The devils shepherd, p.14
The Devil's Shepherd, page 14
The bloody dictator Mengistu was long gone, along with his Soviet armorers, Cuban advisers, and murderous East German–trained security apparatus. Meles Zenawi’s provisional government appeared relatively stable, even though challenged by these sporadic attacks of the Oromo Liberation Front and the All Amhara People’s Organization. And these gunmen were amateurs next to the professional terrorists of Eckstein’s Middle East neighborhood, where the hard men of Islamic Jihad shot straight and true and the suicide bombers of Hamas regarded death as the only respectable outcome of any struggle.
And it was not the famine that unnerved him, still rampant in Ethiopia, yes, but it would not grossly affect Eckstein’s stomach, only further wither his soul as witness. And it was not the beggars or the war cripples or the scores of children thin as desert scavenger dogs who, rather than waiting in front of Addis Ababa’s government Ghion Hotel for a chance to con a newly arrived journalist, had adopted the tactic of drifting out to the airport in accordance with aircraft arrival schedules. If you were Caucasian, politically liberal, socially conscious, and a newcomer to Ethiopia, the malnourished tagalongs could play your heartstrings like a Stradivarius and empty your pockets of dollars and deutschmarks even before you changed them to birr.
But Eckstein had been here before, as had Baum, and their “Jewish guilt” was not so easily leveraged. Once you risk your life for even a small portion of a pauper population, your need to atone for your middle-class comforts is greatly diminished.
And it was not the climate that squinted Eckstein’s eyes as he walked from the bullet-pocked terminal, although the sun was still high and hard in a blank sky and already he felt the challenge to his lungs from the altitude and dearth of oxygen. Ethiopia was a land of physical hardships and slim comforts, with constant risks from dysentery, giardia, malaria, typhoid, bilharzia, and meningitis, as well dangers from jackals both animal and human. Yet he was prepared for all of that and, in fact, hardly considered it.
What bothered Eckstein, and made him stand still for a moment while rapidly reevaluating Operation Sorcerer, was the appearance of his chauffeur.
There was a long line of battered taxis at curbside, waiting to earn a U.S. dollar for each of the five kilometers along the Bole Road into the city. Parked among them, and as oblivious to their honking as a battle tank, was a pine-green Land Rover, its lower half caked in red mud, its gray canvas roof laced with so many repair stitches that it looked like the scarred back of a shrapnel victim.
Leaning against the Land Rover’s flank was a man whom Eckstein immediately thought to be a Belgian mercenary, and he sensed Baum’s posture stiffen, a short intake of air as the colonel also assessed this unexpected equation. Ben-Zion had informed Baum that the trio would be “met,” but both officers had pictured a local cab driver equivalent in height and weight to Niki, who now stood obliviously behind them, sipping from a bottle of Pellegrino provided by Alitalia.
The officers were accustomed to hiring their own vehicles while in the field, or, at worst, being escorted by an asset in place. Allowing the opposition to drive was poor operational practice. This man was clearly a hired gun, and the Israelis had not done the hiring.
It was not just the “lizard” camouflage jacket above a pair of black cargo trousers, nor the French MAT-49 submachine gun slung from the man’s right shoulder, his thick fingers lightly tapping the pistol grip. His hair was short, reddish-blond, and thick, his wide face covered with sunburned European flesh that seemed double-thick armor from which a flat broken nose barely protruded. He wore a bristling mustache with Fu Manchu corners that nearly reached his jaw like prickly parentheses.
It was the eyes, ice-blue, flat, and scorched of all joy, that led Eckstein to the conclusion that this man had been in Africa too long, long after his government had gone home. And he had probably deserted—the Legion, or the French Regiment des Parachutistes, or the Belgian Commando—because what does a leopard do with himself in Paris or Brussels?
“Hearthstone,” the man said very clearly while looking directly at Eckstein, though only his lips moved and there was no hint of decorum in his heavy Belgique accent.
Eckstein nodded. “And you are?”
“Debay, Michel.”
Eckstein noted that he clipped it out military-style, the first name merely a suffix. And Debay was surely not his true name, though Eckstein was in no position to pass judgment, having attended so many past rendezvous where the first words from his and other men’s mouths were always lies.
