The Israel Bond Omnibus (22 page)
Read The Israel Bond Omnibus Online
Authors: Sol Weinstein
“Real Oy Oy thinking, boychikl,” enthused Zvi. “Take his papers, his car, the whole schmear. Who the hell will have the guts to stop a KGB titan?”
“Another, bigger KGB titan, you schnook,” said Bond with severity. “They’ll all be out looking for him, especially General Bolshyeeyit, the section boss. But if I can just grab a plane out of here....”
Minutes later, Bond was resplendent in his borrowed military togs—beard and payis shaved away by Zvi’s .22 Remington. The only jarring note was the trouser cuffs which ended at his knees.
“The bodies, Oy Oy Seven,” said Zvi. “What about ‘em?”
Bond’s eyes were mischievous. “Watch, lads. We’re going to make the bodies disappear. And as an added fringe benefit, a hundred-million-dollar installation, the Institute of Architecture.”
Zvi’s eyes blinked.
“Gevaldt!
How?”
Bond picked up the prayer shawl; kissed it reverently. He felt for the fringes on the right side of the shawl, pulled one out to a length of some twenty inches. “The fuse, gentlemen. The entire talis is woven out of explosive
plastique
.”
“HaLavi, huh?” Zvi asked, answering his own question: Lavi HaLavi, quartermaster of M 33 and 1/3, creator of diabolical devices for espionage, such as the yarmulkeh.
“Colonel” Bond lit another safety match, touched it to the elongated fringe. “Let’s leave it to the angels,
boochereem
, and get the hell out of here. It’s now fifteen minutes to boom time.”
He climbed into Svetlova’s staff car, pressed the hands of Zvi and Itzhok in fond farewell.
“You know,” mused Zvi, “that colonel’s suit looks kinda sharp on you, Bond.”
Bond smiled. (He’d been saving this bon mot for Zvi.) “Well, I’ll tell you, Zvi. I always was crazy about... Russian dressing.”
Zvi’s body shook convulsively. “Oh,
mommeleh!
I think I wet my pants!”
That Zvi! Bond cackled all the way to the airport, where he was sure he could pull rank and somehow con his way onto a jetliner to the West. Ah, the West! No matter what its faults, it stood out as a bright beacon in the eyes of all free men.
Even as that refreshing metaphor crossed his mind there was a robust Russian answer to that bright beacon. It came as a red flash that split the cold darkness of the Moscow night, accompanied by a thunderous rumble that shattered the windows in Svetlova’s 1963 Karamazov sedan.
Bond dragged on a Raleigh. “Well, there goes the Institute. Even Frank Lloyd couldn’t put that building Wright!”
And desperately wished Zvi could have been there to hear
that
one.
4 “There Will Be No Third Striking”
Rumors flew like U-2’s around Moscow concerning the explosion and fiery destruction of the Institute of Architecture. The Red Chinese were the culprits, seeking revenge for the latest Politbureau blast at Mao Tse-tung, some claimed. Others pinned the disaster on counterrevolutionary elements trying to overturn the Soviet regime and place Anastasia back on the throne. A CIA job. Albanian terrorists. Rasputin—no one in Russia believed he had really died. Ayn Rand practicing her own philosophy.
To A. Schlepin, shadowy security chieftain of the Soviet Union, General Bolshyeeyit had been compelled to tell the truth, at least
his
version. “He deserved to die, the stupid glory seeker,” said Bolshyeeyit, “tackling a man like this Israeli with only himself and two others.”
“Nevertheless, General, we have suffered a humiliating defeat: the matzoh is on its way; three of our men are dead. KGB’s morale has been shattered to the breaking point. We must have a stunning victory immediately. That is an order.”
From the glacial quality of the interview Bolshyeeyit knew he must improvise a way back to Schlepin’s good graces at once.
“Comrade Minister,” he began guardedly. “What... what if KGB could revenge itself upon the Zionist state for this outrage?”
“How, General, without admitting to the world that little Israel was able to wreak an act of monumental havoc upon the proud Russian bear in the very heart of his capital?”
“True,” Bolshyeeyit nodded. “But the world at large does not know of Israel’s daring. Perhaps our world, the world of intelligence, knows by now, and it is that world we can impress, by destroying the very Israeli who was the death instrument of Svetlova, and the bomber in the Institute job.”
