The Jerusalem Assassin

by Avraham Azrieli

  “ Go,” Agent Cohen shouted. “Shoot to kill!”

  “ No!” Out of time and breath, Gideon sprinted forward. The nurse kicked in the door and released a first shot. Gideon collided with her, and together they fell on the other agent, who yelled in pain.

  Agent Cohen ran toward them.

  Inside the room, Gideon glimpsed a bookcase that fell over on its side. A choked cough came from behind the makeshift barricade. A hand rose and tossed a book at them.

  “ Give it to me!” Agent Cohen grabbed the gun from the nurse and aimed it into the room with both hands.

  Gideon lifted his leg and kicked him in the crotch.

  “It’s my son!” Rabbi Benjamin Mashash ran into the apartment, his face pale, his black hat pressed over his mouth and nose. “Jerusalem! Jerusalem! ”

  Agent Cohen sat against the wall and moaned.

  The youth emerged from behind the makeshift barricade. He was badly bruised, and his torn pajama shirt hung from one shoulder. Half-blinded by the tear gas, he fell into his father’s arms. “Don’t worry,” he said, “the stupid Zionists didn’t get me.”

  *

  As soon as they left Jerusalem, the trees disappeared, giving way to the barren hills of the West Bank. The occasional Arab village welcomed them with odors of smoke, a mix of small and large homes in no particular order. The stark absence of vegetation was broken only by the Jewish settlements with their tidy red roofs, green fields, and fruit orchards, cut off from the surrounding parched land with tall fences.

  Half an hour later, the settlement of Tapuach- Apple in Hebrew-welcomed them with a massive steel gate across the access road. A sign read: No vehicle traffic during Sabbath!

  Lemmy parked the car, and they walked to the guardhouse. A man in a white shirt and a knitted skullcap shouldered his machine gun and opened the gate.

  Up close, Lemmy realized that most houses were nothing more than rickety prefabricated trailers, covered with ivy and painted white. Cracked concrete paths meandered between young trees and makeshift vegetable gardens. A woman pushing a double-stroller gave them directions.

  Freckles opened the door, wearing a blue tank top, shorts, and sandals.

  “ Hey, partner,” Itah said.

  Behind him, a woman with a Russian accent yelled, “Who is it?”

  “ I’ll be right back,” he replied and joined them outside, closing the door.

  “ Good Sabbath,” Lemmy said. “Do you remember me?”

  Freckles shifted his knitted skullcap back and forth on his head, as if he had a bad itch. Then his eyes lit up. “King David Hotel. You wore a baseball hat, right?”

  “ Good memory. I can tell Elie Weiss trained you.”

  He nodded.

  “ Interesting,” Itah said. “Then why did you betray him?”

  “ Not here.” Freckles walked fast, his sandals slapping the concrete path. He led them to a playground, where a bunch of kids climbed ropes and pushed the limit on creaking, steel-chain swings. “I’ve served both SOD and Shin Bet for years. There was no conflict-it was like doing one job for two employers and twice the pay. But Agent Cohen forced me to choose, told me Elie Weiss was dying and that I could go to jail for many years for a conspiracy to shoot the prime minister.”

  “ Are you guilty?”

  Freckles smiled, showing crooked teeth. “It was Elie’s idea, you know, to have a religious guy use low-velocity bullets, shoot Rabin once in the ribs over a bulletproof vest. I mean, it has to look real to convince everyone that the right-wing crazies actually tried to kill him, right?”

  “ Let me see if I understand,” Itah said. “The Shin Bet discovered Elie’s staged assassination plot, gave you an ultimatum, and forced you to betray him.”

  “ There’s no betrayal!” Freckles got red in the face. “I work for them, so I report my whereabouts.”

  “ Meeting Elie at the King David Hotel?”

  He shrugged.

  “ And they shut down the operation and arrested Yoni Adiel?”

  Freckles looked away. “Something like that.”

  “ Don’t lie to me.”

  He folded his arms on his chest. “Maybe you should leave.”

  Lemmy patted his shoulder. “Do you know who I am?”

  “ I don’t care.” Despite the height difference, it was clear that Freckles felt that his youth and muscular build gave him advantage over the middle-aged man Itah had brought with her.

