The End of Terror

by Howitt, Bruce

  Six months after that first encounter in the commissary, a wedding was planned. For Eli and Sophie, it was a highlight of their lives. Ari’s grandparents were beyond excited, never having imagined that they would have children, let alone grandchildren who were getting married.

  Sophie’s parents travelled from Canada and renewed their warm relationship with the Israeli families. Leah came from a small family, and only her parents, Max and Ruth, and Max’s sister, Golda Silber, were in attendance. Of course, Ari’s whole family welcomed Leah and her relatives with open arms. Ephraim and Miriam gently prodded Eli into making sure their friends Ariel and Yitzak Blum, their great friends from Kibbutz Yagur, were on the guest list. They had continued their special relationship through the years.

  Miriam, Ephraim, Yitzak, and Ariel sat next to each other at the ceremony and all had tears in their eyes. They each knew that this joyous occasion was the result of their heroic efforts to survive a living hell and then their joint efforts to enable the Lazaruses to rebuild their lives in Israel.

  Ariel’s eyes said it all. They were sparkling with joy as she watched the young couple exchange their vows under the chuppah (wedding canopy). She leaned over and whispered to her husband, Yitzhak, “If it had not been for my chance meeting with Miriam and Ephraim on the dock in Haifa all those years ago, I honestly don’t believe we would be witnessing this incredible simcha. We and they have been truly blessed to know each other and have had such an enduring friendship.”

  “Amen,” her husband replied. “Darling, you worked your magic on Ephraim and Miriam, and since you first met, so much good has happened. Their repaired lives, their children and grandchildren getting married, the incredible success of the canning enterprise at Yagur. They all have stemmed from your adopting the Lazarus family. Even though you are from Brooklyn, you should be considered an Israeli national treasure!”

  For that, he received a well-directed elbow jab in the ribs, delivered with a huge grin and sparkling adoring eyes.

  CHAPTER 13

  After the wedding, Ari realized that getting married was what he truly wanted. For the first time in his life, he had a purpose beyond the military, but he had no grounded career. In the months after he met Leah, he had resigned his position and joined another company, but he now came to recognize that corporate life was not for him. He had thrived during his tour with the Mista′arvim. He revelled in the sheer excitement of providing unparalleled security to his country and the thrill of the hunt in chasing down the radical Islamist terrorists whose only mission in life was to kill Israelis and Jews all over the world.

  With Ari in command, his particular group had had significant success in eliminating several score of terrorists both inside Israel’s borders and in neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza.

  Ari and his colleagues vowed that one day the terrorists would have no cause to make brazen and cowardly statements of bravado.

  Eventually, he discussed his situation with his father, Eli.

  “Abba, we are both aware of my general duties in the army, which neither of us can discuss, but I must tell you I miss the purpose and the action.”

  “Ari, you are married now. Hopefully, please God, you and Leah will have children. You have served your country well; far beyond any expectations. Why would you want to place yourself in harm’s way?”

  “Abba, I have been on some operations I cannot forget. The hate and vile acts perpetrated on our little country cannot be forgotten or ignored. I know I am able to make a significant contribution to our security. Sitting in an office working up sales and marketing plans for some start-up electronics company doesn’t excite me. I know, I know it is nice and secure and safe for Leah, and it makes you and Ima feel settled that I am not crawling around some shithole in an Arab terrorist camp or country. I get all of that. But I must do more for Israel. I will not stand aside while we are threatened every day.”

  “OK. I understand as a military man. Believe me, I get it completely. But as your Abba, I don’t want to understand. The very thought of you in harm’s way is difficult to bear. When you were in the Mista′arvim, your Ima worried every day; we knew you could be on a mission. We knew you were when we didn’t hear from you for days on end. Your Ima and Nana Miriam sat and drank tea with each other all day. Occasionally they would ask me when I came home if I had heard about or from you. I can tell you it was not a good time. Now you want to put us through that again?”

