by Paul Usiskin
16
Dov spent the day going through the data on Zvi Yaakov’s stick, then the traffic monitoring logs that Amos had received, then Aviel’s report on his meeting with the Bidermans. The stick was the easiest because in addition to the actual calls recorded, it also had a listing of the numbers. Three were predominant. The first two were the office and cell numbers of Eli Eliyahu, the HQ deputy commander. The third was from the fifteen Unknown Caller calls that Amos’s monitoring had already seen.
‘Can your experts attribute those, even though the identity was unknown?’
‘Attribute? Now that’s a good old hi-tech word...AT&T developed that facility, and Israeli technology helped them update it. There’re a couple of guys I know who’re telephony experts. I already asked them to look into this.’
‘We’re beginning to sound like the Colonel and Radar in MASH.’
‘Mash?’
‘Never mind. I authorized your pay upgrade.’
‘I didn’t want to ask.’
‘It’s a bit more than a senior aide’s pay grade.’
‘I’m the only one in PID.’
‘I know. Deputy PID Director can’t be too far off.’ He enjoyed the reaction of surprise and expectation on Amos’ face. ‘When do you think your, what did you call them, telephony experts, will have something for us? Like today?’
‘When I know, you will.’
The traffic logs were on a video file. Dov watched the tunnel traffic CCTV real-time digital recordings of Avi Mazal in a Hyundai SUV. There are far too many of these, he thought, and also a range of vehicles called would you believe, and I don’t, crossovers, a kind of transgender automation? What was wrong with a regular saloon? These crossovers made everyone who drove them look like they were going on safari. Mazal’s vehicle entered and exited the tunnel moments before the RTA. Dov reran the sequence three times before trying to get the plate of a battered shipping container truck that kept up with Mazal. It was there as they exited the tunnel, just before the tunnel recordings ceased; the truck had pulled out, didn’t overtake, stayed parallel.
He buzzed Amos. ‘There’s a container truck on the tunnel CCTV. Can you get image enhancement, including its container and who owns it and also send me a copy of the Mazal RTA report?’
Aviel’s summary stressed that Ilan Gurwitz had made no substantive progress and had withheld two crucial documents which he’d demanded; if the Top Secret one proved to be authentic, then it was a major security breach. It also cried out for a PID investigation into Gurwitz for withholding evidence.
Dov emailed Hassid and called the Shin Bet and Kfar Saba police.
The phone rang. It wasn’t Amos. Hassid asked to meet him. Here it comes, he thought as he walked the corridor, why are you investigating Avi Mazal’s death and the Biderman case?
Hassid greeted him effusively, and then a bell went off in Dov’s head. The elections. He’d got so focused on his various lines of investigation, national politics had not intruded. They must be making the Minister very nervous; he was vulnerable. Israeli governments were the result of coalition deals; only once briefly in the 60s did one party have a majority big enough to rule alone. Hard bargaining concentrated on who got what out of the state revenues and which Ministerial portfolio selections to serve their party interests, and satisfy their voters. It was like sharks feeding.
Yosef Hassid was right to worry. The Man appointed him from outside the political sphere. Hassid was a wealthy and influential lawyer, a member of one of the elites the Man was intent on neutralizing. He headed Tel Aviv’s largest law firm, was a successful defense counsellor, as well as advising clients on tax avoidance or solving other problems through his high-level political contacts. He was also rigorously religious.
As Israel began to emerge as more authentically Jewish, according to media commentators, Hassid had outlined his future vision in a radio interview, for an Israel gradually ruled by Halakha, Jewish religious law. Of course this was taken out of context, he insisted, in the furor his prophecy created.
‘Dov! Dov Ha’Tov, ha ha!’ Hassid enjoyed his childish rhyme of Dov with the Hebrew for good; Dov also meant bear, but he wasn’t amused. ‘Are you doing good Dov? Catching errant policemen? Bringing them to book, making our police force a clean force? Excellent.’
Dov’s was a frozen smile, he said nothing.
