69 – Hampton, New Hampshire
Levi listened to the news on the car radio as he drove south on the Maine Turnpike, heading for his meeting in Boston. He hadn’t been this apprehensive when he’d been driven to Portland to meet Goldhersh’s young Mr. Aleph and Mr. Bet, but maybe that was because he was not alone then. This time, he was concerned that he was going someplace with too many questions unanswered, like setting out on a military mission, a raid on the beach against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, without being briefed on what to expect when he landed on shore.
He delayed leaving Brooklin until late afternoon. He would not arrive in Boston until well after dark. He was only half listening to the radio when a sudden change in the tone of the announcer’s voice caught his attention.
“More than five hundred people were killed less than ten minutes ago in two synchronized bombings in shopping malls outside of Boston,” the announcer struggled to maintain a calm, National Public Radio demeanor. “Most of those killed were women and children, hundreds more were wounded, many of them seriously.
“Survivors report the suicide bombers appeared to be Orthodox Jews who wrapped themselves in Israeli flags before detonating their bombs in what was an apparent protest of this country’s decision not to intervene in the Middle East.
“A White House spokesman said the President’s prayers go out to those families who lost loved ones and those survivors who are clinging to life. The President promised to spare no resources to hunt down and apprehend the persons responsible for this cowardly action. Congressional leaders from both parties offered their support to the President in fighting what they characterized as today’s new war on terrorism, a war that appears to have its primary battlefield on American soil for the first time since the Civil War.”
Sounds like somebody beat Abram to the punch, Levi thought. I wonder if I should bother going to this meeting now. Levi wanted nothing more than to turn around and return to Reuben. Despite what lurked in their basement in Brooklin, he felt safely hidden away in that house.
Even though he ached to take the next exit and head the car north, the mall bombings only emphasized for Levi that he had a role to play in the drama that was unfolding on the world’s stage, a drama that portrayed a life and death and, hopefully, return to life struggle for his homeland.
He increased his speed slightly. Debra told him he would not be stopped by police so long as he didn’t exceed the speed limit by more than ten miles an hour. He did not necessarily believe that and kept his speed right at the speed limit, difficult as it was using miles per hour rather than kilometers.
What was more of a problem for him was the concept of toll roads. Israel had only one toll road, Highway 6, which its builders promised would some day stretch the entire length of the country from north to south. As with so much else in the young nation, its only toll highway was unusual, a privately financed business venture. All toll collection was electronic and automated, no stopping to chat with a toll collector while tossing a handful of coins.
Levi collected his ticket from the machine at the booth when he entered the Maine Turnpike, not quite sure what he was supposed to do with it. He did not see any way of paying any money when he got onto the highway, so he took the ticket, tossed it into the back seat and drove on.
When he’d reached the toll plaza at the southern terminus of the Maine Turnpike, shortly before the New Hampshire border, Levi stopped and handed a twenty dollar bill to the collector, assuming that would cover whatever he owed. Instead, the man asked for his card, then, seeing Levi’s confused expression, explained that he needed the card Levi received when he entered the highway. Levi rummaged in the back seat until he found it, as cars behind him honked their horns at the delay.
The toll collector took the ticket and the twenty dollar bill and handed Levi his change, adding a “welcome to America, you Canuck.” Levi had no idea what a Canuck was, but he assumed it was not a greeting.
He told himself he’d have to do better at the next toll plaza, wherever that might be. It came sooner than he’d expected. Five miles after crossing from Maine into New Hampshire a large green signed warned Hampton Tolls Autos $2.00 One Mile. Seconds later the traffic came to an abrupt halt and stretched onward around a bend in the road.
Levi spent twenty minutes inching forward the final mile to the toll plaza. He was baffled by signs over some lanes declaring EZPass ONLY and changed lanes to avoid them, staying to the far right, edging forward between two large trucks in front and behind him.
He was comforted by a large sign over the toll booth to which his lane was leading, saying All Vehicles, Change Given, Autos $2.00. Eventually, the tractor trailer in front of him accelerated out of the toll booth and Levi drove up to the toll collector. A white wooden lift gate swung down to block his exit from the booth.
Levi looked up at the toll collector, not noticing the white metal can with a glass front screwed to the wall above the collector’s head, pointed over the man’s shoulder toward the open driver’s window of cars entering the toll booth.
He handed the man two one dollar bills. The man thanked him and turned to look at the truck behind Levi.
The gate remained down. The toll collector stepped on the gate button with his right foot. The gate remained down.
“Dang,” the elderly man said. “That’s never happened before. Sorry about this.”
