Spies Lie Series Box Set

by D S Kane

  Jon forced a smile as he approached. “Hey, I’m the bloke who bothered you two weeks ago. Remember?” Jon pointed to his face.

  “Uh, nope.” The man pushed a juicy slice of banger onto his fork and brought it toward his mouth, stopping just before he opened wide. “Wait. You’re the guy whose fiancée disappeared from campus. Right?”

  “Yeah. That’s me.” Jon pulled out the seat across from the geek. “How’ve you been?”

  “Uh, fine. I’ll earn my master’s at the end of the summer. So, I’m busy now, trying to find a job. Aren’t you?”

  Jon nodded. “Yeah, well I just accepted an offer from a German bank. I started this week.” He wondered how best to approach the man. No ideas came to him. “Listen, could I ask one more favor of you?”

  The man stopped chewing. “Depends on what you want.”

  Jon wiped away a few bits of food the man had spewed onto his shirtsleeve. “I need to find out what my fiancée was doing just before she disappeared. She was in Tel Aviv. Who did she meet? Did she have family there?” He leaned closer and dropped his voice a bit. “I need a hacker.”

  The man shook his head. “No way. That’s not legal. If anyone finds out, I’ll be expelled from school. Maybe even arrested.”

  Jon frowned. “Yeah. Well, there isn’t anything illegal about teaching me how to do it, is there?”

  The geek remained silent but closed his eyes. “If I tell you but don’t show you, could you do the work? I mean, it isn’t easy. You know?”

  Jon sighed. “If it’s the best you can offer, then that’s what I’ll take.” He looked at the geek’s face, thinking about what he had to offer for the man’s help. “What would you like, in return?”

  The geek sat stock-still for a few seconds, his eyes closed. Then he smiled and stared into Jon’s eyes. “You look like the kind of man who has an easy way with women. Tell me how to find and earn the love of someone as attractive as the one you lost.”

  Jon’s jaw dropped. He’d never had an easy time with women. Whatever he offered would be lies. After a few seconds, he nodded. There would be a challenge here for both of them. “Right, then. We’ll trade, one hour of your time for one of mine, until each of us either gives up or one of us succeeds. Then we go our separate ways.” He prayed his lie wasn’t obvious.

  The techno-weenie prince extended his hand. “I’m Phil. Phil Watson.”

  Jon shook the man’s hand. “Jon Sommers. Shall we get started?”

  Chapter Nine

  Outside the village of Upper Pachir, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan

  June 19, 10:23 p.m.

  The cold night wind was the only sound Hashim Klovosky heard, whispering through the mountain pass. Using night goggles, he watched the team leader, Amos Gidaehl, his country’s most feared assassin, as the kidon scurried toward a lone tree between the boulders.

  Gidaehl scanned the area before venturing toward the place the team used as its dead drop for intel. This slick was the hollow at the bottom of the tree.

  The team had hunkered just north of the town of Upper Pachir. Klovosky read a copy of the intercept they’d obtained. It had named Tariq Houmaz as the extremist behind the weapons purchases. And, it indicated their target was nearby. Now, after two months of intense covert activity, they were about to deliver the intel their government needed as rationale to terminate the bomb maker.

  They’d used cutouts, and paid informers. Elli Raucher, a dark-skinned man dressed as a mujahidin, had dropped a mike and camera in the cave where Houmaz lived while the terrorist was out observing the training of his men.

  Raucher was the team’s bodel, or courier. He’d been trained as a heth, or logistician for the intelligence service. The team expected him to have dead-dropped the intel for pickup earlier that day.

  After Gidaehl retrieved the tiny container holding the encoded message, the team would request exfiltration. Raucher had marked the tree with a small X at its base, meaning the intel was in the slick.

  Klovosky felt in his bones something was wrong. No noise at all. Every nerve in his body pulsed as if he was on speed. He gulped, trying to quiet himself.

  Then, as Gidaehl grabbed the container from the tree’s hollow, his head exploded in a blur of blood, skull, and brain.

  Klovosky winced at the team leader’s death. He was an ayin, or tracker, and hadn’t seen any hostiles. Shit. I must have missed one of their sentries. The aleph is down. They know we’re here. “We need to leave fast. Where there’s one sniper, there are always others.”