  “ Let’s say,” Lemmy said, “that while you got a baccalaureate degree from the university of Elie Weiss, I went on to earn a doctorate.”

  “ Congratulations.” Freckles grinned. “But I still don’t care.”

  “ Perhaps you should. You see, I kill people for Elie Weiss. Traitors, for example.”

  *

  Standing by the kitchen table, Gideon helped Sorkeh clean up and bandage Jerusalem’s scrapes and bruises. The news of the apartment raid had spread quickly, drawing a large crowd of Neturay Karta men, who filled the alley below, waiting for Rabbi Benjamin Mashash to come out. But he had shut himself in his small study off the foyer, and his praying voice filtered through the closed door.

  “ There,” Sorkeh said to her son, “all done. You go back to bed, and I’ll bring you some tea.” She went over to the dining room, where Agent Cohen was having a hushed conversation with his team, and said, “You should be ashamed of yourself!”

  He turned to her, his injured eye covered with a beige patch, his red face still marked by the straps of the gas mask. “Shut up, woman, before we arrest you.”

  “ Is that so?” Sorkeh went to the window and looked down at the crowded alley, which went quiet immediately. “Men of Neturay Karta,” she yelled, “come up here and remove these Nazis from your rabbi’s home!”

  A roar came from below, and the drumming of shoes on the stairs gave the whole building a tremor.

  “ Shit! ” Agent Cohen retreated with his subordinates into the corner, drawing their weapons, while Sorkeh returned to the kitchen.

  Gideon ran to the study and pounded on the door.

  Rabbi Benjamin Mashash emerged just as the first few men appeared at the entrance, pushed from behind by the crowd. He stood in front of the door leading to the dining room.

  The foyer filled with men in black coats and hats, their hands clenched into fists.

  “ Sabbath is a holy day of reflection and prayer.” Rabbi Mashash gestured. “Pass it down.”

  “ Sabbath is a holy day of reflection and prayer,” the men repeated. Others did the same, and the sentence could be heard making its way down the stairwell to the alley.

  “ We will allow these misguided Jews to leave our community in peace.”

  Again the words echoed repeatedly until they faded away.

  He beckoned Agent Cohen. The Shin Bet agents holstered their weapons and trotted warily through a narrow path among the men of Neturay Karta. Gideon nodded at the rabbi and his wife and followed the Shin Bet team downstairs and through the alleys to the gate.

  *

  Freckles recovered quickly, but he was smart enough to know they had seen the look of fear on his face. “You don’t scare me,” he said, trying to sound defiant. “Everyone here is my friend. We all carry guns.”

  Itah turned to Lemmy. “I guess we’re screwed, ah?”

  “I guess so.” He smiled at Freckles, placed an arm on his shoulder, and made him turn away from the playground.

  “Hey!” Freckles tried to free himself. “Let go!”

  But Lemmy’s arm was already bent at the elbow, forming a tight collar around his neck. With his left hand Lemmy pulled the pen from his pocket and shoved the ballpoint tip into the double-agent’s ear. Itah was ready with her crumpled headdress, which she pressed to his mouth to silence his scream.

  They led him into a cluster of trees nearby. None of the playing kids noticed anything unusual, and their chatter continued uninterrupted.

  Freckles moaned as he tried to force away Lemmy’s hand.


  “That was your eardrum. It will heal. But any deeper than this, and my pen would demolish your middle ear, destroy your auditory system and your balance. After that, I’ll be autographing your brain. I’d rather not, but I need to know that you’ll cooperate and not scream. Is it safe now?”

  Freckles froze, lowering his hands.

  “ Is it safe?”

  He made a sound that indicated a positive response.

  Lemmy pulled the pen out of Freckles’ ear and held it up. “Too much wax.”

  Itah removed the gagging headdress.

  “They took over Elie’s operation,” Freckles said rapidly, his voice thinner, as if his vocal cords had narrowed. “Wasn’t my idea!”

  “ I thought they shut it down,” Lemmy said, aiming the pen at the ear.

  “ Don’t! Please!”

  “ Keep talking.”

  “ Rabin won’t wear a vest. They had me load Yoni’s gun with blanks. He doesn’t know. He thinks they’re regular bullets.”

  “ When will he shoot Rabin?”

