The Recruiter: A Thriller, page 1
The Recruiter: A Thriller
Ilan Arad
Copyright © 2023 Ilan Arad
All rights reserved; No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, of the author.
Translation: Lauren Rozenman
Contact: aradaviation@usa.net
Contents
Prologue
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Prologue
The topic of prostitution and its significances stirred up my mind and imagination for as long as I can remember. When I was a student in the first grades of elementary school, we studied the biblical chapter which told of the conquering of Jericho by the ancient Israeli warlord and leader, Joshua Ben Nun, and naturally we were also exposed to the tale about the two spies who were sent up into the besieged city, in order to obtain intel required for the military operation which later on proved to be a significant help in conquering the city by the army of Israel. The first time I came across the word ‘prostitute’ in the Hebrew Bible, was when I read about the two spies who found shelter in the hostile city at the home of a young woman named Rahav that the Hebrew Bible specified to be a prostitute, and who according to my understanding, in addition to the fact she gave them shelter, basic living conditions and a place to hide inside enemy territory, was also kind enough to give them from her graces which probably stemmed directly from the elements of her occupation. I believe this was the first time that someone tried to explain to me the meaning associated with the word ‘prostitute’. The explanation we received at school back then was, that a prostitute was a woman who sold her body to men for money, and I quite clearly remember that although I understood the literal meaning of the word, I didn’t truly understand what it meant. After all, how can someone sell or even lease to another for money, something that is an integral part of her?
When I got older and by then thought I understood the nature of the word, I began confronting the fact that this word, which was designed to supposedly describe a type of occupation or perhaps profession, holds within it many and much broader meanings which can also describe many traits that are accompanied by a negative connotation from a social point of view, so much so that the term ‘prostitute’ can suddenly appear in the daily social discourse even just as a curse or a derogatory term, completely detached from the context for which it was initially invented.
In modern times, many countries around the world began referring to prostitution, not only as a social behavioral phenomenon, but in constitutional and legal aspects as well. At this point it is already possible to easily distinguish the lack of unequivocal global consensus on the issue of prostitution as it exists in most countries around the world in the criminal aspect for example. By way of example, all of the countries in the modern world, without exception, relate to acts such as homicide, rape, robbery or fraud in a similar manner, meaning, they are known as criminal acts and are fixed in the public’s consciousness as wrongful acts that whoever commits them are worthy of some form of punishment, each country at its discretion. However, when it comes to prostitution, the range of opinions from the positive to the negative and visa verse is tremendous. Indeed, next to the countries which punish, in compliance with the law, prostitutes and those who consume prostitution, there is quite a significant number of modern countries in which prostitution is not defined as a problematic, wrongful or God forbid a felony or criminal act, which should be followed by some type of punishment.
Unlike prostitution as an occupation or state of being that the definition and branding of which is controversial and varies by nature from one country to another, the issue of women trafficking is in my opinion an infuriating topic which is one of the most grave and vicious crimes the human race could have invented. Upon an in-depth research into the roots and essence of this heinous crime of women trafficking, traditionally, the practice of prostitution almost always accompanies it.
However, in this case, that same prostitution is being carried out as an act of coercion and therefore, in my view, the crime is clear, severe and inexcusable.
Although I am quite convinced that no mother or father who are mentally sound will not be pleased with coming to terms with the fact that their daughter chose the profession of prostitution as her profession of choice in her life, nonetheless, it’s a pretty obvious fact of life that many women around the world voluntarily and out of their own free will, engage in this profession known by many around the world as the “oldest profession in the world.” During my curious aspiration to research the roots of prostitution which was initially portrayed in my own private world of imagery as forced, contemptible, forlorn, demeaning, abusing, objectifying women and many other negative adjectives, I must point out that to my surprise, I found much larger and wider layers of prostitution to be of a completely different kind.
