Tsunami Connection (21 page)

April 4, 2012

Bo nibbled affectionately at Kefira's
ears. Yochana stretched out on a new, down-cushioned sofa. The color was pale
yellowish, burnt orange. Her throw cushions were pure silk, respecting the heat
outside. Yochana's cigarette smoke had the same stale, rancid smell that was a
part of most of Kefira's life. Kefira had brought her favorite chair from the
fifteen-by-fifteen air-conditioned sunroom. She loved this chair because it
brought back memories, fond reminiscences of her childhood, except for the
tar-filled cigarette odor. The stroking of Bo's beak through her hair augmented
these feelings.

"Put that cheeky thing back in its habitat, will you,
Yakiri
?
We must talk. You have refused to let me debrief you up to now. I am getting
pressure from on high to get more info. I can't hold them off forever. It has
been almost ten days since the incident. They said I need a doctor's report
tomorrow if you don't cough up tonight."

"It's amazing that Bo is still alive,
Imma
.
After you, he is the only constant in my life that hasn't been killed by associating
with me."

"That's nonsense. Don't be so morose."

"Do you know that in the wild, Kea parrots often live
only 5 years? Bo will be 24 years old this year."

"We built a wonderful habitat for him here. Remember
collecting all the things he loves and making the sheds and passageways with
rubber edges and breakable parts just to satisfy his curiosity
?
You were so adamant about challenging him with his environment."

"Did you know the oldest known living Kea is almost
fifty years old?"

"You're not paying attention,
Yakiri
. Come to
me. Let me hold you. Look at this."

Yochana opened her palm and revealed the locket that she had
given to the orphaned child all those years ago in Greece at that prim
schoolhouse on the Island of Anti Paros. Tears streamed down Kefira's face.

"You're wearing the perfume," she said.

"Yes, it was your Mother's favorite. Now, you see. You
have started the process. Crying is essential to recovery."

"He is a vegetable. It is not a life. I killed him as I
kill everyone who touches me. However, this time it is worse. I didn't kill
him. I destroyed him and he remains alive. He was so warm, caring."

"I talked to the doctors this morning. They informed me
that his condition is common enough in cases of explosion shock. Many come out
of it."

"You saw him. You saw the pallor of death."

"I admit he doesn't look good, but my faith in him is
not shaken. He is a strong man. He will recover. You must visit him every day
and touch him. Speak to him, my child. Here, put this perfume on and keep the
bottle. It is a positive fragrance."

"Thank you,
Imma
. I have been talking to him
every day. I brought some of his favorite music, too."

"Smell the scent, my love. It will calm you."

"I could not live without you,
Imma
, even though
your plans for me have always been too ambitious. You are my connection to
continuity, but you did some stupid things," said Kefira, breathing in the
luxurious smell of Yochana's homemade perfume.

"I always have your best interests at heart. You seem
more at ease now. That's more like it. Now please, put that mischievous bird
back in his habitat. We must talk before Sam arrives."

"I had an eerie premonition today while I visited Zak.
I remembered an old anti-war film that I saw in California. I had a strange feeling
of sexual arousal when I held his hand and I suddenly remembered a scene in the
film."

"What was the name of the film?"

"Just a minute. It's on the tip of my tongue. I know,
'Johnny Got His Gun'. I can't remember the name of the director."

"It was about an explosion victim during the first war.
The detonation blew his frontal lobe off completely, but he was still alive. Is
that it?"

"You saw it then."

"I certainly did. It was very popular in the 70s."

"Do you remember the scene with the nurse near the end
of the film?"

"Sorry, I can't really remember it. No. Wait. It's
coming back to me now. Wasn't the nurse in love with him?"

"Yes, she was. All the doctors thought he was brain
dead, but she knew he wasn't and then he started to use Morse code to communicate
with her when she came into the room. She recognized the code and reported it
to the doctors."

"What does all this have to do with you?"

"Today, I tried to arouse him by touching him under the
blanket. He became aroused a little. It wasn't full and hard, but it changed.
It got harder and his testicles seemed to roll over a little."

