by E. L. Pini
“Hang on to that glass, RP. It’s 1932 Macallan. Each drop costs like two Avners. You look like shit, man. Can I help?”
“You’ve helped already. Pour another one and go see to your flying machine. I guess the boss sent someone up here to badger me?”
Moti nodded toward the cockpit, where the DM had just emerged.
“I’m afraid it’s the head badger himself,” he said. Moti shrugged and sauntered away, and the director sat down next to me.
“Where’s the doctor?”
I pointed toward the back of the jet.
“No, Doctor von Stroop.”
I poured the whiskey and handed one glass to the director.
“Here’s to Doctor von Stroop’s new life in… Indiana? Or Wyoming, or New Hampshire. Wherever the US Marshals Service decided to put her.”
The director slowly sipped. “The Marshals Service?”
I nodded.
“O’Driscoll. And… Jones, was it? Okay. Okay,” he said, rubbing his chin.
I tried to decrypt the meaning behind his double okay. Okay? And not a word on my blatant violation of procedure, of explicit orders. I suppose that’s the true power of seniority—it allows you to be generous, kind, where others can’t. I shuddered to think how I would respond to this level of disobedience from one of my own subordinates. But Anna had done everything she could to get out of this life, and I felt compelled to provide her with a safe haven, secluded enough so that no one could find her—not Imad’s people, nor ours.
“Look, Avner,” said the DM, “Froyke’s in bad shape. He seems…” He hesitated, searching for words. “He seems tired. Your Doctor Verbin is taking good care of him, but I want… I ask that you bring him back. You’re the only one who can. We can’t have him following in Motta’s footsteps29.”
“Verbin? She didn’t say anything to me.”
“She’s been keeping Bella updated.”
Scheisse. “If Froyke’s already made up his mind…”
“It appears that he has. Your job is to stop him.”
The DM finished his glass and switched to a more businesslike tone. “The NSA have spotted a three hundred and fifty percent increase in communications between the Sultanate palace and the estate in Bayswater, as well as a significant increase in aerial activity.”
“Makes sense,” I said and nodded toward the back of the jet, where Taissiri lay tied in his box. “He told us that Imad was headed to Bayswater. Slipped right out of our fingers.”
“Another interesting tidbit, courtesy of Nora,” said the director. “Apparently, the sultan’s been funding Imam al-Qaradawi, who’s been publishing fatwas30 calling for reconciliation between the Sunnis and the Shiites—a collaboration to achieve common goals. Apparently the sultan wants to be the next Harun al-Rashid.”
“And how does Imad fit in?” I asked, although I’d pretty much guessed the answer.
“Imad is currently working for the sultan. Are you familiar with the phrase, ‘first, Al-Quds’?” asked the director.
I wasn’t. The director was happy to oblige, explaining that a fan of ours in MI5, who didn’t want to get in trouble, had passed the intel along to O’Driscoll, who’d passed it to us, along with an invoice for an IOU to MI5. The intel didn’t provide any operational insight, but it did give us their main strategy. The Al-Quds Shahids—that is, the stuffed shahids—were just a trial run. The main goal was to use the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a focal point for global change. Get the shahids in there, blow up the mosque, then blame the Jews for the explosion. The pan-Islamic coalition would unite during the aftermath and attack Israel—one big, final attack.
“Endlösung der Judenfrage,” said the DM and fell deep into thought. A final solution to the Jewish problem.
I considered reassuring him—things had changed since the Endlösung, after all—but decided not to. He seemed to be concerned about the historic aspect of the plan. I was much more interested in the operational aspect.
“So where’s our MI5 fan now?”
“Pushing daisies,” said the director with a nonchalance that suited me more than it did him. Apparently, among the casualties of the “plane crash” designed to eliminate the British Engineers who planned and built the Bayswater war room, there was also an “antisurveillance expert” from MI5, who was kind enough to bug the war room with a microscopic surveillance system that transmitted straight to the basement of the Thames House.
