Baksheesh (Bribes)
Page 30
S-56 Russian World War II Submarine. S-56 was a Stalinets-class submarine of the Soviet Navy. Her keel was laid down by Dalzavod in Vladivostok on 24 November 1936. She was launched on 25 December 1939 and commissioned on 20 October 1941 in the Pacific Fleet. During World War II, the submarine was under the command of Captain Grigori Shchedrin and was moved from the Pacific Fleet to the Northern fleet across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans via the Panama Canal. About 840 tons, this sub carries 12 torpedoes, 6 torpedo tubes, has a mounted 100mm machine gun and a 45mm cannon on its deck. Now decommissioned.
safe house. Apartment or house used covertly for base of operations
sayan. A helper for the Mossad. (plural: sayanim.)
Shabak. Also known as GSS or Shin Bet; responsible for internal security and defense of Israeli installations abroad, including embassies, consulates, and other organizations.
slick. Hiding place for documents.
souk. A Middle Eastern marketplace, usually an open-air farmer’s market that also sells craft items.
STF. See Liquid armor.
Suitcase nuke. A tactical nuclear weapon which uses, or is portable enough that it could use, a suitcase as its delivery method. Thus far, only the United States and the Soviet Union/Russian Federation are known to have possessed nuclear weapons programs developed and funded well enough to manufacture miniaturized nuclear weapons.
surveillance detection route. A method used by covert agents, walking back and forth several city blocks, looking in the reflective surfaces to discern if they are being followed.
SWIFT. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, a European agency that sets standards for global financial messages used by banks for near-real-time settlement of electronic funds transfers. The transaction types (debit memo, credit memo, etc.) have numbers to identify them; e.g., MT100 is a credit memo sent by one bank to another to indicate payment via real-time book entry.
Tze’elim. Israel’s Urban Warfare Training Center in the Negev Desert.
Va’adet Rashei Hasherutim. The committee of the heads of service in Israel’s intelligence community. Mossad is a prime member.
Vory. Russian criminal brotherhood, compatriots.
Wahhabi. Puritan doctrine of Islam, founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) in Saudi Arabia.
wash. Recycling of a valid passport obtained by theft or purchase.
yahalom. A covert computer hacker, or cybercriminal working for the Mossad’s Yahalomin unit.
zombie patriot. A person with a terminal disease who decides to sacrifice his or her life to earn money that might benefit loved ones.
Appendix A: Character List for the Spies Lie series (alphabetical)
Harry Aimes. An aging retiree, dying of cancer but lacking medical insurance coverage. Facing a death that will leave his aging wife homeless, he decides to become a “zombie patriot.”
Lee Ainsley. Director of Information Security at Gilbert Greenfield’s unnamed intelligence service in Washington, DC. He has a crush on Cassandra Sashakovich.
Hazret Ali. Tribal leader in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.
Yigdal Ben-Levy. Call-sign “Emah” or Mother. Ben-Levy is the Associate Director of the Mossad, a spymaster who also runs liaison between them and Aman. Ben-Levy runs the dirtiest black ops missions. His niece, Aviva Bushovsky, died one year ago.
Elizabeth Rochelle Brown. Call-sign Butterfly. Hacker living in Woodbine, Iowa. Self-proclaimed as the best hacker on earth. William Wing claims the same thing about himself.
Aviva Bushovsky. Call-sign Sweetthing, alias Lisa Gabriel. Under cover, she became engaged to Jon Sommers. She was a Mossad bat leveyha, niece of Yigdal Ben-Levy. Aviva died in a car bomb set in the parking garage in Herzliyya where she’d left her car to meet Ruth Cohen for lunch.
Lieutenant Benjamin Chan. A direct report to Xian Wing, Benjamin’s mother was English, and hence his Western first name.
Norman Cisco. Currency Custodian working at the Federal Reserve Bank in Manhattan.
Ruth Cohen. Call-sign Toots, alias Ruth DeWitt. Cohen rose through the Mossad’s ranks from bat leveyha (honey pot) to kidon (assassin) to katsa (case officer), and became Station Chief, Berlin, Germany. Years ago, she and Jon Sommers were lovers.
Sir Charles Crane. Call sign Mastercollector, a British spymaster at MI-6, whose career was almost terminated by Jon Sommers’ parents, Abel and Natasha Sommerstein.