I met various women from high socio-economic strata, respectable and even well known, who engaged in the past or even do so today, in par excellence prostitution as a profession and occupation, a decision made by choice and complete awareness, free and clear of any external pressures.
In one particular case, which occurred a few years ago and left quite an impact on me, I once received from a friend who knew the subject interested me, a phone number of an escort who was considered prestigious in the field, and we arranged to meet discretely at a respectable well-known hotel located on the beach of Herzliya Pituach. We met in the luxurious lobby of the hotel where I handed her the envelope containing the sum of money she requested when we spoke on the phone, and she on her part hurried to ask me the number of the room I booked for the time we were about to spend with each other, since in this type of activity, it was unacceptable to openly go up to the room together. I explained to her that I wasn’t interested in going up to the room, but that I would rather interview her discretely about her occupation. She was quite taken by the fact that a normal man, who seemed healthy and of sound mind, and who has just paid her quite a large sum of money, is not interested in the sexual intercourse she was willing to provide in return, but would rather to sit and talk. She was amused by the idea, and immediately willingly agreed to talk to me and even prolong the conversation beyond the time set by her for the purpose of the usual activity she makes a living from. At that meeting she told me she was studying law at Tel Aviv University and plans to specialize in accounting later on.
This beautiful and attractive girl turned out to be exceptionally intelligent and my dialogue with her, although costing me quite a large sum of money, was worth every Shekel I paid her since she was riveting and much more educational than the learned lectures of wise, well-known professors and lecturers. Over the course of our conversation, I heard exceptional details and stories which only strengthened the feeling in me, that the world of prostitution known to us at an official level, holds additional, vast, deep and hidden layers, that from understandable reasons no one has the courage to talk or write about them, and so naturally, they are not revealed and are mostly unknown to the public. In the private journey I conducted for myself, I encountered many women who told me they make a living from prostitution for years, but they are doing so in hiding, since the modern society in which they live and function on a daily basis, failed to learn or accept into it women that prostitution is the name of their professional occupation.
I have met women who told me they stumbled onto the profession of prostitution at a young age, and it is currently the only occupation they believe can earn them a living, and I have also met women who told me they engage in prostitution as a type of payback to the chauvinistic male world which harmed them at a certain point in their lives. I have encountered women who told me that prostitution creates a sense of supremacy in them over the misery of the dependent man who desperately requires sexual services. I met women who told me they are addicted to various sexual acts, and if that was the case, then they may as well enjoy the financial gain from it. I have heard various and different stories that perhaps I will write about one of these days as well.
I presume that most of us are well aware of the well-known fact that large and reputable organizations around the world, such as the intelligence services of countries, large economic companies or various corporations, officially employ normative, enlightened, cultural, educated women who in most cases have a family and a widespread social reputation, that one of the specific requirements in the frame of their employment, is an activity technique which is clearly and utterly defined as par-excellence prostitution. It is exactly that same basic and primal prostitution that its effective action is so powerful and impressing for bringing about the desired outcome, which leaves no doubt that these institutionalized organizations will make every extensive tactical and strategic use of in any field of activity possible. I have also met a few women who are employed accordingly, but for understandable reasons, I will not be able to reveal their form of activity here.
One way or another, and despite such or other objections to the phenomenon, especially in the popular and widespread public opinion which represents the “main stream” in the social discourse, it is a little hard to contradict the existing fact that prostitution around the world between adult people who are free and liable for their actions, is mostly an unavoidable symbiosis among the human race, and its continued natural existence as well as its activity in the more or less steady form over the years of human existence on this planet, only reinforces this assumption for me.
Is there an insight or statement that I am bringing to you in this book? I have no clear answer to this question. As far as my private set of values is concerned, one must all out fight and battle any prostitution which may lead in some form to forced intercourse which is not performed by anyone who takes part in it out of free will and choice. And what about all the rest? Does engagement in prostitution can and should be considered a crime? Do the daily consumers of prostitution on street corners, cars, the open fields, private homes, brothels or fancy hotels are criminals who should be punished according to some form of a governmental law? These questions should, or could be answered in my view by each and every one of us according to belief and world view…
I wish you all an enjoyable and enriching reading.
