PETER

BONN, GERMANY

July 1954

The former SS-Sturmbannführer Hans-Dieter Braun, alias Dr. Lothar Genscher, torturer and murderer, now living in Germany with his first family, didn’t know how lucky he was: He had been struck off the list, for now. Amnon Sela and the men at the Office decided he should be left to rise in the ranks of Germany’s industrialists until he could become more useful. The same applied to two more Nazis hiding in plain sight, one of whom was a Christian Democratic Union member of parliament, and the other a young aide to Cologne’s police chief. They were on fast tracks, let them be promoted until their exposure would humiliate the country, if that was ever required, or their position of power gave them access to information Israel needed, or both. One thing was sure: Sooner or later they would pay for their evil past.

The name that Sela eventually gave Peter Nesher’s hit team in Germany was infinitely more powerful and controversial. Eight Israeli agents were tracking him around the clock, looking for the sweet spot, a time and place that he regularly could be found. By definition, it took weeks. But everyone had something they did like clockwork. Maybe he left home at exactly the same time each morning, or left work at the same time. Maybe he went for a sauna or met friends for a drink each Tuesday evening at six o’clock on the way home. Or he took a child to her piano lesson, or brought food to an aging parent. The later at night the better. Somewhere quiet and inconspicuous. Visiting a lover? A walk before bed? Some routine that left him vulnerable, when he could be snatched, leading to his filmed confession and silent death.

The team rented a safe house in the countryside of Rhineland-Westphalia, and in different names and places rented five cars, one for the snatch, one for escort, one for backup, and two for the switch.

They procured untraceable weapons from trusted sources, one in Hamburg and one in Munich, opposite ends of the country, and they met in the middle: Bonn, the birthplace of Beethoven, a sleepy backwater now the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Mossad had discovered that Kurt Bohlendorf, the head of protocol of the chancellor’s office, a man privy to Konrad Adenauer’s complete schedule, who organized state visits and who had access to all relevant private information of visiting world leaders, had spent part of the Second World War as Deputy Reichskommissar, Ukraine. Together with his Nazi boss, Kommissar Erich Koch, who had described himself in his glory days as “a brutal dog,” the pair had imposed a German wartime occupation policy in the Ukraine that led to the deaths of 1.3 million prisoners of war in 160 concentration camps. Another three million Ukrainians died of starvation and disease. If Koch was a brutal dog, Bohlendorf was his pitiless bitch.

“And this animal,” Nesher said to Yehuda, the muscleman analyst who was now a field agent, “today approves who enters the chancellor’s room first and for how long they shake hands. He probably decides on the menu.”

“The Germans must know who he is,” Yehuda said. “And they don’t care.”

“All the better. Stay focused on what you have to do.”

Yehuda’s role before the snatch, which he would help perform, was to put together the cover story on who killed Bohlendorf: revenge-driven Ukrainian nationalists. No Israeli fingerprints. And, to make it all perfect, to add even more to the West German government’s humiliation, while following Bohlendorf Mossad had discovered another of his secrets: He was a spy for East Germany, in the heart of the West German government.

This last nugget, though, provoked a furious debate among the team, which Peter knew could only be resolved at headquarters. Was Bohlendorf too important to kill? Could he be more valuable to Israel alive than dead?

While his team continued with the planning and preparations, Peter flew home. This needed a full discussion about whether they should change their plan, and only Harel could decide. Peter wanted to be there.

But while he was in the air, the debacle began.

He heard about it from the Tel Aviv taxi driver leaving Lod Airport.

“Did you hear the news?” the driver said, elbow resting on the open window, a cigarette in his hand, turning down the radio with his other hand, and staring in the mirror. “It was just on the radio.”

“Do you mind keeping at least one hand on the wheel,” Peter said. “And looking at the road, I have two little children.” He smiled as he thought of them. He’d be home in half an hour.

“Those clowns at Mossad,” the cabbie said.

“What?”

“Think they’re so smart. Let me tell you, the country’s going to the dogs. And the puppies are in charge. They don’t know a thing. And now this. It’s embarrassing.”

“What is? And please. Slow down.”

“You didn’t hear, then?”

“No, I just landed. What happened?”

“Believe me, there’s worse to come, there always is.” He shook his head. “What’s the country coming to?”

“I don’t know,” Peter said. “You tell me. So what did the clowns at Mossad do?”

“What didn’t they do!”

“For God’s sake, tell me what happened. Or rather, tell me what the radio said happened. It isn’t always the same. And I mean it, slow down.”

A car coming toward them took the bend too fast and crossed into their lane, forcing the cabdriver to hit the brakes. “Damn drivers,” he yelled, thumping his horn, but the car was long gone.

