Final Stop, Algiers: A Thriller

by Mishka Ben-David

  The briefing was interrupted by a call from Jerry, who was in a car on Avenue Louise, close to the square and within range of the microphone in Yuri’s office.

  “Most of the time I could only hear mumbling,” Jerry reported, “because the mike doesn’t pick up voices from the desk area, but then he must have walked around the room with the handset, or he was speaking on his mobile and sitting in the armchair. Anyway, he spoke to someone called Hani about the police in Oslo calling in the executives of the Ziegelmeyer company and informing them that they were suspected of breaching the embargo on Iran. They’d been ordered to hand a bunch of documents to the cops, and they’re consulting their lawyers over whether they are obliged to do so.”

  “Thanks. We have our connection. He’s the man,” said Udi, but Jerry continued: “This Hani was very upset. He told Yuri he was as full of holes as a Swiss cheese, and that he should check where he’s leaking from.”

  “We know he’s our guy. We know he’ll be at the restaurant at eight, let’s finish it off. No need for the date with Ruth,” I said.

  “You’re saying this out of purely professional considerations, right?” Udi rebuked me sarcastically. “The meeting with Ruth will take place as planned. She may get more stuff out of him. That we have discovered his ties with Norway and Russia as well as Sweden doesn’t mean he hasn’t got more connections with another twenty places. Ruth has given us valuable pre-op intelligence on his office security, and back at the big Office – ours – they’re getting organized to deal with it. She’s good at this, and I’ve ordered her to go to his apartment with him, if he suggests it, and to get the same kind of info. Then perhaps they’ll approve a break-in.”

  I felt that I was turning red in the face, but I had nothing more to say on the matter. Udi was acting correctly, and clearly my relationship with Niki couldn’t be a reason for her not to meet Yuri that evening, nor to stop her from accepting an invitation to go home with him. Nevertheless, I was indignant. Her having dinner with a guy like him was in itself difficult enough for me to swallow. An invitation to go home with him afterwards had obvious implications. Even assuming that Niki would avoid going to bed with him, as she undoubtedly would, was I supposed to simply watch it happening and keep quiet?

  “Have you also ordered her to sleep with him, ‘if he suggests it’?”

  “I had my doubts about whether it was right to employ a couple,” said Udi ruefully. “After this mission, we’ll have to draw our conclusions but for now we’ll do what’s best for the mission. Although I don’t have to share this with you, I’ll answer you, just to calm you down. We decided that if the subject comes up, she’ll invite him to her hotel, and there we’ll be waiting for him.”

  I gulped and looked down. But Udi didn’t make do with having put my mind at rest. He also ousted me from the team carrying out the operation.

  “And I’ve decided that the lead team for tonight’s show will be Jerry and me. We’ll be in the restaurant. You and Ronen will be back-up.”

  Whatever happened in the restaurant, and perhaps in the apartment, would be transmitted over the wire Niki would be wearing, and Udi didn’t want me in earshot or eyeshot. In the unpleasant silence that reigned afterwards, I pictured the minutes before Niki had boarded the tram that morning: how she had lifted her skirt and bared her thigh, how Udi had bent over her with a surgeon’s lancet and cut into her flesh. What had he said to her just before? Did he calm her and, if so, how? How he had caressed the place for the cut with alcohol-saturated gauze. And what had he done the moment after making the incision, when the white skin of her thigh was lacerated, and blood began oozing out? Did Niki cry out in pain? Perhaps he had kissed her – a fatherly kiss, of course. And then he had pushed the bloody lips of the wound together, and stuck on the broad Band-Aid containing the capsule that would be torn open when Niki pulled the plaster off. I remembered the way he’d gently patted her shoulder, almost caressed it, when we got out of the car at Gimbers. What had he done this time, when she left his car at the tram stop? Stroked her head? And what did Niki feel about him? He definitely was a significant figure in her life. For the entire duration of her course she’d spent more time with him than she had with me, and now he was her commander; our commander.

  “Are you with me, Boaz?” Udi’s voice interrupted my reverie.

  “No, but let’s speak about it another time.”

  “There won’t be another time,” said Udi. “We’re on a mission here. No secrets.”

