He reached for O’Donovan’s telephone again. He was well past the journeyman’s rank when it came to disguising his emotions, yet he had to concentrate to camouflage his disquiet.
In his own office in Jerusalem, a thin male voice answered. It was Raphael Chernikovsky, aka Horse. Benni pictured his steel glasses and thin, unsmiling mouth.
“Soos! Manishmah? Horse! How goes it?”
“Hans,” Horse said without a reciprocal greeting. He automatically resorted to the use of one of Baum’s covers, for the benefit of potential interceptors. “The boss has been asking about you. Wants to know when you’re coming back.”
“Tell him a month, just to annoy him.”
Horse did not laugh. One of Baum’s favorite hobbies was stirring the wrath of Itzik Ben-Zion, a diversion for which Benni’s troops often paid the bill.
“How is the conference going?” Horse asked. Special Operations officers quickly learned a coded lingo reserved for open phone lines. When encryption devices were unavailable, there were categorical vocabularies in plain language. Benni fell right into step.
“Pretty boring so far,” he said, meaning that the investigation had not yet borne fruit. “I slept right through a lecture about hard drives.” No concrete leads or conclusions from the American end.
“So how can I help you?”
“I need a marketing pitch.”
“Which one?”
Benni cleared his throat. “Tango.”
There was silence on the line. At this point, standard procedure dictated that Horse must resist. He could not know if his commander might be a captive, under duress, so he would need three prearranged cues in order to proceed.
“Where is it?” Horse asked.
“My right-hand drawer, under the photo of Mrs. Schmidt.”
“One moment,” Horse answered, although he did not move from his chair at Baum’s conference table. The framed photo of Benni’s wife confirmed that it was indeed him on the line, yet no operational file of any kind would be left in a desk drawer, and they both knew it.
Baum’s mention of Tango was, however, very unusual. Horse was one of two AMAN personnel, including Eytan Eckstein, who knew that Tango was a restricted file kept in Benni’s safe. That file was the genuine and complete article, while the SpecOps computer held an “edited” version.
“I don’t have the key,” said Horse, trying to discern if Baum meant the full Tango file in the safe.
“You won’t need it,” said Baum. “It’s unlocked.”
Okay. So Benni meant the computer version, to which all SpecOps officers had access.
“Is there a phone number where I can reach you?” Horse asked.
“One, oh, three, oh, seven, two, four.”
Horse jotted the numbers down, backed up one digit from each numeral, and came up with 0929613, Benni Baum’s military identification number. Second confirmation.
“Got it,” said Horse. The final confirmation would be more esoteric. Baum would have to recall an experience shared by him and Horse alone, to which no one else in the department was privy.
“You know, Soos,” Benni now said, brightly, “there’s a girl here at the conference.”
“Yes?”
“She reminds me of that little brain from Athens. Leena was her name?”
Baum could almost hear Horse blush. The analyst was not known for his sexual exploits, yet he and Baum had once been holed up overnight in the Greek capital, waiting for Eckstein and his team to come in from Crete. As they sipped away their time in the hotel bar, a bubbly young waitress working her way through a computer science degree had struck up a conversation with Horse. At the close of her shift, she had invited him up to her quarters to play with her laptop. Benni and Soos were sharing a room, but Baum slept alone that night.
“Yes.” Horse coughed. “Leena. So what part of the brochure would you like?”
“Just the most recent sales figures.” Benni meant the last pages of the computer file, which would have the latest updates on the subject’s whereabouts and movements. “I’ll give you a fax.” He relayed the number.
“Take me a few minutes,” Horse said. “Beseder?”
“Meya chooz. Hundred percent. Send everyone my regards.”
“Don’t forget to call the boss,” Horse pleaded.
“How could I?” Benni sneered, and hung up.
Baum turned to the detectives, who had listened politely to a Hebrew conversation that meant nothing to them. Ruth, however, was eyeing him with critical disdain for his childish machinations.
“Thank you, Abba,” she said, knowing full well that he could easily manipulate the transmission to his own advantage. “Can I have a cigarette?”
