Blind Mission: A Thrilling Espionage Novel

by Schmidt, Avichai

  His mind, which until a moment ago had been preoccupied with feelings and absent of thought, was spurred action. Greenberg fought against the tendency to analyze the situation – now wasn’t the time. First he had to get out of there; he could not stay another minute!

  He rapidly put everything back in place, then took out his handkerchief, spit on it, and wiped his fingerprints from everything he had touched.

  * * *

  It was late. Greenberg had devoted more time to the break-in than he had expected. Soon the late news bulletin would be shown on television, and he wanted to see it. Something was bothering him and he didn’t know what. He wanted to see his image once more on the screen. He drove slowly along the side of a commercial street, scanning the storefronts. There was little traffic this late at night in this part of town, and very few pedestrians.

  A few minutes before broadcast time he found what he was looking for. He pulled over and parked the car, then got out and stood before the window of an appliance store. About a dozen television sets were on, all of them tuned to the same channel so the prospective customer could compare the difference in quality among them. There was a small outside speaker above the display window, enabling passerby to hear the program as well. Every so often people would stop and look in the window, then move on. As the final credits of the evening’s movie passed up the screens, Greenberg’s body tensed with anticipation.

  * * *

  As usual, the announcer began with an update of the political news – most of which was devoted to the meeting being forced upon Israel with George Abu-Hatra. The rest of the short bulletin dealt with a brief analysis of the economic situation and several news briefs. The murder at the nursery was relegated to the end of the broadcast. For the second time that night, Greenberg saw the image of the suspect, and heard the public being asked to keep alert and to notify the nearest police station, if…

  “Maniacs!” a voice suddenly declared from behind him.

  He nearly jumped in alarm. Forcing himself to remain calm, he turned and looked straight into the face of a middle-aged man, who continued speaking, as if to himself: “This city is full of nut cases; it’s really scary just walking in the street! It’s not even safe in the daytime anymore…” The man paused, as if waiting for a reply.

  Greenberg nodded at the man with an expression of complete agreement, then added gratuitously, “That’s how it is, there’s nothing you can do,” in a tone that meant he wanted to end the conversation that had been imposed upon him. He still worried that the man might identify him. In fact, he could not understand how the stranger had not already identified him, nor did all those who had seen him before – for example, in the restaurant three hours before.

  Then, all at once, he understood. He suddenly knew what was missing in the portrait: the slide shown on television was not a police sketch, it was a photograph – an enlargement of the same picture he had seen in the file at the office of The Rising, copies of which must by now be in the hands of all the authorities. But the picture had undergone some kind of retouching, and now looked like the product of a graphic artist. However, the graphic work was unfaithful to the original, for it had intentionally distorted one crucial detail – the eyebrows. The eyebrows of the man in the police sketch were much thinner and lighter than his! That was it; that was what he had not been able to get out of his mind all evening. That was the reason that no one had identified him so far. With different eyebrows, even a mother would have a hard time identifying her offspring from a police sketch. A sketch with false eyebrows was like a finger with another man’s prints.

  But why were they doing this? Why had they made it impossible to identify him? And if they had intentionally kept the public from identifying him – what was the point in publicizing his likeness? And anyway, they know well who he is – so what was the reason for not identifying him by name?

  As he turned around and headed back to the car, he found himself looking nervously over his shoulder. He felt pursued , and a feeling of insecurity threatened to overwhelm him. Was this the objective of the man who planned all this? Was someone interested in him running for his life?

  * * *

  He had to concentrate on actions; his feelings had to be pushed forcefully into the background of his awareness. The first thing he had to do was get rid of the car, such that no one could find it, not even by accident. An abandoned stolen car always offered investigators an excellent thread to follow. There was no way of knowing what inside the car would give away the present whereabouts of the driver.

  Greenberg drove to one of the more expensive downtown parking lots, took a parking receipt from the machine at the automated gate, and parked the car in the far corner of an upper floor. It would be a long time before the car was found, he believed. Car thieves don’t usually park stolen cars in downtown lots – and for that reason the police don’t usually look for them there, either.

  He walked out of the lot, and only then did he realize how much the car had afforded him protection and a sense of still possessing something in the world. Now he felt he had only the clothes on his back and the few objects in his pockets – a wallet with a dwindling amount of cash, a handkerchief, a comb. He slowly walked over to a gleaming display window and studied his reflection. Taking the comb from his back pocket, he combed his hair down and to the side. Only after walking another four blocks did he summon the courage to flag down a passing cab. The buses had stopped running; at that hour the only buses to be seen on the streets were being driven swiftly home by their drivers.

  The cab driver knew the address, but couldn’t understand what was wanted by the tourist speaking fluent Italian in the back seat, while gesticulating broadly with his hands. Later, if the driver were asked if he remembered picking up the person whose picture was being shoved under his notes, there would be no chance he’d single out the naïve Italian, whom he had driven around in circles running up a huge fare.