“It was just on the radio,” he said. “The Egyptians are arresting Israelis. Apparently one of our boys was about to put a bomb in a British theater in Alexandria but guess what, the thing blew up in his pocket. Can you imagine that? What happened to his balls? Not to mention his schlong. Oh, it hurts just to think about that.” He squirmed in his seat as he spoke, taking a drag from his cigarette. “I hope for his sake it was his back pocket. I mean, who carries a bomb in their pocket? Was it a big pocket? Or a small bomb? And if it was a small bomb, then what was the point? Or maybe it was a jacket pocket. Jackets have bigger pockets. But who wears a jacket in Cairo; it’s much too hot. Anyway, when a bomb goes off in your pocket … well … I hope he has a family already. What an idiot.”

Peter was speechless. He was about to say it wasn’t Mossad but Aman, but caught himself. “Change of address,” he said instead. “Take me to the corner of Ben Yehuda and Smolenskin.” He didn’t want to stop right in front of the Office, this driver had a big mouth.

“That isn’t all. There have been a whole load of arrests. That’s a way to run a country? It isn’t enough we let the Egyptians arrest one of our ships in the Suez Canal and don’t do anything about it? Apparently, there have been a whole string of bombs in Egypt, and the BBC said they may all be related. And now they’ve got our boy by the balls, literally. I’m telling you, this country is finished.”

“Where are you from?”

“Poland.”

“Will you go back, then, if it’s so bad here?”

“Are you meshugge? Crazy? We don’t have anywhere else to go. Does that make this paradise, though? The best thing about this place is the breakfasts. Omelet with salad.”

Peter paid the taxi and carried his case the last hundred yards to 85 Ben Yehuda. He passed through the identity checks and left his suitcase with the B floor guard. It was a four-story building with five floors. One could not be accessed or even seen from the main staircase, and had no windows. B floor was a box within a box. That was where he went.

The first thing his section chief Amnon Sela said to Peter was, “What’s wrong with you? Last time I told you to come here and you go home. This time I tell you to go home and you come here? What is it with you?”

“I’d laugh, but tell me, is it true, what my cabdriver told me?”

“Must be. If a cabbie said so.”

“About Egypt?”

“Can you believe it? Come to my office.”

Sela closed the door. “Harel hit the roof. He went straight to Defense HQ and now I think they’re all driving to Jerusalem. The prime minister wants blood. Says he didn’t know anything about it. Everyone’s blaming everyone else, of course.”

“I came to talk about Bohlendorf.”

“Yes, well, we will, but that’ll have to wait to get anyone’s attention. I think this is the worst thing to ever happen to us.”

“Us?”

“Not us, but it may as well be.”

“So fill me in. What happened?”

“Aman messed up. Totally. All this month. Letter bombs that did almost no damage in Alexandria. Then two more bombs, against the USIA libraries in Cairo and Alexandria. In hollowed-out books. The acid leaked and blew up the bombs too early. Nobody was hurt. The same in a train station. Freight trains, thank God, nobody hurt. And then this shlemiel today whose bomb went off in his pocket. Anyway, the Arabs are going through the Aman network like a knife through butter. They’ve arrested a dozen people, all Jews, and it’s still going on. God knows where it will end.”

“It’ll probably end with the rest of Egypt’s Jews running here,” Peter said, thinking of Tamara and her family.

“This mess is exactly what Harel warned against. Aman just doesn’t have the people to do this kind of work. We do, and only we do. Now they’ve cleaned up all the Aman network, they’ll go on trial and we’ll all be exposed as liars and crooks; and incompetent, which is worse.”

“Just when we need everyone’s help against Egypt.”

“Exactly. So what was that you were saying about assassinating a top German official in Bonn?”

“I’m saying? You too.”

It was all anyone was talking about at the Office but it was all at the gossip stage. “Have you heard…?” “Is it true?” “Whose bomb blew up…?” So after learning as much as he could, Peter decided to go home. Sela told him to wait there till he was called. “This Egypt disaster will take over for a few days, nobody’s got time to think about your man.”

All of a sudden he’s my man, Peter thought. Sela’s a piece of work, he’s already covering his ass. “Make that our man,” Peter said.

The word went to Peter’s team in Bonn to put everything on ice, while he picked up his case to go home to Diana, Noah, and Ezra.

But a last word from Gingie at the door rang the alarm. “Peter,” she said quietly, laying her hand on his arm, looking around to make sure nobody could hear. “I told Diana, I had a call from the police. They wanted to know why I asked for the file of a man who died months ago. I had to tell them I was doing Diana a favor.”

Peter felt his throat go dry, and nodded. “When did they call?”

“Two days ago.”

“That’s fine, no problem.”

