by E. L. Pini
I had no way of knowing what prompted the change—perhaps the realization that some other jihadi would inevitably take control of the tankers, or perhaps the fact that Putin insisted on continuing to provide the “axis of evil” with advanced antiair missile systems, making it difficult for the prime minister to present any politically meaningful progress. Either way, we were now approved for an actual operation, subject to a final authorization on D-Day, and also subject to the DM’s guarantee that the operation could not be traced back to us.
“And that,” the director said, “is an unbreakable condition. Not by the department”—he indicated Froyke, who nodded—“not by me, and not by the prime minister himself.” I thought to myself that Bella could probably break it, if she wanted to, but said nothing.
Chechen liquidators, Boris told me. Find them, or their sons, and you have your volunteers. He then bought a list of said liquidators for half a million dollars and, for another five thousand, another list of the commissars who had sent these political prisoners to their cancerous forced labor. Fortunately, the authorities had kept these commissars from wandering too far away, and most of them still lived in the rural village of Novi Yarylovychi, near Chernobyl. This presented a golden opportunity. Boris came up with a pretty decent plan, involving Dragan Ismailov, the head of one of Grozny’s top gangs. His men were Chechen Islamic resistance, born and bred to hate Russians. His father, Bruno Ismailov (yes, really), one of the founders of the Islamic resistance, had been imprisoned by the Soviets and sent to liquidation forced labor. When he had become sick, the Russians had sent him home, to die in the arms of his eldest son, Dragan.
Boris planned to recruit the Dragan gang to a fully funded mission, during which they were to steal the PETN tanks from the facility and blow them up at the center of Novi Yarylovychi, with the goal of killing as many commissars as possible. His assumption—and it was a reasonable one—was that the Russians would see this as a clear-cut act of revenge, initiated by Islamic Chechen terrorists. I liked the plan, and its inherent poetic justice. But it still wasn’t as tightly sealed as we needed it to be—it could still be traced back to us, and neither the director nor the prime minister would approve it.
And so, I found myself on a plane from LaGuardia to Arkansas, in the company of John O’Driscall and Colonel Sokolovsky, who we’d taken from the bosom of his newly rediscovered family in Bat-Yam.
The CIA detention facility was a black site in the middle of the forest, which appeared at first glance to be nothing more than a farmhouse. Victor was pleased to see the Colonel, and even more so to receive the bottles of Stoli and jars of beluga caviar that accompanied him. After lunch, an exhausting negotiation regarding the conditions of Victor’s imprisonment and some reluctant quid pro quo, we handed him a satellite phone.
He dialed Dima, who was in Somalia at the time, and recruited him to the project. The Colonel listened attentively and at the end of the call told me he was fairly certain this would work. Any attempt to trace the operation back to its designer, no matter how thorough, would come to an abrupt halt once it reached Arkansas.
This satisfied both the prime minister and the director. The third and final phase was officially underway.
58.
The reddish haze of the afternoon sun shrouded the Tiergarten in Berlin. Little Abdu was happily skipping along, getting used to his prosthesis. Anna had his right hand in hers, and Francesca took his left. He counted out loud, “Eins, zwei, und…” Anna and Francesca took a large step, swing him up in the air, and the three of them cheered, “Ka—ka—du!”
Another long step, and Abdu shrieked, “Eins, zwei, und…” Another swing through the air. “Ka ka du…”
“Eins, zwei—”
A phone rang, annoyingly, and they stopped. Francesca pulled a phone out of her bag. “It’s yours,” she said to Anna, handing it over.
“This is Doctor von Stroop. Hello. Hello…” No response.
Across the small pond to their left, a couple of joggers appeared from between the trees and waved at the three of them, who waved back. Abdu was laughing, overjoyed.
Anna glanced at her new running calculator. “Okay, guys, time for my run. You’ll be at the zoo?”
“Ka-ka-du, kakadu!” Abdu nodded excitedly.
