The devils shepherd, p.3
The Devil's Shepherd, page 3
“My ass is chafing,” Eckstein complained.
“It’s not the trousers, my son,” Baum observed.
“First you’re a literary sage, now you’re Sigmund Freud. I can’t keep up.”
One of the gatekeepers approached Eckstein’s window. She was a sergeant, tall like a volleyball player, her coal-black hair pulled into a slick ponytail. Her thumbs were hooked into a white Sam Brown belt and one set of short scarlet fingernails tapped on the butt of a Jericho nine-millimeter pistol.
“Boker tov,” Eckstein greeted her as he handed over his AMAN ID card, and her mouth made a perfunctory smile as her eyes flicked from his photo to his face. She returned the card and bent her head to look in at Baum, who was sitting there holding his own card next to one of his jug ears. His thick-necked, bald head in person and the laminated image were easy to compare, and this time the sergeant smiled a real smile, showing a sharply chipped front tooth that made Eckstein wince for her boyfriend. She waved them through.
General Headquarters is, for all its military traffic, one of the most attractive plots of governmental real estate in Israel. It is something of a military Disneyland, a maze of clashing architectures: Here a row of Quonset huts washed in snow-white “seed,” there a towering glass structure topped by a honeycombed “widow’s walk,” which in turn sprouts another tower of clustered dish antennae.
The feature that beautifies the camp is its abundance of carefully manicured plants. Tropical palms, Lebanese cedars, and Jerusalem pines are garlanded near their roots by blood-red poppies, purple bougainvillea, wild daisies, and tiger’s-eyes.
The building to which Eckstein and Baum were headed, the Office of the Prime Minister, is a classic leftover from the British mandate whose stone walls are barely visible now for their thick quilt of climbing vines. On the pristine walkways before the porticoed entrance, young privates are constantly hosing flowers, and Colonel Margaliot, who has master-butlered the building since he was a sergeant major, screams at them. “Not so hard! You’ll kill the plants! A light spray! A light spray!”
He is a big man with a black goatee in pressed fatigues, field insignia, and shirt sleeves that have been widened so he can neatly roll them to the shoulders over massive biceps. When you are an invited, visiting officer, Margaliot will gladly make you coffee in the prime minister’s kitchen, then sit with you and sip some of the black mud himself. But if you have no business being there, his face of a friendly “sharif” will turn to storm, and he’ll likely toss you into a hedgerow by the seat of your pants.
In accordance with Israeli military and socialist traditions, the prime minister’s office is not the private enclave of a head of state, but a suite of modest boardrooms and secure meeting spaces utilized by the various intelligence and Ministry of Defense branches for “special projects” and emergency sessions. However, when the PM himself does appear to make use of his quarters on the restricted upper floors, everyone else has to scramble for alternate facilities, because Margaliot is out there, extending his threatening palm like an angry traffic cop.
Eckstein and Baum pulled into the large parking lot just across the street. Apparently there was some sort of emergency session in progress, because the lot was jammed with well-scrubbed white staff cars and big brown Chevrolet Suburbans, all sprouting multiple antennae like a flock of science fiction insects. Field radios crackled from open windows, and drivers in pressed uniforms lounged around the vehicles, handsome young men who looked more a propos to magazine ads for blue jeans. They sipped coffee from paper cups, smoked, or polished their fuselages with soft rags, and when Eckstein and Baum emerged from the blue Fiesta, leaving no staff driver behind, the chauffeurs assessed them as low-ranking officers of no import. Either that or intelligence agents, who often shun drivers in order to reduce the pairs of ears privy to their conspiracies.
The two men crossed the street to the prime minister’s office, where Margaliot was fussing over some tulips, the sun already beading his large forehead. He came erect when he saw Baum.
“Geppetto and Pinocchio!” Margaliot bellowed, then squinted at the officers, their scruffy sandals and damp trousers, and their T-shirts emblazoned with the Israel National Softball League emblem. “Bet I know where you’ve been. Surprised there aren’t catfish flopping in your pockets.”
Baum grunted under his grin. “What the hell’s happened to security in this country?”
