The Jerusalem Assassin

by Avraham Azrieli

  “It’s my respect, not timidity.”

  “Is there a difference?” Rabbi Gerster chuckled. “You know what Ecclesiastes said about the cycle of life, yes? Everything has a beginning and an end.”

  “He also said that there is a time for war and a time for peace.”

  “True. And a time to plant and a time to root out the planted.” He squeezed Benjamin’s arm. “All the sages interpret Ecclesiastes as a serious philosopher, but I sometimes think he was writing comedy.”

  “Comedy?”

  “You could read his pontification as joking about how our scriptures-everyone’s scriptures, in fact-can be read to support contradictory agendas, how the righteous can find divine authority in the scriptures for anything one wants to preach-love and hate, forgiveness and revenge, peace and war. You can find words in the Torah or Talmud, in the Koran or the New Testament, to proclaim God’s divine support of your agenda, whatever it is-and I say this from experience.”

  They reached the entrance to the apartment building where Benjamin lived. He leaned against the stone wall, as if feeling weak. “But Talmud is the absolute truth, right?”

  “Absolute truth is in the eye of the beholder.” Rabbi Gerster pointed upstairs. “Itah Orr is helping me investigate the truth.”

  “ Here?”

  “ No. Outside of Neturay Karta. This community is now your responsibility. Should something happen-”

  “To you?”

  “To me. To others. Events might take unexpected turns. Our community includes some of the most feverish minds. In times of political upheaval, emotions tend to spike up. A few of our people might erroneously breach our tradition of insular Talmud studying and devout prayer. They might advocate political subversion and impious violence. As leader of Neturay Karta, you must face those hotheads decisively. You must smother each fire before it spreads.”

  “ But you will help me, yes?”

  “ I know your strengths.” He patted Benjamin’s bearded cheek. “And I know your weaknesses. But this is a time for strength only. God is testing our community, while the secular society around us tears itself apart over the Oslo Accords. Israel is in the midst of political crisis of the worst kind.”

  “ That’s no surprise,” Benjamin said. “Zionism has always been a rebellion against God, so how could it succeed?”

  “ There’s time for gleefulness, and there’s time for a clear mind. Do not heed your heart, even when it feels broken.”

  “ By your absence?”

  “ Or by what people might say about me.”

  Benjamin’s face was white against the darkness. “I don’t understand!”

  “ All I’m saying is that, as a leader, your duty is to keep our men’s noses in their books of Talmud and out of the news, no matter what happens to me.”

  *

  Down in the bowels of Zurich’s central railway station, they stood on the platform while the train to Amsterdam hissed with pressurized air. Tanya held on to him. “I don’t want to lose you again. What if they come after you?”

  “ You’re the one being hunted.” Lemmy glanced at his watch. “There is a reason to this madness. Could it be the fortune hidden in my bank?”

  “ But no one knows about it except Elie, Abraham, me, and you.”

  “ Maybe the Shin Bet is running a high-stake operation in Israel, and Elie somehow figured out what they’re up to? Or the other way around-Shin Bet has stumbled on a rogue SOD operation?”

  “ But Elie is locked up. Why would Shin Bet engage in something so outrageous as going after me?”

  “ They probably suspect that, when you apprehended him in Paris, Elie told you what’s going on. And we must assume they’re not just speculating. Something triggered their extreme reaction. Try to remember. Did he say anything?”

  “ Not a word. But even if that’s what they’re worried about, I mean, for the Shin Bet to break the law by going to Europe, putting a tail on me and disabling my team-”

  “ To isolate you, they had to break your chain of command.”

  “ They could go to jail for this!”

  “ What if they already broke the law? What if it’s a big enough operation that, relatively speaking, this infraction is negligible, especially if they’re afraid you’ll expose their operation?”

  “ Pure speculations.” Tanya gestured in dismissal. “For me to go to the media, it would have to be a revolution, a coup d’etat.”

  The flow of passengers dwindled, and the conductors started slamming doors.

  “This is wrong. I shouldn’t run away.” She straightened her coat. “I should call headquarters in Jerusalem, find out-”

  “Didn’t you hear what Number One said? Use all means to extract what she knows. That’s not a vague aphorism.”