"He is one lucky man. I don't really know what to
say."

"After I did it, I thought of the tragic end of the
film. I can't get that image out of my mind."

"When did you become so sensitive, my love, my
Yakiri
?"

"A waste of all that training, isn't it?"

"I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you.
Your days in the field are over."

"Is it because I showed you my soft side?"

"No, my love. It's the product of a quarter of a
century of work. You'll be offered the job of running the Mossad."

"I am no functionary and I need either the adrenalin of
the field or a normal life. Right now, I think I am gravitating toward a normal
existence without any adrenalin. It will help me forget."

"Tomorrow we have an appointment with the Prime
Minister. He has all but agreed. You are my life's work, child. Tomorrow you'll
achieve what I never could."

"You never told me this was so important to you. I knew
you had plans for me, but I never imagined you were plotting a coup of sorts in
the Mossad. Do you understand that you sacrificed my team to your plans for my
ambition?"

"I made it to the shared top of the HaMossad, but I was
always prevented from making the next step up the ladder. I never wanted that
problem with the team. How did you find out about it?"

"Shafiq, in Buenos Aires. He talked before he died and
he had information on his computer that sealed his fate. Your trust was
misplaced. But forget that for now. All these years you were grooming me?"

"You might say that."

"And Sam was plotting for Zak."

"You've always known that I was a very competitive
person."

"You must not let on that you know about Shafiq's
errors to Sam."

"I am afraid I've already told him. Your days are numbered
here at Mossad. It was too much. My whole team perished because of your
plotting."

"Did Shafiq tell you what I ordered and he agreed to
perform?"

"Yes, I understand that the RPG was supposed to be
faulty, but Shafiq was either compromised by MacAuley, or the secret service of
the new Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt. We'll never know which of the two caused
the problem unless we can catch MacAuley again."

"I doubt we can get anywhere with him, even if we get
him again, unless he has something to gain. He is too hardened to give in.
He'll die first."

Kefira shook her head. She thought of the secrets she kept
for Sam and now, ironically, Yochana was asking Kefira to keep secrets from
Sam. Lack of transparency bred future problems, she thought.

All of the killing in Buenos Aires had resulted from
Yochana's well-meaning, but misguided schemes. Kefira was relieved that she had
already talked to Sam. 'No more secrets' was her motto now.

The door bell sounded, interrupting their tête-a-tête.
Kefira got up from her chair and coaxed the Kea parrot onto her hand. The bird
side-stepped up her arm to her shoulder as Kefira walked towards the entrance
to the bird's outdoor enclosure. She opened the person-sized entrance and
walked into a large cage, a vegetation-filled mini-arboretum. Yochana's griping
about the enclosure belied her deep affection for the bird. She had kept up and
evolved the rooftop area's vegetation and structures over the years.

Kefira always came back to see the bird, but in reality, the
animal had become Yochana's. The young woman in Kefira always came out in this
enclosure. She began humming a tune from her time in secondary school when she
was first training for Mossad, but not yet in the full-time special school in
the desert. It was an early song from the father of Israeli rock, Shalom
Hanoch. The song was called '
Agadat
Deshe
' or 'Grass Legend'. She
was lost in thought, watching her parrot become curious about a new addition to
his home. Sam broke her reverie by singing the words to the song she was
humming.

"That was one of my favorites as well," he said,
breaking the ice in the gentlest manner.

"Hello, Sam. We are both grieving today. I am so sorry
about what I have done to your son. I have no words," she said, tears
streaming down her face.

"You mean you haven't heard!"

"Heard what?"

"He woke up today. The floor nurse just called me. I
can't stay for our meeting, Yochana," he said, turning to the older woman.

The woman he faced was crying tears for his son, but Sam
could have sworn he saw anger behind her tears.

"Strange expression in your eyes, Yochana," he
said turning back to Kefira.

"Will you two get anything you need? We are going to
the hospital. I was on the way here when I got the news."

