Disappearance (11 page)

She kept silent.

"Listen to me Ruthi," he hissed, clenching his teeth.  "We'll both keep this little misadventure to ourselves.   Once I leave this room you are never to mention this to anyone, and if you ever try to pull something like this again I will not hesitate to throw you in jail. Is that clear?"

She nodded, unable to utter a sound.

Ruthi remained motionless at her desk long after he had left, his threats ringing in her ears.  She knew he meant what he said.  It was a chance to avenge a growing list of frustrations and unsettled affairs between himself and Gadot and he would never have another such opportunity.

Gadot had to be warned.

She wondered if she had the courage or the means to help him.  She was certain she would be closely watched until he appeared. It seemed too risky to try and cross Mimon again.

She got up, straightened her uniform
,  pulled  out  a  small mirror from her bag and studied her reflection.  Her lips were pale, the mascara was smeared under her eyes, and her short, thick black hair, needed redoing.  She took out a brush, fixed her hair, cleaned her face with tissues and added red lipstick.

It was dark and long past her work hours when she left the office, avoiding contact
with  station  personnel.    As she stepped into her cozy Ford Escort at the parking lot in the back of the building, she quickly glanced up at the old, run down, five-storey structure that once served the British rule in Palestine.  The entire fifth floor was fully lit.  It looked to be bursting with activity.  Ruthi could see silhouettes moving hastily across the floor, concentrated around Mimon's office at the far left end.

She put the car in gear and sped away.  It was not unusual for a police station to be in turmoil at unusual hours, but she sensed it was her boss and what she had revealed about his actions of the last few days, that kept the poor bastards working late that night.

CHAPTER 9

Gadot knew he  was in trouble  when Police Chief  Tavori walked in.

He had spent the night at a small gloomy hotel on HaYarkon strip and managed to stay undetected the following day, long enough to reach Shin Bet headquarters in Tel Aviv, forcing his way into Resnik's office by threatening to involve the media. Resnik, who was forced out of an annual budgetary meeting, took his time, but eventually agreed to meet the captain.

Chief Zvika Tavori walked into the conference room before Gadot had a chance to begin.  The captain sat up straight, keeping an honest expression, desperately trying to rethink his strategy.

"Where were you for the last two days?" 
the chief asked nonchalantly, as he sat his fragile six-foot frame next to the Shabac commander behind the large brown conference table.

Gadot felt a cold chill spread through his body.  He didn't like the tone of voice.  Tavori, normally a fatherly figure with white silver hair, thoughtful kind eyes, and a thick silver mustache, was known to be most dangerous when addressing his subordinates casually.   A host of troubling thoughts clashed in Gadot's mind as he tried to think of acceptable excuses.

He had none.

He wasn't supposed to confront the Shin Bet on his own and he wasn't supposed to overstep his authority and his superiors and conduct a private undercover investigation despite being given the cooperation of all investigative forces.   He knew they  were  waiting  for  an  opening  to  rip  him  to  pieces regardless of what he came up with and it dawned on him that it would be best to stick to the original plan. The two sat quietly, intensely waiting for a reaction.

He attacked the Shabac chief with surprising fervor.  "What kind of investigative assistance am I getting when you hide evidence from me?" He confronted him openly.

Resnik did not respond.  He sat motionless, staring at the captain, eyes never flinching an inch.  There was a mean, demeaning look
about him that portrayed much of his well-publicized wicked personality.

Chief Tavori reacted quickly trying to maintain control of the potentially explosive situation.

"What are you saying captain?" he asked.

Gadot kept his eyes focused on the head of the Shabac. 

"Resnik here knows exactly what I'm saying.”

The Shin Bet commander did not seem affected.  Tavori was losing his patience.  "I want to hear it from you, captain!" he said threateningly.

"Well, it turns out, Chief, that the car used to kidnap the girl belongs to an ex-Mossad.  Resnik here, tried to keep this information from reaching me by confiscating the car and altering the lab report.”

The charge was out in the open but neither the police chief nor his Shin bet counterpart seemed overly impressed.  Tavori sat back and waited for Resnik to respond.

Resnik leaned forward in his chair, coughed a few times to clear his throat, and then addressed the captain with evident impatience.

"As head of this investigation," he began, "you've used some extremely unconventional methods to reach some alarming conclusions captain, yet you haven't a clue as to where we can find the girl.”

