“What do you mean? How?”
“We have to think about it together. What exactly the story will be, what the stages will be. In any event, we have to reach a situation in which, if you run into trouble and they search for someone in Canada who knows you – Ron Friedlich, that is – you can give her name, and she’ll know what to say to fit in with your cover story.”
“Are you crazy?” I allowed myself to raise my voice in anger. “I am not going to mislead her, and I’m not going to introduce lies into our relationship.”
Udi remained calm. “The lies are already there, my friend, from the moment you told her what you told her about Ron Friedlich. Now we have to give her to understand that at times you have to pretend to be Ron, and that she’ll have to back you up. In exchange, you’ll keep your loveydovey thing going.”
“Never. I am not going to manipulate her.”
“‘Lies and manipulate’ are not nice words. You are going to recruit her.”
“Not on your life!” I was really losing it now, so much so that I was on the verge of throwing him out of my room. In the end, I asked him to leave.
“Young man,” he cut me down to size again. “This isn’t your room, you’re not here on your own documentation, and you are much less of a jabaar than you think you are.” He used another Arabic word – for “heman” – that has entered Hebrew slang. “Now, get a grip on yourself.”
I knew, whatever Udi said, that I would not recruit Niki, or lie to her, or manipulate her.
“I am ready to tell her the whole truth,” I said finally. “Namely, that I, Mickey Simhoni, belong to the Mossad and in Arab countries I’m Ronald Friedlich. But no half-truths and no lies. And if she agrees, well and good.”
“Forget it,” said Udi. “The word Mossad is not to be uttered. We don’t know enough about her yet, and what if she says no? A salesman doing business in Arab countries, maybe.”
I was aware that Udi had come more than halfway to meet me, and I realized why I couldn’t tell Niki the whole truth. But none the less, I didn’t want to tell her a half-truth. When my fury at Udi had died down it was also clear to me that I was not going to repudiate the commitment I had undertaken, that this commitment came from a deeper place than my love for Niki. I felt utterly lost.
Udi grasped my predicament. “You’ve got until this evening to make up your mind. Meanwhile there are a few things that you’re going to set about doing right now: rent an apartment, buy an answering machine, give your new address to the galleries selling your work, check out of the hotel. In other words, you’ve got a day to do what would usually take a week, and what you should have done long ago. Get moving. We meet here at five p.m.”
Five o’clock was when I was supposed to meet Niki. I assumed Udi knew this and was intentionally sabotaging our meeting. This, and the chores he’d given me, were probably meant to nudge me back into the course he’d plotted for me, and to stay there – but could also just pave the way for my replacement. He gave me a list of addresses. “These are rental apartments in houses we have checked in the past. They’re good security-wise and also as far as their size and the amount of rent we are prepared to pay are concerned.”
My mind wasn’t on my duties when I took the first flat on the list. In retrospect, I realized that my head wasn’t on my shoulders at all, because the apartment was only a few hundred metres from the Friedlich home, albeit in the poorer part of the Beach neighbourhood. The three-storey white stucco building was on Woodbine Avenue. A red brick basement level was partly above ground and on the front wall there was the logo and phone number of the rental company, Signet Group. Before calling, I checked the names of the tenants next to the intercom – there were no Cohens or Levys or Abous – and then pressed the button for the superintendent.
She was a woman in her fifties with a pronounced Hispanic accent. She showed me the three vacant apartments in the building. They were almost identical, with parquet floors, a kitchenette, a bedroom and a living room, with basic furniture. She told me some of the tenants were Canadians who lived there during the summer months only, because of the proximity to the beach, and I liked that, because I too would not be there all the time. I took a third-floor flat, where my neighbours all had perfectly Canadian-sounding names and I signed the lease after scanning it quickly. I knew the woman wouldn’t be able to detect foreign shades in my accent, and I preferred finalizing the deal as Ron Friedlich then and there rather than with some official of the rental company.
Within an hour I had a phone line and had purchased an answering machine. I recorded a standard message, something like “This is Ron Friedlich. I’m abroad now. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you when I return.”
