THRILLER: The Galilee Plot: (International Biological Terror, The Mossad, and... A Self-contended Couple) (8 page)

Sunday came. One of those
Sundays abroad, redolent of good will, relaxation and calm, upholding the
ancient imperatives of the primeval act, the Sabbath Day, when God “rested”, in
other words – the act of creation came to the stage of completion and required
a backward look, to enjoy what had been finished, the beauty and innocence and
harmony and restrained power of the primeval world. Below the hotel the great
lake sparkled; two boats made steady progress along it, moving in opposite
directions. The heavens spoke blessings, the earth spoke peace, such that it
seemed the hand of man could do nothing to impair it. We sprang from our beds,
showered, went down to the dining-room and helped ourselves to a lavish
breakfast, and without further discussion we dressed in clothing appropriate
for a Sunday. My wife wore an olive-coloured sweater, and I, the waistcoat
which we had bought not long before, its colour complementing the luxuriance of
my wife’s sweater, which spoke of activity and willingness to give. In the
lift, my wife took a long look at our reflections in the full-length mirror
installed there, and commented:

“Look at the harmony of
colours. And all quite unplanned.”

“External harmony reflects
the internal,” was my trite response, which nevertheless earned me a kiss. We
went out to the wood that we knew so well, climbing the slope to the clearing
at the top and moving further on, filling our quasi-desiccated Israeli lungs
with great gulps of the invigorating, oxygen-rich air of abroad. The desire to
sing was not repressed. We sang. Not at full volume, but without restraint. My
wife didn’t unleash the full power of the God-given gift residing in her throat
– those vocal cords that it seemed incredible any mortal could be endowed with,
perhaps with the intention of sparing me feelings of inferiority or perhaps the
opposite – sparing me the temptation to swell with vicarious pride – or for a combination
of both motives together, something not uncommon for complex types like us. I
sang, or rather I joined in or accompanied her, keeping as low a profile as
possible. And the song went on. At the first turning, a chamois stood facing
us, looking perplexed. Not that he can have been much of a connoisseur of
music; after all the whole business of vocal articulation must seem crazy to
the race of the chamois. They aren’t used to such phenomena, especially not the
Swiss chamois. In fact this one recoiled from us, shying away and clearing our
path.

“That’s a good sign,” my
wife commented, referring to the appearance of the enchanting creature. “To be
released from all the tension, if only for a moment!”

This
if only for a
moment
was sincere and came from deep down.

“No need to exaggerate,” I
declared with typical cheeriness. She was offended.

“What exaggeration are you
talking about?” she protested and added: “Someone’s shooting at my husband, his
life’s in danger, and all our happiness, it seems, is hanging by a thread – and
you’re talking about exaggeration!”

“My mistake!” – I
hurriedly grasped the reliable pillar of blessed domestic harmony and changed
the subject: “Look how peaceful it is all around. We should breathe it deep
into our lungs, our hearts, our whole being – while we can. For a year at least
none of this is going to be available to us.”

“So it seems,” my wife was
quick to respond. “Still, all the same, there is something in the air!..”

“The air is balmy,
energising, spreading encouragement and happiness!”

“Now you’re exaggerating!”
she declared.

“It seems to me you caught
it from me,” I protested.

“Caught what?” she
demanded to know.

“What you call ‘Bulgarian
pessimism’.”

“Not at this moment!” she
insisted.

“How is it possible that
in this quiet, festal atmosphere of a Sunday, in the wood, where nothing is
wrong, where a chamois comes to greet us, and he’s the emissary of something
sublime, unearthly, not of flesh and blood, and every tree is singing and we
are singing along too – how can you find any reason to say
Still, all the
same
?”

 My wife recovered
her composure: “You’re right, I take it back,” and there and then she launched
into “Tipperary”, an optimistic song in which all our affection was invested.
We crossed a woodland clearing carpeted with dense, natural grass, trimmed not
by the hand of man and smelling pungent. I sang at maximum volume, or rather, I
meant to sing so loudly that the trees would shake on their foundations, but I
didn’t get the chance. At that moment, a strident, unsteady voice was heard,
commanding:

“Halt!”

