The Jerusalem Assassin Read online

  Rabbi Gerster touched the face in the photo and kissed his fingertips. “Good Sabbath, my son.”

  *

  Lemmy punched in a series of numbers on a pad, and the steel door clicked open. The data center, set up in a converted underground vault, held the massive computer system the bank had purchased last year.

  “ Gentlemen!” He approached Christopher and Gunter, who sat together at a terminal. “This has been a productive week, hasn’t it?” He watched Gunter expectantly.

  “ Of course, Herr Horch.” The elderly man grimaced, as if his words tasted bitter.

  “ I’m glad the two of you are working together so well.”

  “It’s a pleasure,” Christopher said, playing along. “We’re making great progress with these fictitious accounts.”

  “Very good. Be sure to cover all the security features.”

  “Of course,” Christopher said. “We’ll stay here as long as it takes.”

  “ At least you won’t get cold,” Lemmy said. Unlike the other subterranean vaults, this one was warmed up by the computer servers, electrical boards, and thick bundles of colorful wires. He glanced at his watch. “I should be going. Herr Hoffgeitz is joining us for dinner. Paula’s cooking his favorite-crock-pot Swiss beef with mashed potatoes and cheese fondue.”

  “ Yum.” Christopher smacked his lips, and Gunter turned to him with raised eyebrows.

  Lemmy chuckled. “Have a good weekend.”

  *

  Gideon replaced each audio tape with the next while the Jackal cleverly evaded his pursuers and got closer to his target. A few Peugeot sedans passed by during the afternoon, one of them green, which caused a brief excitement until they saw the driver, an old Frenchwoman who could not possibly belong to Abu Yusef’s group.

  Traffic on the local road grew sparse as the sky darkened. They consumed tuna sandwiches and Coke for dinner. An hour later, Bathsheba relocated to the back seat, curled up, and fell asleep. Gideon donned night-vision goggles and watched the road while the audio novel played on.

  It was near midnight when the Jackal’s bullet missed De Gaulle by a hair, and the indefatigable Inspector Lebel kicked in the door and killed the assassin. Gideon pressed the eject button on the cassette player, turned on the ignition, and headed back to Paris. On the radio, the news included an update on the shooting near Ermenonville. One of the bodies was identified as that of Al-Mazir, a Palestinian rumored to have taken part in the PLO’s 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. In Gaza, Yasser Arafat announced a day of mourning for “our fallen comrade” while anonymous sources expressed embarrassment at the former guerilla’s involvement in juvenile sex trade. In Jerusalem, the prime minister’s office denied Israel’s involvement in the assassination, stating, “Our energies are totally dedicated to peacemaking with our willing partners.”

  *

  Saturday, October 14, 1995

  The Paula left the dock early on Saturday, its sails taut in the steady breeze. Lemmy steered the boat-a Beneteau Oceanis 510-away from shore, cutting a path in the fuzzy layer of white caps. The sky was clear, and the biting air forewarned of a cold winter.

  Armande Hoffgeitz stood with his grandson at the bow, rising and sinking against the tree-covered hills on the opposite bank of Lake Zurich. Klaus Junior held a monocular, tracing the sights that his grandfather pointed out. The boy shifted his aim to a flock of geese heading south across the bow. One of the birds dropped a glob, barely missing them, and they burst out laughing.

  “They’re like two peas in a pod,” Paula said. “I haven’t seen Father this happy since my brother died.”

  He kissed her honey-colored hair. “We’re blessed. And the wind is good too.”

  “ Aye, aye, Skipper.” Paula sipped from a glass of merlot. “I should have let it sit another year.”

  He took a swig from his nearly frozen Heineken bottle. “This one’s properly aged.”

  “ Like me?” She banged her hip against his.

  Her cheerful nature had put him at ease since the first time he approached Paula in the fall of 1967, on his first day at Lyceum Alpin St. Nicholas. The plan required him to carefully implement each phase in their relationship-an initial approach as a new student seeking advice, follow up with seemingly coincidental run-ins, develop a circle of mutual friends to maximize time together at school and on vacations, and only a year later, clinch their relationship as lovers. He had also nurtured a friendship with her young brother, Klaus V.K. Hoffgeitz, ensuring a loyal ally close to her heart.

