The Devil's Banker

Chapter 6

Trails of dust scattered from the Fiat’s tires as it sped through the back alleys of Tel Aviv. The driver hunched over the wheel, hands at eleven and one o’clock, not so much steering the car as willing it with his body language. He was fifty-seven but looked ten years older, a hunted, gray figure with close-cropped white hair and beard, and mournful brown eyes that had seen too much for one lifetime. Too much hate. Too much sorrow. Too much death.

The day was hot even by the taxing standards of an Israeli summer. The car possessed no air-conditioning, so he drove with the windows rolled down. The wind rushing in smelled of dried fish and lamb on a spit and billowed his pale blue shirt like a jib in a changing sea. Even so, he was sweating profusely. The perspiration ran down his cheeks and pooled in his beard. He had lived in Israel his entire life. He was used to sweltering summers. It was not the heat that provoked his sweat.

He checked the rearview mirror.

The taxi was still there, maintaining the watcher’s distance. “A hundred meters or half a city block,” read the manual. The Sayeret were good boys, he thought appreciatively. Nothing if not studious. He was used to being followed. It was procedure; a safeguard for a man in his profession. His eyes fell to the infantryman’s rucksack sitting on the floor by the passenger seat. The pack was empty but for one item. It was not procedure today.

He had chosen the back route because he wanted to lull them. He could have reached the old port by any of a dozen quicker routes. He might have stayed on the Derech Petach Tikva until it fed into Jaffa Road, or driven down to the coast and taken Hayarkon Street past all the tourist hotels-past the Hilton and the Carlton and the Sheraton-Israel’s own Croisette. But the familiar anarchy of the old town ensured their pursuit. There would be no traffic jams, no detours, just a slow, methodical game of cat and mouse.

He had forgotten how lamentable the roads had become inside the city. Even when driving carefully, he was unable to avoid all the potholes. The Fiat lurched into a crater and he swore. It was beyond him why a technological and industrial powerhouse like Israel was unable to keep its roads better maintained. Or, for that matter, bury their telephone wires underground next to the miles of fiberoptic cable the telecom companies had insisted everyone needed, and now did beautifully without. He stared too long out the windows, as if taking a last look at the place and making his farewells.

Tel Aviv was a seething, vibrant, violent contradiction. Skyscrapers and shanties, discos and delicatessens, shwarma and slivovitz, synagogues and mosques. The old and the new shoved into an urban blender, stirred and spilled onto a sun-bleached cityscape with a joyless and seemingly random abandon.

Crossing an intersection, he entered the Shalma Road and began the short climb to the old town. He checked his watch. It was nearly four. He had begun his run three hours and twenty-seven minutes ago. By now, the theft had been confirmed. The border patrol, the airports, the militia, had all been put on alert. The prime minister had been informed and a war council convened. It would be put forward that Mordecai Kahn was their man. No one else had the access. No one else the means. Only the motive would baffle them. Kahn was, after all, a patriot, a staunch member of the Likud Party, a decorated veteran of Mitla Pass who had lost a son and a daughter to the country’s defense. Finally, they would decide that it made no difference. The order would be given.

Kahn smiled ruefully. It was all a dance. A wonderfully choreographed pas de deux whose principals had rehearsed their steps a thousand times.

A left turn conducted him past Clock Tower Square. The elegant spire of Mahmoudiyeh Mosque pierced the sky. Beside him, the sidewalks pulsed with humanity. Old men sat around iron-legged tables playing chess, drinking coffee, dreaming of peace. Jaffa counted as one of the oldest functioning ports in the world, and in its time, had been ruled by Greeks, Romans, Turks, Christians, and Arabs. Today, it was the Jews’ turn.

Peter had raised Tabitha from the dead here and gone to live with Simon the Tanner. Richard the Lionheart had raised the Crusaders’ banner fifty yards to sea on Andromeda Rock. But Kahn found the city’s modern history more compelling. Throughout the first half of the last century, Jaffa’s docks had welcomed the worn and sturdy multitude that had sworn to remake the Holy Land in its own image. As a boy in 1946, he himself had trod the wooden piers, a refugee from Hitler’s malice.

Today, he would make use of the pier again. He had come to the country by sea, and by sea he would leave it.

Reaching a stop sign, he put the car into first gear and glanced out his window. Nearby, two men, an Arab and a Jew, turned their faces to the sky. One shielded his eyes, while the other shook his head and looked away.

