by Paul Usiskin
‘That’s a shame. I’m sorry I can’t say anymore than that.’ He yawned uncontrollably. ‘Please excuse me, I’m really tired. Do you have a card?’ he asked producing a Justice Ministry visiting card, English on one side, Hebrew on the other and a gov.il e-mail address, his name but no PID reference. He’d wanted it like that.
‘What do you do?’ Freund asked handing over his card.
‘I work at the Justice Ministry.’
‘I read that on your card. I understand that you have to be careful what you say.’
‘What I said was my own opinion.’
‘I appreciate your candor.’ They paid their bills, Dov wincing at how this would look on his expenses and headed to the glass street door. ‘Call me if you have time for another drink,’ said Freund.
‘I can’t promise, it’s a very tight schedule.’ Dov made for the door. Producing keys from his top coat pocket Freund asked, ‘Can I drive you somewhere? My car’s just over there.’
‘That’s good of you, but my hotel’s in walking distance,’ and Dov moved off and stopped to cross H Street waiting for the traffic to clear. From behind he heard a grunt.
He dismissed it and prepared to cross.
Another sound, a yell. Dov searched for the source. Daniel Freund was on the sidewalk being kicked by two men.
In the ambulance Daniel motioned to his coat pocket from which Dov removed his wallet and found his health care card. The hospital was a matter of minutes away. Dov saw Daniel into the ER. It didn’t smell of hospitals he knew back home; this one smelled of leather furniture, polished floors and subtly scented air. He found a cab. Back in his room, his foot ached. Resting it on the bed, his jet lag finally chewed away at the adrenaline rush from the street fight. Too tired even to shower he got into bed naked. His last images were of this other being savaging two men mercilessly attacking Freund. As he lost the battle against closing eyelids, he tried to identify who that being was.
4
They came at night in a tall white van. The target property’s electronics had been carefully hacked.
Getting to that night had taken a year. Members of the unit were handpicked. Qassim was a psychology student, keen to apply what he was learning about human behavior. Criteria for unit members included good physical fitness and a mental aptitude for handling the stress that the intricacies of the operation would demand. That made sourcing the right personnel difficult.
He had to choose people who wouldn’t sell him out before, during or after the operation, and his first approach had to work right off. Failure then would necessitate eliminating its cause. He discovered that he was quite prepared for that. The second person, Farez, a fellow psychology student, failed. Qassim monitored Farez’s cellphone and saw he’d texted, ‘The Jews are going to have to learn and I’m going to teach them,’ to a friend.
He followed Farez for a few days. He always traveled by local train from Atlit on the coast south of Haifa to Tel Aviv University in the morning. In a country as security conscious as Israel, Qassim was surprised that the platform he’d use to expedite the liability had no CCTV. He knew the timetable. An express from Haifa always came through Atlit every day at the same time without stopping. The platform was thick with passengers. Qassim stood with one other between him and Farez, reading something on his cell-phone, sideways on to the platform edge.
As the train reached the platform Qassim lurched as if pushed by someone into the passenger in front of him who in turn shouldered Farez. It wasn’t a shove but enough that he tottered, still looking at his cell screen. What happened next was a perfect demonstration of Bernoulli’s Principle.
The red double-decker Nahariyah-Beersheva train with the white stripe along the side thundered through the station at eighty miles an hour, not high -speed, but fast enough to fulfill the Principle’s criteria. The train dragged the air close to its carriages sucking Farez away.
The whole incident took seconds, no one realized anything had happened until a passenger on the train saw something horrendous on his window and pulled the emergency handle and the sound of screeching brakes made everyone at the station look up the line. Passengers craned forward but saw only the distant halted train. Everyone began talking. ‘What happened?’ ‘Was there an accident?’ ‘There was a guy standing in front of me, then he was gone!’ ‘Suicide?’ ‘Why do they choose rush hour?’ ‘We’ll be stuck here for hours now!’ followed by a station announcement that all services were temporarily suspended; the sound of myriad cell-phone calls filled the air.