  “Don’t fuck with my head,” I heard myself blurting out. What had been seething inside me suddenly boiled over and I hadn’t sensed at all that this outburst was imminent. “It’s you who is compartmentalizing me all the time, keeping her a secret from me.”

  I got up and left the table.

  We didn’t return to the subject. I went to the bathroom and washed my face. While there, Jerry called again and said he’d heard strange noises from the office, a kind of electronic whistling sound, and then nothing more. Udi said he’d check it out with our technical department and soon received a reply: it was possible that some kind of a jammer had been activated, or a wavelength scanner, but “it could also be any other thing that puts out an electronic screen, even a TV.”

  A taxi dropped Niki at the restaurant. From our position in the car park we saw her slight form, stunning in a dress and high heels and a beautiful fur coat, all of which she’d bought that afternoon, using Udi’s operational funds. I’d been with her when she shopped, but not at the briefing Udi gave her. Beyond what he’d told me, I didn’t know what limits he’d set for her – or hadn’t set. It was clear to me, as in the past, that at moments like this Udi had nothing but the mission itself on his mind. Ronen saw that I was upset, and put his arm around my shoulders.

  “Don’t worry, it’s no big deal. No drama. Don’t have porno movies in your head. We don’t do things like that, it’s time you got it. If it’s necessary, we get local call girls, and pay them a bit more than usual.”

  That Mossad’s kosher Jewish girls were kept out of the dirty games, I was aware, but who knew if Niki, a Gentile Canadian-Japanese, wasn’t some kind of a call girl in Udi’s eyes, someone who could be used for non-kosher assignments?

  “Get over it, enough,” Ronen scolded me. “But seriously, I don’t understand you. I would never in my life ever have brought my girlfriend into the squad. Isn’t it enough to have one in the family doing crazy stuff? There isn’t one of us who’s normal. We’ve each got our own loose screw, and that’s why we’re here. For you, it’s the girlfriend who was killed by a terrorist. For me, it’s the disaster that happened to my commando unit, when most of them were killed on that op in Lebanon, and I was saved because I stayed home with some stupid injury, and since then I’ve felt obliged. For Jerry, it’s that he once shelled our forces, also in Lebanon, by mistake. For Udi, it’s apparently some kind of family complications – there are all kinds of rumours but he doesn’t talk about it, so no one knows. Your Niki was actually normal, I think, until you brought her into this. Tell me, what kind of kids will you two screw-ups have?”

  Just then, we saw Udi and Jerry entering the restaurant. Niki had been told to arrive early, so she’d be seated at the table Yuri had booked. Udi and Jerry found a table from which she and Yuri could be seen, but far enough away to seem completely unconnected. Last of all, Yuri arrived in a cab, tall and elegant, in a long overcoat and a Borsalino hat.

  “Looks like a cool guy,” said Ronen, rubbing salt in my wounds. Niki’s wire transmitted only to Udi. He could talk to us and hear us on another wavelength.

  A quarter of an hour after they started, Udi’s voice came over our receiver: “They’ve finished the first course. Everything going nicely. No intelligence yet. Main course on the way. Out.”

  Five minutes later, Yuri put a little box next to Niki’s hand. She opened it and found a ring inside.

  Embarrassed and surprised, she looked at him but the expression she met with was not that of
an ardent suitor. His face was cold and his voice hushed, when he said, “The reason you’re still alive is not the two gorillas sitting in the far corner. If you do anything hasty, all three of you will die. I am armed. I will know precisely what you do and what you say, just as I know about the microphone you planted in the armchair in my office. I am now going to the bathroom, and then I’ll leave. You will neither move nor say anything for at least five minutes. After that, do whatever you want to do.”

  He left the table. Niki assumed the ring was a microphone and that in any case Udi had heard Yuri’s speech via her wire. She didn’t want to move as long as Yuri was still on the premises, in case he drew his pistol and opened fire. Then, when Udi had still not reacted, she got up and headed for the exit, beckoning him with her hand. Udi followed her, surprised. When he grasped what was going on, he radioed me and Ronen to close off the exit.