Benni handed her the pack of Time and a plastic lighter. O’Donovan felt a wash of relief when he saw her light up. How many women had literally backed away from him when he revealed his own habit?
The door burst open. Jerry Binder started to speak, then he waved a big hand through the cloud of smoke. “Jesus Christ, somebody call the friggin’ fire department.”
“What is it, Binder?” O’Donovan asked.
“You better get out here, O.D. You got a flash from the Wheel.”
O’Donovan rose from his desk, and his guests moved out into the squad room so he could extricate himself.
A man with his hands cuffed behind his back was being escorted up the stairs by two detectives gripping his dungaree jacket. He had stringy red hair and a wild glaze in his eyes. As they passed, he looked at Ruth and mumbled, “I’d like to fuck that in the ass.” Without missing a beat, one of his escorts stuck out a foot, and he smacked down onto his face with a scream. “Gee, sorry,” said the other detective as they dragged him toward the lockup.
Frank Mancuso strode in from the annex, holding up a Teletype printout and a fax in Hebrew characters. Binder took the fax and handed it to Benni Baum.
“This’s gotta be for you,” he said. “Rest of us are godless.”
Ruth stepped up to read over Benni’s arm. Baum broke into a wide grin, waving the fax like a racing pennant.
“Well,” he said triumphantly. “I have yet to meet a Hasid who has his cavities filled in Tehran.”
“No shit?” Aaron Davis dropped his reserved demeanor and snatched the sheet from Baum, as if expecting some linguistic miracle to reveal its secrets.
“Okay, Abba,” Ruth said, unable to fully disguise her disappointment. “But that still does not preclude Klump’s involvement.” Then she looked over at O’Donovan, realizing she had just won their bet.
The detective was not joining in Baum’s celebration. Binder, Mancuso, and Griffin had all crowded around him and the urgent Teletype from the Manhattan Bureau of Detectives. O’Donovan dropped the paper to his side and looked first at Baum and then at his daughter.
“Someone just called Crime Stoppers. That’s our 577-TIPS number. They log it downtown and relay it to the squad on the case.” He lifted the paper again and read the transcript.
“ ‘Received 1:45 P.M. Detective Frankel at One Police. Caller: male. Accented English, estimate Middle East or Eastern Bloc. Relay to Detective Michael O’Donovan MTN. Detail follows.’ ” O’Donovan cleared his throat. “ ‘Caller: I have information about the bombing at the Israeli Consulate. Frankel: Would you care to identify yourself, sir? Caller: It is an address. Mrs. Katharina Klump. One sixty-seven East Eighty-ninth Street. Frankel: Sir? Would you? Sir? [Caller disconnected].’ ”
There was a long moment of frozen silence. Neither Binder, Mancuso, nor Griffin understood the significance of the tip, but Ruth’s hypothesis was fresh in the minds of O’Donovan and Davis. Both men slowly raised their heads to look at her, like gazelles smelling a lioness in the rushes.
She put a hand to her mouth and whispered, “Elohim,” stunned by her own prophetic accuracy.
O’Donovan’s eyes narrowed at Baum, and Davis voiced his thoughts. “It’s too damned good to be true.”
“Uh huh,” O’Donovan
murmured.
“Of course.” There was a flash of anger in Ruth’s voice. “My father came here, blew up his own consulate, and now we’re solving a phony case for you, just to make a good impression.”
“Whoa, lady,” Binder said. She shot him a fiery glance.
O’Donovan backed down quickly. “That’s not what we mean, Ruth.”
She cocked her head, about to demand an elaboration, when her father spoke up.
“Detectives, it may be a gift horse.” The last thing he wanted was to run with Ruth’s hypothesis, but his mission was to solve the bombing and if possible bring in the bomb maker. All personal considerations had to take a back seat. “You can look it in the mouth, or you can ride it.”
“Fucking goddamn police brutality!” The fresh prisoner shouted from the lockup. No one seemed to hear him.
“So who’s this Katharina Klump?” Binder asked.
“The mother of your bombing suspect,” Ruth answered in a barely audible voice.
“What suspect, boss?” Mancuso asked O’Donovan.
