by D S Kane
He terminated the call and walked to the window. He watched the sky turn a dusky red. It had taken him years. His patience might have finally paid off. Bushovsky had failed, but he had high hopes for Sommers.
Just after dawn, Jon took a taxi from his hotel to the address on Ben-Levy’s business card. It was a drab, gray, featureless high-rise. The noise of the city felt more intrusive than London. The aromas of diesel exhaust, body odors, and deep-fried food from street-side vendors assaulted him.
As he exited the cab, he could hear Lisa’s voice in his head. Jon, you belong here. He shivered in the heat.
As Ben-Levy had instructed him, he walked into the garage of the adjacent building. An armed guard, one of several, beckoned to him and let him approach. After saying the words “SHABEK trainer” and showing the spymaster’s business card and his British driver’s license to a guard, he was led through the garage into a maze of narrow gray concrete tunnels in the basement. Then up two flights of stairs, along a hallway, and back down three sets of steps. The floor and walls, florescent lighting, and staccato echo of their footsteps seemed mismatched to his recollection of the white-haired man called “Mother.”
Most of the rooms they passed had the names of either people or departments imprinted in both Hebrew and English into plastic plaques on the doors. Jon noticed “LAP—Department of Psychological Warfare.”
On the door of a room that must have served once as a storage closet, a piece of paper taped to the outside of the door read “Mossad Special Projects—Surveil and Terminate.” Below that line was another scribbled line: “SHABEK Liaison Projects. No entry without permission. By authority of Oscar Gilead, Deputy Director.”
Jon read the sign and, finally, everything made sense. These were the offices of Mossad’s killers. The guard knocked on the door and it sprang open. Just within, Yigdal Ben-Levy sat behind a gray Formica desk, reading a yellow file folder.
Ben-Levy motioned toward a folding chair. The lights were dim but glared into Jon’s eyes. He could see Ben-Levy’s face but the blinding light kept him from making out any more than just the lower bodies of others. Six or seven. Some wore perfume or cologne and some hadn’t bathed. All stood along the rear and side walls, at least ten feet away.
Jon sat. He struggled to appear calm, but his gut churned with a mix of fear for his future and anger at Lisa’s unfound killer.
Ben-Levy smiled. “Given your family, two generations in Mossad as kidon, assassins, we think you might have potential. If you’re not interested in killing, you can still work for us as a sayan, a helper, in London, and we’ll just move down the list of candidates to find our next assassin. If you don’t leave right now, we’ll assume you’re interested in training in the killing arts. Well?” The older man waited.
Jon pursed his lips. He was still alive but Lisa was dead. Would he ever be free of her memory and her voice inside his head? “I’m staying.” He scanned the others standing in darkness. “What comes next?”
Ben-Levy shifted in his seat. “The group we work for is called Ha Mossad le Teum, ‘the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations.’ We refer to ourselves as ‘the Office.’ Our organization liaises with all the other intelligence services of Israel.”
Jon’s brows rose. “What other services? I thought it was only Mossad.”
Ben-Levy pressed a button on his desk and a chalkboard descended from the ceiling. A light came on, highlighting the board as the rest of the room went dark. “No. There are many others. We coordinate across them. Read.”
The services were bulleted on the board. Ben-Levy recited them without turning his head and glancing at the board, “Our internal security arm is called GSS, also referred to as Shin Bet, or SHABEK. It ensures defense of our consulates, missions, and embassies abroad. Israeli military intelligence is called Aman. It is part of IDF or the Israeli Defense Force. The intelligence arm of the Israeli Air Force is called AFI. The Border Patrol is called BP. Our naval intelligence arm is called NI. And the Research and Political Planning Center, RPPC, advises our politicians on long-range strategy.”
Ben-Levy pointed to the square in the center. “The Mossad serves all the other intelligence services, acquiring what each of them asks for, and does what they request. They are the brain. We are but the arm.”