"
Mazel tov
," they all shouted, feigned only
by Yochana, as they danced in a circle holding each other's shoulders.

April and May
2012

The nine-minute drive from Melchette
Street to Ichilov Hospital flashed by Kefira, Yochana, and Sam in six minutes.
Sam used his blue flashing lights. He concentrated deeply and spoke little
until he leaped from the car, lights flashing blue, leaving the driver's door
open. The deafening sound of a large military transport helicopter landing on
the roof signaled an arriving trauma and blocked out Sam's voice as he ran
toward the hospital. Kefira looked up, her mind fled back to the Sinai, to her
team scattered all over the sand, in pieces interspersed with chunks of super
hot metal and the ever present smell of high octane fuel and burning flesh.
Yochana took her arm and shook firmly.

"Don't even think of going there in your head now. We
only have a few minutes. You are my life's work, child. My whole life is about
to go up in smoke," said Yochana, looking piercingly into Kefira's eyes,
while holding her two arms tightly.

"Those were always your plans," answered Kefira,
shaking herself loose from the older woman's grip.

"Stop. You must assert yourself and not let them take
your rightful place from you, from us."

"No. You listen to me now, old woman. What about
Shafiq? I killed him in Buenos Aires, but not before his computer hard disk
gave me the evidence I needed to convict him. Your plotting got my team
killed," uttered Kefira through clenched teeth.

"It was not like that. It was not my fault. Shafiq was
a faithful agent for years in Egypt. He made an error in judgment. How could he
have known that MacAuley was actually working for the Russians?"

"The Russians. How do they fit into this mess? Forget
it. You make me sick! Open your eyes! Zak is my man. He has been lying in bed,
dying before my eyes, and you are still plotting my bureaucratic rise. They say
timing is everything. Today your timing is way off. Now let go of me or I'll
tell Sam about Shafiq. Let go! Now! I am going upstairs to see my man back from
the dead. I want his children, not your Mossad, as my legacy."

Yochana stood near the open door of Sam's car. She watched
Kefira walk and then run toward Sam as he stood holding the hospital door,
looking confusedly at her. Kefira arrived beside him, tears in her eyes.

"You don't need to say anything. I don't know
everything, but I began to piece things together in the last few weeks. Now it
is Zak that matters."

"I am so sorry I was taken in by that charade. I
trusted her so deeply. She rescued me from the worst moment in my life. I
couldn't imagine ill of her. I am heartbroken."

"We all are. You're not alone. Let's go up the stairs,
the elevators are so slow here," said Sam as they passed through the
security at the entrance of the hospital. His face earned him a brisk salute
from the young officer at the door.

"I know it is you, Sir, but I must ask for your
documents anyway. I must scan them."

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Corporal."

Kefira handed over her documents next. The young Corporal
had heard the rumor mill after the success of the Syrian incursion by some
special forces. Everyone knew, without knowing, that a woman had led one of the
groups and that that same woman was in love with the other group's leader. Here
she was, coming to visit again. The expression in his eyes showed that he had
derived a conclusion, and a look of admiration and respect filled his nod.
Kefira had become used to this nod now. At first, she had feared for her cover,
then she became pleased. She and her team, along with Zak's group had, after
all, prevented a possible genocide.

Kefira and Sam approached the room with some trepidation.
Would he be all there or would there be permanent damage? They looked at each
other and each took a deep breath. The door swung inward. First, they both
heard his voice, strong and commanding. He was talking to the nurse in charge,
asking how long he had to stay in the hospital. From behind the curtain, they
looked at each other and sighed with relief.

"
Yakiri, Ahuvi
," blurted Kefira as she
burst into the conversation between the nurse and Zak.

Zak turned to Kefira and looked puzzled. His brow tightened
and a deep frown filled his face. He did not respond to Kefira and he looked
emptily at Sam, his adoptive parent.

"I am terribly sorry. Do I know you people?"

