The Damascus Cover Read online

  As they moved along the water’s edge Michelle noticed, and not for the first time, that he had an attractive physique. He was strong—she had discerned that the night before—but now walking without his shirt, she could see the muscles in his arms and shoulders. A shade under six feet, his small blue eyes, charming manner, and ability to put strangers at ease made people remember him when they returned home from a crowded party. Occasionally it struck those he was close to that they really knew little about him. His name sounded German and indeed in most Berlin nightclubs he was given the best table. But that meant little, for he was known equally well by the maître d’s in Paris and Buenos Aires. At Christie’s in London, his checks, drawn on an obscure Argentinian bank, were accepted without question. After hundreds of grueling hours with teachers and tapes he’d mastered four languages, all without trace of an accent. He was difficult to place. In fact, natives of England, Germany, France, and Argentina all assumed he was born in their country. It would never have occurred to them to think otherwise.

  Hans and Michelle continued to walk for a long time without speaking. When they finally reached the beach he stopped.

  “I’m going for a swim. Would you like to come?” he asked, placing a kiss on her forehead.

  She shook her head. “I’ll just lie out in the sun for a while.”

  “Fine, I won’t be long.”

  As he shed his sandals and watch, Michelle removed a blanket from the wicker basket she carried and carefully spread it out, smoothing down the lumps of sand with her hand.

  Hans walked into the Mediterranean and dove headfirst into a churning wave, the salt water filling his mouth. With a series of powerful strokes he propelled himself away from the shore. When he was in quiet water, out past the waves, he flipped onto his back and floated, offering no resistance to the drop and lift of the swells. Though his eyes were shut, the glare of the sun penetrated his skull. The water felt cold in comparison to the warm air. After a while Hans almost succeeded in purging himself of all thoughts. Almost. He knew he should return immediately to his apartment in Nicosia. He should not be away when the weekly transmission was due in from Damascus; but the trip to Kyrenia was worth the risk. For months the cable traffic had been routine, and Michelle was a telephone operator at the Syrian Embassy—cultivating her favor might produce large rewards. Besides, he was tired, he deserved a rest. This weekend trip would cause no problems. Or so he tried to convince himself.

  In the evening while she prepared dinner he built a fire in the pit outside the cabin. When the wood began to burn freely he sat on the ground and listened to the sounds of the surf pounding the rocks scattered along the coastline. He’d met Michelle several weeks ago. He’d seen her half a dozen times at the Ottoman Bank on Stasinos Avenue, a block from the Syrian Embassy; but it was not until he discovered she worked at the Arab legation that he approached her and struck up a conversation.

  When Michelle brought out the skewers of souvlaki he took the handles and held the rows of beef, green peppers, and onions over the crackling flame. He liked his meat singed on the outside but rare on the inside. It reminded him of people, encased by a shell of defenses, which when permeated leads to a soft, tender core.

  “I’ve got Kokinelli and Pella,” Michelle said. “Which would you prefer?”

  “Pella,” he answered immediately, choosing the semi-dry over the very dry Greek wine.

  She returned in a moment with a tray bearing a tomato, cucumber, and avocado salad as well as the Pella. She lowered it to the grass area in front of the cabin, poured the red wine, and set the full glasses down by the settings she’d already arranged on wooden placeboards.

  “The meat’s ready,” he said, moving toward her. As he slid the beef, onions, and peppers off the skewers and onto their plates, she dished out the salad. The smell of the souvlaki filled the air.

  Michelle bit into a piece of meat causing the juice to trickle down her chin. She smiled and wiped it away with a napkin. Hans speared a large chunk of beef with his fork and popped in into his mouth. His face contorted, he grabbed at the Pella and drank, mixing the cold wine with the hot meat.

  “Did you burn yourself?”

  “No,” he said, smiling.

  She took a segment of green pepper off her plate, leaned over, and slipped it into his mouth. He chewed it slowly.

  “Are you married?” she asked suddenly.