“Enchanté.” Benni Baum stepped forward, although atypically for him, he offered no handshake. “Vous êtes Français?”
Debay did not answer, but tapped his trigger grip again, raised his head slightly, and examined Niki Hašek from the crown of her head to the soles of her sneakers. It was not a sexual perusal at all, and he flicked open the door of the Land Rover, but did not hold it for anyone.
“Belge.” He finally answered Baum’s inquiry.
Trouble, Eckstein decided as they all climbed into the vehicle.
Debay drove, his weapon tucked between his left thigh and his door panel, a blatant sign that he did not trust his passengers. Eckstein sat in the right seat, with Niki behind him and Baum behind Debay, but they had not yet passed the airport perimeter fence when the Belgian stopped the vehicle, turned, and offered something that was supposed to be a smile, its warmth defeated by two chipped teeth no doubt caused by a fist, a rock, or a rifle butt.
“Switch, please,” he said to Baum, who immediately understood and complied as he nudged the confused Niki to reverse positions with him. No doubt the Belgian had garroted a victim or two from behind, and he could not drive comfortably unless a bull like Baum was fully visible in his rearview mirror.
From Bole there was only one way to access the rest of the country, and that was directly through the capital. So Eckstein braced himself for the impending assault on his senses, feeling some pity for Niki, who had arrived from exploded Slavic majesty, had a brief glimpse of sanity in Rome, and come straight here to starving African civil strife. He did not know where the Czech defector Krumlov had ensconced himself, but he assumed two facts:
It would not be in Addis Ababa, for although the capital was large and bustling, a sea of dark-toned African humanity was no place for a Slav from Prague to attempt to blend in. A team of similar-looking Russian killers would simply have to set up camp outside the ETC office on Jomo Kenyatta, wave Krumlov’s photograph and a wad of birr, and they would shortly have a hundred teenage Ethiopian scouts combing the capital for their missing “friend.” The second part of his thesis was that wherever Krumlov presently waited, it was a temporary location and nowhere near his base of operations or the fifty orphans in his “care.” For all the Czech knew, the arriving Israelis had homing chips sewn into their shoes, the point men of a larger snatch team that would pounce as soon as he revealed himself. He was a professional intelligence officer, and the revelation of his goods for sale would be done with the seductive finesse of a seasoned stripper.
Eckstein rolled back the cuffs of his khaki epauleted shirt, folding them Israeli-style above the elbows. He was once more wearing Anthony Hearthstone’s uniform, including blue jeans and a pair of canvas boots for the cooler air of the mountaintop capital. Baum was similarly dressed, although Hans-Dieter Schmidt—ostensibly a pharmaceutical marketer from Munich—did not wear jeans, but a pair of light-green twills. Niki, to no one’s surprise, had remained in her mourning shades of black on black.
Eckstein cranked down his window, leaned an elbow there, and watched the city grow as Debay drove along Africa Avenue toward East Central Addis. He did not care for the city aesthetically. It was flat and sprawling, with few of its structures architecturally appealing, and it reminded him of Kuneitra, the disputed Syrian city on the Golan Heights where no one bothered to repair the shell-pocked buildings because eventually one side or the other would bomb the place back to rubble.
But being a closet romantic, he was fascinated by Third World cities, preferring them to ordered London or pristine Geneva. In Addis Ababa, the humanity was the attraction, for a circus without its performers is no more than a large tent. A fresh flock of war cripples had joined the throngs of ragged street urchins, half-naked beggars, wandering madmen, and hawking street vendors and taxi drivers, all verbally assaulting and exhorting the occasional foreigner, providing confusing diversions while the pickpockets dashed in and withdrew like blurs of hummingbirds. Yet the game of survival, despite its noisy fervor, was for the most part harmless and rarely violent, and despite his mood it made Eckstein smile.