“No problem,” Levi said, waiting patiently, somewhat pleased that even in America machines malfunctioned. Levi leaned forward to adjust the radio. He’d lost the Portland, Maine station he’d been listening to. He didn’t know whether he was close enough to Boston to receive a station from there, but he enjoyed the country music he’d been listening to as an alternative to the news.
Just as Levi was raising his head from the radio to see whether the gate had lifted, two black SUVs came dashing from both ends of the toll plaza to screech to a halt in front of the booth where Levi was stopped, blocking his exit.
Levi reacted instinctively. He slid the gear selector into reverse and pressed the accelerator to the floor before he could even turn his head to look behind him. His head slammed back against the headrest as his rear bumper rammed into the front of the truck three feet behind him.
All four doors in both SUVs flew open and men streamed from the vehicles, each with a handgun out, leaving the doors wide open, running to surround Levi’s car.
“Put both hands out the window, sir,” one man barked at Levi, pointing his gun straight in through the still open driver’s window. Levi stared into the gun barrel and slowly took his hands from the steering wheel and held them outside the window.
A pair of steel handcuffs snapped around his wrists.
“Now get out of the vehicle, sir, slowly and carefully,” the man said, his gun never wavering from Levi’s face. The man jerked the door open. Levi slid his feet around to the pavement and wriggled from his seat without using his hands.
Another man ushered the startled toll collector from his booth. Other men directed traffic away from the booth, supervising as the truck behind Levi was backed out and directed to another toll booth.
Levi was stood against the wall of the toll booth, hands over his head, leaning forward against the wall. The man with the gun patted Levi’s body, carefully but not especially gently, not missing any spot large enough to hide a weapon, adding a particularly firm slap at Levi’s crotch.
He found Levi’s wallet and opened it, looking through the money. He spun Levi around to face him.
“Where’s your driver’s license, buddy,” he asked.
Levi answered slowly, not wanting to excite the man.
“I must have left it home,” he said, making efforts to use his best American accent. “I do that all the time.”
“Yeah, right,” the man said, calling out to another man who was looking into Levi’s car. “This guy says he left his license home.”
The man looking into the car growled at the man with the gun. “Keep your damn eyes on that guy, will you. No fuckin’ screw ups.”
“Ok, Ok,” the man with the gun replied. “I know what the fuck I’m doing here.”
The man at the car reached inside the driver’s door and pulled the trunk and hood release levers. He went to the trunk first, lifted the lid and searched inside. Not finding anything that drew his interest, he went to the hood and did the same, leaving both hood and trunk lifted. He looked inside the car, front and back, finding nothing significant.
He then walked up to Levi, removing a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. He gazed at the paper for a moment then turned to stare at Levi’s face.
He handed the paper to the other man, who was still pointing his gun at Levi. “What do you think?” he asked. “I can’t tell shit, but the computer sure shouted at us.”
The man with the gun looked alternately from the paper to Levi. “I think it’s him, I really do. Same eyes, nose. Yeah, I’d put money on it being a match.”
“One way to find out,” the other man said, turning to Levi.
“Hey buddy, your name Chaim” he pronounced it like “chain” but with an “m”, “your name’s Chaim Levi, right?”
Levi was dumbstruck. He felt a cold sweat on his forehead. How in the world could they know his name, he wondered? He was stunned. But only for a moment. He shook his head from side to side.
“What kind of name is that?” he asked. “Never heard of that guy, whoever he is.”
“Then what’s your name,” the man asked dubiously.
Levi pondered for no more than two seconds. A name, quick, he thought. OK. He and Reuben had spent hour after hour watching cable television. He was up to date on American names.
Levi looked at the man asking the questions, keeping an eye on the gun, however. He spoke carefully. “My name,” he said, “is Barney, Barney Fife.”
“Yeah, right asshole,” the questioner replied. “Don’t you move an eyebrow. Just stand there.”
Another SUV drove up behind Levi’s car, blocking it from leaving the toll booth in that direction. A man leapt from the passenger seat carrying a metal box. A small object that looked like a cylindrical microphone was attached to the box by a thick cable.
The man holding the device walked to the trunk of Levi’s car and waved the object around inside the trunk, watching a dial on the metal box while he did so. All eyes were on him. He shook his head from side to side.
He did the same under the car’s hood and again shook his head from side to side.
The man then opened the front passenger door and leaned into the car, again moving the object over the car’s interior. He pulled back from that door and opened the rear passenger-side door, leaning into the car again, again waving the object from side to side.
Suddenly he backed out of the door as if he were pulled by a horizontal bungee cord.
“Holy shit,” he shouted. “I got a hell of a hot reading on something in there.”
“Try again,” Levi’s questioner said. “I don’t want any mistakes.”
The man hesitated.
“I don’t know, boss,” he said. “Something in there is damn radioactive. I don’t know if I should be in there without protective gear.”
