The Jerusalem Assassin (11 page)

But then he remembered another thing Elie had said.
I know more than you think.
Another joke? Another mind game? How could Elie watch him?

He pulled the envelope from his coat pocket and tore it open. It contained a photo of a youth in a long green coat, holding a fur hat. He was in profile, too far to show exact facial features. On the back of the photo, in Elie’s familiar handwriting, was a short note:

Wednesday, 3:00 p.m., Paris, Rue Mogador, Galeries Lafayette, west building. Watch for a green Peugeot. Target is the bomber of the Marseilles school. He’ll go to menswear dressing room. Second team will watch the driver on Rue Mogador.

Lemmy looked at the small photo for a long moment and memorized what little details it gave. He reviewed the operational instructions one more time and slipped the photo into the paper shredder.

*

Elie Weiss left the Bierhalle Kropf through the front entrance and waved down a taxi. Zurich’s train station was only a few blocks away, and the elderly Swiss cabbie wasn’t happy as he collected the minimum fare and no tip. “I’m not a bus driver,” he said in German.

“
Arbeit macht frei
,” Elie said as he got out.

He took the escalators down into the underground station. As the train left for the airport, he opened
The Economist
and found an envelope glued onto page 67, which carried an article titled:
Mideast Leaders Talk Business – Can Rabin and Arafat Quell Their Militant Oppositions with Economic Prosperity?
Elie read it quickly. Typical European wishful thinking held that terrorism will disappear if western nations subsidize a nice middle-class lifestyle for the Palestinians. It was like expecting hyenas to forgo their natural malice in exchange for free meals. Elie had no doubt that the editors at
The Economist
knowingly twisted the truth because, just like the Palestinians, their hostility to Israel was not rooted in political causes or economic circumstances, but in anti-Semitism, manifested temporarily as anti-Israelism.

Inside the envelope he found a cashier’s check for $75,000, made
To Bearer
. The funds in his account at the Hoffgeitz Bank had come from dozens of former Nazis he had tracked down over the years, many with the help of Lemmy’s banking skills. Invariably, they were easy to terrify, like a bully facing someone worse. They paid handsomely for their sins, and the cash supported on-going SOD operations while he pursued the real prize—Koenig’s fortune, which awaited its destiny in a dormant account at the Hoffgeitz Bank.

Also inside the envelope were two sheets of paper. The first provided a list of the bribes paid to Prince Abusalim az-Zubayr, which totaled $76,750,000. The second sheet was a copy of an electronic transfer of $200,000 from the prince’s account at the Hoffgeitz Bank to a bank in Senlis, France, dated today.

As soon as the train reached the airport, Elie walked to a pay phone. It was two thirty p.m. He inserted a phone card and punched in the number.

The phone at Rue Buffault rang three times, and Gideon answered, “Yes?”

“Get a roadmap,” Elie said, “and find Senlis. It’s a small town, maybe a village.”

After a moment of paper shuffling, Gideon said, “Senlis is about twenty miles north of Paris.”

“Near Ermenonville?”

“Correct.”

Elie coughed and held his other hand to his chest until the pain eased. “Our man will pick up a large sum today at Banque Nationale De France at thirty-eight Rue Philippe. He won’t trust anyone else, but he’ll bring guards. Watch from a distance, take photos, but nothing else.”

“Your old friend is here. She’s napping.”

Elie considered the situation for a moment. Tanya must not learn of these developments. “Get lovebird and leave quietly. If our guest wakes up, tell her you’re going to buy food. Go to Senlis and watch the bank.”

“Follow him?”

“No. There will be more transfers. I want to confirm it’s really him, but our main target is his sponsor. We have to hold off until we can get both of them together.” Elie hung up and walked to Gate 24A, where the next Swissair flight to Paris was already boarding.

*

Gideon parked the Citroën halfway up the street from the two-story, glass-fronted building. Bathsheba propped a black-and-white photo of Abu Yusef on the dashboard, and they settled for the wait with an audio version of Frederick Forsyth’s
The Fourth Protocol
. An hour into the story, John Preston brought the stolen documents to the Yard, and a technician dusted them for prints. Gideon remembered Preston, played by Michael Cain, wearing his nonchalant expression that communicated so much to truly discerning Michael Cain fans.