I was already quite familiar with the neighbourhood, but I ran through the checklist Udi had given me: bus and streetcar stops, shops, entertainment sites, laundries, names of nearby streets, and everything a person needs to know about the vicinity of his home. Then I did the rest of my chores, extremely unwillingly. Even hearing that two of my RF pictures, as I now called them, had sold, and the money I made, didn’t make me as happy as it would have before, and I returned to the hotel.
Nothing changed during the hours before our rendezvous. Pictures of Niki passed through my mind, and of my family, and of the burned-out bus, and pictures of Dolly and Dolly’s body, and of the practice drills during my course when I felt on top of the world, and of the suicide bombing at Maxim’s restaurant just before I came to Canada. “Recruiting” Niki, against the backdrop of all this, might have seemed a reasonable thing to do, but I didn’t want to drag her into this murky world. I could exist in it without her, or with her and outside it. Combining the two of them seemed utterly impossible. Not to mention the fact that Niki would have to agree, and I had no reason at all to assume she would. This was not the lakeside studio she had spoken of. And it would also mean living in Israel for periods of time, something that we hadn’t ever discussed. I couldn’t decide rationally. But the closer five o’clock came, while I was winding up my list of chores and on my way back to the hotel for my meeting with Udi, instead of heading for my rendezvous with Niki, I knew that a decision was taking shape in my mind.
I arrived at the hotel one minute before five. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Udi approaching ponderously wrapped in a voluminous coat. I knew my decision had been made and that Udi knew what it was. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been there. Otherwise, I would have been meeting Niki now, as we had arranged, and to hell with everything else. I’d texted her that I couldn’t make it, without an explanation. There was no explanation I could give that she would understand, without unveiling my cover.
Udi waited for me to go up in the elevator, and he took the next one. I left my door open and he kept his coat on after he entered the room. Instead of telling him that I was sticking to the position I’d taken before, I detailed the things I’d done that day. Udi looked at me in scowling silence. When I’d finished my report, he said:
“If you’d told me you were choosing her, I’d have said goodbye. If you’d said you accepted my proposal to recruit Niki, I’d have instructed you to do it delicately. But you haven’t chosen either of them, and I take it that you are staying with us, without her. So now, get moving and pack. We’ve got a plane to Israel to catch.”
Stunned, in a state of grief, I grasped what a cowardly act Udi was making me perform, but it was the only thing that I could do at that time, and I did it with eyes wide open. As deeply in love as I was, I could not disavow everything that I was, my beliefs, the decisions I’d made and, consequently, leaving with Udi was my default choice. Niki, I knew, would remain a scar on my heart as long as I lived.
Udi stayed by my side, watching me pack, just like the Yakuza guard in Niki’s room in Tokyo, and he escorted me to the black taxi waiting at the entrance to the hotel. I didn’t examine the car logo, lest I saw that this was also a Lexus. At the airport, a mysterious man who could have been Israeli handed us our tickets. I didn’t l
ook back. I preferred to believe I was dreaming.
7.
New Life
THE NEXT DAY I reported to Eli, head of the Mossad’s special operations division, at his office at HQ in Tel Aviv. Eli was fiftyish, of average height and with a pleasant face. Also there were his deputy, Jack, a man with a sharp face and a stern expression who looked hostile from the start, as well as Avi, the case officer, the intelligence officer Moshik, and of course Udi.
Udi had told me such meetings were held after a new operative’s cover had been established, in order to decide on his future. At this stage, he said, the new person’s superiors knew not only how he’d performed in training, but also how good his cover was and how he’d executed simple missions abroad. I assumed Udi meant the intelligence-updating I’d done in Cyprus, and the tracing of Ron Friedlich’s background in Toronto.
Eli asked me to give an account of my activities, and I started off with some self-flagellation, taking in my misconduct with the Russian woman in Tel Aviv and the Moldovan in Limassol, the break-in at the Friedlichs, ignoring my sweet-smiling tail, and resuming my ties with Niki. When Jack asked sarcastically “Is that all?” I threw in the way I’d obtained Ron’s diploma by using Niki.