  Hans thought about his wife and their childless union. It had been over three years since he’d seen her. He promised he’d try and be home for his fiftieth birthday six months ago, but he’d been unable to make it. At least he’d called.

  “No, I’ve never been married,” he said.

  “A wise decision.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Have you ever considered marrying? I mean, you must meet dozens of attractive, intelligent women in the import-export business.”

  “Like yourself?” he teased her.

  She laughed. “You forget, I’m already married.”

  He snapped his fingers. “It completely slipped my mind.”

  She put her knife and fork down and playfully lunged at him, pushing his shoulders to the grass and pinning them there.

  “What do you intend to do now?”

  Michelle smiled. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

  “Well I have.” He kissed her, tasting the Pella on her breath, and reached for the zipper at the back of her blouse.

  “Let me help,” she said.

  He nodded and she rolled to the side. They undressed in silence, the light from the fire creating shadows that danced among the trees.

  The night air felt warm against their naked bodies. Hans lay on his back with her head on his chest, but for some reason his thoughts were elsewhere. Shattered specks of light pierced the heavens. He stared into the sky, made out the constellation Orion and tried to distinguish the colors of its four perimeter stars. Failing, he closed his eyes and listened to the interminable silence of the dark hunter, who seemed somehow to be trying to tell him something.

  “What’s the matter?” Michelle asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  She kissed his shoulder and silently ran her nails along his spine. She really didn’t care if he told her what was on his mind or not. Her assignment was not to understand him, not to extract information from him; but to keep him occupied, away from his apartment in the heart of the Cyprus, away from his radio transmitter, away from the message he should have been receiving.

  3.

  MAY

  Pressure built in Hans’s ears and he felt the landing gear lock into position. Preparing for arrival, he took the white plastic coffee cup off the tray in front of him and handed it to a passing stewardess.

  “How soon are we due in Frankfurt?” he asked her.

  “We’ll be landing at Rhein-Main Field in seven minutes.”

  He thought about the ever punctilious Germans. It would not do for a Lufthansa stewardess to say five minutes, or ten minutes, when the precise figure was seven.

  Three weeks had passed since Hans was ordered to liquidate his assets on Cyprus and fly to Germany. He wondered if he was to be reassigned immediately. He supposed he was. Agents simply were not presented with vacations or sabbatical leaves. Not that he minded; he couldn’t think of anything he would want to do with time off. There was a ping above his head. He fastened his seatbelt and sank deeper into the cushion. He lacked any feeling of well-being now that the Cyprus operation was over. He thought only of the next mission.

  ◆◆◆

  Karl Richtman met Hans at the terminal, quickly ushered him into the small, beige Mercedes 250c, then sped out of the airport, accelerating rapidly onto the autobahn. Hans knew the route well. It was a short six miles along the Main River to the city.

  “Where are you taking me?” Hans asked, as they raced through the wooded German countryside.

  “Nowhere. I’m jus
t going to drive long enough to make sure you weren’t followed, then I’ll head back to the airport. You have a flight to catch in less than an hour.”

  Hans hesitated before asking the next question.

  “Where am I going?”

  Richtman looked sideways at him. “You’re going home.” Hans’s face bore no expression of the emotion he felt. “For how long?”

  “I haven’t been told.” He paused for a moment. “Would you like it to be permanent?”

  Hans looked out at the tree-lined highway. Tall cypresses bent and straightened in the breeze. “I don’t know. I haven’t given the idea much thought.”

  “There is a limit to how long one can stay out there. I’ve been in Germany for two years and I can hardly wait to get home. You must be tired.”

  “Not too tired,” Hans snapped.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Richtman said apologetically. Hans sensed that he did. “We just heard there was some trouble on Cyprus.”

  “Is anyone following us?”

  Richtman looked into the rear-view mirror. “The green Volkswagen’s ours. It’s the all-clear signal.”

  “Good.”

  Richtman swung the Mercedes off the autobahn and proceeded to the airport via a secondary highway. A strained silence separated the two men as the car darted through the traffic. Finally Hans turned and placed his hand on Karl’s shoulder. “I’m sorry if I was short with you, but you hit me with quite a surprise. It’s been a while since I was home.”