“He’s not coming.” Bathsheba hit the stop button on the cassette player. “Or it’s not him at all.”

“The bank closes in nine minutes,” Gideon said.

“Let’s go for a drink.” Her left arm rested on the back of his seat, then slipped down to his shoulder.

He pretended not to notice.

Bathsheba’s mouth was close to his ear. “You smell so clean.” Her fingers slid under the curls at the back of his head. “I was thinking—”

“Don’t start.” Gideon pushed her hand away.

Bathsheba sat straight up in her seat and saluted.

He laughed despite his best efforts. The absurd contradiction between her girlish clowning and her womanly beauty was too funny to resist. She was a performer, both in her irreverence and on the job. Men never refused Bathsheba. He had seen her lure men who recklessly surrendered to the powerful lust she ignited. He sensed that she despised their submission. Did she despise all men because her father had died, leaving her orphaned when she was so young?

“Look!” Bathsheba pointed.

A green Peugeot stopped in front of the bank and a man sprang out of the passenger side. He looked up and down the street and tapped on the roof of the car. Both rear doors opened and two other men came out. They all wore dark suits and had thin mustaches, and the driver, Bashir, awkwardly hid a machine gun under his jacket.

She aimed the Polaroid. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Abu Yusef emerged. He was older than the others, his hair gray and thinning on top. He crossed the pavement carrying a briefcase to the door of the bank.

The camera clicked. “I’d rather shoot bullets,” she said, “than photos.”

“He’s too well protected.”

A few minutes later Abu Yusef reappeared and hefted the briefcase into the back seat. The Peugeot drove off. Gideon waited a few minutes before heading back to Paris.

*

Elie Weiss sat on the edge of the bed. Tanya’s face was peaceful, almost happy. Finding her asleep was an unexpected pleasure—it had been three hours since he had called from Zurich. She must have been very tired. He enjoyed this rare opportunity to gaze at her without being regarded with cold hostility. For decades they had coexisted in the clandestine trenches of the war against Israel’s enemies, but neither her beauty nor her loathing of him had abated.

He pulled off his gloves and carefully rested his hand on her cheek. Tingling warmth reached up through his arm to his chest. His eyes misted up and he leaned closer, taking in her unique aroma.

Her eyes opened. She pushed his hand away and sat up.

“Shalom, Tanya.”

“Shalom.”

“You look well.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” Elie rubbed his bald head. “I saw Abraham last week. A chance encounter. I barely recognized him. His beard is totally white.”

“He’s not seventy yet.” Tanya stood, her hair came loose, and the past fifty years fell off. She was again the girl sitting in the snow on the first day of 1945, wrapped in a fur coat, her Nazi lover’s warm corpse beside her. Elie had fallen in love with her right there, a passion that would forever go unrequited. Instead she fell for Abraham, but her love had fared no better—Elie had made sure of that.

“We haven’t spoken in years,” Elie said. “He shirked his duty when he passed the leadership to that fatherless disciple of his, Benjamin Mashash.”

“A leader without an heir is a failed leader. What’s your succession plan?”

“People like us never retire. We must work to prevent the next Holocaust, use whatever skills and resources we possess. Abraham grew up as the rabbi’s son, so he should use the skills he acquired preparing for the pulpit. And I was the
shoykhet
’s son, so I use the skills which I was groomed to practice.”

“Slaughtering animals?”

“Precisely, whether they walk on two legs or four. And you, Tanya? Are you still using your
female
skills?”

“What’s left of them.”

“You’re too modest.” Elie smirked. “What you had achieved by your seventeenth birthday was enough for a whole career—an irony, really, that thanks to you the stolen riches, which your dearly beloved Klaus had stashed away until he could rebuild the next Reich, will instead finance the defense of a Jewish state
to last a thousand years
.”

*

“I’m home!” Lemmy entered the house from the garage, and Klaus Junior leaped into his arms. “How was school?”

“Great!”

“You’re early.” Paula appeared in the kitchen doorway, wearing an apron. “What happened? The bank burned down?”

He kissed her on the lips. “I missed you guys, so I came home.”

“There’s no dinner yet. I just started—”

“Turn off the oven. Let’s go out for pizza.”

“Wait a minute!” Paula stuck a finger in his chest. “What’s the catch?”

