The Jerusalem Inception

Chapter 43





On June 5, at 7:00 a.m., Elie was in Brigadier General Tappuzi’s command center in West Jerusalem, drinking black coffee and smoking another cigarette. Almost two days had passed since Sanani had returned from Government House, through the three sets of border checkpoints, to the safe house well before General Bull’s Jeep was ready to leave. He was a smart kid from a poor family of Yemenite immigrants, and Elie had been impressed by his tale of distracting the Jordanians at a roadblock. But the launch of Mokked had been delayed due to clouds over Egypt, and by now Lemmy must be hungry and thirsty. How long could he survive cooped up in that dark rooftop shed?

“It’s a go!” Tappuzi ran into the office, waving a telegram. “It’s a go!”

Elie took the sheet of thin paper. It was a printout of a secret order, issued moments earlier by Air Force Chief, General Motti Hod, to the 230 pilots about to take off:



Mokked is the word. The Spirit of Israel’s ancient braves soars with you today, from Joshua Bin-Nun, to King David, and the Maccabee warriors. Fly, ascend over the enemy, destroy him, and spread his remains over the desert dunes, so that our nation can live safely on our ancestral land for eternity.



Elie headed to the door. “I’ll give the signal.”

“Hurry!”

Across the parking lot, at the edge, Elie inspected Government House through his binoculars. It was a clear morning, and he saw nothing out of the ordinary at the UN headquarters. He focused on the rooftop storage shed under the fluttering UN flag. The door was slightly ajar, just enough for Lemmy to peek through. Elie put down the binoculars and removed the cap from the flare. Gripping it with two hands, he slammed the bottom of the cylinder on a rock.

The yellow flare shot up into the sky, trailing a white wake. It drew a wide arc and began a slow descent.

Elie focused his binoculars on the shed. A moment passed. He assumed Lemmy was gathering the bag of explosives and straightening his blue cap.

Another minute passed. 7:04 a.m.

The jets would be taking off from every Israeli air field in eleven minutes. What was Lemmy doing?

The flare was like a lever, releasing all of Lemmy’s pent-up stress. Action! But as he bent down to lift the duffel bag, he realized that a different type of pressure had built up inside him during the three hours he’d stood at the door to watch for the signal. He had visited the restroom on the top floor during the night to relieve himself and shave. But now, the UN staff were arriving at their offices, and he could not risk a chance encounter with an inquisitive UN officer.

Have to go!

Lemmy faced the wall and unzipped his pants. His mind began counting, just like during a nighttime navigation drill. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three.

At twenty-eight, he was done. He grabbed the duffel bag and ran out. The sun blinded him after the darkness of the shed. He stopped, covering his eyes.

No time!

He sprinted to the stairwell at the east end of the roof and paused at the top landing to listen. All quiet. The smell of fried eggs rose from the ground-floor kitchen, which Lemmy wished he had time to visit, having sustained himself on dry bread and water for two days.

One floor down, he heard a commotion in the hallway. “Look at that flare,” someone said. “What’s that supposed to be?”

Lemmy froze. If the UN observers realized the flare was a signal for military action, the whole front could go up in flames, sabotaging Israel’s preemptive strike.

“It’s nothing,” another voice answered in heavily accented English. “Some Jews playing around.”

Breathing in relief, he resumed his descent.

At the bottom, he used a door on the east side of the building, out of view for anyone in the courtyard. He peeked around the corner of the building. Across the courtyard, two gate sentries sat on white plastic chairs and smoked. He adjusted his blue cap, shouldered the duffel bag, and started across the open area.

A moderate incline toward Antenna Hill formed the east grounds of the UN compound. He looked up and saw the enormous radar reflector rotate atop the concrete station like a giant sail, curved in with a good wind. He kept a calm pace, resisting the urge to run. Anyone walking in the courtyard, sitting at an office window, or guarding the gate, could see him carry the duffel bag toward the radar station. He imagined eyes following him, and his back felt as if ants were crawling all over it.

