by E. L. Pini
I dedicated every available digital and human resource to the search for Imad, alive or dead. Budget was no longer an issue. All restrictions had been removed. I called in O’Driscoll, Bruno, anyone who owed me even a sliver of a favor. Noam’s team arrived in an ambulance. No one dared touch Luigi’s corpse, until Noam snapped out of it for long enough to lift Luigi up on his shoulder and head out to the air force base. The four Arabs Luigi had killed would be transported to the pathogenic waste incinerator in Wannsee.
“Our little cazzo,” Uzi tried to comfort the rest of us. “He took out four hostiles single-handedly before the fifth one got him.”
I ripped off the band of electric tape that covered Taissiri’s mouth. He gagged out the rag shoved in his mouth, breathing heavily.
“Where’s Imad?”
Taissiri didn’t answer. I slapped him hard enough to knock him to the floor. Uzi picked him back up, signaling me to take it easy when Taissiri spat out two teeth. I nodded back. Uzi fixed the bandage around Taissiri’s shoulder and, while he was there, shoved his thumb in the bullet wound. Taissiri made strange squealing sounds, like a butchered calf. I looked up at Uzi, signaling him to calm down.
“Cooperate, and we’ll take you to Israel for the remainder of this interrogation. You’ll spend some time in a luxurious government-run facility, and at some point, someone’ll decide to release you for some emotionally significant corpse. Why did you kill Stephan?”
“We didn’t know if we could trust him, so Imad ordered me—”
“Where is Imad?”
“Out of the country, I don’t know where!” he quickly added.
I backhanded him, and he fell to the other side this time. He wheezed and gurgled, blood welling in his mouth. Uzi went to pick him up again and I raised a finger to stop him. Let him lie there. I placed the heel of my shoe on his wounded shoulder.
“Doctor, outside, there is an ambulance that will soon transport our pathogenic waste to the Wannsee incinerator. There’s a lake there, and a beautiful forest. Green everywhere.” Taissiri shivered and I went on. “Six million Jews passed through the crematoriums, and with zero complaints—we can only assume it wasn’t that bad. The thing is, when we lower the temperature of the furnace, you’re going to burn very, very slowly. The fire moves from the feet up, you know, so those are always first to go, and then… well. I think you get it, Doctor. I think you understand what it is I’m offering you here. You get to see the end coming. This is huge, Doctor—huge. All of humanity wants to know when it will end, and no one does. You get to know, precisely.” I squeezed his shoulder again with the tip of my shoe and let go, to let him think. After a few seconds, I asked again.
“Where is Imad?”
“Imad left the organization. He left the sheikh and swore allegiance to the sultan. They’re trying to create a united Arab coalition and attack the Jews.”
“Please. You’ve been spewing this bullshit for years. I asked you where he is. Where is he?!” I didn’t wait for a response but pressed my heel deeper into the wound. Taissiri was making those sounds again. His bulging eyes seemed to nearly pop out of their sockets.
I relieved a bit of the pressure and Taissiri gurgled, “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you,” and I pressed harder. His eyes threatened to spill out of his face. When I could take it no longer, I moved my foot away.
“Speak!”
Taissiri was breathing shakily through his mouth, his chest rising and falling like a bellows.
“Now!” I yelled. “Talk now, or I swear—”
“London! In London, he’s in London with abu Bachar…”
I realized that there wasn’t much more I would get from him right now and kicked him in the mouth with my heel. His jaw broke and dropped, dangling. He passed out.
“Take this piece of garbage to the incinerator.”
Uzi gave me a puzzled look.
“Take him to the incinerator, see if you can get anything else out of him about Imad and their communication protocol. I doubt he knows much more than that.”
“And…”
“And then burn him.”
“Sir… Avner, you… you…”
“What? I what?!”
“You said, more than once, that killing without the intent of saving lives cannot be justified. You said that would never happen under your command.”