  Eli could discern from his son’s body language how despondent he had become.

  “OK, my boy, let me make some discreet enquiries. I’m not promising anything, but let me work on it for a week or so.”

  Eli recognized the talents Ari possessed; and even though he was reluctant at first, he agreed to search out some doors that might open for him. Eli Lazarus was a senior member of the IDF command structure and as such he had a lot of connections, including relationships with the some of the most influential people in the Israeli military and intelligence security establishments.

  Eli quietly called on one of his connections, Retired Colonel Avram Kedar, who had fought with Eli on the Golan. Kedar had been an intelligence officer; he and Eli had struck up a collegial relationship. Colonel Kedar had been assigned to the Mossad immediately after the Yom Kippur War; he slowly worked his way up the ranks, so when Eli called him to discuss Ari’s desire to get back into the security operations of his country, there was immediate interest. When the second intifada initiated by Arafat broke out in the aftermath of the Camp David Accords, Israel was rocked and stunned by suicide bombings, shootings, and stabbings that ultimately killed over one thousand Israeli civilians and several dozen foreigners.

  Colonel Kedar took it upon himself to broach a radical and novel idea to the security cabinet. He proposed that they establish a deep clandestine organization that had no visibility to the Knesset, the press, or the general public, whose mandate would be to track down and kill any terrorists or terrorist leaders wherever they were in the world. All missions would be conducted under deep cover with no lines of accountability, communication or reporting, except to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense.

  Kedar got his wish and immediately established 9.

  “Eli, my old friend, let me pull his service record jacket and check him out.”

  Soon after, Ari received a call from the retired Colonel. Kedar, who was the director of the very secret and covert department adjunct to the Mossad, invited Ari to meet and discuss his future. The department was so undercover that it was only known as 9, a name based on an original address in Tel Aviv. Today, 9 is the department that focuses on counterterrorism and counterintelligence. It follows no rules of engagement. There are no PC guidelines to adhere to. There is no probing left-wing article from Haaretz about the politically incorrect and disproportionate actions of the organization. All activities conducted by 9 are off the reservation; no questions are asked, no answers expected.

  Ari’s interest was immediately piqued. He went for an initial interview with the colonel and two of his assistants. After the interview, Ari informed his father of the meeting.

  “Ari, my son, Avrum Kedar is a very tough and demanding sonofabitch. I’ve seen him in action. Are you sure you want to be tied up with him? Even I am not sure what he really does, although I’m told it is something to do with Mossad.”

  “Abba, I just had one interview. He asked some questions. He kept rummaging through my service file and then said I might hear from him.”

  A week later, because of his broad academic and military skills, Ari was invited to join 9. Eli called Avrum Kedar to thank him and said a silent prayer for his son’s safety. He dared not tell Sophie. Neither did Ari — not a word to his mother or Leah.

  CHAPTER 14

  For the next nine years, Ari travelled to most of the major European capitals, plus several in the Middle East, as the leader of a team of retribution operators. Based on intelligence gathered and provided by 9 team members, either in a gro
up or sometimes solo, sought out the worst Islamic jihadi radical terrorists that were promoting hatred and inciting murder in Israel and against the Jewish people around the world. Their mandate was to remove the monsters and send them to live with seventy-two virgins in the nether world. Most of the operations entailed the use of a silenced handgun or a double-edged commando knife, and occasionally a serrated piano-wire garrote.

  The “customers,” as 9 referred to them, never knew what happened. Some were shot sitting on a bench in Central Park in New York or Hyde Park in London. Some were garroted standing outside their mosques in Paris or Malmö, while others were lured to building rooftops in Madrid and Montreal for clandestine meetings where, after their throats were slashed, they were left to bleed out and die.

