Selected Detective
SECRET OPERATION ORDER

Har-Zion wrapped the tefillah leather strap counterclockwise around the biceps on his left arm and continued all the way down around his glove-covered fingers, ensuring that the box with the sacred text in it is placed completely attached near its heart.by law, the biceps and hands must be bare, uncovered. That is what is written in the Torah. However, with the broken flesh, he did not feel comfortable showing himself, and had tried to obtain the convenience of the Rabbi allowing the relevant parts of his body to remain closed.

He finished wrapping seven twists and attached the second tefillah to his forehead, placing the box of the Bible in the middle between his eyes; then, with a nod to Avi as if to say “Wait for me”, put the box of the Bible in the middle between his two eyes; then, with a nod to Avi as if to say Wait for me, he lifted the prayer scarf to his shoulder and began to step across the open field towards ha Kotel Ha-ma’aravi, the Western Wall, the last sign of the ancient Temple, the holiest site in the Jewish world. Just a moment since the last time he was here, over a week. Actually he wants to be able to come more often, if necessary every day, but the problem is not time.

Tonight, he has set the time. There are a number of things that will not be safe to delegate.

He approached the Wall and placed himself at the left end, staring at the twenty-meter-high giant stone block, like an elaborate gambling table board, every nook and cranny of the lower section was filled with pieces of paper in the fold containing prayers and written requests from previous visitors. During the day, the area will be crowded, with tourists in temporary artificial Yarmulkes, Haredi Jews in suits and black hats, a group of boys displaying the Mitzvah ceremony. Now, aside from himself and the Hasidic devotee himself to his right who was bending back and forth like a crow was pecking. The wall was completely abandoned. He looked around, then placed his palm on the marked stone, lowered his head and began to echo the shema.

“Like a story that became life.” That's how his brother Benjamin explained the Wall when the two first came here many years ago. “Like something outside book or song.” The image was attached to Har-Zion, elaborating and embellishing itself all the time up until now, as he stood under the tower of creamy yellow stone, he felt himself in presence, not something dead and lifeless, a hardened relic of a long-forgotten world, but rather something vibrating, alive and relevant.

The voice. That's how he thinks about it. A deep and resounding voice sings for him from the void: of the things that once upon a time there were Kings and Prophets, Ark and menorah, Moses and David and Solomon and Ezra but also, more importantly, about the thing that has not yet come: The Servant of God who will gather together once again, the rebuilt Temple, the recreated Holy Lamp and filled with light. The Wailing Wall, as some call it, those who come here to weep, tugging at his hair and fixated on banishment and loss for centuries. Not for Har - Zion. To him it was a Singing Wall, not a place of pain and remembrance, but of hope and joy and expectation; a touchable reminder that God is with them, that they are not forsaken, that they are not forsaken, that they are His chosen people, more glorious than others.

That they will survive, just as the Wall survives, whatever man and nature do to it.

He continued to chant praise, the words in his prayer gliding and whirling in the musical hum of his soft voice, before finally reaching the end and returning to silence. At the same time, a tall, broad-shouldered person approached him, placing himself in the shade on the left side of the Wall so that his face was swallowed by darkness. Hasid the loner is gone now, so the two are now completely alone.

“You're late,” says Har - Zion. His voice was very low and almost inaudible. In the shadow, the man marginalized himself deeper, muttering apologetically.

Har-Zion reached into his pocket and pulled out a small fold of paper which he then inserted into the cavity between two blocks of stone building.

“All details are there. The boy's name, the address. Just follow the instructions. Later will...”.

Five minutes later, when the young soldier finished praying and left, the man reached out to the wall, pulled a folded sheet of paper from a crack in the wall and slipped it into his pants pocket.

STRANDED

Layla woke up at five in the morning and, leaving Topping still asleep, slowly collected her belongings, tiptoed from the bedroom and left the house.

Layla is not sure why she slept with him. He was a good friend smart, handsome, considerate and relationship*** was great, among the best he had ever experienced. Apart from that, he felt not fully involved and enjoyed the experience earlier, making it easy to let it happen and disappear into his short love game.

In fact, when he was in a position above Topping's body, his groin rubbed against Topping's groin, beads of passionate sweat flowing down his small, toned chest, the other part of him, the biggest part, the biggest part, remain detached, locked in his own mind, turned to what he had heard, what had happened in the Middle East, he said, as if his body was a dead vehicle that had been programmed into “can drive itself” while he, his pilot, sat inside and focused on something entirely separate.

He closed the front door and stepped onto an empty street, rows of neat Victorian houses lined up on either side, the surrounding nature grey and calm, no longer dark but yet also light, the land belongs to no one between night and dawn.

He had called Jean-Michel Dupont, an acquaintance of Topping's in Toulouse, the night before, explaining that he was interested in Dieter Hoth and the excavations he was doing in Castelombres.

They agreed to meet at his antique shop at 1:30 p.m., and he now booked a BA flight at 10 a.m., from Heathrow. Briefly a thought struck him that with so much free time available, he was able to walk to Grantchester, looking at the old house where he lived after his father's death. Although both of her grandparents had long since died, her mother, as far as she was concerned, remained there with her second husband. A law officer in a higher court. Or is he a bank official? Layla is uncertain. He has not spoken to her since her mother remarried six years ago, unable to forgive what she considers a terrible betrayal of her father's memory.

Yes, he thought, it would be nice to see the old house again, with its moss-covered roof and a garden full of plum and apple trees, far from the dust and horror Palestine might encounter. He began to cross the road, towards a public walking path which, if his memory was still correct, would lead to a meadow that lay on the edge of the eastern city. After a few meters, he stopped and, with a head bob as if to say “For what?” he turned around and walked in the opposite direction, towards the station.

Tears welled up in his eyes because he felt how alone he was in this world, feeling that in the abandoned and no one else in this world that he felt to have blood called Family.