TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
October 1953
What did surprise everyone was that six months later, Diana gave birth to twins.
“What? More twins?” said Moshe. And Tamara. And Arie. With no history of twins in anybody’s family, how was this possible?
Diana had one crib ready as well as a variety of pink and blue clothes, but now she had to double everything. Tamara gave Diana some of her twins’ old clothing and Arie presented her with a second crib, while Moshe and Rachel brought cooked food every day for two weeks. With sunken eyes, drawn cheeks, and disheveled hair Diana received visitors in her nightgown, slumped on the sofa, an infant at each breast.
Her most dedicated helper was Tamara, who came twice a day until Diana’s mother arrived from England, tut-tutting at the mess, the food, the manners, the heat, and the noise of Tel Aviv. Everything she did was accompanied by a French-accented “tsk, tsk.”
“Please come back. She’s making me crazy,” Diana moaned to Tamara on the phone. “She doesn’t know that babies cry. It’s all my fault. She says that I don’t know how to breastfeed, I don’t know how to wash them, I use the wrong diapers, they shouldn’t dry in the sun, they’ll get germs, I don’t eat properly, she can’t buy her cornflakes, oh my God, please, help me.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh,” Tamara said, laughing. “How long is she staying?”
“She wants to stay forever. She wants to move here. I need her like a hole in the head. Oh, God, what can I do? She keeps complaining I don’t have a meat grinder. For God’s sake, I don’t have any meat.”
“Have you heard from Peter?”
“Twice. He’ll come home as soon as he can. But you know what that means. It isn’t his fault. It’s that crazy job, whatever it is.” But few knew better than Diana, on maternity leave from Mossad’s European desk.
* * *
Isser Harel, the former Shin Bet chief, who had replaced Reuven Shiloah a year earlier as the head of Mossad, was known as a family man, but that stretched only as far as sympathy for Peter, who had to miss his wife giving birth: “Sorry, but this is national security.”
Peter didn’t object; there was no point. Nothing stood in the way of Little Isser, a driven if unlikely spymaster. His nickname came from his height of four foot ten inches, in contrast with Big Isser, Isser Be’eri, who was head of military intelligence. Little Isser had comically large ears, but there was nothing funny about his glare, which was more piercing than an interrogation light. He was a living contradiction. Aged forty, he looked sixty, yet had the hyper energy of a child. Born Isser Halperin in Russia, his ambition could be measured by the Hebrew name he chose—Harel, Mountain of God.
When he handed over the reins of Mossad, a transition that included a dozen ongoing operations for which there was no paper trail, Reuven Shiloah took Harel aside to outline his most sensitive undertaking: his super-secret sleeper network of ex-Nazis, who were kept in line by one of his most valued and trusted agents, Peter Nesher.
And for Harel, a man who saw conspiracy at every turn, who on his first day at Mossad fired a top agent for skimming expenses, a straight arrow with Peter Nesher’s skills and experience was a match made in heaven. Like Shiloah before him, he needed a man close to him who he could trust.
“We are heading for a big mess,” Harel had told Peter in September, four weeks before Diana’s due date. “And I need you back in Germany to start cleaning up before it happens. Briefly, it’s Egypt again, and it’s complicated.”
Harel had summoned Peter to his office on Ben Yehuda Street, always the prelude to action. It made Peter’s stomach turn over. Diana would kill him if he missed the birth. He didn’t hear the first few sentences but when Harel had his full attention, he knew right away there was nothing he could do or say. He tuned back in just as Harel was saying:
“… military intelligence. The loose cannons at Aman want to bomb the British in Egypt and say the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood did it. Can you imagine anything more stupid? And the Old Man won’t listen to me, he’s terrified the British will leave Egypt after seventy years and hand over all their military bases to Nasser. Two airfields, weapons dumps, and ammunition, docks, radar stations. Thirty-eight years of British installations. That must not happen. But state terrorism against Britain? Aman is filled with lunatics.”
“Can they do that?” Peter asked. “I mean, do they have the people, the expertise?”
“Of course not. But they do have Ben-Gurion’s ear.”