“Israel Bond,” Schlepin gave a cool, reflective blow on his pipe, sending the bubbles on an upside-down pyramid to the ceiling. And Bolshyeeyit knew he had temporarily saved his spurs by the spark of interest in the minister’s eye.
“Israel Bond,” Bolshyeeyit echoed. “Think of our restored, even enhanced, prestige when the great intelligence bureaus of the world —America’s CIA, England’s M.I. 5, the French Surete, Netherland’s KLM—learn that KGB has brought down the great secret agent at the height of his gaudy career.”
“How would they know it was KGB’s handiwork?” “Easily arranged, Comrade Minister. As you know, there was recently opened in Lisbon... ‘The Espionage Capital of the World’ as its Chamber of Commerce proudly states on its letterheads... a new hotel, the Hilton Spy, whose clientele consists solely of undercover agents. I myself have spent a relaxing weekend in its Colonel Rudolph Abel Suite, which, of course, has red carpets. Now... what if someday the famed killing mezuzah of Israel Bond was tacked upon the bulletin board in the lobby for all spies to gape at in awe, with a message beneath: ‘From Russia With You Know What. Let This Be a Warning to All Who Would Harm the Soviet Union.’”
“I see the merit of your proposal,” Schlepin remarked. “But I tell you, General Bolshyeeyit: this is your last chance to redeem yourself. If Israel Bond is not destroyed....” his hands made a gesture conveying finality. “Our American friends have a proverb derived from their national pastime—basketbowling, is not? They say, ‘Three strikings and you are a dugout.’”
“There will be no third striking,” responded Bolshyeeyit, whose knowledge of Americana was easily as comprehensive as his chieftain’s.
“What will be your death instrument? I am told that Professor Gletkin of our weapons research division has concocted a particularly agonizing poison cigarette.”
“It will not work on this man, Comrade Minister. His dossier indicates he has been smoking an American brand called Raleigh for many years. No, I shall employ Israel Bond’s greatest enemy against him, one that lurks within the confines of that lithe muscular body. Sex. German measles has not attacked as many women as he has. Sex will be our death instrument against Israel Bond.”
5 The Tender Teach-in
At the precise moment General Bolshyeeyit was outlining his plan for retaliation, Bond, a strange softness on that dark, cruelly handsome visage, was gazing fondly upon the innocence of an oval feline face, running a forefinger across the pouting baby mouth.
They were the property of Rowena Rosenthal, blonde and eighteen, who slept trustingly in his arms on the superior Beautyrest mattress (“Reminds me of a best seller,” he had jested as he took her,
“The Silent Spring
”) which cushioned the oxblood-stained Belmar, New Jersey, driftwood bed in his luxury suite at New York City’s opulent Ansonia Hotel.
An hour ago, fresh off the London-to-New York BOAC super fanjet, his tension-triggered perspiration blown away by the gentle fans, Bond had restively prowled Manhattan’s upper 90’s in search of
divertissement,
some escapade to blot out the unbearable strain from his grim sojourn in the Soviet Union. Dressed with expensive casualness in a Rudi Gernreich coral-tinted burlap-weave suit, Esquire socks held up by sporty
TV Guide
garters, Lazy Possum hush puppies by Thom McAn which squeaked Nina Simone songs as he walked, V-taper Jimmy Van Heusen shirt with the white-on-white musical note pattern and a clip-on Franklin Pangborn paisley bowtie, he sauntered up Broadway. He considered taking in a movie; there were several small cinema palaces in the area. The Thalia’s marquee advertised Walt Disney’s
Harlow
, about the fifth or sixth filmic attempt at capturing the true meaning of the tempestuous sex goddess’ life. And the best so far, according to one critic, since it was a full-length cartoon. The Symphony was exhibiting a horror masterpiece, one of a number of such vehicles starring the screen idols of the 1930’s who were making comebacks in films of a macabre vein. The new shocker was
Die! Die! Good Ship Lollipop!
, starring Shirley Temple as the deranged host of a kiddie television show who plastered the little tykes’ faces with lye pies. The twinbill at the Midtown held no appeal at all:
I Passed for White, with Ossie Davis, a truly splendid actor, miscast terribly as a substitute quarterback who comes off the bench with 1:09 left to lead Rockne’s Fighting Irish (played by William Buckley and the Yale varsity of 1921) over Southern California, with his aerial bombs; and its cofeature, a science-fiction potboiler about a mutant three-hundred-foot rye bread that escapes from the kitchens of Jennie Grossinger to terrorize the world, The Beast That Came From the Yeast.
