black haired, attractive female, in army fatigues, back to David, was staring out the window.

“Took you long enough getting here.”

“Good morning to you too, Levi.”

“I want you to meet Lieutenant Miriam Wagner.”

David was startled. As she turned he remembered her well from training at the Henzelia pistol range, near Tel Aviv. He’d seen her scores. She was an exceptional shot and the image of her, eyes focused and intense, beneath the yellow-lensed glasses, her short hair puffed out comically around the thick ear protectors, flashed into his brain. Then his mind flew to the final proficiency exam with the Galil sniper rifle when she graduated with the best score in his battalion. His ego suffered a hit that day as she replaced him as top shot in their training class. He remembered hearing that she credited her high scores to the times she spent hunting in Africa with her father. They had also been together when sent to a special camp in the Negev where they had learned to kill in a dozen ways. In the midst of the heat and dirt of the desert their competiveness seemed to grow and fester.

She had always been an exciting and frustrating challenge for David.

Moving with graceful economy of the leopards she hunted with her father, she sat on Levi’s battered leather sofa, curling up her long legs under her. Giving David a quick, denying glance, her fine silky eyebrows rose a little and she drew her lips in a tight smile.

“Hello Lieutenant, remember me?”

He stopped, trying not to look at her legs. “How can I forget? How have you been, Miriam?”

“Oh, you remember my name?”

“Sure, none of the guys in my outfit would let me forget it. Where did you learn to shoot so well?”

“Growing up, my father taught me to use an old Syrian AK-47 that he captured during the 6-Day War. It was easy to convert that training to the Galili and Uzi.”

Levi, lifting a match to relight his pipe, looked at the pair sitting before him and noticed their uneasiness.

“Enough of this chit-chat. Let’s get down to business. Since you both know each other I guess I don’t have to introduce you, but just to be formal, Miss. Miriam Wagner, this is Mr. David Bernstein. And, by the way, since you’ll be working under me, no more Sergeant Wagner and Lieutenant Bernstein, is that clear?

In spite of that, I want you to become a new Kidon team for me. Oh, I know most teams have three members, but I think with the assignment I have in mind for you, you should be able to utilize others in the field to fill in for assistance. What I’m mainly interested in is finding a certain Hans Huber.”

“So who is this person, Levi?” asked Miriam quickly, before David could open his mouth.

“Let me back up a bit before I answer that question, Miriam. You may or may not know that over the last few years there have been quite a number of Jews murdered in Europe, all very wealthy, I might add. Until recently these crimes have been investigated simply as single occurrences, but recently investigators in Switzerland have uncovered a possible connection between them. A friend of mine, Inspector Servette, of the Police Department, in Geneva has asked for our help. It seems that there has been a murder of an elderly Jewish couple living in Switzerland. The evidence from that crime seems to connect with other murders in Germany and Switzerland. However most of these crimes have grown cold and Servette, in a conversation asked if we could possibly investigate. Since this would be your first assignment as Kidon, I have decided to give the case to you.”

“What’s the evidence that seems to connect these murders Levi?” David responded.

“All I know is that whoever has committed these murders seems to leave a calling card behind.”

“His calling card!”

“Yes, it seems that after he kills his victims he carves a lightning-like slash on arms or legs.”

Miriam turned to Levi, “sound like a real sick bastard.”

Levi continued, “I want you to go down to the Data Center in the basement and see if Malcolm can give you any more background on this case. But be careful, I woke him even before I woke you this morning and he has been working on this case already. He’s pretty grumpy about my calling him in this early. David, standing, shook his head, “well, I can understand that,” he said and headed for the door.

“Wait,” Levi said. “Remember the Data Center has a man trap to enter. You’ll need both your magnetic pass key to this building as well as your right index finger-print to get into that room. Come back to see me later when you and Malcolm have combed the archives for information about your target and then we’ll develop a plan of action.

Miriam got up and looked at the beard on the other side of the desk encased in pipe smoke, as David left.

“Who’s in charge on this little assignment, Levi?”

“I guess you’ll have to figure that out as you go along.” Levi said with a laugh.

“Where’s the data center?” Miriam almost shouted at the back of David as he hurried down the corridor.

“In the basement,” he said, not even looking over his shoulder passing the elevator.

“Where are you going?”

“To the stairs. I don’t like elevators.”

Miriam stopped, bushed the down button and waited as David disappeared through a door at the end of the hallway.
That man’s impossible, and I now have to work with him! Well, we’ll see about that!

The elevator door opened. She got in and turned to face to door, hands opening and closing in exasperation.

When the elevator stopped she shook her head to shake off her emotions.
I can’t let that man’s over-active testosterone frustrate this assignment
.

David was not to be seen. She slid her magnetic pass card through the slot beside the door Research Department, in Hebrew and entered a compartment about the size of the closet of her bedroom. There was David standing in front of another heavy windowless door.

“About time,” he muttered and pressed his thumb against a small glass panel beside the door. As the door opened he said, “Wait, you’ll have to do it too, they only allow one at a time.”

The door closed and angrily Miriam jammed her thumb against the glass and waited as the door opened for her. Walking into a large sound-proof room filled with computers humming, reels spinning and David already talking to a tall, thin, bearded man looking like some anarchist from an urban kibbutz.