Across the open area, he approached Antenna Hill without anyone disturbing the sounds of normal activity at the UN headquarters, with which he had grown familiar.

The radar station was half-sunken in the ground. A tall wall of sandbags surrounded it, and the entrance formed a narrow zigzag, barely wide enough for one person. As Lemmy reached it, already panting from the hike, a gray-haired man in UN uniform appeared in the passage. “Good morning,” he said, his g and r throaty.

Lemmy swallowed hard and saluted. “Good morning,” he said, struggling to say it with the same accent. But he had not spoken to anyone in two days, and his words came out hoarsely. He forced himself to smile and repeated, “A very good morning, sir!”

The UN officer paused, blocking the narrow entrance, and measured Lemmy up and down.

Still smiling, Lemmy prepared to drop the duffel bag and reach behind his back to draw the Mauser.

The officer said, “X. Y. Z.”

Lemmy hesitated. What did it mean? He began to lower the duffel bag. There was no time—the whole IDF air force depended on him!

“X. Y. Z,” the officer repeated.

“Weiss!” Tappuzi called from across the parking lot. He stood at the entrance to the IDF command center, tapping on his wristwatch. “Noo?”

Elie shrugged. It was 7:13 a.m. More than two hundred heavily armed fighter jets waited in multiple airstrips across Israel. Any delay meant missing the window of time when all the Egyptian pilots were eating breakfast while ground crews fueled their planes after the early morning sorties. He had seen Abraham’s son emerge from the rooftop shed on Government House two minutes behind schedule and disappear in the south stairwell. The rest of his route to Antenna Hill was not visible from where Elie stood, more than three miles away, but the partial view of the courtyard showed no unusual activity, the UN observers going about their business in customary leisure. Had he been stopped inside the building? Had he been exposed?

General Rabin had said he would go forward with the strike even if Elie’s operation failed to disable the UN radar. But that meant a UN alarm, communicated to the Egyptians, who would have enough time to scramble their planes into the air and hone their anti-aircraft batteries. In other words, it meant the lives of countless Israeli pilots, the failure of Mokked, and possibly the loss of the war before it had even started.

“Weiss! Talk to me!” Tappuzi sounded desperate. The UN radar, once connected to the Jordanian anti-aircraft guns, meant a free range for their cannons and tanks. Such an artillery barrage would result in wholesale slaughter in West Jerusalem, whose defense was Tappuzi’s responsibility.

Elie kept his eyes glued to the binoculars. He could see the radar reflector rotate in defiant laziness. He spat the cigarette and said out loud, “Come on, Jerusalem Gerster! Blow it!”

The UN officer repeated: “X. Y. Z.” He was wearing an array of brass symbols on his shoulders and an assortment of war decorations on his chest. A chrome nametag said: O. Bull

Lemmy was desperate. Were the letters some kind of a UN code? What was the appropriate response? He reached behind his back, digging under the khaki shirt for the Mauser. To stall for a few more seconds, he said, “A. B. C.”

“Ya! Ya!” The officer laughed, pointing at Lemmy’s crotch. “X. Y. Z. Examine. Your. Zipper.”

“Oh!” His face burning, Lemmy zipped his fly, saluted, and grabbed the duffel bag. He entered the narrow passage through the wall of sandbags and heard the officer chuckle while walking away.

A path took Lemmy around the radar station to the rear. Five gasoline tanks were lined up next to a silent generator. In the rear wall of the station, large wooden doors allowed delivery and removal of heavy equipment. The doors were locked, and he was out of sight between the station and the perimeter fence. Above his head, a buzzing sound came from the electric motor that kept the radar reflector turning.

He found the drainage faucet at the bottom of the first gasoline tank and opened it. Fuel began to pour out, flowing toward a depression in the asphalt, where it formed a puddle. From the duffel bag he removed a small device, about the size of a book, and placed it near the growing puddle. The ensuing conflagration was supposed to create the false impression that the destruction of the radar was caused by an accidental ignition of the fuel. It would take time to find traces of explosives, and by then operation Mokked would be over, and the UN observers would be too busy monitoring a raging war to investigate the explosion.