Gadot was not going to let him guide the discussion away from the issues he had come to clarify.  "Why did you hide evidence from me?" he insisted.

Tavori kept silent.  Resnik gave the captain a
derisive look, cleared his throat again and continued.  "What do you know about the girl's family?  Did you check their backgrounds? Have you considered all possible scenarios and motives for her abduction?"

Gadot was taken by surprise.  Resnik's logic eluded him.  He had made an assumption and was handling the affair as terrorist action or an armed robbery turned sour.  There hadn't been any ransom demands or release conditions, and until he discovered the Mossad's involvement, his primary assumption was pursuing the most obvious terrorist endeavor.

"Why are you bringing her family into this?"  he asked with obvious discomfort.

"To make sure all angles are covered," the Shabac chief reasoned.

Gadot was not convinced.  "I'm obviously missing some vital pieces of information here, so why don't you fill me in and let me do my job.”

"Captain," continued the Shin Bet commander in a somewhat softer tone, "the state of Israel may, from time to time, find itself in a
position where it has to sacrifice certain things in order to maintain some balance with its allies.”

He stopped for a brief moment, letting his statement sink in.

"This Karen Glass affair is beginning to shape up to be one of these unfortunate cases.”

"How is the Mossad involved?"  Gadot asked, sticking to his no-nonsense approach.

"We're not sure," Resnik confessed.

Gadot knew better than to trust an admission of weakness made by Shabac personnel.  

"You seemed sure enough in trying to cover it up.”

"Be careful with these accusations, captain," Resnik hissed.

Gadot felt he had nothing to lose.

"Let me make myself perfectly clear," he said angrily.  "I don't intend to become another statistic on your growing list of 'unfortunate cases.'   I'm a police captain in charge of an investigation, which I intend to carry out in the best manner I know how.  It's what I've been trained to do.  It's what I get paid to do.  It's what Chief Tavori expects from me and I suspect it's what you expect from your subordinates.  So far, I've got nothing that can point me in a reasonable direction other than the Volvo which to my surprise turned out to be owned by an ex-Mossad fellow by the name of Dan Hasson.  This information, which I assume could,
and  should  have been given to me by your people, was kept from me. Furthermore, the accusations made by the father in the media after the horrendous meeting we had here with him, did not help the situation, to say the least. If I was in his shoes, I would probably have done the same.  I came out of that meeting feeling we were not making a true effort to find the girl.”

Gadot stopped briefly, hoping to receive some acknowledgment but neither the Bureau chief nor his police counterpart offered any help.  He went on, considerably less confident.

"If I'm to do my job, then I should be entitled to an explanation of the Mossad's involvement and your peculiar indifference to this potentially explosive case.”

"Tell me something Captain," Resnik countered. "Do you honestly believe if we didn't want you to uncover the identity of the Volvo's owner, we couldn't have done so?"

"Then why did you make me sweat for it?"  Gadot exclaimed, feeling he was finally making some progress.   That exact question had been troubling him ever since learning about Hasson from Ruthi and his brother.  He knew The Shabac could have easily destroyed the evidence at the DMV before Ruthi ever got there. "Is this some kind of an evaluation of my capabilities?" he added mockingly.

"We do not question your ability, Captain.  On the contrary, we assumed and hoped, and you certainly proved us right, that you would find out the truth about the car.”

Gadot was a little surprised by the compliment but would not be swayed.

"Why then?" he insisted, sincerely baffled.

"So it would be substantiated by the one person who we are going to ask to drop the investigation.”

It took him a few seconds to comprehend before the sickening feeling began to settle in.

"Are we committing some kind of a team suicide here?" he mused, sneaking a glance at police chief Tavori.  "If we blow this investigation, there will be hell to pay the Americans!"

"What we mean," continued Resnik in an unconcerned monotone, "is that you continue investigating the best way you know how with one catch: you are not to use the information learned about the Volvo!"

"But it's the same as saying drop the case," protested the captain. "It's the only solid lead I've got.  What do you expect me to do, run along the hills with a megaphone calling her name?"

The room fell silent.  Resnik and Tavori sat silently behind the large wooden conference table, not offering anything more. The orders were clear.  Gadot felt the noose gripping tight around his neck.  They had led him to the trap, caught him in it, and were getting ready to dispose of him.  He didn't have a prayer.  He could envision the promising career, the authority, the perks, all disappearing into oblivion.