‘Up to your old tricks? Exceeding your brief?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Dov, his smile unwavering. ‘There’s a link between the Biderman affair and the TNT2 Ramallah abduction, and I want to follow it.’
‘What, the crimes are linked? The same people did both? They were all policemen?’
Dov’s smile faded. Could he share his suspicions that the Avi Mazal murder was the link?
‘No, that’s not what I said. It’s more subtle than that, but obvious too.’
‘Subtly obvious or obviously subtle?’
Hassid was being annoyingly flippant, or was it flippantly annoying? Time to get off the pot.
‘The Six Days of the Bidermans prompted the Ramallah abduction, a Price Tag reprisal, right? But no one seems to have followed up on that, and when I did I found anomalies. Then a police officer was killed.’
‘What anomalies?’
‘The officer investigating the Biderman affair withheld evidence. I’ve sent you a report recommending that Chief Inspector Gurwitz face a PID probe. And not only that. He’s been the opposite of diligent in his handling of the whole case. Nothing to show, days in.’
‘Neglectful.’
‘I’m sorry?”
‘The opposite of diligent.’
‘Negligent is much better.’
‘What evidence and withheld from whom?’ Hassid’s tone said, I know what you know but I want you to say it. Not for the first time Dov noted how Hassid’s heavy Ashkenazi pronunciation, thickened the more insistent he became. And sputum flew too.
Dov sat back out of range. ‘A press clipping and an excerpt from a Shin Bet medical report, withheld from Aviel Weiss.’
‘What on earth’s Weiss got to do with this?’
‘You approved his extended stay and you got the Minister of Public Security, Aviel’s effective line manager, to agree to it too. Aviel owed me and I needed some questions asked and didn’t have time. You can’t have forgotten all that.’
Hassid hadn’t. ‘So let me advise you that all the strands in that case are being pursued by Kfar Saba police and the Shin Bet are investigating if the document was genuine. They’ve indicated that it was a forgery. And frankly I applaud Inspector Gurwitz for wanting to handle that sensitively. He saw it as a matter of national security. It’s best left that way.’
Who’s been whispering in your ear this time?
‘As to the Mazal road traffic accident, that’s exactly what it was, tragic but an accident. You shouldn’t be doing this Dov, honestly you shouldn’t, phoning a EUPOL COPPS officer, that’s beyond your jurisdiction; calling on a District Commander, asking insinuating questions. You’re looking for clear and present dangers where they don’t exist. I’m ordering you to cease and desist. I’m doing it verbally, but I can and will make it formal.’
‘You signed the authorization requesting access to the J and S District Commander’s records, so I’ll take all you’ve said under advisement,’ countering Hassid’s American idioms with his own.
‘You’ll do more than that, Dov. You’ll do as I tell you.’
Or else? You won’t fire me, because that’ll create headlines you really don’t need, what with the elections and those sharks scenting your blood, Dov thought but didn’t say.
Hassid lowered his tone. ‘There’s enough genuine PID investigations for you to supervise, two involving over zealous police cadets in which civilians lost their lives...’
‘I’m looking into that already,’ Dov interrupted. He
rarely lied.
Hassid ignored him, ‘There’re more, but one is particularly sensitive, police failure to act over an organic farmer and his land grab antics. He’s something of a local hero to certain members of our brave settler community, but no one’s brought him to book. You’re the man for that and that’s what I’ve told Hillel Telem. Meanwhile I’ll see about this other stuff you’re poking your nose into. Lots to do Dov, lots to do.’
Dov hoped his yes sounded acquiescent, even though he didn’t mean it.
On his way back to his office, he had to admit Hassid was right. He was head of PID, not a police investigator. But he knew that Yosef Hassid couldn’t ultimately take the investigator out of Dov or Dov out of investigations.
Someone else wanted to, Hillel Telem, Minister of Public Security, who oversaw the police, and to whom Dov was ostensibly answerable? Most of the time he avoided Telem because he thought him a bigot. He was notorious for his racist comments about Palestinians. He believed, like his party leader, that they should be encouraged to leave.