Qassim was out of the station before the announcement. He felt nothing at all and was convinced he could carry out all facets of his operation, taking more lives if it came to it. He worked harder vetting his next candidates and completed the process over two months.
There were four of them in the van. From it Faisal signaled remotely to open and close the gates after they drove in, and as they approached the stylish modern white house, the front door was remotely unlocked. Three of the members of the unit moved inside and stood listening.
The Biderman property was perfect. Qassim had found it using Google Earth. He wanted a place that was accessible yet secluded, somewhere his unit could come and go without attracting attention. Google Earth showed him land belonging to a kibbutz on the Sharon Plain, south and east of the well-to-do town of Herzliyah. On the satellite imagery he saw a white building off a narrow road with fields on the south side and a screen of trees, perhaps an orange grove, on the north. The kibbutz was two kilometers to the east of the building and the Tel Aviv-Haifa high-way was a similar distance to the west. The road on which the property sat was unnamed, suggesting, as it turned out when he drove along it later, that it wasn’t a public thoroughfare, but a part paved surface, used mostly by kibbutz farm vehicles. More information gathering revealed that Uri Biderman had purchased a tranche of the grove from the cash-hungry kibbutz.
It was eight thirty on a Tuesday night. Qassim smiled to himself. From first seeing the place on Google Earth to standing in the atrium of the Biderman house was an exciting translation from plan to reality, and he relished the moment.
The TV in the lounge was on. A news program was running, they’d heard it in the van, a special on Barack Obama. Qassim smiled as he listened to the two people in the room arguing.
‘It’s going to be a fucking disaster with that black Arab still in the White House.’ Uri Biderman stated.
‘Bad language and racism don’t suit you Uri,’ his wife Ilana chided. ‘If I were an American, I’d vote for him.’
‘Why? Because he’s a handsome black man? I didn’t know that turned you on.’
‘You can be so disgusting, do you know? He’d have had my vote because he’s smart, because he got the health bill through, because he’s been restrained in the face of our Man’s insults. He still supports us. He even celebrates Hanukkah at the White House.’
‘Hanukkah? That’s just spin. Bottom line? We’re a strategic asset to the USA.’
‘With the Man in power in Jerusalem, we’re a pain in the ass to the USA is what we are.’
‘Now who’s using bad language?’
The shadows from the TV flickered out of the open door across the walls of the ground floor, reflected in the water of the fountain in the middle of the atrium with its two palms reaching up to the domed glass roof.
From the upper floor, dulled by walls, floors and rugs, came the incessant beat and thump of youth music. Qassim knew it was from sixteen-year old Shoshi’s room. Spoilt child, he thought.
‘Where’s Miri?’ Qassim whispered into his buds mic.
Faisal in the van, monitoring the house interior, confirmed, ‘In her room reading.’
‘Good.’ Then to the other two, Ismail and Tima, ‘Go bring her down.’ He knew Shoshi’s room was on the opposite side of the upper floor to Miri’s and the music would conceal any noise Miri might initially
make.
Moments later Miri, paled by shock, stood staring at Qassim.
He said, ‘Let’s go. Switch off the TV.’ Faisal obeyed, and the shadows stopped flickering.
‘A fuse must have blown somewhere,’ Uri was saying to Ilana. He was pointing the remote at the TV when Miri entered the room, her wrists zip-tied behind her, three individuals in black combats with her.
‘Uri, sit down next to Ilana. Go and get Shoshi,’ Qassim ordered Tima. ‘Stop the music.’ Faisal stopped it.
‘Dad? My CD player’s not…’ Shoshi’s voice trailed off and moments later, she sat with her family.
The resemblances were obvious. Uri strong framed, salt and pepper hair and Ilana, petite, bobbed brunette, had produced two pretty daughters. Shoshi had her father’s height and her mother’s face and hair, dark and determined. Miri was more like Ilana, shorter than her sister, black hair, light skin, delicate features, questioning eyes.
They remained motionless, responding to the implied threat of violence. He marveled at how exquisite an imagination machine the mind was.
