Read Online Murder in Jerusalem by Batya Gur - Free Book Online

off the heating? It’s freezing in here.”
    â€œNiva!” shouted Zivia, one of the assistant producers. “We don’t have a studio in Tel Aviv. Did you hear me?”
    David Shalit called out to Erez, “You want the text for your lead? You’re going to have to write it yourself.”
    â€œOh come on, give it to me now and I’ll write it down,” Erez said.
    â€œI don’t want to now,” said David Shalit defiantly. As he turned his head he blinked his small blue eyes—which appeared even smaller behind the thick lenses of his eyeglasses—and caught the glance of Eliahu Lutafi, the correspondent for environmental affairs. Lutafi had been around for years, and his hesitant speech gave him an air of helplessness, which invariably brought out a certain malaise in Zadik, a feeling of guilt for not having promoted him all these years. “Did you want something from me, Eliahu?” David Shalit asked.
    â€œNo, nothing. I mean, that is, if…if you’re not giving him the lead just now, if you’re free for a minute, I’d like you to see the report I’ve prepared on rubbish on the Tel Aviv shoreline,” Eliahu Lutafi requested. “I could use some feedback.”
    Niva picked up the receiver. “It’s Liat on the line, she’s having trouble with the satellite, I can’t—”
    â€œâ€˜A stinking mess like this is inhuman,’” Erez read aloud. “It’s from the text of the report on garbage,” he explained to Zadik.
    Zadik pored over the new page that Niva had handed him. “Miri,” he called out without looking up, “have you gone over this yet? There’re no markings to indicate you’ve been over this.”
    The language editor rose heavily from her place and went over to Zadik.
    â€œThis text,” Zadik said, incredulous, “is even more subversive than last night’s. You people can’t talk that way about the Likud World Congress.” But Miri did not hear the end of Zadik’s sentence, because at that very moment the telephone next to which she was standing rang and Benizri, who was positioned next to another phone and rolling his eyes to the ceiling in dramatic desperation, was talking into the mouthpiece as if to a deaf person or an idiot. “I won’t wink at you, I’ll simply adjust my tie—” But the rest of his sentence was obscured by Niva, who was shouting, “Hey, wait a minute, what’s going on here? Look!” Something in her tone caused everyone to fall silent and look toward the monitors on the wall. Doors to the adjacent rooms opened, and Tzippi, Zivia, and Liat, the assistant producers, stood watching, along with Irit, an intern with the foreign correspondents.
    Tamari, the graphic artist, was standing in the doorway to the graphics room. “On Channel Two they’re saying there are some terrorists in the tunnels on the Jerusalem–Etzion Bloc road,” she said.
    â€œI heard they’ve taken a hostage,” said Ye’elah, the cultural affairs reporter who had just rushed in, breathless, to the newsroom.
    Everyone in the room was staring at the monitors: not their own Channel One, which was showing a studio with an interviewer and two guests—an older man and a young woman—but rather the competition, Channel Two, which was showing a reporter in a military parka with a microphone, interviewing a policeman.
    Hefetz slapped his thighs in anger. “Channel Two beat us to it again,” he complained aloud.
    No one moved to turn up the volume. At the bottom of the screen there was a caption: SUPERINTENDENT MOLCHO. “Where is this? What’s going on?” Niva asked, agitated.
    â€œCan’t you see? Look, it’s the Jerusalem–Etzion Bloc road,” David Shalit said impatiently.
    â€œSo, what’s happening there?” Aviva asked. The caption now read, ENTRANCE TO THE TUNNEL