Blind Mission: A Thrilling Espionage Novel (15 page)

“Mr. Prime Minister,” said Nahum Porat without preamble, “there is indeed something I wish to involve you in. I wish to involve you in a problem – a serious problem – confronting us.”

I’m listening,” the premier said in a lowered voice, closely watching Porat.

“As you know, the whole matter is extremely complex. The plan is prepared and ready to go, but its activation requires us to take a step that is very…unconventional.”

The head of the Mossad continued slowly, weighing every word. “We must use an additional man as bait – human bait. As I see the situation at this moment, this is the only way we can draw my man to the field of play.”

“What do you mean?”

“We intend to cause our man to understand that a single person is directly responsible for the difficult situation we put him in – under which he cannot return to Israel and also feels persecuted abroad. Our psychologist believes that if we push him hard enough, he will feel that only by physically destroying the person responsible for his situation will he find relief. We shall try to get him to focus all of his distress on this one individual.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Nahum shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. “I must point out that being this sort of bait is liable to endanger that person’s life. Thus, before I act, I wanted to receive your approval.”

“And who is the bait?”

“I am.”

If the prime minister was surprised, he did not let it show. After a few seconds he asked, “How dangerous is it?”

“It is liable to be extremely dangerous.”

“To the point of sacrificing human life?”

“To the point of sacrificing human life.”

“And what do you think the chances are of the situation reaching this point?”

“I don’t know, and I have no way of knowing. All I can tell you,” said the head of the Mossad, enunciating every syllable, “is that, if I don’t receive your authorization, I will have to cancel the operation.”

“I understand,” said the prime minister.

The room was utterly silent. Porat stole a glance at his interlocutor, but did not dare disturb the quiet.

“You have my authorization,” the prime minister said finally, getting to his feet.

Porat said goodbye and walked to the door.

“I hope you’ve told me the whole truth this time,” the prime minster said to his back.

“I’ve told you everything.”

Over and over Porat told himself that the present lie had been made for the good of the country, and only for the good of the country. This was not the first time he had told the prime minister only part of the truth; but this time he had more reason than ever.

For the bait – which had been chosen after consultations with the Mossad psychologist and the ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense – was not Nahum Porat. The good of the country came before everything, the ministers said; while the psychologist had answered a supposedly hypothetical question: “the only man we could bring him to want to kill is the one directly responsible for you – because he’ll see him as the source of all his troubles.”

And the man directly responsible for the head of the Mossad is none other than the prime minister.

The gleaming silver Mercedes glided slowly down the Kaiserstrasse near downtown Frankfurt’s gigantic train station. The irritating drops of rain, the monotonous slapping of the windshield wipers working at their slowest speed, the slight fog and the fading light of dusk – all of these did not improve the driver’s  gloomy mood, nor help to relax his taut nerves.

The tall man with the tough-looking face struggled to stay awake. Getting up early and taking a five-hour flight, followed immediately by long hours of fast driving in European winter weather, was no mean effort; even when it was done under the best conditions, such as this luxury car, so warm and comfortable.

At the first opportunity, the dark-haired driver exploited a lull in the oncoming traffic and made a wheel-squealing left turn. The street he entered greeted him with a glare of neon lights that were never turned off. On the Moselstrasse and the side streets that led off of it there were dozens of bars, night clubs, striptease joints, and illegal betting houses; but the place was primarily known for its whore houses, where a client could obtain any service his heart desired – on condition, of course, that he had enough money. Criminologists and policemen from all over the world considered the area the main sewer outlet of Germany, if not all of Europe. Naturally enough, underworld figures from throughout the world gathered here, from Italian pickpockets and Columbian drug dealers to hired killers from the Far East.

Among this human mosaic, Avraham Schwartz (or Avramico, as he was known to his many acquaintances) was an unusual phenomenon. He was born in Israel and raised on a kibbutz. When he finished high school he was drafted with others of his age into the Israel Defense Forces. He completed his service three years later as the commander of a paratroop company – a considerable achievement for someone only 21.

The decision of the demobilized soldier not to return and resume life on his kibbutz was not unusual; many kibbutzniks of his age yearned to go to the big city and try life there, to learn a profession or go to university, and to find out whether they could make a living on their own. But for some reason Avraham Schwartz did not enter university, and as far as was known he did not work for a living. Actually, no one knew what he did. When asked about it, he would shrug his shoulders and give a noncommittal answer. Similarly, he systematically refrained – employing various excuses – from meeting or hosting his childhood friends whenever they came to town. Schwartz’s family feared the crumbling relations with him. A heavy sense of impending tragedy became part of every conversation in which his name was mentioned on the kibbutz. The question marks multiplied astronomically when the former kibbutznik came home for a family event dressed in a flashy suit and driving a luxurious American car.

