The nursery was situated on a huge lot, which resembled an abandoned junk yard more than anything else. A sharp odor of earth and plants assailed his nostrils, easily overcoming the choking fumes of passing buses. Two evidently starving guard dogs, chained to a wheel that moved along a 20-meter length of steel cable attached to the fence, greeted him with savage barking and bared fangs.
Above the barred iron gate, which had warped with the years until it was impossible to close it completely, a rusty tin sign was nailed to a piece of rotting wood. He could only guess what had been written on the original sign, but Greenberg got the impression that the words “Zvi’s Plant Nursery” had only recently been hastily pained over it.
In the far corner of the yard, two middle aged women could be seen choosing among young cactus plants. The entire place looked as if it had long passed its prime—there were few plants, a really poor selection, and much neglect.
Near the gate was a crumbling old wooden shack, patched with pieces of rusting tin, which apparently served as the office or perhaps just a source of shade. In the doorway of the shack stood a man in his late sixties, of average height and broad shouldered, dressed in blue overalls, who was filling an old flower pot with unpromising-looking earth.
“Yes, sir?” the man asked as he saw Greenberg approach. “How can I help you?"
“Are you Zvi?” Greenberg asked.
“Yes.”
Now that Greenberg was standing next to him, he felt a surge of anger.
* * *
Greenberg’s lungs burned and his chest heaved as he panted form breath, his body soaked in sweat and his heart pounding wildly. H gradually slowed his pace from a sprint to a fast walk, now taking the opportunity to check his watch; but he could not tell how long he had been running.
Dusk had fallen and the street lights had turned on automatically, one after the other. His mind was empty. As he continued walking quickly, he slowly grew aware of his surroundings, noticing the noisy traffic around him. He turned into the first side street he came to, and then the next one after that, quickening his pace with a restless movement of his arms.
In his favorite spy books, the hero always sought refuge in the midst of a throng; getting swallowed up in a crowd, becoming one of many. That was a mistake, for that was exactly where they would look for him. On the other hand, they would not bother to spread out over dozens of streets and hundreds of alleys, paths, and dark passageways to search for him.
He had to keep moving: His heart still beat quickly and he had trouble keeping a steady pace. In truth, he had not imagined that he had the physical ability for such a sustained effort – one he had not been called upon to perform since the army. He forced himself to take deep, regular breaths. IT was the best way he knew to regain control over his body and the pounding of his heart.
His thoughts slowly returned to the nursery. He could still see the image of the old man suddenly clutching his chest, his face twisted in pain, and then with a choking gurgle collapsing at his feet. Greenberg was amazed by his own strength as he held the man by the throat and shook him, yelling into his face, “Where’s Zvi? Where’s Zvi? Tell me where he is, do you hear?”
He kept breathing deeply. Maybe by doing so he could also clear his head.
* * *
A dog, he thought. If he could only get himself a dog; my kingdom for a dog… I can’t keep wandering around forever. Sooner or later I’ll draw attention to myself, and some alert citizen will phone the police and report a suspicious person walking around. But a man walking a dog can go wherever he wants. Even late at night, no one would suspect him.
Greenberg toyed with the idea for a moment, then rejected it. He knew a dog would limit his freedom of action – and he also needed complete freedom of movement. He had to act quickly. Soon roadblocks would be thrown up, police cars would sweep Tel Aviv and its dormitory suburbs, plainclothes detectives would be asked to stay for a shift of overtime, and no public place would be safe for him. Cafes, restaurants, hotels, theaters, even bus stops – all these places would be checked. Not to mention the airports. Even the quiet alleyways would soon no longer be a refuge, and he sorely needed a place where he could rest, think, and get organized!
Ideas flew in and out of his brain. Each possibility was thoroughly examined logically, then discarded in favor of one more promising. Greenberg felt the well of his ideas drying up without offering a solution. A cold sweat broke out once more on his back, as his mind echoed with the voice of the two women at the nursery:
“Help!”
“He’s killing him!”
“Police!”
In the distance sirens could be heard, their rising and falling sound combining in a grating disharmony. It seemed to him to fill the air already suffused with the smell of tension, danger, and mystery. Apartment shutters began to clack open, revealing the lighted rooms inside, as residents brought out to their balconies little tables laden with delicacies, easy chairs, radios and televisions. They were not only trying to escape the heat their buildings had stored up during the day, Greenberg thought, but were also hoping for a little excitement.
In another hour at most, thousands of pairs of eyes would be looking out into the darkness, over yards, parking lots, parks, alleys and paths. He had no choice. Time was running out and the cordon around him was drawing tighter. He had to find a place to rest and relax, no matter what!
As darkness enveloped the city, Greenberg was attacked by hunger pangs. Once again he found himself at a busy intersection. Around the corner he spotted a self-service restaurant – exactly what he was looking for. The place was empty. Greenberg entered and took a large plastic tray; despite his dwindling finances, he loaded it with everything he could. He had no idea when, where, or under what circumstances he would be eating his next meal.