“Brief you later.” The sergeant turned to Ruth. “She lives here in the city?”
“Apparently. If your caller is genuine.”
“Frank.” O’Donovan handed Mancuso the Teletype. “Run the name and address.”
“Got it.” Mancuso moved away.
“I want a fucking lawyer!” the prisoner whined. “And I’m hungry!”
“How’d ya like some Mace for dinner?” someone growled at him.
Griffin slipped away, responding to another detective’s wave from across the room. The small group stood in silence, waiting for Mancuso’s confirmation. Davis acquired an ashtray, which he carried from Ruth to Benni, like a priest passing the alms basket. They stubbed out their cigarettes as Griffin returned holding two fresh sheets of fax paper.
“More good news from the Holy Land,” he said.
Ruth took the pages and glanced at her father, who nodded and said, “Totsee et ha’mekorot. Omit the sources.” She read the first page of Hebrew print and began to censor and translate simultaneously.
“There are no confirmed sightings of the subject since 1987. In 1985, she was spotted three times in Algeria, where it is speculated that she has some sort of headquarters or command post.” This was fresh fodder for Ruth’s files. She came to a reference to information supplied by the German BKA and omitted the origin, according to her father’s warning. “In 1986, her mother disappeared from Buenos Aires.” She glanced up to be sure that her audience had taken note. “Between that date and November of ’87, Martina was seen once in London, once in Lisbon, and twice in Hong Kong.” She handed the first page to her father.
“If you’re a ‘businesswoman’ running the Europe-to-Asia route,” O’Donovan postulated, “what’s your most likely travel hub?”
“The Rotten Apple,” said Binder.
“Pardon?” Benni looked at the big man.
“New York,” Ruth said absently. But she was staring at the images on the second page. With the growing popularity of the fax machine, scanned photos in AMAN computers could be digitized and printed like Veloxes, in tiny dots of black and white, for transmission purposes. The prints on the fax were amazingly clear.
The first photograph was of Martina Ursula Klump, age 26, dated 1981. It was a frontal shot taken upon her capture by GSG-9, showing blond, close-cropped hair, hard light-colored eyes, and a defiant mouth. The other three photos were numbered surveillance shots.
Number one showed a young woman drinking from a mug at an outdoor café. She had long black hair, sunglasses, and a mole next to her left nostril.
Number two was a profile of an elderly woman wearing a kerchief and peering into a shopping bag.
Number three was a grab shot of two figures on a motorcycle. The “pilot” wore full leathers, his goggles and half helmet resting on a completely bald head. A stunning, summer-clad blonde gripped the motorcyclist from behind, but a thick black arrow pointed down at the driver.
Ruth said nothing as she slowly handed the sheet to O’Donovan. For the first time in her life, she felt as if she was crossing that dark tunnel from headquarters intelligence to the realities of the field, from the safety of the data bank to the exposure of enemy territory. For the first time, she stood at the edge of her father’s world.
She looked over at him, and her heart began to pound when she saw his expression. His eyes said, I should have left you at home, my love.
“Holy Christ,” said Binder as he looked over O’Donovan’s shoulder.
“You could put out an APB,” said Griffin. “But what the hell would you say?”
“I think I got it!” Mancuso said brightly as he returned. “It’s a nursing home. Klump wasn’t a match, but I called and did my Social Security routine. They’ve one old German woman answers to the name of Katharina, registered as Frau Oberst.”
“Frau Oberst,” Ruth said. “ ‘The Colonel’s Wife.’ ” She turned to her father. “Otto Klump war ein Oberst?” she asked in German.
Benni shrugged. “Du weißt es besser als ich. You know better than I,” he lied, as he began tearing the first fax page into thin strips.
“Hey!” O’Donovan protested.
“He has memorized it,” Ruth said quietly.
O’Donovan waved a “never mind” and turned to his troops.
“We’re not gonna put out any APB. We’re going to sit on the address.” They would begin a surveillance on the nursing home.
The detectives split off to gather their coats, and the energy in the squad room immediately began to shift. Voices rose, drawers opened and closed, as car keys and speed loaders found pockets and holsters.