He placed a much larger pack of explosives by the electric board next to the loading doors and pulled the fuse on each of the devices.

One minute.

Running around the corner to the front, Lemmy was about to exit the zigzag passage through the sandbag wall when he heard voices through the open door of the radar station. Someone was talking while a second voice hooted.

In a flash, Lemmy realized the UN observers inside were young soldiers not much different than him, having fun just like he, Sanani, and the other guys back in boot camp.

He turned and ran inside.

The large control room was well lit. Bulky sets of electronic equipment occupied most of the walls. Two UN soldiers sat at the tracking monitors. Three others were busy throwing darts at a full-body poster of a naked Marilyn Monroe, fixed to the loading doors behind which the explosives were about to detonate. Several darts were already stuck in Monroe, primarily around her chest.

One of them turned to Lemmy. “Ya?”

“Get out,” Lemmy yelled. “Fire!”

The soldiers laughed. One of them, who seemed Indian, plucked a dart from Monroe’s chest and offered it to Lemmy. “Fire! She’s very hot!”

“Get out!” Lemmy tore the headphones off the two soldiers at the monitors. “Now!” But their expressions told him that they still thought it was some kind of a joke. He wasn’t getting through to these men, who were about to be incinerated by his bombs. He grabbed one by the shirt and shoved him toward the door. “Out!”

Finally grasping the urgency, the UN soldier sprinted out. The others bolted as well. Lemmy chased them out through the sandbag passage, just as an explosion pounded him square in the back. It threw him face-down to the ground, and a wave of heat washed over him.

Elie’s hands jerked up instinctively as the fireball leaped into the sky, followed a second later by the sound of the explosion. He stumbled backward, shocked by the size of the eruption. As the initial cloud of smoke and debris began to settle, he looked through his binoculars.

The radar reflector was gone from the skyline. He aimed the binoculars lower and saw the giant steel-mesh reflector in the courtyard of Government House. By now Lemmy must have melted into the hundreds of UN soldiers running around in confusion while flames engulfed the radar station. Lemmy had been instructed to watch for Bull’s Jeep leaving the compound, which would be his signal to wait near the gate for Sanani to pick him up twenty-four minutes later in the fake jeep.

Back at the command center’s front steps, Brigadier General Tappuzi held an upturned thumb.

A group of reservists and staff hurried outside at the sound of the distant explosion and watched the flames across the valley. Someone speculated about a Jordanian attack on the UN compound. Another mentioned old landmines left from the British rule two decades earlier.

At the communications center, Elie phoned Rabin at the Pit. “The sky has just cleared up in Jerusalem,” he said.

“About time.” Rabin hung up.

Replacing the receiver, Elie said, “You’re welcome.”

Tappuzi slapped his back. “You got it done, Weiss! Your crazy plan worked!”

But Elie knew that toppling the UN radar was just the beginning. Everything was still at stake—the aerial attack on Egypt, the subsequent raids on Syria and, if it joined the fighting, on Jordan too, and the ground war on three fronts. Israel’s survival was still at stake, as were his own plans to change the paradigm of Jewish-Gentile relations in a way that would altogether eliminate the risk of future wars against Israel.

Mokked required radio silence while IDF planes took off from every Israeli air base at specific, predetermined times, so that all squadrons reached their various targets deep inside Egypt simultaneously. Because Egyptian airfields were located at different distances from Israel, Mokked had to reach a level of precision never tried before by any air force in history. The plan resembled a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, calculating the exact duration of each plane’s expected travel distance from its base to its designated target, factoring in speed, wind conditions, fuel capacity, and type of armament. It was crucial that all the Egyptian targets were hit at the same time, preventing the enemy from raising the alarm before all targets had been destroyed. With the farthest Egyptian target being its airfield in Luxor, the various Israeli squadrons had to fly low over the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Negev Desert, or the Sinai Peninsula, enter Egyptian territory at multiple points undetected, and converge simultaneously over eleven disparate targets after flight times varying between twenty and forty-five minutes.