Jon found it impossible to understand all of this in one sitting.
Ben-Levy rose and flipped a switch. The room lit halfway. “Yes, it is confusing at first. The Mossad’s primary mission is political disinformation, but we also provide black operations when instructed. I report to Deputy Director Oscar Gilead. And I liaise with SHABEK for Mossad. You will have a chance to experience what I just told you, see how it all works. For now, remember that if you can survive the training we will give you, you’ll report to me. Clear?”
Jon nodded, feeling confused. He noticed he was sweating profusely in the air-conditioned room.
“Good. Now, I will introduce you to your teachers. They will take you to the midrasa, the Mossad’s training school. The course was originally designed to run two years. But we’ve redesigned an accelerated program, and you will be among the first such group.”
Ben-Levy leaned toward Jon. “This is not a trivial task and there are no guarantees. Over two-thirds of the trainees wash out. Some die during training. Of those who become katsa, or case officers, only one in five qualifies as a kidon, warranted to carry out assassinations. Do you understand?”
Jon nodded, his lips compressed. It had to be him. He would do anything to make it so.
Ben-Levy nodded back. “The trainers will evaluate your progress and tell me if and when you are ready.”
Less than an hour later, an old school bus filled with twelve recruits arrived at a compound of drab buildings bristling with antennae. The Mossad training school.
As the bus pulled to a stop, Jon gazed at the other trainees. One was blond, athletic, and attractive, two seats away. He started to smile at her but something held him back. He tried to open his mouth and say something, anything, but his jaw wouldn’t work.
As he exited the bus, Jon straightened up and steeled himself to become the best at everything he’d need to seek justice for Lisa.
His first lesson took place before dinner with all the recruits in a small classroom.
The trainer was a wiry man with a mustache, about thirty-five years old. “I’m Michel Drapoff, a hacker, a yahol. Years ago, we created a system called PROMIS, and it mirrors the functions that America’s ECHELON system provides. It hacks into telephone systems and surveillance cameras, and uses the videocam face-detection system on Israeli streets to identify Israel’s enemies and pinpoint their locations. It also monitors email and Internet usage to track the origins of suspicious messages. We’ve sold the system to other governments, and as you may have heard, they’ve discovered a backdoor we engineered into it, permitting us access to all their state secrets. When the old KGB sold a copy to Al Qaeda, we uncovered a wealth of their intelligence. And of course, there is more than one backdoor.” Several of the recruits laughed.
Drapoff scanned the room. “My job also includes ensuring secure communications in our safe houses, missions, and embassies. To do that, I fumigate these facilities, sweeping them for electronic bugs. I also handle babblers, counter-bugging devices. I’ve crafted new dry-cleaning techniques, that is, techniques to avoid surveillance. I created electronic countermeasures for the Israel Institute for Biological Research and for the Ness Ziona research facility.
“But my purpose now is to give you an overview of the Mossad’s organization, referred to as ‘the Institute’ by our government.” He seemed to scan the audience, his eyes making contact with Jon’s.
The hacker pressed a button on the podium and a screen descended from the ceiling. An organization chart appeared on the screen. “The Mossad itself is divided into several departments.” He named seven.
The one Jon found intriguing was the Collections Department, performing traditional espiona
ge, stealing intelligence from foreign governments.
If he survived killing the bomb maker, Collections seemed to be an interesting place to settle.
Drapoff indicated the Collections box on the chart with his laser pointer. He said, “This is the reason Mossad was formed. Its activities mirror Mossad’s motto: ‘By way of deception, thou shalt do war.’”
After dinner, Jon mixed with some of the other recruits. One, a short, stocky woman, asked him, “Aren’t you Ben-Levy’s pet?”
“Dunno. I didn’t know he played favorites.” Jon wondered if there was an active rumor mill at the spy agency. He tried to turn away but she touched his sleeve.