‘Do any of you know what a role play is?’ Qassim asked.
5
Qassim gave the Bidermans an old canvas bell tent and some wood in their back yard. It was two and a half acres of grass and orange trees, enclosed by a low wood fence, with security lights and CCTV cameras. Faisal controlled them and shut off all but one of the lights. Qassim told them to start a fire.
They sat huddled by it, comforted by the heat of the flames, as Qassim knew they would be, despite the warm evening air. He said all communications would be monitored. Everyone they knew would receive e-mails saying that the whole family had a nasty flu bug. A text from Ilana’s cell-phone to Uri’s secretary at his start-up finance and management company, told her he was too unwell to speak, but she should e-mail any urgent queries.
Unexpected meant predictable to Qassim, who had been assiduous in researching the Biderman’s circle of family, friends and work colleagues. Barring the arrival of some distant relative or forgotten friend, he would control any contact.
Predictable included Uri’s reaction. As Qassim turned to leave, Uri threw himself at him, trying to punch at his head and chest. Qassim was ready, in a quick shift of body weight he threw Uri to the ground and punched him once hard in the solar plexus, neutralizing him. Miri’s wrists were freed and Shoshi’s were zip-tied and a hood placed over her head and she was taken away. The only sound was Uri’s gasps for breath.
The family were given a one liter bottle of water, a folding spade, a cooking pan, four disposable plates and cups and a coffee pot, tea, rice and flour. A small TV monitor was set up in the cramped tent, linked to the CCTV, so the Bidermans could watch what was happening inside their home.
Faisal had incorporated mini cameras and mics in the tent structure, undetectable to the naked eye and in the monitor as a fall back.
So it began. The unit went room by room through the house, removing everything valuable. Qassim provided a commentary. ‘You must understand … isn’t that how Israeli spokesmen begin? … You must understand that when Jewish refugees occupied Arab properties during and after the 1948 war, many of them were full of possessions the owners couldn’t take with them when they fled. Some of what the new occupants found they discarded, some they looted, though there was little left as your soldiers had already taken the best. The Arab village on whose land the kibbutz and your house were built, disappeared. And in the years since 1967 there has been wholesale land theft in the West Bank and persistent vandalism of Palestinian property. You haven’t stopped your war against us.’
The contents of the rooms were placed in big plastic storage boxes, i-Pads and laptops, printers, cell phones, radios, i-Pods and dockable speakers, DVD players, a Nespresso machine, clothing, ID cards and passports, the safe emptied, Uri’s two automatics, clips and ammunition, keys to the three cars in the garage, an SUV, a sports car and a saloon, all BMWs.
Uri watched as Ismail began removing a small painting from the wall of the dining room, twisting its light fixture aside. He protested. ‘That’s a genuine Chagall. It’s valued at …’
‘$325,000, a gift from your cousin in New York. Are you sure it’s genuine?’ Qassim teased through the monitor’s speaker.
‘He’s an art dealer. That’s the insurance value he gave it…how the fuck do you know…’
‘Shhh Uri,’ Ilana admonished.
‘You must understand that I know all about you and your family Uri,’ Qassim announced, sarcasm tingeing his words.
‘What have you done to Shoshi?’ Uri shouted.
‘Nothing.’
The Bidermans watched as Qassim’s unit cooked an evening meal in their kitchen, ate it using their cutlery, crockery and glassware, finishing with oranges from their grove, made and drank coffee from their mugs, showered in their showers, and went to sleep in their beds.
There was no sign of Shoshi.
Faisal’s cameras showed a family struggling to cope. Uri reminded his family of camping holidays they’d had. But that didn’t work when Ilana and Miri needed the toilet and had to suffice with the spade to make and cover up the holes they dug for their body waste. Tempers frayed over little things, the limited diet keeping them hungry, the lack of privacy and the very confined space to live and sleep in. Asked what he was doing to end this, Uri said, ‘What can I do? They have Shoshi.’
It was half past midnight.
The family had run out of water. Another one liter bottle was left for them. This one had a sedative.
