“Concerned,” said Lutz. “Please take a seat.”
A week had passed since Ava graduated from her shoulder brace. She sat facing Lutz’s desk, right arm crossed over her chest, left hand cradling her elbow.
“I’m not by nature a nosy man,” said Lutz, settling into his chair. “Between my patients, running the clinic, and listening to my wife, I have more than enough to keep me occupied.”
“I imagine so,” said Ava.
“But now and again, I may hear something that requires my attention. Or in this case, requires your attention. The attention of the people you work for.”
“We appreciate it,” said Ava.
“I do what I can,” said Lutz. “God has smiled on me.” He was referring to a separate calling, a responsibility besides that of caregiver.
Gerhard Lutz was born Schmuel Luznicki in Poland ten years after the Second World War. As a child he had immigrated to Switzerland. His parents changed the family name. To be a Jew was to be a pariah. Luznicki became Lutz. He, himself, chose the name Gerhard, after the prolific German striker playing for Bayern Munich, Gerhard “Gerd” Müller.
On Friday evenings, the Lutz family once again became the Luznickis. They closed the curtains and locked the doors before lighting the candles and saying kiddush. An Israeli aid agency paid for his university education and, later, trips to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. He never forgot his debt or his heritage. Today, he called himself a Sayanim, a friend of Israel.
And so, as a Sayanim, Gerhard Lutz knew all about Ava and her work for Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. Shortly after the shooting, someone had whispered in his ear that a longtime operativehad been wounded performing a duty that reflected admirably on the State of Israel. Sadly, the operative possessed nowhere near the resources necessary to pay for his services. Surgery. A private clinic. Rehabilitation. The bill would be astronomical. Might he consider offering the operative his services gratis? The answer was yes. Gerhard Lutz never turned down a request to help his country.
“Do you know the Al-Sabahs?” he asked.
“Everyone knows of the Al-Sabahs,” said Ava. “Very few people actually know them.”
Lutz met her gaze. A look passed between them. A shared distaste. The Al-Sabahs. Ruling family of Qatar. Funders of Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab news agency. Vocal proponents of Palestinian rights. Less vocally, the Al-Sabah family was financier of all causes anti-Zionist. After the Republic of Iran, it was the largest source of funding for Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, and every other flag-waving faction whose singular intent was the destruction not only of Israel but of every last Jew in the Holy Land and, to be honest, everywhere else on God’s green earth.
Yes, Ava knew of the Al-Sabahs. But she didn’t know them.
“Last month I operated on one of them,” said Lutz. “Tariq bin Nayan bin Tariq. One of the emir’s sons. Torn meniscus. An accident on the Cresta Run.”
The Cresta Run. Ava knew it vaguely. Some kind of treacherous course undertaken on a toboggan.
“Nice young man,” Lutz continued. “Handsome, engaging. Strong handshake, not the dead fish most of them give you. Speaks French beautifully. Even a little Swiss German.”
Ava nodded. Purposely, she kept silent. It was Lutz’s decision to tell her as much as he felt comfortable sharing. She did not want him to feel coerced, not for a moment. Sources were inevitably more forthcoming when giving information freely.
“As I was saying,” Lutz continued, “the door to the examining room was ajar, just a crack. I was finishing with his chart. He was on the phone, and I noticed that he was speaking Arabic. It was hardlyunusual. Of course, I speak Arabic as well. My wife is Egyptian. It was his tone that drew my attention. He was agitated. He wasn’t yelling; quite the opposite. He was speaking quietly but having great difficulty doing so. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Ava, not wanting to break his momentum.
“He was imploring someone to visit him,” Lutz went on. “He said he must come to examine some kind of device. I didn’t quite hear what, but he said he needed this man, I believe his name was Abbasi, Dr. Abbasi, to help construct something he called a viable transmitter.”
“A transmitter?” Ava repeated. She was officially interested.
Lutz nodded, drawing his bushy eyebrows together. “Tariq asked him repeatedly if he needed to be worried about being in proximity to this device. He said the word ‘radiation’ three times, or maybe it was ‘radioactive.’ I’m not sure now. Oh, yes, and he said, ‘It doesn’t matter where I got it. I have it.’”
“And whatever ‘it’ is,” said Ava, “requires a viable transmitter and may or may not be radioactive.”
Again Lutz nodded. “You see, I convinced myself he was talking about a bomb,” he added, almost shyly. “He never said the word, but he sounded deadly serious. He even had a name for it.”
“A name?” said Ava.
“For the device, whatever it was that required this transmitter. It will come to me.”
“When was this?” asked Ava.
“Two weeks ago,” said Lutz. “Just after your last visit.”
“Two weeks?” It required all Ava’s control to remain calm, outwardly unperturbed.And you waited this long to tell me?