  Their qoph, Harry Schmidt, the team’s communications officer, nodded.

  They moved with studied care, avoiding the branches of the bushes and weeds where they’d hid. Klovosky froze, realizing they had one vital loose end. He pulled Schmidt’s face close. “Where’s Elli? We need to contact him and tell him we’re blown.”

  Schmidt placed his fingers to his lips. “Later,” he whispered. He pointed toward their nearby Jeep, parked and camouflaged under a tree. “Not safe. I see movement.”

  Klovosky nodded. They’d have to move on foot for a long distance. He scanned the landscape for threats in front of them, then felt Schmidt tugging on his jacket. He faced the qoph. “What?”

  Schmidt’s eyes were wide, staring at someplace over Klovosky’s shoulder. When the ayin turned, his jaw dropped.

  There were eight of them, holding Elli Raucher with an AK-47 shoved under his chin. All of them were armed and one motioned for the pair of coverts to surrender. It was the worst thing they could do. They’d be tortured for whatever they knew, and then executed.

  Klovosky used his position behind Schmidt to hide the grenade he drew from his pants pocket. He said his death prayer in a whisper, then pulled the pin and held up his hands in surrender. He sighed. His life was over. Klovosky’s mind filled with memories: his parents, his wife and daughter, all the things he wished he could change. He no longer felt the cold wind. He forced himself to release the safety lever on the device, tossing it above the heads of the mujahidin.

  Seeing the grenade, one of their attackers pulled the trigger on Raucher, blowing his head clear of his body.

  The other attackers fired their weapons into Schmidt and Klovosky. The last thing he saw was the explosion.

  With Jon’s encouragement and direction, Phillip Watson had lost a few pounds, shaved his goatee and learned to dress. From what Jon could see, the techno-weenie prince had transformed himself. Jon smiled at the irony. He’d taught someone something he didn’t even know.

  Since the last time they’d met, the chief geek seemed to have developed unexpected grace as he walked and moved. And although he still had no girlfriend, the geek had been on more dates than Jon ever had. Jon’s suggestion that Phil always smile had worked well.

  As for Jon, teaching the geek had somehow altered his own confidence level with women. And, better yet, he’d learned enough about hacking to break into the university’s computer system. He hadn’t done anything illegal except for that. But he’d found nothing more about Lisa, and nothing he’d tried during the past month worked to gain him entry to the government of Israel’s computers.

  Jon sipped a cup of coffee as he waited for Phil to show for their meeting. The liquid was cool and tasted stale.

  He rose to drop the cup into the cafeteria disposal when he saw Phil enter from the street. The techno-weenie prince wasn’t alone. A striking brunette held his hand. “Jon, good evening. I’d like to introduce Jennie. Jennie Stolworth. My girlfriend.” His grin ran from ear-to-ear.

  Jon rose and shook Jennie’s hand. “Well, my word.” He smiled back at his new friend.

  Phil removed a large envelope from his coat pocket. “When you get home tonight, take a gander.” He handed Jon the packet. “I believe we’ve both fulfilled our bargain. So, we’re done.” And with that, the couple turned and Phil led Jennie out of the cafeteria.

  Jon fingered the envelope. He donned his coat and headed back to the apartment. Fifteen minutes later, he
ripped it open. He found fifty pages, stapled into several sets of documents stuffed inside. He pulled the pages out and scanned the first page of the first group:

  Aviva Bushovsky.

  Group: Shin Bet Liaison

  Position: bat leveyha operative. Promotion to kidon recommended.

  Reports to: Yigdal Ben-Levy

  Dates of Assignment: July 16, 2011 through May 23, 2013.

  Current Status: Deceased.

  Projects completed:

  AL11-2304

  XW23-9632

  BR01-0021

  Project failure:

  JS01-0021

  Jon scratched behind his ear. What did any of this mean? He pulled the second stack from the envelope:

  Lisa Gabriel.

  Support Group: Sayanim, collections division

  Last Cover Position: Graduate Student at University of London, Mathematics Department

  Work History: Helped alter registrar’s database records to wash and backstop kidon and katsa identities

  Current Status: Deceased.

  He remembered Yigdal Ben-Levy using the terms bat leveyha and sayanim. What did they mean?