For Elie, chain-smoking in Tappuzi’s office in West Jerusalem, the wait was torturous. If Mokked failed, Israel would lose control of the air, and Egypt could launch its massive arsenal of poison gas and destroy Dimona. After fifty years of losing land and pride to the Zionist enterprise, the Arabs would surpass even the Germans in the enthusiastic killing of Jews.

“Let’s go downstairs,” Tappuzi finally said, having bitten his nails down to the flesh.

An hour passed without news. Another thirty minutes.

That was as much as Tappuzi could wait. “Make the call,” he said, “please!”

Elie dialed the number for the operations center at the Pit. After several more connections, Rabin’s voice came on the line. “Yes?”

“We’re wondering,” Elie said, “how’s the weather in Tel Aviv?”

“Sunny,” the chief of staff said. “Our pigeons are back in the nest for a quick drink before flying south again.”

“Shall we call the big house to extend an invitation?”

“Go ahead. And tell Tappuzi to let us know if his neighbors to the east get rowdy. I’ll send him a few pigeons if that happens.”

Elie put down the receiver. He smiled. “It worked. Our boys are back safely, getting ready for the second raid.”

Tappuzi looked up and yelled, “Thank you, God!”

“Time to sound the alarm. Let’s get the population into bomb shelters and trenches. The Jordanians might start shelling our neighborhoods if they think Egypt is winning. Let Rabin know and he’ll send a few planes.”

Brigadier General Tappuzi ran out. A moment later, the air-raid sirens started whining all over West Jerusalem. As planned, he would call General Bull to complain that Egyptian jets attacked Israeli defenses in the Negev, a lie that was intended to prolong the confusion as much as possible and provide an excuse to demand a meeting with Bull.

Elie went outside to wait for General Bull’s Jeep. He felt the handle of the shoykhet blade hidden against his hip. The UN chief would be suspicious when his tires went flat again, especially after his prized radar had been blown up, but what could he do? Call the police?

Across the gulch, other than the fire behind Government House, the Jordanian side of Jerusalem seemed quiet. But for how long? They must be wondering about the sirens on the Jewish side.

“Weiss!” Tappuzi emerged from the building, beckoning him. “Bull is raging crazy. The fire is out of control there, and he heard from his people in Egypt that Israeli planes have attacked. He’s accusing us of destroying the radar. He claims that—”

“Doesn’t matter what he says. He’s got no evidence. And he should not have colluded with the Arabs.”

“He warned me to stay out of the Old City.”

“Fool’s dreams,” Elie said. “Dayan won’t pass up the opportunity to recapture Temple Mount—the mother of all archeological treasure troves.”

“It gets worse. Bull saw our saboteur earlier near the radar. They’re looking for him.”

“That’s bad.” Elie watched the column of smoke rise behind the white mansion with the light-blue flag. If Lemmy broke down and talked, the whole operation would be exposed, causing a diplomatic nightmare for Israel, let alone derailing all of Elie’s well-laid plans.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Call Bull back,” Elie said. “Tell him that if he’s not here in fifteen minutes, you’ll order our artillery to bomb Jordanian positions in East Jerusalem.”

“We don’t have any artillery!”

“Bull doesn’t know that. When he gets here, have someone disable his Jeep. I can’t wait any longer.”

“But what if Bull doesn’t show up? What are you going to do about that kid over there?”

“For all we know, he might already be dead.”

The voices were garbled, some shouting, even fearful, others calm and reassuring. Lemmy felt hands lifting him. He opened his eyes and tried to brush off the dirt that stuck to his eyelids. How long had he been lying here? He craned his head and saw the flames rising from the ruined radar station.

Success!

They put him on a stretcher, face down, and carried him across the courtyard toward the building. Someone said, “It’s okay. Stay down.”

Many UN personnel milled about, some pulling water hoses, others removing sandbags to facilitate access to the burning radar station.