Michael Drapoff. A kidon reporting to Yigdal Ben-Levy.
Lester Dushov. A katsa reporting to Yigdal Ben-Levy.
Simon Fiernen. A cover identity for Yigdal Ben-Levy.
Bob Gault. Call-sign Snakecharmer, works as a case officer at Gilbert Greenfield’s unnamed intelligence service in Washington, DC. Gault is overweight and unpromotable, but he is also an effective operative.
Oscar Gilead. Director of the Mossad, to whom Yigdal Ben-Levy reports.
Major Ralph Giondella. American Tactics Commander, hired by Avram Shimmel for Kravgruppe, a mercenary organization.
Gilbert Greenfield. Director in Charge of an intelligence agency in Washington DC so secret that it is “unnamed.” Aliases include Herr Flouber and Ellbert E. Friend.
Abdul Hassain. Abdul was hired by Pesi Houmaz to torture and murder Cassandra Sashakovich in Riyadh after first determining if she had learned of the Houmaz brothers plans to attach the United States. He raped and impregnated her, before Cassandra was able to kill him in self-defense.
Carl Hernandes. Appointed Vice President by President Amos Mastiff.
Judy Hernandez. A personal trainer working at the YMCA in Manhattan, where she met Cassandra Sashakovich. Briefly, they were lovers. When Cassandra founded the Swiftshadow Consulting Group, she hired Judy as its Office Manager.
Achmed Houmaz. Youngest of the brothers, Achmed was left to run Arab Oil Corporation after Tariq was disowned by their father and Pesi followed Tariq from the family. Achmed resides in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Pesi Houmaz. Second in command of a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot group headquartered at its training facility near Upper Pachir, Afghanistan. Pesi is the brother of Tariq Houmaz. Pesi resides in Saudi Arabia.
Tariq Houmaz. Leader of Muslim Brotherhood offshoot terrorism group, located near Upper Pachir, Afghanistan.
Amos Mastoff. Elected Vice President of the United States, but when the President Elect is assassinated the day after the election, he becomes the President Elect.
Maulvi Muhammed Khalis. Hazret Ali’s mullah, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.
Nomi Klein. Cobbler (document forger) working for the Mossad in the South Bronx, New York.
Misha Kovich. Cassandra Sashakovich’s uncle and Kiril Sashakovich’s brother. Worked for the KGB until the fall of the Soviet Union, then worked for the Russian Mafiya transporting weapons and money between Moscow and Vladivostok.
Lily Lee. A girlfriend of William Wing, she lives in Hong Kong. She is also a call girl and her father owns an upscale restaurant, Star Luk restaurant in Hong Kong’s harbor.
Major Jacques LeFleur. French North African Battle Operations Specialist, hired by Avram Shimmel for Kravgruppe, a mercenary organization.
Clyde MacIntosh. Case officer, MI-6, reporting to Sir Charles Crane.
Adam Mahee. Stanford University adjunct faculty, project manager and contractor, Silicon Valley.
Sharon Marconi. Louis Stepponi’s girlfriend, who is, like Louis, a professional assassin.
Debra McCandless. Treasurer of Stillwater Technologies, Inc., a Silicon Valley chipset developer in San Jose, California.
Mark McDougal. Director, unnamed intelligence agency, Washington, DC. McDougal is Bob Gault and Cassandra Sashakovich’s boss. McDougal reports to Gilbert Greenfield, who runs an agency so secret that it is “unnamed.”
Major Alister McTavish. British Tactics Commander, hired as a mercenary by Major Avram Shimmel.
Samuel Meyer. Call-sign Uncle Sam. Associate Director of the Mossad and liaison to Aman, successor to Yig
dal Ben-Levy. Meyer graduated from Harvard Law School.
Vladimir Pushkin. President of Russia. Brother of Nikita Tobelov, head of Russian Mafiya’s Eastern District, in Vladivostok
Shula Ries. Call-sign Viper, Mossad kidon who reports to Yigdal Ben-Levy. Ries is more than just a honeypot for the Mossad. She is lethal with any weapon and has no conscience.
Lev Robinson. A Ness Ziona scientist who works on Bug-Lok, and was turned into a mole by Sir Charles Crane, an MI-6 spymaster.