“Was there anything positive?” Eli asked with a slight smile.
“I think the collection in Cyprus was quite good, and I also know a whole lot about Friedlich,” I replied.
“Let’s hear what the professionals have to say,” said Eli.
Moshik was the first to speak and he said the intelligence I’d supplied from Cyprus was highly accurate. All the subjects had been identified and photographed, as well as their homes and cars, and I’d also provided new material on their contacts “which proved significant for Operation Sea Dog”. In addition to the photographs, I’d supplied accurate and illuminating three-dimensional sketches that had “helped the force that broke into the subject’s house and booby-trapped the explosives”.
Avi said all of my reports had come in on time, and were coherent and satisfactory and that I’d adhered properly to timetables and budgets, and there had been no credibility problems, except for my loose interpretation of the order to report everything by failing to say anything about Niki.
“I’m afraid this is a problem that crops up with more than a few operatives, and we haven’t yet found the right way to get into their underpants. That’s something you’ll have to settle between yourselves,” Eli told his subordinates. I felt massive relief.
After that Udi spoke at some length, analyzing my deviations from the orders and the times I had taken unnecessary risks or been too complacent, but also describing the precautionary measures I’d executed and the “for and against” considerations I’d outlined for him. He added that in countries like Cyprus and Canada, or more or less friendly “bases” as he called them, using Mossad lingo, what I’d done was within the boundaries of the permissible. The big question was whether I understood that things like negligence in spotting and shaking off a tail and even more so the break-in without preparation or instructions, were not to be contemplated in hostile “target” countries.
All eyes were on me. “I understand that,” I said. “But of course it depends on the circumstances.”
“That is not good enough,” said Jack impatiently. “There’s a lack of internalization of the risk here. I believe that in the first stage Boaz should be confined to base countries.”
“Your opinion, Udi?” asked Eli.
“We have a few months before all the squad personnel wind up their preparations, and in any case I was thinking of keeping Boaz busy in base countries, except for one ‘baptism’ in a soft target.”
The use of my operational codename confirmed that from Udi’s point of view I was in. From now on he would use my own name only to express special intimacy – or a rebuke.
“Then OK, I agree,” said the chief, ignoring his deputy’s remark. “Let Boaz get some rough edges smoothed out in base countries, preferably with you around, Udi, and possibly also in some team exercises with Ronen and Jerry, so they’ll learn to work together, and then have his baptism in a target country.”
Eli leaned over to shake my hand, and signalled to me to remain with him as all the others got up to leave.
“You are entering a world of make-believe reality,” he told me. “With every step you take, the moment you leave this country on a passport that isn’t yours, you are serving Israel, officially and legally, but you are breaking the law in any country you land in. The more significant your mission is to your own country, the more criminal it will be in the country where you are operating. Extreme actions, whose aim is to save lives in Israel and perhaps even to save Israel itself from destruction, will be considered grave crimes by the enemy, and if you are caught you will be sentenced to long jail terms or even to death. In difficult places, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to rescue you. It’s also unlikely that we’ll acknowledge that you belong to us, and your death will be inglorious.”
He looked me straight in the eye. Nothing that he’d said was new to me and I didn’t react. He continued: “Here, in the offices, facing the sea and under the fluorescent bulbs, it’s easy to be heroes. Determined. Patriotic. Big Zionists. On the steps of a plane heading for a tough target, with your stomach churning – and believe me it will churn, as it has done for everyone – there’s also a tendency for your mind to turn over. Suddenly, the goal isn’t worth your life. Or doesn’t justify the means. Suddenly, there’s a whole lot to lose. Or a great deal to gain if you turn around, and after a moment of great shame, say that it’s not for you.”
Again he watched my response, and when I heard a noise behind me I turned around and saw that Udi had remained in the room and was listening.