“The press already broke it, pictures in this morning’s Yediot. Falashas and their rescuers, your faces blacked out, of course. Didn’t you see the photographer?”
“I can only see my bed,” said Eckstein.
Margaliot laughed. “Well, I’d top you up with coffee, but your king awaits.” General Ben-Zion’s substantial ego had its own reputation in these circles. Margaliot waved them through. “Better move. He’s in one of the clean offices, Number Twenty-One at the back.”
The “clean office” was one of those nondescript debriefing rooms entirely devoid of decor. No plants, no desktop family photographs, no patriotic posters or calendars from the Society for the Preservation of Nature to warm the gray plaster walls. There were two steel desks, one white telephone, four metal chairs, and an unplugged standing fan next to the single wide window. The only odor was from a thin film of disinfectant on the speckled tile floor, which evoked sense memories of surgery theaters or public restrooms, depending on one’s experience.
Eckstein had been to hundreds of meets in such sanitized cubicles, and they always chilled him inexplicably. You could murder a man in such a lifeless space and easily dispatch the evidence with a roll of paper towels and a bottle of window cleaner.
Yudit Greenberg, General Itzik Ben-Zion’s secretary, sat cross-legged next to the desk on the left, tapping a pen on a hard-backed record book. She was a first lieutenant now and at Itzik’s behest one of the few SpecOps personnel who almost always wore a uniform, the olive drab tunic and slacks tailored to her young, elastic figure. Yudit’s long black curls, green eyes, and mischievous smile sometimes ambushed Eckstein with brief erotic fantasies, which he forgave himself because she was so physically similar to his wife, Simona.
In stark contrast to Yudit’s uplifting image, Raphael Chernikovsky sat at the desk itself, bent over a black laptop and enveloped in his perpetual mist of gloom. Despite his departmental sobriquet, “Horse,” Chernikovsky was anything but a physical thoroughbred, and his prematurely bald pate, steel-rimmed spectacles, and question-mark posture were indicative of the burdens he hefted as Benni Baum’s operational troubleshooter.
The Russian immigrant held the rank of captain in AMAN, yet no one could recall ever seeing him in uniform, even at the private post-mission celebrations where such attire was permissible. It seemed that Horse lived in eternal mourning over his role as the bearer of bad tidings, a stammering, brilliant analyst whose lot was to defuse the fantasies of overoptimistic plotters. Today, he wore a tan, short-sleeved shirt with unfashionably large white buttons, and he hardly looked up as Eckstein and Baum entered—a sign that he was already privy to the future, and it was bleak.
Eckstein was surprised to see Uri Badash perched on the desk to the right, his black T-shirt and roll-cuffed blue jeans ending with white Nikes crossed on a chair seat. Badash was a career officer in the General Security Services, known colloquially as Shabak, the third major intelligence arm after AMAN and Mossad. Shabak’s domain was essentially domestic counterintelligence, its powers akin to Germany’s BfV or the American FBI. However, in a country whose border and citizens were under constant threat from terrorists and enemy spies, the GSS also held enormous responsibilities for protecting air and sea ports, El Al Airlines, and heads of state.
Badash had risen to the post of GSS chief of counterintelligence, but his film-star image of slick black hair and smooth-peanut-butter skin belied the mental pressures of spy-hunting and traitor-trapping. General Ben-Zion respected the GSS man, but he never invited him to a SpecOps event unless there was a specific Shabak “need to know.”
This should be interesting, Eckstein thought without pleasure as he smiled at Badash and rotated his hand, palm up, the silent Israeli gesture asking, “What’s going on?”
Badash returned another gesture indicating, “Just wait,” and behind Eckstein, Baum closed the door with his foot.
