The hours dragged by. Adi had seen a photograph of Julian Hart on the university website, and had committed it to memory. She was hoping to find him in the footage she’d been given, although in theory he could have purchased the statue through a catalog or online. She was no expert in the field, but assumed that one doesn’t purchase an antique wooden statue from the Middle Ages without first seeing it in person. She didn’t know what she was going to find, but she, too, was a believer in what Aharon and Michael termed “legwork,” and in her line of work, as an intelligence officer, that meant wading through more and more material, without getting tired, without losing faith, to press on with more, and then a little more after that. And that’s what she did. She studied the images from Bernhard & Sons until she could barely focus any longer. And then she went to the shower and ducked her head under the running water. The shock of the cold took her breath away. She dried her hair and returned doggedly to the small desk and her laptop. Everyone must be fast asleep at home. She brushed the images of her two young daughters from her thoughts. The earphones from her music player were in her ears, an old Oasis song, and her eyes were again fixed and focused on the screen in front of her.
It was two-thirty in the morning when she finally caught sight of Julian Hart’s face in the footage from the camera that covered the store’s upper level. She was surprised she hadn’t seen him in the footage from the camera at the entrance, and she backtracked a little. Yes, that was him. She hadn’t recognized him due to the heavy coat and scarf he was wearing. Entering the store with him was another man, wearing sunglasses and a casquette. He appeared familiar, but she couldn’t identify him, both due to the hat and sunglasses and because most of his person remained hidden by Hart. She continued now, very slowly, her pulse pounding in her temples. She returned to the images of Hart inside the store, appearing relaxed and at ease. He took a close look at one of the pieces, it was hard to see if it was a chalice or statue, and then gestured to someone outside the frame, motioning for him to come over. And that someone did so. Alon Regev, the advisor to the prime minister of Israel. If Julian Hart was Brian, then Alon Regev was Cobra. And there they were, forever immortalized in the security footage from Bernhard & Sons, together, speaking to one another as friends. Without even a momentary glance at the time Adi called through to Aharon Levin’s room. She woke him and asked him to come to her room right away. Aharon groaned a little and said, “I’m just going to wash my face and I’ll be right there. You’ve done it, Adi, right? You’ve identified Cobra! Is it bad news or very bad news?”
“Come and see, Aharon. You’re not going to like it.”
58
TOKYO, MARCH 2012
Michael’s thoughts drifted to the past. He was back in Tokyo, high above the endless maze of streets. The city was dotted with billions of lights. Tiny glittering specks in a plethora of colors filled the expanse. From street level and reaching up to a height of hundreds of meters, on the uppermost floors of the skyscrapers. Lights of aircraft coming in to land, losing altitude on the approach to Haneda Airport, lights of huge ships in the bay, endless strings of lights snaking their way along the multilevel freeways, bridge lights hanging over the river.
From afar, it was simply one of the billions of dots of light that gave the city its shimmering and flickering dimensions. But if, as in a movie, you were to zoom in on that particular dot superfast, you’d find yourself on the thirty-fourth floor of the hotel, your face pressed against the huge glass wall, while on the other side of it, exposed to the entire city, stood Michael Turgeman, muscular and slim and naked, water washing over his body in the extremely spacious shower cubicle with its black slate floor and black marble wall tiles. The water flowed freely, and the city lay spread out before Michael to the west in all its immensity and glory. Tears ran from his wide-open eyes, their saltiness swallowed up by the stream of water that washed over his face and body, mixing with the lemony fragrance of the shower gel. AnaÏs, AnaÏs. His body ached with longing.
59
JERUSALEM, PRESIDENT’S RESIDENCE, APRIL 2013
Their meeting on this occasion took place in the president’s official chambers. Outside, the Jerusalem spring preened in all its glory, with the intoxicating scent of flowers in full bloom and pleasant light gusts of wind. The sky was blue and mostly clear, the occasional white clouds sailing by, sketched by an artist’s hand. The window of the president’s office that overlooked the beautiful garden in the backyard was open, the drapes were flapping in the breeze, and the Jerusalem air flowed in. Aharon Levin had already met with the president twice since being entrusted with the task of finding Cobra, but his report this time was more dramatic and significant than ever.
“We’ve got him, Mr. President. And just as we feared, we’re dealing with the highest-level, the most terrible spy ever to operate in the state of Israel.”
“Simply unbelievable,” the president commented after listening to Aharon’s detailed briefing. “All our secrets, all of them, at least since Daniel Shalev first joined the cabinet, have been passed on to Moscow. And God only knows where else from there. And now that vermin’s in the Prime Minister’s Office. I just can’t get my head around it!”
“You know, of course, that damage assessment in this instance is meaningless,” Aharon said. “Let me remind you that we have no definite information on what was passed on to the KGB and what wasn’t. But we have to work on the assumption that everything Alon Regev got his hands on ended up in their hands, too. And if this assumption is correct, the catastrophe is so immense that there’s actually nothing we can do. We have no way of limiting the damage, containing it. The only thing left for us to do is to prevent any further damage and to allow the damage that has already been caused to become outdated. And that will be a lengthy process. Certain fundamental intelligence can remain relevant for years.”
“What about the option of beating the Russians at their own game?” the president asked. “We could arrest Regev and offer him a deal, under which he’ll feed his handlers with misinformation, with the aim of gradually undermining the genuine intelligence he’s been passing over to them all these years, of leading them to believe that the old information is no longer relevant, and that the new intelligence is valid and current?”
“That would require allowing him to remain free,” Aharon replied. “And we’d have to come up with a very convincing charade that appears to indicate that he’s still tied very closely and firmly to the centers of power. If we simply play along—allow him to report daily to the Prime Minister’s Office, but put him in an empty and secluded room until the end of each day—the Russians will figure it out. We won’t be able to keep it under wraps. And for a ploy with a seemingly good chance of remaining unexposed, we’d have to recruit several confidants in the Prime Minister’s Office. But then, because so many individuals will be party to the secret, it’ll leak. And how will the prime minister and the people around him be able to function at all knowing that a Russian spy, or former Russian spy, is working there alongside them in the very next room? Mr. President, the notion is a tempting one, and it’s sophisticated and has potential in theory, but I’m afraid it isn’t practical.”