“‘Them,’” Ellerstein said. “The ‘government.’”
Gulder nodded, sipped some mineral water, and pried the nut’s shell apart. Ellerstein waited, then gave up and concentrated on finishing his salad. After a while, Gulder spoke again. “I am a little surprised. This is the same government who has taken care of her since her husband died? That was partly your doing, was it not?”
“Partly, yes. I had met them both. Dov Ressner was an idealist, who perhaps didn’t pick his political friends too carefully. By the time this happened I had moved to the university, so, yes, I spoke up for her. Although others must have helped as well.”
“You perhaps had some high hopes, Yossi?”
Ellerstein actually thought he saw a twinkle in Gulder’s eyes. A confirmed bachelor all his life, he waved the thought away. “She was a widow, for God’s sake. Vulnerable. Confused. Grieving. And, of course, beautiful. Every man who saw her wanted her — but not then, not under those circumstances.”
“Well,” Gulder grunted, “others did help. Even she must have known that the government she’s so angry with had a hand in getting her that appointment to the university. Not that she wasn’t qualified, but there were other equally qualified candidates. And her widow’s pension — that of a soldier, not a civil servant — that was a government decision as well.”
“She apparently has some money of her own,” Ellerstein said. “She lives in Rehavia, has her own car. One can’t manage that on an academic’s pay.”
Gulder nodded. “Dov Ressner was a small pain in the government’s comfortably large ass, but he had done valuable work. The government did the right thing, despite his association with the antinuclear left. If she has strong feelings about escorting the American, someone should perhaps remind her of these things.”
Ellerstein was somewhat surprised that Gulder knew so much about the Ressners. He tried a probe. “He died in some sort of accident at Dimona, as I understand it. He was a scientist, so I always assumed radiation. Something like that. Did you perhaps know him?”
Gulder looked away for a moment before replying. “No, only through briefings,” he said, deflecting Ellerstein’s question. “There were not that many homegrown physicists in Israel back then. He was educated at the Weizmann Institute and in France. He got mixed up with some of that antiweapon, left-wing fringe crowd. You know, the LaBaG faction. People he’d probably met at university. Got into some kind of trouble, but then it was smoothed over. You know how that all works. The Dimona scientists all have protectsia.”
“I guess I’m still a little bit confused about all this,” Ellerstein said. “There’s obviously something going on here…?”
Gulder gave him a patronizing smile. “Yossi, let me tell you a little something. These are dangerous times for our country. More dangerous than perhaps many people right here in Israel are aware. The prime minister has been — alerted, yes, that’s the best word, I think. Alerted to something going on, something that frightens him.”
“An attack?” Ellerstein asked. “The goddamned Arabs—”
“No, not exactly, although that’s always possible. Hezbollah grows stronger every hour, thanks to the madman in Tehran, and Hamas is the legally elected government of the Palestinians. But look: I can’t say any more. Right now, I will ask you to just keep your nose in. Monitor this American’s little project. Keep an eye on Judith Ressner. Keep me informed. When the time comes, I will, if necessary, fold you into the situation. Hopefully, we are all wrong, and this other thing will just go away, and you can go back to your regular duties. Okay?”
“As you wish, Gulder,” Ellerstein said immediately. His own bosses had warned him in no uncertain terms: Never cross Gulder. “But I’m not young anymore. I feel that I can do a better job when I know the parameters, yes?”
Gulder nodded. “Certainly, but trust me here, knowing those parameters could put you in some genuine danger.” He stopped for a moment and pressed the button on his watch that turned the light on. Before Ellerstein could figure out why Gulder needed the light, four large and very fit men appeared from nowhere. The restaurant owner quickly hung up the phone and scuttled out of the dining room. Ellerstein recognized them as guards from the prime minister’s personal security detail.
“See, Yossi?” Gulder said, getting up with some difficulty from the tight quarters of the booth. “Dangerous times. Even I need minders these days, yes? I will be in touch. And thank you, again.” He patted Ellerstein on the shoulder and left the restaurant, the guards closing in on him as he went out the door.
Ellerstein could only stare, his supper forgotten. What the hell was this, he wondered. Was it about the American? Ressner? Or something bigger? He signaled the waiter for a second glass of wine, something he rarely did.
Later that evening, Judith Ressner, dressed in jeans and an oversized army sweater, saw a large black Mercedes with tinted windows nose to the curbside in front of her small apartment building. Rehavia was a quiet, if densely packed, upscale residential neighborhood, fifteen to twenty rush hour minutes away from the Hebrew University. The area consisted mostly of two- and three-story garden apartment buildings. The streets were very narrow, with hardly enough room for even small cars, so the Mercedes was effectively blocking the street. The trees were beginning to lose their leaves as fall approached. The breeze coming down from the university precincts was cooler than usual, reminding her that Jerusalem was built on high ground. As she watched the car, she could hear the sounds of neighborhood domestic life subsiding into the darkness: dogs barking somewhere down the block, a few radios playing through open windows, and the muted sounds of traffic from the Road One.
A tall man, dressed all in black, even to his strange hat, got out of the car, carefully, as if in some pain. She fussed with her hair for a moment before heading for her front door. He had called her from the car twenty minutes ago. A Colonel Skuratov. That name was vaguely familiar. When he said he was an officer in the Shin Bet and the head of security at the Dimona laboratories, she had agreed to see him. Now she watched from behind a curtain as he walked up the steps to the building’s entrance and rang the bell for her apartment. She buzzed him through the front door as the big car backed quietly up the street to double-park near the corner, its yellow emergency lights flashing silently. She drew the curtains and waited, listening to him climbing the stairs slowly, an old man’s tread. Perhaps he had a heart condition. She had not been able to see his face, but that name — Skuratov. Definitely familiar. Stooped back, white hair, that hat. A homburg, that’s what it was. And Dimona. She experienced a slight feeling of dread, but the exact memory continued to elude her.
She opened the door before he had time to knock, and then struggled to keep her expression composed when she saw his ruined face. That face. That night. He had been one of the men who had, who had—
“Good evening,” he was saying, in a wheezing voice. “I am Colonel Malyuta Lukyanovitch Skuratov, Mrs. Ressner. We have met before. Under unfortunate circumstances.” He took small breaths between sentences, but there was nothing frail about those bright gray eyes gleaming from the scarred face.
“Oh,” was all she could manage, standing in the doorway like a dummy. Staring, while not wanting to.
“May I come in, please? It is late, but this will not take long. It concerns the American who wants to go to Metsadá.”
“It does?” she asked blankly, showing her confusion. Then she recovered her manners. “I’m so sorry, yes, come in.”