***
Despite being fully aware of the fact that in the field of prostitution there are also male service providers, this time I refer to prostitution as an element provided only by women to men in exchange for some form of material payment called in the Bible ‘prostitution fee,’ that although literally means payment for seemingly anything, however the Hebrew Bible specifies this payment as receiving a fee for sexual services given to a man by a woman.
1
David Beit Halachmi stretched his neck in an attempt to focus his gaze in between the large and thick Bougainvillea bushes in which he was hiding, in order to see better. He wiped his forehead with his left hand, trying to clear his eye sockets from the rainwater. After a few minutes of watching what was happening in front of him, he felt his blood throbbing in his temples, threatening to blow up his head from the inside. He moved a small leafy branch which blocked his view a little, and hissed a juicy curse in Arabic when the movement of the branch aside caused part of the big bush to sway, and to shower his head with cold and wet drops of water.
He was a handsome man, short, at the end of his thirties, with an athletic built and hair which began to turn a little gray on the sides. David didn’t like to dress too elegantly, and he was now sporting a pair of dark blue jeans, a gray golf shirt, the top part of which tightly wrapped around his neck, and a thin black leather coat which emphasized his strong shoulders and thin waist. The green, wet and thick bush in which he chose to hide within a small space clear of branches while kneeling on the moist ground, was growing inside a yard of a condominium randomly selected and which was located at the end of Ibn Gabirol Street in Tel Aviv, not far from the intersection of Yehuda Halevi, Karlibach, Laskov and Marmorek streets, which constitute the southern end of one of the central longitude streets of the big city. A few minutes earlier, as he stood there embarrassed at the center of the city sidewalk bustling with pedestrians, he contemplated for a long while whether he was taking the obsessive surveillance actions too far, but after a few seconds, drawing some more self-confidence from the wig on his head and the fake beard he had on his face topped by a pair of eyeglasses at a cost of a round thin frame and a see-through glass that had no optical purpose, he hurried to return to his initial intention. Carefully looking to the sides ensuring there are no nearby onlookers observing his actions, without any hesitation, and with an unstoppable burst of determination, he jumped into the huge bush he selected, his mind drained from thoughts or concerns about getting caught red-handed by someone he knows or a passer-by who may see his theatrical display a bit odd. He looked at his left-hand wrist, pulled up his coat sleeve and with his right-hand revealed part of the diving watch with its illuminated dials that was on his water soaked arm, straining his eyes to understand the geometrical placement of the dials. When he wasn’t able decipher the time, he clenched his mouth silently protesting the fact that soon he will be crossing threshold of his fortieth year, and that his short-range vision has deteriorated to less than fifty centimeters in the last two years. His right hand probed the inner pocket of his coat pulling out his mobile phone, and with his available thumb he pressed on the round on button which illuminated the digital screen in a bluish light, happily noticing that he could easily see the relatively large figures displaying the time of 22:30. The nearly complete darkness he was in gave him some form of confidence, especially when several different people who looked like tenants of the building passed not far from him on their way into the building or out of the building into the well-lit and busy street without paying any attention to his presence. He tried to maintain complete silence and stillness, as well as made sure his entire body was hidden within the large bush. His piercing gaze did not stray from the long-haired feminine figure who was sitting in the coffee shop that had a huge lit sign reading “Emek Ha’ela Café” at the entrance. The bustling coffee shop was situated about sixty meters from the bush in which he was hiding on the south-west side of the square, and was lit by dozens of light bulbs that from afar looked to him like a bunch of birthday candles on a cake. The coffee shop with its current name was unfamiliar to him, and he pondered about the surprising fact that there are coffee shops in Tel Aviv, the names of which he is seeing for the first time, and wondered when it was opened or whether it will succeed commercially or fall like many other coffee shops which popped up in the streets of Tel Aviv like mushrooms after the rain, but did not survive for long financially.