While trying to swallow a mouthful of eggplant salad soaking in too much oil, he considered his financial situation – the first time he had done so since deciding, an eternity ago, to take a bus instead of a cab. He estimated that what he had left would only last him another day or two, and only if he was very frugal. The check he had received from his former company was nothing more than a scrap of paper, now that everyone was trying to capture him. Under his present circumstances there was no point in trying to find out the status of his frozen bank account. He already knew someone was keeping an eye – and an ear—on his bank branch.
Suddenly something caught his attention. The quiet; the strange quiet in the restaurant. He lifted his eyes from the bills he had been counting and sought the reason for the sudden hush. He noticed the cashier was focusing her attention on the television suspended from the ceiling, as was the white-uniformed cook who had come out of his kitchen to watch from behind the long counter.
Afterwards, when Greenberg tried to analyze his feelings at that moment, he could only define it by a word he now knew he had never before experienced, never really understood – not even in war: shock.
His first impulse had been to bury his face in his hands, and thereby evade possible curious glances. He forced himself to steal a glance at the screen. No, there was no doubt! The Identikit composite drawing staring from the screen was the image he saw in the mirror each day and night. Those were the lines of his face. But even so, something was missing; something strange. What was it?
The announcer probably had not waited more than a second before she began talking, but to Greenberg it seemed like an eternity before he heard her say:
“And in Tel Aviv, a man about 40 years old broke into a plant nursery on Presidents of Israel Street and attacked the owner, 71-year-old Zvi Teitelbaum, strangling him to death. The suspect, who fits this description, fled the scene. He is apparently mentally disturbed. The police have cordoned off the area and are conducting a search. We’ll have further details in our next broadcast. And now for the weather…”
As if in a trance, Greenberg rose from his seat and walked towards the door. The cashier smiled at him and wished him good nigh
t.
Chapter 5
Making his way past several blocs of buildings, Greenberg felt he was living a nightmare. Each person who passed by him aroused a fierce, almost uncontrollable urge to hide his face behind his sleeve.
He finally reached his destination: the neon sign of The World Cup Inn flashed before him. Every few minutes a car would swoop in or out of the small parking lot at the side of the building. Greenberg slowly drew closer, keeping to the shadows. Finally he crouched down and removed the lace from his left shoe, tied it to an empty soft-drink can he found in the street – and waited.
He had been standing in the darkness for 25 minutes, slapping at the mosquitoes, when he suddenly became alert. A medium size American car was pulling into the lot, driven by a middle aged woman; no one else was in the car. The moment the woman stepped into the inn, Greenberg went quickly over to her car and tied the other end of his shoelace onto the rear bumper. He then walked over to a phone booth about 20 meters away, where he stopped and lit a cigarette and waited.
For almost half an hour he paced up and down before the phone, as if waiting for it to ring, until a female form registered in his peripheral vision and he simultaneously heard the clacking of high heels on the pavement. The driver of the American car pulled a key ring from her purse, unlocked the vehicle, and got in. After another slowly moving 20 seconds, Greenberg heard the engine roar into life. He poised himself to move.
As the car pulled out into the street, the soft-drink can grated along behind it, creating a nerve-wracking sound. The woman drove on for another dozen or so meters then, finally becoming aware that something was wrong, pulled over and stopped.
Greenberg smiled to himself as he saw his plan working out as expected. The car had halted with its emergency flashers blinking just a dozen steps away, and Greenberg prepared to spring. The woman had behaved exactly as he had imagined: she did not turn off the engine and pull her key out of the ignition. She got out, leaving the driver’s door wide open, and walked to the back of the car to look for the cause of the noise. In the blink of an eye Greenberg sprinted from his spot by the phone and in a few rapid strides reached the car. He slid inside, moving the automatic shift to Drive, and floored the accelerator, laying rubber on the asphalt as he took off. In the rear-view mirror he caught a glimpse of the woman standing in the center of the road, her arms hanging loosely at the sides in helpless bewilderment.
He turned right, then left, then left again. Past the next intersection he stopped the car and got out to untie the can that still dragged noisily along behind the car. He did not hurry, for he estimated he had about an hour until a description of the car would be circulated among the police patrols.
9:10. The car had stopped at a traffic light. On the right the Kol-Bo Shalom department store stood out as a gigantic block of dark stone, its illuminated signs blinking into the night. Greenberg turned on the interior light and pulled his cigarette pack from his pocket. Earlier that same day he had hastily scrawled on it the numbers and directions he had recalled from his blind ride to the meeting with the leader of The Rising: 82 right; 105 left; 128 left; 41 right. He examined them once more, then drove on; keeping the speedometer at a steady 40 kilometers per hour. While this was rather tame for the light amount of traffic at that hour, he had to stick to the estimated speed of the morning’s ride, when traffic was much heavier.
…80, 81, 82. Greenberg slowed. A bit further on was an alley. He slowed and turned right, then resumed his speed.
…105. Right ahead of him was a left turn.
…128, 129, 130. It seemed he had counted too fast, or maybe driven to slowly – but here was another left turn.
…34, 35, 36… Greenberg’s excitement mounted. He slowed as he drove down the sloping street. Suddenly he saw the opening he was looking for: a driveway. The car glided onward. In a recess of the long wall he could see a heavy iron gate, covered on both sides by thick panels of tin. The gate was locked flush with the wall. Greenberg drove another 100 meters then parked, turning off the headlights and engine.