Telem had been a deputy Police Commissioner, before that a Border Police commander, exactly the type of thug in a uniform Dov thought gave the police a bad name. Telem thought Dov was a back-stabbing whistle blower. Hassid had known it and played Dov’s protector whenever it suited him. It didn’t right now. Who’ll protect me if Hassid goes? Dov wondered. Dummy! Telem’s as expendable as Hassid in any post election re-shuffle. What about you? If there’s a new minister, why not a new PID head? Your turn to panic. Panic? Me? Never.
He reached his office door, went inside and sat down at his desk.
Amos materialized soundlessly. Not there, and then there. ‘How did it go with the Minister?’
‘Can you stop doing that! How did you know I was with him?’
‘It’s ESP, just like Radar in MASH.’
‘You’ve been reading Wikipedia.’
‘The font of all knowledge. So the Minister warned you off pursuing the Biderman case and the TNT2 abductions, because he can’t risk negative headlines during the elections, and you agreed though you didn’t mean it, and I’ve got you the Road Traffic Accident report on the death of Inspector Mazal, plus research done by the Hebrew University with Hadassah Hospital’s Injury Prevention Center, on truck traffic accidents. No license plate enhancement was possible. The truck had no plates.’
‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said Dov.
‘Are you hallucinating?’ he asked and was gone, not at all like the Cheshire cat, just gone, before Dov could ask him to get an enhanced close up on the truck driver.
He read the research: Though trucks were 6% of all Israel’s vehicles, truck accidents accounted for 20% of all road deaths. The biggest causes were drivers’ sleep deprivation, unhealthy life style and an accumulation of unchecked or undisclosed health issues. The research also noted that truck drivers had no union to protect their rights, and tended to be of low socio-economic status.
What wasn’t in the research, Dov knew, was the political affiliations of truck drivers with the right wing, and that many illegal hilltop settlements had begun with empty shipping containers.
The RTA report said that Mazal’s vehicle had come off Route 1 on a hard bend and the final impact of the vehicle, which had rolled three times before reaching the rocky gully below, upside down, had caused Mazal’s death. What had caused the vehicle to leave the road was not clear. The left front tire had burst, but whether before or after impact was not definable, as rain had washed the surface before the crash scene investigators had arrived. So wrote the investigator, whose name was indecipherable, Kahan, Keinan?
Had there been rain that morning? Dov didn’t think so.
There were no witnesses to the accident. The individual who’d called it in had only seen the aftermath. There were passersby but they hadn’t seen the occurrence either.
He left Amos a voice mail requesting enhancement of the truck driver. Then he called the Israel Meteorological Service for a weather assessment in the Maalei Adumim area for the day of the Mazal RTA; it hadn’t rained on that section of Route 1 that day, or anywhere else in that region the IMS confirmed. He went to his white board and wrote in red, ‘Gurwitz withholding evidence, Unknown Caller calls to Mazal several times, author of Mazal RTA report lied.’
The state of Mazal’s vehicle did not allow for immediate determination of cause of accident, whether external or internal. The report ended with: ‘Forensic examination will take time and this is a low priority due to the high incidence of other RTAs.’ So Dov wrote after ‘lied,’ ‘and is slowing down forensic conclusion of Mazal’s RTA.’
Dov had his own ideas as to cause of the accident, one of which was that this was no accident and he decided to prioritize the forensic examination himself. His little voice chose that moment to start whining Hassid won’t be happy. He told it to shut the fuck up. He called the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv to tell Professor Ephraim Cordova he was on his way.
17
‘Dov, how are you?’ The eighty something Emeritus Professor of Pathology greeted him.
‘I’m well thanks Ephraim, and you?’
‘Equally.’
‘I’ve got an RTA report I’m not satisfied with and I need another set of eyes on it.’
‘What a pity. If you had said you had problems with fingerprints, so to say, I would have been able to assist you. There is a new imaging process the Chemistry Institute at Hebrew University launched just before this latest Gaza stupidity. I am keen to test it. RTA forensics are not my field directly. There is a man at police HQ in Jerusalem who they say is excellent. He arrived from America five months ago. He is said to be very eager. I will contact him for you.’