“I don’t get it, or maybe I fear I do,” Peter said. “If Britain thinks the Egyptians bombed them, then the British won’t pull out. So Egypt wouldn’t get the military installations to use against us. Yes?”
“Exactly.”
“But what can I do in Germany?”
“I’ll tell you. The Old Man is quite right that another war with Egypt is inevitable. But this time there is a very dangerous buildup of Germans in Egypt, senior officers from the Nazi air force, navy, army, intelligence. They are helping Egypt rebuild its armed forces. A strong Egypt can unite the Arab world against us. And Ben-Gurion believes we may not survive against such an alliance today.”
Peter waited with a sinking heart. He knew where this was going, Israel had to attack first. And he knew what that meant. It meant he would miss the birth.
“What?” Harel said. “You’re shaking your head. You don’t agree?”
“It isn’t that. To be honest, sir, I was thinking of Diana.”
Harel came around his desk and patted Peter on the shoulder. “I know. When is the baby due?”
“Four weeks.”
“You’ll be in Frankfurt, then. In fact, you’ll be there next week.”
Next week. A curse word formed. Diana would roast him, and slowly.
There was a knock on the door, followed by a voice: “It’s four o’clock, everyone is here.”
“Good, coffee for everyone, bring them in.”
Peter looked at Harel, raising his eyebrows. Harel said, “This is a sanctioned operation. You’ll hear why now. The European desk will work with you.”
Diana’s group. Peter knew all four analysts who entered the room. They nodded to him and immediately began pouring coffee, waiting for Harel to take command. “Yossi v’Hezie,” who got his nickname of “Yossi and a half” because he was so tall, sat opposite Peter. “How’s Diana?” he said.
“So far so good,” Peter said. “Resting, it isn’t an easy pregnancy…”
“We miss her,” Gingie, nicknamed for her red hair, put in, but before she could continue Harel silenced them with a wave of his hand as two men and a woman entered the room. They glanced at everybody and sat at the table as if they owned it. Peter had never seen them before. Maybe they were the reason Harel was running the meeting himself. Normally a section chief would be in charge.
“You all know why we’re here so, Professor, sum up briefly,” Harel said.
Yehuda Shur was the chief analyst of the European desk, although his Ph.D. from Oxford was in Arabic history. He had fought in the Palmach, the Jewish pre-state underground army, was among the earliest Shai agents, and could bench-press more than everybody in the room combined. Peter thought of him as probably the strongest man he had ever met. His hands were massive, he had a wrestler’s thick neck, all he lacked was a broken nose. But his chief contribution to Mossad was his intellectual breadth.
Yehuda laid out half a dozen folders. “I prefer to stand,” he said. He spread his hands on the table and leaned on them, taking a moment to arrange his thoughts.
“First, the individuals. We have a list of seventy-one Germans,” he began, drawing a list of names from one of the folders. “We have good photographs of most of them. For example, Army General Wilhelm Fahrmbacher, who served in both world wars. Captain Theodor von Bechtolsheim, a naval genius. Major General Oskar Munzel, a tank commander who developed new armored units for the Wehrmacht. Dozens more like them, veteran fighters and commanders.
“And then there are true Nazis, SS-men. Leopold Gleim, a Gestapo boss in Warsaw. Willi Brenner, who ran the Mauthausen concentration camp. Many more like them, who choose Cairo today because they won’t be extradited, and they are paid well to keep fighting the Jews.”
Harel interrupted. “Get to the point. That is all obvious; we can read it in the files. Tell us why it is all so complicated.”
“America? Russia?”
“Of course,” Harel said impatiently. “Why else are we here?”
Yehuda picked up another folder and took out a note. “Israel’s scope of operations is limited by global restraints. In other words, our hands are tied. Briefly, our government and Britain agree that we must stop the Germans from helping Egypt. But America does want the Germans to help Egypt, because a strong Egypt will resist Russian expansion in Egypt and wider afield in the Middle East. A weak Egypt will not. So the more the Germans can help Egypt, the more a strong Egypt can help America against Russia. But a strong Egypt is a greater threat to Israel. So whatever we do to weaken Egypt harms our relationship with America. In other words, it’s a mess.”
