Lone Wolf in Jerusalem

by Ehud Diskin

  “But it’s a matter of life and death! I must speak to him immediately!” I insisted.

  The guard, who had been somewhat courteous until that point, reached the limit of his patience. “I suggest you keep your mouth shut or get the hell out of here, or I’ll call the MPs, and you’ll—”

  His threat was cut off by a thunderous explosion. I looked up to see a huge cloud of smoke rising over Jerusalem. A glance at my watch told me it was 12:37. Furious, I threw up my hands and walked away from the gate. I found a bench nearby and sat down, leaning my head in my hands. There was no way to know if the people in the building had been evacuated or not. I decided to wait for Jeffries.

  It was nearly two o’clock when a car stopped at the curb and Jeffries got out. I stood and approached him.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked with a frown.

  “I came here to warn you about the bomb,” I replied tersely, “but your sergeant ignored me. I’ve been waiting here for hours.”

  “Come with me to my office,” Jeffries said. He led the way, and once inside, he called in his sergeant, who had no choice but to confirm what I had said.

  “You bloody fool,” Jeffries hissed at him. “You’ll be court-martialed for this. Now piss off!” The man left, and Jeffries sank into his chair behind his desk. He stared out the window, and I waited impatiently until he finally turned to me, his tone uncharacter​istically gloomy.

  “This is a dark day for Great Britain. The Irgun blew up the south wing of the King David Hotel. We lost government offices and our military HQ. No final death toll yet, but it’s going to be high. I heard estimates of close to a hundred.”

  One hundred people. Had they gotten my warning ahead of time, the outcome would have been different.

  Jeffries poured himself a large glass of whiskey with a shaking hand. “Two minutes later and I would have been dead. I was right outside the hotel when it happened. Two of my men and I go swimming every Monday at noon at the YMCA pool across from the hotel, and then we have lunch at the hotel restaurant. My men and I ran over right away, pulled people from the rubble, and carried them to the ambulances.”

  He gestured to the blood on his uniform. “I saw people with their arms and legs blown off, crying out in pain.” He paused for a moment, sat up straight, and fixed me with a piercing stare. “Those accursed Jews who committed this crime won’t know any rest until we get our hands on them.”

  I barely heard his final sentence. I was stunned to learn that Jeffries was in the habit of spending every Monday afternoon at the YMCA swimming pool—right under my nose. The YMCA was like a second home to me, yet I had never seen him there. Assuming he showed up for his swim the following Monday, he now had less than a week left on this earth.

  Jeffries’s phone rang, signaling the end of our meeting. A policeman standing outside the door ushered me to the front gate. As I looked at the guard who had ignored me, I couldn’t help myself.

  “One hundred people are dead because of you,” I said. He didn’t respond.

  THE BOMBING DOMINATED THE NEWS reports for the next two days. It turned out that the operation had begun with Irgun fighters overpowering the guards at the hotel’s service entrance. They had made their way into the restaurant’s kitchen on the ground floor of the hotel’s south wing.

  The leader of the operation had dressed as a Sudanese waiter, and his commandos had been disguised as Arabs. They had brought seven large milk cans, each filled with 110 pounds of explosives. The Irgun fighters had assembled the workers in the kitchen, then fixed the cans to the building’s foundation, with timers set to detonate thirty minutes later. When the fighters exited the hotel, they’d come under fire from the Arab Legion, and two of the Irgun members had been injured.

  I learned from the reports that even if my warning had been received on time, the casualties from the blast likely wouldn’t have been avoided. It turned out that at 12:10 p.m. the Irgun had placed calls warning the editorial desk of the Palestine Post, the King David Hotel management, and the adjacent French consulate. And indeed, the employees at the French consulate had opened their windows to prevent them from shattering in the explosion.

  The hotel’s management had evacuated all its guests, but the south wing, which housed the offices of the Mandate authorities, wasn’t evacuated. It was reported that Mandate Chief Secretary Sir John Shaw had prevented all British personnel from leaving the building.