Itzik Ben-Zion turned from the window where he had been standing with his hands clasped behind his back, apparently looking through the glass at Margaliot’s garden, but most probably admiring his own reflection. He was an imposing figure, one of the tallest general officers in the IDF. He was dressed in full Class Aleph uniform, perfectly pressed, the rust-red jump boots of his early airborne days spit-shined American-style. Israeli officers did not usually display “fruit salad”—rows of ribbons and medals—as these were only granted for major campaigns, courses of command, or absurd acts of bravery. But Itzik wore every trinket to which he was legally entitled. The coarse hair poking from his open shirt collar was going bristly and gray, but his head was still blessed with a heavy crop of it and his dark eyes, astride a sharp, prominent nose, were clear and calculating, the corners unmarred by smile lines. A pair of pilot’s Ray-Bans was perched in his hair, and his fingers tapped the butt of a SIG Sauer P226 on his belt, the gift of a Swiss intelligence counterpart.
Eckstein glanced at the pistol, thinking that the general would love to finally dispatch with him and Baum in a fashion that no doubt tempted him regularly.
“You’re late,” Ben-Zion growled.
“We’re early,” Baum immediately retorted. “Africa’s on daylight savings time.”
Ben-Zion nearly snapped a reply, then executed a quick time zone calculation and realized Baum was baiting him. Baum’s favorite pastime was playing mental tennis with his general, and Ben-Zion rarely even managed to return a serve, only winning at all by taking his ball home in a huff.
Eckstein, who was even less tactful than Baum when it came to their commanding officer, nevertheless tried to alter the impending rancorous atmosphere. He turned to Badash, with whom he’d done business for many years.
“Ma enyanim, Uri? What’s up?”
“Ha’chaim manyenim. Life’s interesting.” The Shabaknik smiled.
“Badash’s presence here is not social,” said Ben-Zion as he folded his arms.
Eckstein raised an eyebrow and looked at Raphael Chernikovsky, who appeared to be melding with his laptop and the latest version of Windows.
“Horse?” Eckstein said with feigned confusion. “Can you pull up the military code of conduct and see if there’s a reg against greeting ‘enemy’ officers?”
Uri Badash chuckled and Yudit smiled and opened her record book, while Horse wondered if the major was serious and Baum lit up a cigarette. Now that the usual hostilities were comfortably commenced, everyone was ready to play their traditional roles. The general began with some light sniping.
“I’ve already been briefed by the navy,” he said, as if revealing a schoolyard tattletale. “You got yourselves into quite a firefight.”
Baum looked at Eckstein. “Ami is such a fucking gossip,” he said, referring to the missile boat commander.
“Jeremiah was supposed to be covert, gentlemen,” Itzik admonished. “A subtle footnote on this whole falasha thing.”
Eckstein put a palm to his own chest and jutted his chin. “We didn’t start the shooting, Itzik.” The IDF tradition of addressing everyone by first name often dissolved all pretense of formality and respect.
“And if you remember, Itzik,” Baum chimed in, “the Africa desk warned us that Mobote would try to scuttle it.”
Baum backed up, resting his heavy shoulders against a blank wall and blowing out smoke rings of impatience. Eckstein joined him there, and in their strange attire and unshaven faces they looked like the impending victims of a Central American firing squad.
“Still,” Itzik pressed. “The naval commandos said they could hear you coming all the way from Karora.”
“Traitors,” Eckstein muttered.
Baum looked at his major. “Maybe we should have dispensed with the marching band.”
“I think it was the cheerleaders.” Eckstein picked up his cue. “All that dancing and squealing.”
Yudit was working hard to suppress a snicker, while Ben-Zion waved his arms in disgust.
“All right, all right.” The general squelched the banter. “But still, this was not supposed to be a small war.”
Eckstein’s fatigue was besting his tolerance, but he stuck his hands into his damp trouser pockets to avoid actually jabbing a finger at his commander. “I don’t remember you out there ducking bullets, Itzik.” The general stiffened, raising his head, and Eckstein could feel Baum mentally trying to rein him in, but he went on. “They threw a shitload of small arms at us, and we nearly lost a Zodiac load, including Baum. But we still got them all out and we’re here, high and wet, so what the hell do you want?”
“Eytan,” Baum whispered, touching the major’s forearm, and Eckstein exhaled a sigh and slumped against the wall. After so many years of suffering Ben-Zion’s congratulations disguised as criticism, Benni had become immune. Eytan, however, would always be offended by it.
“We’re tired,” Eckstein mumbled as something of an apology.