I turned round. A tall,
thin man was pointing a heavy pistol at me from a range of less than five
paces. He was clutching the shiny weapon in both hands, which shook and made
the pistol shake. It was obvious there was no empathy between him and the gun.
The two of us, the man holding the pistol and aiming it at me, and I, stood
face to face, perplexed by the unnatural situation, supposedly forced upon both
of us to the same catastrophic extent, which caused the one holding the gun to
shake more erratically than ever. Perhaps a second passed, perhaps a minute.
The gunman fired, I heard the whistle of the bullet (it wasn’t the wind). A
fraction of a second later, a burst of automatic fire was heard, and before I
knew what was going on, I found myself lying on the fragrant grass, which
seemed to smell poisonous to me, and I’d have preferred some other grassy
pillow, enclosed, artificial, in a small but quiet garden, even a plastic lawn.
What propelled me to the ground, was a strong and decisive hand, full of
unexpected and irresistible strength, despite its diminutive, almost childlike
size – the hand of my wife, who fell together with me on that pungent carpet,
repellent in its luxuriance.

“What are you doing!” I
protested, trying to give a human dimension to the picture.

“Putting into practice
what I’ve read in the thrillers and seen in the mafia movies that you hate so
much!”

I almost laughed aloud –
how lucky I was to have this woman! – I told myself. A few more sporadic shots
heralded the end of the show.

I seemed to hear the
high-pitched whine emerging from the blank screen, telling me –
We’ve
entertained you long enough, so please change the channel or turn off the set
and go to sleep
.

Someone approached us with
stealthy tread.

Without moving a limb, I
took a sidelong glance. It was the investigating officer. He saw me looking at
him and declared in his hideously accented English:

“You’re still causing problems,
to yourselves and to us. Go home, for everyone’s sake and yours in particular.
Or you’ll go home in coffins. You can get up now!”

The last sentence sounded
like an order. I got up slowly, held out a hand to my wife and pulled her to
her feet. Her festive sweater, my waistcoat, were covered with tiny leaves,
grains of dust and all kinds of mites. I brushed off quickly, as much as could
be brushed off quickly, from my wife’s sweater, before she could realise the
state she was in – with consequent change of mood. I forgot, she takes her mood
from the state of my clothing too.   

We accompanied the young
police officer, whose name turned out to be Heinrich Zimmerman. About five
metres from the place that we fell, lay a tall, thin man, looking out of place in
the Swiss landscape. Heinrich pointed at him with his angular chin, jutting
forward like the prow of a ship in a storm:

“Olaf Olsen, holding a
Norwegian passport, of mixed Norwegian-Swedish parentage.” He pulled a
handkerchief from the pocket of his tight trousers, picked up the pistol which
lay impotently beside the corpse of Olaf Olsen, and I saw at close quarters the
heavy “Zig Zauer” which a few moments before had been aimed at me. Later, I was
told this is one of the best handguns in the world.

“Bought in a shop, I
suppose,” I commented in a mildly ironical tone, aimed at diffusing some of the
tension.

“Hans!” Heinrich cried and
from among the trees a broad-shouldered Swiss appeared, heavily built but
unexpectedly agile and light on his feet. He took the pistol, wrapped in the
handkerchief.