Cassandra Sashakovich. Call-sign Swiftshadow, Multiple aliases, including Chandra Paklorri, Chrissie Card, Darla Kidon, Denise Hardcastle, Susan Blumenthal, Elaine Teman, and Emily Fishcallow. Former NOC and hacker at Gilbert Greenfield’s unnamed intelligence service in Washington, DC. She has gone black, outed by a mole within the agency, and was hunted by the Houmaz family.
Kiril Sashakovich. Cassandra’s father, professor of economics, Stanford University, and former econometric planner for the now defunct Soviet Union.
Natasha Sashakovich.Cassandra’s mother, member of the Half Moon Bay, California city council, and former case officer for the KGB.
Gunda Schlein. Finance Manager, Dreitsbank, Munich. Schlein’s brother is held by MI-6 to compel her to spy on Jon Sommers. But Sommers has also tried to double her.
Dr. Henry Sheldorf. High-priced Manhattan plastic surgeon.
Avram Shimmel. Call-sign Clearcut, mercenary, former major in the IDF, and later, a Mossad kidon. Shimmel is 6'7” and a wall of muscle, but he also was one of the IDF’s most gifted tacticians. His pregnant wife and young daughter were killed by a car bomb set by Tariq Houmaz. Later, he founded Kravgruppe, a mercenary organization. Now, he works with Cassandra Sashakovich at The Swiftshadow Group.
Ann Silbey Sashakovich. Homeless teenager living in the tunnels under Manhattan, adopted by Cassandra Sashakovich. Ann is taught computer hacking by William Wing and weapons by Lee Ainsley.
Major Dmitri Sokol. SVR covert operative specializing in assassinations designed to look like death by natural causes.
Jon Sommers. Call-sign Quicksilver, aka Friedrich Stamphil. Mossad katsa working for Ruth Cohen. Jon was recruited by Yigdal Ben-Levy after Jon’s fiancée, Lisa Gabriel, died in a car bombing.
Abel Sommerstein. Jon Sommers’s father.
Natasha Sommerstein. Jon Sommers’s mother.
Sandhia Sorab. Funds Transfer Repair Station Specialist at the Bank of Trade, Karachi, Pakistan, recruited as an asset by Jon Sommers.
Louis Stepponi. A professional assassin.
Herr Rickard Stossler. A cover identity for Yigdal Ben-Levy.
Shimon Tennenbaum. A Mossad kidon who works for Yigdal Ben-Levy.
Nikita Tobelov. Head of Russian Mafiya’s Eastern District, in Vladivostok. Brother of Vladimir Pushkin, President of Russia.
Benjamin Franklin Wagner. US Ambassador to Israel.
Phillip Watson. A former graduate student at working in the Technology Centre of the University of London, he helps Jon Sommers discover the death of Lisa Gabriel, and later Phillip is founder of predictive markets startup GrayNet.
Jacob David “JD ” Weinstein. A Mossad kidon who works for Yigdal Ben-Levy.
Ari Westheim. A Mossad kidon who works for Yigdal Ben-Levy.
William Wing. Call-sign CryptoMonger. Hacker, living in Hong Kong, contract worker for corporations, MI-6, the Mossad, and other intelligence services. He was disowned by his father when he was twelve years old, for hacking into the CSIS servers.
Xian Wing. Director of Chinese Security Information Systems (CSIS). Father of William Wing.
BONUS:
The first chapter of
ProxyWar,
Book 6 of the Spies Lie series!
5 Years Ago:
Mossad Headquarters, Herzliyya, Israel
September 4, 2:15 p.m.
Yigdal Ben-Levy paced the supplies closet that was his office in the basement of the brand new building. They’d just moved from the tottering six-story on King Saul Boulevard in Tel Aviv. He’d been offered something on the top floor of the new building, but declined. The devil is ostentation and I’ll have none of that.
He removed the black suit jacket he wore on more serious days. The top button of the collar on his starched white shirt was closed, even though he never wore a tie. He rubbed at the tiny stain on the pocket of his otherwise clean shirt while he thought about mission planning. It would be so simple, but he suspected he was missing some vital detail.
The odds were good enough for him to send a team out, and the intelligence at hand indicated that Israel would be at increasing risk if he did nothing. But he’d need to improve the odds while he planned the mission’s set-up. What if he sent out an advance team to confirm the evidence hidden under the situation?