The stretcher reached the main building entrance just as the gray-haired officer emerged from it. His face was red. He slammed the blue cap on his head and got into his white Jeep. For a second, Lemmy mistook the Indian driver for Sanani. But it was the real driver. He hit the gas and raced across the courtyard toward the open gate. Lemmy tried to look at his watch, but it was gone. How would he know when to expect Sanani? As they carried him on the stretcher into the building, it dawned on him that he might be too badly injured to make his way to the gate.

The room smelled of antiseptics. They transferred Lemmy onto an examination table, still on his belly, and left him. He tried to rise but was overwhelmed by dizziness.

A woman in a white coat rushed in, a stethoscope around her neck. She spoke to him in a foreign language, which he guessed to be Norwegian. He didn’t answer, but tried to rise. She made him stay down and used scissors to cut his pants, starting from the bottom near his boots. He stopped her by kicking at her hand. She yelled something, pulled off a piece of the shirt from his back and held it in front of his face. It was singed black. Lemmy reached behind and touched his lower back. The skin was raw.

She left the room.

After a while, Lemmy felt strong enough to stand. He rolled off the examination table, legs first, and stood, shaking. The front of his body was unharmed, the UN khakis dirty but otherwise in good shape. Looking over his shoulder at his back side, he saw blackened skin. His head hurt badly, and his right ear was developing a blister along the edge.

He tried the door. It was locked. He went to the sink and put his head under cold water. It hurt, but he was coming back to his senses. He had to get to the front gate to rendezvous with Sanani. How long had it been since General Bull had left? In the small mirror above the sink, his face was bruised, a gash over his left cheekbone trickling blood. He pressed a towel to the wound. His head was pounding, and the room started spinning. He stumbled, held on to the sink, and collapsed.

The risk that Lemmy might be caught and interrogated forced Elie to make a swift decision. He drove to the safe house and changed into UN khakis—an extra set he had ordered with the sets made for Lemmy and Sanani. Elie’s shirt was adorned with the insignia of a UN general, copied from a photograph of General Bull.

Sanani was waiting outside by the Jeep.

“Let’s bring your friend home,” Elie said.

They left the safe house and drove to the corner of Nablus Road, where they waited in the shadows until Bull’s car passed by on its way to Tappuzi’s office.

Mandelbaum Gate was a minute away. Sanani drove through the three checkpoints while Elie returned the hesitant salutes of the Israeli, Jordanian, and UN guards, all of whom must have wondered about the unfamiliar UN general being driven in Bull’s Jeep moments after it had gone the other way.

As they approached the Old City walls, Elie saw the Arab merchants pushing their carts away from the market. The wailing sirens on the Jewish side of the city must have freaked them out. Sanani kept pressing the horn, but the road was crowded with slow-moving traffic. Elie put his hand on the soldier’s arm. “Calm down. Your friend can wait another few minutes. He’s in no danger.”

Lemmy regained consciousness just as the door flew open. A dark-skinned UN officer entered, followed by two soldiers. “What’s the meaning of this?”

With difficulty, Lemmy stood up, his legs wobbly.

The officer walked around him, examining his backside.

“Who are you?” His English was spoken with an Indian accent, just like Sanani.

Lemmy didn’t answer.

“We will find out!” The officer beckoned the two soldiers.

“Search him!”

Lemmy clenched his fists, ready for a fight, but a sudden cramp in his lower leg caused him to bend over and grunt in pain. He reached behind his back, feeling for the Mauser.

“Looking for this?” The UN officer held up the Mauser. He put on silver-framed reading glasses and peered at the gun. “Deutschland Über Alles.” He looked at Lemmy. “What is this? Are you German?”

Nodding, Lemmy tried to estimate whether he could snatch it from him and aim properly before the three of them acted. The Mauser was always cocked and ready to fire with a quick release of the safety, but they were three and he was alone. Chances were poor, even if the gun was still loaded, which was in doubt. Whoever had found it in the courtyard might have disarmed it.

“You’re not a member of the United Nations staff, correct?”

Lemmy nodded.

“Then take off our uniform!” He pointed the Mauser at what was left of the khaki UN shirt. “Now!”