  Finally the cab gave up its passenger into the night. Greenberg paid without hesitation, despite the fact the ride used up a good portion of his remaining money, and began walking. He swiftly passed three buildings, then turned into the courtyard of a much larger one, very well lit. No one challenged him as he walked through the main entrance, nor when he followed the illuminating sign with the legend printed in thick red letters: ”OPERATING ROOM”.

  * * *

  A strong odor of medicines mixed with cleaning fluid assaulted Greenberg, making him feel slightly dizzy and nauseous. The glaring fluorescent lights reflecting off the polished linoleum floor hurt his eyes. There were several people in the surgical waiting room, dozing in different positions on the hard wood benches that lined two of the walls. Periodically the double doors connecting the waiting and treatment rooms would swing open and a figure wrapped in green would appear. As long as the hair covering the surgical mask remained in place, it was impossible to know the gender of the surgeon. When a particular surgeon was identified, the patient’s relatives would quickly get up and rush over to him, their faces a mixture of hope and fear.

  Greenberg waited. After a short while, he saw a surgeon come out whom no one approached. The doors opened again, and an unconscious man was wheeled out after the doctor. None of those present in the waiting room got up to speak with him. With a grave look on his face, Greenberg rose from the bench. The male nurse pushing the gurney towards the recovery room motioned to him to follow.

  “Everything’s all right,” the nurse said. “The doctors are pleased. The operation went well.”

  Greenberg nodded to express thanks mingled with concern, as the nurse continued to reassure him, thereby supplying Greenberg with the missing information on the patient’s illness and type of surgery.

  “So, you’re planning to stay with him the whole night,” smiled the recovery room nurse. “That’s so nice – and I thought by now he didn’t have any relatives in the country.”

  The days were long gone when medical staff tried to get rid of worried re
latives. Today with the growing shortage of manpower, relatives saved hospitals from having to allot special nurses to monitor patients in recovery. Two young household workers were called to the recovery room to bring him a folding bed, which they opened and set up next to the still unconscious surgical patient. One of the nurses even brought him a tray with a slice of bread, a saucer of jam, and a cup of sweet lukewarm tea.

  After about a quarter of an hour the head nurse came into the room to make an inspection. She glanced professionally at the IV sticking in the patient’s arm and checked his heart monitor.

  “If anything happens, call me immediately,” she told him, indicating the call button clamped to the pillow. She turned on a night light, which cast a weak glow after she turned off the main lights. Wishing Greenberg a good night, she left the room. Seconds later, he was in a deep sleep.

  A fast rustling sound woke him and Greenberg stood up. It took him a moment to remember where he was, and then to understand that the sound that had disturbed his sleep came from the yellowed plastic curtain hanging over the entrance to the cubicle.

  “Good morning!” a tall, thin nurse called out to him with what he thought was exaggerated cheerfulness, as she walked past him down the corridor. Her brisk movements proclaimed the fact that she had just come on the morning shift.

  “Good morning!” he heard her call to the patient sleeping in the adjoining cubicle.

  Now Greenberg remembered why he had come here, and a slight shiver passed through his body. Was it because of the sudden recollection of his predicament, or just the hospital air conditioning? He forced himself to sit down, then took his shirt form the small chest-of-drawers beside the cot. He put his arms in the sleeves, then quickly buttoned the shirt; and feeling warmer, stood again on the cold floor and finished dressing, as around him the sounds grew louder of the hospital waking up.

  Unconsciously Greenberg glanced at the bag of intravenous solution hanging above the patient he had adopted for the night. It was full. The man himself was still in a deep sleep, breathing heavily. Thank God, said Greenberg to himself, thinking he actually should thank the nurses for changing the IV on their own. Had it been up to him, he knew, the patient would not have made it through the night – and he certainly didn’t want another man’s death on his conscious.

  The sounds of activity grew louder. The rumbling of medication carts being wheeled down the hall, the slamming of silverware onto metal trays, the footsteps of white – garbed doctors and nurses going up and down the long corridors – all combined to bring the ward out of the night and into the routine of a new day.

  By the time he finished dressing, Greenberg was fully awake. He knew he had to act quickly. A doctor or nurse could appear at any moment, and it was doubtful he could provide satisfactory answers to any of the questions they were likely to ask. And what if a genuine relative of the patient showed up?

  He peeked out of the room and looked up and down the hall. For the moment he could see no one; after all it was still pretty early. He swiftly turned and looked about the room. In tow paces he reached the patient’s small bedside table and began going through the drawers. He found the man’s wallet in the bottom drawer. There were a few bills, not a lot of money – but every bit helps, thought Greenberg, putting them in his pocket. The man’s other possessions were uninteresting.

  He was about to leave the room, when he noticed a blue windbreaker, folded in half, lying on the next shelf, alongside a pair of black shoes inside a plastic bag. He quickly picked up the jacket and went through the pockets. In the inside breast pocket he found only a single document, but one which could be of great value under the right circumstances: a policeman’s ID card. Greenberg slipped the plastic card with its color photo into his shirt pocket.