“No time for that,” the man, who was obviously in charge, said. He looked around the toll booth and focused on a straw broom with a long wooden handle. He tossed the broom to the man with the box, who caught it single-handedly. “Here, use this. Whatever it is, poke it out with this thing.”
The man with the box turned the broom around, holding it by the end with the straw, pointing the wooden handle into the car’s rear seat like a sword.
“Open the other rear door,” he said.
“Do it,” the supervisor said to the man with the gun. The man lowered his gun from Levi for the first time and walked to the rear door on the driver’s side, flinging the door open and leaping back.
The man with the broom poked it inside the back seat, moving the wooden handle from side to side like a hockey stick.
“Got it,” he shouted.
Two bright orange rubber gloves fell from the car’s rear seat out the door and landed on the pavement of the toll booth with a flop, lying motionless on the asphalt.
Levi groaned, remembering that he’d used those gloves to handle the bomb. He was caught. Israeli soldiers were trained to avoid capture at all costs. Israelis taken into custody by their Arab enemies were unlikely to be treated in conformance with the Geneva Convention.
Levi’s military training kicked in without conscious thought. He took in the scene in front of him. The man who’d kept his gun on Levi throughout the incident now had his back to him, having just leapt backwards to avoid the rubber gloves as they flew from the car seat. He remained facing the gloves, staring at them.
The man who had questioned Levi, too, was staring at the rubber gloves as if expecting them to speak. Levi saw the two black SUVs in front of the toll booths, doors still open where the men ran out from the cars. He could hear their engines running.
Levi lifted his right leg high in the air, then planted his foot firmly on the backside of the man with the gun. Kicking hard, Levi shoved the man forward, causing him to fall straight ahead onto the pavement, his hands landing on either side of the rubber gloves and his chest resting against them.
The man screamed as if he’d landed on hot coals. His screams drew the attention of the other men. They did not know why their fellow agent was yelling, but they recognized the fear in his voice.
Levi lowered his foot and sprinted out of the tollbooth to the SUVs. He jumped through the open driver’s door of one of the vehicles, reached in with his handcuffed hands and dropped the gear lever into drive, simultaneously stamping his foot on the gas pedal. The vehicle shot forward, the momentum slamming all four doors shut.
Levi lifted his hands to the top of the steering wheel and took control of the car. He had to get away from the highway, he knew, but there was no exit at the toll plaza.
There was, however, a pullout area to the right of the plaza, with a red brick building containing rest rooms and parking for a dozen cars. A single New Hampshire State Police cruiser was in the parking area. Behind the parking area was a chain link fence. Behind the fence was a road.
Levi turned the wheel sharply to the right, heading straight for the parking area. He would ram through the fence and escape on back roads. It was not much of a plan, he realized, but it was a plan.
The SUV jumped over the curb separating the parking area from the highway, accelerating as it headed toward the fence. Levi heard shouts from the toll plaza but he was too occupied trying to steer the car with the handcuffs on his wrists to even glance at the rearview mirror to see whether he was being pursued.
Levi saw a door swing open in the rest room building. A New Hampshire State Police trooper ran out, curious about the commotion.
The trooper’s eyes opened wide as he saw the black SUV speeding in his direction, heading straight at the chain link fence behind the rest room building. He heard shouts coming from the toll plaza. He knew the FBI was conducting an operation there, with lots of agents. As usual for the feds, of course, they hadn’t told the locals what the operation was about.
The trooper’s watch commander had been equally clueless at the morning briefing and told his men to stay away from what he called “the feebs.” “Help them if they ask for it,” he’d said, “but don’t expect them to ask.”
It was obvious to the trooper that the feds were asking for help now. He heard the shouts of “stop that car, stop it, for God’s sake don’t let him get away.”
The trooper reacted. His right hand reached down and withdrew his Glock Competition model 35 .40 caliber semiautomatic. He raised the handgun and sighted carefully down its extended barrel, focusing carefully on the point exactly between the eyes of the driver of the SUV, visible through the vehicle’s windshield, not more than thirty feet from him.
He slowly squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked and he immediately returned it to his target. He squeezed again and again and again, placing four shots within a six inch circle in the middle of the driver’s face.
Levi had the misfortune to have met the New Hampshire State Police Marksman of the Year after the trooper took his third piss of the morning, the result of too many coffee stops at the highway’s sole rest area.
The SUV continued through the chain link fence and came to a sudden stop when it slammed into a tree. The airbag deployed, but by that time Levi was dead.
The SkyFox25-News traffic helicopter circling overhead to report on the mile-long backup at the Hampton tolls caught the entire scene on tape, which was forwarded to the television studio within seconds of Chaim Levi’s last breath.