  “ It’s crazy. I’m too senior to toy with like that.”

  “ Don’t call anyone. We first have to find out why Shin Bet has thrown caution to the wind.”

  “ I won’t hide from my own government.”

  “ Please, do it for me. For old times’ sake.”

  Tanya sighed.

  “ When you reach Amsterdam, take a room at the American Hotel, near Leidseplein. I’ll arrive tomorrow, and we’ll plan our next move.”

  “I could call Rabin directly. We go back a long way.”

  “Don’t fool yourself. Nobody is safe. Not even the prime minister.”

  She hugged him, and he put his arms around her narrow waist. He felt dizzy. Tanya! Almost unchanged but for a few wrinkles around the eyes and strands of silver in her hair. He had locked away the memory of her face a lifetime ago, banned it from his mind, yet here she was, green eyes glistening over high cheekbones, thinly drawn lips that curved into a worried smile.

  A whistle blew.

  He saw a man run through the doors leading to the platform. “Get on the train!”

  A conductor reached to shut the last door, waiting as Tanya mounted the three steps.

  “ Halt! ” The man ran along the train.

  “ I’ll call you,” Lemmy said. “What name will you be using?”

  “Frau Koenig,” she said.

  The conductor noticed the advancing man and held the door while the train began to move.

  “It’s her husband,” Lemmy said to the conductor. “He’s very angry! Go! Quick!”

  The conductor grinned and slammed the door.

  The man tried to open another door, jogging beside the moving train toward Lemmy, who extended his leg and tripped him.

  “ Ah! ”

  “ Oops!” Lemmy caught the falling man, and with a subtle, rapid jolt to the back of the head turned him unconscious. “So sorry.”

  Laying him carefully on the concrete floor, Lemmy glanced up and down the tracks, now deserted. He pulled the man’s wallet and found a driver’s license with a Zurich address and a business card of an office supply firm. The soft hands, genuine Tissot gold watch, and extended belly made it unlikely he was an Israeli agent. Or was he? Lemmy could take no chances. Tanya’s life was on the line. Maybe even his own.

  A moment later two railway employees showed up. He told them the man had tripped while chasing the departing train, and they called for help.

  *

  Christopher lived in a condo not far from the bank. Lemmy entered behind a cheerful group of young men and women on their way to a party. He carried a gift-wrapped box of Schmerling’s chocolate. On the fourth floor, he rang Christopher’s doorbell.

  “Who is it?” His assistant’s voice was muffled.

  “Your boss.”

  “Herr Horch?” Three locks turned before Christopher opened the door. He was still in his work suit, but the tie was loose, the shoes unlaced, and the beer bottle half-empty.

  “ That’s for you.” Lemmy gave him the box of chocolate, forcing him to balance it in his left hand. “I apologize for surprising you like this, but as we approach a change of guard at the bank, I wanted to show my appreciation for your efforts.”

 
; “ Thank you.”

  “ And I also wanted to see how you live.” Lemmy smiled. “After all, as my assistant on the top floor, you’ll have access to a great deal of wealth. We don’t want another strange Gunter, right?”

  Christopher put down the box of chocolate on a small table by the door. “Yes, I understand.”

  “ So? Are you going to invite me in?”

  “ Oh. I’m sorry. Please.”

  “ Unless you have company,” Lemmy said. “I don’t want to intrude.”

  Christopher shut the door and showed him into a living room. “I’m between girlfriends right now.”

  “ Good.” Lemmy drew his Mauser and aimed it at Christopher’s chest. He removed the beer bottle from his hand and took a gulp. “Nice and cold.”

  The expression on Christopher’s face barely changed. He obviously had strong nerves and good training. “Is this a real pistol?”

  Lemmy sat on an armchair. “Toy guns have a red plastic tip at the end of the muzzle. And no silencer. But you already know that.”

  “ Herr Horch, is this some kind of a test?”

  “ A test?”

  “ To see if I’m prepared for a bank robbery?”

  “ You’re good,” Lemmy said. “You’re stalling for time, trying to figure out what I’m after and how you can retrieve your own weapon and reach parity here. Correct?”