“Say hi to the kakadu for me.” She smiled. “I’ll see you at home in… two hours?”
She kissed Francesca’s lips and Abdu’s forehead. They both took a right toward the zoological gardens, and Anna headed toward the forest in a light jog, shortly joining a large group of other runners. One of them, his face obscured by a hoodie, stopped and tied his shoes, then increased his speed, passing her. She stared curiously at his back. Something about his movement felt familiar. He broke into a sprint and vanished. Anna ran the four-mile route circling the pond and then jogged up the stairs to the Gold Else monument. The first of the city lights gleamed through the red mist. Anna examined her running calculator, stretched her legs, and looked at the muscular form of the man standing at the lookout point with his back to her, shrouded by a hoodie. Was this the same runner who’d passed her earlier?
Her cell phone rang. “This is Doctor von Stroop… to whom am I speaking?”
“To me,” said the man and turned to her, removing his hood and reaching out his hand. “How do you do, Doctor von Stroop?”
Anna’s heart skipped a beat.
“Imad?” she whispered.
“In mind and body, it is I and no other.” He smiled.
She ran her fingers down his face, and they hugged tightly and silently. Anna wiped away her tears and examined him from head to toe. Then she shoved her hand in his pants and cupped his package.
“Yeah, it is you… definitely.”
Imad grinned and pulled her back into his arms. “Let’s see what this resurrection did for my cock.”
Anna pulled down her sweatpants and wrapped her legs around him. He slowly penetrated her.
“I missed you, lady SS.” Anna gave in, surrendering to the sensation. Imad increased his pace and came almost instantly. She remained fused to him, her legs squeezing his waist.
“Was it good for you?”
“Resurrection…,” she breathed. “Let’s get dressed before—”
“My guys are down there. No one’s getting through them.”
“What about Gold Else?” She glanced up to the golden statue.
They sat at the edge of the lookout, and Imad offered her a Camel cigarette.
“I quit.”
“Couldn’t you find some doctor to tell you it’s fine?”
Anna stroked his hair. “Tell me.”
“It’s a long story,” Imad said, placing a finger on her lips. “Let’s go home.”
“My place?” she asked, feeling the old fears, the ones she’d almost managed to shed, balling back up inside of her.
“Your place? And what are we supposed to do about your girlfriend, and the little Arab you stole from us? No, my place, obviously.”
“Back to Shabwah?” she asked innocently, already beginning to reconstruct her shell, the shield of confidence that allowed her to safely lie.
“I’m living in Berlin right now. But I actually have some urgent business that needs handling. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, at your clinic.”
“At my clinic?” she echoed. A sudden panic gripped her. How long had he been following her?
“The one on Nürnberger Strasse, in case you forgot.” Imad smiled.
“There’s no getting rid of you, is there?”
“If you really want to get rid of—”
Anna hushed him with a deep kiss.
“You leave first,” she said. “Men always come first in this country.”
He kissed her lightly, then ran down the stairs and disappeared into the darkening dusk. She leaned against the railing, trying to organize her thought
s. Imad’s death had wounded her. Not a mortal wound, but still a deep one, one that threatened to reopen with each careless motion. While his death had freed her from the constant tension—the constant companion of spies—she had missed him. Unlike most people suffering from bipolar disorder, Anna was fully aware of hers and occasionally managed to suppress the symptoms. When the sorrow overwhelmed her, she needed Avner, his broad shoulders and the confidence he gave her, in herself and in her abilities. During her rarer manic episodes, she needed Imad, and his cruel love, to slam her back down to reality.
She lived in constant unease—cold sweat on her back, warm sweat on her brow, the fear of the unexpected, the creak of a door, the whistling of a teapot, the screech of wheels on asphalt, the thousand sounds of everyday life—these were a perpetual threat, unaffected by the passage of time. Trembling prayers to someone or something, to keep the fragile ground from crumbling away from under her. But ever since Imad’s death, the sharp tension had given way to a mist of vague worry, soft like a spongey cloud. The myokymia, the nervous twitch in her lower eyelid, had almost disappeared. Even the worry lines seemed to smooth away. And alongside all that fear, there was love. As much as she detested the violent sex her “exotic prince” favored and forced on her, she was also irresistibly drawn to him. She had found her lost comfort in Francesca’s arms.
