Triple Identity Read Free Page B

supposed to break foreign countries' rules. I could live with that as long as the government could live with the few minor infractions I had to make, just to make major progress. Maybe I shouldn't have told David, but I trusted him, and more importantly, he trusted me. He knew and I knew that if the shit ever hit the fan, I'd be on my own. That was fine with me.
    “Wasn't the report in German? How could you read it?”
    “I'll tell you more when I get back home.”
    I didn't want to tell him, at least not yet, that I also managed to make a Xerox copy of the report and translated it word by word by combining my average command of German with a good dictionary.
    “Sounds as if you're on the right track,” he finally said. “Let me have your written report as quickly and completely as you can. I'll forward a copy to the Criminal Division, for information only. If I hear anything relevant to your investigation, I'll send you a memo through the consulate.”
    I left the small conference room and stopped at Helga's workstation. Lovejoy hadn't returned yet. I had more urgent things to do, so I thanked her and left the building.
    I suddenly realized how much I missed the sheer excitement of my earlier days at the Mossad. Of course I hadn't thought so then. Those had been three long, challenging years.
    “Those of you who survive this course will be the best of the lot,” Alex had repeatedly said in his American-accented Hebrew. In fact Alex was born in Canada, but to us cadets, anyone with an accent like that must be American.
    They'd recruited me at Tel Aviv University, which I attended after thirty months of active service in the Israeli military, a responsibility all young Israelis must fulfill. I was set to graduate that July of 1966 with a degree in international relations, a degree that offered few job opportunities outside academia or the government. I'd been easy prey.
    “We want to talk to you,” a stocky fellow said when he approached me in the university's hallway. A man in his late forties, he had a receding hairline and hair that had once been blond but was now a poor gray. He used the word
we
but he was by himself. Who the hell is “we”? I remembered thinking, while looking at him with an amused curiosity.
    “What about?” I finally asked, trying to figure out if he was somehow connected to the girl I'd met a week earlier who'd refused to tell me where she lived because her parents didn't approve of her dating “older men.” I was twenty-two and she was sixteen, and it was the sixties in Tel Aviv, a city that doesn't stop even at hours when Londoners in swinging Carnaby Street are already fast asleep.
    His tone of voice became friendly. “I'm Michael from the prime minister's office, and I'm wondering if we can talk for a few minutes.”
    I followed Michael into the cafeteria on the lower level of a three-story faculty building just completed at the quickly expanding campus in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv's northern neighborhood. The place was notorious for its stale coffee and sticky Formica tables, which were never stable. The cafeteria was deserted, but we sat in a far corner anyway. I looked at Michael, waiting for him to start.
    He was brief. In a barely audible voice he said, “We at the prime minister's office have reviewed your background and believe that you may be suitable for the screening process which, if successful, will lead to your being invited to join us.” There were too many preconditions to this statement, I thought; it sounded like a preamble to a contract. I had to lean forward to hear the rest. He smelled of tobacco and Aqua Velva, the popular aftershave lotion one could buy at the army canteen.
    I looked at his face, then at the small and wobbly table between us and said, as if I didn't know what he was talking about, “The prime minister's office? I'm still in school. Why would the prime minister's office be interestedin a guy like me?” I played dumb, of course. I knew very well