  The third stack of papers was even more interesting. It listed covert activities the Israeli government was accused of by the United States and Great Britain. activities that had been conducted within other countries without their permission. Intelligence gathering. Penetration of Muslim extremist organizations. False-flag operations. Assassinations.

  Phil had risked his graduate degree in return for Jon’s help. And, in return, all Jon had done was turn Phil into a more likeable guy. How had Phil hacked the information he was reading?

  Jon read every word on the pages a second time. And then a third time. They described the workings of a government pressed on all sides by countries that wanted them gone from the earth.

  When he’d finished, Jon saw Lisa’s deception not as despicable, but as admirable. He hadn’t wanted to be a spy. He’d aspired to be a banker before Lisa’s death. But now, he thought about changing his life’s path. She’d died to save her people. He thought about this, remembering Ben-Levy’s claim that he was Jewish. No, not just her people. His people. He remembered her question: Don’t you want to save the world?

  He closed his eyes, picturing her loving face. Clenching his fists, he nodded. Yes, Lisa. I do.

  The next morning, Jon dressed in his suit and stepped out of his apartment on his way to Dreitsbank. Down in the lobby, he stopped at his mailbox and found two letters. One was from The Economist. He closed his eyes and grimaced, sure it was a rejection letter.

  He opened the envelope and slid out several pages. The first was a letter, offering to publish his paper on Islamic banking. He dropped the page in shock. The page behind it was the cover page of an agreement he’d need to sign, and the pages after those were the descriptions of the terms of the agreement.

  Now he knew he had a future in banking and finance, after all. He remembered Lisa had pushed him into writing it, encouraging him to do it before she left for her death trip to Tel Aviv. He drew his pen from his pocket, signed the agreement and placed it into the return envelope. When he sealed it, he felt pure glee. He placed the envelope in his suit pocket, ready-to-mail when he reached the lobby.

  The other letter was a handwritten invitation to visit Israel, signed by Yigdal Ben-Levy. He sat motionless with the second letter in his hands. Rising, he examined it as if it were something evil, containing a dark magical curse. He walked back to his apartment and dropped the scribbled note in his trash bin.

  Throughout the day, he stared at the training manuals at his desk at Dreitsbank. The words could have been in a different language. He couldn’t care about trade finance.

  By the end of the afternoon, he could think of nothing but Lisa. He felt her presence within him. Her voice cajoled him, pushing him: Go to Israel.

  Long ago when she’d tried recruiting him, he’d had no interest in the future she’d intended for him. I hate how you lied and deceived me, even though now I understand why you did it. What did wanting to save the world get you, besides death?

  He unlocked the apartment door as the sun set and dropped his attaché case on the couch. He remembered the night he’d proposed to Lisa at the Tunisian restaurant. He still missed her.

  At the same time he felt the agony of her betrayal and lies. How could he ever reconcile these feelings?

  He was consumed with a thirst for gaining justice for her.

  He turned on the radio in his room. The tune the station played was “Evil Is Going On,” a Canned Heat tune. The singer moaned about his woman’s evil deeds. Jon turned it off.

  He felt compelled to salvage Ben-Levy’s letter from the trash, found the phone number and punched it into the cell phone. “It’s Jon Sommers. Let me speak with Mother.” The call terminated, but seconds later his cell buzzed. He recognized the old man’s voice. Listening intently, he wrote down the instructions the spymaster growled into the phone.

  A street café in Herzliyya. The day after tomorrow. A ticket would be waiting for him at the El Al counter at Heathrow.

  He reached into his suit pocket and ripped the envelope containing the acceptance letter to The Economist into pieces and dumped it into the trash.

  Jon took his backpack from under the bed and stuffed it full of clothing, determined to do what was right, no matter where the path took him. Mathematics had no play in this decision. Mathematics would be useless to him now, and forever gone from his thinking.

  He would find justice for Lisa.

  There was no longer any reason for him to be in London.

  Chapter Ten

  Outside the Japanika Restaurantnear the corner of Hasadnaotand Hamenofim Streets,Herzliyya, Israel

  June 22, 12:38 p.m.