“Everyone has heard about you. Sort of Office gossip. He’s been baby-sitting you for over a decade.” She shook her head. “We work hard to prove ourselves. But not you.” She turned away.
Jon’s jaw tightened. Had he been marked as having an unfair advantage? How could he prove he was worthy?
It was likely none of the other recruits would help him. He arched his back and stared at her back as she walked away. I can do this.
His trainers included several kidons, or assassins, a few sayanim, or “helpers,” and one bat leveyha, a female trained to seduce unfriendlies to reveal intel they guarded. So this was what Lisa was trained to do? When he thought of her bedding terrorists, his fists closed. Was there no limit to what Israel would do to defend itself? He remembered her lies. He wondered how many times she’d done just this. How could he find out for sure? Was there any way he could see more of her file than what Watson had given him in London?
What would he find? Did he really want to know?
Jon passed by a conference room where the trainers met with their team leader, a katsa, or case officer, named Shimon Tennenbaum. He could hear the katsa’s assistant was a bodel, a courier, acknowledge the reports he would hand-carry to Ben-Levy that evening.
It was the first day of their initial training, scheduled over the next four weeks.
At the start of each day, Jon donned a 50-kilo pack and jogged until his legs buckled with pain. Then, he and the other students crawled through mud spiked with barbed wire.
The third day he ran behind the stocky woman who’d called him Ben-Levy’s pet. Jon thought about catching up to run beside her. Maybe there was something he could say or do to change her perception of him. But he decided she wasn’t worth the effort. No one was. After all, when training was done, they’d go their separate ways and probably never see each other.
But what if they were placed within the same team? He picked up his pace. It took him two minutes of what passed for solid sprinting under the circumstances before he caught up to her. “Hey.”
She half-turned her face. “You!” And she sped up.
Jon struggled to keep his position alongside her. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“So?” She didn’t even look his way.
“So, tell me, oh nameless one, why you want to work for the Mossad.” He was tiring fast now, his legs becoming rubbery. He struggled to control his breathing.
She scowled. “You don’t deserve this.”
He struggled to keep his voice steady. “Yes, I agree. And I never wanted it.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her head twist toward him. “Then why?”
“My fiancée was Mossad. She was assassinated by a car bomb.”
Her expression changed several times in seconds. Surprise, followed by thoughtful consideration and then dismissal with a scowl. “You want revenge? That’s all?” She shook her head.
“Whatcha mean?”
“I’m doing this to help make Israel safe. Our existence requires hard work from everyone. Living here is not so easy as it is in Britain. Revenge is a luxury we can’t afford. It makes us choose alternatives that are risky and doubtful. If that is your goal, you should leave now. Leave us today.”
He kept running but lost speed as he thought about her words. What this woman told him fit what Lisa had asked of him, demanded of him. He imagined Lisa’s words: “Why do you want to be a banker? Why not save the world? Save our people.” He trotted forward, deep in thought as he put the pieces of his puzzle, his life, into a new configuration.
By the time he finished running, he felt different. There was new energy surging through him.
He could still feel his desire for revenge. But there was something else driving him as well. He felt the stirrings of commitment to Israel. The survival of a tiny nation depended on people like him.
He attended classes in surveillance and counter-surveillance tradecraft, interrogation, weapons and self-defense, and Mossad history and operations.
Every day he felt exhaustion dragging him. But, when he remembered Ben-Levy telling him the training had always taken two years before now, he had to work to contain a laugh. Who could do this for two years?
The Office gossip mill let him know the need for case officers and kidon had recently increased. Israel had lost many of them recently.
Like most who’d attended British schools, Jon spoke French, German, and Italian, having learned them from public school. The Mossad taught him Hebrew, and he developed an ear for the strange language. His fluency bolstered his confidence for his classes in Arabic and Russian.