  It was nearly 7 a.m. when he reached the street. Just as the day before, he was greeted by a chilly haziness typical of the middle of May, which would soon clear up and become much warmer. But so much had changed since he left his apartment for an ordinary business meeting!

  The city was waking up before his eyes. Here and there the sharp, aggravating horns of cars could be heard, signifying the formation of the first traffic jams. Greenberg glanced restlessly from side to side, but could not find anything suspicious. Even so, he did not relax. The busy street made him feel nervous. That man stopping to buy a newspaper, that young woman hurrying to the bus stop, that woman returning home with a load of bread tucked under one arm and carrying a bag of milk in the other – they all seemed to be part of the plot against him.

  Cars with antennas sticking up passed him occasionally, causing him to hold his breath as he checked their license plates, in a futile attempt to identify which of them belonged to the organization that was chasing him. Then, suddenly, he was no longer at all certain that it was indeed The Rising that was after him. Was it likely that a single underground organization could arrange everything that had happened to him yesterday? Was it likely that, because of The Rising, he now found himself without a place to live, out of a job, and thought of as dead? It didn’t make sense – an underground that big and powerful could topple Israel’s government and bring about the destruction of the country.

  But Greenberg couldn’t permit himself to indulge in such speculation. He had to focus on the facts – and the facts were that the news media had received a police sketch based on a photograph in the hands of The Rising. Here, at least, was an indication of an apparent link between the organization pursing him and the police.

  A sudden noise made him start. He jerked his head around and saw that what had alarmed him was merely the slamming of the door of a truck parked nearby. At that moment, it was clear to Greenberg how close he was to some sort of a collapse. He forced himself to breathe deeply and to take slow, steady steps. He now considered his situation, and decided that first and foremost he had to find himself a hiding place where he could rest for a while; where he could recover and plan his next steps in peace. He also knew he would need money – in his situation, a lot of money.

  He quickly ran through the names of his various friends and acquaintances, asking himself which of them could help him. It did not take him long to realize he would not find salvation from them: the ones closest to him he would not dare to involve in the awful mess he had been caught up in; the others he could not trust.

  Suddenly his glance rested upon a small sign of a realtor, and he was struck with an idea.

  * * *

  Perhaps it was the furniture, or maybe the whitewashed walls and gleamingly clean floors – any event, the apartment was not as bad as he had expected. Greenberg looked around the rooms, just as anyone interested in buying a property would, examining every detail and asking any question that came to mind. From time to time he even remembered to frown, as if not pleased by one particular or another.

  A short, rotund man with his hair combed back accompanied him, providing unceasing praise for his merchandise. Occasionally it seemed to Greenberg the man would try to hide one of the apartment’s defects with his body, so he couldn’t inspect it too carefully. Had he really been shopping for an apartment, Greenberg thought, he wouldn’t buy one from this realtor.

  About half an hour later, following the customary wheeling and dealing, Greenberg brought matters to a close, to the undisguised satisfaction of the broker. The two arranged to meet to sign the contract in another four days. Until then, it was understood the realtor would not try to sell the flat to anyone else; with a little luck, he wouldn’t show it to anyone either. Only with effort did Greenberg succeed in declining the man’s invitation to have a cup of coffee.

  * * *

  Two hours later Greenberg returned alone to the street where the apartment was located. In one hand he carried a bag bulging with food; in the other, three daily newspapers. Greenberg glanced at his watch. It was almost noon, an hour when few people were to be found on the streets of the quiet residential neighborhood. Still he knew he had to hurry: soon children would be returning from school, fil
ling the sidewalks and yards, and then he would be forced to wait until late that night to carry out his plan.

  When he came to “his” building, he carefully went around the back, crossed an inner courtyard, and quickly located the bathroom window of the apartment he had visited that morning. The window – whose lock he had released while supposedly examining the toilet – easily gave to his slight push. He dumped his things through the window and taking a boost from a nearby creeper vine, followed quickly after.

  A moment later he was standing inside, brushing the dust off his slacks, and looking around him. His eyes swiftly adjusted to the gloom created by the closed shutters. A thin band of light was cast down the long hallway by a shutter slat that had not completely dropped shut. Greenberg tried the light switch – during the day there was no danger someone would see the light from the street.

  Carrying his newspapers, Greenberg went over to examine the cardboard boxes stacked in a corner of one of the rooms, whose presence he had noted during the tour with the realtor. He was pleased to find that one of the dusty cartons contained a portable television. He spent the next half hour setting it up and adjusting it in a room whose shutters were sealed hermetically. His mood improved still further when he discovered that the apartment’s gas, hot water, and even telephone had not been turned off.

  Finally he went over to the double bed in the main bedroom. This, the broker had emphasized, he could have with the rest of the furniture for a laughable price. Greenberg dusted off the mattress with his hand the best he could, then stretched out luxuriously for the first real rest his body had had since two distant nights before.