  “Weapon?” Christopher laughed. “You can’t be serious. This is a joke, right?”

  In response, Lemmy shifted his aim and pressed the trigger. The bullet hit the TV behind Christopher, blasting the screen.

  “God!” Christopher jumped sideways. t="0What’s wrong with you?”

  “ Pull down your pants.”

  “ What? ”

  “Show it to me!”

  Christopher hesitated.

  Lemmy lowered the tip of the silencer until it pointed at Christopher’s crotch.

  “ Don’t shoot!” Christopher unbuckled his belt and lowered his pants and underwear. Along his circumcised penis was a tattoo of a black swastika and the letters SS.

  “Regards from Kibbutz Gesher.” Lemmy aimed the Mauser with both hands. “Tell me the truth or I will shoot it off.”

  His face red, his smile gone, Christopher pulled up his pants. Without asking permission, he sat down on the carpet. “My father did it. He was much older than my mother, served as an SS officer during the war. He was angry that she had allowed the doctor to circumcise me-there was an infection around my penis, and the doctor said it would help. Dad took me to an SS reunion in Munich when I was five or six. They got me drunk and had me tattooed.”

  “How touching,” Lemmy said. “Father-son bonding. Only that I don’t believe you. Tell me who you work for, unless you want to die tonight.”

  “I work for Elie Weiss,” Christopher said. “Who else?”

  “Don’t lie!”

  “I’m not lying. I didn’t know his real identity when he first showed up, after my dad was killed in a ski accident.”

  Lemmy’s curiosity was piqued. Paula’s young brother had also died in a ski accident. “What kind of an accident?”

  “ When I was fourteen, we went on vacation to Unterstmatt in the Black Forest. My father didn’t return to the lodge after dark. A rescue team found him in a crevasse off the slopes. The pathologist said that a sharp icicle penetrated his throat and punctured his brain. It had melted long before he was discovered, but the stab wound fit a long icicle. A freak accident, really.”

  The freakish part was that the exact same thing had happened to Klaus V.K. Hoffgeitz a few years earlier in Chamonix, a great distance from Unterstmatt!

  “ Go on,” Lemmy said, struggling to control his voice.

  “ My father owned a factory, making chemicals for pest control and agriculture. After he died, the accountants told my mother that the business was bankrupt. We had nothing. Then a miracle happened. A little man with black eyes and a long nose visited us.”

  “ Elie?”

  “ He introduced himself as Untersturmfuhrer Rupert Danzig, an underling of my father from the good old days of the SS. He offered secret help from a charity fund run by a group of veterans. The money started coming, enough to support my mother and send me to Lyceum Alpin St. Nicholas.”

  “ Elie is a master in long-term planning.”

  “ And in the summers I attended paramilitary youth camps to learn shooting and field work.”

  “ Same with me,” Lemmy said, “fifteen years ahead of you.”

  “ When I graduated, Herr Danzig encouraged me to go to Israel for a summer. He said I must learn from the Jewish people about building a new life from nothing, a new nation from the ashes, putting all energies into constructive work, and so on. But I had a little thing with one of the girls in the kibbutz, she saw my tattoo, and all hell broke loose.”

  “ They kicked you out.”

  “ Right. Herr Danzig picked me up, and we drove to Jerusalem. We sat on a bench near the Wailing Wall, and he told me the truth. His real name was Elie Weiss, a Jew, a Holocaust survivor. He invited me to work for SOD, to prevent another Holocaust. I had nothing waiting for me in Europe. My mother had died the previous summer, and I didn’t know any of my relatives, who had disliked my father and kept away from us. Also, the opportunity to serve the Jewish people was a chance to make up for what my father and his generation of Germans had done.”

  “ You decided to work for a man who had lied to you and your mother?”

  “ When I learned his real identity, I realized that Elie must have extorted money from my father and others like him, threatening them with exposure. But I don’t blame him. I’ve done my research. My father served at Treblinka. He killed countless innocent people. The SS motto was Loyal, Valiant, Obedient. It should have been Loot, Victimize, Obliterate.” Christopher’s voice rose in anger. “My father was a mass murderer. A monster!”

