As she climbed over the stern railing into the cockpit, he saw her face for the first time.
I’ve seen her before, Levi thought with relief. The hair is different, but the face is familiar. He watched her hop from the dock onto the boat’s deck. He smiled. And the body. I should remember that. She knows me; we’ve met before. What he’d first seen as a threatening situation was a familiar problem he’d lived with as long as he could remember.
Levi had no memory for faces. Shopping for clothes, Levi was always startled to see himself in the full-length mirrors. Not tall, not short. Thick, dark curly hair. Always tan from being on the water. Good build. Big Jewish nose. Not a bad-looking guy, he thought. Is that really me? Levi knew he’d recognize the redhead eventually. He guessed she was probably in Spain on a two-week vacation from Chicago or someplace. Her name will come to me, he thought. Probably someone I gave sailing lessons to.
“Imagine us meeting again,” he said, smiling at the woman as he stepped onto his boat. “It seems like such a long, long time.”
“We’ve never met,” she said, the smile dropping from her face, her eyes narrowing. “Save the charm for someone else. But we have business to discuss. Does this boat of yours have a cabin, someplace private?”
“Sure, welcome aboard,” he invited.
Sitting facing each other on the cushioned berths inside the boat’s cabin, surrounded by New England craftsmen’s woodworking, the teak and holly cabin floor, the white pine cabin walls, the tiled fireplace, Levi waited anxiously for her to speak first.
She looked around the cabin slowly and spoke for the first time in English rather than Hebrew.
“You’ve done well for yourself since the death of Eretz Yisrael, haven’t you, Lt. Chaim Levi?” she said slowly as her eyes swung to meet his. She noticed the shock in his face, all pretense of suave confidence evaporated.
Her right hand came out of her pants pocket and she swung his gold-colored dog tags on their chain in front of his face.
“Lt. Chaim Levi of the Israeli Navy. Do you call this vessel a motor torpedo boat, or is it a submarine? I’m afraid I have not kept up with the state of the art of Israel’s warship industry.”
“Okay, okay,” he muttered, avoiding her eyes. “Who are you? What do you want? You’re an American, so what are you, a private detective? Is that what you are? The American wants his boat back? Fine. Take it. It’s in better condition now than when I borrowed it.”
“Lt. Levi, I’m not a detective and I’m not, or at least not any longer, an American. I am, in fact, your commanding officer.” She tossed the dog tags into his lap and laughed. “Just when do you think you were discharged from the navy?”
She fixed her eyes on his, watching for the man’s reaction.
“Certain people working with me have had their eyes on you here. They searched this boat of yours. If you want to get rid of your identification tags, you’ll have to find a better place to hide them than under your mattress. Lieutenant, your country still needs you.” For the first time she smiled and leaned back on the berth, “and you seem to be captain of the entire Israeli naval war fleet. By the way, my name is Debra Reuben.”
“Do I salute you or kiss you?” Levi asked. He looked at her closely. “Reuben? I know you. The one from the television who went into the government. I thought you did things with artists or tourists or something like that, not with the navy.”
“Today,” she said, “we do what we can.”
“With what?” he asked. “Our country is gone. Our people have been exterminated. We have no navy, no air force, no troops. Fight back with what?”
“With what we have,” she said slowly, looking him squarely in the eyes. “We could start World War III, and then get our land back.”
As she explained a carefully redacted version about Dimona and what was stored in the warehouse ten miles up the Spanish coast, Levi realized with a stunning certainty that his plans for drinking piña coladas on Caribbean beaches would be put on hold for a while—a long while.
CHAPTER 9
The decision was made at the highest levels of government. No exceptions. Not for any refugees. Not even for Jewish refugees. The two ships were ordered to leave. They would be escorted by an Egyptian warship on a visit to New York back to the new nation of Palestine.
Before dawn the next morning, two rocket-propelled grenades dashed from the Iliad and three from the Ionian Star, turning both Coast Guard thirty-eight-footers into flaming wrecks that quickly sank to the bottom of the harbor, killing all ten on board the two boats.
Dozens of small boats—even canoes from the Charles River—dashed out from the nearby shore. The boats filled with people jumping into the water from the ships’decks. Once loaded with wet passengers, the small boats disappeared into the darkness. Fireboats speeding out from the inner harbor to help the Coast Guard vessels ignored the dozens of small boats, which the firefighters assumed were shoreside residents out to search for survivors.
By noon, the Iliad and the Ionian Star were empty, even their crews deciding perhaps this was a good time to look up relatives in Chicago.
Newspaper accounts of the attack on the Coast Guard boats and the escape of the refugees used a new phrase to define America’s latest enemy. JEWISH TERRORISTS KILL 10 ON COAST GUARD SHIPS, PASSENGERS ESCAPE INTO HIDING, the Boston Globe headline said.
JEWS KILL AMERICANS was the Boston Herald front page, implying there was a difference between the two groups.
Howie Mandelbaum did not think of himself as a violent criminal. Neither did his fellow residents of the Charles Street Jail, a Dickensian building leaning against one of the outbuildings of the Massachusetts General Hospital. The jail was a model penal institution when it was opened in 1857, shaped, as were classic cathedrals, like a cross. The central vault was an open space, 100 feet long on each side, five stories tall. The four stubby arms of the cross were short, U-shaped hallways open to the central vault. In turn, the hallways were lined with row after row of steel bars separating the hallways from the cells.
The benevolent theory, at least in 1857, was that each cell was open to the central vault so that every guard could see into every cell and every prisoner had the benefit of the light and fresh air from that central vault. What that also meant was every inmate could see every other inmate. No cell was separated from any other cell by anything but steel bars and open air. All that prevented any of the 687 inmates of the jail from speaking with any other inmate was the strength of his lungs and his ability to make himself heard over the roar that reverberated through the central vault. On top of the inmates’shouting were the shouts of guards telling prisoners to shut up, and radios and televisions turned to maximum volume to be heard at all.
The cells were meant to hold one inmate. Despite the order of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts enforcing that intention, Mandelbaum shared his accommodations. His roommate found Mandelbaum’s whimpering funny.
“Never heard of a Jew being anything but a bookie, Jew Boy,” said Sean Connery, like the James Bond guy. “And you don’t look like no bookie. What happened, pretty boy, get caught with some coke on the front seat of your Bimmer when you ran a red light?”
Connery was interrupted by a banging on the cell bars.