Nights of Awe (32 page)
Authors: Harri Nykanen
“Put your gun on the floor,” I ordered.
“No, that’s not what he would say,” Dan sneered. “You don’t think I’d come to the synagogue armed, do you? I’m among friends here.”
“A lovely gesture. Are you sure you had enough time to ask forgiveness for all your sins?”
“Looks like for once you outsmarted me. You knew I would come here on Yom Kippur. What are you planning on doing now?” Dan asked casually.
“We’re going to get into the car that’s waiting outside and drive to Pasila. You’re under arrest.”
“It’s that simple for you?”
“Yes. Out.”
I opened the door and let him pass.
We stood in the glistening, rain-washed courtyard, eyeing each other.
“Aren’t you going to give me a chance to defend myself?” Dan asked.
“There’s no time, and it wouldn’t change anything.”
“It wouldn’t? Maybe I’m just a common murderer to you, but to plenty of other people I’m a lifesaver.”
“A lifesaver saves lives, he doesn’t end them.”
“What do you know about me? I’ve saved the lives of dozens, maybe hundreds of Jews, adults and children. Saijed and Bakr had murdered dozens and would have murdered more if we hadn’t stopped them. And believe me, many local Jews helped us in that effort voluntarily.”
“Without knowing what they were involved in,” I pointed out. “Did you find Bakr?”
“You can forget him. He’s already on his way to Israel. We believe he’ll be able to provide us with a lot of useful information.”
“So you’re working for Mossad these days?”
“Good pay, long holidays, get to see the world.”
“The only downer being that you have to kill now and again.”
“It’s not always such a downer.”
“It was for Weiss.”
“He was always over-confident. I wouldn’t have given them a chance.”
“Like you didn’t give Tagi Hamid either.”
“Don’t blame us for things we didn’t do. We wanted Saijed, but the bastard went and fell under a train. Hamid was one of ours; we were paying him to organize contacts with Arabs and give us information about them. He was useful to us, but then Saijed and Bakr began to suspect him, and Saijed killed him.”
“But you finished the job and mutilated his face.”
“That was improvisation, but we’ve been trained in it. He would have died anyways. If you want to play for time, you have to muddy and confuse your tracks.”
“Ali Hamid was one of your men too, but you killed him. Mossad’s not a very nice employer.”
“He was starting to choke, and he and his cousin were plotting against us. See how much I trust you?”
“What about Laya and the kid in the car?”
“Unfortunate accidents. We suspected that Laya had found out about us from Tagi. The plan was to use a remote detonator, but then you found the car and screwed everything up. Our men had to get out of there and activate the detonator. Laya shouldn’t have put his woman up to it. The kid’s death was just bad luck. Weiss was carrying an incendiary device that we were going to use to destroy Oxbaum’s minivan when we were done with it. The kid must have played around with it and set it off.”
“How did you find Bakr?”
“By the dog. I saw the woman walking it at Linnunlaulu. But don’t think for a minute she was just there taking it for a piss. Bakr must have suspected that the meeting was a trap and she was watching his back. She surprised Weiss – in other words, for all practical purposes, she killed him.”
“And that’s why you killed her?”
“I thought I sensed something developing between you two. A beautiful woman, I must admit. We didn’t kill her.”
“Who did then?”
“Bakr knew that we were right on his heels and eventually lost his nerve. He began suspecting she would talk as soon as he left, so he strangled her. We have it all on tape. It doesn’t make for pleasant listening. And she loved him, too, or at least she claimed to.”
We looked at each other in the light of the street lamp. The drizzle had soaked my hair, and drops were trickling down my face and collecting at my chin. I wiped them away. Dan looked at me. He wasn’t smiling any more.
“Can you guess why I trust you?” he asked.
“Because I’m a good Jew?”
“Wrong.”
“Because I’m your friend?”
“Are you?”
“Not any more.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. I trust you because Bakr is the one who planned the bombing at the restaurant where your sister Hanna was. I heard she never recovered from it. That’s too bad, Hanna was a lovely girl.”
I could feel a buzzing between my ears.
“Do you think that’s all it’s going to take?”
“What about this: do you know about your brother Eli’s and his partner Max’s business dealings? They’ve brokered loans on behalf of a company named Baltic Invest to the tune of at least ten million euros. Baltic Invest is owned by an Israeli businessman, Benjamin Hararin. His affairs are under investigation in Israel, because Baltic Invest launders a hell of a lot of drug money for the Russian mob. We have copies of all the money transfers. They look really ugly. We also have photographs, videotapes and audio tapes.”
Dan smiled as if he were remembering a funny story.
“It’s strange how you think you know people but you really don’t. I was under the impression that Eli and Max were faithful family men, but when I saw a couple of videotapes, I had to adjust my views. It’s so easy to stray when you’re far from home.”
I clenched my teeth so hard they ground.
“Does Eli know where the money comes from?”
“Probably not. He was just greedy, like the rest of us. But that won’t have much bearing if this all goes public.”
My shoulder-muscles tensed, rock-hard.
“But it doesn’t have to,” Dan continued. “It would be easy for us to arrange to have one branch of a larger investigation left uninvestigated if…”
If I had felt a momentary empathy for Dan, all I wanted to do now was wipe the self-satisfied smirk from his face.
“Let’s go for a little walk,” I said.
Dan looked skywards and spread out his arms.
“I’ve always liked the Helsinki rain, there’s something special about it.”
The guard sitting in the hut buzzed open the gate and we turned towards Malminrinne.
“One more thing,” I said. “There wasn’t any terrorist attack being planned, was there?”
