A Long Night in Paris: The must-read thriller from the new master of spy fiction

by Dov Alfon

  Chapter 29

  Rachel knocked on her commander’s door and entered, as usual, without waiting. “Did the conversation get disconnected, Commander? Would you like me to reconnect you two?”

  “No, Rachel,” Oriana said pensively. She looked at the screen with a mixture of surprise and distrust. “The conversation was not disconnected, the conversation ended.”

  “What? How long was it, a minute? I didn’t even have time to make you coffee.”

  “According to the system, forty-eight seconds.”

  “But don’t you have a million things to talk about?” Rachel said with genuine concern. “How are we going to issue the reports, and what about his weird appointment, and when is he coming back to Israel, and, like, a million other questions?”

  “Absolutely, we have a lot of things to discuss,” Oriana said, still lost in thought. “But he had one urgent request. I guess that’s why the conversation was so brief.”

  “What was the urgent request? Does it have to do with the meeting you went to this morning instead of him?”

  “No, nothing to do with that. He needed to ask me to urgently pick up his laundry.”

  Rachel sat in front of her favourite commander, plopping her body down in the office chair with a dramatic flair that was not the least bit feigned. “Say that last part again, more slowly?”

  “He said that prior to his trip he sent his uniforms to the laundry service and they’re supposed to be ready today, and could I go and pick them up and put them in his office, because otherwise they’ll get lost in the base’s laundry facility.”

  “I don’t understand, he scheduled a secure conversation for that? He opened with that?”

  “No. I introduced myself. ‘Nice to meet you. Segen Oriana Talmor, deputy head of Special Section.’ And he introduced himself. ‘Nice to meet you too. Abadi.’”

  “That’s it? Abadi?”

  “Yes. I asked him whether I should call him ‘Commander’ or ‘Zeev’ and he said, ‘I prefer Abadi.’ So I said, ‘No problem, Abadi it is.’ I started reporting all the complications with his appointment and the Vice Chief of Defence Staff’s meddling, but he interrupted me and said we’d talk about all that some other time, and that he called because he needed some help. And then he asked me to run to the laundry service before it closes.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I told him to go fuck himself.”

  “You did not.”

  “I did. I told him: ‘Go fuck yourself, Abadi.’”

  “You shouldn’t have, Commander. You could have just let me go there, I really don’t mind. How did he react?”

  “O.K., actually. He apologised and said he doesn’t usually do such things, but this time he had no choice.”

  “That sucks.”

  “It sucks,” Oriana said, nodding in agreement. “But he asked nicely, so I’ll go.” She got up and stretched. Rachel whistled admiringly.

  “I’m not in the mood for your nonsense, Rachel,” Oriana said. “Where is the laundry facility, anyway? I didn’t even know we had one on base.”

  “We don’t really have a laundry facility. It’s more of a shed where officers bring their laundry which then gets sent out to the Central laundry services on the Tel HaShomer Base,” Rachel said. “It’s the shed next to the vehicle section, you can see where it is on the ‘hot spots’ map.”

  “Why is it a hot spot?” Oriana asked, still not altogether focused. The map of hot spots marked every place on the 8200 base subjected to regular check-ups by Special Section.

  “There’s an insecure civilian telephone line over there. In fact it’s the only place on the base with a telephone line that’s both non-Tzahal and unencrypted,” Rachel said. “It’s in the security information file. I think they receive calls from civilian laundry services every now and then. Or something like that. I don’t really remember. Anyway, they have a permit for a regular civilian line. Our people inspect the location with detectors every Sunday.”

  “Strength and blessing, Rachel.”

  “Oh my God, where did that come from? It’s totally unlike you to use that expression.”

  “That’s how Abadi ended our conversation. He asked if I understood what I needed to do now, and I replied, ‘Go to the laundry place.’ And he said, ‘Strength and blessing, Oriana,’ and hung up. What does it mean?”

  “It basically means ‘may the force be with you’. It’s what the Mizrahis say in synagogue after reading the Torah. Strength and blessing.”

  “So why did you say it’s unlike me to say that?”

  “It would be pretty complicated for me to explain, Commander,” Rachel said cautiously.

  “The shed by the vehicle section?”

  “The shed by the vehicle section,” Rachel confirmed.

  “Strength and blessing, Rachel,” Oriana said again, opening the office door with a swift motion, as if to surprise a burglar. The base seemed as sleepy as usual, but the footpaths leading to the parking garage were already filled with reserve men rushing to their cars to beat the traffic awaiting them at the Glilot intersection.

  “You are all blessed,” Oriana heard Rachel whispering behind her. Oriana turned back.

  “What?”

  “That’s the traditional reply, Commander. That’s how you were supposed to answer Abadi. ‘You are all blessed,’ or ‘We are all blessed.’”

  “We are all blessed,” Oriana mumbled to herself, although she did not feel that way at all.

  Chapter 30

  Getting away from the embassy took him longer than getting into it. Everyone involved tried to stall him with questions, and the French sentry was the only one who opened the barrier gate for him without a word.

  He started searching.