  “ Tonight. At the rally. Yoni will be allowed to enter the sterile zone. After the rally, near the Cadillac, the bodyguards will leave Rabin’s back exposed for a shot.”

  “My God,” Itah said. “Does Rabin know about this?”

  “No.”

  “But why would Shin Bet get involved in politics? Domestic security priorities don’t change, whether it’s Rabin or Netanyahu, Labor or Likud!”

  “It’s not about politics.” Freckles tried to shake his head, but it was still held in the vise of Lemmy’s bent arm. “It’s about making their life easier.”

  “It makes no sense,” Lemmy said.

  “ Actually, it does,” Itah said. “With the two-state solution, which seems inevitable, Israel will leave the West Bank and Gaza, and the Palestinians will want their future state to be Judenfrei. That means evacuation of all the Jewish settlements.” She waved her hand around. “Including this one, which is growing every week. From a domestic security standpoint, speeding up the process is a necessity-the longer it takes, the larger the settlements, the harder it will be for Shin Bet and the IDF to remove all the Jews from the territories. The staged assassination will strengthen the Rabin government, demonize the right, and legitimize harsh measures against the settlements with a view to total evacuation. Shin Bet is thinking ahead, that’s all. Security considerations, not politics.”

  “ That’s right,” Freckles said. “Planning ahead. An assassination attempt by a right winger is a perfect excuse to come down hard on the whole settlement movement, arrest leaders, shut down support organizations, and deflate public sympathy for the settlers ahead of the eventual evacuation.”

  “ It’s risky,” Lemmy said. “Is Yoni willing to go to jail?”

  “ Yes,” Freckles said. “He’s sincere about shooting Rabin pursuant to the Rodef doctrine.”

  “ But what if he checks his ammo? He could switch to live bullets. This could end up being a successful assassination-by mistake!”

  “ It’s a blessed gun.” Freckles tried again to free himself, but stopped when Lemmy’s pen slipped into his ear canal.

  “Do you want gray matter seeping out of your ear?”

  “ Ouch!”

  “ What’s a blessed gun?” Lemmy pulled the pen back, but not all the way. “Explain!”

  “ After loading Yoni’s gun with blanks, I arranged for a rabbi to hold a little ceremony.” Freckles grinned despite the pain. “He recited a prayer over the gun, wrapped it in a sacred parchment, sealed it with kosher wax, and instructed Yoni to open it only when the condemned Rodef is within range.”

  *

  At Atarot airfield north of Jerusalem, Gideon, Agent Cohen, and the other Shin Bet agents boarded a helicopter. The mood was grim. Not only they had driven Spinoza out of the confined area inhabited by Neturay Karta, but the attack on Rabbi Mashash’s apartment had been a complete disaster.

  The discovery that one of their vehicles had been stolen was embarrassing, but its built-in tracking device provided the best possible hope of catching Spinoza before the commencement of the peace rally. The device worked only when the engine was on, and tracking was spotty in areas of poor cell coverage. So far, since its disappearance had been noticed, the car had not shown up on the monitors at Shin Bet headquarters.

  After takeoff, the passengers’ headphones were tuned to an all-news radio station, which carried a live report from the Kings of Israel Plaza in Tel Aviv. In the early afternoon, dozens of buses arrived from all over the country, unloading cheerful revelers, who swarmed the surrounding city blocks with provincial excitement. The tight security arrangements included multiple checkpoints, traffic barricades, bomb-sniffing dogs, and horse-mounted riot police. A small contingency of anti-peace demonstrators had already been arrested for gathering without the appropriate license.

  The helicopter followed the main highway to Tel Aviv, descending the Judean Mountains over the string of rusting skeletal trucks and buses, preserved as memorials to the fallen soldiers of the 1948 War of Independence. But soon the Ayalon Valley stretched before them, with open fields of honey-colored wheat and straight rows of vines.

  Agent Cohen, who sat up front next to the pilot, suddenly turned and motioned at Gideon to change the channel on his headphones. “The car has just been traced,” his metallic voice came through. “Somewhere in the West Bank. We’re changing course.”

  *

  They took Freckles’ FN Browning handgun and warned him to remain mum about their visit. Ten minutes down the road, Lemmy stopped at an intersection: Left to the border crossing over the Jordan River, right to Tel Aviv.