  “I am here to give orders to the Jews, not to take orders from them,” Shaw was said to have responded.

  Initially, the British government denied receiving a warning about the operation but was forced to retract its denial after a switchboard operator at the Palestine Post testified under oath that immediately after receiving the warning, she had called the duty officer at the police station and conveyed the message word for word.

  For my part, now that I had learned where I could kill Jeffries, the countdown to my real operation had begun, and I had just a few days to prepare.

  MY RABBI IN MINSK OFTEN began his lessons by quoting Rabbi Tarfon from Ethics of the Fathers. “The day is short, the labor vast.” I remembered these words as Alec and I began to plan Jeffries’s assassination.

  I decided we would use the weapons I had hidden in the stone wall at the back of my apartment. With that in mind, I knew we’d need some practice to brush up on the weapons skills we had acquired during our time as partisans. Late that night, Alec and I met by the stone wall in the backyard. I removed the rock and retrieved the four firearms and all the ammunition from the box I had hidden there. I gave two of the revolvers to Alec, along with a spare key to the box. We agreed to meet up the next morning for weapons practice.

  “What were you and Alec doing in the backyard?” Shoshana asked when I returned to our apartment.

  I didn’t want to lie to her. “I gave him two guns that were hidden in a box behind a loose stone in the wall, by the apricot tree,” I said. “We have to train for an operation I hope to carry out this Monday.”

  The color drained from Shoshana’s face, and she got into bed without saying anything. I slid under the covers next to her and wrapped her in my arms.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We won’t take any unnecessary risks.”

  She didn’t say a word but laid her soft hands over mine and squeezed them tight.

  Alec showed up at eight the next morning, and we walked through the Tel Arza neighborhood to the Nabi Samuel Ridge. According to Jewish faith, this land held the grave of the Prophet Samuel.

  The slope below the ridge was completely deserted. We began our shooting drills and soon learned we had lost a good deal of our accuracy and reaction speed. After training for two hours, we ran out of ammunition. It was clear we were going to need another drill session.

  I thought about asking Max’s commander for ammunition, but I wasn’t ready to tell him about our plan. I knew he’d probably want to get involved, even have his own people join us, and I wasn’t ready to accept that.

  When I arrived at work that afternoon, I signaled to Max that I wished to speak to him in private. He sent his cook out and gestured me into his small office.

  “I need 150 rounds for a .38 caliber revolver,” I said. “Don’t ask me why, and don’t tell anyone about it. And Alec and I need a three-day vacation, Saturday through Monday.”

  Max frowned. “Maybe you should involve the commander in whatever you’re doing.”

  “I thought about it but decided not to,” I said.

  He hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Just be careful. If something were to happen to you, Shoshana would be devastated.”

  “I think Shoshana is stronger than any of you realize,” I said.

  After the restaurant closed, Max gestured me into his office again, handing me a large bag as I entered. Inside were four boxes of fifty rounds each. I thanked him.

  “Just be careful, you and Alec,” he said. “That’s the main thing.”

  I planned to kill Jeffries an
d his bodyguards in the locker room of the YMCA’s swimming pool. The room had two entrances: one from the main building, where a guard was on duty, and the other a service door in the side of the building. The service door afforded access to the swimming pool from the running track next to the soccer field. The advantage of that entrance was that there would be no security check. The disadvantage—the service door wasn’t always open. We had to get a key to the door.

  Alec and I went to the boxing gym, which wasn’t far from the entrance to the pool. There, I introduced Alec to Yousef, explaining that Alec had done some boxing before coming to Israel and wanted to start training again.

  “Do you mind checking out his form?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Yousef said. “I would be happy to do so.”

  “While you do that, Alec, I’m going to run on the track,” I told my partner.

  “Fine,” he said. I started to walk away and then turned back.