The street was quiet and deserted – as any street in the heart of the industrial area would be at night. A police patrol could come by any minute, Greenberg thought. He didn’t need to strain his imagination to guess what went on here under cover of darkness: break-ins, drug trading, prostitution would be routine here.
Greenberg cautiously got out of the car, leaving the key in the ignition and the door unlocked. His eyes searched the gloom until he saw a hiding place he could use if he needed one. Without making a sound, he crept to the gate and carefully inspected its construction. The iron monster ran on a track, powered by an electric motor. A secondary fence along the top prevented anyone from climbing over. Nevertheless, the place seems deserted; and Greenberg believed that even the members of The Rising would refrain from nocturnal activity in such a shady part of town, when even they stood a chance of being stopped and asked embarrassing questions. He had to try to get inside through the main entrance – but how?
For long moments Greenberg wandered around the area, until he found something that he could use: a long iron bar lying in a muddy ditch. It was rather heavy, but suited to his purposes. A quick search of the car’s trunk turned up a large screwdriver with a plastic handle and a pocket flashlight. Its beam was rather weak – apparently a long time had passed since the batteries had been replaced – but it would do.
Greenberg returned to the gate. He played the faint beam over the hinges and the locks, then sighed with relief. Whoever had installed the gate had not done a professional job, for after about 10 seconds of hard effort with the iron bar he managed to work loose a piece of the wall beside the track of the gate and make a hole in just the right place. Shining the flashlight into the hole, he was gratified to see he had gained access to the inside of the electric motor.
He lay on the ground and, holding the flashlight in his left hand, inserted the screwdriver into the hole and into the motor. Again and again he probed, until finally he found the point he was searching for. He held his breath and tensed his body, pushing the screwdriver as hard as he could until, with a metallic click followed instantly by a humming vibration, he made contact between one of the poles of the motor and a live wire. For a second the sound and sudden movement startled him, then he let out his breath in satisfaction at his success: the heavy gate had moved aside enough for him to slip inside. He quickly stood up and brushed the dust from his clothes. He knew he had no time to rest, but must finish his business there as fast as possible.
With customary cautiousness, Greenberg squeezed past the gate then closed it behind him. He found himself before the same underground parking lot the car had brought him to that morning. Slowly and quietly he descended the steep asphalt drive, taking care not to slip.
The place was completely still. The only sound to be heard was Greenberg’s involuntary curse, as the faint beam of his flashlight finally gave out, leaving him in utter darkness. He took a careful step, then another two, then stopped and strained to see around him. To his relief he could just barely make out the rough concrete he had walked on in the morning. Now the parking places were bare, which he assumed meant that the building was empty.
Greenberg relaxed, filing his lungs with a deep yawning breath, holding it, and letting it out with a sign. On his left he could make out the shape of the control panel. Without hesitation, he punched in the code he had etched in his memory. He was not mistaken. A humming sound followed by a click was heard above the other side of the door. He pushed it open.
He was greeted by the familiar sight of the staircase. Into the lion’s den! He thought, swiftly mounting the stairs. Arriving at the metal door at the top, he stopped and put his ear to its surface. Utter silence. He delicately placed his fingers against it and, taking up the pressure, gently pushed. To his delight – and surprise – it gave. Once again he listened out and, hearing nothing, he finished pushing the door open. He felt for the light switch and turned it on, then stood blin
king in the harsh light of the small reception room, recognizing the couch along the wall.
The door on the right – that was where he would find the answers to all his questions!
This door, too, was not locked. The handle turned without resistance, and Greenberg found himself in the room where he had met with the man from The Rising that same morning; now empty but for the furniture. With a quickness bordering on impatience, Greenberg crossed the room, went behind the desk, and tried the main drawer. It was not locked. Looking inside he saw the file the man had consulted that morning.
What negligence! Thought Greenberg; he should at least have locked the drawer. He impatiently pulled the heavy file and opened it.
What he saw made him catch his breath and sent blood rushing to his head. Spread before him was a series of photographs from his childhood, ranging from a shot of him at nursery school to a class picture from high school. There were copies of his report cards and of his driver’s license; panoramic upper and lower X-rays of his teeth – even an X-ray of the leg he broke falling out of a tree, more than 30 years before.
Then his entire body went rigid and he almost dropped the file. Staring out at him were the images of his dear departed parents, standing beside each other in a photo that had disappeared from the family album years ago. Greenberg’s hand reached out as if by its own accord to touch the picture, but froze in midair as he saw another one. It was a frontal portrait of himself, but he could not remember when it was taken. He had a feeling it had been taken without his knowledge, but that – yes! -- he had seen it before, but when? There was something strange about the picture.
A shiver passed through his body. He carefully replaced the contents of the file and weakly closed it. For two or three minutes he stood there without moving, then checked the rest of the drawer’s contents: an ash tray, two cheap ballpoint pens, a red pencil, a box of paper clips – that was all.
Blind Mission: A Thrilling Espionage Novel Page 5