  Richtman smiled. “I understand. It must be a long time since you’ve seen your wife.”

  “Three years, and then it was only for a month.”

  “It’s rough. You know, I missed my son’s graduation from the university.” Richtman paused for a moment. “Maybe men like us have no right to marry.”

  Hans didn’t respond.

  As they parked in front of the departure terminal Richtman reached into his coat pocket. “Give me your Hans Hoffmann papers and I’ll give you your own.”

  He nodded, reaching for the dark blue passport Richtman extended across the seat. Holding it in his hand, he fingered the gold embossed letters on the vinyl cover.

  “You haven’t forgotten who you are?” Richtman said jokingly.

  “No.”

  Major Ari Ben-Sion of the Mossad Haelion Lemodiin Ubitachon, his country’s supreme intelligence agency, slipped his Israeli passport into his coat pocket and headed for the El Al departure lounge.

  ◆◆◆

  As the Boeing 707 inched its way over the Aegean Sea, Ari took a final sip of his J&B, then lay back and closed his eyes. There was so much to think about, so many loose ends to tie up in Israel; but he preferred not to deal with any of that before he landed. He would sort out his life later. Now he would sleep.

  He was jarred awake as the tires, locked into position below the wings, banged down on the concrete runway. The plane surged forward in the air, bounced, and began to slow with the application of the engines’ reverse thrust. Looking out the window, Ari saw that the lettering over the terminal read BEN GURION INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. It had been LOD AIRPORT the last time he’d landed.

  As he cleared customs he noticed the young men in olive uniforms, short-muzzled Uzi submachine guns in hand, stationed at strategic points throughout the terminal. Not everything changes, he mumbled to himself, heading for the car rental desk. He gave the clerk his name, signed a form, and she handed him the keys to a car parked in stall number fourteen, directly across from the Egged bus stop. The Colonel, knowing Ari preferred to come in alone, always left him a vehicle.

  Outside the odor of jet fuel hung in the air. Pushing a shopping-cart-like baggage carrier, Ari threaded his way past the sheirut drivers, loudly beckoning arriving passengers to share a taxi to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, and headed toward the bus stop. The yellow and blue number 401 bus, idling in the street, black exhaust spewing from its rear, was loading passengers for the twenty-minute ride to Tel Aviv. Behind him at the Wimpy stand, hamburger patties were cooking on a greasy grill. Though Ari had slept through the meal on the plane he wasn’t hungry. With the grinding of gears the bus pulled out and sped toward the security checkpoint just before the Petah Tikvah-Ramla highway.

  Ari looked across the street. At the end of a row of empty stalls were two cars, a Peugeot 504 and an Israeli Susita. The numbers painted on the ground along the stalls had worn away and were illegible. Ari pushed the cart toward the Peugeot, his hands vibrating as the wheels rolled over the rough asphalt. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the keys the receptionist had given him, found the round-ended one, and inserted it in the lock. It wouldn’t turn. He tried the other one. The result was the same. Looking at the keys more closely, he saw that the imprint on them was in Hebrew. He took hold of the cart and pushed it toward the Susita. The Colonel must be economizing.

  Speeding into the Ramla junction, Ari veered to the left, choosing the familiar road that wound below the Latrun Monastery’s terraced vineyards. Bypassing the highway that cut through the Arab village of Abu Gosh, where David had kept the Ark of the Covenant for two decades waiting to enter the holy city, would delay his arrival in Jerusalem by twenty minutes. But the Abu Gosh route was new—for that reason he avoided it.

  On both sides of the road the pines soared abruptly above the flat kibbutz fields, silent sentinels marking the entrance to Bab el Wad, the Gate of the Valley. From there Ari entered a narrow gorge and for twenty-five miles the ribbon of concrete climbed and twisted through rock and forest, cresting two thousand feet above the coastal plain. At several points on the side of the road lay the scorched steel skeletons remaining from the convoy that broke through to Jerusalem in the 1948 War of Independence. In a country where the past is a national obsession, they were constant reminders to what almost happened.