The general nodded once, frowning at the floor. “Yudit, get them some coffee.”
The lieutenant looked up at her boss with a remonstrative glance.
“Ani mevakesh. If you please,” Itzik added, and Yudit smiled and rose from her seat. They had an interesting father-daughter thing going, without any of the sexual banter so common to high rankers and their comely adjutants. The men made an effort not to watch her sway from the room.
Ben-Zion took the sunglasses from his hair, folded them, and hung them from a pocket. Then he faced the window, perhaps examining his own character.
“I don’t like being chained to the office, Eckstein,” he confessed. “No more than you really like being in the field at this stage.”
Eckstein was always surprised when Ben-Zion revealed a human quandary, or perceived such in another man. He took it as a reciprocal apology. “So? Let’s switch,” he suggested.
“I couldn’t,” said the general. “Nor could you. We are here to do what we do best.”
Eckstein looked at Baum, whose expression said that Itzik’s temporary humanity was unsettling him as well.
“You both did well,” the general conceded. No one in the room breathed, including Uri Badash. It was a historical moment. And it passed quickly. “However, Operation Jeremiah has to be extended. On an emergency basis.”
“Did we miss something?” Baum asked. “We picked up everyone on the list.”
Ben-Zion turned from the window again.
“No, you did not miss anyone. And I know you are supposed to be cashing in, Baum. But I’d like you to extend again.”
Eckstein and Baum just stared at their commander, their limp postures and expressions slightly comical, reminding Uri Badash of Laurel and Hardy. Itzik looked at his fingernails. They were short, filed, and very clean.
“There’s a group of about fifty more refugees, somewhere outside of Addis Ababa.”
“So, let them walk on in to the embassy compound,” said Baum. “They’ve certainly done that before.”
“It’s not that simple,” said Itzik.
“Why?” Eckstein asked.
“They are all children.”
Eckstein took in a breath, feeling a cord tightening around his chest, fighting it, hating Itzik for knowing him and Baum so well. He searched quickly for an exit.
“Why not use Rick Singer?” he suggested, referring to an American-born officer who was rapidly rising in SpecOps. “He loves kids.”
“And you hate them?” Itzik snorted. He had seen Eytan rushing home to his son too often. “Besides, you already know the territory.”
“But we’re blown.”
“Not in the south, Mr. Hearthstone. Unless you have been terribly unprofessional.”
Yudit strode in with a tray of white demitasses and a finjon of Turkish coffee, no doubt a gift of Margaliot, and she walked the tray around. Badash gladly accepted the muddy brew, as did Ben-Zion, since he had ordered it. Baum sipped some as a delaying tactic, while Eckstein declined and the lieutenant resumed her stenography seat.
“Make up your minds, gentlemen,” said the general. “It’s a two-weeker. Tops. And after that, thirty days’ leave.”
Baum nearly spit out a stream of coffee. “Excuse me?” You had to be half dead for Itzik to grant you leave. Unprecedented. There was a catch. He was hiding the bulk of the iceberg. Eckstein was thinking the same thing.
“What’s the rest of it?”
“You know the drill.” Itzik shrugged. “First, you sign on.”
SpecOps regulations held that you never fully briefed field officers until they were manifested for a mission. Itzik almost always used this compartmentalization policy as bait, knowing that intelligence officers are, for the most part, secrecy junkies.
“Well? Do you volunteer?”
“You could just issue an order,” Baum reminded him.
“Yes, I could.”
Ben-Zion waited while Baum and Eckstein exchanged full looks, reading each other’s thoughts.
“She’ll murder me,” Eckstein muttered, and Benni knew that Eytan meant Simona, who was already at the end of her rope regarding Eckstein’s career and endless absences. He always managed to stay around the Jerusalem office for an acceptable period between missions. But this would mean going right back out again.
“It’s only two weeks.” Baum lifted his shoulders.
“Marriages can be killed in a weekend,” said Eckstein.
“True. But look at mine. I’ve been trying to kill it for thirty years.”
Eckstein smiled. Well, he was going to quit out of field operations anyway. Two weeks wouldn’t make a difference. He nodded at Baum, who turned back to their general.