“As to your question,” said the DM, although I hadn’t asked it yet, “after thirty days of broadcasting, the bugs stopped transmitting. The engineer in charge would have reentered the activation code if he hadn’t died in the plane crash.”
He stood up. “I have some business to take care of,” he said and headed to the front of the jet. Before he went into the cockpit, he pointed at the back, toward Taissiri. “Good job, Ehrlich,” he said and disappeared inside.
I thought of my own little focal point, back home, and promised myself a great deal of Verbin, lots and lots of Verbin, just Verbin—without Imad or any other intrusions.
* * *
12 In reserve duty, Israeli residents who have completed military service are assigned to the IDFs’ military reserve force to provide reinforcements, both during emergencies and as a matter of routine course (e.g. for training or reinforcement). -TK
13 Both lines are from the poem “spring is so brief around here” by David Grossman, written about his son Uri, who was killed in the 2006 Lebanon war. -TK
14 Mountain Rose is an encrypted cellular network used by the IDF for some sensitive communications. -TK
15 Loewenstein hospital and rehabilitation center mostly treats patients who were injured during their military service. -TK
16 General Officer Commanding (Central Command). -TK
17 The “Euskadi ta Askatasuna”—a terrorist organization of leftist Basque nationalists and separatists. -TK
18 “Al-Quds” (lit. “The holy one”) is the Arabic name for the city of Jerusalem. -TK
19 The Israel Institute of Technology. A prestigious science and technology research university.
20A Qadi is the magistrate or judge of an Islamic Shariʿa court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions (such as mediation). -TK
21 Lieutenant Colonel Ron Arad, was a weapon systems officer in the Israeli Air Force who is officially classified as MIA since 1986, but is widely presumed dead. He was lost on a mission over Lebanon, captured by the Shiite group Amal and later handed over to the Hezbollah. -TK
22 An Israeli law which gives all Jews the right to come and live in Israel and to gain Israeli citizenship.
23 The Mossad and Shin Bet often refer to one another as “the counterparts.”
24 Nevi’ot (lit. “spring”) is an operational wing of the Mossad which deals in infiltration and information obtainment through the installations of surveillance equipment. -TK
25 Israel’s official remembrance center and memorial and to the victims of the Holocaust. -TK
26 A kibbutz whose founding members include surviving fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as former Jewish partisans and other Holocaust survivors. Its name (lit. “The Ghetto fighters”) commemorates the Jews who fought the Nazis. -TK
27 Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was the chief of logistics and weapons procurement for Hamas‘s military wing. His assassination in Dubai is widely seen as an operation by Mossad, and triggered a diplomatic crisis after Mossad agents allegedly used forged foreign passports to carry out the killing.
28 A terrorist attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. The Palestinian terrorist group Black September took eleven Israeli Olympic team members hostage and killed them along with a West German police officer. -TK
29 Mordec
hai “Motta” Gur was a legendary Chief of Staff of the IDF who committed suicide after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. -TK
30 In Islam, a fatwa is a legal opinion or learned interpretation, issued by a qualified jurist (a mufti), pertaining to Islamic law. -TK
Book 3
70.
The lights dimmed in the Sultanate estate’s private screening room. On the screen, thousands of aircraft obscured the sky; fighter jets arriving from air bases and aircraft carriers, bombers emerging from underground hangars, cargo planes brimming with bombs, and hundreds of civilian planes, booby-trapped with flammable and volatile substances—flying Molotov cocktails. With every passing second, less of the sky was visible, until the entire frame was a black, sparkling mass of machinery. And out of this dark mass, the golden dome of the holy mosque slowly rose. It was replaced with a close-up of Sheikh al Qardawi, the greatest Muslim jurist of his generation, reading a fatwa endorsing the necessity of full cooperation between the Sunni and the Shiite—“A collaboration which will enable us to eradicate the enemies of Islam, whoever they may be,” he said.