He stopped at a newsstand for his copy of the spicy, informative
National Enquirer
(the lead story this week blared: “I CHOPPED MY MOTHER INTO A THOUSAND BITS AND SPRINKLED HER OVER MY WALDORF SALAD”), and a pack of Raleighs. “Sure you wouldn’t like to come on over to the L & M side, Mr. Bond?” said affable proprietor Don Dewsnap, offering him a snowy filter-tipped smoke.
“Sorry, Don,” he grinned back. “Not until they give me coupons with ’em.” Would that he could have told him, “Don, there are four hundred Mystery jets sweeping all hostile invaders from the skies of my beloved Eretz Israel. That kind of hardware doesn’t come for free, Don. Each jet costs my plucky little nation three million coupons.”
Then he had strolled into an espresso joint on 96th Street, The Maxwell House, unofficial hangout of America’s new radical left. There he had met the fetching Rowena and her boisterous claque at the bar as they exulted over their latest triumph, the desegregation of a previously all-white house of prostitution on Lexington Avenue. “We did it!” she cried. “Made ‘em take their first CORE whore!”
She had rejected Bond’s initial advances after a sullen size-up: “We new yoot of America frankly distrust anybody over thirty. You’re Establishment,
status quo,
smug mugwumps, bourgeois liberals... sell us out every time.” Master of improvisation that he was, Bond had baited a clever trap using her own jargon. He lured her to his suite under the pretext that he was going to conduct a “teach-in.”
Once there, all pedagogical pretense was abandoned. Ripping away her faded jeans, bra and panties, all of blue denim, and her Patrice Lumumba T-shirt, he crushed his cruel sensual mouth to hers, steering her into a dizzying orbital swing among the stars of fulfillment.
Rowena aslumber in the crook of his muscular arm, Raleigh smoke filtering through alert, vigilant nasal hairs, he recalled the events that had plunged him into that heartland of intrigue, Soviet Russia.
“Operation Matzohball” had been one of two schemes handed to the strategy board of M 33 and 1/3 by HaLavi. The alternate, “Operation Reunion,” a brazen bid to spirit away all of Russia’s Jews, had been scrubbed by M. “There is, I fear, no Russian highway, nor any other,” M. had said wisely, “that can accommodate a three-mile wide, four-mile long bus.” But “Matzohball” had won M.’s top priority. “Russia’s Jews sorely need an injection of the Jewish feeling. Without some sign of external concern they could well become as spiritually destitute as the Jews of America and Israel. There is only one man with the leonine courage to spearhead this mission. Bond. I am told his shoulder and hand wounds are healed.”
Bond had undergone a grinding program of physical training, running six miles a day across the golden beaches of Ashkelon on the Mediterranean under the watchful eye of frail peach-whiskered Nochum Spector, a nephew of M., who held a minor code clerk’s post in the service. Healing sunlight had bronzed that pale bullet-gouged body once more; applications of Mother Margolies’ Activated Old World Chickenfat had toned the skin, and selected isometric exercises, the diligent pitting of one muscle against another, had given him new strength and elasticity—and pitted muscles. Evenings he spent with the real Rabbi Morris Chair, polishing up his cover role, copying the sage’s stooped stance, gentle speech and self-effacing gestures. His beard and forelocks had grown at an amazing rate, the result of hormones injected nightly by Dr. Lewis Hirsh, trail blazer in accelerated hair growth. It was jokingly reported the doctor’s preparation could grow hair on billiard balls. Bond, shooting a little friendly game of snooker in the doctor’s gameroom one night, could attest to that. The pockets of the table were jammed with hirsute spheroids that would not go down.
HaLavi’s final touches. “You must work this job ‘clean,’ Oy Oy Seven. Your mezuzah weapon must be left at home. I’m sure it is no secret to Soviet intelligence anymore. If you are frisked its discovery will uncover your cover. You’ll wear a real one. The same logic, I’m sorry to say, applies to your heel knives. Regular shoes, Bond. Your eyes will be changed to brown by contact lenses; an old trick, but we will add a refinement. Two strands of that beard will in actuality be wires attached to tiny ducts at the side of each eye. If some playful Russian gives your impressive bush a pull, fluid will be released. Your eyes will weep.”