“You want me to advise the Bureau?” Mancuso called out, referring to the Bureau of Detectives.
“Affirmative.” O’Donovan went into his office and emerged wearing a dark-blue topcoat and carrying Benni’s and Ruth’s outerwear.
“How about TTF?” Binder asked.
“Negative for now,” said O’Donovan. “Our homicides . . .”
“Our perp,” Binder finished.
“You want backup from the Nineteenth?” Griffin asked. “Some Anti-Crime people?”
“Later,” said O’Donovan. “If we roll over past midnight.”
The group reassembled outside O’Donovan’s office, buttoning their winter clothes.
“Jerry, get the pump,” said O’Donovan. “If she shows, she might bring her friends.”
Benni watched the large detective trot away to a back room. As he returned carrying a shotgun, Baum muttered in Hebrew, “Afiloo bli chavreyah, zeh lo yazor I’cha.”
The detectives looked to Ruth.
“Even without her friends,” she translated quietly, “that won’t help you.”
The men squinted at Baum, who seemed to wake from a dream as he turned to them, tried to smile, and shrugged.
“Let’s move,” said O’Donovan. But as Baum and Ruth began to fall in behind the detectives, he suddenly stopped.
“Hold on a second.” He put out a hand and touched Benni’s arm. “Colonel, I don’t think you can . . .”
“I am your liaison. Remember, Detective?” Benni said, though he showed no overt enthusiasm. “And do you think you can spot her without me? If you do, well then . . .”
“Okay,” said the detective. “But Ruth is out of it.”
She grabbed O’Donovan’s coat sleeve. “Why?” she demanded, but he would not turn to her. He knew he wasn’t strong enough, and he focused on her father, who was already descending the stairs after the other men.
“Colonel.” O’Donovan pleaded.
Baum stopped and turned. “Let her come,” he said. Then he looked at his daughter, weighing the value of the bond they would seal versus the potential danger. “Let her,” he almost whispered, then he trotted down the stairs.
O’Donovan clucked his tongue. Ruth still held his sleeve, and she yanked once to force his acquiescence. He ran his fingers through his hair an
d sighed.
“If we move in,” he said in as stern a tone as he could muster, “you can’t come. You’ll have to wait in the car.”
“Fine.”
“It could go all night.”
“Fine.”
“It’ll be very cold.” One last, hopeless attempt.
Ruth slipped her hand inside his elbow and flashed the smile that O’Donovan was beginning to wish he had never seen.
“Keep your motor running,” she said.
Chapter 8: Yorkville
The ragged blade of a midnight wind stabbed at the corners of Martina Klump’s eyes as she rode against the face of an approaching storm, the air so cold it seemed almost liquefied as it battered her black jeans and stiffened the denim to a crackling shell. It dove around her gloves and sawed at the skin beneath her leather cuffs, charged under her visor and slapped her cheeks, and it freed the strap at her collar and played a wild paradiddle on her helmet with the cross-buckle.
And still her thighs were warm beneath a layer of polypropylene leggings, the friction heat that rose into her groin as comforting as a midnight Jacuzzi on the porch of a Bavarian Skihaus. The splendid tremble came from the horsepower of a big black Suzuki, a king among the species of machine she favored above all other modes of transportation.
A motorcycle offered bursts of speed untethered by the weights of luxury appointments. It invited insolent dismissals of traffic lane conventions, ghostlike slips through narrow alleyways, and even the ability to outrun sprinting men on stairways. And although the season was at its peak of cruelty for riding, she was reluctant to dismount, for she would feel again like a grounded hawk, left only with its talons.
She eased back on the throttle, turned right on East Eighty-fourth Street, and coasted to a stop just short of Second Avenue. She left the engine running, for Iyad sat behind her and would take over as pilot. She looked down at his gloved hands clamped over her stomach, watching the frozen arms draw slowly apart. When they had mounted the motorcycle, he had been reluctant to embrace her as a proper passenger should. Now he was having trouble releasing himself.
The Nylon Hand of God Page 19