  After graduation, Paula had studied art at the University of Zurich, living at Hoffgeitz Manor on the hills overlooking Lake Zurich. Lemmy worked evenings and weekends at the accounting department of Credit Niehoch Bank while studying at the Zurich School of Economics. She had insisted on keeping their relationship secret for fear of upsetting her father, who had planned for her to marry the scion of another Swiss banking dynasty. The tragic death of Klaus V.K. made her even more reluctant to upset her father. Finally, in 1979, when Lemmy was already a rising star at Credit Niehoch, he asked Herr Hoffgeitz for Paula’s hand in marriage. The aging banker reluctantly gave his blessing and walked her down the aisle at the Fraumunster church. Over the subsequent year, the two men got to know each other, discussing economics, finance, and the emerging deregulation of the banking industry. The father’s prejudicial displeasure with Paula’s choice gave way to grudging respect for Lemmy’s intelligence and knowledge. In 1982, Armande invited him to join the Hoffgeitz Bank.

  He had started as an account manager, one of twelve men who constituted the core of the private banking operation, each handling a group of clients. After several years, on the day following Klaus Junior’s baptism, Lemmy became chief accounts manager. And last year, Armande had promoted him to vice president. These promotions had been earned with hard work and successful client development, especially with Mideast oil sheiks. In addition, the presumed succession to a young and capable son-in-law projected long-term stability and continuity to the clients of the Hoffgeitz Bank. And lately Lemmy’s control over the bank’s technological metamorphosis placed a great deal of power in his hands, bringing him ever closer to the ultimate goal of the mission that had brought him into this family in the first place.

  Paula kissed his neck. She avoided his cheeks as he had not shaved this morning. Between weekdays at the bank and Sunday’s church attendance, Saturday was the only day he could dress casually and skip shaving. He had joked with Paula that the skin of his face needed a break, though in truth this habit was his private tradition-a link to a distant, secret past of observing the Jewish Sabbath.

  “Coming about!” He turned the wheel, and the boat changed course into the wind. The waves slapped against the hull. Paula helped him lower the mainsail and drop anchor.

  They sat in the back of the boat around a table that was bolted to the deck, and Paula served sandwiches of brie and smoked ham. She and her father shared the rest of the merlot.

  Lemmy sliced his son’s sandwich in half. “Did you tell Grandpa about the new technology lab at school?”

  Klaus Junior shook his head while drinking orange juice.

  “What new lab?” Armande cut a corner from his own sandwich and forked it.

  “We got a whole room full of computers. We’re going to sand the Internet.”

  “ Surf the Internet,” Paula corrected him.

  Lemmy laughed. “You don’t want any sand in those computers.”

  “Computers everywhere.” Armande sighed. “No escape. What about books, writing-”

  “But Grandpa, you gave them to us!”

  “Don’t talk, Junior,” Paula said. “Finish eating first.”

  He chewed faster.

  Armande stroked his grandson’s hair. “Patience. Patience.”

  When he finally swallowed, Paula handed him a napkin. “Now you can talk.”

  “My teacher said that the computers were a gift from you. He made everyone sing a song about generosity.”

 
; “I arranged it with our Dutch suppliers,” Lemmy said. “A donation to the school. It cost us very little, especially with the tax credit the bank will take on it. I made it in your honor, Father. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Seeing his grandson’s pride, Armande Hoffgeitz glowed. “Why should I mind? Our family has supported education for many generations. It’s our tradition!”

  *

  After a few hours of sleep, Gideon and Bathsheba left the Paris apartment and drove to the gas station near Ermenonville. He brought an audio edition of Ken Follett’s Eye of the Needle. They settled down to wait, the narrator’s voice filling the car.

  Shortly after noon, while biting into a tuna sandwich, Bathsheba spotted a green Peugeot 605, identical to the one they had been looking for, the darkened windows rolled up. “Go!” She tossed the sandwich out the window and pulled a handgun from the glove compartment. “It’s them!”

  “ Put away the gun.” Gideon turned on the engine.