Kefira wiped the tears from her eyes, looked at Sam, and
then back at Zak. The nurse, who had consoled Kefira through these weeks of
hell, came around the bed, took Kefira in her arms, and whispered in her ear.
"Sometimes it takes a while to get everything back. He has been in a coma
for some time now. Don't be discouraged. It is very positive that he is so
physically well."

"Please forgive me, nurse. Please leave us," said
Sam to the nurse.

"Should I leave as well?" asked Kefira.

"No, you may be privy to this information."

The nurse took her leave. It was a military affair and she
knew her place. Despite years of experience with cases of amnesia after
battlefield trauma, Sam was startled. He looked at his son and decided to take
the role of commander, instead of father, perhaps shielding himself from the
emotional shock of losing his son a second time in as many weeks. He reached
into his pocket and drew out a light blue box, the color of the blue in the
Israeli flag. He saluted stiffly.

"I am instructed by the Prime Minister of our great
country to secretly offer you the highest Israeli Military decoration, The
Medal of Valor."

Sam opened the box and removed the orange strap and silver
medal. He gestured to Zak as he reached to Zak's chest and held the medal in
place.

"This is for valor above and beyond the call of duty.
As you know, your role in this mission is top secret. You may never wear this
award, but rest assured that the people who count know about it," said
Sam, as he removed the medal and placed it again in the blue box. He stepped
back formally, saluting stiffly.

Out of habit, and happy to have a ritual to contain her
disappointment, Kefira saluted as well. They both looked at Zak.

"This is all too much for me. Why am I receiving a
secret award? What have I done? For that matter, who am I? I remember my name,
but my past is a mystery to me. Thank you for the medal. I am proud to have
accomplished something so important and I hope I will soon remember what I have
done. Now please, leave me in peace. My head hurts in a way I have never before
experienced. He turned over, reacting as if he had already forgotten about
their conversation. He was snoring as they left the room.

Outside the door, Yochana stood waiting for them. The nurse
had paged his recently assigned specialist, Doctor Mordicai. He was stepping
out of the elevator thirty meters away. He looked left, then right and walked
toward Sam, Kefira and Yochana. He had recognized Sam from an earlier
consultation about Zak. The nurse busied herself with opening the door of a
consultation room and the doctor gestured to the three of them to enter.

"I am Doctor Mordicai. Do you remember me? We met
briefly about two weeks ago."

"Yes, of course. Please excuse me for not standing. I
am a bit in shock. When we met last time, I did not inform you that that young
man is my son, rather my stepson. I saw no reason at the time," said Sam.

"May I ask your relationship to the patient," said
Doctor Mordicai to Kefira.

"My relationship to him is classified," said
Kefira, as she produced her credentials and showed them to him.

"I am afraid I will have to ask you to leave while I
speak to the only family member present."

"Do you know who I am, Doctor?" said Sam.

"Not exactly, though I can guess. Perhaps I should
explain. I am not Sabra. I come from the States. I am here on an exchange
program because of my specialty in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the
battlefield. I worked extensively in Afghanistan and Iraq. I am sorry if I have
broken some code of conduct here."

"It is a surprise to me that a Jew not born in Israel
can have access to people who might give away military secrets
inadvertently," replied Sam.

"If it's any consolation, I am the best, and your
soldiers are getting the best possible treatment. As well, I was a Special
Forces, Navy Seal medic. I have the clearance for this."

"I will look into this. This woman is under my
authority and she will stay," said Sam, opening up his credentials as he
spoke. Sam continued, "It seems to be a precedent to me. Nevertheless,
what is wrong with my son?"

"He most likely has post traumatic amnesia."

"Is it permanent?"

"It can be, but people often come out of it in a few
weeks. His mind is protecting him from what he experienced. I need to study his
case. My knowledge of his injuries is only circumstantial. I won't go into
details now, but I can if we schedule a consultation. I saw him two hours ago.
He seems strong and alert. It is possible he will learn to accept his reality
and his past will return to him. I can't really tell you for certain."

Both Sam and Kefira asked about treatment methods at the same
time. A brief smile passed on her face as she looked at Sam. He felt somewhat
relieved as well.

