The Plan

Chapter 51.

AT NINE A. M. THAT SAME DAY, COLE AND KAZ MET AT Rubio's for breakfast. The specialty at the Washington restaurant was eggs Florentine, so both of them ordered th e d ish and told the waitress to keep the hot coffee coming.

Neither Cole nor Kaz had been to bed. Kaz had spent the entire night abusing old friendships, making calls to buddies in government. At midnight, he'd awakened Kirk Allen, a friend of many years who was waiting out his federa l r etirement in the FAA. Kaz told him that maybe there wa s m ore to the Anita Richards plane crash than a short landin g c urse at Cleveland International Airport.

"If you got something, Kaz, you better spit it out. This is the Democratic candidate's wife. Dicks are on the chopping block. You gotta squat to piss around here this morning."

"Just tell the forensics team to look for anything unusual. Explosives, a pneumatic control problem, tampered instruments… anything. That plane didn't go down 'cause it was voodooed. The only curse in Cleveland is on the Indians."

"If you got something, Kaz, and you're holding out on me, I'm gonna come after you with a seminary knife."

"If I get anything useable, I'll get back to you."

While Kaz had been sniffing that trail, Cole Harris had driven all the way back to his brother's house in Rye, New York, arriving at midnight. The reason for the trip back to Hamilton Boulevard was in an old black leather suitcase buried underneath his brother's ski equipment in the basement. Cole pulled the suitcase out while Carson and his wife Bea nervously looked over his shoulder. The experience in the kitchen a week earlier had shaken them. They had told the police nothing in an attempt to protect Cole, and, although they didn't want to say it, both of them were hoping he would get his things and leave.

Cole put the suitcase on the tool bench and popped it open. Inside were hundreds of reporter's spiral notebooks. They contained his notes from twenty years of on-site reporting from all over the world. He started looking for the two or three that he had filled out back in March of 1971. He finally found two notebooks that were held together by a large, red rubber band.

On the cardboard cover, he had written:

Israel, 1971

Meyer Lansky

With the notebooks under his arm, Cole climbed the stairs into the living room where he sat in good light and flipped one open.

"You gonna go through that here?" his sister-in-law asked, nervously.

"Yeah, if that's okay."

"Uh, well, I guess," Carson said, glaring at Cole. "It is kinds late, y'know.."

"You probably don't want another news-gathering experience. Why don't I get outta here."

Cole bummed five hundred dollars from Carson; then he stood and kissed his relieved sister-in-law, hugged his brother, and went to the nearest all-night coffee shop.

He sat in the rear with his back to the wall, away from the window, a survival technique he had learned in Lebanon, then started on the first book, marked 'Tuesday, March 10th. " His mind went whirling back to that day in 1971. He'd been attached to the UBC European bureau and had been sent to Jerusalem to cover Meyer Lansky's lawsuit against the State of Israel. The world press, about a hundred newsmen, were wedged into the courtyard of the Ottoman Palace of Justice in the Russian section of the walled Old City.

It was stiflingly hot with no breeze and the mood was ugly. They were all there to witness the outcome of one of Israel's strangest legal battles.

The Jewish State of Israel was made up almost entirely of immigrants. Section 2(b)3 of the Israeli constitution said that any man born of a Jewish mother should be granted the "right of return" to Israel. Every Jew deserved a place in the new Jewish State.

Meyer Lansky, after a career of questionable activities in Miami, New York, Las Vegas, and other hard-core mob enclaves, had petitioned the State of Israel for the right to return. Confident that he would spend his final days in the Promised Land eating kippered herring and wearing a beanie, he'd nailed a mezuzah to his door in a Miami suburb and waited for the news of his citizenship. But there was an asterisk on the Law of Return that said if you had a bad reputation or were suspected of criminal activities, the minister of the interior could block your repatriation. This is what happened to Lansky.

But he had one course left open to him. He could sue the Israeli government and attempt to overturn the ruling.

Lansky had hired a lawyer named Yoram Ahoy, who had served with honor during the Six Day War. Yoram was joined at the counsel table by a Miami lawyer named David Rosen. They had tried to make the case that Meyer had never been convicted of a crime and had been tried unfairly, without evidence, in the world press.

On the other side of the aisle was the Israeli prosecutor, Gavriel Bach. He was tall and slender with patrician good looks. Gavriel Bach had resolved to keep underworld elements out of Israel, no matter what the cost. In the middle of the trial, the press heard that three months earlier the Justice Department had invited Gavriel to Washington and the rumor in the press corps was that some sort of unusual deal had been struck.

The United States government was setting up a case against Lansky and feared that, if he settled in Israel, they would not be able to extradite him. The feds hoped that once indicted, Lansky would turn state's evidence on mobsters in the United States.

