by David Hunter
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A Mossad agent was in place across the street, several houses down the block and across the street from the safe house. The agent, Udi Ra'am, dressed in a black head-to-toe burqa with mesh covering his eyes, recorded this last snippet of their conversation as Abd left, before the door to the safe house closed again.
Having conducted an operation dressed as a woman in Lebanon too, he knew when he returned home he'd have to pull a practical joke on the team leader who made the assignments and covers for his group. "This will not go unanswered!" he thought with a grin covered by the burqa. While he awaited the next opening of the safe house door he considered the various options available to him to punk the guy, who was also a friend of him and his wife. Both situations required this unenviable garb yet for him to draw the lot, as it were, two missions in a row seemed to stretch the odds.
He cursed this black garb, sitting on the porch under sun beating down on him. Udi at once admired the inner strength and conviction while pitying the discomfort of the women who don the burqa to maintain complete modesty in public. Nowhere in the Qu'ran does it say a woman must cover her face, but this seasoned and venerable religion - as all others that have gained the traction of a century or more - developed a culture and style of its own as it moved from country to country over hundreds of years, blending in with local cultural flavors.
Within seconds a Farsi-speaking voice in his earpiece said, "ma'en in ketabra diru'z daer bazar khaerideam." Every message during this operation was written or spoken in Farsi, even when transmitted from Tel Aviv, so that should a message be intercepted, it would not raise suspicions needlessly. Udi wondered about this as the fact that a man, posing as a woman, with an earpiece, most certainly would be suspicious if detected. In this case the communication simply stated, "I bought this book in the market yesterday." The wor. D "book" in any message from Tel Aviv for this specific operation was the signal to get to a safe place as quickly as possible if returning to Israel immediately wasn't an option he'd have no problem returning to Israel by way of Turkey, but the message was clear that now was the time to leave.
Standing up to gather the thread, needle, and basket of clothing he was mending in his rocking chair, then leaning heavily on a walker, the stooped-by-age-and-infirmity woman turned from the front porch, shuffling ever so slowly back into the house.
Setting the walker aside and removing the burqa to straighten his street clothes, he was happy to be seen in a proper pair of jeans, old sneakers and shirt. From a 'slick' secured between the panels of a bedroom door he removed his Iranian and Turkish passports, monetary currency for both countries, and finally strapped on a backpack of Iranian college schoolbooks. Standing up straight felt so good after being hunched over in the rocking chair for the better part of the day, a daily routine he maintained for the last few weeks so that locals would be accustomed to his presence.
Youthful for his age, he now looked to all the world to be a university student. Dressed and equipped for travel, Agent Ra'am went out the back door of the house, passing through the small rock and brick wall-encased yard. Removing the ear bud that was his lifeline to Tel Aviv he dropped it to the ground, smashing it to pieces with the heel of his shoe, then kicked the pieces around to scatter them in the rocky soil.
After deftly hopping the wall into the alley he walked to the bus stop, wondering why he wasn't allowed to simply take out the hostiles right then and there. A few opportunities presented themselves when Ghasem and Abd were outside, in the open, completely exposed and vulnerable. Udi's silencer equipped sidearm was always strapped to his chest, under the burqa, easily accessible. He could have shot them unnoticed. After transmitting a very short burst of two subtly coded requests for permission to take the shot, denied each time, he had to accept that Jerusalem had its reasons and be satisfied with the surveillance to which he was assigned.