“This motherfucker killed Luigi. And someday, some idiot politician will decide to release him for a corpse, or some asshole drug-smuggling officer. Killing him will save lives, I guarantee it.” At the very least, whatever’s left of mine. I imagined Luigi’s grave sprouting from the earth, right next to Eran’s.
“If you can’t do this, Uzi, tell me now.” I took a deep breath. “I doubt he knows any more, but either way, take him down there, put him in the oven, light a fire under his ass. If he knows any more, he’ll talk.”
The oven delivered. Taissiri revealed that Imad had been urgently summoned to the Sultanate embassy in Bayswater—though he didn’t know why. He also disclosed the names of the remaining nine stuffed shahids, and their last-known locations. Uzi tried to question him about their destinations, future attacks, but Taissiri kept saying that only Imad knew. He flooded them with details, making me wonder if this was some kind of survival strategy. Time to fly him to Israel. If he was still hiding anything, they’d get it out of him.
I mounted Uzi’s bike and let it take me where it wanted. I ended up on the Autobahn, and the BMW was quickly gaining speed. The helmet’s visor kept away the wind but failed to keep away the thoughts. Luigi appeared before me, smiling. “Hey, boss. I didn’t get the chance to thank you. For trusting me.”
A tear snuck out of my tear duct and, with nowhere else to go, poured into my eye, down my cheek. Other tears came, and soon I couldn’t see the road. I tore off the helmet and flung it away and let the cold wind dry my face. The helmet bounced once and smashed on the asphalt. I thought of Eran.
On the one-year anniversary of Eran’s death, I’d finished placing the basalt tombstone over his grave, facing the view. Nehemiah came to visit—a close friend who was heading the psychology department in Boston back then.
“You’re just reinforcing the pathology of your bereavement,” he said. Pathological bereavement, the professor explained, constantly enables the sense of loss and impairs recovery. “You don’t want to go there. This isn’t you.”
“I didn’t want to go here, and it isn’t me, but here I am. I’m here to stay. I’m never leaving him again, not ever.” I concluded the discussion.
Ya’ara and Nehemiah, Eran and Luigi—gone. I’m alone.
67.
“Anna’s gone,” Albert told me warily back in the operations room. “She called in an hour ago, I told her about Luigi, she hung up on me, and… that’s it. She’s not at her apartment,” he added before I could ask, “not at the clinic, not answering her phone.”
I drove the BMW back to the city.
Albert and his technicians were sitting at their screens, examining the satellite images. I started to create possible scenarios. None of them boded well for us.
Scenario 1: Anna and Imad ran off together. Where would they go?
Scenario 2: Imad exposed Anna’s cover and killed her. How did he find out? Where is the body? I’ll kill him.
Scenario 3: Imad has tortured Anna and she revealed everything she knew. What does Anna know? She can ID me, and the whole team. Doesn’t matter, I’m killing him anyway.
Scenario 4: Imad is still torturing Anna. She is naked and tied up, and he approaches her with a large syringe, jams it into her chest. I went to the restroom and washed my face.
Scenario 5: More optimistically, Imad might have exposed Anna and taken her hostage, to trade for Dr. Taissiri. I agree to the trade, most likely disobeying my orders, and then kill them both, Taissiri and Imad, probably also in violation of orders.<
br />
“Yes!” yelled Albert.
“Imad? Where? Who?”
“Anna! At the bank—”
I ran out and hopped on the bike. Of course. Her primary go-bag was in a safe deposit box.
“Doctor King Schultz.” I showed my papers to the clerk in charge of the vault.
“Herr Doctor, your wife was just here…” He glanced at his watch. “Fifteen minutes ago.”
“Yes, danke, I know—she forgot one of the papers, so of course I get sent over…”
The clerk smiled sympathetically and escorted me to the safe. I waited for him to leave and whispered into the microphone, “She left about fifteen minutes ago. Take a forty-mile radius.”
The handgun, the passports, the credit cards, traveler’s checks and two hundred one-hundred-dollar bills were gone. In their place I found a yellow envelope.