Kahn knew the helicopter was shadowing him. He had caught the rotor wash twice already. The bird was an Apache, and flying low today. When the order came to fire its Hellfire missiles, the pilots did not want to miss. A military radio tuned to their frequency was jammed into the glove compartment. Kahn believed in precautions.

The radio squawked as the men from Central Command issued their impotent instructions.

“Now,” a voice crackled amid a haze of white noise.

Kahn sat straighter, seized by doubt. Years had passed since he’d donned a soldier’s uniform. He had certainly never been trained for something like this. He had no business embarking on such a dangerous and doubtful enterprise.

You are a human being, a voice scolded him. And a Jew. You have every right.

Two blocks ahead, two cars entered the intersection from opposite sides and collided with one another. Glass shattered. Metal twisted. The drivers flew out of the cars, arms waving, hands gesticulating angrily. Kahn narrowed his eyes. The performance had begun. They hoped to catch him quietly, with a minimum of fuss and as little notice as possible. They would not wish to explain why their policy of targeted assassination had been turned on one of their own, or what drastic circumstances had demanded it be carried out in one of the more historically sensitive areas of the city.

He would give them no choice.

The taxi was closing behind him.

It was time.

Kahn wrenched the steering wheel to the right and punched the accelerator. The ancient Fiat hurtled the curb, the back wheels spinning free for a moment, before catching the dusty aphalt and screeching in submission. He only had a block to go. Images passed in a blur. A boy on a bicycle. Workmen digging a ditch. A vendor hawking oranges from a wooden bucket.

The voices on the radio barked like rabid dogs. Do you have him in sight? Close the distance. Requesting order to fire. Negative. Hold. We can take him on the ground. Unit Two move in. Unit Four take Al-Ashram Road south two blocks. Confusion. Panic. Then a change of tack. Arm missiles. Lock on to target.

The helicopter hovered behind him. In the rearview mirror, he spotted a sniper seated in the open bay, legs dangling into oblivion, his rifle raised, its stock pressed to his cheek.

Faster. He must drive faster.

He skirted Jaffa’s main square, the site of an ongoing archaeological dig. The ruins descended three levels, showcasing successive Hellenic, Roman, and Moorish buildings dating from the third century B.C. In 231 B.C. the Greek king Pompus, had housed his soldiers here. Wary of an attack by land, he had tunneled three hundred feet through the limestone cliffs to the harbor below to guard his retreat.

A tour bus was parked across the street. Students dressed in clean blue and white uniforms paraded to the ruins. He sped past them, pulling into the opposing lane of traffic. At the corner, he braked hard and pulled the wheel to the left. The car skidded and came to a halt. A curio vendor’s canopy shaded the driver’s side and the hood. The helicopter was no longer in view.

Kahn grabbed the rucksack. “Fire,” he spat at the radio. “Give the order, now!”

They were too scared. Too confident of his ineptness. He cursed their indecision.

Picking up his officer’s revolver, he shoved the snout out his window and fired a volley of shots into the air. The curio vendor scuttled into his shop. Across the street, the students scattered. He thanked God for the well-practiced survival of his people.

“Fire, missile three,” said a voice on the radio.

A scarlet sizzle burnt the air as a Hellfire missile dropped from its carriage and sped toward Mordecai Kahn’s car. The missile penetrated the rear window and exploded on impact with the dashboard. The force of the detonation lifted the car ten feet in the air and engulfed the car in a billowing fireball whose core temperature exceeded three thousand degrees Fahrenheit.

The watchers surrounded the car a moment later. Several tried to approach the inferno. They wanted to confirm their kill. But the fire burned too hot, and they kept their distance.

Sailing a fisherman’s skiff across the diamond-kissed waters of the eastern Mediterranean, Mordecai Kahn watched the plume of smoke snake into the bleached sky. He prayed the missile had not damaged the excavation site. Archaeology was his first love. Before he discovered numbers. Before the numbers turned on him and made him their captive. A stiff wind filled the mainsail and the boat picked up speed. He looked at his feet, where the rucksack lay on weathered wooden slats. He unzipped a pouch and took out a bottle of water, a bag of gummy bears, and a long-billed cap. Popping a few of the gelatin candies into his mouth, he turned his eyes to the sea.

He had bought himself three hours and not a minute longer. To a man who lived by the most precise calculations, it was more than enough time.