“Is this clear?” Harel said, looking around the table, and especially at the three strangers. “We must proceed with extreme sensitivity and caution, yet quickly and effectively.” Peter nodded, his lips pursed. So what’s new? What do they want from me?
As Yehuda expanded further on the big picture, Harel interrupted again. “All right, thank you, Professor, we’ll come back to you about cooperation with the British. And the French. But now, Gingie, you take it from here. Rockets.”
Gingie nodded and began in her rapid-fire high voice, which sounded as if she were hyperventilating. Peter had met her many times. She shared an office with Diana and sometimes came to visit in their apartment. A kind woman, but her off-the-chart nervous energy gave him palpitations.
“Apart from aiming to improve every aspect of its military,” Gingie said, “Egypt’s absolute priority today is rocket science, especially developing medium- and long-range battlefield rockets. They have recruited brilliant German scientists to help them, in particular one Rolf Engel, who developed rockets and antiaircraft missiles for the Nazis. And of course, Egypt has no clear enemy to arm itself against, other than us.”
After another thirty minutes of Egypt’s military prowess, rocket development, and the grim contribution of German experts, everybody left the room but Peter, whose head was reeling. He poured himself a cold coffee and wondered where Harel would take this. Now he would hear the point of it all: his mission.
Harel didn’t waste a moment. “So there you have it,” he said. “Nazis are back to killing the Jews. Aman’s lunatic answer to the British problem is to bomb them. Now guess what their answer is to the Germans in Egypt?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Exactly. They want to murder them, or enough to scare the rest away.”
“Would that work?”
“What do you think?”
“What do I think? What do you think?”
“I don’t think they know how.” Harel paused, staring at Peter. The silence lengthened. Peter stared back, becoming uncomfortable. “What do you want from me, then?” Peter said at length. Surely he doesn’t want me to do the killing.
“I want you to go to Germany, contact your Nazi sleepers, make them contact their sleazebag colleagues in Egypt, find out what progress they have really made, and make them leave.”
“How could they do that, if they’re working in Egypt legally?”
“Blackmail, of course. And money. What else works?”
“Does Aman know about this?” Peter asked.
“Do they need to?”
“Do they?”
“More to the point is, do you need to know if they know?”
“I suppose not.”
“Good. Leave the rest to me.”
This is like cat and mouse, Peter thought. Those dramatic pauses. What does he really want? “Frankly, I’m relieved,” Peter said. “I thought you were going to say we should kill them, because we can do a better job than Aman.”
“Should we?”
“No.”
“Peter. Never say never.”
* * *
That night was hard for Peter and Diana. She wished he didn’t have to go. She wished he would be with her when she gave birth, when she brought the baby home, when she fed the baby for the first time, and bathed it, and fell asleep beside it. She knew it would be hard and lonely but, most of all, she was afraid for Peter.
She knew who he would be dealing with, for after all, she had been the first to meet them, to wake their lust, it was she who had brought the Nazi killers to him. She knew what Peter could do, but she also knew what they had done and that they were still capable of anything, especially if scared and trapped. At least one would come out fighting; it was the law of averages.
After they made love she trembled in his arms while Peter caressed her belly, kissing it, whispering to their baby as she stroked his head.
It was a long, beautiful night, and so was the next, but time did not stand still. The next dawn Peter would leave.
That day’s first light found him on the closed-off balcony, his hand resting on the wooden slat of the crib that was waiting for their new baby, inshallah. The next generation, inshallah. At last he was beginning to build his very own family that he would love and protect. For each time he discovered some awful new fact about the fate of his mother, his father, almost his entire family murdered by the Nazis, he swore to himself: His revenge would be a large new family, in a safe Jewish country.
With his backpack over a shoulder, he contemplated Diana, curves beneath the sheet, hair spread around her, secure and snug in their bed. Have a safe birth, an easy one, my sweet wife. Peter Nesher kissed her lightly on the lips, and again on the tip of her nose, and the man code-named Wolf, alias Willi Stinglwagner, tiptoed away to blackmail five Nazi murderers.