  On the nearby street he found only Japanese restaurants, branches of espresso bar chains, clubs and other pseudo-hip places which had no chance of meeting his needs. He found what he was looking for on the parallel street – an old-fashioned café, a kind of miracle in that area. It had probably received its name, Le Président, many presidential terms ago in the nearby Palais de l’Élysée. The sign declared it was a brasserie, not simply a café, but Abadi had no intention of trying out the food.

  The place was almost empty, as could be expected at that time of day. A few tourists were sitting under canopies outside, arguing with a waiter who seemed properly hostile and condescending. Five elderly Parisian men sat inside on the red leather banquettes sipping early aperitifs. The bar was deserted. As Abadi had hoped, a small, outdated sign above the counter announced: “Toilets – Coat check – Telephones” with an arrow pointing downstairs.

  He sat in front of the bartender, who was probably the owner, and who greeted him with an almost imperceptible nod. He was old, past the age of retirement, certainly, and the bags under his eyes were so swollen that it was difficult to meet his gaze. Abadi ordered a glass of white wine, and the bartender reached inside the small fridge and took out an open bottle of Graves, an unexpected choice. The wine was good. He hesitated whether to initiate a conversation by complimenting him on the wine, but decided it would seem insincere, even ingratiating.

  “Dîtes moi, patron, vous avez l’international au téléphone ici?”

  The bartender blinked and poured himself a glass from the bottle. A good sign. “I haven’t been asked that question in a long time,” he said. “You’re trying to play Commissaire Maigret? You’re too young and too skinny.”

  “No, just forgot my mobile,” Abadi said, trying to bring the conversation back on track.

  “Maigret used to sit right there, on the same stool you’re sitting on,” the bartender said. “The actor who played him, that is. Jean Gabin. Every now and then Marlene Dietrich would join him. They knew they could keep to themselves here and no-one would talk.”

  “I always say that discretion is the better part of valour,” Abadi said. He even meant it, which was quite dishonest for a spy.

  “Mme Pompidou, the President
’s wife, used my phone to make long-distance calls,” the bartender carried on with his musings, sipping his wine. “She used to sneak in here every evening to talk to the President’s American doctor. She explained that she could not speak freely in the Élysée because the D.G.S.E., the secret service, tapped the telephones.”

  “The conversation I need to have will not be as tragic,” Abadi lied. “In any event, I hope it’ll be less expensive.”

  The bartender poured them both more wine.

  “The telephone for regular customers is in the booth to the right, here, by the kitchen. You need to dial nine first. I hope it still works.”

  Abadi took his glass with him. It was not so much a booth as a private room, complete with leather couches, a cigar humidor and a mahogany desk on which sat a telephone that could easily have found itself in a museum. Abadi pressed nine and got a dial tone. No choice now but to check whether his prickly deputy had been kind enough to comply with his plea. He took out his notebook and dialled the number.

  She picked up on the first ring.

  “Go fuck yourself, Abadi,” Segen Talmor said. “What took you so long?”

  Abadi tried to stifle a laugh. Relief.

  “I had to listen to reminiscences about Marlene Dietrich in order to get a line.”

  “I’m sitting here surrounded by the affection of five bored quartermasters who made me coffee. I’m considering filing for a transfer to head of the laundry service, seems easier than being your deputy.”

  “No-one gets rid of me that fast,” Abadi said. He felt a sudden pang. Ego or heart, he could not tell.

  “That’s not what I heard,” she said. She had a warm voice, soothing and sarcastic at the same time. His gaze wandered across the room as if searching for an anchor, and fixed itself on a bust of Marianne, the symbolic freedom fighter of the Republic, perched by the door. He spoke to Marianne, and heard Oriana.

  “How was the meeting?”

  “Very strange,” Marianne-Oriana said. “It started with some mixup. They were sure Shlomo Tiriani was still the head of section, and for some reason it was very important to them that he be the representative.” Special Section would not be investigating the kidnapping at Charles de Gaulle if Tiriani had still been in charge this morning.

  Abadi said nothing, however, preferring to wait for the penny to drop. If Oriana heard it, and saw its tarnish, she did not skip a beat. “Afterwards they squirmed around for about an hour trying to explain that the daily list, the one sent to everyone, you know . . . ”

  “I understand,” Abadi said. Her voice now had a musical quality to it, as if she were confiding a secret.

  “. . . that it’s sent in different versions, and some of Zorro’s guys got the full one and others did not. And then there was the whole business of the city you’re in.”

  “I’m happy to hear someone other than me is taking this thing seriously.”

  “They’re actually not. The big boss kept repeating that it has nothing to do with us, that it was just a case of mistaken identity.”

  “I understand.”

  “Understand what?” Her voice took on that mocking edge again.

  “You’ll see in a moment. I need you to write down a list of names. Do you have a writing implement?”

  “A writing implement? Charcoal? A quill? Or would a regular pen be O.K. with you?” she said.

  “A regular pen would be just fine.” He might just get used to this.

  “Then yes, I do.”

  “I’m going to read you thirty-three names. I only have the foreign spelling, so for some you’ll need to guess how to write the names in Hebrew. These were the passengers on the El Al flight this morning. I need you to check the database to see if they had anything to do with the unit, whether in their regular service or in the reserve.”