The image was replaced with a picture of the sultan’s new mosque, a perfect replica of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The rays of the sun struck the golden dome and shattered into a million golden sparks. The lights in the screening room came back on, and an immaculately dressed waiter entered the room bearing an ornamental gold tray and poured dark, thick Bedouin coffee into small cups decorated with the Sultanate crest.
“Perfect,” said Imad, “perfect—this is exactly how it’s supposed to look!”
“We plan on opening the summit with it.” Abu Bachar smiled. “Would you like a rerun?”
Imad assumed that the sultan was listening in but couldn’t ignore the gentle sarcasm wrapping abu Bachar’s words. He decided to give the sultan his pound of flesh.
“Israel is a foothold,” he said. “The American fort within the Middle East, within our territory. It supports interests of the American oil companies, which in turn are bleeding us dry. Take down the fort, and we’re free to charge forward. Nothing will stand in our way.”
“Interesting. Go on,” said abu Bachar, as if he was hearing the pitch for the first time.
“For the first time in jihad history, we have an operable strategy, not just idle talk about some ‘global caliphate.’ This is the strategy led by the sultan and me. It will expunge the humiliation and return hope, comfort and honor to the Arab world. After we destroy the Jewish state, we will have a continuous bloc of Arab nations—from Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq all the way to Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Sudan and the Emirates. A united force, equal in influence and rights to the Western, Chinese and Russian blocs. Two billion believers against a nation of eight million, including the old and the very young—two million of which are ours. No one”—he fixed his gaze on abu Bachar—“no one, not even those of the smallest possible faith, can say it’s impossible.”
“The summit will convene in twenty-nine days. Until then, you have to deliver on your words without all this…” Abu Bachar spread his hands. “Without this, the whole thing is meaningless.”
“I’m positioning all our forces at a single, pivotal target. The mosque is our foothold. With it, we will change the world. The Al-Quds Shahids are standing by for orders. Please give the sultan my blessings and gratitude. Without him—”
“There is no need,” boomed a benevolent voice from the screen, where the sultan’s face suddenly appeared. “I embrace you, Imad. You will continue with your holy works. I have decided—from this day, you are my eldest son. We shall celebrate the memory of your father, the holy shahid Mustafa Akbariyeh al-Nabulsi abu Imad, may he sit in the grace of Allah. Abu Bachar will make the necessary arrangements. I also have a humble gift for you.” The sultan smiled and added, “Gertrud!”
71.
“Yes, sir,” said Gertrud, entering the screening room. “I’m here.” She clicked her heels in a German salute and quickly typed something on the screen of her golden smartphone. A close-up of a face, taken recently, appeared on the large screen.
“This is the Jew responsible for either the kidnapping or murder of Doctor Taissiri and Doctor von Stroop. Avner Ehrlich Ne’eman, deputy chief of operations in the Mossad—”
“Where can I find him?” Imad instantly asked.
Gertrud didn’t have a chance to reply to the intrusion, and the sultan reappeared on the screen, smiling amiably. “Let her show you.”
Imad nodded and Gertrud tapped her phone. A series of photos quickly appeared on the screen, flickering quickly. In each photo, Avner looked younger. The photos flew by faster and faster, little black crosses and numbers flitting across them, until the screen eventually settled on a photo of a much younger Avner. Imad could not tear his eyes from it. The screen split in two; beside Avner’s recent close-up appeared a much older photo of him in uniform, wearing a red beret31. The two photos slowly merged together.
Imad grew pale.
“Ninety-six percent match,” Gertrud said triumphantly.
“How did you get this?” Imad finally said.
Gertrud smiled. “I ran facial recognition software on our Israeli data. I found this image in the archive of an Israeli newspaper.”
An image appeared of a small segment from a newspaper, the headline reading “PROMINENT TERRORIST MUSTAFA AKBARIYEH AL-NABULSI KILLED BY IDF FORCES IN JABALIA.” Imad’s heart skipped a beat. A photo of Baba’s face, taken postmortem, appeared under the headline. The subtitle presented him as “Mass murderer Mustafa Akbariyeh al-Nabulsi, responsible for the deaths of over thirty Israelis.” Gertrud translated the text to English, and Imad remained silent.
