by Y. I. Latz
I stopped breathing—
He went on. “Okay. Let’s leave that topic for the moment, and move on to the next. Your Korean’s talking like there was no tomorrow. She told the field hands from the Shin Bet about your insane trips to the West Bank. But that’s not the main thing. You don’t get thrown in jail for being kinky, even in a kinky country like ours. But you do for espionage. She told them about your bullshit. You know, submarines in India. My question is whether it’s possible that you supplied her with that bogus piece of bullshit.”
I shrugged. Smiled. It was my first smile. It didn’t sound like a trick question to me. After all, he himself had just called it a “bogus piece of bullshit.”
“Yes,” I said, continuing to smile.
“That’s serious trouble,” he surprised me, making my smile disappear. “You realize you’re admitting that you supplied her with bogus information that our submarine was sailing to India. You know it’s bullshit, we know it’s bullshit. But the bad part, as far as you’re concerned, is that the Americans don’t think it’s bullshit. You get that? If the Americans send an urgent message to the prime minister and say, ‘Your nuclear submarine is in India,’ that’s a hundred percent ‘Your nuclear submarine is in India’ even if we swear up and down that there’s no such thing. You get it?”
I didn’t.
He continued. “War nearly broke out because of you. You’re in trouble and you got us in trouble. Our nuclear submarine on its way to India is the last thing on earth that we need, that India needs, that Iran needs, and that the two superpowers want to hear. I’m flying off to Washington myself tomorrow to get them off this story. I’ll have to tell them about you and the bogus bullshit you fed their pathetic agent in order to get a blowjob. No one’s going to come out of this story looking good.”
◊◊◊
We finished our meal.
“And the answers to my requests?” I asked in a weak voice that even I could barely hear.
We were both in the restaurant’s fancy restroom. He was spitting in the sink and washing his face. Gazing at length in the mirror while he answered my question. “I thought you got that on your own. The attorney general of Israel answered with a conclusive ‘No.’ There’ll be no deal signed with you in advance before you return to Israel of your own free will. Once there, you’ll be charged with various security violations. If you cooperate with no funny business and hand over the ‘objects in demand’ as well as share any information you possess, the attorney general will give positive consideration to the recommendation of the ‘appropriate authorities’ not to prosecute you to the full extent of the law.”
“The appropriate authorities?”
“The Shin Bet and its field hands on the one hand, and The Bureau on the other.”
The Bureau. Mossad personnel never referred to their place of employment by its explicit name.
“And if I don’t?”
“If you choose false freedom and don’t come to an arrangement with us, you can never return to Israel again. Worse, your immediate family—meaning your wife and daughter—will face difficulties every time they want to leave the country, and possibly worse. Do you get that? In other words, you can never see them again. Unless you count talking on Skype. You understand?”
I stared at him.
He continued in that same placid tone. “I can’t promise you in advance what the sentence will be. I can promise you good conditions in jail, a recommendation for a first-class lawyer specializing in security violations who has already worked wonders in the past, special consideration in every category under my domain, and a willingness to sign a plea bargain with you, with an option for shortening your sentence as much as possible.”
I didn’t answer.
“What do you think?” he finally asked.
“Never!” I called out into the space of the restroom, repeating myself in case he hadn’t heard me or hadn’t understood. “Not!! Ever!!”
◊◊◊
My feet stumbled on the way to our Renault, and it wasn’t the wine.
A truck that had been parked next to us took off noisily.
Its departure revealed a motorcyclist with a helmet. He was sitting on his bike, watching us. Apparently, he, too, had been taken by surprise when the truck that had been separating us left. Once he was discovered, he quickly fired up his engine and got out of there.
Singer extended his hand. “The keys,” he demanded. “You drank a lot and you look awful. I’ll drive.”
I didn’t object. Singer started the car and drove the overloaded Renault on the way back. I was heavy and clumsy. I couldn’t move a muscle. At this time, there was only one wish in my heart: to sleep forever until this nightmare with no way out evaporated.
I peeked in the side mirror. The biker was nowhere to be seen. I felt encouraged. Half an hour went by. Neither of us said a word.
And then—
I was the first to notice him. The biker was riding behind us on the winding road, maintaining a fixed distance and adjusting himself to our speed.
My last remaining doubts disappeared when I saw he was letting slower vehicles pass him by.
I knew.
We were being followed.
Singer noticed him as well. He tensed. I didn’t know whether the biker was affiliated with him or not. The fact that he had grown tense was not conclusive proof in my book. Singer’s eyes were fixed on the rear-view mirror. They were as narrow and focused as those of an animal about to leap upon its prey.
Twenty more minutes went by before he blurted out a curse. “God-fucking-damn-it. There’s a motherfucker on our tail.” As if he had just discovered him.
His response sounded authentic to me, but still didn’t clear him of the suspicions that had awakened in me. It could also have been just for show. After all, he was known for his slyness.