But that was the last thing he thought as he took the cab home. The police? This could snowball. Why did Diana get involved? It was Tamara’s problem. Gingie shouldn’t have asked for the file. It was all right to ask over the phone for information. There’s no log. But now there’s a paper trail. It was five minutes home by car but in that time he saw his future mapped out: lying to save his brother. He’d have to come up with a cover story for Diana. Why would she have asked for the dead man’s file? Ironic, he thought. He, so straight and honest, had become a professional liar. At work, he lived a lie, he lied for his country. How long does it take to absorb those warped values at home? Here he was, desperately seeking a lie that would save his brother, and, for that matter, his wife, who would appear an accomplice after the fact. Poor, dear, Tamara, the innocent. He had to find a story to explain it all. To lie for them seemed the most natural thing in the world.

Or was he wrong? Did his brother not do it? Was there some innocent explanation? There was no way now but to ask him.

To lighten his mood before seeing Diana, he bought her flowers at the corner shop. He took the stairs two at a time, daisies in one hand, suitcase in the other, smiling all the way.

This time she was ready for him. Her auburn hair was long now, with curls to her shoulders, which were bare beneath a clinging silk chemise her mother had sent from London. Its fine lace trim and flimsy straps begged to be slipped over her shoulders. She wore a short cotton skirt that swirled as she turned, and her bare feet moved silently to the sofa where she led him by the hand.

He asked, “Are the boys all right?”

“Yes, they’re sleeping. So much has happened.”

“Yes, lots to talk about. But it can wait.”

“I missed you so much,” Diana whispered, taking him into her arms, stroking his neck, kissing him.

“I missed you too, my love.” His hand felt beneath her chemise, he slipped his fingers beneath the silk straps and carefully raised them over her head while she wiggled out of her skirt. He always wondered how she did that. And then her specialty, which amused him even more. She stood on one leg, pulled the other foot up her inside thigh, hooked her big toe inside her panties and slowly pulled them down, all the while smiling, her eyes fixed on his. It always made him laugh, as on one leg she slowly revealed herself.

They had half an hour before the boys would wake.

It sufficed, just. He covered her mouth with his hand. “Sssshh,” he whispered. And soon she did the same to him.

They held each other tightly, Diana lying on top of Peter, her chest on his, her belly on his, playing with his hair, while he trailed his fingers along the warmth of her damp skin, from the small of her back to the hollows of her knees. She trembled at his touch, even afterward, while he kissed her ear and the curve of her neck, which lay so enticingly by his lips. She felt his peaceful, warm breath, thinking, I have to tell him about the police, and he was thinking, This is so idyllic, I can’t let Arie ruin it all.

That evening he sat the boys, ten months old now, in the bathroom sink and soaped them with warm water while Diana tried to hold them still. Ezra was as slippery as the soap, first sliding down into the basin and then climbing onto the counter. Noah picked up everything within reach, the soap, toothbrushes, paste, tweezers, Band-Aids, and threw it all to the floor. He put only one thing in his mouth: the scissors, which he also tried to push into his ear. In between, the twins pushed and pulled each other, their racket merging with Peter’s exasperated exhortations for them to behave, and Diana’s helpless laughter.

“This is what it’s like every day, so you have no sympathy from me,” she said when she could talk. “Don’t forget between the legs and behind the ears. Would you like another one?”

“Yes. At least three more.”

“Triplets.”

“How on earth do people cope?”

“Divorce, I imagine.”

When the boys were finally asleep, and Peter and Diana could at last rest on the sofa with glasses of juice, it was Diana who brought it up. “The police have asked about, you know, what we talked about. The man who was killed.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Really? How?”

“Gingie told me. Today, at the office. I was going to mention it now.”

“What do we do? I haven’t stopped thinking about it. I can’t say Tamara asked me to find out. But what on earth can I say?”

For once he was at a loss, just when it was closest to home.

It didn’t take long. The next morning there was a sharp knock on the door and two policemen asked if they could come in.

The younger one was built like a boxer, with small penetrating eyes that bored into Diana as his partner introduced the two of them. He was older, more worn, rumpled and wary. He could be right out of a British detective film, Peter thought. He asked the questions while his partner’s eyes roamed over every item in the room, and studied him and his wife. This could go badly, Peter thought. What on earth could they say?

“I’ll be quick, ma’am,” Sergeant Ludlow said. Peter half-congratulated himself. He was right, he’s English, probably one of those rare Christian admirers of the Zionists left over from the Mandate period. He’ll be sharp.

“I understand you asked your friend in one of the security services to order a police file of a man, Yonathan Schwartz, suspected to have been murdered. I’d like to ask you, why?”

Diana was flustered. If only they’d worked out what to say. Peter was worried. “Does she have to answer?”

“Not right away. But it’s better if you do, ma’am,” the sergeant said, addressing himself directly to Diana. “This is an official inquiry and you are obliged to answer. If not here, then at the station. This is purely a formality, you understand, I’m sure you had a good reason.”

Peter tried to control his heartbeat. He looked at Diana with a hint of encouragement, hoping to look unbothered.