  One particularly difficult and dangerous mission involved Ari and a colleague, Alon Nuss. Macha, as the director of 9 was known, had tasked his two top operators with tracking down one Mohamar Al-Said Erekat. Erekat was a Hamas leader who had been responsible for several deadly attacks on Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria. Erekat was also behind a heinous shooting of a young family — a husband, Gideon Shalit and his pregnant wife, Ruth, as well as their three-year old daughter, Judith, who had been waiting at a bus stop just outside Jerusalem. Ruth and her unborn child, as well as little innocent Judith, died in a hail of bullets.

  Erekat managed to elude the Shin Bet and the IDF despite a massive manhunt. Ultimately, the Shin Bet and Mossad picked up intelligence that Erekat, using false identity papers, had managed to travel to Greece and then gotten a cleverly forged passport. As a citizen of Cyprus, he had crossed the Atlantic Ocean to New York.

  The Israeli authorities had the option of unmasking him to the FBI and the NYPD as a known terrorist. Instead, Macha gave the green light to Ari and Alon to follow Erekat to New York. By the time they identified their target, they discovered that he had been passed along through the radical Islamic network to the gritty area of Roxbury, just outside Boston. Ari and Alon drove to Boston and determined that Erekat had been given a menial and obscure job; he was assisting a Hamas sympathizer who owned a stall in the Faneuil Hall Marketplace downtown.

  After conducting surveillance for five days, the two Israeli operators were familiar with Erekat’s daily routine. He travelled by public transit to and from his rented room in Roxbury to work at the market. At lunch time each day he bought a sandwich at one of the market stalls and, weather permitting, went outside to eat on a bench in the square, ironically adjacent to the Boston Holocaust Memorial.

  On the sixth day of their Boston stay, Ari and Alon watched Erekat buy his sandwich and a cold drink, then walk out to the square. He sat down and began to unwrap his sandwich, but before the paper was half off, Ari walked quickly behind the bench and in a single swift strike he plunged his double-edged combat knife into the nape of Erekat’s neck, severing his spinal column and killing him instantly.

  With Alon providing cover by rushing to Erekat’s aid, pretending to believe it was a random medical emergency, Ari quickly disappeared into the Market Hall and exited out the other end, unobserved. Alon and other passersby quickly concluded that Mohomar Al-Said Erekat had been stabbed to death and summoned the Boston Police. By the time the first responders appeared, Alon had drifted away and jumped on a transit bus. When he was sure he was not being noticed or followed, he got off the bus and went back to the safe house he and Ari had rented.

  By the time Alon entered the living room, Ari was packing up their equipment and bags, tuned into the local TV news station, which was blaring the news of what appeared to be a murder in broad daylight in Faneuil Square. The victim had just been identified as Mohomar Abbas, a recent immigrant from Lebanon.

  Within fifteen minutes of the broadcast, Ari and Alon were driving up I-95 to Portland, Maine. There they dropped off their rental and booked into a Motel 6 under assumed names. Ari contacted 9 HQ in Tel Aviv and ascertained that so far there were no reliable clues, suspects, or motive in the Boston murder. Macha advised Ari and Alon to lay low in the motel for two days, then purchase tickets from Portland to Philadelphia on American Airlines. Once in Philadelphia, they were to go to a Mossad safe house and again lay low for two days, then again purchase tickets from Philadelphia to Paris on Icelandair.

  Once they deplaned in Paris, they rented a car and drove across the French–German border to Frankfurt. They stayed for another two days in a Holiday Inn at the Frankfurt Airport and once again purchased tickets online to Tel Aviv under yet another set of aliases. By the time they checked into the 9 offices the day after their convoluted trip from Boston, the whole incident was quiet in the news. The Boston Police Department, not having any credible witnesses or clues, let the case fall by the wayside and announced that it was probably some sort of revenge killing from within the immigrant victim’s community.

  It was only after the NYPD received a heads-up from one of their contacts in Mossad that Erekat had travelled to the United States under the alias of Mohomar Abbas that they informed the FBI. The FBI consulted with the Boston Police and the case mysteriously closed.

