a matter of seconds the two would intersect.
The waiter put down his tray.
The crowd was still applauding. Lev was shaking hands as he slowly moved toward the exit. The Israeli guards in front were trying to clear a path. Lev continued to smile and shake hands. “Thank you. Toda rabba. Thank you.”
The waiter’s left hand slowly moved inside his jacket. He was now five feet from the general. I could clearly make out the shine on his forehead and upper lip. His eyes didn’t waver from the guest of honor.
The guards were looking the wrong way.
I moved a heavy-set man to the side as I stepped forward. From behind me I heard him say, “Well excuse me.”
The Israeli was probably wearing Kevlar or something similar under his frilly shirt, but it wouldn’t matter. The bulletproof vest wasn’t covering his head.
The entourage passed right in front of the waiter, the bodyguards looking but not seeing. The boy’s left hand came out of his jacket holding a large caliber automatic. It looked like a Beretta. For a brief moment he pointed the gun at the ground as if it were too heavy for him. I took the final step toward him. As his hand came up I grabbed it and twisted it sharply, up and back. Even as I heard the sharp crack of wrist bones, I swept his left foot out from under him.
As he collapsed to the floor, I stepped back and shouted, “Gun!”
2
For a very long moment the waiter didn’t move. He just lay there on his back, the unfired automatic beside him. The shock of being thrown to the floor momentarily stunned him. His eyes had gone wide when I swept out his feet, but now they came back to life. I knew he was in pain, but I also knew he must’ve been pretty pumped up, either on drugs, pure adrenalin, or both.
In another second he began to get up, but in that second the Shin Bet agents were on him. The tall, thin agent who had been standing beside General Lev on the way out, kicked the waiter’s left knee from behind, forcing him to collapse. His partner, the agent who had been near the dais, simultaneously shoved him over backward onto the floor, and pinned a knee into his gut. Before the waiter could let out a gasp, the agent pressed the barrel of his own automatic into the boy’s forehead. The young waiter grimaced in pain.
“Don’t move,” the Israeli said with a slight accent.
I looked up to see what else was happening. When the first two Shin Bet agents knocked the waiter to the floor, three other agents surrounded the guest of honor and hustled him unceremoniously out of the room. He disappeared, enveloped by his guards, out the front double doors. I had no doubt there was a bulletproof car waiting for him.
In seconds, Baltimore police and Israeli security sealed the exits. They needed to find out what was going on and no one in the hall would leave until they had a handle on what had just happened.
Who was the waiter? Was he working alone? Was he a religious fanatic? Did someone put him up to this? He was so young. Was he a paid assassin?
Some questions, of course, would wait for a private interrogation, but the critical one for now — was he acting alone — had to be answered before the crowd dispersed. Neither the Americans nor the Israelis wanted to let the waiter’s partner — if there was one — walk out with everyone else.
I looked around the room to see how the crowd was reacting. For the most part, there was silence as dapper men and elegant women just watched. A camera crew from Channel 13 — a cameraman and a well turned-out woman reporter — were recording the action. They were frantically hustling to get shots...some of the crowd and some of the police and security agents doing their work. Were they filming when I broke the waiter’s wrist? Maybe they were framed on the general as he was leaving and I could be seen with the waiter in the background. That’s not what I needed...to be immortalized on video... my visage played and replayed all over the world.
Maybe the Israelis and the Baltimore police wouldn’t check the camera. Maybe there was nothing to worry about.
Yeah, right.
The news crew weaved their way through the guests toward the Israelis pinning the waiter to the ground. They were, at most, six feet from me and getting ready to set up a camera shot. The reporter, probably about thirty with big blonde hair set off against a black evening dress, stood facing the camera with the suspect on the floor in the background behind her. The cameraman raised his camera and looked through the eyepiece.
“Not now, Miss Turner.” A silver-haired plain-clothed police officer came over, his badge hanging from the breast pocket of his sport coat. He began escorting her away from the trio on the floor and handed her over to a uniformed officer.
“Wait.” The senior Israeli agent, the older man with stylish wire rimmed glasses, stepped in. He turned to the reporter. “Were you filming when the general was leaving?”
The cameraman, a tall, skinny man with sandy-colored straight hair, answered: “Not the whole thing. I got his speech and then a few seconds of him coming through the crowd.”
“Play it back for him, Bobby,” the woman reporter said.
The senior Israeli interrupted, “Do you have a monitor we could use?”
“I’ve got an 11 inch in the van,” Bobby put in. “Be better than trying to see through the viewfinder.”
The plain-clothed cop flicked a thumb toward the door. “Get it. And find a quiet place to look at it.” He turned to a black officer standing beside him. “James, go with this guy.”
The officer and the cameraman moved toward the doors.
I watched them exit. Well, they were going to check the tape, and I’d find out soon enough if I were on that video. If the police or the Shin Bet noticed me, I wouldn’t be hard to find in this closed room.
When I turned back to the scene in front of me, the Israelis were pulling the waiter upright. Another officer stepped in, handcuffs open. The crowd around them watched in silence. While the first Israeli kept his automatic pressed into the waiter’s forehead, the cop spoke to the boy, “Put your right hand behind your back.” He did as he was told. The officer locked the handcuff into place around his right wrist. “Now your other hand.” The boy complied.
As the officer began to wrap the other handcuff around the waiter’s hand, the waiter screamed in pain. I smiled to myself in satisfaction. His wrist was broken for sure. They snapped on the handcuff despite his howls and escorted him away, not being particularly mindful of his injury. I hope they questioned him before some sensitive doctor gave him a pain killer. He’d be less likely to be forthcoming if he were feeling just fine.
In the minutes that followed, the audience began to relax. Some people sat conversing at tables, while others milled about the hall. The volume had definitely come up in the room.
I located a virgin piece of chocolate cake and headed back to my seat with Alli.
“Okay,” Alli said as I sat in my seat, “what did you do?”
“I took another piece of cake.”
“Not that. You know what I mean.”
“What?” I asked, shoving a fork-full into my mouth.
“You’re
