The Marsh Angel by Hagai Dagan (ebooks online reader .TXT) 📗

is Musa. Let’s move along. I’m going to ask you a couple of questions anyway. Try to answer them without making a fuss.

Let’s give it a try.

The woman you knew during your military service as an operative for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, a.k.a al-Darija— has any information regarding her reached you in the period following your discharge from active duty?

No.

Musa peeked at his notes. Not even on the one occasion you went for reserve duty in your unit, at Kidonit base?

No, Tamir said, briefly contemplating his conversation with the guy from Owl Team about Amir Rajai. Besides, if I had learned something there, I would have passed it on and you would have known about it anyway.

I’m asking if you learned anything that, for whatever reason, you chose not to pass on, Musa locked eyes with Tamir.

No, he replied, I didn’t learn any new information about her. I just ran around like an idiot chasing Hezbollah operatives and could barely make sense of what they were doing.

I see. And in the years since?

No. I cut ties with all of that.

What about your relationship with Amalia Ben Menachem? Nothing came up there?

I’m pretty sure that you know everything that she knows.

That’s not what I asked.

No, nothing came up.

I don’t believe you, Oz said.

Tamir looked at him and shrugged. You’re going to have to live with it, he said.

We need to speak, Oz said to Musa.

I agree, Musa said. Wait for us here with Assaf, we’ll be back in a minute.

The two men left the room. Tamir sipped his coffee. You got any cookies here? he asked Assaf.

Assaf raised his head from his laptop, and observed Tamir through squinted eyes. He remained silent. Tamir reached over to his bag and pulled out a book. He knew he wouldn’t be able to concentrate, but he had never mastered the art of sitting around doing nothing. Whenever he had gazed inwards, he discovered nothing but a faint whisper, a sorrowful murmur in a big empty void. What was there to do with a faint whisper?

What are you reading? Asked Musa who re-emerged through the door.

The Last World, Christoph Ransmayr.

Any good?

Interesting. I’m struggling with it a bit.

Musa looked over his shoulder. Oh, you’re reading it in German.

Yes, and I’m finding his German quite challenging.

But otherwise, you’re okay in German, right?

Yes.

Fluent?

Pretty fluent. Since having studied German in university, he occasionally read books in German, not so much because he feared losing his command of the language, but because as time went by, he found it harder and harder to read Hebrew literature. The books would confront him with everything he was trying to get away from. They were too contemporary, too Israeli. During long vacations or semesters he wasn’t teaching, Tamir used to go to Europe, mostly to Germany, especially to Munich, to drink wheat beer, breath the cool, fresh air, lose himself in its pleasant streets, and immerse himself in the language.

Good, that might come in handy, Musa said.

What do you mean?

Oz thinks it’s a bad idea to offer you what I’m thinking of offering you. He thinks you’re a rogue and that you can’t be trusted. He also thinks it a bad idea to recruit someone without training. We won’t have time to train you. That invites more trouble than you can imagine. It’s a big headache.

You’re going to recruit me?

I’m quite apprehensive about it as well, Musa ignored his question, but I’ve decided to take a risk. It won’t be the first time we throw caution to the wind. Oz thinks we can do perfectly without you. I agree we can do without you, but maybe not perfectly.

Tamir looked at him curiously. He thought Oz was right. He had always felt the world could do perfectly without him in every which way. He felt he was quite redundant, that he certainly was not vital in any way, same as pretty much everyone. The only difference between him and other people was that, on the one hand, he was aware of it, and, on the other, it bothered him. He didn’t know why it bothered him.

I’m going to bring you up to speed, Musa said. Before, though, I want you to sign this. Assaf?

Assaf pulled a form out of his briefcase and placed it before Tamir. He put the Ransmayr book back in his bag and looked at the form. It was a confidentiality agreement, more or less the same as those he remembered from his military service. He didn’t see the Prime Minister’s Office emblem on the letterhead, nor of the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations. He hesitated. Finally, he signed the agreement, under the watchful, suspecting eye of Oz. He figured that to him, this signature wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

Musa pushed the signed form towards Assaf. So, we’re talking about the woman known as the stint, al-Darija, he said, a former member— and perhaps still to this day, that’s still unclear— of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command.

But who is she? Tamir asked.

What?

You said she’s known as the stint, but you know her true identity, don’t you?

Do you?

No, Tamir said, thinking to himself that that was only partially true.

Okay, Musa said, so the stint joined the Front’s airborne unit and participated in two attacks.

You’re jumping to the middle of the story, Tamir interrupted him.

Musa looked at him in silence.

You recruited her, didn’t you? She was your source, codenamed Raspberry?

Musa looked over at Oz who shook his head in disagreement. There’s no choice, Musa said, he has to know.

He doesn’t.

Yes, he does, Musa insisted. Otherwise we can’t move forward.

This is a mistake, a serious mistake, Oz snarled angrily.

Musa turned back to face Tamir. Yes, we recruited her. Jibril’s organization was strengthening its ties to the Iranians at the time. We knew Amir Rajai was liaising with them. He was very close to the Iranian top-brass. They entrusted him to make Lebanon one big warhead and bring