Another rumor said that an undisclosed number of Phantom F-4 jets had been offered for sale to the Israeli Air Force if they would refuse Lansky citizenship. These leaks had been heavily reported but denied by "official sources." There was no proof any of it was true.

Lansky's case had been argued before the Israeli Supreme Court for almost a week, and on that stifling day they were gathered to hear the outcome.

As Cole reread his twenty-five-year-old journal, memories flooded back of the skinny, foul-mouthed, sixtyeight-year-old mobster who had come to hear the judgment. Lansky was dressed in a threadbare department store suit; his tie was crooked and twisted under his collar. As he came through the side door of the courtyard, the world press surged, shouting questions.

"Mr. Lansky, over here… ABC News… We understand that Gavriel Bach has cut some kind of deal in Washington to force your return to Miami, where prosecutors say you're about to be indicted."

Lansky glowered at them. Cole was startled by his diminutive size. Only five-foot-three, he nonetheless generated venom.

"The fucks," Meyer said under his breath.

"What about the suitcase? What is in the suitcase?" somebody from NBC's Middle Eastern bureau shouted.

"What suitcase?" Meyer glowered. "What the fuck you fucks talkin' about?"

"Watch your language, please, sir. We can't broadcast profanities," the NBC correspondent said, as if Meyer cared.

"What is in the suitcase?" the NBC correspondent pressed, referring to a medium-size metal Haliburton suitcase that Gavriel Bach had taken to several in-camera meetings with the chief justice of the Israeli Supreme Court. "We understand the U. S. Justice Department gave Gavriel Bach evidence against you."

"Get me outta here," he yelled at his attorneys, who had been pushing him through the throng. Finally, he reached the double doors leading to the courtroom. Cole followed and physically pushed his cameraman through the door before they were locked out.

Meyer and his two attorneys sat on the wooden bench two levels below the five justices. Gavriel Bach sat alone at the counsel table. In front of him, sat the metal Haliburton suitcase. Like the rest of them, Cole wondered what was inside.

The chief justice read the unanimous verdict in Hebrew. It was translated simultaneously into English. The world press listened over headphones. The Israeli Supreme Court found that it was perfectly legal for Meyer Lansky to take "the Fifth" in front of the U. S. Congress during the Kefauver hearings, as every American citizen had the right under the Fifth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution not to incriminate himself. However, Mr. Lansky did say that his refusal to speak was on the grounds of self-incrimination. The Israeli Supreme Court had weighed that heavily, as it indicated from Mr. Lansky's own mouth that he had viewed his actions as crimes. The judge continued on… Hebrew filling the room like rolling thunder.

The reading of the judgment went on for almost an hour. The chief justice finally concluded that the minister of the interior had been right to deny Meyer Lansky citizenship. "If he were allowed to stay, the ugly phenomenon of organized crime, as it exists in America, might be transplanted to Israel."

Cole filed his story with his Paris bureau and pouched the videotape to his assignment editor there. UBC reported that evening that Meyer Lansky had been handed over to the United States embassy to be returned to Miami, where he would stand trial for tax evasion and casino skimming.

The trial never took place because of Meyer's health.

Two days before Christmas, that same year, Cole read in the London Times that twenty-five U. S. Phantom F-4 fighter-bombers had been delivered to Israel.

Cole closed his notebooks about two A. M. and sat alone in the empty coffee shop, thinking. His mind kept coming back to that suitcase sitting in front of Gavriel Bach on the prosecution table. What was in it? Why had it been in court that day? He finished his cold coffee and drove for five hours back to Washington, arriving just in time for his prearranged breakfast with Kaz. Now he sat, tired and grainy-eyed, and watched the gross fed shovel down eggs Florentine. Cole picked at the corners of his own plate, eating the whites only, leaving the high-cholesterol yolks.

"Where are we?" Cole finally asked.

"We're having breakfast at Rubio's, the finest eatery inside the Beltway."

"Where are we in the investigation, you asshole?"

"Well, I got Teddy Lansky's '72 tax return coming up from that dark Cavern of Greed known affectionately as the IRS basement. I should have it this morning."

"Lemme ask you something… could you get me any inside information from the Justice Department about a deal that might have been made between Gavriel Bach and somebody in the State Department in '71?"

"Who's Gavriel Bach?"

"He was the Israeli prosecutor defending the government against Meyer Lansky's right-of-return suit in 1971. So, how 'bout it?" Cole asked again.

"Yeah, maybe, but I'm running out of friends in that building. Why do you need it?"

"I got a hunch. I'll let you know if it turns into anything. Things can only get better."

But they didn't; they got worse…