“To Avner,” it read. Inside was a letter in handwriting I knew well.
I can’t do this anymore. I’m leaving. Don’t look for me, you can’t find me (I had excellent teachers—I know how to disappear). And even you do, it wouldn’t help. I’m done. When I finished med school, I swore to do whatever I could to save lives. And for a while, I did—and I was happy. And working for you also made me happy—as much as a confused pervert like me can ever be happy. You were clever enough to provide me with the father figure I needed, and to leverage my guilt over my family’s actions during the Holocaust. I was proud of my work, and satisfied—no less than I was by helping those Arab kids. Perhaps I thought that it allowed me to redeem myself. My soul is horribly messed up. I know this, you know this, and you used this knowledge perfectly. I loved you like a father. And I loved Luigi like a brother, though I hadn’t known him long. I imagine he was the son you adopted, to fill the space left behind by Eran. I loved Imad, too, as a lover. I love all of you, and you all hate each other.
You killed Luigi, and soon either you or Imad will kill the other. I can’t stand it anymore.
Avner, I know that if you choose to, you’ll find me, wherever I run.
I love you. Don’t look for me… please.
It had been two days. I’d lost Luigi, I’d lost Imad, and now, finally, I’d lost Anna.
When I’d finished the letter, I knew what I had to do. I contacted Jones, O’Driscoll’s guy. After he had gotten back from his tours in Afghanistan, Jones joined the Marshals Service until O’Driscoll had plucked him out of there, and for good reason—Jones was a sort of an American Luigi. Clever, determined, and born with a rare lack of bullshit. I was very fond of him.
I gave Jones the details of Anna and Francesca’s passports, credit cards and bank accounts. I asked if he needed photos, and he replied that it wasn’t necessary. I could almost hear him smiling.
“Semper fi,” said Jones.
“Semper fi,” I replied, knowing that I’d just accumulated one more debt—but one I would gladly pay.
68.
Bayswater, London. The meeting went swimmingly. The sultan, ever courteous, apologized to Imad for bringing him in from Berlin in such short notice.
“The world’s leaders are about to assemble in New York for the UN General Assembly. I called a summit for the heads of the Islamic states, and I wanted to listen to your proposal again, face-to-face, before I meet them.”
Imad nodded and repeated the main points of his vision, strategy and operational plan. The sultan listened intently and occasionally stopped Imad to take notes.
“First, Al-Quds—that is my creed, and my strategy is for all forces to converge on the focal point,” Imad concluded.
“Impressive,” said the sultan. Abu Bachar nodded his agreement, then took the notes and excused himself from the room. The sultan fixed his gaze on Imad.
“Come closer,” he said.
He approached, and the sultan took Imad’s hand into both of his. “Stop worrying. Abu Bachar has Gertrud with him, and they are operating with an unlimited budget, provided by me. Have no doubt—they will find Doctor Taissiri, and your German doctor. Just keep it in mind that abu Bachar and Gertrud are… well.” He pinched two fingers together and smiled suggestively.
Abu Bachar returned with the printed speech and an official diplomatic passport of the Sultanate, which he proudly handed to Imad. Imad flipped through his new passport and thanked them both. They parted.
On his way back to Berlin on one of the sultan’s private jets, Imad found himself troubled by thoughts of the years he’d wasted with global jihad. He would have liked to push these thoughts away, focus on the bright, promising future—but someone had intervened with this future, changed the rules. Dr. Taissiri, his key player, had disappeared. So had Anna. Without the two of them, he had no way of producing more stuffed shahids—and worse, either of them could have turned or defected altogether, revealing the names of the active shahids. This sort of damage was beyond repair. Imad realized that from this moment onward, he had to create the change himself. He had to take back control. It was his turn now, he thought. He could do this.
69.
At the very fringe of the Berlin international airport, there is a dedicated landing strip for the Israeli airplanes. The airport workers have nicknamed it “the Jewish ghetto.” This relative remoteness allowed the German and Israeli security forces to supervise, and operate if need be, without putting everyone else at risk.