Dan stopped.
“Do you think Bakr and Saijed had changed their ways and started loving Jews? The attack was just a matter of time. But I know what you mean. No, there was no attack being planned. Yet.”
“What about the visit of the foreign minister?”
Dan smiled.
“Don’t you get it yet?”
“Not everything. Tell me.”
“The most important thing was to get Bakr and Saijed dead or alive, preferably alive, because they knew a lot. We also wanted to send out a message that Israel does not forget, that the killers of Israeli citizens never escape vengeance. Thirdly, we wanted to wake you up from your daydreams. Can’t you see how you and your leaders are being fooled? Everyone feels sorry for the Palestinian children being killed by cruel Israeli soldiers. In the Nordic countries, Israel is a dirty word. Your leaders don’t even want to meet with ours, but when a Palestinian terrorist shows up here, the same men embrace him with open arms and expressions of sympathy. You’ve offered safe haven to the terrorists who kill our citizens.”
The Dan I saw in front of me was someone I didn’t know. This Dan wasn’t the least bit funny; he was a fanatic whose opinion there was no point trying to change.
“Our children are killed too,” Dan went on. “They’re blown up on their school buses, they’re shot and stabbed. The only reason people hate us is because Israel has decided that its citizens will never be slaughtered like sheep again.”
“That’s the only reason?” I replied.
“It’s time you opened your eyes. Some day your children and your decision-makers may be the victims. Then you’ll be begging for our help. No, our foreign minister was definitely not coming here.”
“Why the whole charade, then?”
“It gave our men a good excuse to come help with the operation. Plus, we wanted to get some real fireworks while we were at it. Thanks to the visit, we’ll get some show-stopping headlines: ‘Israeli foreign minister cancels visit due to terrorist threat’, ‘Terrorists plan attack on synagogue’, ‘Terrorist strike thwarted in the nick of time’. Lots of headlines, lots of controversy.”
“You planted weapons and explosives in Tagi Hamid’s basement and Laya’s apartment and framed them as terrorists,” I said.
“Of course. The whole is made up of parts, and all the parts have to fit together.”
Dan took a step towards me and held out his hand.
“You’re a Jew, in your heart you have to understand. I protect my citizens the way you do yours.”
I looked at the extended hand, but I didn’t shake it.
“Say hello to everyone for me.”
“Have you forgotten that you’re under arrest?”
Dan had already managed to take a step away from me. He stopped and turned. There was a gun in his hand.
“A gun in the synagogue, very naughty,” I said. “And one more thing: you guys got screwed. The brilliant Mossad has been royally duped.”
Dan’s carefree expression warped into a strained smile.
“Do you think I believe you?”
“Your colleagues were apprehended near the airport. At the time of arrest, the woman was wearing an El Al flight attendant’s uniform and the man was posing as a co-pilot.”
Dan was momentarily silent. He realized that something had gone wrong.
“So what? They’re both prepared to live, die and suffer for Israel. They’ve been raised and trained for it.”
“In this case they won’t suffer for Israel, but because of your stupidity. We also found the package you were mailing. The man you thought was Bakr is not Bakr, and the man who fell from the bridge was not Saijed.”
Dan’s face was like a mask. I had said something he couldn’t take in. He snapped, almost angrily: “You’re lying!”
“In reality your Bakr is an Algerian-born drug trafficker named Abbas Musaw. The man you thought was Saijed is his compatriot Salah Madri, also a drug trafficker. Both have been identified. They were in Finland negotiating drug deals with Tagi and Ali Hamid. Laya was in on it too.”
I could feel the rain start to trickle down my back from the collar of my coat. I didn’t let it bother me; Dan had it worse.
“The Hamid cousins needed money to start up their narcotics business. One of them came up with the idea that they could get it from Mossad, as long as the bait was big enough. They sold you a bill of goods, claimed that Bakr and Saijed were hiding out in Finland. Your helper Tagi knew that the men were suspected of having left Denmark. Finland was a good match for the scenario. After that, there was no shortage of funds. Unfortunately for him, someone from Mossad got a little too excited and decided to put on a real show.”
Dan was listening, but he was also scanning around in disbelief.
“Plus, Ali Hamid went and used the drug money to buy an auto-body shop. After that, they didn’t have the money to pay their French contacts for the drugs. When the cousins realized that their lives were in danger, they came up with a brilliant idea. They offered their business partners to you as terrorists. That turned out to be easy, because Mossad got all fired up when they saw an opportunity for an act of heroism that would stun the world.”
You’re not supposed to take pleasure in others’ misfortunes, even your enemy’s, but I was only human.
“You know there aren’t many photos of Bakr and Saijed, and those that exist are old. That’s why Musaw and Madri were perfect for the part.”
Dan’s defences momentarily crumbled. I could see fear in his eyes. He glanced rapidly around.
“Believe me,” I said. “The game’s over. You lost.”
Dan raised his gun and aimed at my chest.
“My father and mother loved you like a son. We were like brothers.”
I looked Dan in the eye.
“That was then. Before you went off the deep end.”
The mournful rising and falling of the shofar could be heard from the synagogue. It was the sound of joy and sorrow, victory and destruction from bygone millennia.
I took a step towards Dan. He was aiming at me, and his hand wasn’t trembling.
“This really sucks, Ari, but…”
A shot cracked through the sound of the shofar, and Dan shuddered from the hit. I thought it came from the van parked on the other side of the street, when several men in dark suits jumped out. Then I realized that my uncle was standing behind me with a gun in his hand. I didn’t see how he had approached us without our noticing.
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