Indeed, the bad news was not slow to come. The first time, it was a small item hidden on the back page of an unimportant paper; the second, everyone hoped it was another Avraham Schwartz that was referred to. But the times that followed were successively harder to ignore, as the headlines grew larger and blacker until all doubt was removed:  a full-page article in the center of the country’s widest-circulation daily, accompanied by a large, clear photograph. The kibbutz members were stunned; the family humiliated. Nobody could understand why or how it had happened. Everyone felt betrayed and hurt.

Rumor chased rumor, and each new report was more shocking than its predecessor. But in the dozens of times he was arrested in the years that followed, Avraham Schwartz always managed to refute the heaviest accusations against him. Sufficient evidence was never found to convict him of any felony – and over the years he had been accused of practically every conceivable crime. While he always had the best lawyers, he became famous for his habit of questioning prosecution witnesses himself – asking questions as if absentmindedly, the corners of his mouth turned up in the hint of a smile that over the years became his trademark.

Each arrest and subsequent release, each accusation followed by complete exoneration, enhanced his reputation in the Israeli underworld and consolidated his position in it. The underworld adored him. The police, wary of additional failures in attempting to convict him, let him alone. The press handled him with silk gloves after the daily
Ma Chadash
was sued for libel for publishing an article, “Schwartz = Black,” and was forced to pay a legendary settlement. The public accepted him with mixed feelings. His relations with the kibbutz were completely severed.

Suddenly, in the middle of the seventies, he disappeared. In various circles in Israel there were many who asked themselves what had happened to him; some even suspected (or hoped) that he was dead. But after some time Avraham Schwartz reappeared, as if by the wave of a magic wand, in Germany. It seemed as if he fit in well in his new country. As one whose parents were native Austrians, he spoke fluent German without a trace of accent; while those whose dubious company he kept – most of them foreigners like himself – trouble with even the most basic vocabulary.

His background, his unusual education among his circle of people, the languages he spoke, his talents as a military planner and executive, his relative honesty, and the reputation he had brought with him from Israel as a dowry – all these catapulted him in less than two years to the top of the European underworld. It was only natural for him to become its unofficial spokesman, and he occasionally took part in complicated mediations or was asked to serve as sole arbiter in the serious disputes that arose unceasingly in the underworld, where the last word was always money.

The silver Mercedes pulled up at the glittering entrance of a nightclub. The “Pizzazz”, whose named blinked repeatedly in neon, was considered the hottest in Frankfurt.

But Avraham Schwartz had another name of the place, which he shared with his Mossad controllers. “My Pension” he called the club, making sure they understood he had no intention of becoming separated from the golden egg-laying goose – which made him a comfortable 100,000 Euros a month – a goose he had carefully raised during his service in Germany. The necessity of designating him as the owner of the club, whose establishment was made possible in order to provide the talented agent with a perfect cover, was indeed a sore spot with the heads of the Mossad; but this was not the only point of dispute that had surfaced recently between Avramico and his superiors. Schwartz had just returned from Israel, where the argument he had had with his immediate superior was so fierce that it required the intervention of the most senior echelon to calm things down.

“I can’t stand it any more,” he had complained. I must tell my parents what I really do.”

“Your remarks do not deserve a response,” said his boss. “You have always known that the secrecy –“

“I have always known, true,” said Avraham Schwartz, his voice rising. “But my father is dying, do you understand?
Dying
! And he refused to see me. Understand? He could die without me ever seeing him again! I must explain to him that I’m not a criminal, that I’m not part of the international underworld, despite the “good reputation” I’ve acquired in the area. Let everyone else think what they want –
he must know
the truth before he dies!”

“Out of the question.”

“I’m killing my parents!” yelled Schwartz, in rage and pain, in his superior’s ear. “The reputation I’ve got as a gangster is the direct cause of their poor health. I’m breaking their hearts! I’ve got to tell them the truth. I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t do this!” With burning eyes, in a momentary loss of control, he threatened to resign and to violate the secrecy he had pledged to uphold.

“You’re not the only who –“ the director of European agents tried to cut him off, to no avail.

“And I’m not even talking about the fact that I have no chance in my present circumstances of forming a normal relationship with a decent girl and raising a family!” Schwartz’s voice grew louder and more bitter.

He had finally received permission; he assumed with good reason, upon the intervention of the head of the Mossad himself. The moment it was given it was clear to those at the top of the secret service that it meant the end of the career of one of the best operatives they had ever had – with all the waste and damage this entailed.