  “A fork in the road,” Itah said. “No pun intended.”

  “The mother of all puns.” Lemmy pointed to the east. “We could cross the border and go to Amman. I have several clients among the king’s courtiers, and the Swiss embassy will take care of the paperwork and fly us back to Zurich.”

  “Nice for us,” Itah said, “but the Israeli electorate will be left to watch a spectacle of corruption, deceit, and manipulation, leading to unearned election victory for Labor and a witch hunt against the political right.”

  “It would seem less important from distant Switzerland. My father will join us, and we’ll spend Saturdays on the lake, eat and drink, and get to know each other.”

  “Tempting.” She smiled. “But even your Swiss chocolate will taste bitter to me. I’m a reporter, and this is the story of my career. And I can’t sit back and let such fraud go through.” She reached for the door handle. “Let me go by myself. I can hitchhike from here, get to Tel Aviv, and call on a few media colleagues. We’ll expose the staged assassination, either before or after the rally.” She opened the door. “You go home to your family.”

  Lemmy reached over and shut her door. “I’m going with you.”

  “Why?”

  He engaged first gear and waited as a convoy of three IDF jeeps reached the intersection and turned east toward the Jordanian border. “Because a piece of parchment and a glob of kosher wax won’t stop a determined assassin.”

  “ How do you know?”

  “ It wouldn’t stop me.” The Subaru’s rear wheels screeched as he accelerated in mid-turn, heading west toward Tel Aviv. “And it won’t stop Yoni Adiel.”

  *

  “ New information,” Agent Cohen said. “They’ve been to a settlement. Tapuach.” He gestured at the pilot, who banked to the left in a wide sweep.

  Gideon adjusted the mouthpiece. “What about sending a ground unit to set up a roadblock and arrest them?”

  Agent Cohen gestured to the nurse, who unzipped an elongated package and took out a long rifle, equipped with a scope. She cocked the weapon and glanced through the scope. Satisfied, she gave it to Gideon to hold while she changed places with the agent sitting by the sliding door.

  “Why Tapuach?” Gideon gave the rifle back to the nurse.

  “Freckles lives there.”

  “Ah.” Gideo
n could see through the front windshield the barren hills of the West Bank. “Did he tell them anything?”

  “Of course.” Agent Cohen used binoculars to inspect the narrow roads below. “He told them a bunch of bullshit. It’s his specialty.”

  “Why would Spinoza risk capture? What did he expect Freckles to know?”

  “Information about tonight! What else?” Agent Cohen’s tone grew impatient. “Freckles knows all the details of SOD’s fake assassination plan, which he helped us shut down. Spinoza needs every detail he could gather about tonight’s security arrangements. That’s why he went to see Freckles, and that’s why we have to stop him. Do you get it now, or do I have to spell it out for you?”

  “I get it,” Gideon said, though he wasn’t completely convinced.

  “Good, because I’m counting on you to bring down Spinoza before tonight. The peace rally must go peacefully!” Agent Cohen chuckled at his clever pun. “Peace…fully!”

  The pilot adjusted direction again, heading west, down from the watershed toward the coastal plain and the Mediterranean. The nurse grabbed the handle and pulled open the sliding door, letting in the roar of wind and engines.

  *

  Other than the Dutch signage and abundance of tall nurses of both genders, the VU Medisch Centrum in Amsterdam wasn’t much different from Hadassah Hospital. The recent computer glitch had forced the staff to pay close attention to each patient, making sure the correct treatment was provided to the right person. Many beds carried cardboard signs with patients’ names, and family members stayed around the clock to guard against mistakes. Carl joked with a pretty nurse in the elevator, who seemed disappointed when he stepped off with Rabbi Gerster on the fifteenth floor.

  Carl led him to a room across from the nurses’ station. “Best location,” he explained. “From such proximity, the nurses are motivated to empty the bedpans.”

  Rabbi Gerster was still chuckling when he entered the room and saw Bira, holding a moist cloth to her mother’s forehead. Tanya’s eyes were closed. Her arm and leg were in a cast, attached to a steel-wire apparatus. Her face was impossibly white. He stared at her, unable to breathe.

  “Can I help you?” Bira didn’t recognize him.