With effort, he unbuttoned the shirt and took it off.

“You are a saboteur! A spy!” The Indian UN officer pointed at the door. “We’ll hand you over to the Jordanians!” He gestured to his subordinates, who stepped toward Lemmy.

“Don’t touch me!”

“Get out!” The officer held the door open.

“My name is Wilhelm Horch,” Lemmy lied. “I work for the Bundesnachrichtendienst—the West German secret service.”

“The BND?” The Indian officer seemed taken aback.

“Yes! The BND!”

“Who is your commanding officer?”

“I report directly to General Reinhard Gehlen.”

“Really? Gehlen? Wasn’t he a Nazi commandant during the war?”

Lemmy shrugged.

“Then surely he wouldn’t employ a Jew, right?”

“Ich nicht ein Juden!”

“Let’s check.” The Indian officer motioned to the two soldiers, and they pulled down Lemmy’s pants, exposing his circumcision.

Elie sat next to Sanani, controlling his impatience as the Jeep slowly advanced at the pedestrian pace of the merchants and their carts. Finally, at the next roundabout, Sanani was able to speed ahead.

They approached the roadblock at the intersection with Jericho Road. Elie pulled the UN blue cap down to his eyebrows. “Don’t stop.”

The Jordanian soldiers stepped into the road, blocking it.

“Drive,” Elie said. “They won’t shoot at a UN vehicle.”

Sanani slowed, rolled down his window, and waved. One Jordanian lifted his hand while his partner aimed a machine gun.

Sanani kept going at a slow pace and stuck his head out the window. “Ahlan Wa’Sahalan!”

The Jordanians didn’t move aside, and Sanani had to hit the brakes. They approached the Jeep, one on each side.

“Let him come to your window,” Elie said. “When he’s close enough, open your door fast and hit him as hard as you can.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Do as I say!”

The Jordanians came closer. Elie’s window was down, and he held up a blank piece of paper he had found on the floor of the car. Meanwhile, his right hand unsheathed the shoykhet blade. “Here,” Elie said, “my credentials.”

The Jordanian came to the window and extended his hand to take the paper.

Pulling up his pants, Lemmy took a step back. “You can’t do this! The Jordanians will kill me!”

“That,” the UN officer yelled, “is between you and His Majesty’s troops. Out!”

The two soldiers positioned themselves behind Lemmy, and the Indian officer led the way. They left the room and marched down a long hallway, passing a dining room that still smelled of fried eggs. The lobby let them out to the courtyard, where UN personnel ran back and forth with buckets of water.

The fire had spread to a field of thorns and tumbleweed beyond the reach of the hoses. The smoke was overwhelming, and flecks of ash drifted in the air. Lemmy was shocked to see the enormous radar reflector resting in the courtyard, its massive center hinge pointing up, mangled as if it had been torn out of its housing.

The officer headed to the main gate. When they were two-thirds of the way across the courtyard, Lemmy saw a Jordanian army truck arrive at the gate, the open box filled with soldiers in camouflage uniform. A Jordanian officer stepped down from the cabin.

The UN officer ordered the gate opened and exchanged salutes with the Jordanian. “This man,” he said, pointing at Lemmy, “is an Israeli spy.” He held up the burnt remnant of the UN shirt Lemmy had worn.

The Jordanian officer yelled something in Arabic, and the soldiers started jumping off the back of the truck. Two of them grabbed Lemmy by the arms and marched him toward the side of the road, where a telephone pole waited as an ideal place of execution. Meanwhile the soldiers lined up with their rifles.

The Jordanian sentry’s hand entered through Elie’s window, reaching for the paper. Making like he was handing it to him, Elie instead grabbed his hand and ordered Sanani, “Hit your guy now!”

Sanani’s door flew open, followed by a loud bang.

Elie pulled the Jordanian’s hand downward, bringing him closer to the window, and jabbed the blade upward at the Arab’s exposed neck, right under the chin, into the brainstem. He opened the car door and used it to shove away the sentry, who collapsed, no longer in control of his limbs.

