The rehabilitation period had been long, and Ben-Neser resisted the use of prostheses and learned to live with a single arm. The best therapy was determination, and he focused all he had into becoming the best marksman in Israel. He learned how to steady the rifle with a single arm and could reload as quickly as any man with two. A decade’s assignments had culminated in a single mistake — a civilian lunging in front of a bullet meant for a much wanted terrorist — and he was reassigned to Mossad as a field control officer, an overseer of other people’s work. With each report, he found himself contemplating not how the operation had been done, but how he would have done it himself. The frustration mounted.
It spilled over when the first hard reports on Evira began to cross his desk. He maneuvered to get himself appointed as head of the team gathering intelligence on her and then became obsessed with putting an end to her shadowy and elusive movements within Israel. In these past two years he had considered nothing else, and when at last a report linked her to a booth in the Jaffa Market, Ben-Neser elected to hold on to the memo and deal with it himself. The commandos with him knew no better. He was their control, after all, and they saw no reason to doubt this sudden change in plans.
“Come in, Colonel,” a voice squawked over his walkie-talkie.
“I read you, Ari.”
“All men are in position. Ready to move on your signal.”
Ben-Neser reviewed for himself the final deployments he had decided on once Evira’s position was confirmed. Besides himself and Ari, he had a detachment of six commandos at his disposal. Of these, two had been placed upon the flat roof of the long angular building that housed Ben-Neser’s location along with a dozen other sidewalk shops. One had been stationed around the corner from the target shop on the chance Evira might manage to flee in that direction. The remaining three were all planted among the locals: one seated before a blanket crammed with cheap watches, a second in apron selling food from a heated pushcart, and a third looking like an eager patron who had yet to purchase a thing.
The phantom pain scratched at Ben-Neser again. Had he already passed the point of no return, or was there still time to abort? No matter the results here today, he knew the ramifications so far as his future was concerned. But he was approaching the end of his run anyway and desperately wanted to take something with him, something beyond the anonymity of the kills he had made over the decade he had served as a marksman.
Ben-Neser turned his walkie-talkie to the channel that connected him with his commandos. “We move on my signal. Get ready. No shooting unless absolutely necessary. Clear? I want her taken alive. That’s the first priority.” He gazed across the street one last time. With the itch of a no-longer-existent arm driving him to shudders, Ben-Neser spoke again. “Thirty seconds, people. On my mark …”
“You don’t have a choice and neither do I,” Evira was saying.
McCracken glared at her from across the table. “Do you really expect to be able to reach Hassani? You’re talking about a man who is almost never seen and about whom virtually nothing is known.”
“Some is known. Enough. The underground movement in Tehran is small but well focused. They will help me.”
“Killing him will almost certainly mean your own death.”
She returned his emotionless stare. “Would you not do the same thing if in my position?”
“I’m still not quite clear on what that position is.”
“I’m an Arab and so is Hassani. Is that it?”
“Not at all.”
“It is in enough ways, Blaine McCracken, and you know it. Yes, I am an Arab, and no one wants to see a Palestinian homeland more than me. I’ve worked most of my life toward that end.” Her voice thickened. “When the soldiers came and — Well, that doesn’t matter now. Hassani speaks to my people in a language of death and violence. He preaches, lives it. Accept that dogma and even with a homeland there can never be peace. Palestinians must get what they deserve, but men like Hassani will never give it to us. To them, we’re just tools for them to use for their own ends.”
“Except there’s also Yosef Rasin,” McCracken told her. “Hassani can kill your dream from one side, Rasin from the other. A pair of fanatics from opposite directions aiming toward the same goal.”
“You will find him. You will stop him.”
Blaine almost laughed. “You overestimate me.”
“No,” Evira retorted immediately. “I have followed your career, studied it. You are driven by ideals and nothing stops you when they are at stake. I … emulate that. I have since the beginning. I obtained all your files. I’ve read everything Israeli and Egyptian intelligence has to say about you.”
“Lies and exaggerations mostly.”
“For the sake of your son, let’s hope not.”
When his count had reached five, Colonel Ben-Neser saw a pair of jeeps crowded with Israeli soldiers pull over to the side of Oley Tsiyon where the flea market splintered to the left down an alley.
“Hold your positions!” he ordered his men. Since this mission was not logged, the area had not been sealed. The army had no idea what was going on. “Ari, come in,” he barked into his walkie-talkie.
“I read you, sir.”
“Do you see them?”
“Routine patrol.”
“It wasn’t scheduled, damn it! I checked the logs.”
“They’re here, Commander. Our only choice is to abort.”
“No! We can’t. We’ll lose Evira if we do, maybe forever!”
“What then?”
Ben-Neser watched the soldiers climbing from their jeeps and stretching leisurely as they adjusted their automatic rifles to be within easy reach if needed.
“Approach them,” the colonel ordered Ari. “Approach them and identify yourself. Do it quietly. Don’t let anyone else realize what is going on. Tell them to get the fuck out.”
“They’re soldiers. They might question.”
“Not Mossad, they won’t question Mossad.” Ben-Neser swung his binoculars quickly back toward the the gift shop. “Go to them, Ari. Do as I say.”
Seconds later, Ari’s shape appeared from a centrally placed jewelry shop. He made his way down the crowded sidewalk in the direction of the soldiers who had only just begun to move away from their jeeps. He approached the officer wearing the beret of the team leader. Ari was all smiles, like a tourist might be, his shirt untucked, his walk loose-limbed. Ben-Neser could see they were a yard apart, Ari identifying himself and the officer seeming to heed him. A hand raised by the bereted leader into the air held up the progress of his team into the square.
That’s it, damn it, that’s it!
The bereted officer started to turn. Ben-Neser had actually relaxed, when the officer swung round and leveled into a combat stance with rifle angling straight for Ari. The brief reports sounded like hammers striking nails and Ari’s body was tossed backward, blood spouting from the punctures in his chest.
“My God,” was all Ben-Neser could mutter. In his hand he felt the sweat-soaked plastic of his walkie-talkie. Somewhere in his mind he recorded the sight of the men who could not have been soldiers at all fanning out through the crowded square that was suddenly bursting with panic. In that instant he forgot totally about Evira, thought only of Ari, a friend and soldier, who lay dead because of him and his damned obsession.