  He stalked the Peugeot for ten miles in dense highway traffic until the driver rolled down his window. “Take a look,” Gideon said, accelerating. “ Only a look!”

  Bathsheba tilted the visor so that the makeup mirror reflected the view from her window. As they passed by the Peugeot, she said, “Bummer.”

  Glancing sideways, Gideon saw the occupants of the car-a couple in their eighties and a large schnauzer.

  She dropped the handgun back in the glove compartment. “Cost me that lousy sandwich. I’m starving!”

  He took the next exit and drove back to the gas station.

  *

  Elie Weiss walked to a nearby cafe and settled to read the Financial Times, sip coffee, and nibble at a croissant. On his way back to the apartment, he paused to watch people go around the barriers into the synagogue. It was Saturday morning, he realized, the time for Sabbath services. On a whim, he entered the synagogue.

  The sanctuary was cavernous, with beautiful wooden seats, painted-glass windows, and stone arches carved with biblical scenes. A cantor stood at the podium in a bejeweled prayer shawl and top hat, his deep baritone reaching every corner as he sang Adon Olam, Master of the Universe. The congregants, in formal suits and skullcaps, repeated each line in a chorus of singing voices, the ancient Hebrew words pronounced with a French accent. The women behind the see-through lace partition sang as well.

  This was very different from the little synagogue of his childhood in rural Germany, near the Russian border, where Rabbi Jacob Gerster, Abraham’s father, had led the service in a pleading voice, his head covered in a black-and-white prayer shawl. In the shtetl, the windows had been small and opaque, the benches roughly hewn, and the congregants bearded and hunched as they begged the Master of the Universe to protect them and their families from the cruelty of the anti-Semitic gentiles. There had been no colors at his childhood synagogue, only black and white. Mostly black. And not much singing either.

  He opened a prayer book, but his eyes were misted, blurring the square letters and tiny vowels. And despite decades of loathing God, who had allowed the Nazis to kill his family, Elie’s lips pronounced the words, “ Be’yado afkid ruchi – In His hand I entrust my soul, asleep or awake, God is with me, I have no fear.”

  *

  The black 1942 Rolls Royce waited at the dock. Gunter held the door for his boss. Armande Hoffgeitz kissed Paula on both cheeks, hugged Klaus Junior, and shook Lemmy’s hand. “See you tomorrow at church,” he said before Gunter shut the door.

  Paula’s Volvo rattled over the cobblestones as it crossed the Limmat River over the General Guisan Quai. Lemmy glanced at his son through the rearview mirror. “Nice sailing, Junior.”

  Klaus Junior saluted.

  Paula said, “That was a nice initiative, donating those computers.”

  In the back seat, the boy asked, “Can I also tell Grandpa about the baby?”

  They looked at each other, and Paula said, “What baby?”

  “I heard you talking yesterday.”

  “There’s no baby,” Lemmy said.

  “Not yet.” Paula blushed.

  Their home sat on a grassy knoll in the Eierbrecht suburb of Zurich. Armande had bought it for them when Klaus Junior turned two. It had five bedrooms, a swimming pool in the back, and a six-car garage.

  As soon as the Volvo stopped, the boy ran to the Porsche. “Papa! Come!”

  “I promised him,” Lemmy said. It was a classic 1963 Porsche 356 Speedster in dark blue. The insurance company had recently appraised it at a price equivalent to a modest home in a good neighborhood. Lemmy had bought it two years earlier from the widow of a deceased client. The original engine enjoyed a new life with a set of dual Solex carburetors. It had a new soft top and a powerful Burmester sound system. The elaborate anti-theft alarm had been installed by a Dutch specialist from Amsterdam, an old friend who was also responsible for the security measures surrounding the new computer systems at the Hoffgeitz Bank, as well as the secret video surveillance cameras, which Lemmy alone could access.

  He was about to get into the Porsche when Paula gripped his arm, pulled him closer, and kissed him on the lips. “Don’t be long. You have important work to do.”

  “On the old lady?”