Schwartz himself understood that the threats he had made, the loss of control he had displayed his uncharacteristic show of feelings – accompanied by not a little self-pity – were not compatible with the business of intelligence; which demanded unfailing loyalty and the carrying out of orders with almost blind obedience. This was all the more true with regard to the Mossad, which was known to be ruthless and uncompromising regarding discipline and procedure.

Despite this, Avramico still had many reasons to feel good. The loosening-up he had felt ever since his last visit to Israel had extended to all his affairs in Germany. At a family dinner on the kibbutz – a rare event in itself – his parents and his two sisters, with their husbands (who in recent years had behaved towards him as if all the contamination of Frankfurt had clung to him), sat around the table as the prodigal son revealed a small glimpse of the mysterious world of espionage and his place in it over the past 20 years. At the end of his revelations all those present sat dumbfounded and open-mouthed, with tears in their eyes. Avramico could see how relieved they were – his sisters, their husbands, and especially his parents; who looked almost young again. His father was so overcome that he could only get up and walk heavily over to him, put his hand on his shoulder, and ask him if he wanted to play a game of chess – a minor question, but one that contained more meaning than an entire speech!

Now that he had told his family – and it did not matter that he had only revealed a tiny grain of the truth and did so imaginatively, as his commander had instructed – there was nothing left for his controllers to do but agree on the terms of his retirement. These were fairly generous: a new identity, free tuition at any university he chose, ownership free and clear of the nightclub he managed, and a life-long government pension.

As Schwartz got out of the big Mercedes and locked the door, he was suffused with well-being. He only had one more mission to carry out, and then…

His thoughts quickly turned to the facts of the case. The man they were looking for had flown to Switzerland and had gone from there to Germany without being discovered. He had been located in Frankfurt by his phone call to Tova Rom. From their conversation it was evident that he had already met with her that same evening – though for some reason without being spotted by the Mossad. He had apparently met with her in her dressing room, since she had been under constant surveillance from the moment she had left. And now the man was supposed to be in Munich – but for some reason had never arrived. Schwartz could not help but admire the man.

The doorman at the Pizzazz touched the brim of his green cap in salute as he held the door open with a “Gutten tag, Herr Schwartz.”

*     *      *

“Look, Schwartzy,” began Velvel Gruzweig, as he snapped his cigarette lighter and slipped it into his jacket pocket, while drawing the smoke deeply into his lungs. He broke out in a fit of coughing before he could continue, the giant gold-plated Star of David around his neck beating with every convulsion against a hairy chest seen through an open-neck shirt. “Look, Schwartzy,” he began again between coughs, “my boys found the cab driver who picked up your man. The guy was trying to catch the Munich train.” Once again Grunzweig was racked with a coughing fit. “Anyway, he missed the train, so he asked the driver to take him to Mannheim. He got there in time and boarded the train –“

“Great; we already heard that,” Schwartz cut him off impatiently. “You also know that the man
was not
on the train when it arrived in Munich, and didn’t get off at any station between Mannheim and Munich, right?”

Had a senior German police detective been able to see into the back room of the Pizzazz, he would be struck dumb with wonder. For, sitting side by side around a low table were four men who often operated outside the law, or very close to its edges.  The four commanded hundreds of people throughout Germany and no one would have believed that, under certain circumstances, they would be willing to cooperate.

Together with his brother, Bereleh, Velveleh Grunzweig had begun life in Germany as a son of a refugee from Poland, a former yeshiva student. Today the brothers had near total control of all the brothels in southern Germany. Nevertheless, he found his latest coughing fit to be more than a little troubling.

“Hans,” Schwartz turned to “Little Hans”, whose turnover was estimated to be greater than the annual budget of the state of Hessen, and which derived entirely from illegal betting. “Your people checked the Munich train station. Are you certain our man wasn’t among the passengers?”

The look Hans gave Schwartz made him regret asking the question. Little Hans would not have come as far as he did by relying on dubious information. The man never spared in his efforts to obtain the most precise information possible, and it was well known that you could only give him false information once.

“Yes,” said Hans with emphasis, his dark eyes widening in an unspoken question as he drummed the high heels of his cowboy boots on the floor.

How can you be so sure, Schwartz wanted to ask. He asked instead, “Could you explain what exactly happened in Munich?”

“Forty-five minutes before the train arrived in Munich, we got the word that the man was supposed to be on it. We had time to get organized. I used a backup search: my people there did not know about each other’s existence. Each and every arriving passenger was seen by one of my people, who was selling newspapers on the platform and checked each person carefully. The other team, which included five people dressed in the uniforms of the immigration police, stood at the exits of the terminal and checked the papers of any passenger who looked suspicious. They also checked the commercial area of the station – the stores, restaurants, parking area; even the bathrooms.”