  “Oh!” I snapped my fingers. “May I borrow your key to the service door?” I asked Yousef. “It’s faster to the track that way.”

  “No problem,” Yousef said. “Just don’t stay too long. I have a student coming for training soon.”

  He retrieved a ring of keys from his pocket and pointed out the right one. I went to the service door, opened it, and then sprinted to the main road to a hardware store. I asked the clerk to make two copies of the key. When he was done, I raced back to the service door, made sure both keys worked, and returned to the boxing gym out of breath.

  “Your friend is in good physical shape,” Yousef told me, then turned to Alec. “However, I’m surprised your previous trainer didn’t correct your footwork. You hold your hands too low as well. If you want to make any progress, you should train with me twice a week for a few months.”

  “This is a good idea. I’ll check when I can be free from work, and I’ll let you know,” Alec said. “In the meantime, thank you very much. What do I owe you?”

  Yousef smiled and shook his head. “This was just an audition, for both of us. If you come back, we can talk about rates.” When we left the gym, we both burst out laughing over Yousef’s critique of Alec’s previous trainer—Alec had never taken a single boxing lesson in his life.

  From there, we went to the pool’s locker room. On our way, I gave Alec one of the spare keys to the service door. The men’s lockers were in a room that contained five rows of steel cabinets. Each cabinet had two lockers, one on top of the other. The doors to the lockers were fitted with rings for padlocks. We decided that on the day of the assault, we’d use the two lockers against the wall at the far end of the room in the first row. From there we could make our move and escape quickly.

  After the scouting mission, we developed a plan. On Sunday evening, I’d go to the Y with two padlocks and lock the two lockers we’d selected so no one else would take them. The next morning, Alec and I would enter through the gate to the soccer field. There was no security guard at the gate, and no one would notice us.

  We’d wear white tennis gear, sunglasses, and visors, which would help conceal our faces as much as possible. Instead of heading to the tennis courts, we’d enter the locker room via the service door, go to our lockers, and wait there for Jeffries and his men to enter.

  The locker room was in an isolated area, far from the guard at the entrance. The plan was to kill them as they walked in, after they’d finished swimming and showering. Then we would make a quick escape the same way we’d come in.

  We left the Y and went shopping for our outfits. The next day, we returned to Tel Arza for more shooting practice. After firing off about a hundred rounds, we were satisfied that we had regained our lost accuracy and speed.

  We each had two revolvers—two Webleys for me and a Webley and an Enfield No. 2 for Alec. Both types had a major drawback: They were top-break revolvers, and reloading required tilting the weapon to the side, releasing the spent rounds, and then loading the cartridges one by one.

  Each revolver held just six bullets, so we’d have only twenty-four shots to complete our mission, since it would take too much time to reload. I missed the magazine-loaded Walther P38 that had served me so well during my time as a partisan, but we were forced to make do with what we had.

  Alec and I went our separate ways, and on my way home, I decided I needed to speak to Shoshana about all the contents of the concealed metal box. I wasn’t particularly concerned about the upcoming operation, but I knew that in war, death could come at any time.

  I suggested we go to Café Wien before work. My invitation pleased her, and she hugged and kissed me.

  “You’re so romantic!” she said cheerfully.

  I returned her hug silently. We locked up and walked down the street, holding hands. She talked about what a beautiful day it was, but I was lost in my own thoughts.

  We reached the café, and once we were sitting at a table, I reached over and took her hand. “Shoshana,” I said, “there’s something you need to know.”

  “Is something wrong?” she asked, a worried look on her face.

  “No, not at all,” I said quickly. “There’s just something important I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  “All right,” she said, “I’m listening.”

  I glanced around and then lowered my voice. “You know the metal box that I told you about, the one in the wall by the apricot tree?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Well, inside that box is some jewelry. Whenever I need money, I take a piece out and exchange the jewelry for cash at Zargary’s jewelry store on Jaffa Street.”

  Her face went pale. “I understand that your operation is going to be dangerous,” she said with a tremble in her voice.