At 02:30, Zacharia Mizrotzki, the Israeli security officer responsible for the “ghetto,” phoned Gerhard Schwager, the airport’s head security officer. Schwager was a colonel (res.) in the Bundeswehr’s special paratrooper operation division; Mizrotzki was a company commander (res.) in the IDF’s Paratrooper’s Brigade Unit 55. Mizrotzki and Schwager were old friends. Mizrotzki did his best to nurture this friendship, at first because he had been ordered to by his superiors—employing for this purpose many pints of beer, fancy meals and free trips to Eilat and to the luxurious casinos in Antalya and Bulgaria (most of which were Israeli-owned). The fact that Schwager’s father had been a senior Gestapo officer had only strengthened the friendship between the two ex-paratroopers.
“Jawohl, Herr Kommandant,” Schwager sleepily answered his phone. “What have I done to deserve this questionable honor in the middle of the night?”
“Mein Herr,” replied Mizrotzki. “We’re having some issues with the defense system of one of the Israeli government jets. Technicians are on the way, and I’d like to close off a remote defense perimeter, so that no harm would come to your brave Wehrmacht troopers.”
“You plan on blowing some shit up in my airport?”
“God forbid. Just a reboot of the system. But regulations state we have to clear the area.”
“We do love our regulations here,” yawned Schwager. “I’ll talk to Franz, he’s the officer on duty. Good night, and be careful. This isn’t the Levant. If something happens, it’s the shower for you, Mizrotzki.” He laughed hoarsely and hung up.
Four minutes and forty-five seconds later, the airport guard security force had outlined a perimeter ring around the Israeli jet. The soldiers distanced themselves as much as possible. A yellow maintenance tractor arrived, towing three large wooden crates. Mizrotzki and three technicians in white coveralls followed it in a Mercedes G-class jeep. The technicians opened the cargo hold doors and wheeled the large crates inside. The pilot and another crewmember pulled them in and wheeled them toward the back of the plane. The technicians tested the defense system and reset it.
Mizrotzki radioed Franz. “All clear. You can cancel the alert.”
He then headed to the terminal, where I was just finishing up with security.
“Your package is in there. Everything okay?” he asked. “You seem troubled.”
“It’ll be fine, Mizrotzki, everything will be fine. Or it won’t. Thanks, either way, for your help.”
The stairs pulled up and the jet started preparing for takeoff. I went t
o the back to check on our cargo.
“Why’s he still in the box?” I asked the guard.
“You want ’im outta the box, he’s outta the box…”
He pulled out a Leatherman multitool, cut open the metal bands hugging the crate, and lifted the lid according to the arrow drawn on it. Dr. Taissiri was lying inside, sedated. Fresh bandages covered his shoulder, face and legs.
“Keep him cuffed at all times, but take out the gag. If he so much as peeps, kick him in the face. But don’t kill him, you hear?”
“I heard he took out one of ours… can I fuck ’im up a little?”
“Nope. He still needs to undergo further interrogation. Just, if he peeps, you know, kick to the face. You can break some teeth, if he still has any. You know what? You come get me, I’ll kick him in the face.”
“No problem, boss, you got it.”
I walked back to the front of the jet, pushed off my shoes and tried to get some sleep.
“Passengers are requested to fasten their seat belts, turn off all electronic devices, and keep their shoes on their disgusting, smelly-ass feet at all times,” spoke a jeering falsetto. I cracked open an eye. Moti was standing in front of me, a bottle of Macallan in his right hand, two glasses in his left, swinging his arms around in a ridiculous imitation of a flight attendant pointing out the emergency exits. Moti could always make me smile. He was the first openly gay combat pilot and had spent a great deal of his career smashing up preconceptions about masculinity. We’d started at the same course in the Air Force Flight Academy. I had gotten kicked out later for fucking around with the Fouga Magister above the female officers’ quarters—it’s how I’d ended up at The Unit. Moti plopped down beside me, shoved a glass in my hand and poured.