Water was made more tantalizing. On the screen, Tima got up to get water to drink. Ismail had a jug of it by his bed, Shoshi’s bed, and poured himself some and drank it before going to sleep. Qassim carefully washed and brushed his teeth, rinsing slowly, then drank a glass of iced water from the refrigerator dispenser.
The Bidermans finished their bottle in twenty minutes.
When Qassim was sure the Bidermans were all asleep, the unit left the house and went to work.
On Wednesday morning Uri woke first and the screen showed the unit having breakfast at his kitchen table watching his flat screen TV tuned to an Arab station. The camera angle didn’t allow him to see what was being broadcast, but he recognized a few words and the names Obama and Biden.
He got up and went out of the tent. A plastic jerry can had been left outside. He went to light a fire for hot water, and was astonished to see a stockade, erected overnight, completely surrounding the tent. Close up he saw razor wire along the top and base of the stockade and in front of that what looked like double strand electrified cattle wire strung on posts in front of the coils of razor wire on the ground. He’d seen similar insulated posts with their red electricity warning flashes around the kibbutz cattle fields.
When Ilana and Miri came out of the tent to see it, Miri shouted, ‘I want to get out of here! I’m frightened! Where’s Shoshi? Tell them to let us out Daddy!’
Ilana was silent and apparently controlled, but her rapid blinks said otherwise to Qassim watching her on the camera feed. She put her arm around Miri. Her, ‘It’s OK sweetie, we’ll be all right,’ wasn’t convincing.
As the Bidermans’ first full day wore on, their isolation intensifying, their circumstances exacerbating their mind sets, a sound beyond the stockade drew them to the screen, the high-pitched whine of a power saw.
A big close up on their monitor showed an orange tree being cut down. The tree had a split trunk, the two sides of the V quite spindly; the saw parted them in seconds. Ilana gasped and Miri looked on, her face wan. The screen went blank but the saw’s nerve jangling crescendo continued on and off. The scent of orange wood filled the air. ‘They’re destroying the orange trees,’ said Uri. Qassim wanted to tell him that when settlers destroyed Palestinian olive groves they weren’t so careful.
The first day ended with the Bidermans watching
the unit comfortable in their home, the novelty of the experience fading into angry envy.
‘See. No more appeals,’ Qassim commented to Faisal, watching the monitors in the van. ‘They’ve started to mentally adjust, so no attempts to break out.’
The Bidermans woke very early on Thursday; they hadn’t been sedated. What woke them was a pair of clucking hens. Ilana got out of the tent first, thinking eggs, boiled or fried or mixed with their meager rice ration; that would be a welcome change.
‘Chicken for supper?’ Uri asked reading her mind. They focused on one hen and chased it round and round, Ilana laughing, Uri cursing. The hen clucked more loudly as it twisted and turned and Miri urged Uri on. He waited and watched the hen peck closer to the fence where feed had been sprinkled. At the last minute Uri dived for it, but the hen swerved right into the cattle fence and there was a fizz and a zizz and the fowl tumbled down lifeless on the other side of the razor wire, out of reach. They left the second hen alone.
After lunch, overcooked rice washed down with water, Shoshi was returned.
Qassim observed Uri quizzing his daughter. ‘Are you OK? Did they do anything to you? Where did they keep you?’
‘They left the hood on, they checked me regularly, fed me and gave me water and helped me when I needed the toilet. They gave me a clipping from the Maariv newspaper. It was about a family that owned land, olive groves, but we built the separation barrier and they were cut off from it. To get to the harvest, the owner and his sons had to get up at three a.m. to get to a checkpoint fifteen kilometers away, to reach the groves that are just the other side of the barrier. Often, they weren’t allowed through the checkpoint, and when they finally got there, the trees had been torn down.’
‘They’re fucking with our heads,’ Uri hissed.
‘Uri!’ Ilana growled. ‘You know, we all know, that happens.’
‘What are you, a Peace Now supporter? This is all twisted. They’re stressing us out until we break.’