“That has rarely happened,” Eli continued, “not only because we have chosen the right people and trained them well, but because the right people chose us. On the steps to the plane to Tehran or Beirut or Damascus, it isn’t adventurism that makes you go on, or experience or self-confidence, but only faith in the justice of our cause. The deep understanding that without you, and without people like you, the Arabs and Iranians would long ago have acquired the means to destroy us, and against which neither tanks, nor fortified positions and apparently not even warplanes would have helped. Only lone warriors, brave and resolute, who know how to get to the core of a reactor and to make sure it won’t work, or a centrifuge plant, and to make sure they won’t spin the way they should.
“We believe you’re made of this kind of stuff. For each mission, you’ll also get the best preparation and intelligence that we can supply, but ninety-nine per cent of your success depends upon you. Because when you’re there, sometimes with a few good people around you, sometimes on your own, it is you alone facing your fate, and facing the fate of the State of Israel.”
The chief shook my hand again, and busied himself with the papers on his desk. Udi signalled to me with a jerk of his head to leave together with him.
“Well, OK. Everyone has to go through that,” said Udi with a slight smile when we were outside. He gave me a wink and a pat on the shoulder and chuckled. That was the first time I’d seen him laugh, and he looked ten years younger. His laugh, wink and pat on my shoulder meant far more to me than the chief’s rhetoric. They told me far more clearly than the flowery phrases, that I’d been accepted, that I was in. And furthermore, I was now part of the band of operatives, on Udi’s side, the side of the doers. But as Udi emphasised, ahead of me was a long period of simple, almost routine activity and only after that – perhaps – would I be a full partner to operations of the kind that “You’ll never be able to tell your grandkids about,” and he laughed again. But just then something sad stole into his laughter, which ceased immediately.
I was torn. Although I was happy about finally joining Udi and his team, the break with Niki was destroying me. She was in my thoughts all the time. I’d clear her out, but she’d come right back in. I missed her all day, and I dreamed
about her at night. What did she make of my mysterious disappearance? How was she explaining it to herself? She certainly couldn’t be imagining that something similar had happened to me as happened to her in Tokyo. She must be angry, and perhaps even hating me. Rightly so. Because I couldn’t hide behind Udi’s orders. I could have refused to leave with him. It was up to me. I chose him and his organization over her. I chose my country, my parents, my obligations to my nation, over the promise of great pleasure and great love, the likes of which I would never have again without Niki.
And I felt a need to tell her this. I couldn’t just leave her in the dark. But I couldn’t call her on the phone from Israel, and I couldn’t send her a letter, and when I consulted Udi he told me that I couldn’t send her an e-mail either. If she were to go to the Canadian security services, they could find out where it came from. I kept pressing, and Udi agreed that on my next trip abroad I could phone her from some stopover point. But there was no trip planned, and I was left to wallow in torment.
Sometimes I woke up at night in a panic and at other times it was the first thought that assailed me when I opened my eyes in the morning. What had I done? How could I have done it? To her and to myself. After all, this wasn’t a temporary sacrifice, like stopping painting. How had I allowed myself to be dragged into an insane choice like this?
The thought that the love of my life was sitting there, across the Atlantic Ocean, weeping and waiting, was intolerable. Knowing that it had been my choice, and that I was still bound by it, was unbearably frustrating. Getting her back in my life would be a wish come true, something out of a fairy tale. The way we had bonded together again seamlessly, as if oceans and rivers hadn’t passed between us since we separated, was nothing short of wondrous. Her touch – ours – was magical. I could not believe we’d been together in Toronto for only a week. The happiest week of my life. In a way, I wanted to believe that Niki was furious, hating me, and even that she would never agree to see me again, ever, that there wasn’t a way back any more. Believing that was the only way out of my dilemma. Nevertheless, when I asked myself if I wanted to turn the clock back, I knew that I didn’t. I could not have given up what I was doing, and I could not have got her entangled in it. I also would not have sullied our love with all kinds of lies and tricks. It seemed as if I was doomed to fulfil one side of my personality and beliefs, and pay a high price on the other side, in personal happiness.
Final Stop, Algiers: A Thriller Page 16