“Yes, in a shop,” Heinrich
confirmed, and it was obvious he was bursting with repressed feelings and
feeling an irresistible need to pour everything out and tell all he knew. I
encouraged him, as I was no less interested than he was in hearing what he had
to say. And this was his story:

The Norwegian-Swedish
gentleman arrived in Switzerland not long ago. He runs a toy-shop in Oslo… the
shop is only a cover, and I must surely understand what he means. I understood
but didn’t respond. He continued his story as we walked, at a sedate and casual
Swiss-style pace along the path leading back to the hotel. “The man was a
sleeper,” Heinrich felt the need to explain to us. People interested in
shedding my blood, and they might just have a point – after Rahman went to a
better world, they obviously weren’t going to give up and they sent Olaf Olsen
to Switzerland on a specific assignment, with the photograph of me and all the
rest. The first thing Mr Olaf Olsen did was go to a gun-shop in Zurich. He
asked for a handgun and before being asked what he wanted it for, told the
salesman he wanted to produce a toy pistol modelled on the Zig Zauer, which had
become world-famous; children were clamouring for such a toy. The explanation sounded
plausible, and Mr Olaf was the kind who inspired confidence. He presented, as
required, a valid Norwegian passport, and the salesman recorded the details.
Olaf paid the full price for the weapon, to the delight of the salesman, who in
spite of everything did his duty as a Swiss patriot and notified the police.
Heinrich immediately realised (with emphasis on the words “immediately” and
“realised”) that this man was the piece missing from the jigsaw, he drafted in
detectives, all the trained manpower he could muster, and set out in pursuit.
Mr Olaf arrived at the hotel and ate a lavish Swiss breakfast, doing everything
very calmly – and in the Scandinavian way he ate a lot of meat. This isn’t in
fact such common Scandinavian practice these days. The Vikings on the other
hand always ate meat and nothing else – Heinrich displayed his extensive
knowledge of history.

Heinrich glanced sidelong
at me, to check that I was following the interesting story. He wanted so much
to share it with someone and in me he had found the ideal audience, the man
naturally more interested in this than in all the other stories in the world,
the one most deeply involved in it, the one who enraged him with his frivolous
attitude, who was risking his own life and the life of his beloved wife, for no
logical reason at all. His scrutiny satisfied him.

Mr Olaf sat at the table
overlooking the hotel entrance, saw me and my wife going out, and followed us,
leaving a fifty franc note on the table, with the heavy Zig Zauer stuck in his belt,
in such a way as not to draw suspicion, while making the weapon easy to draw.
Heinrich, who was on the scene and personally shadowing Olaf, signalled to his
men and the whole gang set out for the woods in our tracks.

Here I saw fit to
interject: “And we, my wife and I, didn’t notice anything.”

“Appalling carelessness!”
he asserted and irrelevantly he added: “You’re to leave Switzerland within
three days, otherwise, we shall expel you!” – a threat serving as an outlet for
his seething anger.

Here my wife came forward,
having followed close behind us, not missing a word of Heinrich’s story, and
announced:

“We’re leaving tomorrow.”

“The words I longed to
hear!” Heinrich exclaimed with relief and hurriedly returned to discharging his
burden:

“We covered a lot of
ground. When you were close to the clearing, Mr Olsen drew the Zig Zauer,
stopped and took aim. You could tell he wasn’t born to it, or even properly
trained” – he gave a professional opinion and returned to his story:

“I had to think about it
for a moment, a long moment. Shooting a man – well, it’s easy enough in the
movies.”

I couldn’t agree with him
more.

“However,” Heinrich
continued, “there are situations where there’s no other option but to shoot,
before the damage is done.” It was clear this was the argument which Heinrich
meant to raise in reporting to his superiors.

“I drew and I fired,” he
exclaimed with a light sigh, and added at once, by way of justification: “I’m
good at that. Trained. And the thing proved itself. That bastard, Mr Olaf Olsen,
fired a hopeless shot, even an amateur could have done better than him, and I
scored a bull’s-eye from twice the range he shot at you from, and he went down
like a shot bird, that’s the part that interests you and you’re entitled to
know it. I’d suggest you don’t publicise this or broadcast it. The important
thing is that the two of you have survived. I say the two of you,” he added,
jabbing an accusing finger at me, “because with your irresponsibility you have
put your delightful wife in danger too, some intellectual you are!”  I
expressed my full agreement with a prolonged hmmm…

In the meantime, vehicles
were moving into the wood, police vehicles, off-roaders. We returned to our
hotel.