His world was depicted on the chalkboard in the corner: a set of overlapping circles, a Venn diagram with intersections of death, deception, and secrets. Decades ago, he’d been a field operative. He knew the risks, the tension people felt when they faced possible death. It left a sour taste in his mouth. He ran his fingers through his graying hair.
As one of the Mossad’s senior spymasters, he’d failed a few times, but never in the last decade. When he failed, his operatives died.
This mission was different. He was running it off the books. Only the operatives involved had knowledge of it, and they only knew what he’d felt it necessary to tell them. The last time he’d done one like this, it had saved the State of Israel from certain doom, but it had cost the lives of the two operatives closest to him. The Sommersteins had been his best friends.
He remembered the failure. His failure. When he was just a Mossad team leader, he’d been responsible for changing Abel and Natasha Sommerstein’s last name to “Sommers,” and sending them to London under deep cover with backstopping as British citizens for three generations.
He remembered how they’d stopped Syria’s attempt to develop nuclear weapons, using materiel purchased from the Russian mafiya in Vladivostok. Yigdal had ignored what he’d assumed would be a low-probability response to their espionage, and his failure was responsible for the death of his friends. That “low-probability event” turned out to be an overreaction of MI-6 spymaster Sir Charles Crane, which in turn triggered the arrival of a team of Syrian assassins into London.
He’d promised Abel and Natasha that should anything happen to them, he’d take care of their son Jon, and give him a future in Israel with the Mossad. For twelve years he’d protected Jon without the boy’s ever knowing. Jon had grown up, graduated from Oxford, and was now completing the MBA program at the University of London. Ben-Levy was now about to fulfill that sacred oath.
His consciousness drifted to the photo of his niece, Aviva Bushovsky, kept in a red manila folder. She’d been the perfect bat leveyha, able to seduce any terrorist. She had a heart-shaped face, olive-colored almond eyes, deeply tanned skin, and bright red hair. He marveled at how she’d learned her target’s secrets in bed before Mossad assassins were dispatched to send the killer to “a better place,” meaning an unmarked grave. She’d been responsible for the deaths of over ten of Israel’s enemies, including several high-ranking Pakistani bankers who’d served as money launderers for the Moslem Brotherhood.
His tiny office was dark and foreboding, with a mild smell of ammonia. He preferred it that way. The chalkboard that stood behind him was crammed against the back wall under a humming fluorescent light. Even here, in a secure building, the notes depicted on the chalkboard were encrypted.
He placed the red folder in one of the desk drawers and pulled out another, with a yellow cover, indicating it was urgent, a “daylight priority.” The tab read “Bloodridge.” It was named after the mountain range that separated eastern Russian from northern China. The actual name was nothing more than a code name for the location where the Mossad had assumed a war between Russia and China might be triggered if the right circumstances transpired. He opened its cover and read it again. Would this plan work? He hoped J
on Sommers was the missing piece of his puzzle.
He heard the knock on the door of his office and hissed, “Come.”
A young, red-haired woman entered and stood in front of his desk. Her visage matched that of the photo in the folder one page before Jon Sommers’s picture. He motioned to the lone chair in front of his desk. “Sit.”
Aviva Bushovsky flashed her olive-colored eyes. He tried to hide his pride in his niece’s prior mission performances.
She was rail-thin and had a habit of looking down when she smiled, a sign she was hiding something. She wasn’t smiling now. “I’m here as you ordered, uncle.”
He could feel the blood heat his face. “You will address me by my call-sign. ‘Mother.’ Have you read the file?”
She nodded. “Yes, Mother. It should be simple. Create a relationship and invite him back to Israel.”
“Exactly. He isn’t some terrorist with plans to kill our people, so don’t make this more complex than it is. He’s not an enemy. Don’t get so close it compromises your work. Don’t mention recruitment. Just get him here, to my office. You have two months. It’s an easy assignment for a bat leveyha. No danger.”
She nodded. Smiled, looking down.
What was she was hiding? “Here’s your set of identity documents.” He passed her the envelope.
She emptied it into her lap. A backstopped passport in the name of Lisa Gabriel, student ID at the University of London as a graduate student in mathematics, an El Al ticket from Tel Aviv to London, a biography typed on a single page, and twenty thousand British pounds sterling. “Who was Lisa Gabriel?”
Mother spoke from his memory. “She was a young woman with a slight physical similarity to you. She died in a car accident in London two months ago. We buried all news of her death. She had no living relatives. You will become her. Study the data about her in your packet.”