  Ronen got out of the car and ran to the restaurant door, and I manoeuvred the car out of the parking area. There was no trace of Yuri. Philip said he hadn’t seen him going the other way. Yuri had apparently realized that apart from the “two gorillas” inside, there was also a lookout outside, and he had slipped away in the dark.

  “Comb the streets around here,” Udi told Ronen and me, pointing which way to go. “If he planned his getaway in advance, there may be a car waiting nearby. Don’t go too far from the Gare Centrale, because that’s the closest station, and he may be heading there. I’ll take a cab to the Gare du Midi. Jerry take a cab to the Gare du Nord, and Ruth, you go into the Gare Centrale.” He left Dave at the taxi rank, in case Yuri appeared there, and he sent Philip to another rank nearby.

  “What about the office and the apartment?” Jerry asked.

  “He won’t go back there. He’s aware that we know about them.”

  “What’s with that ring?” asked Niki.

  “I suppose it’s a jamming device. That’s why I didn’t hear what he said to you. Take it off the table and dump it in the nearest bin. Pay the bill, so they don’t send the cops after us.”

  There was no sign of Yuri in the vicinity. We covered every street that led to the Gare Centrale. We saw Niki heading for the station in a cab, and going inside. Gare Centrale is a small station, faced in marble and built in a similar style to that of the surrounding neo-classical structures. It wasn’t very crowded – if Yuri was there, she would likely spot him. Jerry had a less palatable job, at the Gare du Nord, in the heart of the Arab district which was full of brothels; the chances that Udi would spot Yuri in the gigantic Gare du Midi, with its additional TGV high-speed railway station, were very small. If Yuri wanted to disappear from Belgium in a hurry, the TGV to Paris would be a good way for him to do it.

  I didn’t think Niki was in danger in the well-lit station but, nevertheless, I decided to join her there. I drew up at the entrance, asked Ronen to take over the wheel and rushed inside. I went down to the platform level, heard a whistle and saw the doors closing, and the train began gliding soundlessly out of the station.

  It was then that I saw him, framed in a window of one of the cars, as the train drew slowly away. He was taking his hat off and looking down at the platform. He had a hand on his hip, in a stance that could have indicated he was gripping the butt of a pistol. I followed his gaze, and I saw her.

  Niki was sitting on a bench, only a few metres from the tracks. She was watching Yuri, without moving, as the train took him further and further away.

  I looked up at the electronic notice board, just catching the name of the train and its destination before the information changed. “He’s on the FC to Amsterdam,” I radioed via the microphone on my lapel. “In coach number five. Just left Centrale. Jerry, he’ll be at your station in three minutes.”

  “Just got out of the taxi, flying down,” Jerry answered.

  “Jerry, get on that train but keep your distance from Yuri,” Udi’s voice came in. “Report the situation in the coach, and wait for orders. Ronen, are you in the car?” Ronen replied in the affirmative.

  “Speed to Zaventem, that’s the next stop. Jerry’ll tell you if Yuri’s getting off there. If not, proceed to Mechelen. You’ve got a chance of getting there before the train.”

  Niki was watching the train being swallowed up by the dark tunnel. I sat down next to her.

  I waited. After a long minute, she turned to me with a distant trace of an embarrassed smile.

  “What happened?” I asked, although I already knew: she’d come down to the platform and Yuri and she had spotted each other. A glance at the board had told her the train would leave in four minutes. She had enough time to call us. She knew she could speak into the microphone at her throat without Yuri realizing what she was doing, if she turned her back to him. Yuri was watching her, his hand on his hip, but she knew he wouldn’t draw a pistol and fire at her. There were several armed police officers in the station, and he may have presumed that Niki had a handgun in her bag. They held each other’s eyes.

  While she told me her story, I could imagine him standing there, upright, tall and handsome, with a shadow of a smile on his lips. The prey didn’t look like prey, but like a man holding all the cards, and the hunter didn’t look like a hunter, but like a confused woman who didn’t know how to play her cards. I assumed that Niki recalled how he’d stood up to the punks, how he’d brought her the first-aid kit, first in the tram and then in his office, and the cup of tea. She remembered their friendly chat over their first course. His accent added a touch of gentleness to his elegant appearance, his deep voice and his polished manners. When they met in the restaurant, he already knew what she was, and if he’d wanted, he could have done away with her. She owed him.