  “No,” I replied. “It won’t be particularly dangerous, but I’ll feel better if I explain everything to you. I probably should have done it a while ago.”

  “Where did the jewelry come from?” she asked.

  “The war,” I said. “Believe me when I tell you that I liberated it from men who had stolen it or committed crimes they needed to pay for.”

  “I do believe you,” she said.

  “When we get home from work tonight, I’ll show you exactly where the box is and give you a key. If you ever have to sell a piece, realize that the owner of Zargary’s will offer you about a quarter of what he’s actually prepared to pay. Don’t give in until you’ve haggled him back up. He might yell and shout a little, but don’t take it personally. I think he enjoys the haggling more than the profit he stands to make.”

  After we ate, we walked together to the restaurant. As we started our usual duties, I could tell Shoshana was preoccupied.

  When our shift was over and we returned home, I showed her how to remove the rock in the wall and reach the box. Back inside the apartment, I gave her the key and wrote down the jeweler’s address. She carefully placed the key and piece of paper in her jewelry box on our dresser. As we lay in bed that night, Shoshana hugged me tightly.

  SATURDAY MORNING ARRIVED. ALEC AND I went on another scouting mission at the Y. The gate to the soccer field was open, but this time there was a guard there. He told us the gate would be closing in an hour, because the field was hosting a Beitar Jerusalem soccer match. I said we were going to play tennis for an hour and that I was a big fan of the team, especially striker Simon Alfassi. That was enough for the guard to let us in, but he made us promise to be out before the match started in an hour and a half.

  I doubted the gate would be closed for another professional match on Monday, but even if it was, we could just climb over the fence. We made our way to the locker room, going through the motions for the operation to come, timing our movements down to the second. We left about forty minutes later, thanking the guard as we walked out.

  We went back to Tel Arza on Sunday for a final round of shooting practice, and our accuracy and reaction speed were excellent. That evening, I went to the Y and padlocked the two lockers.

  I met Alec at his apartment on Monday mor
ning. We both wore sneakers. The revolvers and our white tennis clothes were in the backpacks that we slung over our shoulders, and we changed into our tennis gear in a secluded spot west of the Mammilla pool in the nearby Muslim cemetery.

  Thinking back to the day of the attack on the King David Hotel, I remembered that when I had arrived at the Schneller Barracks at half past eleven, Jeffries had already left the base. When the bomb had gone off at 12:37, he had already been out of the locker room and on his way to the hotel.

  There was no way to know how long he usually swam or how long it took him to shower and change, but Jeffries didn’t seem to be in the best shape; I doubted he could last for more than half an hour in the pool. Certainly, he wouldn’t leave the locker room any earlier than a quarter past noon. I thought it would make sense to carry out the assassination around noon, because most of the swimmers used the pool either early in the morning or after work in the evenings.

  We followed the narrow alley that led directly to the soccer field. Pleased to find the gate open, we made our way along the track toward the service entrance. After making sure no one was around, I opened the door with the spare key. We were in the locker room shortly before noon.

  I undressed, walked over to the showers, and peeked through the opening into the pool area. There I saw Jeffries swimming a slow breaststroke. I had never been so happy to see him. “Enjoy the last swim of your life, you bastard,” I said to myself.

  About twenty minutes later, Jeffries got out of the pool and started walking toward the exit. I expected that he and his men would shower before heading to the locker room, but I wasn’t sure. I hurried to my locker, dried myself off, and got dressed.

  I stuffed one of the revolvers into my pocket and then pulled back the hammer of the other pistol so it was ready to fire. I gripped it in my right hand and covered it with a towel. Alec did the same.

  Some thirty seconds later, we heard Jeffries and his men talking in the row of lockers just beyond ours. I nodded to Alec. Things moved quickly. Alec shot the first man in the head before he could even look up. The second man, dressed only in his underwear, lunged for his locker, but Alec was quicker and killed him too.