  Ever since Jon debarked the flight in Jerusalem, he’d kept telling himself this was a mistake. A huge one. The banker he once yearned to be intruded, assessed the risk of what might be lost or gained. The yield fell short.

  After paying the taxi driver, he walked through a wall of heat along a crowded sidewalk, past restaurants named Minato, Kyoto, Mike’s Place, and a building labeled “Nuvoton,” and another with a bright neon sign declaring “Reset.” Next to a Union Bank branch, he found the restaurant he sought across the street from the Print House, just as Ben-Levy had told him.

  The intersection was filled with people moving in all directions around him. He scanned the area to get his bearings.

  Outside the café, he saw tables, and walked faster. Sitting at one, in the bright sunshine, he saw Mother’s white hair. The older man faced away, wearing a dark suit similar to the one Jon had seen him wearing the last time they’d met. Ben-Levy appeared cool in his heavy clothing.

  Mother turned in his chair outside the café and faced him, as if he knew Jon was closing on him. The spymaster smiled and examined him, as if inspecting an unusually large pet animal. “Finally. So, you are interested in helping us after all?”

  Jon remembered how lost he’d felt the night he’d learned Lisa’s car had exploded. Still standing, he nodded. “I came, didn’t I? First, though, I have some questions.”

  The spymaster’s eyebrows arched. “What?”

  Jon’s fists clenched, muscles straining. “Why me?”

  Ben-Levy stared back at him. “I already told you. Your father was our most talented covert operative. He was my best friend. I was his best man when they married. He made me promise that if anything ever happened to him and your mother, I’d watch over you. And, he asked me to offer you the life he’d had, the values he and I shared. I keep my promises.”

  Jon considered this. Maybe it was true. “You say a bomb maker was responsible for Lisa’s death. Have you found him?”

  Ben-Levy frowned. “Don’t worry. We will. When we have him captive, I will personally hear his confession. And Jon, her real name was Aviva, not Lisa.”

  Jon shook his head. “Aviva. What a beautiful name, but she’ll always be L
isa to me. As far as the bomb maker is concerned, you’ve taken too long finding him. Not good enough. So, I want to be the one. I want to exact justice for her.”

  Ben-Levy’s face remained slack, but his eyes seemed to glow. “Really? We’ll see. Do you still have my business card?”

  Jon shook his head. The older man handed Jon another card. “Don’t lose this one. Get a cab, find a hotel nearby and be at this address tomorrow at six in the morning. Ask for the SHABEK trainer. Hand my card to the guard.” He rose from the table and in seconds was gone, disappearing through the crowded street.

  What the bloody hell was SHABEK?

  Jon used his cell phone to find an inexpensive and convenient place to stay. He called the Okeanos Suites, not highly rated but cheap, at Ramat Yam 50, and asked if they had a room available. They quoted a higher rate than the Internet had stated, but he wasn’t in any mood to argue.

  He was about to fetch GPS directions into the cell to when her voice spoke to him. Come, see where I died. Go. Go there now.

  He shivered despite the heat, realizing she was still inside his head. Jon keyed the address he remembered from the newspaper report, and glanced at the GPS map on his cell. His objective was three blocks away.

  He walked two blocks to the Gav Yam parking garage, an elevated structure on Ari Shenkar Street. Traffic filled the street and pedestrians bustled down the sidewalk. There was no trace of the massacre. The story he’d read had mentioned that it was the only bombing ever in Herzliyya.

  He closed his eyes, trying to imagine what had happened.

  He climbed the steps to the third floor and stopped by a heap of twisted steel sticking from the concrete.

  Lisa’s voice rang out in his head. Look! He stared at the spot where her car might have been parked and saw it vanish in a bowl of flames, along with the other vehicles beside it. I died in fire.

  The thin, dapper, middle-aged man had followed Sommers all day. He’d seen Yigdal Ben-Levy arrive at Heathrow six months ago, alerted by MI-6’s tether into the ECHELON system run by the NSA. Since then, he’d followed events regarding young Sommers. The older man ran a hand through his thinning hair as he crossed the street and walked back to his hotel. Alone in his room, he pulled the secure cell phone from his pocket. “It’s Crane. Our target arrived and met with the Israeli. Tell the Director. If it all works out, we’ll get a seat at the table after all.”