“ In the West Bank?”
“ No. In Switzerland.” Itah laughed. “You’ve never been to a settlement, have you?”
“ I left Israel one day before the IDF captured the West Bank. Other than my radar sabotage foray into East Jerusalem and a recent visit to the Wailing Wall, I’ve never been across the sixty-seven border.”
“ How bizarre. Our worst political problems in the past decades-the vicious rift between left and right, the loss of international support, and the Intifada-all came after the Six Day War.” Itah punched his arm. “If not for your pyrotechnics at Government House, Israel’s first strike would have failed. Even if we had somehow survived the Arabs’ overwhelming forces, we would have never captured the West Bank. If not for you, the Middle East would have gone in a different direction.”
“ You blame me?” Lemmy merged back into traffic, speeding up. “Don’t you believe in God?”
*
Smoke petered out of the windows on the second floor of the apartment building. Gideon ran up the stairs. The door was broken, hanging from a single remaining brass hinge. He yelled, “Abort! Abort!”
“ Stay back!” Agent Cohen’s voice was muted by the gas mask. “We got Spinoza!”
The teargas had immediate effect on Gideon. His eyes watered and his nose began to burn. The apartment was wrecked, with bullet holes and broken furniture. “Abort, I said!”
Agent Cohen was crouching in the hallway. “He’s cornered!”
“ It’s not him!”
Down the hallway, the nurse lifted her leg to kick in a door to one of the bedrooms, while another agent stood with his back against the wall, gun ready.
“ 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.