The weird and original names of the coffee shops around the city always sparked his imagination, and the fact he was a movie director caused him to now try and understand what exactly that business owner had in mind when he decided to give the coffee shop the ancient name of a valley located south to the town of Beit Shemesh. As one of those people whose first name is conceptually linked to their surname, David Beit Halachmi now remembered that that same “Ha’ela Valley” which was mentioned in a well-known story in the Bible, was also linked to his first name, which was the name of the most well-known king of Israel, as well as to his family name which pointed out to the birthplace of that same biblical king.
Her long black hair was bundled at the top in a kind of elegant bump, and she sat with her back to him at a small table for two next to a large glass window facing the sidewalk, which was now wide open. He suddenly felt certain calm while his gaze locked on the curves of her body, her long hair and the profile of her face, which was exposed to him from the side each time she turned her head to the left as if looking for a hidden target in the bustling street filled with cars and pedestrians. However, a split second later, as he turned his look to her date partner, he once again felt his anger rising from the pit of his stomach to his chest heaving with excitement the source of which he could not explain. He turned to check out the man sitting in front of her at the small table for two. With his faced turned to him, he was able to look at him more attentively. To David he seemed to have a conspicuously large body, an unfamiliar face, and he was wearing dark archaic attire. He resented the fact that it looked as if the stranger’s piercing gaze did not leave her face for a second. The large man kept silent for most of their conversation, and to David it looked as if she was the one doing most of the talking. At times her speech was accompanied by hand gestures and turning her head to the right and left, which caused her long hair to swerve from side to side in a way which reminded him why he fell desperately in love with her a while ago, and right now he was unable to assess how long ago it was. For a moment he submerged himself into a fantasy in which he rises up decisively, crosses the busy street filled with cars charging in both directions in three lanes, walks into the tranquil coffee shop fully confident and focused, while he turns without hesitation to the couple sitting next to the large window, and without any warning forcefully grabbing the neck of the overgrown giant, while his fisted right hand moves like lightning in an unstoppable lower punch straight to his chin. Years of Judo training integrated with the implementation of Krav Maga techniques arriving at their successful realization after a lower, professional, focused and precise blow to the chin of the stranger. The shouting and commotion created around him immediately after the crushing blow to the tall man, who was now lying on the floor with is face bleeding, together with a situation in which several random quick to respond men sitting at the coffee shop, rush to grab him tightly trying to hold him back and calm him down, mixed with the profile of her mesmerizing face looking at him every now and again from beyond the small fiasco, caused him to smile slightly as he rushed to turn to reality, convincing himself that the experience he just imagined, although plausible in terms of his abilities and skills, and which could even bring instant gratification, is probably pointless, and without a doubt, in terms of future success, it will reshuffle the cards, closing the doors he believes were still open to him at this stage. He turned to focus on her again, when suddenly he noticed she was taking a small makeup mirror out of her purse, and while holding it in her right hand to her face, her left hand, which he could see clearly, she was gently touching her cheek. Seemingly, a normal move of a women who is seeking to fix or perhaps clean something on her face, however, David knew this movement well, and a second later, after his heart skipped a beat while a precise ray of light, probably caught by one of the lights from a coffee shop dozens of meters away, was sent straight from her compact mirror, into his eyes temporarily blinding his right eye. “Is this a coincidence?” He instantly asked himself, “or is she somehow mystically aware of the fact he is watching her now from hiding? Did she just try to convey a sophisticated message to him? A warning?” he thought to himself as he instinctively hunched inside the thick bush. He immediately straightened up after realizing there’s no chance, not even one in a million, that she would be aware of his intentions, actions, or God forbid, his whereabouts at this moment.