He glanced over at Debay, who was honking the horn at a pair of old men taking their time as they crossed before the front fender and tapped their gnarled dula walking sticks. The Belgian’s battered nose seemed upturned and wrinkled, and Eckstein assumed that like many of the white “hunters” who lived in Africa, he was an incurable racist. For a moment Eckstein played psychologist and analyzed the soldier of fortune with some silent guesses. Father—a drunken Brussels iron-worker who had beaten him. Mother—a German-born whore who had walked out on them. Debay himself—a street kid who had turned to crime, chosen army fatigues rather than a prison coverall, and, ultimately insecure and full of self-loathing, had found a niche in the world where he could always feel superior.
Perhaps it was an unfair assessment. But Eckstein had met enough of such men to concoct this temporary résumé, though he would be happy to be proved wrong. If Debay did not actually refer to the Ethiopians as keffirs, he would be pleasantly surprised.
“Where are we headed?” Eckstein asked as they encroached even deeper toward the teaming marketplace called the Piazza. Pairs of soldiers of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Movement seemed to be manning each street corner, wearing their rankless fatigues and slinging corroded AK-47s. Some children played on the roadside carcass of a Russian T-62, the tank’s turret completely inverted, like the severed head of a mosquito.
“Into the city,” Debay finally answered.
“I can see that.”
“Then north.” The Belgian was as loquacious as Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western.
Baum leaned forward in an effort to be friendly.
“Would you prefer to speak French?”
Debay shrugged. “It does not matter.”
Because even though French is your native language, Eckstein thought derisively, you’re probably half-illiterate in that as well. He looked long at the Belgian’s profile, and eventually Debay felt his gaze and slowly turned his head. Their eyes locked and Eckstein, understanding the basic laws of wolf packs, held Debay’s stare until the man had to return his attention to driving.
Eckstein glanced back at Baum, who raised an eyebrow, sat back in his seat, and openly jerked a thumb toward Niki. Turning fully the other way, Eckstein found her crunched up in the far corner of the rear seat, her legs tucked up under her, one foot twitching as she stared out the window. She was clutching her small diary and her heirloom fountain pen to her chest, and despite the tropical breeze wafting into the Land Rover, she looked cold and alone and somehow diminished.
He had seen that look before, and he remembered where, on the faces of the girl parachute riggers at the airborne school when they sat crammed in the belly of a C-130 en route to their first jump. It was pure animal terror, and it made no sense at all . . .
They broke out of the city on the Bahir Dar Road heading north, but for how far and how long only Debay would know. Eckstein had driven this way in his own rental jeep perhaps twenty times, and he knew that it led to Debre Markos—provisional capital of Gojam—as well as to Bahir Dar, the vast waters of Lake Tana, and Tis Abay, the spectacular waterfalls where the Blue Nile mimicked Niagara.
It was already growing dark as they climbed into the eucalyptus-swathed Intoto hills and the high moorlands, and as if in response to the growl of Eckstein’s stomach, Debay produced a greasy paper bag from somewhere and dropped it on the seat between them. Inside were four bottles of Talla beer, a canteen of water, and a large slab of injera, the spongy Ethiopian pancake bread reminiscent of pita. Debay popped his own bottle of the warm weak beer, while Eckstein and Baum shared the water and torn slabs of the bread. Niki did not even respond to offers of sustenance.
A few pink wisps of the setting sun tinted the rolling grasslands and sprigs of heather, and then they were in total darkness, with only the Land Rover’s headlamps reflecting off the cracked tarmac. Debay glanced at a Casio G-Shock watch—the sort of cheap but rugged timepiece a soldier can lose without remorse—and pushed the Land Rover hard, covering forty kilometers uphill in a bit over half an hour. Just before the large town of Chancho he took a left turn onto a wide dirt track, and Eckstein knew he was heading for Durba. But Durba was twenty kilometers on and there was virtually nothing there but a cement factory and a hundred-meter drop into Muga Gorge.
Debay suddenly hit the brakes, spewing up pebbles and a cloud of dust as Eckstein grabbed for a handhold and Baum grunted. Eight pairs of ruby eyes had suddenly appeared from the darkness ahead, and then four gelada baboons, replete with golden leonine manes, waved their black arms and screeched curses before leaping away into the night. For a moment Eckstein thought Debay might have a secret sentimental regard for the animal kingdom, but then he backed up a bit, spun the wheel, and nudged the Land Rover up a hill. He had simply missed his turn.