"He seems in good health, other than the mental trauma.
I would like someone he used to be familiar with to take him back to his place
of work, for starters. He can be an outpatient as soon as we check all of his
vitals. He may be ready to leave in, let's say, two or three days, that is, if
he does not have any other problems. You understand he must be supervised
twenty-four hours a day?"

"I will take care of the supervision. I am his
lover," said Kefira, tears welling up in her eyes.

"If it's any help, most of these cases settle in about
two weeks, definitively. It really is hell to lose the person twice in such a
short time; buck up, and put that energy into fighting for him. Well, if there
are no further questions, I must get to my newly-arrived patients. No rest for
the wicked."

"Thank you very much, Doctor Mordicai," said both
Sam and Kefira.

"My pleasure. Here is my card. It has my personal
numbers on it. Please feel free to call me, day or night."

"That is very kind of you."

"The pleasure is all mine. Obviously, this Zak of yours
is a very special person."

"I must check on your clearances, Doctor, but you must
know that he is very special and he was privy to highly sensitive information.
If you pass the grade, I will be back to inform you of what you need to
know," said Sam.

"Give me back the card. I have a connection at Israeli
Military Special Forces. Colonel Hebron. I'll write his number on the back of
my card. It might save you some time."

"In the meantime, I will up the security here a bit. We
will have someone inside the room and someone on the door as well," said
Sam as they shook hands.

The doctor nodded to Kefira and extended his hand to her. "He'll
come back to you. I can feel it," added the doctor.

"You can't imagine how I feel. His group was my point
team. I sent him in and watched from a safe distance."

'I have a good feeling about this case. He is very clear
minded. Something he does in the next few weeks will jar him back to his past.
We will make a program of experiences that are sure to get him back for you.
For a civilian, the prognosis would be weak, but we can depend on his training
to help us. Tomorrow morning at 9:00, at my office on the second floor."

Sam had been using the landline to communicate with Israeli
Military and he came back with a smile on his face.

"Doctor, you are just what the doctor ordered, if you
will pardon the turn of phrase," said Sam.

The doctor's beeper signaled and he took it from his hip.
The intercom called Doctor Mordicai to go to trauma. It was an urgent message.

"I knew when I heard that bird coming down on the roof
I'd be busy tonight. Tomorrow morning, 9:00 sharp."

Sam looked at Kefira. Her eyes were shiny, but no longer
flooded. They walked down the hallway. She linked arms with him and he raised
an eyebrow as he looked at his daughter-in-law to be.

"You know, he never listened. Maybe he was right about
you, though. I wanted him to be all work and no play. Do you remember that demo
you did?"

"Sure. Why?"

"I tried to rush him away from you that day 'cause he
was really intrigued. I should've known he wouldn't keep it professional.
Looking at you now, though, I am very glad, he didn't. You'll be the key to
success here. If you can't get him back, no one can. I can't tell you how
grateful I am that we have you."

"Is that a tear I see in those droopy eyes?"

"I sure hope so. That boy is like a son to me. You
know, Yochana and I got you two about the same time, in the same
circumstances."

"I know. She told me. Let's take the stairs again. I
need the exercise to clear up my feelings."

"Tell you what … my girth precludes another assault.
I'll meet you at the car. We have some things to settle with Yochana tonight."

The drive back to Melchette Street was quiet. Sam and Kefira
were a bit in shock and used the drive to take a breather from the emotional
roller coaster. Yochana was behind the wheel when they got to the car, so she
drove. True to form, she used the time to plot her answers to the coming debate
over dinner. They stopped at
Mivhar MashKaot
, a liquor store with lots
of local beers.

"We're going to cook and drink some beer. Our boy is
alive and one step closer to normal," said Sam as he got out and opened the
back door for Kefira.

"Let's choose all of our favorites," said Kefira
as she leaned back into the car on the driver's side.

Kefira kissed Yochana on the cheek and laid her head on her
shoulder while she played with her stepmother's hair. She pulled her head out
of the window to see Yochana shedding her first tear.