  “ Hey! ”

  “ I meant her!” He gestured to the back of the garage at his next restoration project. It was an odd looking Citroen, whose Maserati engine was exposed under the missing hood, and whose existence was all but a rumor among a niche of classic cars collectors who referred to her as the Missing Third. Only two known examples existed of the SM Presidential-an extended body version of the Citroen SM, with four-doors and a folding soft top, which Henri Chapron had built for the 1972 official visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II-and both were parked safely at the Palais de l’Elysee in Paris. But when Lemmy had visited an African dictator to personally collect a substantial deposit in diamonds, he discovered that the rumor had been true. The Missing Third, a working prototype stolen from Chapron’s workshop and sold to the Francophile predecessor of Lemmy’s client, had been wrecked a decade earlier during the coup d'etat that had elevated him to power. Having noticed Lemmy’s interest in the rusting Citroen, the grateful dictator shipped it to Zurich in a wooden crate marked Used Books.”

  “ You better be in my bedroom in thirty-minutes,” Paula said, “or I’ll find someone else to do the job.”

  He got behind the wheel. “I’ll be back!”

  The Porsche engine started with a deep gurgling sound, settling into an even rumble. Klaus Junior released a lever above the windshield and pushed the top down.

  “Buckle up, little man.” Lemmy pumped the gas pedal, making the engine growl. “We’re taking off.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they were driving along the east bank of Lake Zurich. The water to their right was blue, dotted with a few brave sailboats. A cool breeze came in through the open roof.

  Klaus Junior tinkered with the radio. “Did your papa like to drive fast?”

  “My father?”

  “Did he also drive a Porsche?”

  Lemmy slowed down. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “He wasn’t into fast cars.”

  “Were you good friends?”

  He had shunned those memories long ago, lest they reignite the blinding rage, which would interfere with his mission. But his own son deserved answers. “When I was a young boy, my father was very affectionate. But later on, we grew apart. He was very strict.”

  “And then he and your mama died?”

  Lemmy hesitated. His father, Rabbi Abraham Gerster, might still be alive-that is, if you considered an insular, ultra-Orthodox sect to be a form of life. “As it happened,” he said, “a terrible autumn afternoon was the last time I saw them.”

  “ It’s okay, Papa.” The boy leaned over as close as his seat belt would allow and put a small arm around Lemmy’s neck. “Now you have us.”

  *

  That night in Jerusalem, when the Sabbath was over, Rabbi Abraham Gerst
er left the neighborhood unnoticed. The city was coming back to life after the day of rest, with renewed bus service and pedestrian traffic. Twenty minutes later, he arrived at the King David Hotel. An armed guard stood at the entrance-a new phenomenon after a recent spate of Palestinian suicide bombings. Rabbi Gerster greeted the guard and entered the hotel.

  He settled in a corner of the main lobby, where a TV set was showing a program about a new medical device invented by scientists at the Weitzman Institute. He ignored the furtive glances of hotel guests, who probably wondered why an elderly ultra-Orthodox rabbi with a white beard and long, dangling side locks would sit alone in a hotel to watch TV. And they would be correct. Not a single member of Neturay Karta owned a TV-an appliance that imported sin and promiscuity into one’s home and caused men to neglect the study of Talmud. But he had a good reason to come here, having noticed an item in Friday’s edition of the religious daily Hamodiah about a TV report to be aired after the Sabbath. He had to watch it.

  The nightly news show started with a story about the preparations to transfer control of Ramallah to Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. Answering a reporter’s question at the entrance to the Knesset, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said, “If Israel is to survive as a Jewish state, we must defuse the demographic bomb. Let the Palestinians establish their own state in the West Bank and Gaza and live in peace alongside Israel.”

  The story Rabbi Gerster had come to watch appeared next. According to the reporter, Itah Orr, she had agreed to be blindfolded and driven to an unknown location in the West Bank for the swearing-in ceremony of new members of the Jewish underground ILOT-a Hebrew acronym for Organization of Torah Warriors.

  The film was taken at night with poor lighting. A handful of young men, faces masked with bandanas, held pistols and copies of the Bible. They recited an oath: “I hereby join the ranks of the Organization of Torah Warriors. I swear, by all that’s dear to me, and by the honor of the Jewish People, that I will fight against the evil government until my last breath.”