Another photo appeared—a squad of Israeli soldiers in full battle gear. When it zoomed in on the leading soldier, there was no longer room for error. Avner Ehrlich Ne’eman.
“This one reads, ‘IDF troopers returning from a raid in the heart of the Jabalia refugee camp,’” said Gertrud, still clearly pleased with her findings.
“I don’t need a translation,” Imad said.
“I know,” she replied. “But Mr. abu Bachar does.”
Abu Bachar placed a hand on Imad’s shoulder. “This is our small gift to you. Your father’s killer, your brother’s killer. The Jew that’s been after you. From now on, we’ll be the ones after him.”
Abu Bachar slid a finger across his throat. “You’ll have your revenge, and it’ll be sooner and sweeter then you could have imagined.”
“I need a moment,” Imad said and left the room, tears clogging his throat. He crumpled into the carved wooden bench in the palm greenhouse, trying to replace the image of his dead father’s face with a memory of his living face, unsuccessfully. Baba’s face remained dead in his mind, swollen and blue, his mouth open, as if gasping for breath. Tears flowed freely from Imad’s eyes, and for the second time in his life, he fully wept, uncontrollable, bitter tears.
A small flame ignited in the corner of his eye. Gertrud crouched in front of him, handing him a lit cigarette. He took it and drew the smoke into his lungs. She sat down next to him.
“How did you find him?” he asked flatly.
“Are you all right?”
He nodded. Gertrud gently plucked the cigarette from his lips, took a long drag and put it back. “The Berlin police. I have some friends there who gave me access to security camera footage.” She looked up at Imad. “I isolated him and ran him through every database, including Interpol and the German intelligence service. Null, nothing. So I changed tactics. The Mossad usually gets its killers from the special units, IDF commandos. We have a photo database of their officers and soldiers, from the Jews’ newspapers and television and social networks, and that’s where I found him. He was an officer in Matkal and had his share of operations. I went over them, one by one, until I got to the raid in Jabalia…”
“He gave me chocolate.”
&
nbsp; “What?”
“This Jew, he… they came in through the wall, blew a hole, blocked the door and snatched Baba. I was sleeping next to him, and when I woke up… he gave me chocolate and said someone would pick me up…” His voice cracked.
“They blew a hole through the wall?” asked Gertrud, attempting to channel the conversation elsewhere.
“A tactic they’ve developed for the refugee camps, to avoid alley fires. Go through the walls, move from house to house, avoid the streets.”
Gertrud grabbed his hand. “It’s only a matter of time now… as we speak, I have people looking for his home address. Abu Bachar suggests that we start with his woman. She’s an oncologist at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. I haven’t found any children yet—if they’re out there, we’ll get to them too, and kill him after.”
“I’ll kill him,” said Imad. “Only me. And right before I do, I’ll give his dog a chocolate bar. And then I’ll…” He fell silent when abu Bachar arrived and joined them.
72.
“So,” said abu Bachar after a while. “Do you really think you’ll be able to get the shahids into the mosque and complete the operation before the end of the summit?”
“The real explosion won’t take place in the mosque itself but under it, in the tunnels, where the foundations are. The shahids in the mosque are mostly a photo op.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” said Gertrud, and abu Bachar seemed to share her confusion.
“The bombing in the mosque will be meaningless without real-time, widespread media coverage,” said Imad. Abu Bachar nodded. “After my shahids enter the mosque, they’ll wear kippahs and keffiyehs dyed like Jewish tallits. They’ll have blue Israeli IDs in their pockets. When I activate the PETN charges, the world will see a group of Orthodox Jews attempting to destroy the holy mosque. This is phase one. When Professor Barghouti receives this broadcast, Haj Kahil will activate the main charge, in the tunnels under the Temple Mount. This is phase two—fifty or sixty kilos of military-grade Semtex that will bring down the mosque. This humiliating act will force the rest of the Arab politicians to fall in line. Anyone who won’t join the sultan will be ostracized.”