  It was dark by the time Ari reached the outskirts of Romema and entered the city. Driving down Weizmann Street, he noticed a new, cylindrical building, appearing about twenty stories high, had risen across from the central bus station. Though he’d never seen the windowed tower before, he knew it was a Hilton Hotel—he’d stayed in an identical structure in Nairobi. Turning into Ruppin Street, he proceeded into the rocky valley watched over by the Hebrew University on one side and the Knesset the Israeli Parliament, on the other. Ari halted in front of a row of brown government buildings, built of stone, and left the car by the curb, under a sign that read NO PARKING AT ANY TIME. A few lights dotted the façade of the end building, nearest the Knesset. One of them would be the Colonel’s. He always worked late.

  Ari bypassed the steel-reinforced front door, certain to be locked now, and walked down a narrow concrete walkway to the side of the Ministry. As he opened the unmarked night door and headed into the enclosed stairwell, a yellow light flashed on the security guard’s desk in the lobby. Looking up at his overhead closed-circuit TV screen, the army sergeant followed the intruder’s movements. Moments later Ari entered the small, dimly lit lobby and faced the boyish-looking sergeant.

  “Ben-Sion to see the Colonel,” he said.

  The security guard pointed a commanding finger at the stranger. “Wait right there.” Lowering his arm, he reached for the cables on the switchboard behind the desk and dialed the third floor. It took a few seconds for the Colonel to answer and tell the guard to send the man up. When he turned to do so, Ben-Sion was gone.

  Ari walked hurriedly through the quiet corridors, not wanting to slow down and let the memories catch up with him. Reaching the Colonel’s office, he paused for a moment, then entered without knocking. The Colonel moved out from behind his desk, and the two men hugged, holding each other close.

  “It’s been a long time,” the Colonel said, breaking the embrace.

  “Three years.”

  “It seems even longer.” He reached for a small box on his desk and held it toward Ari. “Will you have a cigar? They’re Dunhill Montecruz, hand-made in the Canary Islands and most mild. Take one.” Ari withdrew one of the cedar-l
ined aluminum tubes, unscrewed the cap, and slipped out the cigar. But before he could strike a match the Colonel produced a lighter. Ari took it from him, lit the cigar, and handed the lighter back. “Excuse me, you must be tired,” the Colonel said apologetically. “All the traveling and time change. Do sit down.” As the Colonel moved behind the desk Ari dropped into a chair and cautiously faced the pudgy, balding man who was responsible for the security of the State of Israel. There had been no time change, Ari thought to himself; the hour he’d lost flying to Germany he’d regained by crossing back into the Middle East. The Colonel knew that.

  “There were no problems with the flights, were there?”

  “No.”

  “You met Karl in Frankfurt?”

  Ari nodded. Of course he met Richtman in Frankfurt, how the hell else would he be in Jerusalem now.

  The Colonel rose and moved to shut the window behind him. “We had a horrid winter this year—five feet of snow and no equipment to move it. The city was virtually paralyzed.”

  “I heard about it,” Ari said, trying to push the impatience from his voice. The Colonel was exactly as Ari had remembered him: the slight smile, the verbal banality, the talking of trivia. He’d continue that way, probing for weak spots until his victim was caught off balance and easily tripped up.

  “I hope they’ve warned you about the inflation; you’re going to find food prices up something frightful since you were here last. We’ve been forced to devalue the pound nine times in the last twenty months.”

  Ari nodded dutifully.

  The Colonel sat down, pushing aside the red-bannered afternoon edition of Maariv he’d not yet found the time to read. “You know, Ari, I remember when you first entered the Service. You’d been at Deganya less than a year and already you were bored with the kibbutz life. Running the British blockade three months after being liberated from Dachau had its effect. You’d caught the smell of adventure, martyrdom, nobility. Those qualities were no good to us, but we found beneath all that crap there was a sense of mission, of survival. So I took you, and my hunch proved to be right. Within two years you became one of my most valuable agents.”