With the dripping blade pointed at the ground, Elie got out of the Jeep and walked around the hood. He found Sanani locked in a wrestling match, the Jordanian on top, his hands clasping Sanani’s throat. Elie rested his hand lightly on the back of the soldier’s head, searched with his thumb for the soft spot just under the cranium, and slipped the blade in with little effort, all the way to the handle, its tip emerging through the gaping mouth.

Sanani’s eyes popped wide as he watched his opponent fall sideways onto the road. “What the hell!”

“Let’s go.” Elie wiped the blade on the dead soldier’s pants and sheathed it. Up the road, where they had come from a moment earlier, a few merchants lifted their long robes and gave chase, yelling in Arabic.

Sanani drove forward, between the two corpses. “We’re being pursued by a mob,” he said in a tremulous voice as he glanced at the rearview mirror.

“Make the turn and go fast. It’s too far for them to catch up.”

He pressed the pedal all the way, and the Jeep raced up the hill.

Four minutes later, they cleared the crest and saw Government House engulfed in smoke. On the right, Antenna Hill was burning. A Jordanian army truck stood by the gate.

“Not good!” Sanani slowed down.

“Drive up to the gate and stop.”

They turned into the access road and reached the gate, which was open. The UN guards saluted.

“Oh, no!” Sanani pointed. “They’re executing him!”

Elie saw Lemmy stand with his back to a telephone pole, blindfolded, his upper body exposed to the sun. A line of Jordanian soldiers stood in the ready. An Indian UN officer watched from the gate.

Elie punched Sanani’s leg under the dashboard. “Stop the car.”

The soldiers cocked their weapon while their officer raised his arm, ready to give the order.

Lemmy knew he was doomed. The Jordanian officer tightened the blindfold and said something in Arabic that included the word Allah. Weapons were being cocked, and he heard an engine roar nearby. He was struggling to stay on his feet, erect and proud, not to show them how terrified he was. Would it hurt when the bullets pierced his chest? Or would he die before the nerves managed to transmit the pain to his brain?

His chest constricted. His breathing stopped. His muscles tensed up, expecting the sound of shots and the bullets to tear into him. He heard the Jordanian officer yell something in Arabic—an order to shoot!—and his mouth opened to scream.

But no shots sounded.

The air raid sirens on the Israeli side of the border continued to whine. He heard voices arguing and shook his head to loosen up the blindfold, which dropped to the bridge of his nose.

The Jordanian officer stood by Bull’s white Jeep. The UN general was sitting in the front passenger seat, and Lemmy realized with a sinking heart that Sanani was not coming. Would General Bull step in to save an Israeli saboteur from execution? Considering the enormous mayhem he had caused, Lemmy doubted the angry general would show any mercy.

General Bull’s door opened, and he came out.

Lemmy gasped in shock. It wasn’t Bull, but the skinny little man from Zigelnick’s tent! Agent Weiss! He was dressed in a UN uniform with lots of insignia that made him very important as long as no one realized he was a fake.

The Indian officer stared at the unfamiliar UN general. The guards at the gate stood still, unsure what to do.

Elie Weiss shook hands with the Jordanian officer. “Good morning,” he said in heavily accented English. “I’d like to question the spy for a couple of minutes. You can shoot him when I’m done.” He turned and marched through the gate into the UN compound.

After a brief hesitation, the Jordanian officer untied Lemmy and led him by the arm after Elie. The Indian officer sent the two UN soldiers off to assist in the fire fighting and joined the procession. Sanani drove the Jeep across the courtyard.

Elie entered Government House and strode across the lobby. UN soldiers, running back and forth with buckets of water, noticed his rank and stopped to salute him. He turned down a side corridor and entered an office on the left, which Lemmy realized he’d chosen because it had no windows facing the front of the building. The group followed him, and a moment later Sanani joined them, shutting the door.

The office had a single desk, file cabinets, and family photos on the walls. It probably belonged to a low-ranking UN administrator. Elie sat in the chair behind the desk, adjusted his blue cap, and grabbed a pen and a few blank papers.

