Once news of the terrorist attack had been made public, one of the kibbutz members switched the television channel to a news station. No one complained. Everyone was eager to know exactly what had happened in Bat Yam. It had been a while since Israel had seen a major terrorist attack. The relative calm sometimes lulled Israelis into forgetting about the enemies who still surrounded them. Original reports from the scene, according to the young woman reporting from just behind the police barricades, indicated that the shooter was an Arab man in his late twenties. He was disguised in an Israeli army uniform. His hail of bullet fire only halted when an armed bystander was able to neutralize him. The terrorist’s dead body lay covered up in the street, and investigators were piecing together what had happened.
Preliminary intelligence, the reporter continued, theorized that the Arab attacker targeted Tzvika’s because it catered specifically to the new Ukrainian immigrants. Their warm welcome in Israel infuriated the Palestinian population. It was long believed that the Zionists were truly a group of European foreigners who stole their land because they had worn out their welcome elsewhere. To now welcome more immigrants from Europe to settle on their rightful land while they remained in occupation added serious insult to injury. For weeks Palestinian extremists had been inciting their population to rise up and strike at the new and unwanted immigrants.
While many of the kibbutz members scoffed at such logic, Yehoshua grew more and more curious as to how this new development was connected to Emma and Eitan. A half hour later, when the pub had been cleared out with no one in the mood to watch any more of the match, Yehoshua bid goodnight to Emma and Eitan and returned to his house.
Just before midnight, Yehoshua’s phone vibrated with an incoming message. He had been pacing back and forth across the short length of his bedroom. The news on the television was playing in the background. He scanned his phone and read the short message on the screen. He quickly replied in the affirmative to the order he was given from his boss. Tomorrow, he was to bring Emma and Eitan to Jerusalem, where the information gleaned from the night’s events would finally bring clarity to this very murky situation.