He added, “What do you think, is he after your ass or mine?”
It was now late afternoon. We left the expressway and switched to a particularly narrow and twisting road, sloping right against the mountain. The ravine gaped alternately to our right and to our left. Conditions were rough and our visibility was limited, but a gang of bikers thundered past us, continuing at a breakneck speed while ignoring road conditions.
Once they passed us by, Singer slowed down, his eyes fixed on his left side mirror. The biker continued to travel at a fixed distance behind us. Had he wanted to, he would have passed us a long time ago.
Suddenly, Singer pressed down hard on the gas. The loaded Renault groaned but leaped forward. It was an especially twisty segment of the road. Trucks were crawling in front of us. He recklessly flew past them, evoking a chorus of angry horns.
“He’s not one of yours?” I finally asked.
“That little shit? No way!”
“I thought he was with you.”
“With me? Didn’t your buddy promise you he was coming alone? If you can’t trust me, who can you trust?!”
◊◊◊
I believed him. What choice did I have? He passed another car in a dangerous maneuver. We arrived at a moderate slope. I was well familiar with the road. I told him that in a few miles, we would reach a curve followed by a fork in the road. If we took a sharp right after the curve, we would arrive directly at a village where I had stopped before. Anyone who was unfamiliar with the sharp curve wouldn’t notice the turn, and would keep going.
Singer accelerated even more. After the curve, he took a sharp right, exactly as I’d suggested. We had turned onto an almost invisible route leading to the village.
The entire way, I could hear sharp, explosive sounds from our cargo hold, caused by the potted plants crashing into one another in the course of our bumpy, insanely fast ride.
In the village, we found a dirt road between two farmhouses and stopped.
We waited.
I
was huffing and puffing. Beset by anxiety. Having a hard time breathing.
We had a broad field of vision. If the biker had followed us, we would have spotted him long before he spotted us. He was nowhere in sight.
Singer pulled out a cigarette.
He lit it. Inhaled rapidly as if it were an oxygen tube.
I thought he had stopped smoking.
Neither of us said a word.
After twenty minutes of waiting tensely, we began to drive slowly toward the main road. We stopped right before it. Waited. Watched the vehicles passing us by.
Singer lit another cigarette. Swung the steering wheel right and squeezed the gas pedal. “You’re not going to play some cool chanson on the radio?” he suggested jocularly.
I leaned over the radio.
“You motherfucker! I’m going to tear your head off!” he screamed.
The biker materialized behind us. Singer accelerated. This time, the biker followed suit, looking as if he was trying to pass us.
“The bastard might stick an explosive charge to us!” Singer yelled. He pushed the engine into higher gear, driving the Renault at an insane speed as if it were an off-road vehicle. The potted plants in the back scattered everywhere, crashing into each other and rolling, cracking and breaking noisily.
We arrived at a steep downward incline. He pulled the steering wheel sharply left toward the center of the narrow road, braking wildly.
At that moment, a dull sound echoed through the air. Someone had rammed into us from behind.
There was only one option.
The biker.
The force of the collision threw him off the motorcycle. Before our eyes, he slid down the road on his back, propelled by the sharp incline, hitting the low stone wall separating the road from the ravine. He was unable to grab on to it or to the bushes growing next to it. Unfortunately for him, he slid down to a missing segment in the stone wall. His momentum threw him further, until he dropped into the ravine.
It grew quiet—
A moment later, the silence was disrupted. The motorcycle followed its owner on the same exact path, hurtling down into the ravine after him.
Vehicles were passing us by, honking. The angle at which the Renault was parked put them in danger.
None of the drivers noticed the drama that had taken place a mere few seconds before they arrived, and none of them stopped.
Singer leaped out to survey the riverbed. I followed him out, my legs unsteady.
The motorcycle was clearly visible. It was upside down, stuck in the incline below us between two large rocks, its wheels in the air, still spinning.
In contrast, the biker was nowhere to be seen.
“Come on! Quick! Let’s get out of here!” I called to Singer.
He ignored me, appearing to have other plans. He leaped nimbly over the low stone fence and began to descend into the valley. I tracked him with my eyes. When I shifted my angle, I saw the biker. He was lying on his back on a flat rock resembling a table, the helmet still on his head.
He was groaning in pain, moving his arms and legs slowly like a turtle stuck on his back.
Singer was holding a thick branch he had collected on his way.
The biker was startled to see Singer above him.
He shouted out and put his hand into his windbreaker pocket.
Singer reacted swiftly. He hoisted the branch over him.
The biker tried to rise and grasp the branch in mid-air.
The impact of the branch made him lose his balance. He fell back, rolled, slid down the rock and disappeared from my field of vision.
I didn’t see him fall, but I heard precisely how he crashed into the rocks time after time, until apparently reaching the bottom of the ravine below.