“You know me too well.” He laughed. “I need to go to Paris in the morning.”

“I knew it!” She pulled off her apron and tossed it at him. “Paris again—without me?”

“A quick business meeting, back tomorrow night.” He raised his hand. “Scout’s honor.”

“Papa!” Klaus Junior was already putting on his shoes. “When you were little, were you a scout leader?”

“Not exactly.” Lemmy pulled off his tie. “We didn’t have scouts in the neighborhood where I grew up.”

*

Abu Yusef dropped the briefcase on the bed and opened it. “Look!” He picked up a bundle of bills and threw it to Latif. “You were right! Allah still loves me!”

“And I love you too!” Latif rushed into his arms.

They collapsed on the bed together, and Abu Yusef yelled, “I’ll show the damn Jews whose God is bigger!”

Latif’s white teeth glistened. “You will show the whole world.”

Abu Yusef felt the heaviness, which had weighed on him since Al-Mazir’s death, lift up. Not only could he now afford the supplies needed for an extravagant revenge, but this money signaled the Saudi prince’s commitment to the cause.

“All of Al-Mazir’s men will flock to you.” Latif unbuttoned his shirt. “You will unseat Arafat and become the leader of Palestine!”

*

Elie lit a cigarette. “You didn’t come here to rummage through old memories, did you?” He watched Tanya’s face carefully.

“We’re concerned. The little war you’ve started here could spread.”

“What war? The one over underage prostitution?”

“Those photos didn’t fool Abu Yusef. He must respond. What will it be? The El Al terminal? Another Jewish school?”

“The Arabs don’t kill Jews in response to what we do. They’ve been killing us long before we did anything to them.”

“Here we go again.” Tanya sighed. “Times are changing, politically and diplomatically. Our Jewish state is almost fifty. It’s time we think and act not only as Jews, but as a state. Mossad is the government agency for overseas espionage. Let us take over the Abu Yusef situation.”

“This isn’t a job for bureaucrats.”

“Neither is it a job for an old man and two cute amateurs.”

Elie ignored her sarcasm. It was useful to be underestimated. “The prime minister asked me to handle this. He didn’t ask Mossad, did he?”

“Rabin wants deniability, because it’s illegal to assassinate targets without compliance with the appropriate procedures.”

“Are you questioning Yitzhak Rabin’s authority?”

“He’s a soldier on a campaign,” Tanya said. “He has staked his reputation, his political future, and his legacy on the Oslo process. He thinks that eliminating Arafat’s opposition will pave the way for the final status agreement.”

“Pipe dreams,” Elie said. “Unlike you and me, Rabin didn’t experience the Holocaust. Otherwise he would know that Arafat, like all Gentiles, cannot stop hating Jews. They’ll never live in peace with us. We must continue to fight—or die.”

“Then why has Arafat signed two Oslo agreements? Why is he implementing those agreements?”

“It’s the ‘salami method.’ Arafat is negotiating in phases to get more and more slices of land without any real concessions on the ‘final status’ issues—the Palestinian refugees’ right of return, final borders, and the sovereignty over Jerusalem.”

“Rabin believes the Palestinians will ultimately keep the peace, even if their current intentions are cynical.”

“Illusions. Once we stop giving him pieces of land, Arafat will use the land and weapons he’s gotten under Oslo to resume fighting—this time from a position of ruler of the West Bank and Gaza, a short distance from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.”

“Is that what you told Rabin?”

Elie shrugged. “He thinks the fruits of peace would be too sweet for the Palestinians to spit out. He calls it
momentum
.”

“And you’re removing obstacles from his path.”

“Look, I do what the prime minister asks even when I disagree with his strategy. With time, he will come around to seeing things my way.”

“
Nekamah? Revenge?
That’s a better strategy? Endless, useless bloodshed?”

“Revenge is useless?” Elie paced back and forth across the small room. “That’s the thinking that caused King Saul to spare the Amalekites and lose his kingdom!”

“Enough with this biblical demagoguery.”

“The past is instructive.” He could barely speak now, his scarce resources of energy almost depleted. It was time to gain her sympathy. The last thing he needed at this crucial time was open war with Mossad. He sat on the bed and dropped the cigarette on the floor, putting it out with the sole of his shoe. “Let me finish this last job. I’m very tired. This is it for me.”