Imad had left the park but still lingered in her thoughts. After he would conquer and penetrate her, Imad would usually become talkative, cooperative. He would be at his most revealing. Hooray for oxytocin! Anna shook the thoughts away. Time to focus. What she needed right now was concrete action. Let Avner know about Imad’s resurrection.
Anna searched around the lookout point for his cigarette butt but couldn’t find it. She took a small burner phone from her pocket and texted:
“Sigmund is in Berlin. No error. Sigmund is in Berlin.”
She headed down from the lookout point. When she’d reached the bottom of the winding stone stairway, she bent over to tie her shoelaces and noticed the crushed butt of the Camel cigarette, right in front of her. She carefully collected it and then jogged to the lake and threw the small burner phone into the dark waters.
59.
I was on my way to Italy to make final arrangements with O’Driscoll. Victor would receive temporary access to a phone in his Arkansas farm, for the purpose of leaving a message on a voicemail we acquired in Tunisia and ordering Dima to engage. The third and final phase to eliminate the threat was in motion.
My pager beeped. I was expecting a message from Froyke, reiterating the need for caution. I was most certainly not expecting: “Sigmund is in Berlin. No error. Sigmund is in Berlin.”
I read it a second time, then a third, but the message refused to change.
“Sigmund is in Berlin. No error. Sigmund is in Berlin.”
I stared at the single line of text that had been passed from Anna to the control center at Ramat HaSharon, and from there some young and alert duty officer—probably some university student working half-time—had bounced it on to me and Froyke, who had undoubtedly passed it on to the DM.
I sipped my cognac. It wouldn’t hurt—at most it would restore the sugar level of the Mossad’s best analytical mind. Could Anna be mistaken? Everyone made mistakes, but it was unlikely. She’d lived with him at Shabwah for over a year, knew every square inch of him. Could she be intentionally misleading us, providing misinformation? It wouldn’t be the first time an asset had switched sides, and I couldn’t ignore her history, forget who she had been when we’d found her, caring for the injured terrorist. On the other hand, prior to recruitment and training, we’d put her through a finer comb of tests and interrogations than anyone had ever undergone before her. The entire staff had approved her unquestionably. Could she have still tricked us? And why not, when that fucking Bedouin Imad apparently had…?
The head psychologist in charge of her case had stated that Anna was not a left-winger, nor was she a right-winger—and more importantly, she was not anti-Israeli. She was motivated by something much simpler—an overwhelming sense of guilt, leading to a powerful urge to support those she deemed to be underdogs, and to satisfy those she loved. I had taken her to a guided tour at Yad Vashem25, where she’d “happened” upon repeated mentions of the crimes of her family: Colonel von Stroop—who, among other things, had supervised Dr. Mengele—and photographic evidence of her “Tante Hannah,” the baby-smasher. Anna had passed out, and just as the lead psychologist had expected, requested to return there and see everything there was about her family’s crimes. At the psychologist’s behest, we’d exposed her to the rest over several shorter, easier visits. When that angle had been milked dry, we had taken her to Lohamei HaGeta’ot26 to personally meet some Mengele alumni. The treatment had succeeded beyond expectations, creating an inexhaustible fountain of guilt that we were free to exploit.
“Sigmund is alive…”
Who profits from this news? The Jihadis? Imad himself? Probably not. He has nothing to gain from our renewing the hunt for him. Why am I finding this resurrection business so hard to believe?
