Sitting later at the airport, at the bar overlooking the tarmac, after having already checked in, Alon watched as a large Swiss jet touched down on the runway, its wheels spraying up the rain that had been falling incessantly for the past hour. He saw the promise offered by the aircraft. It had come from somewhere far away, Canada, perhaps, maybe South America. And from Zurich it would fly out again to a different destination. To another continent. Alon could buy a ticket, get on board, and disappear. No one would know where he was. Not Brian and not Na’ama or anyone else. But Alon knew it was impossible to truly disappear for any significant length of time in this world. Certainly not without assistance. He forcibly erased the image of the lush green island surrounded by white beaches and a turquoise sea that had popped into his head. Feeling agitated, and with a bitter taste in his mouth, Alon began making his way to the gate for the flight to Tel Aviv. Less than an hour after he was due to land, former Mossad chief Aharon Levin would take his seat in the economy section of the very same aircraft, inching forward like a bloodhound on the scent, determined to capture his prey.
57
ZURICH, MARCH 2013
A bearish man, broad and large, his blond—almost white—hair cropped short, Thomas Mueller greeted Aharon at the terminal with a firm hug. Aharon and Adi had just exited through the green customs channel, and Adi picked up on the genuine warmth in the embrace shared by the two elderly men. When Aharon introduced him to Adi, Thomas said she reminded him of his daughter and almost hugged her, too. It was morning in Zurich, but the sky was a steely opaque gray, and Aharon and Thomas used the drive from the airport into the city to catch up on each other’s exploits, mixing personal gossip with chitchat from the world of international espionage. They reminisced about the nights they had spent together on stakeout in an ice-cold car with only the coffee prepared for them by Thomas’s wife on hand to save them from freezing completely. And Thomas talked with obvious pride about his two grandchildren, to the accompaniment of some indistinct hems and haws from Aharon. Adi sat in the back, looking out the window, wondering what was inside the large trucks that Thomas’s BMW flashed past with a low growl.
“You’re staying for at least one night, right?” Thomas asked. “You’re welcome like always to stay with us, in Bern. But being a little familiar with you, Aharon, I’ve reserved two rooms for you at Frau Adler’s hotel that you like so much.”
Aharon almost took offense at his friend Thomas’s assumption that they’d need two rooms, but was quick to recognize, all by himself, the absurdity of such a reaction. “Most appreciated!” he said. “How’s dear Frau Adler? Still helping you from time to time, with your operations?”
“I’ve been out of the game for a long time already, and I thought, mistakenly I guess, that the same went for you. So I’m not really up to speed on operations, and Frau Adler isn’t either any longer, I believe. Things were different back then, right? Those meetings we conducted at her hotel! She’s a very discreet woman, and I think, too, that she had a thing for me,” he said somewhat bashfully. “She used to be very beautiful, like a movie star. Today, like all of us, she’s falling apart a little.”
They reached the city, and the BMW began making its way up toward the mountain overlooking the lake. “Let’s go for a little walk in the forest. The cold air will clear our heads, and we can discuss the matter you’re here for. I promise we’ll end up at that charming café in that cabin—remember, Aharon? The one that looks as if it could have come from a particularly frightening fairy tale? But their coffee is excellent, and they’re happy to add a kick to it even in the mornings. And for the young girl, a hot chocolate,” he added with a smile.
“Hot chocolate with ice-cold vodka works for me,” Adi responded, and Thomas said, “I apologize, Fräulein. You’ve put me in my place, and rightly so.”
“Frau, not Fräulein. I’m a mother of two small children. But I’ll take it as a compliment.” Nothing fazes her, that young woman, Aharon thought to himself with pride.
They reached the summit. Gray clouds hung below them, and they were enveloped by the pure fresh scent of pine trees. Thomas and Aharon walked side by side along the path that wound its way through the trees. Adi followed a short way behind them, overwhelmed by the sudden sense of freedom that filled her.
Their cups of coffee stood on the table in front of them, a bottle of clear schnapps in the middle. The early hour meant the café was still empty. And the fire ablaze in the fireplace added warmth and a pleasant aroma to the expanse. Aharon briefed Thomas in general terms about the hunt he’d been orchestrating in recent weeks. He told him about the Israeli person of interest, whose crimes he refrained from labeling explicitly; he focused on the American lead, who had turned up all of a sudden at the Bernhard & Sons antiquities store, here in Zurich. That was the lead he wanted to follow, to see where it took him. Thomas listened intently, a thoughtful look on his face.
“I can still ask for a few favors here in Zurich. The police chief of the canton used to work under me, and he could be of assistance. It would be wise to refrain from doing anything rash like approaching the storeowner directly. We need to check first if he appears anywhere in our records. He may be connected to some sort of criminal activity or something else. And your American—Hart, right?—may not have turned up at that particular antiquities store by chance. Perhaps Herr Bernhard is involved somehow in Hart’s covert activities. Maybe he’s a courier of sorts himself, a contact, or maybe his store is a secure location at which Hart can leave something for someone else to pick up. If that’s the case, we wouldn’t want Bernhard’s first move to be a message warning Hart.
“To begin with, we can ask Bernhard for the store’s security footage from the past week, with a cover story about an antiquities forgery affair that’s currently under investigation by Interpol, in which we, the Zurich Police, that is, are providing assistance. We’re looking for someone who appears to have visited several antiquities stores in Zurich in the past week, and we’re trying to identify the individual by comparing images from the leading stores in the city. This will require the police to request security footage from a number of businesses, and concerns regarding forgeries will convince them to cooperate. In their line of business, reputability has a significant bearing on sales,” Thomas said. “They obviously speak to one another, all those antiquities traders, and Bernhard can’t know that we’re focused on him alone. Hmmm,” Thomas hummed and added, “it’ll take some doing, but Alexander owes me one. I hope he remembers who awarded him his promotion.”
Adi was sitting in her small room, on the second floor of Frau Adler’s hotel. It was early evening, and the dim light of a streetlamp illuminated the cobblestone alleyway across the way, but Adi wasn’t tempted into keeping an indifferent eye on the view from the window. Frau Adler herself had greeted them on arrival, flirting shamelessly with Aharon Levin, her makeup thick and overdone, or so Adi had thought to herself, and her voice deep and raspy from decades of smoking. She had insisted on referring to Adi as Aharon’s “niece,” and Adi couldn’t figure out if it carried an insult of sorts, and she also failed to comprehend the narrow-eyed look Frau Adler had given her.
Either way, Aharon and Thomas had disappeared and she was sitting with her laptop open on the desk, and next to it three flash drives containing all the security footage from Bernhard & Sons from the past week. The screen was split into four sections, but one was black and displayed no data. A review of the initial images indicated to Adi that the store had two levels, each covered by a different camera. A third camera scanned the street, outside the entrance to the business. The images from the upper level also showed a door that led, she assumed, to Mr. Bernhard & Sons’ private office. Her guess was that the fourth camera covered the office itself, and she figured that with all due respect, Herr Bernhard wasn’t going to provide his good friends at the Zurich Police with the footage from the office without a court order. That probably explained the fourth, black, screen. She was going to have to work and come out on top with what she’d been left with, three screens in shades of gray and white. And that’s exactly what Adi was bent on doing.