  Lemmy secured the safety on the Mauser and holstered it under his coat.

  “ You believe me now?”

  “ It fits. Elie helped you get an MBA, intern in New York, and time your application to the Hoffgeitz Bank just when he told me to hire an assistant. But why?”

  “ To watch your back. There’s a lot riding on you. Elie said that you are the key to the future safety and security of the Jewish people.”

  “ That’s all?” Lemmy stood up and buttoned his coat. “I’m just a middle-aged banker trying to survive the most confusing set of circumstances.

  Christopher laughed.

  “ Anything else you want to share with me?”

  “ I’m the keeper of all SOD files-Elie’s personal records, list of active and sleeper agents, files of former Nazis who pay Elie regularly to stay alive, and charts of tentative targets for Counter Final Solution. It’s all kept on the bank’s computer, encrypted, of course.”

  “ What’s the password?”

  “ JERUSALEM 1967.”

  “ I should have guessed.” Lemmy gestured downward. “That’s some tattoo. Dating must be complicated.”

  “ It’s not so bad.” Christopher grinned. “I tell them I’m too shy to fool around with the lights on.”

  “ Do they buy it?”

  “ Oh, yes. Girls find shyness very endearing.”

  *

  Saturday, October 28, 1995

  “ I’ll be gone for a few days.” Lemmy pulled away from Paula. “When I come back, I’ll tell you everything, and you’ll decide if you want me to stay.”

  “ Very funny.”

  “ I’m serious.” He got out from under the covers and sat at the edge of the bed. “There are things I’ve kept from you.”

  “ I know.”

  “ Do you?”

  Paula caressed his hand. “You spoke a foreign language in your sleep last night. It scared me to death. I thought there was a stranger in the room.”

  Despite the ominous implications, Lemmy burst out laughing, and Paula followed suit. When they calmed down, she threw a pillow at him.


  He caught it. “Are you still scared?”

  “ Of you?”

  “ Yes.”

  “ Are you nuts? I know how much you love me.” She lifted her pinky. “I got you wrapped around this one like a slinky.”

  He leaned over and kissed her lips. “But there are secrets-”

  Paula pressed her lips to his, silencing him, and they stayed locked in a passionate kiss until they both ran out of breath. “Wow!” She sighed. “That was nice.”

  He played with her hair. “There are parts of my work of which you might not approve.”

  “ There’s nothing you could tell me that would change how I feel about you. My father raised me not to ask questions. You think I don’t know how Swiss banks serve dictators, drug dealers, and plain vanilla tax evaders from every country on earth? Those are the clients you must serve, because if you didn’t, someone else would-here in Zurich or in Lichtenstein, Vaduz, or the Antilles. I don’t need to know your professional secrets in order to trust you.”

  He put his hand under the sheets and caressed her flat belly. “We’ll start working again when I’m back.”

  “ Whether we need to or not.”

  “ Really?”

  Paula crossed her fingers. “My period is late. I’ll give it another few days before doing a test.”

  “ Wouldn’t that be a treat?” Lemmy caressed her cheek. “I’ll call you when I can.”

  “ I’ll be in the hospital every day. The doctors say my dad is showing signs of recovery. He’s off the ventilator.”

  “ Good. Call Christopher if there’s any news. He’ll know how to reach me.”

  Klaus Junior was still asleep when Lemmy kissed him good-bye. He drove the Porsche to the airport and parked it underground. KLM flight 312 to Amsterdam took off at 9:52 a.m., and ten minutes later the pretty attendant brought a breakfast tray and the International Herald Tribune.

  Lemmy browsed the headlines. The first page contained the usual mosaic of news pieces from Wall Street and the financial markets in London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. The second page was filled with photographs of toppled buildings in Beijing after an earthquake that killed hundreds of people. The third page contained summaries of international news, beginning with a report of the Philippine supreme court’s decision to dismiss a challenge to Imelda Marcos’s electoral victory. Another piece told of a brewing conflict in the Israeli parliament over the Rabin government’s ban on construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, whose poll numbers had recently surpassed Rabin’s, declared: “The Labor government has betrayed Zionism and must be toppled.”