  “There were only thirty-three passengers on the flight?”

  “No. The passenger list is very long, the plane was nearly full. I ruled out all the women, the non-Israelis, those who pre-ordered kosher meals, and passengers who boarded with their spouse or kids. I also ruled out passengers who did not check in luggage, because they probably left before Yaniv Meidan collected his luggage and went off with the blonde.”

  “Now I understand.”

  “This is a covert investigation, without informing the base or reporting to Central.”

  “But checking, on our own, thirty-three names in various versions in Hebrew in such a huge database, that could take me two, even three hours.”

  “Let’s settle for one,” Abadi said.

  It was 3.12 p.m., Monday, April 16.

  Chapter 31

  In the park, xiake Erlang Shen strolled along the riverbank. Dressed in rags and dragging behind him a heavy market cart, he looked like one of the many Chinese pedlars scattered across Parisian tourist sites. And indeed, should the need arise, he could pull out the usual ware: folding umbrellas, bottles of mineral water, selfie sticks, flying laser butterflies and postcards of the Eiffel Tower, the same tower that now gleamed at him from the other side of the city.

  His name, Erlang Shen, had been chosen for him by the ultimate dragon himself, and it indicated the heavy responsibility the organisation had placed upon him. The original Erlang Shen had saved the Chinese people from deadly floods thanks to his ability to see into the future. According to the legend, this ability had been granted to him in the form of a third eye, smack in the middle of his forehead.

  He too had a third eye – not on his forehead but in a concealed pocket of the cart. The device looked like one of the new-generation mobiles, at least in routine checks at airports. Two red pips moved across the satellite map on his screen. According to the device – a state-of-the-art tracker from the People’s Republic of China’s military industry – the two dots were now crossing Bercy’s commercial zone on the opposite bank of the river. Miniature transmitters had been sewn into the collars of the suits the xiake had worn to their botched mission earlier that morning.

  Erlang Shen still did not know why they had decided not to continue to the safe house. Obviously it was just another of the mishaps the two had committed. Killing the wrong Israeli was a failure in itself, but choosing to do it at a site surveilled by sophisticated security cameras – that was a colossal lapse.

  Erlang Shen’s job was to enable the organisation to erase failures and quash embarrassments. Commercial companies could always issue an apology, hire a publicist, rebrand. But the Ming empire employed other methods. Ming did not suffer fools.

  And now these two fools had complicated things further. The arena was not some sealed apartment in an immigrant neighbourhood, a well-planned trap, but the very heart of the most tourist-invaded city in the world. Children frolicked around him on the bank; tourists clicked their cameras from every possible angle; hordes of Parisians took advantage of the scattering clouds to have picnics, and on two separate occasions he saw policemen patrolling on their bicycles.

  He picked up his pace slightly, all the while watching the two dots on the screen, until he reached the bridge. It was a pedestrian bridge, new and shiny with an expensive wooden deck and a lower ramp that offered children ample opportunities for hide-and-seek; the place was crowded with parents and their young. The bridge led to a large park, which, according to the map on the device, was named – a sign from above – after the Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin.

  Towering across the river, on the left bank, were four eccentric buildings that the map recognised as the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the national library complex. Next to them was a large shopping centre and a sculpture garden next to the river. The two dots had just descended the stairs of the complex.

  The bridge itself was named after Simone de Beauvoir. Erlang Shen knew who she was, and had even read some of her writings. He liked what she had written about the great Chairman Mao, the birth of communism, the plight of women in the West, and he certainly liked what she had written about the fear of death. “All men are mortal, but for
each man death is an accident, an undue violence,” his psychological warfare instructor had summarised. Erlang Shen understood this perfectly. He sat on the wooden deck in the middle of the bridge and leaned against the railing. All around him, the French carried on with their business, avoiding his gaze. He took out the device and tuned the signal. It was the moment to request the commander’s final approval.

  The two dots advanced towards him.

  Chapter 32

  Oren pressed the buzzer and waited. He had no reason to rush; at a time of impending chaos, a little bad news could always wait.

  Zorro always had his door closed; he often let people wait on the other side for long moments, but this time he called him in straight away. Everyone was too wound up for games. The adjutant shut the door behind him and waited.

  “Yes, what can I do for you on this fine day?” Zorro said without glancing up from his papers. It was his usual opening. It served as a substitute for actual humour.

  “I’ve done what you asked. We have nothing.”

  “I don’t understand,” Zorro said, looking up at the adjutant. He hoped his gaze would be perceived as threatening, but it conveyed only helplessness.

  “Aluf Rotelmann was right, he did go to the embassy and ask to use the code room.”

  “And did he call her?”

  “He called her.”

  “So what did he say to her?”

  “He didn’t say anything. He just asked her to pick up his uniform from the laundry.”

  “His uniform from the laundry? Could that be a code?”

  “‘The first condition for encoding is the co-ordination in advance of an inverse function between the users,’” the adjutant quoted from the intelligence manual. He did not mean to be rude, so he quickly clarified: “We know they could not have co-ordinated a code in advance because this conversation was the first time they had ever communicated with one another.”