Because then I would have to admit that they had fooled us with a bullshit handheld video, which had bought them a significant amount of time to advance their goals. These fucking Bedouins had tricked me, and O’Driscoll, and all of our fancy intelligence systems, and all of our ineffectual European partners. And the DNA samples, found at the site of his death, tested and confirmed… Assholes!
I called the duty officer who had processed the message, and confirmed that the entire chain had been checked. There was no doubt. The message had come from Anna. I canceled my meeting with O’Driscoll and made arrangements to fly to Berlin as soon as possible. Imad’s resurrection took precedence.
During the flight, I tried to think, analyze the new data, but my brain wouldn’t cooperate. The thoughts pelted me in quick succession, exploding in my mind like homemade missiles. I took a deep breath and exhaled. In and out. In, out. Slowly, some sense started to emerge from the chaos: I had to comfort and debrief Anna. And I had to arrange tracking for Imad so he didn’t slip away again. Figure out what he was up to. Construct a response strategy. Then came the annoying thoughts about the need to properly allocate our limited resources. Why was Imad in Berlin? For how long? Was he still a ticking bomb, or had he mellowed into a vaguer threat? Perhaps he had just come to fuck Anna a bit. Perhaps we should leave this to our ineffectual European buddies. He was in their backyard, after all. The bigger question was this: why would they invest so much effort, resources and ingenuity in creating this deception?
The more I ruminated on the subject, the clearer the answer became. Imad was a pivotal piece of some elaborate plan. A project high up in their priority list. And this time, we hadn’t the slightest idea when and where it would blow up in our faces.
60.
Noam from the Berlin branch rented a room for Dr. King Schultz, in a family-owned inn named Pariser Ecke near Ku’Damm. Luigi, this time as a Turkish taxi driver, drove Anna over, took her to her room and secured her until I arrived. She threw her arms around me, sobbing, the moment I opened the door. I stroked her hair until she calmed down a bit.
“Hey, Schatzi. I’m here…”
Anna smiled weakly. We went over the account of their meeting under the Gold Else, then went over it again.
“Is there any chance this was someone other than your prince?” I asked. Anna wiped away a tear with the back of her hand.
“Is this protocol, or do you also think I’ve gone crazy?” She took a small evidence bag containing a cigarette butt out of her purse. “Here, test it yourself.”
I put the bag in my pocket. “Protocol, Schatzi. I have to ask. Who’s crazy enough to think you’re crazy?”
“I am!” she said and suddenly laughed. “I’m crazy enough to think I’m crazy.”
She was on the brink of collapse. We had to find this asshole, now.
Finally free her from this shitstorm.
“Did anything else happen when you met? Anything you haven’t told me?” I forced myself to ask.
“Something that you need to know about? No, I don’t think there was. Maybe that I fucked him on the Gold Else lookout, two hundred feet above ground,” she said and searched my face for a reaction.
“And he didn’t mention anything about his plans?” I asked. She usually got her best intel from him postcoital.
“It ended too quickly. Oxytocin didn’t get a chance to kick in.”
Oxytocin, as Dr. von Stroop had explained to me earlier in our relationship, is the so-called “love hormone.” It is produced, among other things, during orgasm, and assists in creating a feeling of trust and companionship.
“Are you pleased with the debriefing, or would you like to have me examined?”
I couldn’t help but ask the final, pointless question, although I knew the answer. “Do you have any idea where he is? Where he came from, where he’ll come from? A phone number, anything?”
Anna shook her head.
“You’ll be at your clinic tomorrow? I assume he’ll be visiting you.”
Anna nodded. “Come here, Schatzi…”
I came closer and she put her arms around me.
“Give me the keys to the clinic.”
She handed me a key, and I imprinted it into the soft wax pad I’d brought with me.
“Luigi will be working at your clinic.”
She smiled. “He’s a sweet kid. And you… you’re leaving?”
I embraced her. “Don’t worry, Schatzi. We have you under guard twenty-four seven. You’re safe. The clinic, the apartment, it’s all secure.”
“Come with me. Let’s go now…”