“Of course,” Diana said with a polite smile. “I can’t really say fully, but it’s related to an inquiry of my own as part of my work for a government department. If you know where the inquiry came from, then you know which department.”

“Yes, ma’am, I do. But I still need to know what it is about, and I thought you may prefer that I ask you here rather than at your office.”

“Well, thank you sergeant, that’s considerate, but there is really nothing to hide. We are trying to contact survivors of Auschwitz in relation to an SS guard there. You would need to approach the Office officially to ask why we need the information, I’m not allowed to say, but I can say we were hoping to find out through the deceased man’s personal file whether he knew the whereabouts of other survivors who could help us. It concerns a particular guard and we are having trouble finding people who remember him.”

Peter looked from Diana to Ludlow, his eyebrow rising imperceptibly. Brilliant, he was thinking. Everyone’s looking for someone, and her general description could fit any number of ongoing activities including, for that matter, his own. The Office would confirm it without blinking an eye. Especially if the police inquiry went through Gingie. And he would make sure it did.

“It’s purely routine,” Diana added. Perfect, Peter thought, she’s a genius improviser. Veronique. Karla. She always knew what to say. What other phrase so deftly establishes an equivalence between the policeman’s inquiry and her own? They’ve got the same job, she was saying in code.

“Of course,” Sergeant Ludlow said. “Thank you. I suspected something of the kind. Well, that’s all I need to know now. Thank you for your time.”

Diana tried not to smile at Peter.

But at the door, his hand on the knob, the policeman turned and said, “I’m curious though, ma’am. You have a part-time job. Yet you asked a much more senior person to make a simple call for you. Wouldn’t it normally be the other way around?”

Diana forced herself not to swallow. “Uh, yes, and no.”

There was an uncomfortable pause as the two policemen stared at her.

“It’s a very informal place,” Peter put in, “but coordination between security services, even of a minor nature, must go through the proper channels.”

Sergeant Ludlow nodded with pursed lips, as if his question had been conclusively answered.

“Yes, of course. Thank you both for your time.”

Peter knew what was going through the English copper’s head. Mossad? Proper channels? That’ll be the day.

Later, on his way to see Arie, Peter’s mind was aflame. He just wanted the cabbie to shut up. The taxi driver was angry about German government reparations to Israel. What’s one and a half billion dollars for all they did? We shouldn’t take a penny, it’s blood money. Nothing can pay for six million lives. Or if they insist, then it should be three times that. Maybe I’ll get a new cab out if it, he said. This piece of junk has had it. Falling apart. No gearbox.”

“Do you mind?” Peter said. “I have a headache.”

“Bloody Nazis. Bloody Ben-Gurion. Calls himself a Jew!”

Peter was trying to think straight before he met Arie at Kapulsky. And why always Kapulsky? Probably another crooked deal, did he own it? What a corner they were in, thanks to Arie. Diana had lied to the police. He had backed her up. These were small lies and could be supported, but protecting Arie would lead them to bigger, more serious lies. They were digging themselves into a hole, and maybe it was unnecessary. He had to know. Did Arie kill the man or not? If not, why had he demanded an alibi from Tamara, and so crudely?

At the café Peter walked right to Arie, who was sitting at a front table dominating the entrance. See and be seen. Arie stood and hugged Peter, beaming. “Your timing is perfect,” he said. “Welcome home. Peter, this is Nadav Bru … well, never mind, Nadav from Bank Diskont. We have just shaken hands on something. I’ll tell you about it later. How are you?” He held Peter at arm’s length, admiring him. “Sit down, join us, what will you have?”

“Arie, I don’t have much time, I thought we were meeting just the two of us.”

Nadav rose immediately. “That’s fine, Peter, good to meet you. I was just going. Arie, I’ll get back to you, don’t worry, this is going to happen.” He shook hands with them both and left. When he was gone, Peter sat down, leaned forward, and put his hand on Arie’s forearm.

“You look serious,” Arie said. “Listen, I’m going to get a loan for a huge deal, maybe you’ll get a new car out of it, Nadav is the chief…”

“I don’t care, at this point,” Peter interrupted. “Arie, I’m going to ask you once. And remember, this is my job. So don’t lie to me.”

“All right, all right,” Arie said, pulling back his arm. “What is it, why are you so riled up? Relax.”

“I’ll relax if I get the right answer to my question.”

“Fine. What is it?”

Peter looked around, leaned forward again, pulled Arie closer, and whispered in his ear, “Did you kill Yonathan Schwartz?”

“What?” Arie jerked back, his brow creasing, shaking his head. “Who? Are you crazy? What are you talking about?”

“That’s not an answer. Did you murder Yonathan Schwartz?”

“Why would you ask me that? I haven’t seen you in months, and that’s your first question?”

“Arie, I just need a yes or a no. Did you have a fight with Yonathan Schwartz and beat him to death?”