  CHAPTER 15

  Vienna, July 2015

  Vienna, July 2015 Ari and his family had just sat down and ordered their coffees and pastry selection. Leah and Esther were mesmerized by the bustling street scene of the Schottenring. Leah turned to Ari, “Sweetheart, why are you so down on the Austrians and Viennese? They look so happy and carefree.”

  Esther chimed in, “Yes, Abba you have always been so negative about Austria and this beautiful city. Just look at the architecture; everywhere you turn there is another magnificent site. And the music! Oh, Abba, the music it is so glorious!”

  Ari indulged his wife and daughter with a smile. Valiantly, he tried to push his history in Vienna out of his mind and made a concerted effort to enjoy the time with them. They were so happy to be here.

  “Esther, you know that not far from where we are sitting, my grandparents, your great-grandparents, used to live in a beautiful apartment? They were both highly respected members of the Jewish community. Both medical professionals who loved Vienna. Then the Nazis came and that all changed. This city became a dark, hateful place where culture and enlightenment died with most of Austria’s Jews.”

  Leah and Esther both knew when to leave Ari to his thoughts. He sat there sullenly for a few moments, trying as hard as he could not to brood about the past.

  CHAPTER 16

  Vienna, May 2005

  In May 2005, Ari got a tip from his friend Laurent Tremblay of the French DGSE that Ali-Ibrahim Yasser was living quite openly in a small suburb of Vienna. Yasser was a PLO mastermind behind a wave of suicide bombings that had devastated Israel for nearly fifteen years. Ari and three fellow 9 operatives made their way to the old city. They spent four weeks surveilling Yasser, following him on foot, and keeping his home under watch as he travelled in and around Vienna. They were impressed with their target. Unlike many terrorists who paraded around the European capitals with an entourage of bodyguards, Yasser was a solo operator. He was an unobtrusive individual who lived in a nondescript apartment building in the Leopoldstadt District, an area inhabited by young people and multiethnic immigrant groups. Yasser’s thinking was probably that he would blend in and disappear among the crowd.

  Leopoldstadt offered many choices for getting in and out of the city. Yasser always used different routes and methods of transportation to get around as he visited the various internet cafés he frequented.

  Abu Yasser had been educated in Cairo and earned a degree in electrical engineering. While he was attending university, he became radicalized by the Muslim Brotherhood and for no reason at all developed a violent and vicious hatred for Israel, Jews, and Americans. He honed his engineering skills and his rage into a diabolical killing machine, developing several sophisticated bomb-making factories in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Kabul, and Baghdad. His designs were built and given to misguided youths, who strapped them on to become suicide bombers. One o
f his wicked devices was responsible for killing several senior US military and CIA officers in Afghanistan, after the bomber, posing as an Afghani officer, gained access to a secure military installation and blew himself up. Abu Yasser was a high value target and Ari and 9 were determined to take him down.

  Avrum Kedar was adamant that the action had to be clean; no collateral casualties, including the members of Yasser’s family. He had a wife and two young children, a boy of five and a girl of three.

  Each week, Yasser went to a different café, but unwittingly he had established a pattern. After each visit to one of his routine haunts, one of the three 9 operatives would enter the café and purchase time on the computer Yasser had just released. On every occasion, they found nothing, as Yasser scrupulously removed any evidence of emails or internet chats. Nevertheless, they persisted, and on the fourth Wednesday they hit pay dirt. Yasser had inadvertently not deleted all of his email trail.

  Ari, wearing a disguise, entered the café at the same time as Yasser and purchased time on a computer. After working at the station for about twenty minutes, Yasser ended his session and left the café with Eli, also in disguise, following him. Ari walked out of the café a few minutes later, after he had managed to discretely download all the information from the terminal Yasser had just used.

  As Noah picked him up at the curb, Ari had the look of a cat that finally caught the mouse.

  “As they say in North America, bingo!” he exclaimed to Noah. Ari then sent a text message to Eli to abandon his watch on Yasser and meet them at the safe house.