In panic he addressed his chief.  "Were you part of this all along Zvika?"

Tavori shifted his eyes way from the captain and did not reply.  The writing was clearly on the wall.  He was set up to take the fall for when the Americans demand blood for the botching of the Karen Glass investigation.   They didn't ask him to hand over the investigation or assume a new position. They simply made it impossible for him to resolve the case with a clear understanding of where it would lead.

He gave it one last try, addressing Resnik one final time.  "I'll need an explanation if I'm to be sacrificed," he said stubbornly, "otherwise we're all goin' down together.”

The  stony  faces  kept  staring  at  him  with  no  sign  of compassion or concern.   He was playing the big boys game now: the rules were different.  His threat did not seem to jar them.

There was nothing more he could do but swallow his pride and tend to his wounds.  Without support from Chief Tavori he could not ignore Resnik's decree.   It would be useless trying to work around them.   The word was out.   No one would dare stick his neck out.  The one avenue he had to break the Karen Glass mystery was closed shut.   The investigation which could have brought  him  pride  and position got him fired.

He got up and walked out.  No farewells were exchanged, no good lucks were wished.  Luck had run out on the captain. He was on his way to becoming another useless ex-police officer floating around in the undefined civilian world trying to make sense of life without the chain of command.

After leaving the Shin Bet headquarters, he found a deserted parking lot and sat in his car pondering whether or not to give the newspaper reporter a green light to use the information he left with her.  He had given her a sealed envelope with a short description of what had evolved, his suspicions, the concealment of evidence and the altering of the lab reports. He did not elaborate on the specific evidence hidden from him and did not mention the Volvo or the Mossad agent but he was certain that a front page article on suspicion of a cover- up in a Shabac investigation and substantiation of the fathe
r’
s allegations, would put his commanders in a questionable light and may even raise a few eyebrows among Parliament members.  It may cause such ruckus that his employers would be forced to re-evaluate their position and support him.   On the other hand, it was not clear to him from where and from how high the order  to  bury  the  investigation came  from. Tavori and Resnik could not have taken such action without support from above so he was not convinced such revelations in the media would bring significant change to the prevailing policy.

Of one thing he was certain, his career as a police officer was coming to an end.

-------

Ruthi Cohen, Captain Gadot's secretary, knocked on his Denya apartment door, at about the same time her boss was dejectedly leaving Shin Bet headquarters in Tel Aviv.

She had exactly one hour, an early lunch break, before station chief Mimon would begin asking questions.  She was certain the visit could mean personal disaster for she had no idea whether she was being followed, but she felt she owed her boss and his family for the years of dedicated support.

It was Gadot who had taken her in and given her a job when her old boss retired and the Government was ready to give up on her
services.   She had not been ready to retire, being reasonably young and fit with  a  family  of  three  teenage children and an unemployed husband to feed.  Those were difficult   times   when   Ezra,   her   husband,   who   held   a respectable managerial position at the Electric Company, was accused of giving unauthorized permits to a group of construction developers for cash and personal favors. Nothing was ever proven but he was laid off in disgrace.

Rachel and Gabi Gadot, unlike other close friends, did not turn their backs and pretended they had never met.  They remained a source of solid support to her family through the ordeal, encouraging and strengthening their spirits until they were back on their feet. It was Captain Gadot who eventually found Ezra a decent managerial job at a private electronics firm, a comfortable job he still presently held.

Rachel opened the door and let her in.  The apartment was in shambles.  Five-year-old Jonathan was asleep on the unmade sofa.   Eight-year-old Assaf was sitting by the kitchen table, face buried in an oversized cup of hot chocolate.  The kitchen sink overflowed with unwashed dishes.    Clothes, toys and papers with the children's drawings were thrown about; the morning paper was spread over the living room table.

Rachel looked a mess, still in her flimsy pink nightgown, her hair uncombed and tangled. Her usual fastidious appearance was replaced by a worried, unattended look.  Her face had no makeup, extremely unusual for her at that time of day.  The wrinkles around her eyes and mouth seemed deeper and more noticeable.  Ruthi had never seen her that way.  They frequently visited one another and doubled up on nights on the town.   Rachel has always been well cared for, making sure to look her best even on spontaneous home encounters.