“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.” Gideon 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.
He removed the sunglasses.
Her eyes opened wide and she hurried around the bed. She stopped before reaching him, holding back, unsure of his reaction.
He stepped forward, opened his arms, and took Bira into a tight embrace. And to his great surprise, Tanya’s daughter, the tough archeology professor who had defied him repeatedly, buried her face in his chest and sobbed like a little girl.
*
The Cross-Samaria Roadway followed a moderate decline through the West Bank hills toward the Green Line and the Israeli city of Kfar Saba, a large bedroom community at the edge of the Tel Aviv metropolis. “Look at this view,” Itah said. “On a clear day you can see every Israeli city from Ashdod in the south to Hadera in the north. Basically, sixty-percent of Israelis live within sight of here.”
“And within range.”
Itah looked at him. The resemblance to his father was striking, but so were the differences. Where his father was a thinker, a deliberate leader who used words and gestures to influence others, Lemmy spoke and acted like a man of action-decisive, showing no hesitation. “Range is a relative term,” she said. “In sixty-seven, we worried about King Hussein’s artillery positions on these hills, and in fact he bombed our cities before the IDF destroyed his army and pushed him back from the West Bank. But in ninety-one, Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles easily hit Tel Aviv from Baghdad, and the Americans forbade us from responding in kind.”
“And in a few years, we’ll be within range of Teheran’s ballistic missiles.” Lemmy sped up to pass a station wagon.
“That’s the reason Yitzhak Rabin decided to make peace,” Itah explained, “even if the Palestinians get to sit here and aim Katyusha rockets at us. He wants to create a ring of peaceful Arab countries around Israel-Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, as well as a Palestinian state-together forming a buffer against Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.”
“It’s a risky gamble.” Lemmy crossed into the opposite lane to pass a motorcycle, ridden by a couple who both wore black helmets and gray ponytails.
“Rabin is a strategic thinker. He looks at the whole region as a single battlefield, which is the reason he really believes in this peace. Only he could inspire so many Israelis to support reconciliation with the PLO-”
The shots came one after the other, blowing both tires on the left side of the car. Lemmy struggled with the steering wheel, but the car veered to the shoulder, flipped over, and landed upside-down in a ditch.
In the sudden silence, Lemmy heard the rattle of a helicopter. “Are you okay?”
No response from Itah.
Bullets knocked on the car.
The seat belt buckle took several tries to yield. He crawled out through the shattered window. A cloud of dust lingered from the car’s tumbles. Freckles’ FN Browning was already in his hand. He cocked it, advanced up to the edge of the ditch, and waited for the dust to settle.
The helicopter was somewhere to his right, hovering low. Lemmy traced the sound with the barrel of the FN Browning. A gust of wind cleared the dust. A sniper hung out of the open door as the helicopter slowly descended toward a flat piece of desert. More shots hit the car.
Lemmy aimed at the most vulnerable part of the craft-its rear rotor. He released one, two, three shots.
At first there was only a brief burst of steam-like vapors, but then the sound level changed. The sniper managed one more shot, hitting the dirt by Lemmy’s head, but the helicopter began to spin around, showing its other side, which gave Lemmy direct visual line to the pivot holding the rear rotor. He pressed the trigger three more times. There was a popping noise, and the helicopter turned again, tilting sideways, and hit the ground.
No explosion. Must have been low on fuel.
Lemmy crawled back into the wrecked Subaru.
He didn’t need to check Itah’s pulse to know she was gone. The car’s gyrations must have tossed her upper body sideways through the window. Her head was crushed.
Someone was yelling.
The motorcycle riders.
They had been close behind when the first shots hit the car. The bike was lying on its side, and the man was crouching by his female passenger in the middle of the road. Lemmy ran over. She was conscious, crying softly.
A car was approaching. It was the station wagon he had passed earlier. “There’s your ride,” Lemmy told the biker. “Get her to a hospital.”
The motorbike was an old Triumph Bonneville, its few chrome parts shining, a testimony to pride of ownership and, Lemmy hoped, good repair. He lifted the bike, scanned the controls, slipped the gear into neutral, and stepped on the kickstand. The engine fired up immediately.
The owner yelled something.
Lemmy shoved the FN Browning in his belt and straddled the bike, revving the engine.