Dov listened carefully to the old man’s speech pattern, noting its precision, its lack of apostrophes, nothing abbreviated. And only one trademark ‘so to say.’ Despite his age, the Emeritus pathologist enjoyed a full head of white hair, skin that was permanently suntanned, striking face that reflected intellect and wisdom. The giveaway to what was going on in his superb brain was his eyes, deep blue, very expressive. Dov hoped he’d be as spry at Ephraim’s age.
Dov watched how Ephraim’s hands moved, long fingers with the ability to be delicate, the absolute sine qua non for a pathologist. Had it not been for Dov’s swift reaction when he’d found Ephraim in a refrigerator unit at Abu Kabir, left for dead by someone trying to undermine the Defense Ministry scandal investigation, his hands cut to the bone by wires wrapped around them in a barbaric torture ritual, Ephraim’s career would have been finished. He loved this man.
‘Thanks. Sorry about not being able to avail myself of your expertise this time.’
‘Avail myself? You are beginning to sound as verbose as me,’ he chuckled drily.
‘Verbose, Ephraim? You? Never. Me? Only very occasionally.’ He paused. ‘Anyway I’d really like to spend some time with you, sip some of your chilled sherry and nibble roasted almonds.’
‘Yes? Good. When are you next in Tel Aviv? I wanted to talk with you anyway.’
‘Let’s do Friday. I’ll make time. Same little bar in Yafo? What did you want to discuss?’
Cordova ignored the question. ‘I would love to see Yakub again. You know I have only seen him once?’
‘OK. Say two-thirty?’
‘Two-thirty.’
‘I mean is two-thirty OK?’
‘You said, say two-thirty. I did.’
‘Very droll Ephraim.’
Dov decided to personally meet and greet the RTA forensics specialist Ephraim had spoken with. A minute before the time, a canary yellow Humvee, tipped on the driver’s side, came through the Ministry gate and parked in the bay marked Attorney General. A large man in US army desert regulation combats and off-white lace up boots, got out and the suspension reset itself as he locked up and climbed the steps at the entrance. Dov decided he wouldn
’t ask him to move his vehicle to one of the visitors’ bays.
This man was the same towering size as Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf Jr of Operation Desert Storm fame, and obtrusively armed with a huge automatic in a shoulder holster worn over his combat tunic. He was fair, with a crescent moon Punch-like head, much bigger physique than the cartoon original, fluorescent teeth, and a chin that threatened to meet the sharp downward curve of his nose. He had an inquisitive look and spoke loudly with a slight drawl, and said ‘Shalome’ which set Dov’s teeth on edge. He was sure he didn’t mean to crush Dov’s fingers as he shook hands. He spoke in English and thought Dov could too. ‘I’m Rick,’ he said. ‘So this is the famous Justice Ministry and you’re the chief shoe-fly?’
‘Nice to meet you Rick…’ Dov glanced at the name on the strip above his tunic’s right chest pocket. It said Fetlock.
‘Yeah, ain’t that sump’n?’ and waited for Dov to ask about it, but he didn’t. Rick looked disappointed. He strode towards the stairs, ignoring the elevators. ‘I’m guessin’ y’all are on the second floor, corner office?’
‘Yes,’ was all Dov could think of, surprised by the accuracy of the guess. He asked, ‘why didn’t I come to the HQ to look over the car wreck.’
‘No need. Goddit all with me.’ From a big patch pocket he produced an iPad mini which looked very small in his hand. ‘Besides, I don’t get out of my lab much, this was a good excuse. Shall we?’ he gestured for Dov and carried on speaking, taking the stairs two at a time. ‘The Isra-el Po-lice have wisely decided to dump their fleet of Czech Skoda patrol Vee-hickles, nothing against the Czechs, but their diesel-based engines make a lotta noise. So they’re looking at three types of CUVs.’
‘CUVs?’
‘Urban crossover utility Vee-hickles.’
‘OK…’ Transgender automation again?
‘Subaru’s Forester, Kia’s Sportage and Hyundai’s Santa Fe.’
‘I know Subaru…’