The quiet resumed, disrupted only by the vehicles passing on the road. Singer hurried to follow the biker into the ravine. I didn’t know how he managed it. The walls were steep, with no visible walking path.
Ten minutes later he returned. He climbed up slowly, using his fingernails to grab hold of the bushes.
He was breathing hard.
There was a strange look in his eyes.
He looked right through me as if I didn’t exist. His head was moving left and right like a pendulum.
He walked past me, to the Renault.
I hurried after him.
He started the engine instantly, rushing us forward before I’d even had time to close my door.
It occurred to me that if I had arrived a second later, he might have left me there on the road.
“Is he…alive?” I asked.
“Sort of.”
“Who is he?”
“Who? He could be anyone, right?”
◊◊◊
Valbonne, an hour later.
My deliberations didn’t last long. My precautions collapsed. My dedication to the safety and well-being of my old friend made me forget the rules of compartmentalization characterizing our surreal world.
I invited him to my house.
I let my greatest enemy into my very home.
After he showered, he said, “She’s doing well. Your Korean girlfriend is going to be fine. I thought you might want to know.”
After a while, he added, “And if she doesn’t open her mouth, you’ll be fine too.”
I retreated into my own thoughts.
He added, “That was a serious shit storm. This meeting between us never happened. Do you agree?”
I nodded.
He didn’t take his eyes off me, scrutinizing my answer.
“We never met,” he emphasized.
“We never met,” I repeated.
“We didn’t see any biker.”
“We. Didn’t. See. Any. Biker.”
“You never saw what you saw.”
“I. Never. Saw.”
“Or what I did.”
“What did you do?” I asked, placating him.
“You sure?” he asked.
“I’m sure.”
“We’re done?”
“We’re done.”
“We’re not even anymore,” he said dryly. “Unfortunately, I owe you again. And you know me—I hate debts.”
◊◊◊
Four days later, I discovered what my instincts had told me I might find. In one of the inner pages of the local daily paper Nice-Matin, at the head of a narrow column with brief stories, I discovered a tiny headline with the word “Israeli.”
The barman in my favorite café translated it from French to broken English for me. What he said was enough for me to understand the gist of the story:
An Israeli motorcycle rider was discovered after having sustained severe injuries and was flown to Israel. The Israeli Consulate in Marseilles reported that a passing driver found him lying unconscious on the side of the road. The motorcyclist is Nadav Cohen, 31 years old, a security guard for the Israeli Consulate, a motorcycle aficionado and an avid hiker. The Israeli biker was initially hit by a passing vehicle and later severely beaten with a stick. As the young man was flown to Israel for further treatment, local police have closed the investigation file.
A wave of heat ran through me.
The deputy director of the Mossad nearly caused the death of one of his subordinates, a field agent who had caught him by surprise.
What a mad world.
And even worse, I realized immediately, I was the one who would end up paying the price.
* * *
9 Signal Intelligence, based on intercepting communications and other electronic signals.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Good Morning with the CIA
Morning.
The pastoral stillness in the heart of my village had been disrupted. Three new, silver-colored Toyota cars were forming a column, one a
fter the other, while their drivers simultaneously honked their horns.
At this hour I was sitting, as always, at a side table in my usual café, slowly sipping my café au lait.
The honking grew louder. This was a rare event. The cars’ path was obstructed by a refrigerated truck, which was double parked. They could not go around it. Large, decorative curbstones lined the sidewalk on the truck’s left. The truck was familiar to me, as it was to every one of the village’s residents. Exactly twice a week at this hour, it unloaded fresh meat for brothers Marion and Jacques’ butcher shop. It arrived at a quarter to nine in the morning and left precisely at nine. None of the drivers who found their path blocked by it saw anything wrong with this fact, much less saw it as a reason to honk.
Not this time.
The driver of the first silver Toyota exited his car angrily and turned toward the meat truck. The driver’s seat was empty. He circled it and encountered the driver, who was on his way to load another round of meat on his shoulder.
An argument broke out. The driver of the meat truck appeared to have no intention of diverting from his usual custom and moving the truck before he had finished his task. The stranger pushed him lightly. The truck driver waved his clenched fist in his face, threatening him with a hunk of meat. His assistant rushed out from the butcher shop, coming to his aid.
At that exact moment, the doors of the three silver Toyotas opened simultaneously. Six young men and two young women burst out. The men were wearing dark blue executive jackets or long-sleeve button-down shirts. The two women were wearing pantsuits.
“Shitty Yanks,” someone next to me said in French.
One of the men seemed familiar to me.
At first, I instantly dismissed the possibility, attributing it to my tiredness or thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me.
But no—
I was right.
In the long term.
Peter from the American Embassy in Tel Aviv—
My mind grew instantly clear.
I rose from my seat, strode back slowly, patting my back lightly to make sure I had my backpack with me.
