required Raz to be driven into Rafah late one night through an IDF checkpoint and dropped off where he could walk to the proposed hide carrying a nondescript case of observation equipment. It was more normal for a police agent to carry out such a task for Shin Bet, but neither was it unheard of for a department head to get his hands a little dirty now and then to keep in touch with the realities of field operations.
Raz did not know where the IDF officer intended to position himself for the shoot although the options were limited if he wanted to kill Abed while inside his shop. However, he did know roughly when to expect the hit which would be on Abed’s arrival at his metal shop. The biggest problem for Raz was locating the officer’s hide. Raz knew he would probably have to wait for the first shot to give away the officer’s location. The question was, would the officer play with his mouse first as he had done so often in the past, or would he kill Abed at the earliest opportunity. The first bullet that slapped into the metal shop took Raz by surprise even though he had been as vigilant as possible. It was the second shot, hitting a sheet of steel inside the shop, that gave the sniper’s position away, a hint of smoke and movement in the shadows of a distant building. Raz could only pray that Abed had not yet been hit. Fortunately, the officer was not a professional sniper and as he exposed the barrel of his weapon to squeeze off his next, and probably deadly shot, Raz carefully took aim through the scope of his own rifle and fired.The bullet flew down between the houses that lined the market road, across the open stretch of no-man’s-land that ran along the edge of Rafah, past the Israeli watch tower, over the three layers of fifteen foot high fence topped with razor wire, in the second-floor window of the derelict house on the edge of the Egyptian border and through the officer’s head, flinging him back across the room, killing him instantly.
Raz left his hide almost immediately and did not find out until the next day that his son had survived unhurt. Shortly after that, Raz lost track of Abed and assumed he had gone to ground in fear for his life.
It was not until a year later he learned the name and description of the leader of the team of Islamic Jihad which had hijacked a supertanker off the coast of Spain, murdered all the crew and set the boat, filled with crude oil, on a collision course with the English coastline.
There was a time before that when Raz fantasised about one day meeting Abed and revealing himself as his father, not that he was under any illusion it would be a loving reunion. Perhaps it would be nothing more than closure between them. But it was a pipe dream, for their races could not be more polarised. In truth, it was both their stated doctrine that the other be denied the right to exist. There used to be a chance things could change on a personal level between the two of them, but now that Abed had joined the ranks of the arch terrorists, Raz’s fantasies were forced to give way to the grim reality that Abed would probably die at the hands of an Israeli or British assassination squad. He did wonder what he would do if he happened to become involved in such an operation even though that was unlikely. In his heart of hearts, he knew he would pull the trigger, even if that only meant giving the order.
His thoughts went back to Abed’s mother, the image of her on her deathbed still fresh in his memory, and he was filled with sadness at the outcome of it all. The human story was indeed more often than not an unhappy one.
Raz snapped out of his daydream as Stratton and Gabriel walked towards him and he opened the rear door of the car for them to climb in. As they drove across the airfield and out of the airport, Raz looked over his shoulder from the front passenger seat. ‘We will be in Jerusalem in forty-five minutes or so,’ he said. ‘Will that be okay for you?’ he asked in his typically insincere polite manner that was only barely detectable.
No one answered him. They were looking out of