The small structure atop the promontory appeared in the glow of the vehicle lights. It was a square, two-story Ethiopian Orthodox church, hewn wholly of pink granite that appeared sallow in the wash of tungsten. A stone stairway led to a black doorway, and a row of windows were no more than chiseled Maltese-like crosses.
At one time there had been an ornate parapet of elegant turrets, but the building had served as cover during the sporadic battles for the Shewa province, and the turrets looked like broken teeth protruding from rotten gums. Such a church should have been off limits to night visitors, for the resident priest would guard his tabot with his life. This symbolic icon was a replica of one of the tablets given by God to Moses, the original tablet purportedly still resting within the Ark of the Covenant, which according to Ethiopian lore had been spirited from Jerusalem to Axum some centuries before Christ. Yet apparently this tabot and its guardian had moved to more hospitable quarters, for the entire roof of the church had been collapsed by an aerial bomb.
There was no one in sight as Debay killed the engine and switched off the lights. Half a moon had risen just above the mountains of Gojam, and the church turned to purple-gray.
“Hearthstone,” said Debay as he placed the MAT-49 on his lap. “You come with me.”
Baum made to open his rear door and the Belgian turned his head.
“Just Hearthstone.”
Benni saw Eytan nod, and he sighed and closed the door.
Eckstein’s rubber cleats crushed soft dust as he got out, looked at the church, and began to walk. But Debay stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, and Eckstein turned to face that sneer that passed for a smile.
“Une formalité,” Debay said as he spread his arms as if to perform jumping jacks. Eckstein complied, stretching his own arms as Debay executed a rapid frisk from shirt collar to bootlaces, including the upper inside thighs and small of his back. Eckstein was glad that he had dropped his pipe into his rucksack, for he was sure that had Debay discovered it an ugly confrontation would have ensued.
“Okay,” said the Belgian, and Eckstein caught a heavy whiff of onion. Then he turned and walked up the granite steps.
He blinked for a moment in utter darkness. Then a wooden match flared, someone turned the wick wheel of a hurricane lantern, and there in the flickering glow stood Jan Kumlov.
He was a tall and sturdy Czech of about forty-two, every one of his thick blond husky hairs still healthy in his scalp. His pale eyebrows and flat features reminded Eckstein of the late American actor Steve McQueen, though without the merry glint and wry smile of Hollywood wealth. He wore a blue chambray shirt of the type favored by merchant seaman, scuffed black jeans, and heavy brown mountain boots. His lean form might have suggested an “aggravation diet” from his year on the run, yet he had a relaxed, easy, powerful energy exuding confidence, not flight. This, of course, instantly raised Eckstein’s suspicions. Hunted men flick their heads around often, like newly licensed drivers. Eckstein was certain that this man never looked behind him.
The lantern was standing on a broken pillar and Krumlov turned the wick a bit higher, then stepped forward to get a better look at his visitor. Immediately Debay moved to a flanking position, respectfully to one side yet between the two men. He slung the MAT from his shoulder, yet regarded Eckstein like a suspicious referee eyeing a boxer with a foul reputation.
“I am Jan Krumlov.” The accent was very smooth, as if he had studied in Montpelier rather than Moscow.
“Anthony Hearthstone.”
Neither man yet moved to shake hands, although Krumlov placed his on his hips and smiled slightly, showing a row of perfect Colgate teeth.
“Hearthstone?” He examined Eckstein’s surprisingly Aryan features. “Why not just use Smith? Since when does Jerusalem send a goy on such a mission?”
It was not the first time that Eckstein’s Semitic bona fides had been called into question, which was one of the reasons he had been recruited by AMAN in the first place.
“Don’t judge a Jew by his cover,” he said. “I’d drop my trousers for you, but we’ve only just met.”
Krumlov laughed, though it was virtually silent mirth, his mouth open and his head just bobbing a little. Physically, he reminded Eckstein of himself, although considerably more handsome in the architecture of his facial features. As for his character, Eckstein hadn’t a genuine clue, although every turncoat, just like any religious convert, was to be instantly suspect.