But the most important language he learned there was the Naka, a report-writing system used by operatives. Naka enabled covert agents to relay messages to their handlers without being decrypted by hostiles. It used keys built using several changing variables, dependent on the agent, the handler, and the date, time, and location. The various keys for a single message could be contained in a paper book, using a formula to expand the variables into a full-fledged cryptographic system.
During one of his rest periods, he hung out by an indoor pool, surrounded by attractive Sabras in bikinis who reminded him of Lisa. That night, he thought of her, sleepless, remembering a time they’d sat in her tub together, their skin slippery with soapy water. He remembered seeing a large red scar on her torso, just below her left breast. He wondered if that was a result of her work for Mossad. But of course it was.
From the first day on, he’d attended classes in a special branch of martial arts called Krav Maga. One of their female operatives showed him moves using his wrists, elbows, and knees.
When his trainers felt confident he could defend himself, he was introduced to a katsa named Shulamit Ries for his exam. Ries, a thin, blond woman with dark skin and pale blue eyes, smiled at him. “Call me Shula. Show me how you defend yourself in hand-to-hand combat.”
Standing ready on the mat, he tilted his head. “What do you want me to do? Which moves?”
She grimaced. “You just keep me from pounding you into the floor. It’s my specialty. You keep me away from you. If you can’t, I’ll hurt you. You fight dirty, using moves that mirror mine.” Shula sprung her left foot into his gut, doubling him over. She finished by sending her elbow into his head, and he fell to the floor.
She shook her head. “You should have seen me change the distribution of my weight in preparation for the kick. When I start to move, you have two options. Either you step to the side to avoid being damaged, or you catch my leg and flip me over. Ready?”
He hadn’t been prepared for her first attack. He rose and positioned his weight. “Ready.”
After ten minutes, he hurt in places he’d never felt pain before. That night, he peered in the mirror at the damage she’d done. He was covered in black and blue marks, and she’d given him a failing grade.
In two weeks, he could see her move coming and avoid it. In three weeks he could stop her and move away. In four, he could toss her down on her back. But not often.
She taught Jon how to defeat someone holding an edged weapon, a gun, or a club. As the days passed, the work callused his hands and feet. He became proficient at stopping up to three unarmed attackers at a time.
One hot afternoon, Shula walked into the room carrying a Beretta. She glared. “This gun is load
ed.” She placed its barrel against his forehead. “This close to your skull, even a .22 will blow your brains out. In five seconds I will pull the trigger. We lose many trainees with this test. Keep me from killing you.”
He gulped and closed his eyes, frozen. He focused on dismissing the terror he felt. Then he opened them, focusing on her face. As fast as he could, he shifted his head away as his hands pushed the gun to the other side, and in that instant he grabbed her hand and twisted the gun from her.
Shula smiled. “Good. That was your final exam. You passed.” In seconds, she’d disappeared from the hall. He later learned that four of the thirty-six trainees had failed.
Ben-Levy taught a class in Middle Eastern history, focusing on the wake of World War Two, Islamic terrorism, Mossad’s growth and development, and tactics and operations for both Israel and its enemies. It seemed to Jon that Israel’s friends became its enemies and then to its friends again, depending on the moment’s realpolitik.
According to Ben-Levy, Israel’s most frustrating relationships were with Great Britain and the United States, both of which often had ulterior motives for their dealings.
The spymaster started his first lecture with this: “We don’t tolerate failure among our covert operatives, especially when a covert operation that should work on paper goes bad. We never start an operation without a thorough analysis of potential outcomes. When we fail, and especially if the failure threatens to become public, we might well decide to punish the katsa, the operative in charge. We’ll often move them to a desk job and stop giving them responsibility for covert operations. If the failed operation exposes our hand, embarrassing us in another country, we may burn the operative. In extreme cases, we’ll even execute a kidon who failed, before he can be identified, picked up, tortured, and forced to reveal our secrets. If we intend to execute anyone, whether it be one of our own operatives or a terrorist, the execution order is presented to the Prime Minister for his or her approval.”