Lemmy positioned himself to the side, against the wall. It gave him a clear vantage point and forced the Jordanian officer, who carried a pistol in a hip holster, to stand beside him, rather than behind him.

Elie’s black eyes focused on the Indian officer. “Identify yourself.”

“Major Raja Patel, operations commander for this United Nations facility. And who—”

“Thank you,” Elie cut him off. “What’s the situation with this young man?” He gestured at Lemmy.

The Indian officer started describing the events that led to Lemmy’s exposure. When he reached the part about his clever idea, that the former Nazi now running the West German BND would not employ a Jew, he turned to Sanani, who stood the closest to him. “We pulled like this,” he demonstrated, reaching down to pantomime on Sanani’s pants, but paused and took a second look at Sanani’s face. “Who are you? I don’t recall you!”

Sanani was caught unprepared. He smiled and looked at Elie.

The UN officer switched to Hindu, uttering a long sentence.

“Well spoken,” Sanani said, regaining his edge. “As Mahatma Gandhi said, An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

The Indian officer stepped back and drew Lemmy’s Mauser. “Who are you people?”

Elie stood up. “Calm down, Major.”

The Jordanian officer hesitated, shocked at the sudden conflict between the UN officers.

Major Patel stepped backward toward the door, aiming the Mauser at Sanani. “What is going on here? Tell me!”

Lemmy heard Elie whisper to Sanani in Hebrew, “He hasn’t cocked it. Knock him down!”

“No!” Lemmy reached forward to stop him, but Sanani had already leaped forward and tackled the Indian officer. A shot sounded, muffled by their intermingled bodies.

Lemmy rammed the Jordanian officer, and they both fell to the floor. Lemmy started rising, but what he saw stopped him. A long blade appeared in Elie Weiss’s hand, the shining steel at least as long as his forearm. He swung it across, almost too fast for Lemmy to see, the point passing under the chin of the Jordanian officer, leaving a thin red line on his throat. The blade continued over Sanani’s bowed head and swished below Major Patel’s jaw. It returned in a figure-eight for another cut across the Indian officer’s neck and passed by Lemmy’s face, its glistening point swiping just above the shirt collar of the Jordanian officer, who attempted to draw his gun.

The two men held their twice-cut throats. They dropped to the floor, writhing.

“Sanani!” Lemmy kneeled by his friend, whose shirt was soaked red. “Sanani!”

Elie felt his neck. “Your friend is dead.”

“No!”

“Put on this guy’s uniform.” Elie gestured at the Indian officer.

“But—”

“Quick, before his blood soaks it!” He fished the car keys from Sanani’s pocket.

In a daze, Lemmy undressed the dead Indian officer. Meanwhile, Elie was removing the uniform from the dead Jordanian, whose eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling. He tossed away the shirt, pants, and boots, and removed the identification tags from the Jordanian’s neck, replacing them with tags that Lemmy recognized as his own IDF tags.

With difficulty Lemmy buttoned up the UN shirt, whose collar was warm with Major Patel’s blood, pushed it into the oversized pants, and buckled up the Indian’s belt. He glanced up to see what Elie was doing and would have vomited had there been anything in his stomach.

The long blade was dancing in his small hand, making rapid cuts in the Jordanian officer’s dead face. Pieces of skin and flesh flew up from the blade as the face grew naked, the pink bones emerging in unnatural clarity. He poked the eyes, carved off the brows, and removed the ears. Then he held up each hand and peeled the skin off all the fingertips with quick slicing motions.

Lemmy managed to say, “What are you doing?”

“Amazing how similar we all look under the skin.”

He gagged, covering his mouth.

Elie took a hand grenade from his pocket and placed it on the corpse’s groin. “And this should count as a kosher circumcision, right?”

Voices filtered through the closed door, men talking excitedly, someone issuing orders.

Lemmy cleared his throat. “What now?”

“Now?” Elie reached down for the fuse on the hand grenade at the corpse’s groin. “Now we’re going to kill you.”