  “You know you’ll have to give some very complicated explanations,” I said after hearing her story.

  But that, I felt, wasn’t what was bothering me. It wasn’t my operative-companion who had given in to the charms of a middleman. It was my sweetheart. Niki realized what was going on inside me, put her head on my shoulder and tried to intertwine her fingers with mine. But I remained frigid. Too many things were not looking right here.

  Ronen didn’t manage to catch the train at Zavantem or at Mechelen. His chances of reaching Antwerp before the train were zero, and the station after that was Breda in Holland. After Antwerp, Jerry reported that Yuri was now alone in his compartment. People from Antwerp who worked in Brussels and went home to sleep had disembarked, and only a few passengers were continuing on to Holland. Udi checked the timetable and saw that when the train got to Breda, another train heading from Amsterdam to Brussels was due at the opposite platform.

  “You have permission to execute,” we heard Udi’s sharp, clear-cut message to Jerry. “Do it when the train begins slowing down before Breda. Make him look as if he’s asleep. At the station transfer to the train to Brussels. Ronen will be waiting for you in Antwerp.”

  Jerry fitted the silencer to his pistol and moved close to Yuri’s compartment. But as the train slowed down Yuri suddenly stood up and walked along the corridor in the direction of the exit. He took his bag with him, and it looked as if he intended to get off the train. Perhaps he also knew about the train to Brussels. Jerry weighed up whether to shoot him in the back of the head, with everyone heading for the exit seeing the body in the corridor, or to follow him and wait for a better opportunity. But then Yuri opened the door to the toilet and went inside. As he turned around to close the door, the silencer on the barrel of Jerry’s gun was the last thing he saw. There were two clicks, louder than Jerry would have preferred, and Yuri crumpled. Jerry fired once more, into the middle of Yuri’s forehead, and only then did he see that Yuri had managed to draw his own pistol from his belt and was holding it in his hand. Jerry pulled the door closed as the train’s brakes screeched. He didn’t have the time to remove his silencer and shoved the pistol with its burning-hot barrel into the inside pocket of his jacket. Disembarking passengers were coming towards the exit, and Jerry mingled with them and got off, crossed to the opp
osite platform and climbed onto the Brussels train, with the gun searing his chest. Before Yuri’s body was discovered by a terrified passenger just outside Rotterdam, Jerry was already well inside Belgian territory.

  “Moving to standard getaway mode,” Udi radioed after Ronen reported that Jerry was in his car, and we heard his brief report for the first time. Dave and Philip checked out of their hotels and took the fast night train to Paris, Ronen and Jerry picked up their belongings at their hotels and headed for Germany in the rented car. Udi ordered me to stay in my hotel until he completed debriefing Niki and to get ready to leave with her in the morning.

  I waited restlessly in our room. I didn’t even try to fall asleep. I scanned all the TV news stations, until there was a report about a man who’d been found shot dead in the toilet of the train from Brussels to Amsterdam. The dead man was said to be a British citizen and was not known to the police, and there was no indication who had shot him. The assumption was that it was either an espionage or a criminal situation, because the victim was holding a pistol. The investigators believed the assassins had got off the train at Rotterdam or Schiphol, and the security camera images from these stations were now being scrutinized. I reported this to Udi, who said there was no change in the departure arrangements, and added nothing about Niki’s debriefing.

  I had several nerve-racking hours before five a.m., when the door opened and there she was. I didn’t know how to express to Niki all that had accumulated in my mind during those hours: the love, the fear, the jealousy, the frustration, and the uncertainty – about her future on the team, and perhaps even about our future as a couple.

  I didn’t know what to ask her or what to tell her. I sensed that she wanted only one thing, for me to hug her and shut up. But perhaps that’s also what she’d wanted from Udi, in his room. A different hug, perhaps, fatherly and understanding, but still a hug, to console her for the difficult decision she had taken. I remained silent, and waited for her to speak. Niki’s eyelids were so heavy that only a narrow slit remained open.